body:
On 25/08/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 02:36:09PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 8/25/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > > It would save a lot of edit conflicts.
> >
> > If this is the goal, why not consider allowing true section editing
> > where editing section A doesn't conflict with an edit to section B?
> > Could be more work though :)
>
> Color me confused: I thought we'd had *this* for *years*...

We do, sufficient enough. MediaWiki will attempt to merge edits
(simple merging, we're not talking gratuitous hyper-intelligent stuff)
if it can; I would wager that a lot of edit conflicts are avoided in
this step alone. Of course, if it can't, it throws a conflict. And I
expect sometimes something upsets it, and it throws a conflict for the
sheer hell of it. :)

There's quite a bit that could be done in the edit conflict arena,
though. Three-way merging of edits, anyone? A friendlier conflict UI
would be a damn good start, although I have to admit I'm not sure what
I'd call a "friendlier conflict UI"...I'd have to think on it.

One immediate improvement that someone could make is to have MediaWiki
handle in-section conflicts without "breaking out" and showing both
copies of the full text. Current behaviour means that, e.g. two
editors adding comments in a section on a discussion page who cause an
edit conflict will have to battle with the full text of the
page...which, as we all know, can be quite a considerable whack.

Rob Church


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: No Spam

subject: [Foundation-l] proposed new project - wikistandards

body:
I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards, in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
The first standard I would like to begin work on is a Project Management standard. The impetus for this comes from my frustration over the Project Management Institute's standard www.pmi.org
It is also an IEEE standard:
http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/product.asp?sku=IEEE+Std+1490-2003
And there is also the ISO standard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10006
PRINCE2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2
There are other lesser known examples of closed committee works or this nature.

The PMI standard suffers from 'design by committee' and is, to say the least, stultifying.
Lets see how the wiki community does at designing standards.

I look forward to comments.
I am willing to start the first project off but need some guidance and advice on how to proceed.

Regards
Al


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Want to collaborate on writing a feature?

body:
On 8/25/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> I for myself do expect that I can edit a page and type anything into the
> edit window without anyone else knowing. Not even knowing that I have
> this page open. I don't want to publish any info *until* I hit save.
>
> I have several times canceled a talk page post already written into the
> edit window (censoring myself). And sometimes I was really glad having
> canceled ;)

Come to think of it, is there any need to display the username? Or at
least, make username-displaying an optional, opt-in feature?

It's certainly happened to me to consider editing articles which, at
save time, I reconsidered and decided I didn't want to be a permanent
part of my editing record. Call me a wuss, sure :)

Steve


from_name: Rob Church

references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250554k3c70313ey9401faac38393346@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecmt43$qgt$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 25/08/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Enough chit chat, where's my Person 1? I want concrete features and I want
> them now. The feature is a simple one, if we can assemble the right skills,
> just a few hours' work each. But to get us started, someone needs to make
> that UI mockup.

Tim wants his person one and he wants him/her now! But he's failed to
factor in the importance of promising cookies and fame. Oh, and the
fact that being brisk and abrupt and snappish to a bunch of volunteers
is a bad idea...

You know what "want" did, don't you?

Any road, snotty sarcasm over; I can see this feature enjoying use by
a wide variety of users; there's those who make long cleanup edits to
a page (and you don't really want to duplicate cleanup effort), recent
changes patrol, etc. Unfortunately, my UI skills are still pretty
crap; anything decent I've output is sheer chaos, luck and swearing at
Dreamweaver. One idea, though, might be to shove it all in a nice box
parallel to the top of the edit form; using a not-too-ridiculous font
size (the default, or a few points shaved off it, should do), and
positioning it in a sensible location (it'll be seen there, before the
text is, and will be in the user's view for the first few seconds of
editing, at least) will, hopefully, cause it to be considered useful,
not intrusive.

Is it worth making this a (default on) preference? I can think of
cases or wikis where I wouldn't want to use it, and being able to
switch it off for a few edits would be useful. Should we also,
perhaps, indicate whether the user in question is adding a section
(discussion pages, etc.)?

Rob Church


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
No Spam wrote:

>I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards, in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
>The first standard I would like to begin work on is a Project Management standard. The impetus for this comes from my frustration over the Project Management Institute's standard www.pmi.org
>It is also an IEEE standard:
>http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/product.asp?sku=IEEE+Std+1490-2003
>And there is also the ISO standard:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10006
>PRINCE2
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2
>There are other lesser known examples of closed committee works or this nature.
>
>The PMI standard suffers from 'design by committee' and is, to say the least, stultifying.
>Lets see how the wiki community does at designing standards.
>
>I look forward to comments.
>I am willing to start the first project off but need some guidance and advice on how to proceed.
>
>Regards
>Al
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Stating the projects comply with ISO standards is a fantastic idea, and
opens all all sorts of avenues of opportunity for funding and working
with large organizations. The MediWiki appliace company is already ISO
9000 compliant on manufacturing and ISO standards. Great move.

Jeff


from_name: Ligulem

references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250521j6c150b11g7f214693f0fa0af1@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Come to think of it, is there any need to display the username? Or at
> least, make username-displaying an optional, opt-in feature?

The whole feature should be opt-in.

We have the {{inuse}} on en, which can be deliberately set or not.
Problem is, people forget to remove it.

And what about anons? Would we see the IP of someone that hit on edit?
We could then block that IP even before the user saves ;)


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [16217]
	trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialDisambiguations.php

body:
On 25/08/06, yurik at svn.leuksman.com <yurik at svn.leuksman.com> wrote:
> Revision: 16217
> Author:   yurik
> Date:     2006-08-24 21:32:33 -0700 (Thu, 24 Aug 2006)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * Now [[MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage]] may have either disambig template name, or a list of links to disambig templates.

For what purpose?

> +        if( $set === false ) {
> +            $set = 'FALSE';  # We must always return a valid sql query, but this way DB will always quicly return an empty result

Don't issue the SELECT at all in that case, it's a waste of a database
connection.

You didn't update the release notes. This is a change which will
affect the user's use of that message, plus the behaviour of the page;
the release notes MUST be updated.

Rob Church


references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 8/25/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> It would save a lot of edit conflicts.

If this is the goal, why not consider allowing true section editing
where editing section A doesn't conflict with an edit to section B?
Could be more work though :)

How do you feel about not showing the user's name? Perhaps if they
want to show it, they can type ~~~~ somewhere in the "meta-edit box"?

Also, are you proposing this feature being standard for all editors?
On Wikipedia?

Steve


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, because people who revert war out citations in violation of NPOV
> on their pet subjects[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_anti-Semitism&diff=71602684&oldid=71601636]
> are exactly the sort of people we want on an editoral board. :-/

Greg, that isn't fair. That was done within a context of a very
difficult editing situation on that page, with troublemakers turning
up to cause all kinds of problems. We've got a couple of them on the
page at the moment actually trying to change quotations.

I intend to wait until the page has quietened down and then I'm going
to write a caption that fully reflects the debate and what the sources
say, but there's just no point at the moment.

Sarah


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
On 25/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You know how to submit a patch. We'll review it once you're done.
>
> See my other post where I offer my lame excuses about not yet knowing
> PHP, and going on holidays. :) (I'm not kidding about the lameness)

In this case, I was semi-joking. :)

It's like those bug reports...I think this (semi-remembered) quote
from Avar in IRC tells it well...

<avar> Yeah, "I do not predict that this would be too hard to implement"
<avar> Well, why don't I predict you writing it and submitting a patch, then?

Rob Church


body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> I feel the same way, which is why I'm not suggesting that we send the actual
> text typed into the edit box to the server. Just some meta-information such
> as number of characters typed, or an explicitly public summary. Perhaps we
> could have a separate textbox where the user can type a message to send to
> other people viewing the edit page. Imagine if you could type "I'm busy
> rewriting this rubbish stub, don't bother fixing the spelling". Then anyone
> else who opened the article from new pages patrol would know to stay away.
> It would save a lot of edit conflicts.

Ok. But you wrote:
... "and the edit summary they have typed if any"

So others could see the edit summary? (Shudder ;)

Maybe an optional message box would be helpful (editable). The message
while editing might not be the same as the edit summary.

Chatting with each other while editing? Like an IRC channel with the
title of the page?


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[New anti-Semitism]] and violations of NPOV re: top
	image

body:
That was slimvirgin's claim, not mine.  I have no interest in an argument over whether Britinnica is better, more NPOV, etc.  I asked slimvirgin to provide a positive outside example that exhibits NPOV.  Such as, "Zombietimes.com consistently represent the best cases of NPOV", as opposed to, "On a sunny day with a blue sky, no clouds, and no bugs, Fox News can provide a fair forecast for the next hour".  I appreciate you taking the time to respond.  I take it it's not representative of the "average" diligence that Wikipedia puts into content review.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote: On 25/08/06, Cheney Shill  wrote:

> The thing that always strikes me now when I read the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica is how POV it is, and I often wonder why we're aiming to be
> as good as them, when in fact (at our best) we can be so much better.

They have *consistent* quality. At our best we're fantastic, at our
average we're probably better than nothing ...

- d.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail.


references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250521j6c150b11g7f214693f0fa0af1@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecmqp4$igq$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 8/25/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

> Username yes, IP address for anons no. RC patrol can be a lonely task, I
> want to make it a little bit more human. Displaying usernames encourages a
> sense of community. But like I said in my original post, an opt-out feature
> would be nice.

Ah yeah, ok. The difficulty is how to make that opt-out work nicely,
without the user having to "quickly" hit some button if he doesn't
want others to know he's viewing the source or whatever. Hence your
request for a GUI designer ;)

More collaborative editing tools in general might be nice. We see so
much discussion on this list about the few really controversial
articles that get dozens of edits a day that we forget that the vast
majority of Wikipedia is a very quiet place where you rarely bump into
anyone at all.

Steve


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 01:47:16PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > Are we *ever* going to get a way to edit ledes without having to lock
> > the whole page?
>
> The edit-conflict resolver doesn't care whether you're editing the
> page or a section.  If the two edits are to different lines, they're
> merged; if they're to the same line, they conflict.  (There may be
> some more details that I don't know of, but that's the gist of it.)

Let me be the first to say that, psychologically, it doesn't feel that
way at *all*.  And based on other people's comments, I'm not the only
one who doesn't get that.

> Edit conflicts occur most frequently on busy RFAs or talk pages
> because everyone's editing the same line, namely the one below where
> the last guy left his comment.

Sure; but that wasn't the situation I was trying to fix.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.


references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 8/25/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> Ok. But you wrote:
> ... "and the edit summary they have typed if any"
>
> So others could see the edit summary? (Shudder ;)
>
> Maybe an optional message box would be helpful (editable). The message
> while editing might not be the same as the edit summary.

Two separate messages for one short edit might be a bit overkill.
Dunno about everyone else, but my usual editing sequence goes
something like this:

1. Make a change
2. Type an edit summary and set the watch/minor checkboxes
3. Preview
4. Save or go back to 1.

> Chatting with each other while editing? Like an IRC channel with the
> title of the page?

Some kind of chat features would be kind of cool (but a totally
separate project), bearing in mind that:
- discussing anything "serious" by chat is bad for talk pages as it's
not recorded
- IRC already exists :)

However, it would certainly be useful as not everyone has access to an
IRC client, and it would be more centralised if built into the main
interface.

Steve


from_name: Liz Kim

subject: [Wikitech-l] Always "Return to Home"

body:
My system is required to log in to edit any pages..
When login in, it outputs the
<http://scylla.gat.com/global/MediaWiki:Returnto>"returnto"  message saying
Return to SOME_PAGE.
However, without logging in, if I click on edit, it outputs the
whitelistedittext message and
ALWAYS says  "Return to HOME" - even if i was not on the home page.
Any ideas?
Thank you.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment,
	wasn't it?

body:
On 8/25/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I think it is a very poor assumption to think that anything which
> would have been created by users not logged in will find its way to
> AfC.  In fact, I believe that the AfC process tends to filter out
> exactly those submissions which are preferred - casual submissions by
> someone trying to improve things, and does very little to discourage
> people who are trying to push a viewpoint from wasting people's time.

What we probably really want is a way where anon users *can* create
articles, but that they're kept in quarantine. AfC is a very clunky
way of achieving that.

> I've especially found the AfC process to be ridiculous when I run
> across a redirect that needs to be created.

I was about to suggest that anons be allowed to create redirects, but
there would be the obvious loophole that they could edit it
afterwards. Then again, editing a redirect is pretty much creating a
new article, so maybe that should be banned anyway for anons.

Steve


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > In interviews I say "We're very far from perfect, but we're *good
> > enough to be useful*."

> That's a nice slogan: "Wikipedia: Good enough to be useful"

And it's conclusively proven by making it to no. 17 website in the
world by pure word of mouth ;-)

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > In interviews I say "We're very far from perfect, but we're *good
> > enough to be useful*."
> >
>
> That's a nice slogan: "Wikipedia: Good enough to be useful"

"Wikipedia: good enough for the internet"

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I owe you my apology then, it didn't occur to me that you were
> avoiding making the improvement at the moment because of the current
> controversy there. I'm sorry for concluding otherwise.
>
No worries, and thank you. :-)

Sarah


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Foundation-l] REMINDER: Skypecast - Wikipedia Conversation
	from Florida

body:
On 8/25/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > As someone who lives in the US I can not legally use the free software
> > MP3 software.
>
> Of course you can.  Hell, it's even included in the base Debian
> repository (not non-US/non-free).

Have you consulted with an attorney on this? Because I have and the
advice I received with respect to the MP3 patents is different than
the advice you're providing.

> > Most of the Wikimania audio on the site
> > (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives) is only available
> > in MP3,  and the few vorbis files available that I've heard are very
> > low quality (due to transcoding a lower quality MP3 into a lower
> > quality Ogg).
>
> They're not on that page, but they do exist; I'll ask around for you.
> Or you could get one of your non-free friends to transcode them.

It's inappropriate for us to make the files second class citizens, the
transcoded ones are fairly low quality. It was a mistake to record
directly into MP3 format...

I have made several request to obtain copies of the DV tapes for the
sessions that were video taped so that I could make Oggs of the high
resolution video and the uncompressed audio. I have offered to pay
duplication costs.  My requests have been ignored.

and as far as the files go, they don't effectively exist if even *you*
can't find them without asking.

> > We have people in our community who have experience with large scale
> > streaming and media events using both free software and proprietary
> > software...  I'm not sure why we seem to be doing such a poor job
> > delegating.
>
> It's not a matter of delegation, it's a simple cost-benefit analysis.
> Our arrangement with HLS AV gave us much better coverage than last
> year, and at no cost to us.  We could have taken our $10,000 budget
> for bringing Wikimedians from elsewhere in the world and sunk it into
> providing live Vorbis streams of every room, but what would that have
> given us?  A warm, fuzzy feeling for being slightly Freer?

How much money would you have required?
$10,000 to get all the audio and video from our sessions into
completely free formats for both archival and available live use?  I
could have gotten you that. No one asked.  Kyle was standing the the
conference *offering* to record unrecorded sessions, I brought
microphones and recording gear (with the hopes of doing a wikimedia
choral session, but that didn't end up happening).. and no one could
confirm that we had *permission* to record the sessions.

> It would have been nice to have live coverage of every room, I'll
> grant, but a delay of a few hours isn't that bad, and the program team
> was very good about putting events of particular interest in rooms
> with video.  Believe it or not, your soul will not burn up if you use
> Helix player.

Considering reals trackrecord for spyware on windows, I'm supprised to
see anyone advocating their software with a straight face. ...
Although the helix player software is not deserving of that, it's
still surprising.

I curious though, what incentive do you have to promote propritary
software when there are reasonable free alternative available and
people willing to invest their time and money into making them work
for us?

> > As we've seen with the (lack of) success with today's skypecast,
> > simply using whatever proprietary toys we have laying on our desks is
> > probably not a good solution.
>
> I had to leave before the skypecast, unfortunately, but from what I
> saw it didn't work out very well.  In the future, we should certainly
> leverage all the resources available to us; this said, Andrew was good
> enough to open up his interview in the first place, and we should
> applaud the effort.  If this were an official WMF Q&A, planned by the
> Foundation and billed far and wide for live community participation, I
> would naturally have a different view.

Yes, it's was a good idea. Hopefully next time more of the details
will be considered. :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
On 8/25/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Again, this is part of a wider problem where with growth comes disorder,
> and people feel the need to use sharp elbows to get stuff done. Lots of
> wasted energy. If Jimbo doesnt step up, Im going to have to appoint an
> editorial board. You should be on it of course, SlimV.

Yes, because people who revert war out citations in violation of NPOV
on their pet subjects[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_anti-Semitism&diff=71602684&oldid=71601636]
are exactly the sort of people we want on an editoral board. :-/


body:
On 8/25/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > Two separate messages for one short edit might be a bit overkill.
>
> If it's too much then don't type it. If you think the feature won't be used
> at all, then I think you have another thing coming.

??? where did that come from???

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
On 8/25/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know how to submit a patch. We'll review it once you're done.

See my other post where I offer my lame excuses about not yet knowing
PHP, and going on holidays. :) (I'm not kidding about the lameness)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > In interviews I say "We're very far from perfect, but we're *good
> > > > enough to be useful*."
> > > >
> > >
> > > That's a nice slogan: "Wikipedia: Good enough to be useful"
> >
> > "Wikipedia: good enough for the internet"
> >
>
> Wikipedia: Now blocked in two countries!

"Wikipedia: blocked by China, blocking Congress"

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body: I've always liked "Wikipedia - the people's encyclopedia"


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy way of
	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
On 25/08/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe: "New editors wanted"? - we avoid promising some kind of
> > irrevokable privelege, without any kind of threatening undertone.
>
> To most of the English speaking world an "Editor" does something
> mostly different from what an editor does on Wikipedia. Contributor is
> the correct word, and is the only description Wikipedians should be
> using when describing their position with the project to outsiders
> (the press, for example).

"contributors" or "contributions"?

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


body:
On 25/08/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/08/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Maybe: "New editors wanted"? - we avoid promising some kind of
> > > irrevokable privelege, without any kind of threatening undertone.
> >
> > To most of the English speaking world an "Editor" does something
> > mostly different from what an editor does on Wikipedia. Contributor is
> > the correct word, and is the only description Wikipedians should be
> > using when describing their position with the project to outsiders
> > (the press, for example).
>
> "contributors" or "contributions"?

Ooops, hit send too soon.

"New contribut(ors|ions) wanted" has the unfortunate effect that - to
me, at least - it reads somewhat as though we're only looking for new
articles, not for new work on existing ones.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
On 8/25/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes, because people who revert war out citations in violation of NPOV
> > on their pet subjects[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_anti-Semitism&diff=71602684&oldid=71601636]
> > are exactly the sort of people we want on an editoral board. :-/
>
> Greg, that isn't fair. That was done within a context of a very
> difficult editing situation on that page, with troublemakers turning
> up to cause all kinds of problems. We've got a couple of them on the
> page at the moment actually trying to change quotations.
>
> I intend to wait until the page has quietened down and then I'm going
> to write a caption that fully reflects the debate and what the sources
> say, but there's just no point at the moment.

I owe you my apology then, it didn't occur to me that you were
avoiding making the improvement at the moment because of the current
controversy there. I'm sorry for concluding otherwise.


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 8/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > My own thoughts on this suggest that it'd be enough to just stick a
> > big "WARNING: THIS WAS CREATED BY AN ANON" on the top of such articles
> > for a while, and keep them out of google searches.
> >
> > But maybe you and certainly others see quarantine as something different.
>
> WARNING: THIS WAS CREATED BY AN ANON
>
> John B Smith is a man from New Jersey who was suspected in the death
> of John F Kennedy Jr. Nothing was ever proven.
>
> See the problem?

a) The statement isn't true; and b) the statement isn't referenced.
Of course c) the statement wouldn't survive today for more than a
couple minutes mainly due to the WP:BLP policy; d) that article could
be created just as easily by someone logged in as by someone not
logged in; and e) such a statement could be just as easily added to an
existing page as it could be added to a brand new one (and in fact it
would be much more likely to be caught if it was added to a brand new
article).

The Siegenthaler incident happened exactly once.  Using it as an
excuse to shut down new article creation by "anons" makes as much
sense as permablocking the class A netblock which happened to create
the article.

I'm all for experimentation.  When Jimbo announced the experiment to
limit new article creation I applauded it.  But it's become rather
clear that this was never an experiment at all.

Anthony


body:
On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the Siegenthaler thing was more coincidental. We were getting
> a FIREHOSE of crap created daily. Still are, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Newpages&namespace=0&limit=500&offset=0

Click on stuff created by redlink users, draw your own conclusions. If
you spend 15 minutes and don't find something outrageously libelous,
... well, you must click slower than I do. :)


subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official: on
	voters' elibiglity

body:
On 25/08/06, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think th idea of exampting people who don't have the right to work
> on a wiki anymore should also not be allowed to be part of the group
> that is represented by the representative is ok. It is not possible to
> make a good comparison with the American way of democratics, please
> let us not stick into that discussion, because there are much more
> other sides to the story, but let's stick to the core of the question.
>
> What are the elections for? We choose a representative. That
> representative represents the communities. If someone is no part of
> the communities, should it be able to vote who should represent that
> community? It's a good question. But I don't think someone should be
> taken away his or her right to vote when (s)he is banned from a
> project. That would be as an additional punishment. I think it would
> be best to state that the edits on the project you are indeinitely
> banned from do not count. So if it was your only project, you can't
> vote. But when you were active enough on another project as well, and
> not banned indef there, it's ok to vote. That way it is not an
> additional punishment, but a clearer definition of the representation.
>
> Lodewijk

Yes, that's a sensible interpretation. OTOH, if someone has been
blocked from four projects and is only active on one, it might just
mean project #5 hasn't caught them yet ;-)

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Steve Bennett wrote:
>>> I was about to suggest that anons be allowed to create redirects, but
>>> there would be the obvious loophole that they could edit it
>>> afterwards. Then again, editing a redirect is pretty much creating a
>>> new article, so maybe that should be banned anyway for anons.
>>
>> Why should even _more_ activities be banned when we haven't even seen an
>> analysis of the results of the _previous_ set of activities that were
>> banned?
>
> Ok, I wasn't very explicit, I was actually suggesting making it
> possible for anons to create redirects, on the creation that they
> can't then edit them again.

What about an anon editing a redirect that _wasn't_ created by an anon?
If there's no distinction drawn between the two then my previous
objection stands exactly the same. If there is a distinction between the
two, I don't see _why_ there's a distinction between the two. A redirect
is a redirect.

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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> I think the Siegenthaler thing was more coincidental. We were getting
> a FIREHOSE of crap created daily. Still are, I think.

If we still are, then what was the point of stopping article creation by
non-logged-in users?

It's possible not as _much_ crap is being created daily, but that
remains to be proven by the analysis I've been asking about and not
seeing any trace of.

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from_name: effe iets anders

body:
I think th idea of exampting people who don't have the right to work
on a wiki anymore should also not be allowed to be part of the group
that is represented by the representative is ok. It is not possible to
make a good comparison with the American way of democratics, please
let us not stick into that discussion, because there are much more
other sides to the story, but let's stick to the core of the question.

What are the elections for? We choose a representative. That
representative represents the communities. If someone is no part of
the communities, should it be able to vote who should represent that
community? It's a good question. But I don't think someone should be
taken away his or her right to vote when (s)he is banned from a
project. That would be as an additional punishment. I think it would
be best to state that the edits on the project you are indeinitely
banned from do not count. So if it was your only project, you can't
vote. But when you were active enough on another project as well, and
not banned indef there, it's ok to vote. That way it is not an
additional punishment, but a clearer definition of the representation.

Lodewijk

2006/8/25, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
> Aphaia wrote:
>
> >Thank you for your interest on Election.
> >
> >Today I would like to invite you to an open question from me. About
> >voters' eligibility. There is no discussion among three, mainly
> >because two of them have been not available since the midst of this
> >month, hence no opinion, there is no consensus based conclusion.
> >
> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%2C_2006/En#Open_question:_on_voters.27_elibiglity
> >
> >I could rather say "we will do so-and-so because of lack of
> >consensus", without bother you with my question, but even if I should
> >say so at that time, I think it would be nice to know what kind of
> >trends are found among us, the community from hundreds projects,
> >people from hundreds lands and languages.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >
> In America, only convicted felons loose the right to vote, and only in
> certain states. People on probation have the right to vote, and people
> from every social class and range of offenses have the right to vote
> (except for convicted felons). No "Concensus" of citizens can strip from
> any individual the right to vote in this country. This is because we are
> an "enlightened society", not the forum of the Roman Senate where
> splinter groups assassinate the emperor and and citizen or senator with
> views we don't like, or the Court of Queen Elizabet in the 1500's where
> you could loose your head for wearing the wrong color clothes on the
> wrong day or criticize the queen. I thank God America doesn't run this
> way, or most countries in modern times (except for a few in the middle
> eastern countries).
>
> Ultimately, the finanacial contributors to the Foundation will vote with
> their $$$ to confirm your choices and practices. Banned users from the
> whole of Wikimedia should not vote. Banned users from a particular
> project should vtoe just not on that project. This isn't an article for
> deletion, it's board members for the community. All the communities
> should vote. I am glad you raised this issue because it shows exactly
> where you stand, and I'm happy to know it.
>
> Jeff
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Website

body:
On 8/25/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Really? Funny, I never saw an edit button on my phone bills. I must
> have missed it.
>
> Delphine.

Most websites don't have an edit button. your phone company is also
quite capable of chareing you without any of that dead tree
technology.

--
geni


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Stefan Sittler <kiaparowits at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Instead, it's an experiment of indefinite duration with analysis (of
>> an unknown kind? where is this analysis described?) presumably being
>> done by some person or persons, probably, and the results to be
>> revealed at some later unspecified date.
>
> Think of it as a "trial" or a "change with unspecified duration",
> rather than an "experiment", and the pain will go away.

It doesn't, because "trial" is still just as misleading as "experiment"
without some plan for evaluating the trial's results and "change with
unspecified duration" is just a euphemism for "change with indefinite
duration."

I don't have any fundamental problem with making this a permanent change
provided a rigorous analysis actually shows that it helped the
situation. I'm told that an analysis has been done. So there's an easy
and obvious way to make me quit complaining about this issue.

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from_name: Austin Hair

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course you can.  Hell, it's even included in the base Debian
> > repository (not non-US/non-free).
>
> Have you consulted with an attorney on this? Because I have and the
> advice I received with respect to the MP3 patents is different than
> the advice you're providing.

Sure, I've discussed it with several attorneys, and many more have
discussed it ad nauseam on the various free software mailing lists.
You can read more about MP3's patents and licensing on Wikipedia.

> It's inappropriate for us to make the files second class citizens, the
> transcoded ones are fairly low quality. It was a mistake to record
> directly into MP3 format...

Harvard's equipment doesn't record Vorbis.  It'd be nice if it did,
but it doesn't.  Sorry.

> I have made several request to obtain copies of the DV tapes for the
> sessions that were video taped so that I could make Oggs of the high
> resolution video and the uncompressed audio. I have offered to pay
> duplication costs.  My requests have been ignored.

I do not remember hearing such a request from you; I certainly
wouldn't have ignored it.

The 17 tapes in question are currently en route to George Chriss, whom
you might remember from the conference.  He's tasked with processing
the tapes and encoding video of each session in Ogg Theora, which will
be uploaded to Commons as soon as they're finished.  I have every
confidence in his abilities.

> and as far as the files go, they don't effectively exist if even *you*
> can't find them without asking.

I've seen the files with my own eyes, but I don't know where they're
posted.  Obtaining them hasn't been a priority for me, because I have
an MP3 player.

> How much money would you have required?
> $10,000 to get all the audio and video from our sessions into
> completely free formats for both archival and available live use?  I
> could have gotten you that. No one asked.  Kyle was standing the the
> conference *offering* to record unrecorded sessions, I brought
> microphones and recording gear (with the hopes of doing a wikimedia
> choral session, but that didn't end up happening).. and no one could
> confirm that we had *permission* to record the sessions.

You're right, we never asked you.  We're good, but we're not clairvoyant.

Everyone was welcome to make their own recordings, as I told everyone
who asked me.  Many people did.

> > It would have been nice to have live coverage of every room, I'll
> > grant, but a delay of a few hours isn't that bad, and the program team
> > was very good about putting events of particular interest in rooms
> > with video.  Believe it or not, your soul will not burn up if you use
> > Helix player.
>
> Considering reals trackrecord for spyware on windows, I'm supprised to
> see anyone advocating their software with a straight face. ...
> Although the helix player software is not deserving of that, it's
> still surprising.
>
> I curious though, what incentive do you have to promote propritary
> software when there are reasonable free alternative available and
> people willing to invest their time and money into making them work
> for us?

Real gave us $100,000, to be split amongst the conference organizers
as we pleased.  And we would've gotten away with it, too...

I never suggested that you use RealPlayer, and I'm not even advocating
the use of the Real format.  Although I don't object to non-free
software on principle, I absolutely believe that the formats used for
information exchange should be free, and I was very disappointed to
learn that Real was the only option for the live streams.  Being
practical, however, I was consoled by the knowledge that they would be
archived in Ogg Theora for posterity, whatever it took to make that
happen.

It's fine to talk about could haves and should haves now, but the fact
is, we never heard from you before the conference.  In the end, I
think we still made out okay.

Austin


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Magic words for pre-ISBN books

body:
On 8/25/06, Matt Hartfield <mhartfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm guessing this would work something like:
> OCLCNUM 45951519

Yes, see my recent posts where I begged for more magic words...

Actually, if the special page "Special:Booksources" was made
customisable, you could do this with a template.

The problem with your proposed OCLCNUM is that "OCLCNUM 459..." is not
a recognised format in the way that "ISBN 2409238" is. That truly
would be inventing arbitrary syntax - much better dealt with in a
template.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "first word" would be an unfortunate selection. Due to WP:NOR and WP:V
> we are expressly forbidden from being the "chronologically the first
> to report", although it happens a lot and has resulted in no small
> amount of problems.  (We were technically the chronologically first to
> report Seigenthaler's 'involvement' in the Kennedy assassination, for
> example)  .. and as you point out that first word can be viewed in
> that sense.

Any suggestions? Is "first source" better? I can't imagine
interpreting "First source for information" chronologically...

> The use of the word everything is also a potential source of problems.
> Wikipedia is not the "inital source one consults" about the rumors
> that your classmate is HIV+.

Sure it is, you'll also find out that he is gay but has a huge penis...

> Of course, we can only protect the stupid from themselves so much and
> no matter what words we use someone would be able to find a problem...
> but I think we could do better.

Hit me.

Steve


from_name: said hadraj

subject: [Foundation-l] (sans objet)

body:
Hadraj Said

---------------------------------
 D?couvrez un nouveau moyen de poser toutes vos questions quelque soit le sujet ! Yahoo! Questions/R?ponses pour partager vos connaissances, vos opinions et vos exp?riences. Cliquez ici.


subject: [Foundation-l] (sans objet)


body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe: "New editors wanted"? - we avoid promising some kind of
> > irrevokable privelege, without any kind of threatening undertone.
>
> To most of the English speaking world an "Editor" does something
> mostly different from what an editor does on Wikipedia. Contributor is
> the correct word, and is the only description Wikipedians should be
> using when describing their position with the project to outsiders
> (the press, for example).

True. "Information wanted"?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Current events

body:
Wikipedia: Putting libraries out of business.

Steve

On 8/25/06, FrJBDC <FrJBDC at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> To whomever,
>
> I just want to tell someone how much I value the accuracy, the extent, the language choices, and the money Wikipedia has saved me (not having to go to university research libraries and paying for travel, parking and copier expenses) since I discovered Wikipedia.
>
> To me, Wikipedia is the ultimate example of what extending the Internet to the public is all about.
>
> Most thankfully yours,
>
> Fr James B. D. Corbett
> Akron, Ohio
> FrJBDC at neo.rr.com
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Markus Krötzsch

subject:
[Wikitech-l] How bad is a category with 21,
	008 pages for the servers?

body:
On Thursday 24 August 2006 14:16, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
> Rob Church wrote
>
> > I don't know if it's quite what we're looking for, but we could
> > inspect the category browser feature (for efficiency and load etc.)
> > and perhaps switch it on...?
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
>
> I'm working with Tim on making the CategoryTree extension fit for use on
> Wikipedia. It would help to make navigating categories easier - and
> would hopefully help to find messy bits. It does not solve the problem
> in principle, i'm afraid - IMHO, only a "facette classification" could,
> i.e. having distinct hierarchies for time, place, topic, etc.

Yes, I agree. A clean struturing via orthogonal features that could be
combined and browsed easily would really be a huge step forward. The current
chaotic categorization seems to be unavoidable since the current system only
allows you to view exactly one category at a time. It suggest to make highly
specific categories that are useful when viewed in isolation -- quite the
opposite of a clean facetted categorization that is most useful when
combining facetts.

>
> In my dreams we would get rid of categories and have a system of
> meaningful relations between articles - like the semantic mediawiki
> project.

SMW tries to enable the dynamic combination of "facettes" so that it suggests
to build complex things out of a few simple ingredients. Of course
performance is an issue when doing this dynamically on user reqest! But I am
sure there will be solutions for this.

Still I think that categories do have their place as well. Category-like
structures ("classes", "concepts", ...) have been proposed and included in
many approaches for knowledge representation. Even though
Wikipedia-categories often are not classes in a strict sense, it can be
practically useful to exploit some of the pragmatic aspects of classes when
dealing with categories.

For example, when I load SMW-created RDF into the Longwell browser (a free
RDF-based data browser), it immediately presents the categories to me, and I
can e.g. click on "Category:Country" to get all countries. This works because
SMW exports categories as "classes" and Longwell has a special understanding
of "classes", knowing that they are important starting points for browsing
data. You first select whether you are interested in "people" or
in "countries", and only then start to look for more detailed features
(like "birthdate" or "capital"). So I hope that categories will stay, but
that their use will be "purified" as soon as other methods are available for
expressing certain relations/attributes more naturally.

-- Markus

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from_name: Ligulem

references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<f1c3529e0608250554k3c70313ey9401faac38393346@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecmt43$qgt$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Enough chit chat, where's my Person 1? I want concrete features and I want
> them now. The feature is a simple one, if we can assemble the right skills,
> just a few hours' work each. But to get us started, someone needs to make
> that UI mockup.

Most edit conflicts happen on "discussion" (voting) pages. Stuff like
RfA's. This feature won't change that situation.

I can't think of any edit conflict in main space of my edits. Not even
among my thousands of AWB/MWB edits. But I'm not a featured article
artist (template wonk might fit better).

Major overhauls of articles are either done by a single chef de cuisine
or they are discussed before.

But I'll shut up now ;) (I'm not person 1)


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
Simetrical wrote:
>
> Any web spider *automatically* sends *millions* of arbitrary GET
> requests, and has to for the Internet as we know it to function.
> There is no way that sending arbitrary GET requests can hurt
> *anything*.

That is simply not true. Web spiders only follow links.

The kinds of webmasters we are talking about here will assume that you
can never fire a given GET URL if you never see a page with a link to it
on it.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment,

body:
On 8/25/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> Speaking of which, I understand the page move restriction on new accounts was a
> temporary measure. Specifically, to protect against a certain person on wheels.
> This person seems to have moved on, no?
>

Page move vandalism still exists.

--
geni


from_name: duke crawford

subject: [Foundation-l] WiXi: proposed language learning interface

body:
  rich wikimedia resources could integrate,
  focus and enable the world to create a
  free new language learning interface:

  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WiXi

--
duke crawford
duke at twext.cc
duke.twext.cc
skype: dukecrawford
cel: +52 55355 12716


from_name: Charlie Reams

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

references:
<44E9A0AF.8080108@web.de>	<ece7r5$ps6$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44EAB0D6.70007@web.de>	<ecfi2a$gq1$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44EC0315.9060001@web.de>	<eckhdt$mhp$1@sea.gmane.org>	<7c2a12e20608240900o3fc97013k7c220b50b3480f43@mail.gmail.com>	<ecl9gm$dij$1@sea.gmane.org>	<7c2a12e20608241543o7f0d1628va79f5e4aafde134e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecnbin$fed$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Simetrical wrote:
>
>> Any web spider *automatically* sends *millions* of arbitrary GET
>> requests, and has to for the Internet as we know it to function.
>> There is no way that sending arbitrary GET requests can hurt
>> *anything*.
>>
>
> That is simply not true. Web spiders only follow links.
>
> The kinds of webmasters we are talking about here will assume that you
> can never fire a given GET URL if you never see a page with a link to it
> on it.
>
> Timwi
Still, it would be a shame to lose such an obviously useful feature just
to protect badly-programmed websites from a very weak attack that can
easily be launched in myriad other ways. From my own experience with the
Commons, it can be really tedious to upload even a medium-sized file,
and this feature would totally solve that.

Charlie


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

references:
<44E9A0AF.8080108@web.de> <ece7r5$ps6$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44EAB0D6.70007@web.de> <ecfi2a$gq1$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44EC0315.9060001@web.de> <eckhdt$mhp$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<7c2a12e20608240900o3fc97013k7c220b50b3480f43@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecl9gm$dij$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<7c2a12e20608241543o7f0d1628va79f5e4aafde134e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecnbin$fed$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 25/08/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> The kinds of webmasters we are talking about here will assume that you
> can never fire a given GET URL if you never see a page with a link to it
> on it.

(Which is still a damn stupid assumption to make)

Not as bad as the ones who allow elementary SQL injection, etc. etc.
There's probably still hundreds of thousands of web sites out there
with basic flaws in. :)

Rob Church


body:
On 8/25/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> But what would the quarantine involve?

Sitting quietly in a corner and not disturbing anyone.

>Can people who aren't logged in see articles in quarantine?

No.

>Who can edit articles in quarantine?

We can.

> Who can delete them?

We can.

>Who can take them out of quarantine?

We can.

>
> My own thoughts on this suggest that it'd be enough to just stick a
> big "WARNING: THIS WAS CREATED BY AN ANON" on the top of such articles
> for a while, and keep them out of google searches.
>
> But maybe you and certainly others see quarantine as something different.

WARNING: THIS WAS CREATED BY AN ANON

John B Smith is a man from New Jersey who was suspected in the death
of John F Kennedy Jr. Nothing was ever proven.

See the problem?

Steve


body:
On 8/25/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > I was about to suggest that anons be allowed to create redirects, but
> > there would be the obvious loophole that they could edit it
> > afterwards. Then again, editing a redirect is pretty much creating a
> > new article, so maybe that should be banned anyway for anons.
>
> Why should even _more_ activities be banned when we haven't even seen an
> analysis of the results of the _previous_ set of activities that were
> banned?

Ok, I wasn't very explicit, I was actually suggesting making it
possible for anons to create redirects, on the creation that they
can't then edit them again.

Steve


body:
On 8/25/06, Stefan Sittler <kiaparowits at gmail.com> wrote:
> Instead, it's an experiment of indefinite duration with analysis (of
> an unknown kind? where is this analysis described?) presumably being
> done by some person or persons, probably, and the results to be
> revealed at some later unspecified date.

Think of it as a "trial" or a "change with unspecified duration",
rather than an "experiment", and the pain will go away.

Steve


from_name: Ruud Koot

subject: [WikiEN-l] Current events

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Wikipedia: Putting libraries out of business.

I have certain made /more/ use my university thanks to Wikipedia.

Ruud


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 8/24/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/24/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > There is the digital world and the real world.
>
> no the digital world is part of the real world.

Really? Funny, I never saw an edit button on my phone bills. I must
have missed it.

Delphine.
--
~notafish


references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250554k3c70313ey9401faac38393346@mail.gmail.com>
	<ecmt43$qgt$1@sea.gmane.org> <ecn7r7$2st$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<20060825164310.GB1033@cgi.jachomes.com>

body:
On 8/25/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 06:17:48PM +0200, Ligulem wrote:
> > Most edit conflicts happen on "discussion" (voting) pages. Stuff like
> > RfA's. This feature won't change that situation.
>
> You didn't spend much time on "2004 US Presidential Election", did you?

What's the scenario that happens with a page like that that could be
resolved if you could see who was working on which section? I hardly
ever work on "busy" pages, myself.

Steve


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> As we've seen with the (lack of) success with today's skypecast,
> simply using whatever proprietary toys we have laying on our desks is
> probably not a good solution.

I'm all with you Greg (in general) but today's problems was simple -
the network in the building has been crapola all day starting from
8:30am when Danny called me. Even right now, Michael Davis, Brad
Patrick, Danny Wool and I are sipping up a minute of connectivity for
every five minutes of downtime.

No free, commercial, communist, capitalist, oligarchal software can
broadcast with a severed connection.

We can argue the merits of the free software on its own terms, but
dumping on the technical merits of Skypecasting because of a lame ISP
isn't fair.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 8/25/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To me, the most important aspect of NPOV has nothing to do with being "fair".  It has to do with removing your own personal opinion and accepting that of the experts on the topic, thus satisfying verifiability, even if it goes against what you prefer or previously believed.
>
> Given that Britannica is both an easy target here and not NPOV according to your original research, do you have a paradigm for NPOV other than yourself and Wiki?

s/experts/previously notable/

Calling someone an expert requires a difficult value judgement. We
don't find experts we find notable sources.. who are usually notable
because they are experts or because they are very much not experts. ;)

Importantly, we don't present their views as fact.. we attribute them.
 (unless, of course, were presenting widely agreed on info.. in which
case, we optimise out part of the buffering language)


body:
On 8/25/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have made several request to obtain copies of the DV tapes for the
> > sessions that were video taped so that I could make Oggs of the high
> > resolution video and the uncompressed audio. I have offered to pay
> > duplication costs.  My requests have been ignored.
>
> I never saw any of those requests. And funnily, I am one of those who
> can grant access to those tapes.

I even asked you about it in person at Wikimania on Monday after the
conference was over. :-/ I understand that things were busy and
stressful.    I also followed up in email, right after the conference
to the email first mentioning collecting the tapes.  In any case,  I
understand now that someone has the tapes and is transfering them (and
encoding them as Theora, etc), so I am glad I asked.

> > How much money would you have required?
> > $10,000 to get all the audio and video from our sessions into
> > completely free formats for both archival and available live use?  I
> > could have gotten you that. No one asked.
>
> No-one proposed either.

The wikimania pages said it would be streamed early on... It wasn't
clear, at least to me, that it wasn't all well taken care of.

> >Kyle was standing the the
> > conference *offering* to record unrecorded sessions, I brought
> > microphones and recording gear (with the hopes of doing a wikimedia
> > choral session, but that didn't end up happening).. and no one could
> > confirm that we had *permission* to record the sessions.
>
> I must have missed that question too.
>
> It seems Austin did not either.
> Maybe you should update your address book.

I fail to see how updating my address book is going to improve
communications with people whom I was standing a few feet away from in
the Berkman center.  The argument is foolish.  Opportunities were
missed due to on person in particulars fault but due to the inevitable
result of everyone working at capacity.

I've complained less to criticise you or any of the other conference
staff, who did an impressive job in many regards, but rather more to
make sure people are aware that there are people who care enough to
complain, and thus there should be people you can call on to worry
about these matters in the future.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 8/25/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/25/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > In interviews I say "We're very far from perfect, but we're *good
> > > > > enough to be useful*."
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > That's a nice slogan: "Wikipedia: Good enough to be useful"
> > >
> > > "Wikipedia: good enough for the internet"
> > >
> >
> > Wikipedia: Now blocked in two countries!
>
> "Wikipedia: blocked by China, blocking Congress"

Now that one I like!

Garion96


subject: [WikiEN-l] Idealism

body:
On 8/25/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Concerning option 2b. I don't think articles should reference (as a
> source)
> > other articles...
>
> I used to agree, but there is a problem with this idea though.
>
> The reason "why wiki works" is due to its ease of creating [[link]]s and
> making [[new pages]]. <-- See?  And because its centralised, its free (as
> in freedom), and guided by NPOV, (insert Jimbo deification here...
> PBUH...)
> (did I mention easy to edit?), Wikipedia has essentially converted all
> that
> energy that would have gone intomaking cheezy homepage subpages into a
> central
> resource.
>
> Hence if we can expect some degree of quality from it, why cant we expect
> to
> link to it?

Because not all of the 1.3 million pages are of the same quality. (yet).

Garion96


body:
On 8/25/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure, I've discussed it with several attorneys, and many more have
> discussed it ad nauseam on the various free software mailing lists.
> You can read more about MP3's patents and licensing on Wikipedia.

If we're going to being trying to argue from authority on this matter
I must caution you that I almost certantly outrank you on this
subject.

I frankly do not see how that line of debate is actually going to be
productive. Instead we should focus on pratical issues which are
material to the foundation.

> > It's inappropriate for us to make the files second class citizens, the
> > transcoded ones are fairly low quality. It was a mistake to record
> > directly into MP3 format...
>
> Harvard's equipment doesn't record Vorbis.  It'd be nice if it did,
> but it doesn't.  Sorry.

Where did I say that they should record in vorbis? I think that would
have been a mistake as well (although, a preferable mistake had it
been an option, just as recording to higher bitrate MP3 would have
been a preferable mistake).  The audio should have been recorded as
raw PCM.   This is a fairly standard pratice.  Total audio for all the
sessions would have been under 24 GB.

> > I have made several request to obtain copies of the DV tapes for the
> > sessions that were video taped so that I could make Oggs of the high
> > resolution video and the uncompressed audio. I have offered to pay
> > duplication costs.  My requests have been ignored.
>
> I do not remember hearing such a request from you; I certainly
> wouldn't have ignored it.
>
> The 17 tapes in question are currently en route to George Chriss, whom
> you might remember from the conference.  He's tasked with processing
> the tapes and encoding video of each session in Ogg Theora, which will
> be uploaded to Commons as soon as they're finished.  I have every
> confidence in his abilities.

Indeed, he emailed me after my post. I'm glad to hear that it's being
taken care of.

> > and as far as the files go, they don't effectively exist if even *you*
> > can't find them without asking.
>
> I've seen the files with my own eyes, but I don't know where they're
> posted.  Obtaining them hasn't been a priority for me, because I have
> an MP3 player.
>
> > How much money would you have required?
> > $10,000 to get all the audio and video from our sessions into
> > completely free formats for both archival and available live use?  I
> > could have gotten you that. No one asked.  Kyle was standing the the
> > conference *offering* to record unrecorded sessions, I brought
> > microphones and recording gear (with the hopes of doing a wikimedia
> > choral session, but that didn't end up happening).. and no one could
> > confirm that we had *permission* to record the sessions.
>
> You're right, we never asked you.  We're good, but we're not clairvoyant.
>
> Everyone was welcome to make their own recordings, as I told everyone
> who asked me.  Many people did.

I stood with Kyle and asked if we had permission to record, you told
us you'd get back to us. I guess it was a misunderstanding.

> > I curious though, what incentive do you have to promote propritary
> > software when there are reasonable free alternative available and
> > people willing to invest their time and money into making them work
> > for us?
>
> Real gave us $100,000, to be split amongst the conference organizers
> as we pleased.  And we would've gotten away with it, too...

hah. Come on, I wasn't intending to imply anything like that. :)

> I never suggested that you use RealPlayer, and I'm not even advocating
> the use of the Real format.  Although I don't object to non-free
> software on principle, I absolutely believe that the formats used for
> information exchange should be free, and I was very disappointed to
> learn that Real was the only option for the live streams.  Being
> practical, however, I was consoled by the knowledge that they would be
> archived in Ogg Theora for posterity, whatever it took to make that
> happen.
>
> It's fine to talk about could haves and should haves now, but the fact
> is, we never heard from you before the conference.  In the end, I
> think we still made out okay.

Well you certantly would have heard from me had I not given the
impression that everything was taken care of...

I'll agree that we made out okay once the files are actually up on the
site. Had the files actually made it up by now (rather than the
mismarsh of formats we have now), you never would have heard a peep
fom me.

Incidentally, have you noticed the jOrbis (Java Ogg/Vorbis player)
links on the wikimania media archive page? I think thats a pretty good
move, and a reasonable stopgap until we get the proper player support
in mediawiki.


body:
On 8/25/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> Most of these few Ogg Vorbis recordings there have I recorded. And the
> are the only recording availbel for some of the most interesting
> sessions like the "Wikimedia Foundation Board Panel" or "Wikimedia
> Foundation: building in diversity"
>
> The are made from the RealMedia live-stream, played with gxine and
> recorded with Audacity  and exported to Ogg Vorbis on a gnu/linux
> computer powered with green electricity. The are not transcoded from mp3
> to Ogg Vrobis.
>
> So far I see on the list there are no transcoded recordings on the
> archive page. There are only mp3 recordings or Ogg Vorbis present, and
> not both for the same sessions.

Someone sent me a transcoded Ogg of the arbcom panel which sounded
terrible, as typical for a low bitrate ogg transcoded from a low
bitrate MP3.

I intended no insult to your files, although I had assumed they would
be just as bad. :)


body:
On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think NPOV is pretty innovative.

Agreed... and publicly accessible revision controlled webpages.

Wanna take bets on which of the two will have a greater influence on
the world outside wikipedia a decade from now? :)


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy lawyering (was:NAS, NPOV, 3RR)

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 25/08/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Translation: We use 3RR in tandem, so as to cleverly avoid tripping
> >              3RR and then we like to tattle on the opposition really
> >              quickly, so that they get blocked and then we win the
> >              (edit) war. Its not "harrassment" or "POV tag-teaming" if
> >              its a policy loophole - Its fair game.
>
>
> Gee, or perhaps you could not revert war. It's possible!

I assume you mean "you" in the general sense, like if one said "one"
instead. Otherwise I have to point out that that was a sarcastic
translation that paraphrases the editing patterns of some else. And by
someone else I mean "not me", not "someone else other than you."
Whew. Got that cleared up... :)

But yes, that is the point, and I was noting to Greg offlist... the real
issue is decreasing partisanship. Before there were these committees people would
step in and sort things out. Partisans had to stop editing the article.
Moderates would help out by translating, representing, and cooperating from the
two general POVs.

Thats what was totally missing, and 3RR, as much as I hate it at least stops those
28 reverts in a row edit wars. But it shifts the emphasis from "lets cooperate"
to a game of "dont go over the line or you'll get zapped." Hence its just as
childish.

SV

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


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the use of copyrighted pictures
of living people (except when there's a freebie available) because I don't
think they have the time to have a picture of themselves taken so it can be
used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with semantics -- I know it would be
usable for more than Wikipedia.)

However, I do believe we should be persuing an active effort to obtain
free-use photographs of living people wherever possible. I'm talking about
an effort at the Foundation level.

On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
> >  concerning fair use.
> >
> > To quote "In general, ordinary publicity photos of celebrities should
> not
> > be used in Wikipedia unless they are released under a free license. We
> are
> > powerful enough now that we can insist on this, and get it, from just
> about
> > any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in a number of different ways.
> > Using fair use in such cases discourages us from creatively looking for
> a
> > way to enlarge the commons."
> >
> > Would it be a good idea if the foundation would ask for 'free' images
> from
> > big record companies (like Sony music entertainment), actor agencies
> etc. I
> > know any editor can do this, but it would definitely have a greater
> > chance of success if it is coming from the foundation.
> >
> > Garion96
> >
>
> Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and the like? :)
>
> Garion
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>
> Are we *ever* going to get a way to edit ledes without having to lock
> the whole page?

Edit any section, then change 'section=n' in the URL to 'section=0'.

Timwi


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official: on
 voters' elibiglity

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>In America, only convicted felons loose the right to vote, and only in
>certain states. People on probation have the right to vote, and people
>from every social class and range of offenses have the right to vote
>(except for convicted felons). No "Concensus" of citizens can strip from
>any individual the right to vote in this country. This is because we are
>an "enlightened society", not the forum of the Roman Senate where
>splinter groups assassinate the emperor and and citizen or senator with
>views we don't like, or the Court of Queen Elizabet in the 1500's where
>you could loose your head for wearing the wrong color clothes on the
>wrong day or criticize the queen. I thank God America doesn't run this
>way, or most countries in modern times (except for a few in the middle
>eastern countries).
>
But even the United States has a minimum voting age, and a waiting
period before new immigrants can become citizens.  I appreciate your
scare quotes around "enlightened society".  I'm sure that a modern
Senate and its parties have more sophisticated ways of performing
political assassinations without getting into the very messy business of
physical assassinations.  America runs this way when it's running other
countries.  The last democratically elected ruler of Iran was
assasinated by the Americans.

>Banned users from the
>whole of Wikimedia should not vote. Banned users from a particular
>project should vtoe just not on that project. This isn't an article for
>deletion, it's board members for the community. All the communities
>should vote.
>
Single sign-on will make the process easier.  All individuals, rather
than all communities should vote.

Ec


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official: on voters'
	elibiglity

body:
Thank you for your interest on Election.

Today I would like to invite you to an open question from me. About
voters' eligibility. There is no discussion among three, mainly
because two of them have been not available since the midst of this
month, hence no opinion, there is no consensus based conclusion.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%2C_2006/En#Open_question:_on_voters.27_elibiglity

I could rather say "we will do so-and-so because of lack of
consensus", without bother you with my question, but even if I should
say so at that time, I think it would be nice to know what kind of
trends are found among us, the community from hundreds projects,
people from hundreds lands and languages.

Cheers,
--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *

P.S. And how is the issue of additional help going?


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
Charlie Reams wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>Simetrical wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Any web spider *automatically* sends *millions* of arbitrary GET
>>>requests, and has to for the Internet as we know it to function.
>>>There is no way that sending arbitrary GET requests can hurt
>>>*anything*.
>>>
>>
>>That is simply not true. Web spiders only follow links.
>>
>>The kinds of webmasters we are talking about here will assume that you
>>can never fire a given GET URL if you never see a page with a link to it
>>on it.
>>
>>Timwi
>
> Still, it would be a shame to lose such an obviously useful feature just
> to protect badly-programmed websites from a very weak attack that can
> easily be launched in myriad other ways. From my own experience with the
> Commons, it can be really tedious to upload even a medium-sized file,
> and this feature would totally solve that.

Well yes, I completely agree with that.  I am only pointing out things;
I am not against the feature.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
> .. . . you get the picture.  There is literally *no* *security*
> *reason* *at all* for MediaWiki to not send arbitrary GET requests.
> Period.

Okay then, go ahead and introduce the feature :-)


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy way
 of	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
G'day David,

> On 24/08/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"Anyone can edit" is a poor, reductionist and inaccurate slogan with
>>negative connotations. I don't think that the idea behind "good
>>authors are always welcome" can be expressed in a way that doesn't
>>have the problems that I have enumerated; as long as you're referring
>>to _people_, rather than their contributions, it will always come
>>across as condescending and judgmental.
>
> "Good contributions always welcome" ?
>
> (the wording is clunky)

Good *edits* are always welcome?

<snip/>

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit conflicts

body:
Simetrical wrote:
>
> The edit-conflict resolver doesn't care whether you're editing the
> page or a section.  If the two edits are to different lines, they're
> merged; if they're to the same line, they conflict.  (There may be
> some more details that I don't know of, but that's the gist of it.)
> Edit conflicts occur most frequently on busy RFAs or talk pages
> because everyone's editing the same line, namely the one below where
> the last guy left his comment.

I would probably mumble something about my long-ago proposal to do away
with the "Edit Conflict" screen altogether, if only it hadn't been
criticised and flamed so much at the time....


subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
>>Wikipedia- Your way right away.
>>
>>
I wouldn't quote that to a vandal.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[New anti-Semitism]] and violations of NPOV re: top
 image

body:
Cheney Shill wrote:

>To me, the most important aspect of NPOV has nothing to do with being "fair".  It has to do with removing your own personal opinion and accepting that of the experts on the topic, thus satisfying verifiability, even if it goes against what you prefer or previously believed.
>
>
Different POVs depend on a different selection of expert POVs.  Being
fair to those who do not represent your expert's POV means that you
don't try to massage your opponent's views so that they seem worse than
they really are.

Ec


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
I suggest you work on getting these photos as
individual editors.  After all "The Foundation"
consists of around a dozen people and there are many
thousands of individual editors.  I imagine at least
three dozens of those editors are particulary
interested in these pictures.  While at the same time
the people that make up "The Foundation" propably feel
as if they each have three dozen priority tasks to do
already.  Anr I do not believe this project would be a
priority by Foundation standards.  So practically
speaking  you are *not* more likely to succeed in
obtaining photos if it is left up to "The Foundation".

Birgitte SB

--- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the use
> of copyrighted pictures
> of living people (except when there's a freebie
> available) because I don't
> think they have the time to have a picture of
> themselves taken so it can be
> used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with semantics
> -- I know it would be
> usable for more than Wikipedia.)
>
> However, I do believe we should be persuing an
> active effort to obtain
> free-use photographs of living people wherever
> possible. I'm talking about
> an effort at the Foundation level.
>
> On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
> > >  concerning fair use.
> > >
> > > To quote "In general, ordinary publicity photos
> of celebrities should
> > not
> > > be used in Wikipedia unless they are released
> under a free license. We
> > are
> > > powerful enough now that we can insist on this,
> and get it, from just
> > about
> > > any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in a
> number of different ways.
> > > Using fair use in such cases discourages us from
> creatively looking for
> > a
> > > way to enlarge the commons."
> > >
> > > Would it be a good idea if the foundation would
> ask for 'free' images
> > from
> > > big record companies (like Sony music
> entertainment), actor agencies
> > etc. I
> > > know any editor can do this, but it would
> definitely have a greater
> > > chance of success if it is coming from the
> foundation.
> > >
> > > Garion96
> > >
> >
> > Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and the
> like? :)
> >
> > Garion
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


from_name: Cheney Shill

body:
Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 26/08/06, Anthony wrote:
>> Or to quote Jimmy wales, "we should proceed experimentally to see if
>> this helps or not. If not, we try something else. Calvinball."

>I think that that's true atleast.

I think it's smart too and will turn out to be VERY beneficial.

>I'm coming at the new article issue from the opposite direction.

>Isn't the question how we can leverage the editors so that they can
>easily remove new, inappropriate articles, rather than trying to stop
>people from creating new articles?

If you stop or significantly slow the creation of new, inappropriate articles, editors have more time to work on existing articles.  I think you'll also find that the majority of new articles that are kept or don't need complete rewriting are by registered users.  In fact, I'd bet if you pulled the stats that the same is true of all edits, not just creation.

I'd like to see the experiment applied to all edits.  I.e., no anon edits period.  Registration is so simple and requires so little info (name and password only) that it serves less as removing anonymity and more as simply forcing vandals to do more in order to vandalize.  If anything, it protects naive users from publicly broadcasting their IP to those looking for easy targets.

>And that ties back to visibility. Right now, new articles have low
>visibility. That's really bad.

>Perhaps we should insist that all new articles be classified in some
>way, like the dewey decimal system or something, and allow editors to
>see new articles in their favourite classification in their watchlists
>or something.

With the exception of any actual dewey devices, that seems like a useful idea regardless.  There appears, however, to already be a page that can be bookmarked and reviewed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Newpages
If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges you can see a variety of other utilities already in place.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1?/min.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of NPOV

body:
On 25/08/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> Since I'm already writing long and unmanageable opinions about NPOV, I
> thought I'd append one more: the more I think through NPOV, the more I
> realize what a truly radical position it is.

Yes. This is what I mean when I say that it is Wikipedia's real secret
sauce, even more so than being something (almost) anyone can edit.

>It is often derided by
> people who claim that it is not possible or that it is not desirable,
> but it really does act as a powerful conceptual tool once you start to
> take it seriously as a goal. It is not the same thing as objectivity
> at all -- obviously one does not want to jettison an attempt for
> objectivity, but objectivity does not imply neutrality (I can be
> objectively non-neutral in my position on a given topic). In academic
> scholarship it is very rare that anybody tries to be, or wants to be,
> neutral: neutrality is seen as "not taking a side" in an important
> debate, and only the most disingenous or aloof intellectuals would
> think not taking a side on issues is a good, much less ethical,
> approach.

Which is what Stirling Newberry calls "POV experts" - that academics
frequently try to be bigger POV experts than each other.

> And yet I find myself trying hard to write for positions
> that I think are objectively wrong, or to point out the criticisms
> (without denigrating them) of things that I think are objectively
> correct. It is a strange exercise, one very contrary to most other
> forums for writing about and discussing issues. Beyond being a
> pragmatic tool for making a collective encyclopedia work -- which it
> does as well -- it is a very strong epistemological stance. I hadn't
> really quite realized that when I first started here, and I have only
> really begun to comprehend the depth of the stance in the last
> half-year or so. It does not surprise me that academics in particular
> have difficulty with it (and I say this as an academic).

- d.


body:
On 25/08/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The thing that always strikes me now when I read the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica is how POV it is, and I often wonder why we're aiming to be
> as good as them, when in fact (at our best) we can be so much better.

They have *consistent* quality. At our best we're fantastic, at our
average we're probably better than nothing ...

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy
 way	of	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
G'day Stephen,

> On 25 Aug 2006, at 11:39, Andrew Gray wrote:
>
>>On 25/08/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Good *edits* are always welcome?
>>
>>"Improvements are..."?
>
> I think this is too introvert. Is the strapline for editors or
> outsiders?

Fair enough.  I'm too wrapped up in wiki-world now --- I can't remember
if "edits" makes sense to non-Wikipedians anymore!

> How about something along a slightly different track:
> "Internet wisdom made accessible"

"You're the man now, dog!"

Internet "wisdom" will be the death of us all.  Wikipedia, also, is not
necessarily confined to the Internet.  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia,
not a website; wiki and hypertext is a tool, not a core principle.  It
may be a *site* on the *web* using *hypertext*, but ...

I like Andrew's idea of "improve", but "Improvements are always welcome"
doesn't sound much better than "Good contributions", to me.  How does
"Please help us improve" sound?

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


body:
G'day David,

> On 25/08/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>How about:
>>"Wikipedia. Turns information into knowledge."
>
> Phrase as imperative:
>
> "Wikipedia: Turn information into knowledge."
>
> Yeah, that's the sort of thing an editor could have stuck on the wall
> above their monitor.

I likes it.  (I wonder how Stephen feels about your change, but I assume
he'll enjoy it.)

Okay, Comms Committee member, go push buttons and fiddle with knobs and
so on until it happens.

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
On 8/25/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I intend to wait until the page has quietened down and then I'm going
> to write a caption that fully reflects the debate and what the sources
> say, but there's just no point at the moment.
>
> Sarah

The image is going to be deleted as a copyvio so the issue is largely academic.

--
geni


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Want to collaborate on writing a feature?

body:
Most developers have specialisations -- some of us hate UI design and love
DB performance optimisation, others don't know any PHP but can speak
HTML/CSS like a second language. This is a problem for writing features for
an open source web app -- the nature of the work is cross-disciplinary, but
the culture encourages individual effort. The result of this is that
developers are placed under pressure to learn a huge skill set, and that can
be a disincentive to participation.

I have an idea for a feature, and I was wondering if anyone might want to
collaborate on it. The idea is to display, in a box in the edit window,
information about who else has the same edit window open. For example, it
could display each username, along with the amount of time they have been
idle and the edit summary they have typed if any. The box will periodically
refresh itself, say once every 10 seconds. At the same time as fetching
updated data, the client sends back information about how long the user has
been idle and so on.

An optional subfeature would be allow the user to remove themselves from the
box voluntarily, e.g. to signal that they have no interest in actually
saving the article and that they are just looking at the source.

There are three different skill sets which are required to make this feature:

Person 1: User interface design
Person 2: Client-side programming
Person 3: Server-side programming

The tasks can be roughly divided as follows:

Person 1: Make a mockup of the user interface by taking the HTML of an edit
page from MediaWiki and adding a box with the required information. Edit the
HTML and the CSS. PHP or JavaScript knowledge is not required, although some
JS knowledge may be desirable to allow them to demonstrate any necessary
show/hide buttons and popups.

Person 2: Write the JavaScript. Monitor the edit window and send the
information I have described to the server. To update the info box, write a
model server response with a text editor, save it as a static file. Have the
JS load the model response and update the box in response. Deliver a
request/response format specification.

Person 3: Write the PHP. Implement the AJAX handler using the specification
from Person 2. Implement an internationalised user interface based on the
mockup delivered by Person 1.

I can probably be Person 3, but I don't think I can handle the other two
tasks as well. Any volunteers? Anyone know anyone who might be interested?

-- Tim Starling


body:
On 25/08/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Translation: We use 3RR in tandem, so as to cleverly avoid tripping
>              3RR and then we like to tattle on the opposition really
>              quickly, so that they get blocked and then we win the
>              (edit) war. Its not "harrassment" or "POV tag-teaming" if
>              its a policy loophole - Its fair game.

Gee, or perhaps you could not revert war. It's possible!

- d.


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 8/25/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 8/25/06, Stefan Sittler <kiaparowits at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Instead, it's an experiment of indefinite duration with analysis (of
> >> an unknown kind? where is this analysis described?) presumably being
> >> done by some person or persons, probably, and the results to be
> >> revealed at some later unspecified date.
> >
> > Think of it as a "trial" or a "change with unspecified duration",
> > rather than an "experiment", and the pain will go away.
>
> It doesn't, because "trial" is still just as misleading as "experiment"
> without some plan for evaluating the trial's results and "change with
> unspecified duration" is just a euphemism for "change with indefinite
> duration."
>
Or to quote Jimmy wales, "we should proceed experimentally to see if
this helps or not.  If not, we try something else.  Calvinball."


body:
On 25/08/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> The Siegenthaler incident happened exactly once.  Using it as an
> excuse to shut down new article creation by "anons" makes as much
> sense as permablocking the class A netblock which happened to create
> the article.

Mm. We haven't had much more in the way of Siegenthaler experiences
because of aggressively pursuing verifiability and NPOV on living
bios, and an active wikiproject for just that job.

> I'm all for experimentation.  When Jimbo announced the experiment to
> limit new article creation I applauded it.  But it's become rather
> clear that this was never an experiment at all.

I think the Siegenthaler thing was more coincidental. We were getting
a FIREHOSE of crap created daily. Still are, I think.

- d.


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>In America, only convicted felons loose the right to vote, and only in
>>certain states. People on probation have the right to vote, and people
>>
>>
>>from every social class and range of offenses have the right to vote
>
>
>>(except for convicted felons). No "Concensus" of citizens can strip from
>>any individual the right to vote in this country. This is because we are
>>an "enlightened society", not the forum of the Roman Senate where
>>splinter groups assassinate the emperor and and citizen or senator with
>>views we don't like, or the Court of Queen Elizabet in the 1500's where
>>you could loose your head for wearing the wrong color clothes on the
>>wrong day or criticize the queen. I thank God America doesn't run this
>>way, or most countries in modern times (except for a few in the middle
>>eastern countries).
>>
>>
>>
>But even the United States has a minimum voting age, and a waiting
>period before new immigrants can become citizens.  I appreciate your
>scare quotes around "enlightened society".  I'm sure that a modern
>Senate and its parties have more sophisticated ways of performing
>political assassinations without getting into the very messy business of
>physical assassinations.  America runs this way when it's running other
>countries.  The last democratically elected ruler of Iran was
>assasinated by the Americans.
>
>

Probably a good topic to avoid.

>
>
>>Banned users from the
>>whole of Wikimedia should not vote. Banned users from a particular
>>project should vtoe just not on that project. This isn't an article for
>>deletion, it's board members for the community. All the communities
>>should vote.
>>
>>
>>
>Single sign-on will make the process easier.  All individuals, rather
>than all communities should vote.
>
>
Thanks for the correction.

Jeff

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


body:
G'day Steve,

> "Made by people like you"?
>
> Or even just a tweak to the current line like "Anyone can have a go" -
> again, we tone down the implied right of editing: we only promise to
> let them try once.

"Wikipedia - be in it!"

(That sounds familiar for some reason ...)

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


body:
G'day Steve,

> On 8/25/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>Fair enough.  I'm too wrapped up in wiki-world now --- I can't remember
>>if "edits" makes sense to non-Wikipedians anymore!
>>
>>>How about something along a slightly different track:
>>>"Internet wisdom made accessible"
>>
>>"You're the man now, dog!"
>
> Combine them:
>
> "You're the editor."

"You contribute.  *We* decide."

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


body:
Ligulem wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>>  The idea is to display, in a box in the edit window,
>> information about who else has the same edit window open. For example, it
>> could display each username, along with the amount of time they have been
>> idle and the edit summary they have typed if any.
>
> While technically a nice idea, I'm a bit concerned about privacy.
>
> I for myself do expect that I can edit a page and type anything into the
> edit window without anyone else knowing. Not even knowing that I have
> this page open. I don't want to publish any info *until* I hit save.
>
> I have several times canceled a talk page post already written into the
> edit window (censoring myself). And sometimes I was really glad having
> canceled ;)

I feel the same way, which is why I'm not suggesting that we send the actual
text typed into the edit box to the server. Just some meta-information such
as number of characters typed, or an explicitly public summary. Perhaps we
could have a separate textbox where the user can type a message to send to
other people viewing the edit page. Imagine if you could type "I'm busy
rewriting this rubbish stub, don't bother fixing the spelling". Then anyone
else who opened the article from new pages patrol would know to stay away.
It would save a lot of edit conflicts.

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official:
 on	voters' elibiglity

body:
Aphaia wrote:

>For dear subscribers:
>please discuss the democracy in general in ANOTHER mailinglist
>
(voting == demoncracy on most planets in this solar system)

>, and
>put your idea not here directly, but the specific page on meta. There
>a discussion/presentation of opinion already has begun, I don't want
>to see this discussion split here and there.
>
>
I believe you posted this here Aphaia in the first place. Moving to meta.

(a - (p) hai - a) in Cherokee this kind of translates " I that was I am" .

:-)

Jeff