body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm writes:

> Sure, not everyone has the Christian religion, but aren't
the terms BC and AD
> most commonly used amonst archeologists and historians?
We shouldn't give up
> on an accurate description of the most used terminology
in favour of neutrality
> if the world isn't neutral about it itself.

Discussing points pro- and con- on this issue should be
discussed on the appropriate project page.

However, I do find it revealing that you seem to be saying
that we should not follow NPOV "if the world isn't neutral
about itself."  That proves Steve's point.  Many people
here are essentially admitting that they will simply not
follow our NPOV policy if it upsets some of their core
beliefs, or standard conventions.

JayJG writes:
> A rather interesting parallel to the accusations that
have sometimes filled this list
> claiming that people are anti-Semitic, don't you think?

I don't quite understand why you say this, since you have
in effect agreed with this point in a great many cases.  I
have watched with interest as you have worked with many
others here - including me - against a spate of neo-Nazi
biased statements and articles.  I'm quite glad that you
recognize the problem and often so often and so hard work
to counter it!

Robert (RK)

Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: JAY JG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re:
	[Wikipedia-l]Schoolsonen:(wasDoImisunderstandWikipedia

body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>JAY JG said:
> >  and in particular, when I see someone
> > voting "keep, good stub" etc. on  a completely useless stub.
>
>
>Oh, you mean someone who disagrees with you?

No, Tony, and I find your strawman arguments tiresome; that's two in one
discussion.  Do you think you could possibly avoid them in the future, or do
find their rhetorical power too irresistable?

>So you've got people who have been at it for some time who aren't mindless
>robotic posters, and you've got people who only responded robotically to
>robotic deletion listings.
>
>This doesn't quite square the circle.

Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the bottom
line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via a school
inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes on large
sets of school deletions.

Jay.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Juvenalia

body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) [050520 10:09]:

> The problem with high schools has little to do with notability. It is
> that the people most likely to be interested in writing articles about
> them are people of high-school age, who _for the most part_ tend not to
> have the skills to write very good encyclopedia articles. These
> articles tend to be out of balance: they mostly serve the needs of the
> contributors, rather than the needs of readers.

I have no reason whatsoever to think this is the case. Do you? Actual
evidence, I mean.

> Now if, in fact, we actually have a crowd of serious worker bees who
> really will swarm around all the little irritating particles of school
> substubs and deposit the nacre of scholarship on them until they become
> sparkling crystals :-) then there's probably no harm in them...

Well, yeah.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Sulev Iva

subject: [Wikipedia-l] sco/fiu-vro in danger..

body:
Thank you, Angela!
If it's impossible to create real Wikipedia in V?ro in near future
then please move the V?ro TestWikipedia as soon as possible to an other location (Wikicities?) if you can do it!
Because I am afraid to continue creating new articles in V?ro when V?ro Test Wiki remains in MetaWiki,
it seems too unsafe.

Sulev

20.05.2005 5:07:47, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> kirot':

>On 5/20/05, Sulev Iva <juvasul at ut.ee> wrote:
>> The place where our Wikis are listed for deletion.
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion#Scotland
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion#Another_.22Wikipedia.22
>> Where must we move now?
>
>Something's gone very wrong when playing chess on the wiki
>(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chess_championship>) is
>acceptable but creating a demo Wikipedia in a new language is not.
>
>If this does not survive VfD, and you want a temporary small wiki,
>you're welcome at <http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/>. For a longer
>term Wikicity, you need consensus within Wikipedia that this language
>can *not* exist within Wikimedia.
>
>Angela.
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject:
license evolution (was: Re: [Foundation-l] A license for the Ultimate
	Wiktionary)

body:
> A solution that Jimbo suggested for a similar problem on wikinews, was
> to require not only all contributions to be licensed under the
> gfdl/cc/whatever but also a proviso that by editing you agree to allow
> wikimedia to put your contributions under any license they want.

> So it
> will always be gfdl/cc for ever no matter what wikimedia does or says,
> but it can also be relicensed under a different license so that (for
> example) it could be easily distributed in the .dict fromat.

It's a nice idea... but contract law would not allow it. Somehow, you
can't accept to accept anything...

But there are solutions for a massive licence change. For example, I
suggest to begin by offering dual licensing for new articles and
editing. With a bit of time, more and more contributors would agree
to change the license of their content. With good tagging, you could
certainly keep a trace of licence changes and wait for the moment
there will be enough dual licenses to begin removing the old licensed
content.

Also it would be very important for wikipedia to provide its own
license and to allow it to evolve. As a policy matter, I don't
believe it's really safe to leave your legal needs within the hands
of others like we did with the GNU/FDL (and it would be the same
problem with CC).

Jean-Baptiste Soufron
CNRS-CERSA Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Foundation-l] A license for the Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Hello,

changing the license of a running project is difficult, but not that
much. Just think that it will take some time but it will avoid all
the present problems we have on WP.

Le 19 mai 05 ? 18:45, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :

> Hoi,
>
> So far all Wiktionary content has been licensed under a GNU-FDL
> license. With the Ultimate Wiktionary new functionality becomes a
> real possibility. One of these is providing information using
> the .dict format that has been described in RFC 2229. I learned
> from Hippietrail that .dict can also be used to have a local
> dictionary on your PC. At this moment almost every article has
> multiple authors it is not realistic to require the full history
> with every article as the GNU-FDL does. To grow the relevance of
> the Ultimate Wiktionary we do want to expand the way in which it
> can be used. I learned from Erik Moeller that we could regularly
> create an Ultimate Wiktionary export in the .dict format and have
> these distributed with Linux distributions for instance of with
> bittorrents. Again the license would be an issue it is not feasible
> to export the complete history with every word.
>
> I am not an expert on licenses. It is not really my cup of tea. As
> far as I am concerned, the Ultimate Wiktionary content should
> remain Free therefore a license needs a viral aspect; the data
> should stay free. I really appreciate the history and therefore I
> do want to keep the author information within UW. But I also want
> to expand the use of what we are working on so I am not bothered
> about the history remaining with the data when it finds this other
> use.
>
> Changing the license within a running project is difficult. As
> Ultimate Wiktionary will be a new database it is best to publish
> its content from the start using a license that will enable the
> expanded use that is possible with the new technology. Exporting TO
> the Ultimate Wiktionary will be problematic in that it will replace
> many of the existing Wiktionaries. It is not feasible to import the
> Wiktionary content including the full history. It will be hard but
> possible to parse the current information and enter this into UW.
> It is possible to mention the persons that worked on an article on
> the talk page. Given the aims of the Wikimedia projects I do not
> think from a moral point of view there should be a problem
> converting Wiktionary data to UW and change the license in the
> process. It will be impossible to convert all the data to UW and/or
> maintain all the history information as only the data that can be
> parsed can be entered into UW in the first place. Also there will
> be a large amount of manual work to make this conversion possible
>
> We can also convert the data to the UW, change the license,
> recognise past efforts by publishing history details on the talk
> page and wait for people to object. An objection would result in
> the removal of the work they contributed to. This would be a
> pragmatic way of coping with issues.
>
> Basically I have two questions;
>
> *What license would be best that is FREE and allows for the
> expanded use of the UW data
> *Do we need to have the consent of every editor before we can
> export to UW or is UW sufficiently different from Wiktionary to
> make it an original work in its own right or do we need this only
> when we change the license?
>
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to
	be deleted

body:
On 5/20/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> We have cleared this already on the Wikimedia Commons. In short, the
> terms of use are invalid, and the click-through declaration on the
> upload submission form of the site is what matters, since there is no
> transfer of rights to Stock.Xchng. If the uploader -- the copyright
> holder -- specifies that there are no usage restrictions on the photo,
> we can use it as such.

Ugh. Without a clear grant we have no right to use the images
whatsoever. Copyright defaults closed not open. But I'll accept that
the decision has been made and I will complain no more.  ... and I
will still replace at least the lower quality ones with GFDLed image
as the opportunity presents itself.


from_name: Robin Shannon

body:
A solution that Jimbo suggested for a similar problem on wikinews, was
to require not only all contributions to be licensed under the
gfdl/cc/whatever but also a proviso that by editing you agree to allow
wikimedia to put your contributions under any license they want. So it
will always be gfdl/cc for ever no matter what wikimedia does or says,
but it can also be relicensed under a different license so that (for
example) it could be easily distributed in the .dict fromat.

btw, every time i look at wiktionary i just get more and more exicted
about its possibilites. It is such a potentialy awesome tool for
linguists, teachers, students of a second language, etc .

peace out,
-[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

This work is released into the public domain.
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain>


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images tobe
	deleted

body:
On Friday, May 20, 2005 4:27 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/18/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > All images which are for non-commercial only use and by permission only
> > are not acceptable for Wikipedia and _will be deleted_.  We have
> > tolerated them for some time, but only as an interim measure during the
> > time when images which were previously not properly tagged could be
> > tagged.
>
> What about images from STOCK.XCHNG?

[Snip]

As has been discussed at length on Commons amongst other places, we have
taken the (informed) decision to laughingly reject the parts of
Stock.XChng's terms and conditions which seek to place upon viewers of
images on their site things that only the copyright owners have the power to
do, namly restrict their future use. If the owner says "no restrictions",
then their images are indeed not under any restrictions, and, effectively,
it's Stock.XChng's problem that their users are saying things that
Stock.XChng doesn't want them to.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


body:
On 5/20/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Gregory:
> The grant is clear. In fact, the grant is more clear than the grant to
> license your Wikipedia contributions as GFDL.

I really must protest here.

The stock.xchng site rules (which presumably the uploader and
downloader have both read) states that "1. Selling and redistribution
of these photos (individually, or as a whole) without written
permission is prohibited. Using the photos in
website templates, on postcards, mugs etc. doesn't count as selling or
redistribution, however you are not allowed to build a gallery using
the photos you downloaded from here." so when a user indicates that
there "are no usage restrictions"  it would appear quite clear that
they are speaking in terms of condition 1 on the website.  ... These
terms would likely permit the normal use in wikipedia articles, but
they should not be accepted in commons and we should probably find
them unacceptable like we find non-commercial-only media unacceptable.

In copyright law usage and redistribution are distinct concepts, my
GFDLed works are available to you without any restriction on usage and
with a clear set of grants and conditions on redistribution. It's not
clear that without a written contract if any limitation on *usage*
could ever be imposed on a copyrighted work, in any case.

Even if you disagree that usage and redistribution are distinct, the
terms on the stock.xchng website make it quite clear that the
licensesor of the works considers them distinct for the purpose of
establishing your rights to redistribute his works.

If I were a stock.xchng contributor I'd be quite rightfully angered if
I stumbled across my work listed on wikipedia as 'public domain'
(which some of them are). Our behavior is especially in inexcusable in
light of the fact that stock.xchng usually provides a means to email a
contributor and strongly encourages such communications:  Why are we
even bothering to argue over stock.xchng when we could just contact
the copyright holders directly?

Wikipedia has grown past the point where we need to rely on grey
legality images, and preserving them only discourages people who would
submit free ones in their place.


body:
On 5/20/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> No, this is not clear at all. In fact, the upload form contains no link
> to the terms of service; it links to
> http://www.sxc.hu/info.phtml?f=license
> which says nothing at all about any further restrictions. When I upload
> a file, I get a dropdown:

When I follow that link I get to a page with some generic
instructions, there is a 'terms' button on the top which has the ruls
for both uploaders and downloaders.

>         usage rights [no restrictions           ]
>                        contact me
>                        contact me and credit me
>                        written permission needed
>
> This is the only grant that takes place. For the purposes of Wikimedia,
> we have always considered {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} to allow for distribution.

When you sign up an account it presents you with a little box with the
terms as well.

> > Even if you disagree that usage and redistribution are distinct, the
> > terms on the stock.xchng website make it quite clear that the
> > licensesor of the works considers them distinct for the purpose of
> > establishing your rights to redistribute his works.
>
> Not at all. For example, the TOS also state
>
>         "You are not allowed to use these images to promote adult
>           oriented and dating services."
> This is clearly a restriction on *use*, even if the uploader specifies
> no usage restrictions.

My point related to that was that use restrictions in absence of a
written contract may or may not be legally binding. It was more of an
aside than anything else,  Just because one rule disagrees with the
users dropdown doesn't invalidate the whole thing.

> The TOS contradict the copyright holder's own
> explicit assignment. They are irrelevant. (It is also quite likely that
> they were written before sxc.hu had a usage rights dropdown, as this was
> only added in version 4 of their software.)

The terms on the site refer to the specific terms set per image by the
holder over and over again.

> > Wikipedia has grown past the point where we need to rely on grey
> > legality images,
>
> I do not consider this grey at all, and nor does the vast majority of
> the Wikimedia Commons community, including Villy, who is a judge and
> also provides legal advice to Wikimedia. However, if an sxc.hu uploader
> feels that one of their images is improperly used, then we will of
> course take that into account.

I notice that you didn't reply to my comment on contacting the
copyright holder.. with as many places as that's advised on the site,
you'd think that the submitters at wikipedia wouldn't be so averse to
it.  If you're so sure that the stock.xchng contributors will not
mind, then why not have a policy of sending the request?  It should
bring us more direct contributors.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Ian Monroe

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Foundation-l] A license for the Ultimate
	Wiktionary

body:
Well, the Ultimate Wiktionary website has to have a history... its
necessity in a website that anyone can edit goes without saying. So
why wouldn't a URL to the Ultimate Wiktionary be enough for its
offline use to comply with the GFDL (as the Wikipedia and Wiktionary
mirrors like answers.com do today... answers.com doesn't provide the
history).

And regardless, unless I'm totally missing something, a change in
license is not possible.

On 5/20/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>
> >(To correct myself...)
> >
> >I think that there is no need to avoid GNU FDL terms. Just put
> >gzipped/bzip2ed history inside of package and in all of articles
> >put reference (that contribution history can be found in that file).
> >
> >
> Hoi,
> Apparantly you do not understand that there are several issues that make
> the GNU-FDL not practical.
>
> *Wiktionary data cannot be imported properly into Ultimate Wiktionary.
> UW has no room for gzipped or bzipped history. It is a server side
> database and nobody is going to see the information in this way.
> *Ultimate Wiktionary  will import data from many Wiktionaries, the first
> one could be the nl:wiktionary. Many articles have been copied to and
> from the it:wiktionary. Suppose an article is shared, it arrived first
> from the nl:wikipedia so that one rules.. right ? Now what history
> should we have with the article ?? From a GNU-FDL point of view it is
> unforseen, crazy.
> *When we keep all these histories, who can say it is "my" work? I
> contributed to it ??
> *When we export content to the .dict or RFC 2229 format, this is a
> subset of the data that we have on a word, a concept. We have the UW
> history and all these Wiktionary histories. Histories for each word.
> Histories for possibly a file with a few fields like: "Word"
> "Description" "Translation" "Original source". The amount of bagage that
> we should carry according to the GNU-FDL is unforseen and crazy. It just
> does not make sense. It is also data that has no stucture. Who will ever
> look at it ??
>
> My conclusion is that the current GNU-FDL does not funtion for atomic
> information like we will have in Ultimate Wiktionary. When it prevents
> the implementation of new use for the data that we have, it becomes a
> hindrance. The goal of the Wikimedia Foundation is to make Free
> information available. When a license like the GNU-FDL only allows for
> server side information that has a static structure, I am sure that even
> Richard Stallman will find the arguments to ammend the GNU-FDL compelling.
>
> One crucial thing in all this is that Free information should stay Free
> and be accessible. The current Wiktionary data is as closed as any
> proprietary datacollection. This is because of its lack of structure. It
> cannot be used for anything but server side information. Ultimate
> Wiktionary intends to combine the strength of the information that we
> have in all our wiktionaries, it will be structured. It does allow
> accessibility and new innovative uses. By being Free, accessible and
> innovative, we will gain a much wider public, these will not only be
> users of our data but also providers of data. This is what we aim for.
>
> In the current nl:wiktionary we have people and organisations like
> FrankC and www.ziekenhuis.nl who contributed big time to the content of
> Wiktionary. We do need to recognise their contributions. They donated
> important body of works but we also have people like MARCEL and S.V.E.T
> who added content on a regular basis, it is important that we recognise
> their hard work and their contributions. They make and made it the
> success it is. So if anything, we should find a way to honour the
> members of our Wiktionary community as we move forward to an Ultimate
> Wiktionary.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM


body:
On 5/20/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thing is, if someone says "contact me for permission", and gives a
> possibly years unused email address, what can you do? People who give
> Yahoo, Hotmail or other free webmail addresses are virtually
> unreachable, because
>
> a) the account could be dead
> b) the account could get so much spam that messages never get through
> c) the account might be alive but not used anymore
>
> I can think of at least one image where this is the case. I tried
> emailing the author, but got no response.

Right, in those cases we just don't use the image.
In the case of image on stock.xchng with "no usage restrictions", it's
simple enough to send an email informing them that we like their work,
and would like to make use of it... This doesn't preclude us going
ahead and using it (although I think this is not wise), but it does
potentially cut complaints early on, and could likely encourage some
more direct contributors.


subject:
[WikiEN-l]
	Re:[Wikipedia-l]Schoolsonen:(wasDoImisunderstandWikipedia

body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050521 00:10]:
>
> > Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the
> > bottom line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via
>a
> > school inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes
>on
> > large sets of school deletions.
>
>
>And are you asserting this is regular practice? Or did people issue lots of
>"keep" votes in response to an unreasonable flood of nominations? Are the
>words "unclean hands" applicable to this protest?

As you well know, the history of organized school inclusionism long precedes
this particular and very recent set of school VfDs, and even stooped to the
level of sockpuppet voting.

Jay.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikitech-l] CVS access request

body:
Hi all,

meta:Development_policy wrote:
>Our current policy for handing out CVS access is very liberal...
>If you just intend to maintain language files, CVS access can be
granted even without prior participation in development.

I think I can help Wikipedia as maintainer of Russain language file
and language files of other languages of Russian Federation (Tatar,
Ossetian, Chuvash...).

I have done several uptodate patches for LanguageRu.php (in Bugzilla:
1455, 1635, 1846, 1998, 2191) but unfortunately often developers have
no time to apply them. Also, my contribution is reports (1335, 1338,
1890, 2190) about bugs in Language.php

About me (meta:user:ajvol):
I'm 6-th year student of Moscow State Technical University. One of the
most active sysop in Russian Wikipedia (
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaRU.htm )

--
Cxion la plej helan,
Alexander Sigachov


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Live and Let live? Oh, really?

body:
>From: Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com>
>JayJG writes:
> > A rather interesting parallel to the accusations that
>have sometimes filled this list
> > claiming that people are anti-Semitic, don't you think?
>
>I don't quite understand why you say this, since you have
>in effect agreed with this point in a great many cases.  I
>have watched with interest as you have worked with many
>others here - including me - against a spate of neo-Nazi
>biased statements and articles.  I'm quite glad that you
>recognize the problem and often so often and so hard work
>to counter it!

Recognizing that neo-Nazis were organizing on the Stormfront bulletin board
and trying to inject their POV into Wikipedia is one thing; wild accusations
of anti-Semitism are another.  I've never agreed with the latter, despite
the propensity of a couple of Wikipedia editors to regularly make them.  Can
you think of who they might be?

Jay.


from_name: Richard Rabinowitz

body:
On Fri, 20 May 2005, Robert wrote:

> Alphax writes to me:
> > At present, there is *no* neutral way to represent dates.
> > Let's just call a spade a spade and not try to make
> > something sound like something it's not.
>
> You're very confused.  I am not making any such claim.
>
>
> Alphax writes:
> > If you feel you are being forced to use Christian
> terminology,
> > why use the Christian date system at all? CE is still
> based
> > (albeit incorrectly) on the birthdate of one Jesus of
> Nazareth.
>
> Stop being disingenous.  We all agree that the numeric
> dating system currently in use has to be the one that is
> used in all articles.  It is just the Jesus-worshipping
> honorifics (BC/AD) that some of us object to.  The growing
> consensus in the academic community is to use
> religion-neutral terms such as BCE/CE.
>
> Alphax, you know this, as we have explained this many times
> to you.  So please do not pretend that you are still
> unaware of this.
>
>
> I had written:
> >> I already have put up with enough abuse today, as
> several
> >> of my fellow faculty and staff came - as well as many
> >> students - in with T-shirts advertising "Jesus Day" at a
> >> public school. It had a motto that said that only
> through
> >> Jesus will anyone find God, and that all others are
> doomed
> >> to be without God (i.e. damned to Hell.) Apparently
> being
> >> in the vast majority is not enough for some right-wing
> >> Evangelical Protestant Christians. They have to push
> their
> >> threats of damnation via religious proselytizing in
> public
> >> arenas?!
>
>
> Alphax replies:
> > e-van-gel-i-cal adj., of the Gospel noun, one who is
> committed to
> > the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the only gospel of salvation;
> by grace,
> > through faith, under the authority of the Bible,
> empowered by
> > the Holy Spirit, to the Glory of God. You live in the US?
>
> Again, stop pretending that all members of this list are
> illiterate.  We understand fully how Protestant Chrisitan
> fundamentalists define this term.
>
>
> > You have heard of Freedom of Religion?
>
> Yes, and please stop making such bizarre implications.  No
> one is preventing Christians (or Muslims or Jews) from
> having their own theology, from having their own beliefs,
> from worshipping in their own houses of worship, or from
> following their own religious practices.
>
> Freedom of religion, however, prevents people from one
> religion from harassing people from another religion. US
> law prohibits people from harassing others with this kind
> of religious proselytization.  (In fact, I already have
> been notified that if I choose to bring a case against the
> people I referred to, I will almost certainly win.  I am
> trying to find a non-legal way to do deal with them.  They
> do think that all Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus,
> Buddhists, and agnostics are damned to hell, and they are
> making difficult to work where I am an employee.)
>
> You seem to imagine that "Freedom of religion" actually
> means "Freedom for religious fundamentalists to create a
> hostile workplace environment", and that "Non
> fundamentalists have no rights at all."  You worldview is
> the same as that of religious dictators.  You also seem
> ignorant (in the literal sense of the term) of US law.
>
>
> > We live in a society that has seen the marginalisation,
> > desecration and humilitation of Jesus Christ.
>
>
> Are you joking, or trying to start a holy war against all
> non-fundamentalist Christians?  It is enraged
> fundamentalists like you who start inquisitions, crusades
> and jihads.  I hope other Wiki-En editors are keeping a
> close eye on your submissions.
>
>
> Robert
>
>
>
>
> Discover Yahoo!
> Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out!
> http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

An incorrectly done system of dates oriented around a bias is better than
no dating system or a correctly done system of dates oriented around a
bias, and Dennis the Short's mistakes have bequeathed upon us an
incorrectly done system of dates. We might as well use it, as there are no
unbiased dating systems that I can think of.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k

body:
--- David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> Unless we're living in a world of 56K internet still, I think 32K could
> become at least 50K. Even articles on albums by Eminem and so forth are
> getting above 32K - Giving that limit is slowly even limiting the growth of
> good articles. If an article grows above that it should be allowed to grow,
> unless it is obviously repeating itself.

Yeah, let it grow. But at some point some sections will need to be summarized
and the detail put into a daughter article. We need not burden readers with
more detail than is necessary - those that want more detail on the sub topic
covered by that section can skip ahead directly to the main article for that
section.

My own opinion is that almost all articles are probably too long once they
enter the 30 to 45KB range but some topics are so expansive that they are not
too long at even 50KB. At the same time some other topics are so narrowly
focused that they could be considered too detailed even if they don't trigger a
page size warning.

We had a long discussion about this a month ago on the featured article
criteria talk page. The general consensus was against specific numerical limits
while at the same time not having articles be longer than needed to pass the
other FAC criteria. The only outstanding matter is finding some wording that
can be agreed upon so that can be added as a FAC criteria.

Part of good writing is prioritizing what information should be presented up
front to readers vs what can be best dealt with in other related articles. Some
points:
*Readers should have the ability to zoom to the level of detail they need.
Having all the detail on one page does not allow for that.
*Do this by summarizing and providing links to more detailed treatments on
those sub topics.
*What matters is that Wikipedia has lots of detail on a topic, not that all
that detail is on the same page.

-- mav

Discover Yahoo!
Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: sco/fiu-vro in danger..

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> So how does that square with people being told on this list to create a
> test version on Meta if they want a new language Wikipedia?
>
> Can anyone answer this?

Maybe whoever told them that could explain it. It seems a bit odd.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
On Sat, 21 May 2005, Alphax wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Robert wrote:
> > Alphax writes to me:
> >
> >> At present, there is *no* neutral way to represent dates. Let's
> >> just call a spade a spade and not try to make something sound like
> >>  something it's not.
> >
> >
> > You're very confused.  I am not making any such claim.
> >
>
> IIRC, this whole debate was over whether AD/BC was NPOV or not.

Well, it's not, but it's better than no dating system at all, and,
besides, much of the world already uses it. Besides, it goes better with
the seasons than Islam's calendar (although Islamic dating would go well
with any lunar colonies we set up in the future).

>
> >
> > Alphax writes:
> >
> >> If you feel you are being forced to use Christian terminology, why
> >> use the Christian date system at all? CE is still based (albeit
> >> incorrectly) on the birthdate of one Jesus of Nazareth.

Because incorrect is better than correct when it comes to NPOV. At least
the mistakes enhance the possibility of neutrality.

> >
> > Stop being disingenous.  We all agree that the numeric dating system
> >  currently in use has to be the one that is used in all articles.  It
> >  is just the Jesus-worshipping honorifics (BC/AD) that some of us
> > object to.  The growing consensus in the academic community is to use
> >  religion-neutral terms such as BCE/CE.
> >
>
> And some of us object to the arrogant attitude that the time period aka.
> AD is common to anyone but Christians, when clearly it is not. It just
> happens to be the dating system used by most of the world. Renaming it
> "Common Era", ie. removing the only name which has any significance -
> Anno Domini - is as bad as Holocaust denial.

Or, as one might prefer, "After Dragons", "Anonymous Dating", "According
to Dennis", "Anno Dundee"....

>
> Heres somthing that everyone should read - the Anno Domini article:
>
> "*Anno Domini* (Latin: "In the year of the Lord"), or more completely
> *Anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi* ("in the year of our Lord Jesus
> Christ"), commonly abbreviated *AD* or *A.D.*, is the designation used
> to number years in the dominant *Christian Era* in the world today....
> The Christian Era is the only system in everyday use in the Western
> World, and the main system for commercial and scientific use in the rest
> of the world. In academic historical and archaeological circles,
> particularly in the United States, the same epoch is sometimes referred
> to as the Common Era (CE) and the BC period as Before the Common Era (BCE)."

The Dundee, in my conception (named in honor of Crocodile Dundee) is the
point in time that the monk named Dennis decided was Jesus's birth, even
though he was mistaken... but, thanks to his mistakes, the Dundee isn't
really a defining moment at all, more like a non-moment!

 > > >
> > Again, stop pretending that all members of this list are illiterate.
> >  We understand fully how Protestant Chrisitan fundamentalists define
> >  this term.
> >
>
> I'm interested to hear how *you* define fundamentalist. If you take it
> to mean someone who actually believes in what they say, as opposed to
> someone who just says things without meaning it, then you are worth less
> than a grain of sand, for even a grain of sand will follow logic.

A fundamentalist is a hard-liner, a person who takes the party line on
various matters. For one to be a fundamentalist, he or she has to be part
of a group, and he or she has to agree on most or all of what his or her
group says, and he or she has to act on those sayings. ("A group" can
include people who adhere strictly to some dictates of a holy book. -
dictates that the group agrees on, of course.)

 >
> >
> >> You have heard of Freedom of Religion?
> >
> > Yes, and please stop making such bizarre implications.  No one is
> > preventing Christians (or Muslims or Jews) from having their own
> > theology, from having their own beliefs, from worshipping in their
> > own houses of worship, or from following their own religious
> > practices.
> >
>
> In this case, they *are* following their own religious practices - to go
> and make disciples.

No prob. We liberal religionists might as well do the same thing.

>
> > Freedom of religion, however, prevents people from one religion from
> >  harassing people from another religion. US law prohibits people from
> >  harassing others with this kind of religious proselytization.  (In
> > fact, I already have been notified that if I choose to bring a case
> > against the people I referred to, I will almost certainly win.  I am
> > trying to find a non-legal way to do deal with them.  They do think
> > that all Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and agnostics
> > are damned to hell, and they are making difficult to work where I am
> > an employee.)
> >
>
> I thought wearing a t-shirt would be covered by Freedom of Speech.

Even a "I Visited Hell and All I Got was This Lousy Shirt" T-shirt. :)

>
> > You seem to imagine that "Freedom of religion" actually means
> > "Freedom for religious fundamentalists to create a hostile workplace
> >  environment", and that "Non fundamentalists have no rights at all."
>
> How is their expression of faith creating a hostile workplace
> environment? You feel offended? Maybe that's because what they are
> saying is true, you know it, and the truth hurts? Again, I am hesistant
> to discuss fundamentalism with you, but you have the same rights as the
> people who you claim to be offended by do.
>
> > You worldview is the same as that of religious dictators.
>
> Based on what? I don't advocate the kidnapping and torture of people who
> don't agree with me.

Good point.

>
> > You also seem ignorant (in the literal sense of the term) of US law.
> >
>
> In that you are correct; I don't live in the US, so I have no reason to
> know what US law is. The concepts of Freedom of Speech and Religion I
> speak of are like the concept of Free as in Freedom.

Read the U.S. Bill of Rights. It shouldn't be too long, although the
sentence structure is rather archaic and therefore wordy.

>
> >
> >> We live in a society that has seen the marginalisation, desecration
> >>  and humilitation of Jesus Christ.
> >
> > Are you joking, or trying to start a holy war against all
> > non-fundamentalist Christians?
>
> Well, it's the truth. As of, oh, now, I am being persecuted for speaking
> out about this. And no, I don't believe in holy war, and I still don't
> know what you mean by fundamentalist.

Well, of course us non-Christians are going to nitpick and poke fun at
Jesus. He may have been a nice guy, but, frankly, Jesus is more important
to the Christians than to the non-Christians.

 >
> > It is enraged fundamentalists like you who start inquisitions,
> > crusades and jihads.
>
> Luckily for you, you are mistaken.
>
> > I hope other Wiki-En editors are keeping a close eye on your
> > submissions.
> >
>
> Now why would that be?

No clue.
>
> - --
> Alphax
> GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
> and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
> Lewis
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFCjiYN/RxM5Ph0xhMRAh3OAJwPGax7bos8RjET4BJNbQ5q66jJvgCfU12Z
> CzoW/SjHLEVJnNGKkGsvtv4=
> =TwTo
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The issue is always download speed when we serve a diverse international
> audience and at least make noises about serving the poor and the third
> world. Serving up articles over 100kb long with several images each over
> 200kb will basically stop a slower computer with limited memory operating
> with a modem in its tracks, sometimes even requiring a reboot. Essentially
> the site becomes unusable.

There is also the issue of print. So while Wikipedia is not paper, it would be
nice to include articles on every major topic without having to cut down more
trees than needed. So we should summarize much more often and move more
detailed text to daughter articles (we'd likely only print selected parent
articles in a print version).

Readers also very often have limited time and/or patience (especially on the
Internet). More condensed treatments should be available to serve those readers
while at the same time links to related articles can provide the detail for
those who need that. By 'more condensed' I mean articles that are in the size
range of a normal college term paper (10-15 printed 8.5x11 pages of prose with
standard font).

-- mav

Discover Yahoo!
Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html


list: commons-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Commons-l] National Flags and Languages

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Please, stop using national flags for denoting human languages.  Both
> entities do not match.  Using flag is discriminating minorities - it is
> not appropriate to discriminate someone even if this would actually
> improve accessibility.

Karl is exactly right.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k

body:
The issue is always download speed when we serve a diverse international
audience and at least make noises about serving the poor and the third
world. Serving up articles over 100kb long with several images each over
200kb will basically stop a slower computer with limited memory operating
with a modem in its tracks, sometimes even requiring a reboot. Essentially
the site becomes unusable.

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 17:07:56 -0400
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k
>
>> From: "David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders at btinternet.com>
>> Unless we're living in a world of 56K internet still, I think 32K could
>> become at least 50K. Even articles on albums by Eminem and so forth are
>> getting above 32K - Giving that limit is slowly even limiting the growth of
>> good articles. If an article grows above that it should be allowed to grow,
>> unless it is obviously repeating itself.
>
> As far as I know the issue was never with download speeds, and currently
> most of the concerns are stylistic, rather than technical.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Live and Let live? Oh, really?

body:
> A rather interesting parallel to the accusations that have sometimes
> filled this list claiming that people are anti-Semitic, don't you think?
>
> Jay.

Of all the ways in which Wikipedia might change the world, changing
religious views is one of the least plausible.  I think we should stick to
trying to be informative.

Charles


body:
On 5/20/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> There's nothing wrong with it. We simply don't require it.

So after this email I went ahead and attempted to contact about 9
copyright holders whos works were from stock.xchng, it would have been
10 but one of them already had all his work taken off stock.xchng for
it being copyright violating (trying to get clarification on that from
stock.xchng).

My emails basically said "I noticed your picture is being used in the
Wikipedia Encyclopedia article on [link]" gush gush how wonderful and
how it improves the article then "I noticed that it is labeled public
domain, I know stock.xchng only gives you a few licensing options, and
I wanted to know if this was an accurate description of how you
intended to license your work?"

I've received three replies back so far, one indicating that her work
was indeed "free for any use" but two who complained that stock.xchng
isn't clear in their licensing and that their work isn't PD. One of
them said his work is cc-by-nc-sa, and I've updated one of his images
accordingly (but since most of the images have no attribution, it's
difficult to go find all of his photos).

I find it really amusing that we went through the trouble of having a
vote on this when we could have just asked the copyright holders.


subject: [WikiEN-l]Re:[Wikipedia-l]Schoolsonen:(wasDoImisunderstandWikipedia

body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>
>JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050521 02:34]:
>
> > As you well know, the history of organized school inclusionism long
> > precedes this particular and very recent set of school VfDs, and even
> > stooped to the level of sockpuppet voting.
>
>So you don't mean of late, your evidence of robotic voting closely
>resembles the editing pattern of several of us you're arguing this point
>with, and you mean the one (it was one) person running a pile of
>sockpuppets you will now see absent.

It is a long-standing issue that continues to fester, though I appreciate
your efforts in getting rid of that pile of sockpuppets.

>So if Tony or I can be classed as "schools inclusionists", does that mean
>we're doing robotic voting with insinuations of sockpuppetry, are these
>other people you fingered as robo-voters even though the complained-of
>voting pattern resembles ours running sockpuppets, or what do you mean?
>Your stated concern is not staying constant in the course of the
>discussion.

The stated concern is still robotic "keep" voting by some editors who don't
even bother to read the articles concerned, organized by school
inclusionists (via "schoolwatch" pages).  I stand by that interpretation of
events, even though neither you nor Tony agree that the evidence I have
given proves it.

>You are notably failing to acknowledge that placing fifty schools at once
>on VFD could possibly be a provocative act that could arouse great
>attention, really upset people and in fact cause people to get involved, as
>Tony documents in detail. Do you see that it could be taken that way?

Yes, I acknowledge that it could upset people and be seen as a provocative
act.  I do note that Neutrality's reasons for VfD nomination were not
identical in every case, and often referred to specific issues with the
articles themselves, unlike many of the votes made in response.  And I also
note again that organized school inclusionism started long before this very
recent incident.

That said, I'm wary of letting the list bog down in interminable debates, as
it so often does, and in any event I don't particularly enjoy being so
publically at odds with people that I respect.  Perhaps you can respond with
a summation/last word, and then we can take this to private e-mail.

Jay.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
JAY JG said:
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>JAY JG said:
>> >  and in particular, when I see someone
>> > voting "keep, good stub" etc. on  a completely useless stub.
>>
>>
>>Oh, you mean someone who disagrees with you?
>
> No, Tony, and I find your strawman arguments tiresome; that's two in
> one  discussion.

I seriously question whether you are aware of the difference between a
"straw man" argument and an accurate description of my interpretation of
your stance.  It seems to me that in the above you are saying that you
know that someone else shares your perception of what is and what is not a
good stub, and as a consequence it follows that it is a fact, and not
solely your opinion, that this person is voting "keep, good stub" on an
indisputably useless stub.

Either that or you think that the other person's opinion of what
constitutes a good stub doesn't matter because you are the arbiter.  I
think we can assume that this is not your opinion, otherwise you wouldn't
see any point in discussion.

>
> Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the
> bottom  line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized
> via a school  inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical
> "keep" votes on large  sets of school deletions.
>

See my earlier postings in which I analyze the basis for this claim.

Some data points to get along with.  Two users that I looked at, at random
today:
User:  Dozenist

First edit January, not many edits before this week when he started
editing some dentistry articles in earnest.  Came to VfD on 13th (last
Friday) when he made a pertinent comment about the VfD for "Waterfluoridation quotes".  First ever school VfD votes: today.

User: No Account

First ever edit on Wikipedia 16th, this Monday. Around 70 article edits,
edited every day except Wednesday.  First schools VfD vote today. 33 votes
in less than 25 minutes.
Without looking at Wikipedia, can you tell which one of them consistently
votes keep and which one of them consistently voted delete?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Article validation feature (again) in 1.5?

body:
On 5/19/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> I fixed it (hopefully) and asked Brion to turn it on again.

nitpick: When you click the validate tab the page that comes up shows
under the article tab, it should stay under the validate tab.


from_name: closedshop

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Ticket#: 122761] WIKI_META_WOLRDWIDE_STRUCTURE of
	articles

body:
Wikipedia information team wrote:

>Thank you for your mail.
>You should direct this kind of enquiry to the Technical Mediawiki mailing,
>list, where people will have the skills to debate and analyse your
>proposition. You can subscribe on the list at the following address.
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Delphine M?nard
>
>
>
Hi
I want to suggest a wiki Meta worldwide Structure (WMWS) for articles.
example, one keyword is available in english, german and french languae
and more,

All have  a different structrue for this keyword
of
= first level
== second level
=== third level.

There should be a Board for articilkes to give them a WMWS.

So i suggest to regard only the first level =.

So if in WMWS fo this keyword a "=" headline is created, this headline
is shown as well in all language-wikis and, in the board to edit WMWS,
there are then all headline translated

E.g.

1. Introduction

French: entree
german: Einf?hung

Then the Headline of level 1 (=) cannot be edited in the language wiki,
only in the meta wiki

This should follow tot the goal to have in every language a unique
structure of the wiki.

Level 2-3 then can be different in each language.

somehow clear ?

Thanks
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback#WIKI_META_WOLRDWIDE_STRUCTURE_.28for_level_1_.28.22.3D.22.29.29


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k

body:
>As it happens, some (including me) think it's a
>good recommended maximum length for an article for readability - there
>should be a compelling reason to go over six thousand words. But
>considerations like 172's (subject requires it, article is really good)
>still get past. So if the Germany article should get by even being over
>32k, the nominator would probably have to convince people the subject
>required it for proper coverage. (Which I can well see being likely.)

In this case, the issue is more complex than just the 32k limit.
Regardless, and without getting into extreme detail, brevity is being
strongly encouraged on the article, which is already well over 32K, and
seems to be getting larger with every edit.  The argument from the person
most strongly arguing against limiting the size seems to me to mostly be
"These are facts, and the United States article is even bigger, that's not
fair".

Jay.


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question about changing language-handling

body:
On 5/19/05, HYWwebsite at aol.com <HYWwebsite at aol.com> wrote:
> Hello.
> I've been modifying the standard MediaWiki software for my own site, but have
> not been able to figure out how to modify it so that non-logged-in users can
> pick a language. Ideally, I would like to change the language selection form
> so that it sets a new global variable of my own, which can then be used both
> for determining the regular language display and also for routing users to the
> correct article in the selected language.
> Any ideas?

It might not be what you want, but you might try an idea I've had: use
Accept-Language (sent by browser with each request) to choose the
interface language for a not-logged-in user. See
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-February/027455.html
for more info and a simple experimental patch.

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] happy birthday :-)

body:
Hi,

            ~                  ~
      *                   *                *       *
                   *               *
   ~       *                *         ~    *
               *       ~        *              *   ~
                   )         (         )              *
     *    ~     ) (_)   (   (_)   )   (_) (  *
            *  (_) # ) (_) ) # ( (_) ( # (_)       *
               _#.-#(_)-#-(_)#(_)-#-(_)#-.#_
   *         .' #  # #  #  # # #  #  # #  # `.   ~     *
            :   #    #  #  #   #  #  #    #   :
     ~      :.       #     #   #     #       .:      *
         *  | `-.__                     __.-' | *
            |      `````"""""""""""`````      |         *
      *     |         | ||\ |~)|~)\ /         |
            |         |~||~\|~ |~  |          |       ~
    ~   *   |                                 | *
            |      |~)||~)~|~| ||~\|\ \ /     |         *
    *    _.-|      |~)||~\ | |~|| /|~\ |      |-._
       .'   '.      ~            ~           .'   `.  *
   jgs :      `-.__                     __.-'      :
        `.         `````"""""""""""`````         .'
          `-.._                             _..-'
               `````""""-----------""""`````

Wishing a happy birthday to the Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, German,
Esperanto, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian,
Spanish, and Swedish Wikipedia which celebrate their fourth anniversary
today ;-)

greetings,
elian


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Ticket#: 122761] WIKI_META_WOLRDWIDE_STRUCTURE
	of articles

body:
On 20/05/05, closedshop <closedshop at gmx.de> wrote:
> So if in WMWS fo this keyword a "=" headline is created, this headline
> is shown as well in all language-wikis and, in the board to edit WMWS,
> there are then all headline translated
>
> E.g.
> 1. Introduction
> French: entree
> german: Einf?hung
>
> Then the Headline of level 1 (=) cannot be edited in the language wiki,
> only in the meta wiki

If I understand you correctly, you are proposing that a standard set
of headings be made mandatory for all articles. My instant reaction is
that this is extremely un-wiki, but I'll go further and justify why it
is a Bad Idea.

Firstly, not all articles are the same - some will not be long enough
to require an "introduction", some subjects may naturally suggest a
structure where nothing ends up in a catch-all "introduction", and so
on. The beauty of the wiki is of course that everything is editable,
and making certain parts of the structure ineditable would just lead
to awkward articles which had been "force-fitted" into that structure.

For something like "Wiktionary", there is more scope for enforcing
structure, because all the articles *will* fall into the same pattern
(although having looked at the introduction to the Oxford English
Dictionary recently I realise how many allowances a standard structure
needs to have to deal thoroughly with an entire language).

Secondly, it's not clear how this would work for anything other than
the "Introduction" example you give. "See also", "External links", and
"References" sections seem like good candidates for standardisation,
but because they come at the end, and each may or may not be there,
how could the software tell them from non-standardised headers, which
will always be specific to the article - unless conventions are
changed radically to have all headings inside the content at a lower
level than "Introduction", "See also", etc (under a "Content" heading
or somesuch). And even then, how do you determine whether to say
"External link" or "External links"; and when not all are present,
which non-editable headings are shown?

On a final, more trivial, point, it should be noted that "=
First-level headings =" are by convention never used, since this is
the same level as the article title; the highest level used for normal
headings is "== The next level down ==".

My apologies if I've misunderstood your original intention, and even
if not, feel free to disagree with my reasoning.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images
	to	be deleted

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> [...]

> If you can manage to take equivalent photos of all these locations in
> one afternoon, I'll be seriously impressed.

This suggests an interesting contest for wikipedian photographers;
who can illustrate the most previously-unillustrated articles,
using only new photographs taken on a designated day? The articles
should already exist at the time of the contest's announcement -
no fair creating road intersection articles for the purpose! :-)
Optionally, there should be no existing useful pictures on commons
or in any language's article (though that's hard to check).

Stan


body:
Yea, it doesn't work in classic currenty.
I've been using monobook.

(I'm willy on wheels on the test pedia ;) )

On 5/20/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050521 05:55]:
> > On 5/19/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
> > > I fixed it (hopefully) and asked Brion to turn it on again.
>
> > nitpick: When you click the validate tab the page that comes up shows
> > under the article tab, it should stay under the validate tab.
>
>
> Ah. Is the interface only present in Monobook? I've been using Classic.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Live and Let live?  Oh, really?

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

Robert wrote:
> Ed writes:
>
>>This whole thing smacks of an "anti-religious agenda",
>>rather than any sincere effort towards neutrality.
>>When we couldn't agree on British vs. American spelling,
>>we chose this solution:...
>>
>>...Ever hear of live and let live? Sheesh!
>
>
> I am rather disturbed by the rather paranoid claims filling
> this list that people are anti-Christian, and persectuing
> Christians, and discriminating against Christians, etc.
> These angry accusations are false, hurtful, and simply
> disingenuous.  I can't believe that anyone seriously
> believes that following NPOV and referring to dates in a
> neutral way is meant as an evil plot against that poor and
> few in number minority, the Christians....
>

At present, there is *no* neutral way to represent dates. Let's just
call a spade a spade and not try to make something sound like something
it's not.

> It seems to me, rather, that some people are just venting
> anger, as they refuse to let others "live and let live".
> Frankly, for the majority of people on this planet who do
> not worship Jesus as their God, messiah and saviour, it
> makes no sense to force them to use religious Christian
> terminology.  It is those who ask for a "live and let live
> policy" who are being attacked, not the Christians.
>

If you feel you are being forced to use Christian terminology, why use
the Christian date system at all? CE is still based (albeit incorrectly)
on the birthdate of one Jesus of Nazareth.

> I already have put up with enough abuse today, as several
> of my fellow faculty and staff came - as well as many
> students - in with T-shirts advertising "Jesus Day" at a
> public school.  It had a motto that said that only through
> Jesus will anyone find God, and that all others are doomed
> to be without God (i.e. damned to Hell.)  Apparently being
> in the vast majority is not enough for some right-wing
> Evangelical Protestant Christians.  They have to push their
> threats of damnation via religious proselytizing in public
> arenas?!
>

e-van-gel-i-cal
adj., of the Gospel
noun, one who is committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the only
gospel of salvation; by grace, through faith, under the authority of the
Bible, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to the Glory of God.

You live in the US? You have heard of Freedom of Religion?

> I'm one step away from filing a complaint, as this clearly
> constitues a hostile workplace environment.  And what's
> next?  Jihad T-shirts from Islamists demanding that all
> Americans accept Allah and the Quran?  Atheist t-shirts
> from Communists demanding that all Americans accept Marx
> and Engels?  That behaviour is just great...if you hate
> your neighbor and want to start a religious war.
>

You live in the US? You have heard of Freedom of Speech?

We live in a society that has seen the marginalisation, desecration and
humilitation of Jesus Christ. We live in a society where Jesus Christ is
used as a curse, part of gutter language. Think about how you are
offending others, before you jump up and down saying that they are
offending you.

> Let's stop pretending we have NPOV and that we tolerate our
> fellow man, and let's start acting that way in practice.
>

Wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. There is a difference between tolerance
and acceptance.

Tolerance, from the Latin /tolerare/ 'endure'. When you put up with
something.

Most people use tolerance when they really mean acceptance. Just because
someone tolerates something  - and people should tolerate their fellow
man and woman - doesn't mean they have to accept it.

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:

>(To correct myself...)
>
>I think that there is no need to avoid GNU FDL terms. Just put
>gzipped/bzip2ed history inside of package and in all of articles
>put reference (that contribution history can be found in that file).
>
>
Hoi,
Apparantly you do not understand that there are several issues that make
the GNU-FDL not practical.

*Wiktionary data cannot be imported properly into Ultimate Wiktionary.
UW has no room for gzipped or bzipped history. It is a server side
database and nobody is going to see the information in this way.
*Ultimate Wiktionary  will import data from many Wiktionaries, the first
one could be the nl:wiktionary. Many articles have been copied to and
from the it:wiktionary. Suppose an article is shared, it arrived first
from the nl:wikipedia so that one rules.. right ? Now what history
should we have with the article ?? From a GNU-FDL point of view it is
unforseen, crazy.
*When we keep all these histories, who can say it is "my" work? I
contributed to it ??
*When we export content to the .dict or RFC 2229 format, this is a
subset of the data that we have on a word, a concept. We have the UW
history and all these Wiktionary histories. Histories for each word.
Histories for possibly a file with a few fields like: "Word"
"Description" "Translation" "Original source". The amount of bagage that
we should carry according to the GNU-FDL is unforseen and crazy. It just
does not make sense. It is also data that has no stucture. Who will ever
look at it ??

My conclusion is that the current GNU-FDL does not funtion for atomic
information like we will have in Ultimate Wiktionary. When it prevents
the implementation of new use for the data that we have, it becomes a
hindrance. The goal of the Wikimedia Foundation is to make Free
information available. When a license like the GNU-FDL only allows for
server side information that has a static structure, I am sure that even
Richard Stallman will find the arguments to ammend the GNU-FDL compelling.

One crucial thing in all this is that Free information should stay Free
and be accessible. The current Wiktionary data is as closed as any
proprietary datacollection. This is because of its lack of structure. It
cannot be used for anything but server side information. Ultimate
Wiktionary intends to combine the strength of the information that we
have in all our wiktionaries, it will be structured. It does allow
accessibility and new innovative uses. By being Free, accessible and
innovative, we will gain a much wider public, these will not only be
users of our data but also providers of data. This is what we aim for.

In the current nl:wiktionary we have people and organisations like
FrankC and www.ziekenhuis.nl who contributed big time to the content of
Wiktionary. We do need to recognise their contributions. They donated
important body of works but we also have people like MARCEL and S.V.E.T
who added content on a regular basis, it is important that we recognise
their hard work and their contributions. They make and made it the
success it is. So if anything, we should find a way to honour the
members of our Wiktionary community as we move forward to an Ultimate
Wiktionary.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron:
> Hello,
>
> changing the license of a running project is difficult, but not that
> much. Just think that it will take some time but it will avoid all  the
> present problems we have on WP.

I agree. I would, however, caution against moving too quickly. First, as
Jean-Baptiste says, it may be desirable to have a license which is under
our own control to develop (put it on a wiki ;-). Second, the license
which is the most suitable for wikis, CC-WIKI
	http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5
is currently still a draft.

One key advantage of CC-WIKI over CC-BY-SA is that it does not require
attribution to any particular person, but to the wiki community (a
designated entity). I'm not sure how compatible this is with EU moral
rights law, though. CC-BY-SA/CC-BY, on the other hand, require
attribution to the "original author" only. This, too, might be a problem
with moral rights, and it's certainly not very wiki-like to just
attribute the first person making an edit.

I believe that Jimmy is in talks with the Creative Commons people about
CC-WIKI. There have also been some attempts to make CC-BY-SA and GFDL
compatible to one another. The latter would be desirable for Wikipedia.

For our other projects, I think the most reasonable course of action is
to try to find some agreement between Creative Commons and Wikimedia
that lets us steer the development of CC-WIKI, but CC would provide the
legal review to bring it in line with national laws. The license would
still be a Creative Commons license.

After we have a suitable license, we can make an effort to get agreement
from the signed in Wiktionary contributors to dual-license their content.

All best,

Erik


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 5/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Alfio Puglisi schrieb:
> > is there a way to see who validated a certain article? Or which articles
> > a user validated?
>
> I have not made such a display for privacy reasons. Public voting is
> more a Chinese thing ;-)

Ah. I'd feared this response. We don't have public voting in
meat-space for as much for reasons of vote buying than for reasons of
privacy and intimidation.

In a world where we can't directly prevent socket puppets, and were
intimidation is not likely to have substantial consiquences, I'm not
sure the same rules apply.

I'd also like to have just a tad bit more information on our
anonymized contributor..
For each hashed contributor I'd like to know:  roughly how many edits
to the main namespace (we can quantize this into bins that will
promise a large anonymity set for example 0-100, 100-500,500-1500,
1500-5000, 5000+, would probably hide a user within a set of many many
wikpedias), and potentially a flag that indicates roughly how long the
user has been an editor. I'd also want to know how many votes they've
cast in total, but thats easy enough to get by walking the dataset. I
believe we can provide this data without breaking anonymity.

Although I question the goal of anonymity here. :)

> It would be no problem, though, to generate such pages. Maybe anonymized
> would be good (to see the indidual comments).

Perhaps store each vote with an identifyer which is a sha1(username +
wikipedia_secret_cookie). This way we could do proper statistics on
the results.

This is pretty important, if I'm trying to decide which articles are
important to put on a DVD,  the votes of someone who goes around
voting 'NO' (or always 'YES') on every article mean absolutly nothing
to me (since I can't include them all or exclude them all :) ) and
will randomly skew my decision making (based on which subset of the
always-no or always-yes crowd has found which subsubset of my
articles).

> > is there a way to see who created a certain validation topic?
>
> No. My idea was to have consensus first on what topics to create. The
> execution of that decision is supposed to be a boring thing :-)

Thats fair.

It would also be useful to have a 'my votes' feature in watchlist to
users would know when it's time to go update their votes on articles.
I like how we display the users previous vote when they go to vote on
a new revision... it would be handy to have a 'diff from lasttime I
voted' button.


body:
Gregory:

> Ugh. Without a clear grant we have no right to use the images

The grant is clear. In fact, the grant is more clear than the grant to
license your Wikipedia contributions as GFDL. It's an agreement on the
upload form where the copyright holder has to make a conscious decision
to put no usage restrictions on their photo. Wikipedia, on the other
hand, merely states that by editing, you implicitly license your
contributions under GFDL -- a less clear grant, but I'm sure you will
agree that it is sufficient.

If Wikipedia put, in its terms of service, a clause that none of its
content may be used commercially without written permission from the
Wikimedia Foundation, that clause would be meaningless. The Wikimedia
Foundation is not the copyright holder; the individual contributors are,
and they indicate their choice of license by editing. It would be even
more silly for Wikimedia to do so if the pages themselves state that the
content is GFDL. This is effectively what Stock.Xchng is doing.

Erik


body:
I'm not convinced relicensing existing project would be at all easy,
and I think there are more fundamental issues than what the ideal
license would be. I see 4 options:

1) work out a way of distributing the content in different ways but
still adhering precisely to the GFDL. For instance, am I right in
thinking that the GFDL doesn't actually require the *history*, only a
list of *authors*? If so, the list required becomes slightly less
unwieldy, as it is simply a long list of names (and/or pseudonyms);
there's not even any need to worry about who contributed to which
parts, or which imported version takes "precedence" - just shove all
the names in one big list and say "these are the authors".

2) find a way of interpretting the GFDL that allows us to relax some
of the contraints - in other words, a loop-hole in the copyleft
provision, which says that any derived work has to have all the same
constraints as the GFDL has. In this category comes an appropriately
compatible new version of the license, or some cunningly
compatible-but-different license developed by the Creative Commons.
This might allow the way the atrribution etc are presented to be
different, but it is unlikely to change what information has to be
included (i.e. I don't see that you could ever legally re-distribute a
GFDL text with no author information at all)

3) stick to the *spirit* of the GFDL, but don't enforce it fully and
hope no contributor does either; this is more-or-less what Wikipedia's
been doing for years, letting people run mirrors, copy information,
etc, with minimal attribution in the form of linking back to the
orginal version. Similarly, "transwiki-ing" content between projects
pays lip-service to giving attribution, but almost certainly doesn't
comply with the full license. Legally dodgy, but morally excusable if
done right.

4) convince everybody who has ever contributed to the projects in
question to re-license/dual license their contributions. Or, come up
with some way of only importing content that has never been touched by
someone who hasn't licensed their work in this way (you could include
a version of a page from *before* a non-dual-licenser editted, but
every version after they have done so would be a "derivative work" of
their version); how much information can be salvaged in such an
operation depends on how reachable contributors - particularly those
who made the *earliest* edits to content - are, and how successful the
campaign to get their agreement.

Of course, I may be completely wrong...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
On 5/20/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> That directly contradicts the terms they uploaded them under, which
> allow for commercial use. To say we have to contact every individual SXC
> user is like saying we have to contact people uploading their work as
> CC-BY-SA and make sure that they really "meant it." I disagree with that
> notion. If people explicitly upload images with "no usage restrictions",
> then that's what I think we should refer to, unless these people then
> contact us and complain about the usage.

As you pointed out, nothing on that site is clear and reliable enough
to be binding.
The users aren't given an option that represents cc-by-sa-nc.
Sometimes they make statements like that on their user pages, I'd say
I have evidence that shows we tend to ignore such things, but I can't
tell what was on the userpage when we took the image. :)

If someone were to give us legal advice that they'd stand by, I highly
doubt it would be anything except "don't touch those images with a 10
foot pole".

The vast majority of the images we have taken from stock exchange are
mediocre images of everyday objects that almost any wikipedia with a
camera could reproduce with little effort.  Of the images I've looked
at so far I could replace the majority with simllar images before
sundown.  It's silly to add risk and complexity for a bunch of images
we could easily replace (door knobs, gumballs, etc). It shows a lack
of forsight for us to make our collection less useful by clouding the
waters by mixing in potentially questionable copyright status
material.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k

body:
>From: "David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders at btinternet.com>
>Unless we're living in a world of 56K internet still, I think 32K could
>become at least 50K. Even articles on albums by Eminem and so forth are
>getting above 32K - Giving that limit is slowly even limiting the growth of
>good articles. If an article grows above that it should be allowed to grow,
>unless it is obviously repeating itself.

As far as I know the issue was never with download speeds, and currently
most of the concerns are stylistic, rather than technical.

Jay.


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki selected forTrophées du Libre

body:
MediaWiki's been nominated for the Troph?es du Libre competition in the
PHP Special Prize category.

Of the submitted projects, the jury has selected three: Mambo (a CMS),
MediaWiki (that's us!) and OBM (a CRM/groupware thingy).

For background on the prize: http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/

Winners get "an encouragement for the creators, and a quality seal for
the users. Additionally, the event sponsors and partners will hand over
other prices." Sweet!

The awards ceremony will be held in Soissons, France on May 26. Can
someone attend representing the project?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re:
	[Wikipedia-l]Schoolsonen:(wasDoImisunderstandWikipedia

body:
Alphax said:
>
> I'll take a wild guess and say Dozenist votes delete, No Account (evil,
> evil! username) votes keep.
>
> Please advise what the actual answer is.

You can check for yourself.  I think my point is clear--some quite serious
allegations have been made but when investigated prove to be at the very
least somewhat exaggerated.  It seems that a concerted push to deleted
school articles by robotically listing more than 50 of them over a
three-day period has had the effect of causing previously uncommitted
people, on both sides of the issue, to respond in a manner that looks,
from the outside at least, to be just as robotic and unthinking as the
deletion listings appeared to have been.


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] A license for the Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
>
> I agree. I would, however, caution against moving too quickly.
> First, as Jean-Baptiste says, it may be desirable to have a license
> which is under our own control to develop (put it on a wiki ;-).
> Second, the license which is the most suitable for wikis, CC-WIKI
>     http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5
> is currently still a draft.
>
> One key advantage of CC-WIKI over CC-BY-SA is that it does not
> require attribution to any particular person, but to the wiki
> community (a designated entity). I'm not sure how compatible this
> is with EU moral rights law, though.

Well it is not compatible with moral rights... and it is not
compatible with patrimonial rights...

> CC-BY-SA/CC-BY, on the other hand, require attribution to the
> "original author" only. This, too, might be a problem with moral
> rights, and it's certainly not very wiki-like to just attribute the
> first person making an edit.

... It depends...

> I believe that Jimmy is in talks with the Creative Commons people
> about CC-WIKI. There have also been some attempts to make CC-BY-SA
> and GFDL compatible to one another. The latter would be desirable
> for Wikipedia

As being one of the translator of CC for France, I would be happy to
be put in touch... Jimmy ?


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Notes from the last Board meeting

body:
Angela wrote:

>Jimmy will talk to Daniel Mayer about access to the Foundation's bank account.
>
>
Speaking of financial matters generally, I believe there was some
preliminary discussion about the next fundraising cycle recently. While
it might not yet be time to kick that into gear, there is still the
matter of having direct credit-card payment processing set up. As of the
last fundraiser, I understood that was going to happen in relatively
short order, but so far I see no sign of it as a donation option. Could
we get an update on that?

--Michael Snow


body:
Gregory Maxwell:

> The stock.xchng site rules (which presumably the uploader and
> downloader have both read) states that "1. Selling and redistribution
> of these photos (individually, or as a whole) without written
> permission is prohibited. Using the photos in
> website templates, on postcards, mugs etc. doesn't count as selling or
> redistribution, however you are not allowed to build a gallery using
> the photos you downloaded from here." so when a user indicates that
> there "are no usage restrictions"  it would appear quite clear that
> they are speaking in terms of condition 1 on the website.

No, this is not clear at all. In fact, the upload form contains no link
to the terms of service; it links to
http://www.sxc.hu/info.phtml?f=license
which says nothing at all about any further restrictions. When I upload
a file, I get a dropdown:

	usage rights [no restrictions           ]
                       contact me
                       contact me and credit me
                       written permission needed

This is the only grant that takes place. For the purposes of Wikimedia,
we have always considered {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} to allow for distribution.

> Even if you disagree that usage and redistribution are distinct, the
> terms on the stock.xchng website make it quite clear that the
> licensesor of the works considers them distinct for the purpose of
> establishing your rights to redistribute his works.

Not at all. For example, the TOS also state

	"You are not allowed to use these images to promote adult
          oriented and dating services."

This is clearly a restriction on *use*, even if the uploader specifies
no usage restrictions. The TOS contradict the copyright holder's own
explicit assignment. They are irrelevant. (It is also quite likely that
they were written before sxc.hu had a usage rights dropdown, as this was
only added in version 4 of their software.)

> Wikipedia has grown past the point where we need to rely on grey
> legality images,

I do not consider this grey at all, and nor does the vast majority of
the Wikimedia Commons community, including Villy, who is a judge and
also provides legal advice to Wikimedia. However, if an sxc.hu uploader
feels that one of their images is improperly used, then we will of
course take that into account.

Erik


from_name: Ben Brockert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pages with links in the spam blacklist

body:
Is it possible to run a report that finds all articles that have
links in them that are included in the spam blacklist? I edited
[[en:Roulette]] today to remove a spam URL but it would not let me
save the page until I found the second spam URL, buried in a table.

Ben


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Obsolete 32K limit

body:
> From: "Andries Krugers Dagneaux" <andrieskd at chello.nl>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Article size consistency 32k
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <000d01c55d72$fd9df690$3206a33e at oemcomputer>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> I notice that lately articles on the Featured article Candidates are
> often longer, sometimes almost twice, than the recommended size of 32k
> and nobody complains anymore about it.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_size for a full
discussion.

It begins:

"Limits on article size are set by a) technical issues, and b)
considerations of readability and organization.

In the past, technical considerations with some now-seldom-used
browsers prompted a firm recommendation that articles be limited to a
maximum size of precisely 32KB. With the advent of section editing, and
the availability of upgrades for the affected browsers, this no longer
applies. Thus, there is presently no firm policy dictating any precise
limit on article length."

There is no law, so there is nothing to enforce. Article size is a
matter of style, taste, and judgement and must be negotiated by
consensus on each individual article.

If you think an article is too long, try to convince your colleagues
(for example, by reminding them of how long it takes you to download
the article, if that is an issue for you).

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
Incidentally, article size is one area in which "Wikipedia is not
paper" serves us poorly. In the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, the article on the Bible is approximately one megabyte in
size. That decision was presumably made on the basis of style,
organization, and readability. You can riffle through twenty pages a
second or more and still glimpse running heads. And the articles in the
old Britannica are so well-written that you can sit down with them and
read them from beginning to end.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


body:
Hi thanks for the reply,
yes you understood me right,
ok, for the structure, then we need
2 x = as first level
3 x = as second level
4 x = as third level, if the level with one = is not used.

So I speak of making a META Board, [not for all articles, for all
languages of one klexword, (i think you meant this as well)]
to set up a structure for the first level headline, which then should
show up in all translation of this article.
Teh metaboard should as well offer to write the first headline in all
language translations.
If a user is not fillint that box, the english headline is used.

So this would be the rquest, yes.
Why is htis needed:
There are other examples, which show the need: if you search for a
certain illnes, then somtime you find the structure like this
- Name of illnes
- History
- Diagnostics
- Therapy
- Pills
- Natural substances
- Litrature
-Weblinks

and sometimes the structure is quite mixed up.

Ok this is a reason for order.
Every one can come to the metaboard and cange the first level structure
- in discussion worldwide !
and: there is another reason:
- the users have filled in text now, but there is now a phase, where you
detect social ideology and social blockings for changes in wiki. So the
standard has to be set worldwide. So why not learning from the structure
in another language.
This is an initiative to rise up the quality of wikie worldwide,
So, if there is a level auto-printed called "Weblinks" , users will fill
this gap in every language.
But if there is an article without an "literature", users will not look
up amazon to find the most bought book or the topseller.
Only if there is a gap made by a worldwide firstlevel structure, we have
gaps to fill.

IMHO we need a worldwide structure discussion board for each keyword in
wikipeda.
The first level of the structure then should be "printed" into each
language. even - or just this reason, if a gap is produced.
The gaps will be filled by wikiusers.

Globalisation needs the same structure for e.g. "pregnancy" in china as
well as in usa or europa.

Anyone can edit anything, ok, multilanguage-able users (not me ;-) )
are mostly invidted to the meta-boards.
But isn?t it alwasy so, that people with a look over the boarder are
those, who bring new definitions and additions to the keyword-view of
the special-language-country?

So editing the language-keywords needs an elite to havea computer,
editing the metaboard-keyword needs an elite of mutlilanguage user, but
this all is given and only for the first level.

Everyone can write an introduction in any paragpaph. there is no
introduction headline needed.
But if one keyword in china has an introduction, the other
language-keyword-articles shoudl do as well (after a consens on the
metaboard).

So.... this is just organizing a benchmarking process or "to compare".

Even same contect articels ("illness descriptions") have in ONE language
different structures, and IMHO this structure comparison is needed
worldwide.

Ok, from my point everything is said, just think or diskuss it, i have
not rechnical equipment to make this.
So it is your decision and from here only a request, because I believe
it makes sense.

thanks

Rowan Collins wrote:

>On 20/05/05, closedshop <closedshop at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>
>>So if in WMWS fo this keyword a "=" headline is created, this headline
>>is shown as well in all language-wikis and, in the board to edit WMWS,
>>there are then all headline translated
>>
>>E.g.
>>1. Introduction
>>French: entree
>>german: Einf?hung
>>
>>Then the Headline of level 1 (=) cannot be edited in the language wiki,
>>only in the meta wiki
>>
>If I understand you correctly, you are proposing that a standard set
>of headings be made mandatory for all articles. My instant reaction is
>that this is extremely un-wiki, but I'll go further and justify why it
>is a Bad Idea.
>
>Firstly, not all articles are the same - some will not be long enough
>to require an "introduction", some subjects may naturally suggest a
>structure where nothing ends up in a catch-all "introduction", and so
>on. The beauty of the wiki is of course that everything is editable,
>and making certain parts of the structure ineditable would just lead
>to awkward articles which had been "force-fitted" into that structure.
>
>For something like "Wiktionary", there is more scope for enforcing
>structure, because all the articles *will* fall into the same pattern
>(although having looked at the introduction to the Oxford English
>Dictionary recently I realise how many allowances a standard structure
>needs to have to deal thoroughly with an entire language).
>
>Secondly, it's not clear how this would work for anything other than
>the "Introduction" example you give. "See also", "External links", and
>"References" sections seem like good candidates for standardisation,
>but because they come at the end, and each may or may not be there,
>how could the software tell them from non-standardised headers, which
>will always be specific to the article - unless conventions are
>changed radically to have all headings inside the content at a lower
>level than "Introduction", "See also", etc (under a "Content" heading
>or somesuch). And even then, how do you determine whether to say
>"External link" or "External links"; and when not all are present,
>which non-editable headings are shown?
>
>On a final, more trivial, point, it should be noted that "=
>First-level headings =" are by convention never used, since this is
>the same level as the article title; the highest level used for normal
>headings is "== The next level down ==".
>
>
>My apologies if I've misunderstood your original intention, and even
>if not, feel free to disagree with my reasoning.
>
>
>


body:
Gregory Maxwell:
> When you sign up an account it presents you with a little box with the
> terms as well.

As http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stock.xchng_images/vote
explains, the TOS distinguish between terms for *uploaders* and terms
for *downloaders*. The terms for uploaders do not require them to
delegate any rights to SXC, nor do they place any additional
restrictions on the photos. SXC has no legal standing to dictate terms
for downloaders beyond those the copyright holders agree to (by
specifying the usage restrictions and following the terms for uploaders).

> The terms on the site refer to the specific terms set per image by the
> holder over and over again.

This is exactly what we are referring to as well.

> I notice that you didn't reply to my comment on contacting the
> copyright holder..

There's nothing wrong with it. We simply don't require it.

Erik


from_name: Anthere

body:
Actually, I *feel* there is a deletion spree going on on meta, which I
find most inappropriate. It seems slowly, the goal of meta, what is
acceptable over there is changing and I am not sure at all I like these
changes.

Recently for example, someone listed one of my articles, which had been
there for more than 2 years, listed under humour and essay. I had to
move it as a subpage of mine to avoid it being deleted. The reason given
to delete it was "rant and non encyclopedic"

Since WHEN do we have to write only encyclopedic and reasonably boring
stuff on meta ?

It is not really surprising me that a birth project got deleted or
threatened of deletion as well.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of crap still there, and people are delighted
  listing themselves under "wikipedians who went to tagadaschtroumpf
college and wear 56 size pink shoes with a yellow hat".

What escape me is "what harm does humour and essays on meta when the
essays are not insulting anyone ?"

What escape me is "why are some people trying to make meta a really
clean and boring place" while it is supposed to be first of all a place
for all of us to work together and possibly relax a bit from the stress
of the projects ?

What escape me is "why trying to keep the place absolutely clean when it
is only a personal site ?"

I would like to recall something I read on meatball a long time ago.

A wiki is a public place, and as all public places, editors are required
to follow strict rules. Such as in wikipedia, writing only stuff that is
encyclopedic and neutral. This causes stress.

It is very important to reserve personal place to editors so that they
can let themselves go beyond the rules of the public places. Such as
being biaised or putting some political rant.

Meta is such a place, where we can also share some funny and
constructive moments; this also builds the community. And when editors
feel confortable, they also join the fun and put new important proposal.

It does mean that meta should host full projects of course, but it is
WITHIN meta role to host projects which some poeple are trying to set up.

Such projects should not "survive" deletion. They should NOT be on votes
for deletion.

Ihmo.

Or... let's create another meta to really brainstorm on.

Ant

David Gerard a ?crit:
> Angela (beesley at gmail.com) [050520 12:08]:
>
>
>>Something's gone very wrong when playing chess on the wiki
>>(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chess_championship>) is
>>acceptable but creating a demo Wikipedia in a new language is not.
>>If this does not survive VfD, and you want a temporary small wiki,
>>you're welcome at <http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/>. For a longer
>>term Wikicity, you need consensus within Wikipedia that this language
>>can *not* exist within Wikimedia.
>
>
>
> Is there any actual deletion policy beyond "I feel like it"? Particularly,
> as seems to have happened here, when the nominator removes the page
> preremptorily themselves. As I understood it, from posts to this list,
> starting a new language in a test area in Meta: was something they were
> actually *supposed* to do.
>
> What on earth is going on here? Beyond "if it survives VFD".
>
>
> - d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: happy birthday :-)

body:
nice drawing :-)

thanks

ant

Elisabeth Bauer a ?crit:
> Hi,
>
>            ~                  ~
>      *                   *                *       *
>                   *               *
>   ~       *                *         ~    *
>               *       ~        *              *   ~
>                   )         (         )              *
>     *    ~     ) (_)   (   (_)   )   (_) (  *
>            *  (_) # ) (_) ) # ( (_) ( # (_)       *
>               _#.-#(_)-#-(_)#(_)-#-(_)#-.#_
>   *         .' #  # #  #  # # #  #  # #  # `.   ~     *
>            :   #    #  #  #   #  #  #    #   :
>     ~      :.       #     #   #     #       .:      *
>         *  | `-.__                     __.-' | *
>            |      `````"""""""""""`````      |         *
>      *     |         | ||\ |~)|~)\ /         |
>            |         |~||~\|~ |~  |          |       ~
>    ~   *   |                                 | *
>            |      |~)||~)~|~| ||~\|\ \ /     |         *
>    *    _.-|      |~)||~\ | |~|| /|~\ |      |-._
>       .'   '.      ~            ~           .'   `.  *
>   jgs :      `-.__                     __.-'      :
>        `.         `````"""""""""""`````         .'
>          `-.._                             _..-'
>               `````""""-----------""""`````
>
> Wishing a happy birthday to the Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, German,
> Esperanto, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian,
> Spanish, and Swedish Wikipedia which celebrate their fourth anniversary
> today ;-)
>
> greetings,
> elian


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: license evolution

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Also it would be very important for wikipedia to provide its own
> license and to allow it to evolve. As a policy matter, I don't
> believe it's really safe to leave your legal needs within the hands
> of others like we did with the GNU/FDL (and it would be the same
> problem with CC).

I'm not sure that a wholly new license, especially one unique to
Wikipedia, is such a good idea. In the software world, there are already
many complaints about the existence of too many "open source" licenses.
The problem may not be quite as great outside of software, but even
sorting through just the options available from Creative Commons can be
a little challenging, and they heard some concerns about license
proliferation when announcing their new CC-Wiki license (Lessig says
it's different "brand" rather than a different license).

I think it would be better for us to focus on figuring out how to revise
the GFDL, including working up draft proposals ourselves as appropriate.
While it's occasionally suggested that there are ongoing talks with FSF
and/or CC, perhaps we sometimes expect there's more going on than there
really is. Jimbo would hardly have the time to be focusing on these
issues constantly, and it's not his field of expertise (the same is true
of Richard Stallman, for that matter). Actually generating ideas for
them to consider might yield more results.

However, I think branching out completely on our own would require too
great an investment of resources. Achieving absolute independence is an
appealing sentiment, but the FSF and CC have experience and
understanding in this area that would be valuable for us to draw upon.
Working with other organizations on these issues also contributes to
being a responsible member of the larger free-software/content community.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: license evolution