from_name: Berto

body:
Hi

> I think the problem is that on WP, people try to enforce the letter of
> the law when it suits them, and when it doesn't, they try to enforce
> based on its intent.

LOLOL Only on WP?? Really??? :)))))))

> There is obviously a simple way to solve this, but most users actually
> secretly hate NPOV -- they like the fact that there are loopholes that
> allow them to somehow get their opinions and viewpoints into
> Wikipedia.

Simply, there is no such person as an NPOV writer. Everyone writes from
his/her own POV, because that's the way people think and experience
knowledge. EVERY book edition reflects the POV of the publisher, and the
publisher mirrors his age and society's POV. Books are made to be sold,
wikipedias need readers and users, so we ALL are market-driven (no matter
how little we may like it). A wiki is a complex society, which is
elaborating its own POV, if one is to be honest about it.

I believe the whole NPOV matter not to carry any scientific meaning at all
(at least, from a psychologically oriented POV). What is called NPOV should
more properly be labelled as "generally acceptable for the time being"
(GA4TB). The larger the amount of people judging a subject, the closest we
get to an exact picture of what is GA4TB. Obviously, the closer you get to
exact sciences, such as math, the less you are in trouble. 2+2 IS 4. But you
only need to write a section in any human science related field and the
fireworks immediately start. WHO is going to decide what is a NPOV writing
style in recent history? Pretty often, it only takes to slightly change an
adjective to move a guy from the realm of dictators to the House of the
Holies. Besides, different languages have different implied structures of
moral judgement. Sometimes moving a comma will do the trick.

So yes, policies are needed, and they must be clear. Besides, it takes a
VERY simple procedure to call for a public judgment, which must be
"temporarily final", say, some years. It would also help to elect some
external "references for truth", like the Britannica, to name one. This does
NOT mean that the Britannica is NPOV. It is simply GA4TB in the eyes of the
western academic establishment.

And yet... a WP is much wider in scope than a Britannica. Besides, the
Britannica is strictly POVed towards the EU and USA, which may not be
acceptable to a huge number of eastern editions. What if in the hindi
edition indian history was supposed to be given a "dued weight" according to
an european book? The cat bit its own tail... :(

Still, the number of WP editions is constantly growing, therefore some
co-ordination on this subject is absolutely needed. There is no such thing
as a perfect policy, but a faulty shared policy is still to be preferred to
a carnival of local standards. Isn't this the prime reason for the existence
of a META? Besides... it's an interesting event in itself. Just think about
it. It will be the first time EVER, that a standard for truth is
collectively defined by a planet-wide audience. Mind you, on a second
thought it also sounds pretty scary, I have to admit it. I suppose the vote
should include an option for leaving local truth standards untouched.

> Ask any Wikipedian if they've ever knowingly tried somehow or other to
> get a POV in Wikipedia. If they say no, they're lying or they haven't
> been around very long.

And if they say they succeeded in writing NPOV, they aren't humans at all
:))))) Hey... what was the NPOV policy for the klingon wiki? :)))))))))))

B?rto


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mak

subject: [WikiEN-l] Application of the {{pd-art}} tag

body:
<snip>

I am not a lawyer, but IIRC, Bridgeman v Corel only applies to
two-dimensional copies of two-dimensional works (though it may apply
to three-dimensional copies of three-dimensional works).  The basis of
it is that a "slavishly accurate" copy of a work involves no creative
effort, and so cannot establish a copyright separate from that of the
original.  Photographing a 3D work involves creative effort, in the
choice of lighting and camera angle.
<snip>

This has come up in an article I'm working on- does this ruling apply to
images from books or manuscripts? Are books three dimensional art works,
even if what you're reproducing is a single page from them? My father, a
librarian, seems to think the owning library continues to hold copyright for
all such images. I'm not so sure.

Makemi


body:
<snip>

>
> > This has come up in an article I'm working on- does this ruling apply to
> > images from books or manuscripts? Are books three dimensional art works,
> > even if what you're reproducing is a single page from them? My father, a
> > librarian, seems to think the owning library continues to hold copyright
> for
> > all such images. I'm not so sure.
>
> Photocopying a page of a book is a slavish copy... but you can make a
> good case that photography of any book as an archival process, or with
> the intent of producing high-quality images, is a sufficiently
> difficult process that it passes the minimum-creativity standard.
>
> I don't know what the caselaw is on it, but I would be wary of an
> overbroad reliance on Bridgeman.
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

<snip>

The specific image I'm thinking of is my own scan of a really crummy
black-and-white microfilm, not an art-book/good facsimile level
reproduction. I can see how in some cases such work would conceivably be
copyrightable, but not how any image made from a book which is itself out of
copyright would be copyrightable by the owning institution.

Makemi


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: Undue weight

body:
Hi!

> Leaving readers to form their own opinions is often done better by
> being *exclusive* than by being *inclusive* in many cases. Wikipedia
> should not be talking from both sides of the matter, but from neither
> side.

Easy to say so, when you talk chemistry... how are we supposed to present an
history of political thought? Many of these ideas are still alive and
present in the heads of the writers... And people having minority ideas
often are more active on the net (and therefore in WPs), than people having
a mainstream attitude. It's going to be them to make a vote about
inclusion/exclusion. Besides, there is NO objective criteria for undued
weight. Personally, I'd rather include more, then risk to find myself in the
position of those 19th century scientists who avoided speaking about
meteorites, because "obviously stones do not fly".

A wiki is a collection of knowledge, as far as ideas, techniques and
theories are concerned, space should be found for all of them. Then maybe
you get to build a category out of what was meant to be a single article.
But then, was it YOUR classification poor, or the article big?

B?rto


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Initial post-mortem notes for April 9, 2006 outage

body:
Mark Bergsma wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> We also need to make sure that:
>> * Squid error messages are easily configurable and can be updated with necessary
>> information.
>
> This is just a matter of overwriting files in /usr/share/squid/errors/
> on all squid servers. I think there's a script to do that somewhere, but
> of course it can be done manually when the Florida cluster is down.

When we last tried this, it didn't work. All of the servers continued to show
the old error messages, and no one was able to say why.

Are you sure the path is consistent on all machines, not being overwritten by
anything, etc?

>> * DNS can be easily updated when the Florida cluster is offline, eg so that we
>> could redirect hits from Florida to another cluster for an error page or
>> read-only mirror.
>
> This is easy as well. The entire PowerDNS configuration directory
> structure is present on all external DNS servers. Usually updating is
> done by rsyncing from zwinger, but there's no reason why it can't be
> done from any of the other servers if zwinger is unreachable.

Great!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] What happens when you try to harass admins

body:
On Apr 10, 2006, at 2:35 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Wikipedia:Admins_willing_to_make_difficult_blocks
>
> I'd add myself to that page (my home address and home and mobile
> numbers are findable), but I don't have time for the abuse cases of
> this sort I already get asked to investigate. How annoying!
>
> That said: we need hardarses, but our hardarses need to remember to
> block with *love*.

Why can't we just use Checkuser (if this is coming from a registered
user) to discover the ISP or employer of a harassing/abusive user
(wherever they're accessing WP from) and inform them of this sort of
abuse. Or, perhaps, get their identity so the harassed editor has
legal (or, dare I say, extra-legal) recourse.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

David Gerard stated for the record:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Admins_willing_to_make_difficult_blocks
>
> I'd add myself to that page (my home address and home and mobile
> numbers are findable), but I don't have time for the abuse cases of
> this sort I already get asked to investigate. How annoying!
>
> That said: we need hardarses, but our hardarses need to remember to
> block with *love*.
>
> - d.

Oh, don't worry, David.  We wouldn't be signing up if we didn't love to
block.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
 sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
                  | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
On Apr 10, 2006, at 2:53 PM, SPUI wrote:

> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>> Sarojini Naidu wrote:
>>
>>> Jimbo wrote:
>>>
>>>> Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the
>>>> fact that
>>>> we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
>>>> involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
>>>> herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious
>>>> questions
>>>> of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people
>>>> may of
>>>> course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to
>>>> censor.
>>>
>>> And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll'
>>> red herring
>>> in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
>>> editorial judgement.
>>>
>> You're trolling.
>
> You're trolling.

You're trolling.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
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Hash: SHA1

SPUI stated for the record:

> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>>Sarojini Naidu wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jimbo wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the fact that
>>>>we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
>>>>involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
>>>>herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions
>>>>of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people may of
>>>>course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to censor.
>>>
>>>And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll' red herring
>>>in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
>>>editorial judgement.
>>>
>>
>>You're trolling.
>
>
> You're trolling.

<sing style="tune: out-of;">
I'm a troll, he's a troll, she's a troll, we're a troll; wouldn't you
like to be a troll too?
</sing>

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
 sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
                  | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
Hi all,
  This has probably been debated millions of times before, but could
someone tell me the basic results of the debate, even if that's the
case?

Proposition: When you create a blank page, instead of having an empty
page, have a basic template like:

<!-- Lead, including '''article name''' in triple quotes. -->

<!-- Sources - please include at least one verifiable source under a
==Sources== heading -->

<!-- Stub template. If the article is less than two complete
paragraphs, please insert {{stub}} or something more specific (see the
stub page [[can't remember it]]) -->

<!-- Categories: Every article should belong to at least one non-stub
category. Add these like [[Category:Wikipedia articles]] -->

Etc. If nothing else, it would help us avoid forgetting some of these
basic things, and would help newbies not get bitten, create peace on
earth, free beer, etc...

I assume this is technically possible. So what's the social reason for
not doing it?

Steve


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

body:
while we're a topic, a couple of months ago I took pictures (on a
museum) of ancient mayan sculptures. Unfortunately I was on a hurry so
I couldn't go talk with staff.
Now, who owns the copyright? Those sculptures are like a thousand year
old, but pd-old doesn't apply (it will apply 100 years after I die in
case I actually hold the copyright of my pictures)

Can I upload such pictures to wikipedia? Can museum claim copyright on
the ancient sculptures? and if so, can it claim copyright on my
pictures?

On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The point is that when making a photograph or scan of a 2D work, one
> > > is attempting to accurately reproduce the original.  In other words,
> > > one is seeking to have NO difference between the original and one's
> > > copy; imperfections are flaws (acceptable or not).   All one's efforts
> > > are attempting to get rid of any 'creative' differences.
> >
> > Heh, you mean if there's a flaw, such as a scratch, in the
> > photocopying process, copyright could reside in the flaw? :)
>
> No; rather my point was that by attempting to minimise differences
> between your copy and the original, you were explicitly trying NOT to
> have creative additions.
>
> However, a copy that was artistic (distorted, etc. deliberately) might
> establish new copyright.
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Jay,
>
> [Context restored, for what little good it does]
>
>> On 4/7/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Exactly. Child porn images shouldn't be included for moral and
>>> legal reasons but ordinary sexual images (where they are relevant
>>> to the article of course) are perfectly fine. WP:NOT censored for
>>> minors.
>> That's ridiculous. Ten minutes of research, even, will clarify to
>> anyone who viewed the image that it is _not_  legally child
>> pornography, no matter how you interpret the PROTECT Act's
>> constitutionality. There's no legal reason to remove a completely
>> legal image.
>
> Three minutes' research shows me that you're committing that cardinal
> sin of assuming everybody else is American.  Why should David --- or
> anybody else here --- give a flying fuck *what* the PROTECT Act says?
> Are you incapable of interpreting country codes, or just persistently
> unobservant?
>

For that matter, what the flying fuck *is* the PROTECT act?

>> And morality is entirely subjective. Arguing that a certain image  is
>>  "immoral" is *not* a valid argument in the context of Wikipedia,
>> because we have to adhere to WP:NPOV. You, personally, see this
>> drawing as morally wrong. I do not.
>>
>> I *do* think censorship is morally wrong, though...
>
> Well, good for you.  Hopefully you've thought that one through a bit
> further than "titties and explosions good, children and sensitive women
> bad".
>
> (Does "censorship is morally wrong" count as an argument in favour of
> keeping kiddie porn on the servers?)
>
>

Morally wrong or not, the image was a copyright violation.

BTW, would you like to have goatse/tubgirl/autofellatio/(insert random
Last Measure image here) on the servers?

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Sarojini Naidu wrote:
> Jimbo wrote:
>> Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the fact that
>> we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
>> involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
>> herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions
>> of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people may of
>> course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to censor.
>
> And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll' red herring
> in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
> editorial judgement.
>

You're trolling.

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Real-time mirrors as a net revenue _source_?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/9/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>> However; why not turn this on its head, and offer a real-time, or
>> near-real-time, Wikipedia feed service to paid-up subscribers?
>
> It sounds good to me, but would only work if we could add sufficient
> value to that feed to make it worth buying instead of stealing
> (inasmuch as scraping our pages is stealing). Cleaning up the feed
> (could we supply raw XML?), filtering (oh wait, we don't content-tag
> our pages :)) and hiding red-links would certainly be ways of doing
> that...
>

Actually I was thinking that a paid subscription service *would* be
content-tagged and based on "stable" versions...

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

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body:
Anthere wrote:
<snip>
> The live feed service exist. Generally, it is a bad idea to let
> live-mirrors as they are a drain on our resources. For this reason, a
> service is provided against a certain fee, meant to at least cover the
> costs of feeding the live-mirror.
>
<snip>
> Why is it so ? Well, it may be a mixture. Possibly Terry contacting few
> potential customers. Possibly blocked live mirrors not being informed of
> that solution (now, you know, so next time a blocked mirror complains,
> please tell it to contact us). Possibly a lack of reactivity to propose
> contracts. Or lack of understanding from the people in OTRS about what
> the live feed is...
>

Uh, yeah. Actually letting people know that it exists would be a good
start...

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

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body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 4/9/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>> * Wikipedia remains ad-free
>
> Why is this an important goal?  If we put, say, Google ads up on
> Wikipedia, how would it compromise Wikipedia?  They're easy enough to
> block.
>

We've been through this before:

- es: forked at the very first *suggestion* of ads
- Ads are incompatible with NPOV

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

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from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
maru dubshinki wrote:
>
> From a business perspective, what is to stop a site from sucking in
> just enough to mirror in real-time, and then turning around and
> forwarding it to other mirrors?

Billing by the byte.  Doesn't stop them from doing it, but stops it from
being a problem for us.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] BLOCKED FROM EDITING

body:
Douglas Jones wrote:
> To The Administrators of WIKIPEDIA,
>
> I have been blocked from editing pages. Why, I do not know. I offer
> my website as an external link for the wikipedia IQ page. I have no
> spam at my website and offer a comprehensive database that is full of
> free information.
>
> Here is my IP Address: 70.173.162.237. This is one of the editors
> that blocked me: wikien-l at wikipedia.org This is where I am blocked
> from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq This is my link: *
> [http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/<B>Kids IQ Test Center</B>]
>
> I cite your website numerously in my WebPages. I am not spamming
> wikipedia and I do not understand why I am being hassled. I offer a
> unique website that offers information that is simply not found on
> other so-called IQ websites.
>
> Actually, I have scrolled through numerous so-called IQ websites that
> are featured in the External Links and the majorities have spam
> linking directly to the sorriest piss poor excuse for an IQ from the
> www.tickle.com website.
>
> If anything, I feel that I am being hassled because I actually have a
> website that is NOT TRYING TO PAWN SOME CRAPPY TICKLE TEST down a
> visitor?s throat.
>
> I ask that you lift the ban on my site and allow me to continue to
> offer FREE INFORMATION regarding IQ, personality and other
> psychological tests on the internet.
>
> Look past the front page of my website. Look at all the information
> that is free and that provides a service.
>
> Thanks for your consideration of this matter.
>

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, Ral315 <en.ral315 at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's certainly technically possible.  The problem I can see is that newbies
> will be turned off by the rigid structure of it (really, if they're going to
> make a three-sentence stub, do you think they'll bother to cite their
> sources, even if we request it?).  I'd much rather teach newbies bit-by-bit,
> rather than give them a bunch of information that will annoy them.

I was thinking that by putting everything in comments, the structure
isn't too rigid - they can basically ignore it if they want. And at
least by putting in helpful comments like bolding the name of the
article, they don't feel overwhelmed by the emptiness of the editing
box.

> A specific problem as well, to requesting categories, is that they'll add
> nonexistant categories, and, possibly even worse, click the red links and
> create the categories, thus creating more work for new page patrollers.

The wording can probably help them on that one, by telling them to
find a category at a particular page.

> Generally I'm unsure on the idea, though I think it's a decent proposal and
> could have positive results as well.

I'm unsure too, but I'd like to hear whether there are strong reasons
for or against.

Steve


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>   Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
> obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and
> the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
> However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia
> is a disambiguation page.
>
> I find this sad. :(
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Voting is evil, Discussion is good. (can someone meta-link this)


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
> obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and
> the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
> However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia
> is a disambiguation page.

It should quite plainly be a primary topic disambiguation redirect to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_on_My_Mind

This debate has sadly gone on for many a long megabyte.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 4/10/06, Ral315 <en.ral315 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
>
> The wording can probably help them on that one, by telling them to
> find a category at a particular page.

Or otherwise at least add a {{uncat}} to the article if there are no
categories added, so the article doesn't escape in the million plus
uncategorised.

Garion96


subject: [Wikitech-l] Next step in the spam arms race.

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> Things like this make nofollow more attractive all the time.  Has
> there ever been any discussion on perhaps allowing a white-list for
> non-spam sites that we won't no-follow?  This would be useful for
> wikis who don't want to kill all their externals with no-follow.

Or at least a second blacklist for sites that can be linked to but will
have rel="nofollow" applied.

Also, shouldn't we enable nofollow for talk pages?  For example, if this
discussion had been on a talk page, those example links above would now
be indexed by search engines and thus help the spammers.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Outage

body:
On Mon, Apr 10, 2006 at 09:25:35AM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 10, 2006 at 10:27:23AM +0300, Domas Mituzas wrote:
>
> Hee.
>
> On a serious note, though, if a backup site is beeing looked at, we
> might want to talk to the DirectNIC people in New Orleans...

Why? What's special about them?

Regards,

	jens


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or otherwise at least add a {{uncat}} to the article if there are no
> categories added, so the article doesn't escape in the million plus
> uncategorised.

Eep. Though I have to say, I created a new article today, and it was
categorised within minutes. I'd forgotten, whence this original
post...

Steve


from_name: Rich Morin

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales speaking in SF this FRIDAY,
	Apr. 14

body:
Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales will be speaking in SF this FRIDAY, Apr. 14

-r

----- Forwarded message from Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org> -----

 Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:12:58 -0700
 To: salt at list.longnow.org
 From: Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org>
 Subject: [SALT]
 	Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales this FRIDAY, Apr. 14 (for forwarding)

 Vision is one of the strongest forms of long-term thinking.

 Like any project, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia deploys month-to-month
 tactics in the service of year-to-year strategy.  Both must serve an
unusually
 ambitious decade-to-decade vision, stated by founder JIMMY WALES:
"Wikipedia is
 first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia
of
 the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their
own
 language."

 The English language edition of Wikipedia, which started in January 2001,
 reached its millionth article last month.  A year ago it was half that.
There
 are 123 other language editions active, with German (350,000 articles),
French,
 Polish, and Japanese leading the way. The editing process is radically
"open
 source"--- anyone can edit any article.  Article authors and amenders get
no
 pay and no public credit.  Against reason, the process works spectacularly.
 Wikipedia has become the primary online research source.  It currently
costs
 $320,000 a quarter to produce.

 For the talk on Friday, Wales is expanding on his usual Wikipedia-only
 presentation to address the larger and longer picture that Wikipedia's
success
 hints at:

 "Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture," Jimmy Wales, Cowell
 Theater, Fort Mason, San Francisco, 7pm, Friday, April 14.  The lecture
starts
 promptly at 7:30pm.  Admission is free ($10 donation welcome as always, not
 required).

 NOTE ON SECURING A SEAT:  This talk may be very popular, with the
possibility
 of an overflow audience.  You can ensure yourself a seat by making a
 reservation, which costs $5 a person.  Reserve through Long Now's home page
 (http://www.longnow.org) or phone 415-561-6582. Reservations will stop
being
 taken at 4:30 pm April 14.  Apart from reserved seats, which must be
occupied
 by 7:20 pm at the event or be released, seating is
first-come-first-served, and
 admission is free.

 (This reservation service is offered in an attempt to avoid previous
problems
 with exceptionally popular talks.  Jared Diamond and Brian Eno, for
example,
 had far more people at the door than could fit inside, and many went away
 frustrated.  Anticipating that problem at a joint talk by Freeman, Esther,
and
 George Dyson, Long Now offered the ability to make reservations by phone.
 People then filled the house with what turned out to be illusory
reservations.
 My email about that discouraged other people from showing up, and we wound
up
 with half a house.  So this time there's a financial incentive to make only
 sincere reservations.  The Cowell Theater seats 400, with room for another
40
 in the lobby watching on live TV.  My email to this list on Friday will
reflect
 your prospects of getting in by just showing up.  Reserved seats not filled
 will by released at 7:20pm, ten minutes before showtime.)

 This is one of a monthly series of Seminars About Long-term Thinking
organized
 by The Long Now Foundation, usually on second Fridays, usually at Fort
Mason.
 If you would like to be notified by email of forthcoming talks, please
contact
 Simone Davalos--- simone at longnow.org, 415-561-6582.

 You are welcome to forward this note to anyone you think might be
interested.

 				--Stewart Brand

 PS.  Much of Kevin Kelly's March talk, "The Next 100 Years of Science:
 Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method," is now available in text form,
with
 his great slides, at Edge.org:
 http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge179.html .

 --

 Stewart Brand -- sb at gbn.org
 The Long Now Foundation - http://www.longnow.org
 Seminars: http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/calendar.php
 Seminar downloads:  http://www.longnow.org/shop/free-downloads/seminars/

 ----- End forwarded message -----
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: Aerik

body:
Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at ...> writes:

> Right now we do our URL blacklist at page submission, thats not a
>fast path so we can do computationally expensive things like apply a
>long list of regexes...  to black or whitelist URLs for nofollow we'd
>need to perform it at page load, which might not be acceptable. The
>only alternatives I can see involve complex changes.
>

Well, I'm a developer wanna-be and not a real developer :-) but if we
set aside for a moment the policy type questions about whitelisting
and nofollow, whitelisting does not need to be the same process as
blacklisting.  For blacklisting, we need fancy regexes because people
will try to get around the list - for whitelist, we could probably
define a much simpler validation (to be applied when the parser parses
the url) because if someone is posting an url that is whitelisted, they
will know what url they're trying to match.  There's still an issue of
scale - checking against thousands or tens of thousand of whitelisted
urls may not be feasible - but calling "in_array" for example is probably
*much* faster than bunches of regexes.

-Aerik


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/4/10, Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net>:

> > Leaving readers to form their own opinions is often done better by
> > being *exclusive* than by being *inclusive* in many cases. Wikipedia
> > should not be talking from both sides of the matter, but from neither
> > side.
>
> Easy to say so, when you talk chemistry... how are we supposed to present an
> history of political thought? Many of these ideas are still alive and
> present in the heads of the writers...

You can tell that feminists from such-and-such period opposed
something as being oppressive to women without giving a list of
arguments why it is and why it isn't oppressive, no?

> And people having minority ideas
> often are more active on the net (and therefore in WPs), than people having
> a mainstream attitude. It's going to be them to make a vote about
> inclusion/exclusion.

That calls for improved procedures for independent arbitration, not
for blind inclusion, in my opinion.

> Besides, there is NO objective criteria for undued
> weight. Personally, I'd rather include more, then risk to find myself in the
> position of those 19th century scientists who avoided speaking about
> meteorites, because "obviously stones do not fly".

If we're still talking about my argument above, my opinion here, when
going back to the 18th century (I thought this one was resolved in the
early 19th century, but I might be wrong), that I do want meteorites
to be mentioned, and one or two lines saying that scientists believe
that stones don't fly. What I meant by being exclusive, is that we are
not going to give arguments why stones don't fly, counterarguments why
in some cases stones do fly and counter-counterarguments why even in
those cases stones don't fly.

> A wiki is a collection of knowledge, as far as ideas, techniques and
> theories are concerned, space should be found for all of them. Then maybe
> you get to build a category out of what was meant to be a single article.
> But then, was it YOUR classification poor, or the article big?

A wiki is a collection of knowledge, not a collection of arguments and
opinions. I am in favor of including many ideas and theories. But not
in arguing for or against them, not even if we do both at the same
time. And also, to get back to undue weight: There is the issue of
where to put it. Should we say that Von D?niken claims that aliens
helped build the pyramid of Gizeh? Yes. But do it on [[Erich von
D?niken]], and not on [[Egyptian pyramids]]. And any evidence given by
Von D?niken in favor of his claims, or by Sagan and archaeologists
against it, needs only be mentioned fleetingly if at all, to come back
to my previous point.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
Hi all,
  Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and
the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia
is a disambiguation page.

I find this sad. :(

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, Blackcap <snoutwood at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, it was a well-liked proposal, and then, in traditional style, it was
> totally forgotten about. It did get so far as making [[Wikipedia:New article
> template]], though.

Why does this happen? Who has to actually implement it? Whose door do
we need to constantly knock on? This isn't one of those situations
where there's only one person in the world who can implement the
change, and he has 5000 other things to do, is it?

Steve


from_name: Sydney Poore

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Guy,
I don't blame you. But it will be recreated. Probably taken to Deletion
Review. Is it worth it?
May want to embrace "choose your battles wisely" here.
I tend to push the point on biographies of living of people and child
porn. Things that cause real harm.
I try to ignore the rest of it as much as possible.
Sydney

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:29:29 +0200, you wrote:
>
>
>> Eep, I feel dirty. I was thinking of mischievously redirecting the
>> article to some presumed list on disputed sexual acts, but all the
>> acts actually have "articles" on them.
>>
>
> That's because the list article was deleted as... wait for it...
> unsourced.  So now instead of one unsourced article we have dozens.
>
> I am soooooo tempted to just nuke the suckers.
> Guy (JzG)
>

--
Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Navigational maps - is this all there is?

body:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files#Navigational_maps

describes a couple of ways to get the effect of image maps in MediaWiki.
However, neither of these is going to be easy to use with images created
by Graphviz, etc.

Are there any tricks that this page doesn't mention?  Is there anything
else in the pipeline?  Inquiring minds need to know...

-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Sarojini Naidu wrote:
>
>>Jimbo wrote:
>>
>>>Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the fact that
>>>we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
>>>involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
>>>herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions
>>>of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people may of
>>>course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to censor.
>>
>>And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll' red herring
>>in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
>>editorial judgement.
>>
> You're trolling.

You're trolling.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deterioration of Featured Articles

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Deterioration might not be so bad. In evolutionary optimization (for
>> example via genetic algorithms) a concept that's often mentioned is the
>> "fitness landscape", a graph showing the relative fitness of all
>> possible solutions to a particular problem. The landscape for most
>
> I'm familiar with this problem, but do you know of any detailed (if
> not particularly formal) analysis to see if it applies to Wikipedia,
> or even wiki editing in general? Not infrequently you hear people say
> "this article is a mess, nothing short of rewriting is required here".
> But I'm not convinced. Is it not possible, given an article in state
> T0, where state Tp is perfection, find small, realistic changes T1, T2
> etc?
>

More often than not, people will add stuff to an article, and some time
later, another editor will come along and clean it up. Then some more
stuff will be added, and some time later, it will get cleaned up again.
Very rarely do you see an article /only/ get better (one example I *can*
think of is [[Jordanhill railway station]]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanhill_railway_station>), but that was
an extraordinary case.

>> reach. For example, new material might be added covering some aspect of
>> the article's topic that wasn't covered previously, but the new material
>> has bad grammar and sparse citations and is "bad" enough to knock the
>> article off of Featured status. The best approach in this case is not to
>> just revert to the old version, but rather clean up the new material to
>> result in an even better article than it was before.
>
> In this particular instance, it seems that you could add *some* of the
> new material in a small enough block that the lack of citations or
> poor copyediting does not knock the article off its FA perch. Then,
> when that material has been brought up to scratch, add the next batch.
> Wholesale additions of poor quality material are generally quite
> destabilising for an article, and tend to piss off existing editors,
> who wonder when it will all stop...
>

I agree. Although the evolutionary optimization analogy works some of
the time (generally up until the point the article is featured), entropy
starts to take over after that point.

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

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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
The point is, Europanto is not a language in the narrow definition of the word.

Can it be used for communication? Yes. But does it have a more or less
codified set of rules and words that are used to speak it? No. It's
basically linguistic anarchy.

Mark

On 10/04/06, europanto <europanto at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, joke language or not, it is a  language. Its grammar is a set of all
> european language grammars.
> Why doesn't it have a unique grammar ?
> Because there's no common grammar among all european languages, so why
> choose one
> instead of another. You just adapt it to the vocabulary you use locally in
> your sentence ( for example ).
> It has cultural and historical background.
> Anyway, I'm not here to defend Europanto 'till I die.
> Or you're a language purist and you'll never admit it as a language, or
> you're not that narrow-minded and you see what's the point of it,
> or ... you were kind of seduced and even if you're not a linguist, you
> decide to support that "way of thinking".
>
> By the way I must admit that I won't kill myself if there isn't a europanto
> wikipedia ;o)
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Europanto-t1056989.html#a3839936
> Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
Excuse me, I should amend that.

It does have rules, but it doesn't have specific rules governing
sentence formation -- there are dozens of equally acceptable
"alternatives" for just about every grammatical construction and just
about every vocabulary item.

Mark

On 10/04/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The point is, Europanto is not a language in the narrow definition of the word.
>
> Can it be used for communication? Yes. But does it have a more or less
> codified set of rules and words that are used to speak it? No. It's
> basically linguistic anarchy.
>
> Mark
>
> On 10/04/06, europanto <europanto at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well, joke language or not, it is a  language. Its grammar is a set of all
> > european language grammars.
> > Why doesn't it have a unique grammar ?
> > Because there's no common grammar among all european languages, so why
> > choose one
> > instead of another. You just adapt it to the vocabulary you use locally in
> > your sentence ( for example ).
> > It has cultural and historical background.
> > Anyway, I'm not here to defend Europanto 'till I die.
> > Or you're a language purist and you'll never admit it as a language, or
> > you're not that narrow-minded and you see what's the point of it,
> > or ... you were kind of seduced and even if you're not a linguist, you
> > decide to support that "way of thinking".
> >
> > By the way I must admit that I won't kill myself if there isn't a europanto
> > wikipedia ;o)
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Europanto-t1056989.html#a3839936
> > Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
On 4/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure how to implement black or whitelisting for nofollow... :(
>   Right now we do our URL blacklist at page submission, thats not a
> fast path so we can do computationally expensive things like apply a
> long list of regexes...  to black or whitelist URLs for nofollow we'd
> need to perform it at page load, which might not be acceptable. The
> only alternatives I can see involve complex changes. For example, we
> could extend our external link syntax so that you must explicitly tag
> links in order to prevent them from being no-followed, and the black
> or whitelist would control which links are allowed to be tagged.

I was thinking something similar once.
* Deny all links that are not wrapped in a {{url}} template.
* Deny {{url}} template to anons. (contentious) Perhaps allow
white-listed anons? Or allow some other template which generates a
comment rather than an actual link?
* Add "nofollow" to all links that are not wrapped in {{urlfollow}}
* Deny {{urlfollow}} to everyone except confirmed users (reg + 10 days
or something)

Though there's something I don't like about people deciding on a case
by case basis about whether to use nofollow or not.

Perhaps, alternatively, devise a mechanism whereby URLs automatically
become "follow" links after some time period, like 5 days.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Sam already took it to Deletion Review. Go discuss and vote.
Sydney

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:35:57 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>> I don't blame you. But it will be recreated. Probably taken to Deletion
>> Review. Is it worth it?
>>
>
> Is it?  I don't know.  It is - literally - a crap article.  It drags
> the project's average down.
> Guy (JzG)
>

--
Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Moderators please! (was Re: Abwesenheitsnotiz:
	[Wikitech-l] Next step in the spam arms race.)

body:
I presume I'm not the only one who keeps getting these...could a
moderator take care of it?

Steve

On 4/10/06, Haiko.Hertes at perdata.de <Haiko.Hertes at perdata.de> wrote:
> Ich bin momentan leider nicht im Haus. Sollten in meiner Abwesenheit Fragen
> oder Probleme auftreten, dann wenden Sie sich bitte an folgende Personen:


body:
On 4/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> FWIW,  Anons are not a real spam liability.. anyone competent enough
> to be a significant annoyance is able to make an account.

Ok, replace "anon" with some risk-based metric.

> The template solution you've proposed is effectively an extension to
> the wikitext syntax... I don't see a reason to overload the template
> system for that purpose... just extend the syntax if thats what we
> really want.

Is it? I'm seeing how much we can do without having to get a developer
to do anything :)

> > Perhaps, alternatively, devise a mechanism whereby URLs automatically
> > become "follow" links after some time period, like 5 days.
>
> "And then a miracle occurs"...  Making that scale will be a challenge.
>  ...and still doesn't cover the cases of spam on namespaces that get
> less attention.

True.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
My error, it was you!
Sydney

Sydney Poore wrote:
> Sam already took it to Deletion Review. Go discuss and vote.
> Sydney
>
>
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:35:57 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> I don't blame you. But it will be recreated. Probably taken to Deletion
>>> Review. Is it worth it?
>>>
>>>
>> Is it?  I don't know.  It is - literally - a crap article.  It drags
>> the project's average down.
>> Guy (JzG)
>>
>>
>
>

--
Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


body:
One way that has so far helped gigantically to curb the biases unique
to each cultural community writing a Wikipedia is the fact that all of
the various Wikipedias steal from each other. Obviously it's really
unlikely that zh.wp will translate an article from yi.wp, but it's
very possible that an article from yi.wp will be translated for en.wp
which will, in turn, be translated for zh.wp.

Obviously, if a Macedonian article relating to Macedonian history
eventually ends up on the Greek Wikipedia, the people there will not
accept the Macedonian internal biases and will change it, but
hopefully they will not change it so much as to make it totally Greek
biased. And then maybe eventually the article will find its way back
to the Macedonian WP somehow.

MArk

On 10/04/06, Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:
> Hi
>
> > I think the problem is that on WP, people try to enforce the letter of
> > the law when it suits them, and when it doesn't, they try to enforce
> > based on its intent.
>
> LOLOL Only on WP?? Really??? :)))))))
>
> > There is obviously a simple way to solve this, but most users actually
> > secretly hate NPOV -- they like the fact that there are loopholes that
> > allow them to somehow get their opinions and viewpoints into
> > Wikipedia.
>
> Simply, there is no such person as an NPOV writer. Everyone writes from
> his/her own POV, because that's the way people think and experience
> knowledge. EVERY book edition reflects the POV of the publisher, and the
> publisher mirrors his age and society's POV. Books are made to be sold,
> wikipedias need readers and users, so we ALL are market-driven (no matter
> how little we may like it). A wiki is a complex society, which is
> elaborating its own POV, if one is to be honest about it.
>
> I believe the whole NPOV matter not to carry any scientific meaning at all
> (at least, from a psychologically oriented POV). What is called NPOV should
> more properly be labelled as "generally acceptable for the time being"
> (GA4TB). The larger the amount of people judging a subject, the closest we
> get to an exact picture of what is GA4TB. Obviously, the closer you get to
> exact sciences, such as math, the less you are in trouble. 2+2 IS 4. But you
> only need to write a section in any human science related field and the
> fireworks immediately start. WHO is going to decide what is a NPOV writing
> style in recent history? Pretty often, it only takes to slightly change an
> adjective to move a guy from the realm of dictators to the House of the
> Holies. Besides, different languages have different implied structures of
> moral judgement. Sometimes moving a comma will do the trick.
>
> So yes, policies are needed, and they must be clear. Besides, it takes a
> VERY simple procedure to call for a public judgment, which must be
> "temporarily final", say, some years. It would also help to elect some
> external "references for truth", like the Britannica, to name one. This does
> NOT mean that the Britannica is NPOV. It is simply GA4TB in the eyes of the
> western academic establishment.
>
> And yet... a WP is much wider in scope than a Britannica. Besides, the
> Britannica is strictly POVed towards the EU and USA, which may not be
> acceptable to a huge number of eastern editions. What if in the hindi
> edition indian history was supposed to be given a "dued weight" according to
> an european book? The cat bit its own tail... :(
>
> Still, the number of WP editions is constantly growing, therefore some
> co-ordination on this subject is absolutely needed. There is no such thing
> as a perfect policy, but a faulty shared policy is still to be preferred to
> a carnival of local standards. Isn't this the prime reason for the existence
> of a META? Besides... it's an interesting event in itself. Just think about
> it. It will be the first time EVER, that a standard for truth is
> collectively defined by a planet-wide audience. Mind you, on a second
> thought it also sounds pretty scary, I have to admit it. I suppose the vote
> should include an option for leaving local truth standards untouched.
>
> > Ask any Wikipedian if they've ever knowingly tried somehow or other to
> > get a POV in Wikipedia. If they say no, they're lying or they haven't
> > been around very long.
>
> And if they say they succeeded in writing NPOV, they aren't humans at all
> :))))) Hey... what was the NPOV policy for the klingon wiki? :)))))))))))
>
> B?rto
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> More often than not, people will add stuff to an article, and some time
>> later, another editor will come along and clean it up. Then some more
>> stuff will be added, and some time later, it will get cleaned up again.
>> Very rarely do you see an article /only/ get better (one example I *can*
>> think of is [[Jordanhill railway station]]
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanhill_railway_station>), but that was
>> an extraordinary case.
>
> Someone should do some analysis of Wikipedia article development
> cycles/processes. For some articles, I think in terms of an accordeon
> model. People add content, which is full of air, redundancy etc. Then
> more people add content in the same style. Then someone comes along
> and squeezes the whole lot down to its basic essence. A 500 word
> paragraph becomes a 200 word paragraph, almost without losing
> information.
>
> Other times, I see a huge slab of prose which has become so big that
> people feel uncomfortable adding to it. They see that the "History of
> X" section of the article is so long, they shouldn't touch it any
> more. I simply insert subheadings by year, and suddenly they realise
> that the period 1950-1960 is totally blank. I don't have a name for
> that model.
>

The wiki model? :)

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

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subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.6.3 released

body:
MediaWiki 1.6.3 makes some additional fixes to the spring 2006 release branch:

* Fix disappearing red-linked items in the watchlist editing view
* (bug 5512) Spacing in "page has a history" deletion warning
* (bug 5508) Switch ENGINE in table statements back to TYPE; fixes regression
  where some versions of MySQL 4.0.x wouldn't work
* Added note about $wgUrlProtocols format change

Full release notes:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_3/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_3/phase3/HISTORY

Download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.6.3.tar.gz

MD5 checksum:
mediawiki-1.6.3.tar.gz  89d0d6a588dce6453fb00a70598c632e

Before asking for help, try the FAQ:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
(Please subscribe to receive announcements of security updates.)
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Bug report system:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Illegal sources

body:
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Fastfission stated for the record:

<snip a bunch>

> Whether it is posted elsewhere does not mean it does not have a safe
> legal status in the U.S. at all, as I understand it. There are some
> categories of information that even if derived from entirely open
> sources can still technically count as legally secret under U.S. laws
> (see our WP article on [[born secret]]), though legal enforcement has
> been rare and is constitutionally ambiguous, but are part of laws
> which are still on the books and which the government has never
> implied they would not try to enforce. Of course, without direct legal
> confrontation from a government source in question we should not be
> worried about this and certainly not be pre-emptively paranoid about
> it, but it is not a legally irrelevant issue.
>
> FF

Everything you say is true in a legal sense.  In a practical sense, the
chances that information that is widely available across the Web is
[[born secret]] is so vanishingly small, and the chances that anyone
will actually face any sort of repercussions from republishing that
information are so infinitesimal that my thumbrule (classified is not
verifiable, and verifiable is not classified) is only epsilon short of
axiomatic truth.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
 sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
                  | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
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body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> More often than not, people will add stuff to an article, and some time
>> later, another editor will come along and clean it up. Then some more
>> stuff will be added, and some time later, it will get cleaned up again.
>> Very rarely do you see an article /only/ get better (one example I *can*
>> think of is [[Jordanhill railway station]]
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanhill_railway_station >), but that was
>> an extraordinary case.
>
>
> I'm really getting confused now. You just described the whole process of how
> articles get improved on Wikipedia, and then say that they don't only get
> improved. I mean, yeah; sometimes people add stuff to Wikipedia that doesn't
> follow the style guide / is badly written, typos etc / isn't wholly neutral
> / isn't referenced / etc. And then someone else comes along and makes it
> better. That's the whole purpose of the collaborative process. Isn't that
> what it means for an article to "always get better"? Isn't that what we are
> doing? Maybe I am missing the point here, but...
>
> To put it in the strictest theoretical terms, an Wikipedia with zero edits
> is worthless. Wikipedia with infinite edits is perfect. I really believe
> that, mind you -- I believe that after infinite edits, Wikipedia will be
> perfect. Of course, we'll never get there, but each edit puts us closer. So
> all this talk about "deterioration" is puzzling to me.
>

If articles don't deteriorate, why do they get de-featured?

Deterioration happens when:

- Vandalism goes unnoticed, especially sneaky (fact-changing) or
blanking-type vandalism
- Random crud (aka. "cruft") gets added
- Other stuff which we can't quantify yet

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

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Commons moving helper

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I recently noticed what a pain it can be to move image to commons,
> especially with the image description. To help this issue, I now offer
> this service:
>
> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commonshelper.php
>
> where you can enter the wikipedia language code and image name, and it
> will generate a commons description consisting of link to original image
> page, original contents, and wikified upload history.
>
> It can also be called with the language/image as part of the URL:
>
> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commonshelper.php?lang=de&doit=1&image=Struktur_Luftwaffenamt.PNG
>
> For German language, it will also translate several copyright template
> names (e.g., "{{Bild-GFDL}}") into the the English (commons) version.
> This can be expanded for other languages as well.
>

Nice work. Should this be forwarded to commons-l?

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

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body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> - Ads are incompatible with NPOV
>
> I've never understood this: how are they incompatible?  NPOV applies
> to articles only (as the userbox people are so keen to point out).
> Articles are what's in the div wrapper "content", i.e. the article
> content.
>
> OK, if we take the assumption that advertising inherently is
> non-neutral, Wikipedia (and, indeed, the Wikimedia Foundation) does
> not need to be neutral.  Of course, in an ideal world, we would be
> utterly and totally neutral, but this isn't an ideal world.  Why
> shouldn't the Foundation publicise those who are keen to give us
> backing?  This is just a smaller scale version of
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
>
> Our role is not to produce a neutral website.  It is to produce
> neutral and factual content.
>

So, you wouldn't mind reading an article on eg. the September 11 attacks
and having ads for jewsdidwtc.com appearing at the side?

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

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from_name: mdangers

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> <snip>
>> The live feed service exist. Generally, it is a bad idea to let
>> live-mirrors as they are a drain on our resources. For this reason, a
>> service is provided against a certain fee, meant to at least cover the
>> costs of feeding the live-mirror.
>>
> <snip>
>> Why is it so ? Well, it may be a mixture. Possibly Terry contacting few
>> potential customers. Possibly blocked live mirrors not being informed of
>> that solution (now, you know, so next time a blocked mirror complains,
>> please tell it to contact us). Possibly a lack of reactivity to propose
>> contracts. Or lack of understanding from the people in OTRS about what
>> the live feed is...
>>
>
> Uh, yeah. Actually letting people know that it exists would be a good
> start...
>
>
I second that request. If the WMF actually is interested in selling this
service, it would make sense to inform Terry (to my shame I must admit I
do not even know who this is) of the existence of live mirror sites.

As one of the people dealing with mirrors on de:, I would be happy to do
so. Additionally, it might be a good idea to establish some official way
to get live mirrors blocked. I tried to find someone to block those
listed at [1] at #wikimedia-tech three times, but didn't succeed. Of
course, I absolutely understand this is far from top priority for our
server and software people, overworked and few as they are.

I am also aware this issue may not be fully suitable for this list, but
my mail to wikitech-l seems to be stuck in moderation and at least the
thread seemed appropriate :-).

Cheers,
de:mdangers

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Mdangers/rot


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:42:09 -0700, you wrote:

>Although I may have a slightly more liberal attitude toward NOR; I would
>still view NPOV as having equally high sources.  To me citing sources is
>implicit in verifiability.

You'd have thought so.  But we still could not achieve consensus to
delete this unsourced monstrosity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cleveland_steamer_%28second_nomination%29

See how the deleters cited policy while the keepers simply asserted
"it is true" or that deleting it would be "censorship"?  If it is
true, surely there must be ''some'' reliable source, but none has been
presented even after two AfDs - a process which often results in
speedy resolution of that particular problem.

So once again we have kept by default an article which is completely
unverified, and given the lack of verifying evidence presented at two
AfDs almost certainly unverifiable.

Perhaps like Donkey Punch it will hang around until it achieves some
kind of tenuous reality - sexcruft seems to be one area where
protologisms are allowed on Wikipedia.

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


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/10/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It might be. A good implementation of this would be sort of like a
> > form letter with slots, or like the image upload's page method of
> > picking licenses- instead of requiring one to know what they need,
> > provide a list. That way, we don't get 1000 articles a day, all
> > bearing {{stub}} or {{uncategorized}}...
>
> Well, at the moment we get however many, without either {stub} *or*
> {uncategorized*. :)
>
> I can't immediately see how to do that with categories or stubs, but
> probably someone smart can. Stubs are more promising because they're
> directly hierarchical...categories are..erm...
>
> Steve

Well, I figure that in practice one would restrict the list to less
than 50- that should cover most major stub categories. If the
stub-sorting project people want to sharpen them further, well, more
power to them.
As for categories, oy. That could be a problem. Ideally, one could
have a mini little search engine with a feature like Google's
misspelling feature ("People who search for the Hitler category also
searched for the Genocidal Dictator category. Would you like to search
for Genocidal Dictator?"), but while we're dreaming, we might as well
ask for an answer to AOL IPs or Wikipedia 1.0

~maru


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
On 4/10/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> SPUI stated for the record:
>
> > Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
....
> >>
> >>You're trolling.
> >
> >
> > You're trolling.
>
> <sing style="tune: out-of;">
> I'm a troll, he's a troll, she's a troll, we're a troll; wouldn't you
> like to be a troll too?
> </sing>
>
> - --
>  Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
>  sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
>                   | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld

<song>
You may say that I'm a troll
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the wiki will be as one

Imagine no articles
I wonder if you can
No need for deleting or reverting
A brotherhood of editors
Imagine all the writers
Sharing all the words.
</song>

Wait, wrong song?

~maru


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 10/04/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> I am not a lawyer, but IIRC, Bridgeman v Corel only applies to
> two-dimensional copies of two-dimensional works (though it may apply
> to three-dimensional copies of three-dimensional works).  The basis of
> it is that a "slavishly accurate" copy of a work involves no creative
> effort, and so cannot establish a copyright separate from that of the
> original.  Photographing a 3D work involves creative effort, in the
> choice of lighting and camera angle.
> <snip>
>
> This has come up in an article I'm working on- does this ruling apply to
> images from books or manuscripts? Are books three dimensional art works,
> even if what you're reproducing is a single page from them? My father, a
> librarian, seems to think the owning library continues to hold copyright for
> all such images. I'm not so sure.

Photocopying a page of a book is a slavish copy... but you can make a
good case that photography of any book as an archival process, or with
the intent of producing high-quality images, is a sufficiently
difficult process that it passes the minimum-creativity standard.

I don't know what the caselaw is on it, but I would be wary of an
overbroad reliance on Bridgeman.

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


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why, exactly?
>
> Two well-known things are called Georgia.  It is thus logical for the
> title to be a disambiguation between them, and everything else known
> by that name.
>
> -Matt

Ohh, come on, there's a huge difference between Georgia the Country
and Georgia the State. Georgia is a WHOLE country. Like, bigass, we
got troups, "why don't we take this outside, former Soviet
country-style", international trade, country.

Disambigging those two would be like disambigging "Paris" to separate
"Paris, Texas" and "Paris, France". This is the worst kind of
US-centrism.

</rant>

--Oskar


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template for new pages

body:
On 4/10/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> It might be. A good implementation of this would be sort of like a
> form letter with slots, or like the image upload's page method of
> picking licenses- instead of requiring one to know what they need,
> provide a list. That way, we don't get 1000 articles a day, all
> bearing {{stub}} or {{uncategorized}}...

Well, at the moment we get however many, without either {stub} *or*
{uncategorized*. :)

I can't immediately see how to do that with categories or stubs, but
probably someone smart can. Stubs are more promising because they're
directly hierarchical...categories are..erm...

Steve


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of <ref></ref><references/>

body:
> From: Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca>

> Hopefully the new cite.php reference formatting will help in this
> regard. Reference text can now be bundled directly with the text
> that it
> is a reference for with the list of references at the bottom of the
> page
> being automatically compiled from that. It makes it impossible to have
> "orphan references" now, and perhaps having the full description of
> the
> referenced material in place will make it harder for an editor to
> accidentally delete it when removing unrelated material.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for anyone who was
> unaware of the new system. I'm loving it. :)

Oh, I should have said something nice about it in the first place. It
is, literally, a dream come true.

<hip></hip><hooray/>!

I only wish (well, you knew that was coming) that there was a way for
a reader to hide/show the superscripted links to the references.


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 4/9/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>
>>That's arguable. You could say that there are many copies of Wikipedia on
>>the Internet, and only one
>>of them is ad-free, that is the one at wikipedia.org. Most readers come to
>>Wikipedia via the search
>>engines, and a large part of the remaining 80% of advertising revenue will
>>go towards spamming those
>>search engines with irrelevant keyword-pumped advertising-laden copies of
>>Wikipedia pages.
>
>
>
> Okay, but isn't that the situation we are already in? The only difference is
> that the people running the advertising-laden copies will have to pay for
> the privilege of doing so.

It's the difference between harrassing and encouraging. What we'd be selling would be the ability to
set up a Wikipedia mirror for $10 per month plus a couple of hours of setup time, with the security
of knowing your service won't be randomly cut off by the Wikimedia server admins. Currently you
either have to buy more expensive hosting with enough disk space to hold a complete copy, or you
have to evade the blocks and remote load from our servers.

Of course, if the venture is successful and the site becomes popular, then the costs will increase
in proportion to the traffic, but so will the revenue. That's why the startup costs are the only
financial risk involved. If you reduce or eliminate them, then you encourage the proliferation of
mirrors.

How many mirrors is enough? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? Eventually I imagine the market will become
saturated, when a new mirror can't recover its minimal startup costs, even with the most aggressive
SEO techniques. What will the Internet look like then? Will the average user be able to find
independent information in the search engines, which didn't come from Wikpedia?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>>
>>Also, shouldn't we enable nofollow for talk pages?  For example, if this
>>discussion had been on a talk page, those example links above would now
>>be indexed by search engines and thus help the spammers.
>
> Nofollow per namespace would actually be really good.  If we had
> per-namespace nofollow right now I'd enable it everywhere except the
> main namespace ... you can argue that the main ns links are reviewed
> and are of some quality, but that doesn't extend to anywhere else.

Ask and ye shall receive: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
>> On 4/9/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>> That's arguable. You could say that there are many copies of
>>> Wikipedia on the Internet, and only one of them is ad-free, that
>>> is the one at wikipedia.org. Most readers come to Wikipedia via
>>> the search engines, and a large part of the remaining 80% of
>>> advertising revenue will go towards spamming those search engines
>>> with irrelevant keyword-pumped advertising-laden copies of
>>> Wikipedia pages.
>>
>>
>> Okay, but isn't that the situation we are already in? The only
>> difference is that the people running the advertising-laden copies
>> will have to pay for the privilege of doing so.
>
> It's the difference between harrassing and encouraging. What we'd be
> selling would be the ability to set up a Wikipedia mirror for $10 per
> month plus a couple of hours of setup time, with the security of
> knowing your service won't be randomly cut off by the Wikimedia
> server admins. Currently you either have to buy more expensive
> hosting with enough disk space to hold a complete copy, or you have
> to evade the blocks and remote load from our servers.
>
> Of course, if the venture is successful and the site becomes popular,
> then the costs will increase in proportion to the traffic, but so
> will the revenue. That's why the startup costs are the only financial
> risk involved. If you reduce or eliminate them, then you encourage
> the proliferation of mirrors.
>
> How many mirrors is enough? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? Eventually I
> imagine the market will become saturated, when a new mirror can't
> recover its minimal startup costs, even with the most aggressive SEO
> techniques. What will the Internet look like then? Will the average
> user be able to find independent information in the search engines,
> which didn't come from Wikpedia?
>

Obligatory [[m:bash]] quote:

<jwales> Damn Wikipedia people!
<jwales> They took over the Internet!

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

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from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On 4/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Just a sidenote, but I would have closed that as a delete. Most of the
> keep "votes" came from anons or new editors, so that combined with the
> fact that none of them cited policy as a reason to keep (while the
> deleters did) should have been enough to discount their votes (assuming
> we are pretending WP:IS a democracy). The article as it stands right now
> *really* tempts me to speedy it right away, but fortunately I've learnt
> not to meddle with the community's will, which apparently choose and
> picks policy as it likes (incidentally, so do admins -- so we're all
> guilty here). Yeah. Just rambling here. :p

Yeah, I felt like doing that too... But then I think I've done enough
out-of-process deletion for a while.

--
Sam


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] new features for exention developers

body:
Moin,

On Saturday 08 April 2006 12:09, Tels wrote:
> Moin,
> On Saturday 08 April 2006 06:49, Tim Starling wrote:
> > Tels wrote:
[snip]
> > function DynamicPageList2( $input, $params, &$parser ) {
> > 	...
> > 	$ns = $parser->mTitle->getNamespace();
> > 	...

Very cool. I toyed around with that, and having access to the Parser is
really nice. :-)

However, in 1.5.x, the third param is not actually passed in when calling
the callbacks, so I had to patch the source (it?s a one-line patch, and
quite safe). Haven't checked, but I assume that in 1.6 this works
"out-of-the-box".

In addition, I found no documentation on what you can all do with the
Parser object. There is some autogenerated API doc, but this covers only
methods. And mTitle is a member variable, and these seem not to be listed
on SF. Is there a doc which would help someone using the Parser in an
extension?

Another unrelated question, would this code work on 1.5 and 1.6 alike and
would there be any gotcha!'s with it: (Yes, I could test it, but I would
still not be knowing if this is considered "safe" :-)

 function MyExtension( $input, $params ) {
	global $wgParser;
	...
 	$ns = $wgParser->mTitle->getNamespace();
	...

As for the original problem with the style-sheets, my current solution is
to emit the <style> tags in mid-HTML. Ugly, but it works, opposed to the
other proposed solutions to get it into the header.

What I haven't found out yet is how/why a custom skin would allow me to
switch off the menu (more easily, that is). AFAIK you need something
along the lines

	<style type="text/css">#p-navigation { display: none; }</style>

and having a custom skin (where menubox is named, oh, mymenubox or
something) wouldn't actually change anything except the class name. But
maybe I am just very stupid today :)

I am currently beta-testing and documention my slide extension, should hit
CPAN later this week. Thanx alot for your patience and time!

Best wishes,

Tels

--
 Signed on Mon Apr 10 20:21:19 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Retsina?" - "Ja, Papa?" - "Rasenm?hen." - "Is gut, Papa."

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from_name: Ben McIlwain

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Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>> From: Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca>
>
>> Hopefully the new cite.php reference formatting will help in this
>> regard. Reference text can now be bundled directly with the text
>> that it
>> is a reference for with the list of references at the bottom of the
>> page
>> being automatically compiled from that. It makes it impossible to have
>> "orphan references" now, and perhaps having the full description of
>> the
>> referenced material in place will make it harder for an editor to
>> accidentally delete it when removing unrelated material.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for anyone who was
>> unaware of the new system. I'm loving it. :)
>
> Oh, I should have said something nice about it in the first place. It
> is, literally, a dream come true.
>
> <hip></hip><hooray/>!
>
> I only wish (well, you knew that was coming) that there was a way for
> a reader to hide/show the superscripted links to the references.

By the way, I've created a references converter that does a pretty good
job of automatically converting from the old {{ref}} and {{note}} format
into the new <ref> format.  Check it out here:
http://teamgamer.org/cgi-bin/wikirefs.pl

Just make sure to follow the instructions to the letter.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] [Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Commons moving helper]

body:
Wow, that's super awesome. Nice work!!

Some initial thoughts:
* It would be nice if you could enter "Image:Foo.jpg" as well as
"Foo.jpg", or at least have a warning that the latter is expected,
since the former generates scary looking errors. :)
* It would be really nice if it failed (with explanation) if an image
with a fairuse license was entered. eg, fairuse, logo, screenshot,
promophoto, et al. I don't know if Duesentrieb's meta tags have been
implemented on en yet but if/when they are, they could be useful here.
* It would be super nice if it prompted/warned the user to only upload
images where the license is verifiable and/or a source is given. This
would be more for the benefit of people transferring images after the
fact rather than the original uploaders, since they obviously ignore
such warnings anyway.
* It would be awesomely nice if it also put a message at the end
asking the user to give the image a category. This is v important for
the Commons but not so much for the Wikipedias. In this spirit, it
could also remind the user to tag the original image as
{{NowCommons|new name}} or {{NowCommonsThis}}.

But anyway... very awesome! We can add this to [[commons:Commons:Tools]].

Now we just need the universal login to make life complete :)

cheers,
Brianna (User:pfctdayelise)

> Hi,
>
> I recently noticed what a pain it can be to move image to commons,
> especially with the image description. To help this issue, I now offer
> this service:
>
> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commonshelper.php

--
"Mathematicians do it with Nobel's wife."


subject: [Commons-l] Meta templates in other languages

body:
> We have been requested not to use meta templates. But
> they are used on the Commons a lot for other language.
> In the template Copyvio there's even two meta
> templates (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Copyvio ) .

Who were we requested by? Or do you mean, in a general sense, as in
[[w:Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates]]?

> 1. Question: Is this really detremental for the server
> performance? To me it seems possible that the extra
> server power it takes to invoke templates on Wikipedia
> projects is an extra strain on server resources (as it
> were an additional meta template). What do the
> developers say?

Brion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_using_meta-templates/Archive_3#Brion.27s_comment

I don't think the meta templates we're using are the kind people on
en.wp get worried about.  They're talking about complex, nasty beasts
like [[template:qif]] rather than just nested templates like we use...
I think. Plus Duesentrieb's meta-templates are empty, AFAIK, so I
doubt they can do much harm. And lastly... Commons doesn't have
anywhere near the traffic of en.wp.

> Furthermore, I find it useless to have links to
> translation of templates for all minor languages such
> as Alemannisch, Asturianu, Brezhoneg, etc. To me, it
> is sufficient to have translation in French, Spanish,
> Italian, Chinese, etc (the larger languages). Isn't
> this Alemannisch , etc, just some kind of vanity
> thing? I mean, they would have to know at least one
> other language anyways.

What is the alternative? Only allow people to translate into "allowed"
languages? I don't think so. People will only translate what they
want. Banning people from translating into Alemannisch will not make
them translate into a more popular language. So who does the extra (if
superfluous) translation hurt? No one. Who does it help? Well,
possibly someone. It might also, as I think Arnomane once said, shame
the speakers of more popular languages into keeping their translations
up to date. :)

Brianna (User:pfctdayelise)

--
"Mathematicians do it with Nobel's wife."


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
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Molu Bosu Palit stated for the record:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>   "I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more
> references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire
> life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise."
>
>   I must disagree. I live in India and I've heard far more about Country Georgia than the US state. This is just like, as someone else said, disambig-ing Paris. An example of demographic bias?

Yes, demographic bias.  As in the bigger region, in population, size,
economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's
language, gets the primary link.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
 sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
                  | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
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from_name: Berto

body:
HiI

> You can tell that feminists from such-and-such period opposed
> something as being oppressive to women without giving a list of
> arguments why it is and why it isn't oppressive, no?

No, because then you leave the reader to decide what is oppressive, and what
is not. The reader ends up in making an interesting decision, but sadly
gains no knowledge whatsoever about the subject of the article.

When speaking of morals in the roman classical period, if you do not include
a list of what was then considered as normal (pedophilia was, just to name
one thing), most readers will get the word as "what is normal NOW". And no
one will ever understand the deep affective meaning of a phrase like "tu
quoque Brute, fili mii". It's exactly when speaking of different
times/cultures that you need to give a clear picture of what local normality
was. When you make an article on the american Weathermen movement you cannot
simply say they were "left wings". Because the north american concept of
being a left-wing is extremely different even just from its european
equivalent, not to mention Africe and Asia.

If you do not specify a context in an extremely precise way, you end up in
creating confusion, instead of spreading knowledge. Besides, how are going
to describe the internal debate in the feminists' movements? If we simplify
their positions, they end up in being all the same, so it looks like
different positions were due to ego-trips only. Leadership IS a matter, in
describing the evolution of political/philosophical movements, but it cannot
be awarded with a monopolistic role. Same applies to any history of the
protestant movement, unless we want to just say they were "heretics". Just
in the way we need to mention gravity, when speaking of physics, we need to
mention phenomena that were at the very base of the construction process of
an opinion/idea/ideal. We are going to have a very hard time in explaining
why the Christian revolution took over the classical world, unless we
explain its implied social consequences (the role of widows and the chance
for slaves to get a human-like burial, just to name a couple of them).
Things are always complicated. Making them look simpler it's the best way to
tell blatant lies.

> What I meant by being exclusive, is that we are
> not going to give arguments why stones don't fly, counterarguments why
> in some cases stones do fly and counter-counterarguments why even in
> those cases stones don't fly.

Well, obviously not. I thought the whole discussion was started to deal with
cases in which a part of the debate is totally removed. Depth of details may
be chosen depending on what support they offer for further deepening of the
matter, as long as all relevant details are there. That is: "there was a
[[debate about flying stones]]", in which one shall explain what happened,
and give the reader a flavour of the scientific thought during those times.
No more than this. Takes a few strokes and does not hide anything. Text
remains readable, who is not interested in flying stones can simply avoid
the subject.

> A wiki is a collection of knowledge, not a collection of arguments and
> opinions.

Is there any difference among the two? A scientific theory is no more than a
theory. That is, a useful OPINION. Until we can use it to make computations
we do use it, then we throw it away to use a more suitable opinion.

> But not
> in arguing for or against them, not even if we do both at the same
> time.
Put my signature here, too. Our role is into referring the matter, not into
jumping in the discussion. BUT... by choosing waht to say and what to omit
(like it or not), we do become an active part in the discussion. It's
unavoidable, and it must be managed. This is why I oppose using the term
NPOV altoghether. There simply isn't any such thing, so we cannot lie to
ourselves and to the readers.

> Should we say that Von D?niken claims that aliens
> helped build the pyramid of Gizeh? Yes. But do it on [[Erich von
> D?niken]], and not on [[Egyptian pyramids]].
Well... mostly, I'd build a cross reference table on [[pyramid]], and point
the guys to all interesting sections, from technology [[lever]] to
alternative science [[Von D?niken]]. And I would not forget history
[[Napoleon]]. No need to write about this extensively in the article, just
give the people a way to dig out what they look for. Then it's up to then to
decide.

> And any evidence given by
> Von D?niken in favor of his claims, or by Sagan and archaeologists
> against it, needs only be mentioned fleetingly if at all, to come back
> to my previous point.

They belong in the [[Von D?niken]] article, and should be properly covered
there. Not censored or excluded, but simply orderly treated in the right
place. Personally I'd never read [[Von D?niken]] , but this does not mean it
cannot bring readers and potential contributors in. Any article is a hook,
by which we fish fresh readers and contributors. [[playstation]] and [[Da
vinci code]] will get you in much more people than [[epistemology]]. Yet, a
small percent of those guys may end up in knowing what [[epistemology]] is,
even starting their surf from [[playstation]]. This is way all correct
information is useful, although I repeat, often the problem is that one
begins to write [[Von D?niken]] text right in the middle of [[pyramid]].
Which is not undued weight, but a plain context error, which does not
require censorship, but simply a new indipendent page. That's nothing but my
humble POV, obviously. :)

B?rto


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
Haha. I love that term -- linguistic anarchy :D

On 4/10/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The point is, Europanto is not a language in the narrow definition of the
> word.
>
> Can it be used for communication? Yes. But does it have a more or less
> codified set of rules and words that are used to speak it? No. It's
> basically linguistic anarchy.
>
> Mark
>
> On 10/04/06, europanto <europanto at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well, joke language or not, it is a  language. Its grammar is a set of
> all
> > european language grammars.
> > Why doesn't it have a unique grammar ?
> > Because there's no common grammar among all european languages, so why
> > choose one
> > instead of another. You just adapt it to the vocabulary you use locally
> in
> > your sentence ( for example ).
> > It has cultural and historical background.
> > Anyway, I'm not here to defend Europanto 'till I die.
> > Or you're a language purist and you'll never admit it as a language, or
> > you're not that narrow-minded and you see what's the point of it,
> > or ... you were kind of seduced and even if you're not a linguist, you
> > decide to support that "way of thinking".
> >
> > By the way I must admit that I won't kill myself if there isn't a
> europanto
> > wikipedia ;o)
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/Europanto-t1056989.html#a3839936
> > Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://ilya.nepfamily.com (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On 4/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Just a sidenote, but I would have closed that as a delete. Most of the
> keep "votes" came from anons or new editors, so that combined with the
> fact that none of them cited policy as a reason to keep (while the
> deleters did) should have been enough to discount their votes (assuming
> we are pretending WP:IS a democracy). The article as it stands right now
> *really* tempts me to speedy it right away, but fortunately I've learnt
> not to meddle with the community's will, which apparently choose and
> picks policy as it likes (incidentally, so do admins -- so we're all
> guilty here). Yeah. Just rambling here. :p

Eep, I feel dirty. I was thinking of mischievously redirecting the
article to some presumed list on disputed sexual acts, but all the
acts actually have "articles" on them. The standard of them is
appalling though, with moral judgments, slang terms, lack of
referencing and perhaps original research rife. And some of them are
just plain wrong...Most of the examples in [[M?nage ? trois]] are love
triangles, for instance.

It really is a problem that people with good taste and common sense
stay away from these articles.

Steve