subject: [Wikitech-l] 207.142.131.221 listed in bl.spamcop.net

body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
> I have got a bounce because of this when send a reply to a OTRS-ticket.
>
> http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=207.142.131.221
>
> Can be seen what can be done about this?

Apparently, nothing. SpamCop won't provide any evidence of their "spam traps" so
we can only flail about randomly guessing at what might have been hit at this point.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't remove a WP:OFFICE tag put there by Danny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>And: nothing about the WP:OFFICE policy allows for permanent protection
>of any article.  The actions taken are *temporary* to allow time to sort
>things out which appear to be particularly serious.  Characterizing this
>as "going over the heads of editors" is wildly inaccurate.
>
Is it a sign of aging when I see some attitudes as indicative of impatience?

It sometimes seems that any "temporary" solution is unacceptable to some
people.  To me any such yellow flag merely says, "We're taking our time
on this to make sure we get it right."  For some speedy deletions seem
to always imply a high degree of urgency.  It's as though if they lost
the opportunity to delete something now they might never get that
opportunity again.

Leadership can be an awkward role in an anarchistic community.  I can
appreciate the importance of broad community decisions, but would expect
those who want a role in decisions to do so reponsibly, and consider all
aspects of an issue before arriving at a mutually satisfactory result.
More often a few community members are determined to make an
in-your-face defence of their views of the situation, while most want no
part of the confrontation.  Or they often argue that something has
become part of policy, because there was no overt opposition or
discussion when they made the proposal.

Others look for certainty in the advice that they receive, and they
interpret suggestions as hard-wired policy.  Rather than accept an
evasive answer that tells them to use their own judgement, they prefer
the kind of certainty that is offered by those who have a narrow outlook
on what should be done.

There are two things required of a good leader
    1. He must make all the decisions
    2. He must make none of the decisions

Ec


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me!

body:
On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> So we reorder it.

I'm not stoping you.

--
geni


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] "Chinese Wikimania 2006 to be held in Hong Kong"

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> On another topic, I have been trying to encourage a founding meeting of
> a Canadian chapter without much success. The big problem for a Canadian
> chapter is geography and having a population that is spread across a
> 5,000 km ribbon. I have been thinking of a one day meeting in Montreal
> right after the Boston meeting. This would make it possible for those of
> us in the west to stop there on the way back from Boston, or even to car
> pool between Montreal and Boston. If this can be arranged would it be
> possible for you to come to Montreal for one day to attend?
>
> Ec (Ray)

As for myself, provided that I know about it soon enough, I might
arrange it.

ant


list: wikimedia-l


body:
Hello ROC

Thanks for the detailed answer. I appreciate it.
Just a couple of points

R.O.C wrote:
> it was a mess, a huge mess, but gladly we are now working together to
> address it and fix it. if i were a director or officer of the foundation, i
> would not feel good if i suddenly learned from the newspaper that the
> chinese or any other local community on the very projects of foundation had
> been planning something formal without sharing ideas and information with
> the foundation and moreover some people had used a foundation trademark
> without prior agreement! there were miscommunications and there are
> misunderstandings.
>
> i'm a chinese wikipedian who would like to keep anonymity at the moment (my
> user page is at http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:R.O.C), and i have not
> participated much in the organization of this chinese conference. but i
> would like to help sorting the matter out since i understand both chinese
> and english. here is some information that i would like to provide.
>
> 1) it is now realized that the chinese organizers were not keeping in touch
> with the foundation, but they have been reporting everything on a wikipedia
> project page (
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2006%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%83)
> in chinese. the working language for the organizers has to be chinese since
> few of them can use english efficiently and effectively. i will work on a
> english translation page on meta as informational briefs this saturday. (of
> course any help with setting it up sooner would be greatly appreciated.)

thanks

> 2) the chinese organizers and the community at large have since the starting
> of the projects been cohering strongly with the ideas/goals/policies of the
> foundation -- because we share these same values: free and open sources,
> neutrality and mutual respect among many others. this is true even if it is
> not conveyed to the foundation since we have not expressed it much in
> english. indeed, very few people know about this mailing list -- as an
> administrator and keen user on zh.wikipedia i did not even know about it
> until ~3 months ago (how shameful) and have not really utilize it until
> yesterday. i can tell that the chinese community wants to develop the
> chinese projects together with the foundation and the international
> community at large, and this intention/dedication has never changed.

please, advertise this list as well as meta. Also, we have a nice team
of people working on all Wikimedia related topics, but most of this team
is from Europe/USA/Canada. Little by little we get more people from
South America as well. However, we still lack input from Africans and
from people from the East. If some of you participate here from time to
time, or on meta or come join irc #wikimedia channel, we should get to
know each other better.

> 3) frankly, i believe that the difference between english and chinese
> languages are larger than that between any two western european languages.
> even though many chinese in modern mainland china and taiwan start to learn
> english before primary schools, the lack of live language environment makes
> it difficult for most of them to communicate in english with an acceptable
> efficiency. just imagine if asking a native english speaker write in
> chinese.

Well, your english appears quite good to me :-) at least, I understand
it... better than some americans :-)

> 4) (partly from KJ's message) contributors to the chinese wikimedia projects
> mostly reside in mainland china, taiwan, and hong kong, and the remaining
> small portion locates mostly in north america, europe, and southeast asia.
> the zh.wikipedia editors and administrators communicate mainly by instant
> messagers online besides the wikimedia pages. many of them would like to
> meet and discuss in person about problems, development, and public promotion
> of wikimedia projects in chinese. many of the issues cannot be efficiently
> addressed in an online meeting, a local meeting, or an international
> conference. there are borders and the travel is not easy between these
> separate judicial regions, so it would not be as easy or little work as a
> local meet-up or a country meet-up. but the chinese community feels the need
> for such a conference and believes in its benefits for better development of
> wikimedia projects in future, so they would like to pursue it despite of all
> difficulties.
>
> 5) (partly from KJ's message) the chinese community decided by vote after
> discussion to hold the conference 3 weeks after the international meeting.
> there were several considerations.
>
> 5.1) due to limited economical abilities and some visa issues, few (if not
> zero) contributors in mainland china will be able to attend the
> international conference. the traveling cost to boston is not a small number
> for most contributors in taiwan or hong kong, either; but the traveling cost
> to/in HK would be affordable. those users who can make it for wikimania are
> likely to be able to travel to HK, but most users who will attend the
> chinese conference would not have the ability to attend wikimania even if
> there was no conference in HK. basically, holding a chinese conference in HK
> would not distract attendees to wikimania in boston.

Which suggest me that it could be a good idea to find some sponsors to
help support costs for some chinese to come at Boston Wikimania.

> 5.2) the working language on the chinese conference will be chinese
> (probably mandarin) due to practical reasons. english interpreting service
> might be offered if there is such a need and the ability. the chinese
> conference will probably target largely on local or chinese
> firms/organizations for sponsorship/support. so i do not feel that the
> chinese conference will divert speakers or much of sponsoring
> fund/resources.
>
> 5.3) the chinese community decided to hold the conference after wikimania so
> that the few attendees of both conferences can report what they have learned
> from wikimania to the chinese community. i think that it will actually
> expand the mission and influence of wikimedia and wikimania.
>
> 5.4) many chinese contributors are college students, so holding the chinese
> conference in august when they are still in summer vacation will make it
> convenient for both attendees and volunteers.
>
> 6) I agree that the organization of the chinese conference has been a little
> loose. i also agree that we should keep each other informed of what is going
> on in a timely and efficient manner. some chinese users as individuals have
> used the foundation's intellectual properties without obtaining prior
> consent, eg, the "wikimania" in the provisional english name and the
> wikipedia logo in the hong kong bidding poster.
>
> 6.1) i have talked to some chinese organizers and learned that there will be
> better organization and managements with regards to accountability.
>
> 6.2) a meta page about the chinese conference will be set up (before this
> saturday) for information and english media releases. chief chinese
> organizers will also use the foundation-l or other appropriate mailing lists
> for communications of ideas with the foundation and other communities. I
> have agreed to help identify and bridge any language difficulties / culture
> gaps between the two parts of our community.
>
> 6.3) i hope that the community can help choosing an english translation for
> the chinese name of conference, in accordance with foundation policies. the
> chinese community/conference would like to seek the authorization for using
> names/trademarks of the foundation, if needed. the name of the chinese
> conference is "??????" (literally, "chinese language wikipedia/wikimedia
> annual conference").

I rather think the "chinese language wikimedia conference" would be
best. It allows to have several meeting in the same year :-) and it
involves editors from all projects, not wikipedia only.

> 6.3.1) i personally prefer the name "chinese wikimedia conference" and would
> like to know the procedures for seeking permissions from the foundation
> regarding the use of "wikimedia". there is no local chapters serving chinese
> projects at the moment (may not be any time soon either).

As far as I am concerned, the use of wikimedia name is okay.

> 6.4) as explained earlier, the english (or western) word of "wikimania" had
> been interpreted and understood in chinese differently as it is supposed to
> be. the organizers and chinese users have been informed at zh.wikipedia that
> wikimania does not mean "wikimedia conference", but "international wikimedia
> conference" (sponsored by wikimedia foundation); it is also a trading name
> of wikimedia foundation instead of a generic term.
>
> hope that this is helpful.

Yes.
Very helpful.

Thanks ROC

Anthere

> roc (User:R.O.C)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Referencing munger;
	was Split tool? was Too much agglomeration

body:
On 3/16/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/16/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 3/16/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > A really dumb thing that would get some of the way there would just
> > > > add an element in the history with the comment "Split from
> [[Original
> > > > article]] revision [[permanent link]]". Then people could navigate
> > > > back to that and the chain would be unbroken. Much simpler than the
> > > > database having to be smart.
> > >
> > > Dunno about you, but I do that anyway. In fact I did this this week,
> > > splitting [[German grammar]] into [[German nouns]] etc. For the first
> > > edit summary of the new article, I add "split from [[German
> > > grammar]]". A link to the version of the parent article before the
> > > split would be nice, but can be determined by hand simply by comparing
> > > dates.
> > >
> > Right. But obviously making it hardcoded/automagic would mean that
> > such a summary would be genuinely meaningful in a gneral sense and
> > make it much more likely to be used; it would also make it easier for
> > further functionality to be built on -- such as something that lets
> > you split off a section, leaving only a summary of the contents.
>
> This would be neat.  A 'proper' way to split out a section, or to
> merge pages, or to extensively quote/excerpt one article in another,
> that does the 'right thing' wrt edit history as best that can be done
> atm.  I don't know that the issue of copying and pasting content from
> one article to another within a wiki has ever been fully addressed.
>
> > I'm currently working on a tool to fix the referencing on a page, but
> > I'll put such features on my list...
>
> What do you mean by 'fix referencing'  ?

It converts inline  [url] footnotes into <ref>[url]</ref> notes; replaces
multiple instances of the same ref with <ref name="" />, sticks in
<references /> at the end, a bunch of other things, etc.

Not ready for primetime but I've been working on it for the Abramoff
articles.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Recentreversions" special page?

body:
On 3/17/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Implementation : anything reverted by an admin clicking the rollback
> button should show up.  Other automatic-rv messages provided by
> popup-assistants and vandal-fighting software should, too.

It seems it would underreport. By that measure, I would have never
reverted any vandalism.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.

Whaaa?

I'm hoping you mean "unpublished oral accounts" when you say "primary
sources".

Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most
cases.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On a related note; not quite what was requested (limited to a single
page); see also Tony Sidaway's excellent little tool at
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/cgi-bin/vandalism.

Rob Church

On 17/03/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> To address the omnipresent desire of people to know about the speed of
> vandalism reversion, it would be interesting to have a page showing
> exactly that; recent reversions, and how long the previous revision
> had remained there.
>
> On the whole, this would be a positive stat.  It would be useful for
> editors, great for live presentations, and would let reporters and
> other writers offer more detailed information.
>
> Implementation : anything reverted by an admin clicking the rollback
> button should show up.  Other automatic-rv messages provided by
> popup-assistants and vandal-fighting software should, too.
>
> Has anyone tried producing something like this?  I suppose I should
> file it as a mediazilla feature request...
>
> SJ
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] To Randall Stross re: "Anonymous
	Source Is Not the Same as Open Source"

body:
It's a pretty entertaining article, in my opinion.

Like "I don't trust Wikipedia, but I don't have any reason why."

E.g. there's a certain lack of mention of actual errors in Wikipedia
content.

Does Wikipedia make any claim about credibility?


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[WikiEN-l] When Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5
	license makes sense

body:
On 3/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > CC-BY-ND is a fairly permissive license.  It's much more permissive
> > than, for instance, the license Wikimedia provides for its own logos.
> > By your rationale Wikimedia shouldn't be contributing to Wikipedia.
>
> Oh come on. We all know this is a special situation. I am so *bored*
> with people saying, "But the Wikimedia logos are not licensed freely!"
> and implying that this is somehow has any implications for policy.
> They are the single and sole category of exception for a very
> straightforward and practical legal reason.
>
> FF

My whole point is that there are exceptions.  I do disagree with you
though that Wikimedia is the *only* corporation which has practical
legal reasons not to license certain images under a free license,
though.

Anthony


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Free images and model releases

body:
It appears that it is widely known and accepted within the Wikimedia
projects that the law in some countries makes images with identifiable
persons whom did not consent to the photography problematic.

What seems to have been far less discussed is that if we are going to
worry about things which are merely civilly actionable that the
problem isn't just limited to "some countries".

In the US persons who have their clearly identifiable image used for
commercial purposes for which they did not consent have little
difficulty getting a judgement in their favor.  Since this is the
case, can we really regard an image with identifiable people to be as
free as an image without identifiable people or an image with
identifiable people and a suitable release?

What really brought my attention to this matter is an image recently
proposed as a featured image on enwiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunbathe_Buttocks.jpg ... Now it
may be that the image was created with the consent of the subjects, I
don't intend to criticize this particular image...   But really, lets
consider such an image with identifiable subjects who didn't know the
image had been taken.  What if she were to return to her dorm room and
find the Wikipedia article on sunbathing stapled to it?   Were the
image taken without her consent it's quite possible that she'd be
pissed, and I believe that she'd be justified. There is no reason that
illustrations like this in Wikipedia can't be ones which are created
with the subjects consent.  So even ignoring any possible legal issues
with such images, I think we're breaking good ethics to use images
like this without the subjects consent.

Here is a US centric article discussing the matter:
http://www.danheller.com/model-release.html

On enwiki we already have established practices which absolutely place
free images over non-free images. For example, given two images which
serve the same purpose one which is available under a free license and
one which we could only try to claim fair use for, we will always
replace the fairuse image with the free image and we will not permit a
free image to be replaced by a fair use image... Even if the free
image is of lower quality.

I'm considering proposing an addition to that practice, saying we
should always prefer free licensed images which have no identifiable
people or for which we have appropriate model releases over images
with identifiable people and without releases.

No image deletion runs, no prohibitions against uploads, just a
preference. In the majority of subjects on Wikipedia, any identifiable
people are fairly incidental to the actual subject of the
photograph.... Encouraging people to avoid getting identifiable shots
of people where possible would probably be good for overall image
quality even ignoring the potential legal and ethical implications,
because clearly identifiable faces can be distracting.

Thoughts?  I'm especially interested in knowing how the French
Wikipedia handles identifiable images of people.


body:
thank you for your blessing and especially important the clarification
from a non-chinese who understand ??/hanzi/kanji/hanja/h?nt? (the
characters used in these languages). i appreciate it very much!

as for the conference, i am very confident that it will be conducted
in a chinese language (probably mandarin), although interpreting
services may be offered if needed and able. it is also clear that the
scope of the conference is limited to discussions on chinese projects
of wikimedia (no politics, no projects specific to other languages).

as for attendees from non-chinese speaking population or those living
outside of chinese areas, i have talked to the organizers of the
chinese conference and we have the same position:

1) people will not be turned away at the door (exept if deemed
disruptive or dangerous), however, the working language and the scope
of conference is emphasised, and we encourage people to explore and
attend the wikimania in boston, which is probably more suitble,
helpful, educational, stimulating, entertaining, etc, for general
wikmedia contributors/researchers.

2) people who are interested in chinese projects of wikimedia should
be all welcome to attend, whether he/she is a contributor or not of
chinese (or any) projects of wikimedia. the goal is to help chinese
projects of wikimedia to grow better, keep healthy, reach more, and so
on.

please accept my personal gratitudes for all those who are helpful and
respectful to our efforts.

roc
--

2006/3/17, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com>:
> Congrats for Chinewe Wikimedian meeting, you rock
> I hope it gets another adjective soon, for instance, annual ... as for
> Chinese name, it looks to me (a Japanese speaker who knows hanji a
> bit) quite nice and not confusable with Wikimania.
>
> Please let me make clear one point; all participants and programs are
> now planned in Chinese? The reason why I'm interested in that is,  I
> suppose, if there is one track in English (pardonnez vous cheres
> francophones, mais c'est un seul example ...) or any other language,
> neighbor countries' Wikipedians, like Korea or Japan, will be also
> stimulated to attend, though already there are some bunch of people
> who are capable in Chinese :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
> email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Slow caches

body:
Several of the cache boxen are running a bit slow; there's about a 100:1 ratio
between the fast and slow boxen:

[brion at srv27 php-1.5]$ php maintenance/mctest.php
10.0.2.51:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 5.22103786469
10.0.2.55:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.0687239170074
10.0.2.53:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.0517039299011
10.0.2.54:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.0475029945374
10.0.2.56:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.0863571166992
10.0.2.70:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.0541288852692
10.0.2.58:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 3.91460299492
10.0.2.59:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 4.73195290565
10.0.2.59:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 4.39382100105
10.0.2.62:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 3.81929206848
10.0.2.64:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 3.57977700233
10.0.2.65:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 4.70120000839
10.0.2.66:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 0.070246219635
10.0.2.68:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 6.85797095299
10.0.2.69:11000 set: 100   incr: 100   get: 100 time: 4.67265796661
localhost set: 100   incr: 0   get: 0 time: 0.0264229774475

Any ideas?

I've also had to take srv60 out of rotation as it was timing out after insane
amounts of time, hence the doubt srv59.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Slow caches

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Several of the cache boxen are running a bit slow; there's about a 100:1 ratio
>> between the fast and slow boxen:
>
> Well, if you want my wild guess, a 100:1 performance difference suggests
> something is hogging memory and causing excessive swapping.

But it's not, hence the mystery. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me!

body:
On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>So we reorder it.
> >
> >
> > I'm not stoping you.
> >
>
> I'm not stopping *you* either. If you think it's a copyvio which can be
> easily fixed, why not fix it instead of jumping up and down screaming
> "copyvio! copyvio!"?
>
> --
> 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

The onus is on the uploader to make sure whatever it is is not a
copyvio. If I ripped out the subheading and sorted it into
alphabetical order someone would probably try to revert me pretty
fast. I'd still need to go through WP:CP in order to kill the history
and in anycase wikisource is over there.

--
geni


references:
<aa2ef4440603160618u2115d4c6y@mail.gmail.com>
	<dvc7jj$gsd$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<916cc1db0603161302x41cd5106r@mail.gmail.com>
	<dve7hp$ahr$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
anthere, thank you very much for the comments. meanwhile, i am
preparing a letter requesting for permission to use the foundation's
trademark for the conference and will email to relevant committees and
internal-l shortly.

ya, although there are lots of active chinese contributors (japanese
too i believe), i think that the language is really an obstacle for
most east asian people. user:theodoranian (aka, THD in this thread) is
probably one in zh.wikipedia i know with the best english skill, but
even he confessed that he sometimes has trouble understanding
questions or finding words to answer questions when he was in
frankfurt (sorry~~, thd). of course, his written english is good. i am
sure there are a number of chinese contributors with good english, and
the recent discussions here on the list about the chinese conference
have promoted the list among chinese contributors. i hope that there
will be more chinese participants here and on meta and irc.

thanks! i'm living in new york, where i have to use english everyday,
so that is why. 8-) i'll probably go to boston this year (it's so
near) and hopefully meet you guys.

emm, that's a great idea! i think that it will be very helpful, both
to the chinese contributors and the foundation. i believe that it will
be very productive if personal meetings are held between foundation
people and people from mainland china, taiwan, hong kong, etc, as what
have been for european people. i also believe that people from east
asian projects can bring more insights/input to the wikimania.

best,

roc
--

2006/3/17, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
> Hello ROC
>
> Thanks for the detailed answer. I appreciate it.
> Just a couple of points
>
> R.O.C wrote:
> > it was a mess, a huge mess, but gladly we are now working together to
> > address it and fix it. if i were a director or officer of the foundation, i
> > would not feel good if i suddenly learned from the newspaper that the
> > chinese or any other local community on the very projects of foundation had
> > been planning something formal without sharing ideas and information with
> > the foundation and moreover some people had used a foundation trademark
> > without prior agreement! there were miscommunications and there are
> > misunderstandings.
> >
> > i'm a chinese wikipedian who would like to keep anonymity at the moment (my
> > user page is at http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:R.O.C), and i have not
> > participated much in the organization of this chinese conference. but i
> > would like to help sorting the matter out since i understand both chinese
> > and english. here is some information that i would like to provide.
> >
> > 1) it is now realized that the chinese organizers were not keeping in touch
> > with the foundation, but they have been reporting everything on a wikipedia
> > project page (
> > http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2006%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%83)
> > in chinese. the working language for the organizers has to be chinese since
> > few of them can use english efficiently and effectively. i will work on a
> > english translation page on meta as informational briefs this saturday. (of
> > course any help with setting it up sooner would be greatly appreciated.)
>
> thanks
>
> > 2) the chinese organizers and the community at large have since the starting
> > of the projects been cohering strongly with the ideas/goals/policies of the
> > foundation -- because we share these same values: free and open sources,
> > neutrality and mutual respect among many others. this is true even if it is
> > not conveyed to the foundation since we have not expressed it much in
> > english. indeed, very few people know about this mailing list -- as an
> > administrator and keen user on zh.wikipedia i did not even know about it
> > until ~3 months ago (how shameful) and have not really utilize it until
> > yesterday. i can tell that the chinese community wants to develop the
> > chinese projects together with the foundation and the international
> > community at large, and this intention/dedication has never changed.
>
> please, advertise this list as well as meta. Also, we have a nice team
> of people working on all Wikimedia related topics, but most of this team
> is from Europe/USA/Canada. Little by little we get more people from
> South America as well. However, we still lack input from Africans and
> from people from the East. If some of you participate here from time to
> time, or on meta or come join irc #wikimedia channel, we should get to
> know each other better.
>
> > 3) frankly, i believe that the difference between english and chinese
> > languages are larger than that between any two western european languages.
> > even though many chinese in modern mainland china and taiwan start to learn
> > english before primary schools, the lack of live language environment makes
> > it difficult for most of them to communicate in english with an acceptable
> > efficiency. just imagine if asking a native english speaker write in
> > chinese.
>
> Well, your english appears quite good to me :-) at least, I understand
> it... better than some americans :-)
>
> > 4) (partly from KJ's message) contributors to the chinese wikimedia projects
> > mostly reside in mainland china, taiwan, and hong kong, and the remaining
> > small portion locates mostly in north america, europe, and southeast asia.
> > the zh.wikipedia editors and administrators communicate mainly by instant
> > messagers online besides the wikimedia pages. many of them would like to
> > meet and discuss in person about problems, development, and public promotion
> > of wikimedia projects in chinese. many of the issues cannot be efficiently
> > addressed in an online meeting, a local meeting, or an international
> > conference. there are borders and the travel is not easy between these
> > separate judicial regions, so it would not be as easy or little work as a
> > local meet-up or a country meet-up. but the chinese community feels the need
> > for such a conference and believes in its benefits for better development of
> > wikimedia projects in future, so they would like to pursue it despite of all
> > difficulties.
> >
> > 5) (partly from KJ's message) the chinese community decided by vote after
> > discussion to hold the conference 3 weeks after the international meeting.
> > there were several considerations.
> >
> > 5.1) due to limited economical abilities and some visa issues, few (if not
> > zero) contributors in mainland china will be able to attend the
> > international conference. the traveling cost to boston is not a small number
> > for most contributors in taiwan or hong kong, either; but the traveling cost
> > to/in HK would be affordable. those users who can make it for wikimania are
> > likely to be able to travel to HK, but most users who will attend the
> > chinese conference would not have the ability to attend wikimania even if
> > there was no conference in HK. basically, holding a chinese conference in HK
> > would not distract attendees to wikimania in boston.
>
> Which suggest me that it could be a good idea to find some sponsors to
> help support costs for some chinese to come at Boston Wikimania.
>
> > 5.2) the working language on the chinese conference will be chinese
> > (probably mandarin) due to practical reasons. english interpreting service
> > might be offered if there is such a need and the ability. the chinese
> > conference will probably target largely on local or chinese
> > firms/organizations for sponsorship/support. so i do not feel that the
> > chinese conference will divert speakers or much of sponsoring
> > fund/resources.
> >
> > 5.3) the chinese community decided to hold the conference after wikimania so
> > that the few attendees of both conferences can report what they have learned
> > from wikimania to the chinese community. i think that it will actually
> > expand the mission and influence of wikimedia and wikimania.
> >
> > 5.4) many chinese contributors are college students, so holding the chinese
> > conference in august when they are still in summer vacation will make it
> > convenient for both attendees and volunteers.
> >
> > 6) I agree that the organization of the chinese conference has been a little
> > loose. i also agree that we should keep each other informed of what is going
> > on in a timely and efficient manner. some chinese users as individuals have
> > used the foundation's intellectual properties without obtaining prior
> > consent, eg, the "wikimania" in the provisional english name and the
> > wikipedia logo in the hong kong bidding poster.
> >
> > 6.1) i have talked to some chinese organizers and learned that there will be
> > better organization and managements with regards to accountability.
> >
> > 6.2) a meta page about the chinese conference will be set up (before this
> > saturday) for information and english media releases. chief chinese
> > organizers will also use the foundation-l or other appropriate mailing lists
> > for communications of ideas with the foundation and other communities. I
> > have agreed to help identify and bridge any language difficulties / culture
> > gaps between the two parts of our community.
> >
> > 6.3) i hope that the community can help choosing an english translation for
> > the chinese name of conference, in accordance with foundation policies. the
> > chinese community/conference would like to seek the authorization for using
> > names/trademarks of the foundation, if needed. the name of the chinese
> > conference is "??????" (literally, "chinese language wikipedia/wikimedia
> > annual conference").
>
>
> I rather think the "chinese language wikimedia conference" would be
> best. It allows to have several meeting in the same year :-) and it
> involves editors from all projects, not wikipedia only.
>
>
> > 6.3.1) i personally prefer the name "chinese wikimedia conference" and would
> > like to know the procedures for seeking permissions from the foundation
> > regarding the use of "wikimedia". there is no local chapters serving chinese
> > projects at the moment (may not be any time soon either).
>
> As far as I am concerned, the use of wikimedia name is okay.
>
> > 6.4) as explained earlier, the english (or western) word of "wikimania" had
> > been interpreted and understood in chinese differently as it is supposed to
> > be. the organizers and chinese users have been informed at zh.wikipedia that
> > wikimania does not mean "wikimedia conference", but "international wikimedia
> > conference" (sponsored by wikimedia foundation); it is also a trading name
> > of wikimedia foundation instead of a generic term.
> >
> > hope that this is helpful.
>
> Yes.
> Very helpful.
>
> Thanks ROC
>
> Anthere
>
>
> > roc (User:R.O.C)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Vedant Lath

subject: [Wikitech-l] CVS snapshots

body:
thanks, brion. i was desperate to see the Special:Revisiondelete page.

vedant

On 3/16/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ah, good. I was considering offering to upload stuff somewhere too,
> but it'll look better coming off a Wikimedia-owned domain.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> On 16/03/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Since SourceForge's anonymous CVS servers have been on the fritz for a
> couple
> > days, I'll be periodically uploading snapshot tarballs of the source
> from CVS
> > HEAD here until it's fixed or we give up on it:
> >
> > http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/snapshot/
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.

How is http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/statutes/title42/42-4/42-4-15.HTM
"hard if not impossible to verify"?


from_name: Delphine Ménard

references:
<aa2ef4440603160618u2115d4c6y@mail.gmail.com>
	<dvc7jj$gsd$1@sea.gmane.org> <441A07BB.6080407@telus.net>
	<dve6sq$6jv$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 3/17/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > On another topic, I have been trying to encourage a founding meeting of
> > a Canadian chapter without much success. The big problem for a Canadian
> > chapter is geography and having a population that is spread across a
> > 5,000 km ribbon. I have been thinking of a one day meeting in Montreal
> > right after the Boston meeting. This would make it possible for those of
> > us in the west to stop there on the way back from Boston, or even to car
> > pool between Montreal and Boston. If this can be arranged would it be
> > possible for you to come to Montreal for one day to attend?
> >
> > Ec (Ray)
>
> As for myself, provided that I know about it soon enough, I might
> arrange it.

And I would definitely be there.

Delphine

--
~notafish


subject: [WikiEN-l] Portal subject areas

body:
Steve, I'm afraid I have no immediate answer to your dilemma, though I would
be remiss if I didn't note that the idea of having a portal to organize
anarchism in neat little boxes makes me laugh.

k

On 3/17/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> Okay, I ran across [[Portal:Fascism]] today and admit it made me double
> take. I'm pondering whether this is a POV fork or a legitimate subject
> area for a portal.  We also have [[Portal:Anarchism]], which I don't
> feel so bad about, which probably does point me in the direction of
> being biased, so I've come here for a ''discreet'' sounding of opinion.
>
> Steve block
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.4/283 - Release Date: 16/03/06
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Walter Vermeir

body:
I have got a bounce because of this when send a reply to a OTRS-ticket.

http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=207.142.131.221

Can be seen what can be done about this?

[[meta:user:Walter]]


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Off-wiki vs. on-wiki discussion

body:
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 11:22:52 -0500, you wrote:

>We should combine that with the earlier discussion, though -- just
>think of how much time a "Policy discussion considered harmful"
>guideline would save us ;-)

We should discuss that policy.  Oh, wait...
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me!

body:
Can I just make the comment that this thread shows why email is much
better adapted to serious discussions that Wiki software is. Most of
the comments on AfD are "Delete, per nom" or "Keep <insert brief spiel
here>". Whereas on email people are actually able to develop ideas
like "it's a copyvio" beyond that simple troublesome phrase.

And to think there was a proposed policy to ban offsite discussion
about Wikipedia...:)

Steve

On 3/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > geni wrote:
> > > On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>So we reorder it.
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm not stoping you.
> > >
> >
> > I'm not stopping *you* either. If you think it's a copyvio which can be
> > easily fixed, why not fix it instead of jumping up and down screaming
> > "copyvio! copyvio!"?
> >
> > --
> > 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
>
> The onus is on the uploader to make sure whatever it is is not a
> copyvio. If I ripped out the subheading and sorted it into
> alphabetical order someone would probably try to revert me pretty
> fast. I'd still need to go through WP:CP in order to kill the history
> and in anycase wikisource is over there.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though.  Plenty of
> primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily
> verifiable, if not always reliable.

They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg,
Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would
invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded
England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.

Steve

[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
> And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it
> is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in
> a primary source that says:
>     Joe said he saw the ghost.
>
> The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state:
>     Joe believes in ghosts.
>
> It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the
> possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in
> ghosts or not.

This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's
no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the
next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not
contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the
person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of
style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say
"Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been
misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday,
"Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without
asking me, but they screwed me over".

My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can
deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a
convention for "said that he thought".

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
> Excellent example.
>
> I wonder if we can cite personal interviews under that same pretense.

*Published* personal interviews, of course. And preferably published
by reliable sources.

Steve


body:
On 3/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
I suspect numbers are a more important difference than softwear.

--
geni


body:
On 3/17/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Gregory-
>
> As a counter-example, take a look at:
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Karachi_-_Pakistan-market.jpg
>
> This image was (successfully) nominated for Featured Picture status;
> during the discussion, someone objected on the grounds that the
> photographed person did not give their consent. Such objections, or
> acting upon them, strike me as overzealous. A fantastic photo like this
> should not be removed or replaced unless there is a personal objection
> from the subject.

I agree, for the most part, but would you not agree that given this
image and one almost identical but with a solid release from the
subject that the image with the release would be more free simply
because any objection from the subject would have far less teeth?  ...
Content is not free content unless we could, in theory, use it against
the wishes of others.

But obviously there are many situations where making a hard demand
would be unnecessary and foolish... Which is why I didn't propose a
war against all such images.   I think we should encourage people to
help make sure their submissions are as free as possible.  It's fairly
normal for commercial photographers to walk around with a stack of
model release forms and I think that we'd be better off if some
Wikipedia photographers were doing the same.

> We should not discriminate on grounds of quality. But I agree that a
> person who finds themselves in a Wikipedia article illustrating a
> subject where they might have reasonable grounds to find such use
> _personally embarrassing_ should give their consent. This includes
> obvious matters like human sexuality, but also images like:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sexynose.jpg
>
> I would not object to the inclusion of a note that such (and only such)
> images may otherwise be replaced or removed, provided the photographer
> is given advance opportunity to obtain a model release.

So, how to set the criteria?  It sounds like what you're propose is
that we only replace images  if their use on Wikipedia more likely
than average to generate complaint. Thats hard to convert into
instructions which are simple to understand... and it makes
assumptions about what all uses of the images will be.

Often the only time to get permission is when the image is taken, so
making a use dependant rule means that we'll often have to throw out
the first illustration for a personally embarrassing use, just because
no one didn't consider that it might be used in an embarrassing way.

There are, I think, two interconnected issues here: The first is the
ethical use of identifyable images of people, and the second is the
implications the impact of civil (and in some places, criminal)
liability of using an identifiable image without permission on the
freeness of our content.

It sounds like you and I are in complete agreement on the first part:
We should attempt to replace potentially embarrassing images which are
identifiable and where we don't know that we have the consent of the
subject.

On the second matter, I'm not sure we have agreement yet. This is less
an ethical concern and more a concern about maximizing the freedom of
our content.

If we don't have some rule that explains that images with identifiable
people and without releases will be replaced, we'll have no incentive
for people to ever go through the trouble of getting releases. The
freedom of our work as a whole will be reduced as a result.

It was my thought that since this is a lower risk issue that we can
avoid any sort of prohibition. But it sounds like you think that
replacement is too aggressive in the general case.

>  > Encouraging people to avoid getting identifiable shots
> > of people where possible would probably be good for overall image
> > quality even ignoring the potential legal and ethical implications,
> > because clearly identifiable faces can be distracting.
>
> I don't agree. I prefer an encyclopedia with a human face. Have you
> noticed how in Hollywood movies, directors use every trick in the book
> to cover frontal nudity, by placing objects or sheets or whatever is
> available before the private parts? (Stanley Kubrick wonderfully
> parodied this practice in "A Clockwork Orange".) I'd rather not have a
> similar culture in Wikipedia with regard to faces, with hundreds of
> photos of people turning their face to the side, having their eyes
> covered by black bars, or putting their hands over their head.

Eh, That wasn't at all what I was suggesting.

We often have images of devices or processes which are in no way
enhanced by people in the shot... but the images have them anyways
because that was what was in front of the camera when the shutter
fired or it was the easiest way to hold the object.  In such cases,
the extraneous human presence is potentially distracting.

By all means, if the shot is enhanced by having humans in it... we
should have them. If it's enhanced by having humans in it in a way
which makes them identifiable, then we should do so...  But if they
are, I think we should ask our photographers to get releases...   If
they don't,  we can still use the image until someone objects.


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
Just to say: As I saw this bounce as well (for goeje.wikimedia.org) I
sent a report to noc at wikimedia and to JeLuF.
Regards
Michael

On 3/17/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> I have got a bounce because of this when send a reply to a OTRS-ticket.
>
> http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=207.142.131.221
>
> Can be seen what can be done about this?
>
> [[meta:user:Walter]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Regards
Michael Bimmler


from_name: Erik Garrison

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed process pool (fwd)

body:
> Date: Mar 17, 2006 10:24 AM
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed process pool
> To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Is there a way analyze the wikipedia logs to figure out what processes
> takes the most time? There is no immediate need, but I wanted to shoot
> off an idea to consider. If we were able to capture the processes that
> do take a heavy server load and push them onto a distributed process
> pool, would it help wikipedia or mediawiki in general? I'd imagine there
> would be a difference with process time over the speed of network
> traffic. Let say we determined that the code that creates a diff for two
> pages is a hog and can be put into the pool. We could use something like
> BOINC, http://boinc.berkeley.edu/, to standardize the pool. We can add
> the diff process to the pool as the server load gets heavy.  The use of
> BOINC is more specific to research tasks, and it would need to be
> different for mediawiki. I just used the idea to keep this message short
> to get your feedback.
>

Jonathan,

Jared and I are actually working on a project to research and build a
peer-based distributed hosting framework for large free-content sites like
Wiki{m,p}edia.  In a practical sense, we're using Wikipedia as a starting
point for the inquiry.

If we get accurate statistics on what kinds of processes these are and
what quantity of resources they consume, we might be able to integrate
these considerations into the simulation environment we'll be using to
evaluate various architechtures for distributed hosting.

I'm finally subscribing to the wikitech list, and I'll be interested in
learning about anything related that doesn't come up there.

-Erik


body:
On 3/17/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > My whole point is that there are exceptions.  I do disagree with you
> > though that Wikimedia is the *only* corporation which has practical
> > legal reasons not to license certain images under a free license,
> > though.
>
> I don't think Fastfission claimed that.
>
> That other corporations also have good reason to not license images
> freely doesn't mean we /have/ to change our policy to accept less free
> images, though.
>
> -Matt

First of all, I agree.  That other corporations also have good reason
not to license certain images freely doesn't mean Wikipedia /has/ to
change its policy to accept less free images.

You seem to be missing the context of my original comment though.  It
was in response to a statement "The bottom line is that who are highly
protective of their intellectual
property probably should not be contributing it to Wikipedia."

For further context, the example situation we were discussing was "If
I make an image, that is, take a photograph of a leader or an actor I
adore and do not want it to be photoshopped into some unknown
monstrosity, I would be more comfortable in using Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license."

Anthony


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed process pool

body:
Jonathan wrote:

> Is there a way analyze the wikipedia logs to figure out what
> processes takes the most time? There is no immediate need, but I
> wanted to shoot off an idea to consider. If we were able to
> capture the processes that do take a heavy server load and push
> them onto a distributed process pool, would it help wikipedia or
> mediawiki in general? I'd imagine there

This sounds like a nice theory, but what you need first is the
numbers.  There are just sooo many more (100 times? 1000 times?)
normal page views than diffs, history views or edits.  And the
normal page views are taken care of by caching proxies (Squid)
already.

I don't know what the numbers are today, or what the
hit-miss-ratio of the Squid cache is.  It would be interesting to
know.  Are these statistics documented anywhere?

Page requests per day hasn't been documented after October 2004,
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
-----
>
> Message: 6

> From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com>
> On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use
them.
>
> I'm hoping you mean "unpublished oral accounts" when you say "primary
sources".
>
> Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources
> in most cases.

There are important exceptions to this.  Some types of primary source
need interpretation that requires expertise.  For example, diaries and
autobiographies are often inaccurate and self-serving, and intelligence
reports often include rumors and suspicions along with facts.  In such
a
case, it can be better to rely on an expert who has examined the
evidence
and weighed it against other evidence and context.  At least one should
check on secondary sources to see whether there is any dispute over the
accuracy of the primary source.

Zero.

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


from_name: Nathaniel Sheetz

subject: [WikiEN-l] FYI: A program for evaluating WP articles

body:
This looks fantastic, but I'm concerned about the way edit value is
calculated.  Under the current proposal, as I understand it, copyeditors
will be more "valuable" than those who contribute original content.  Someone
with poor writing skills might contribute a significant body of work, but if
it is then rewritten, the original contributor's work won't appear on the
page for very long and that person won't be ranked highly.  But the
copyeditor, whose better writing skills suggest that fewer people will
modify the resulting text, will be considered more valuable because the text
will remain on the page longer without alteration.

Furthermore, if a user connects all the wikis on which s/he works, those who
work on multiple wikipedias would be at a disadvantage.  Their article
contributions in their non-native language will likely not remain unaltered
for long due to stylistic problems, and that will damage their rating on
their "home" wikipedia.

I'm not sure how to fix this without getting humans involved.  Perhaps it's
not a significant problem, since the best editors can both create content
and do it in such a way as to make it readable.  But it appears to me that
average editors will be able to attain the same rating as above-average
content creators.

All that said, though, this is a great idea.  The ability to view each
user's contributions to an article and judge their accuracy based on the
author would be key in improving the credibility of wikis in general, and
wikipedia specifically.

Nathaniel

On 3/17/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> Have a look at Ray King's essay:
>
> http://www.pint2.org/index.php/Contributor_Ranking_System
>
> Although this solution is aimed more generally at sites using Wikimedia
> software, this is something I believe Ray has been talking with Jimbo
> about. I happened to be present when Ray presented this the other night,
> & a known expert suggested an excellent way to grab some of the data
> needed without causing a strain on the servers.
>
> And Ray is *very* interested in feedback. I hope he concentrates on a
> simplified version of this proposal, rather than trying to write the
> finished, with all of the bells-&-whistles version.
>
> Geoff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Nathaniel C. Sheetz
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ncs124


body:
On 3/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the US persons who have their clearly identifiable image used for
> commercial purposes for which they did not consent have little
> difficulty getting a judgement in their favor.  Since this is the
> case, can we really regard an image with identifiable people to be as
> free as an image without identifiable people or an image with
> identifiable people and a suitable release?

I'm fairly sure that statement actually isn't the case.  You *can* (in
the US) use an image of a famous person for commercial purposes, so
long as that purpose is also educational (such as in an encyclopedia).

Anthony


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Retrieving article deleted for NN

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>I'm certainly in favour of covering university clubs and societies in
>>this way, as long as people can resist the temptation to name-check
>>all their friends and document the many unique ways in which they get
>>drunk.  Unless they really are unique, of course.  I suppose we could
>>have a university-club-template - {{{clubname}}} is a university club,
>>it organises pub-crawls, its officers are elected annually, it is part
>>of the students' union at {{{university}}}.  Subst that in and no
>>further effort is required for most of them :-)
>
>
> Pub crawls! That's a great idea! Wait till I contact "the guys"!
>

You don't do pubcrawls? I can think of several at my uni that do:

- the Engineering society
- the Maths society
- the Ski society
- the Stein Club
- the Medicine students society

--
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:
On 3/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> What really brought my attention to this matter is an image recently
> proposed as a featured image on enwiki:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunbathe_Buttocks.jpg ... Now it
> may be that the image was created with the consent of the subjects, I
> don't intend to criticize this particular image...   But really, lets
> consider such an image with identifiable subjects who didn't know the
> image had been taken.  What if she were to return to her dorm room and
> find the Wikipedia article on sunbathing stapled to it?   Were the
> image taken without her consent it's quite possible that she'd be
> pissed, and I believe that she'd be justified. There is no reason that
> illustrations like this in Wikipedia can't be ones which are created
> with the subjects consent.  So even ignoring any possible legal issues
> with such images, I think we're breaking good ethics to use images
> like this without the subjects consent.
>
In a case like the one you give, I agree.  Wikipedia should respect
people's right to privacy (which applies in cases where the identity
of the person is not important for any educational/newsworthy
purpose).

> I'm considering proposing an addition to that practice, saying we
> should always prefer free licensed images which have no identifiable
> people or for which we have appropriate model releases over images
> with identifiable people and without releases.
>
I think this should only apply to non-famous individuals, and that it
should be a strict rule, not just a preference.

> No image deletion runs, no prohibitions against uploads, just a
> preference. In the majority of subjects on Wikipedia, any identifiable
> people are fairly incidental to the actual subject of the
> photograph.... Encouraging people to avoid getting identifiable shots
> of people where possible would probably be good for overall image
> quality even ignoring the potential legal and ethical implications,
> because clearly identifiable faces can be distracting.
>
> Thoughts?  I'm especially interested in knowing how the French
> Wikipedia handles identifiable images of people.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most
> cases.

No way. Aside from our lovely NOR policy, let me just say that the
worst annoyance is some yahoo with a primary source who thinks that he
now knows how to write history (and I am sure the specialists in other
fields as well have run into this a million times over).

A small example: periodically you get people quoting passages
selectively out of Darwin's _Descent of Man_ to prove that Darwin was
a racist (by modern standards). They appeal to the original and say
that they are as good as anyone else at interpretting such things. In
reality, Darwin's take on race (so says the historian) needs to be
highly contextualized (he is actually considerably less racist than
most of his anthropological contemporaries, though just racist enough
to not be considered an ethnologist) and is considerably more complex
than just reading _Descent of Man_ (you can't really understand
_Descent of Man_ unless you read the works to which Darwin is
implicitly responding to). But none of that depth, context, and
richness is clear from the primary source alone -- the work of a
historian is to draw all of these things together, to make the primary
source more than the text it is printed upon.

And so historians have done this, and so it is easy to write an
article about _Descent of Man_ or Darwin's views on race, because most
of that synthesis has already been done by others and can be easily
found and referenced. Sure, pairing the synthetic approach *along*
with the primary source is a great idea and for good effect. But in
this case the primary source serves primarily to add luster and
authenticity to the secondary interpretation, which is considerably
harder to get than just reading the original.

Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian
claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other
people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather
have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than
primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the
current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will
prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and
thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.

I've run into this time and time again, when some self-styled
researcher attempts to forge new ground on Wikipedia using their
original sources, and refuses to acknowledge the difficulty of using
primary sources, even after it being patiently explained more than a
few times. I have to admit, it drives me a little batty -- as such I
apologize for the lengthy reply!

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me!

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 3/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 3/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On 3/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>I'd say this one is going to close as no consensus:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...For_Dummies_books
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So, friends, can you help me to find merit in this article?  To be
>>>>>>reconciled to the existence of what up to now I am unable to see as
>>>>>>anything other than an absurdity?  Or is Tony right, and AfD is
>>>>>>fatally borken?
>>>>>>Guy (JzG)
>>>>>
>>>>>Non issue. We leave Afd to have their fun that kill it like to copyvio
>>>>>it is. Takeing on the inclusionists head on will probably result in a
>>>>>dummies watch or something.
>>>>
>>>>It may be utterly useless garbage, but how is it a copyvio?  I was
>>>>under the impression that non-creative lists of facts (of which I
>>>>think this is an example) weren't eligible for copyright.
>>>>
>>>>Kirill Lokshin
>>>
>>>It is sorted. For example sorting the books into a "Handheld
>>>computing" section is argubly creative.
>>
>>Well, it is prefaced with "Note that this list contains some
>>duplicates; some books are part of multiple ...For Dummies series."
>>I'm not terribly familiar with these books; do they have something,
>>like a spine label, giving the series?  If that's the case, listing it
>>by these isn't particularly creative on our part.
>>
>>Kirill Lokshin
>
>
> It is however creative on the companies part.
>

So we reorder it.

--
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] When Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs
 2.5	license makes sense

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 3/14/06, guru brahma <wikibra at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
>>Sometime back, there was a discussion about the unusual license of
>>http://www.panopedia.org/index.php/Panopedia. Within the context of
>>Wikipedia, I was wondering if this license makes any sense at all. I think
>>there are some instances where this MAY make sense. For example, images
>>tagged as GFDL-self could be tagged this way. If I make an image, that is,
>>take a photograph of a leader or an actor I adore and do not want it to be
>>photoshopped into some unknown monstrosity, I would be more comfortable in
>>using Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license. The same would
>>apply to personal images that I upload on to my userpage. The last thing I
>>want to see in my image my moustache disappear or a beard appear ;). Any
>>thoughts which other areas this admittedly over-restrictive license can be
>>used if at all allowed on wikipedia?
>>
>
>
> I don't see any need for this. If you take a picture of Eddie Van Halen, and
> someone photoshops a beard and a corncob pipe onto it, you can be for damn
> sure that this image won't be apperaing on Wikipedia.

What!? You mean that Eddie Van Halen *didn't* have a beard and corncob
pipe? I've been misled! :)

--
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: SJ

subject:
[Foundation-l] FW: PRESS RELEASE: EPA Closing Its Midwest
	Library

body:
A librarian cleared up a few points for me:

* The content that's going to be mothballed is essentially public
domain.  Most, if not all, of the documents in such libraries are EPA
reports.
* Few people or organizations lobby for these particular libraries...
despite having many unique collections, they're not part of the in
crowds.

This may not be sexy or where the bling is at, but it's the only
public-domain content about a crucial niche of human knowledge.  Most
libraries might not be willing to tray some radical new archival /
distribution method while their old one isn't broken -- some are quite
shy about technology changes -- but this one has little to lose, and
could some positive publicity.

SJ

On 3/16/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The copyright status of the research involved isn't completely clear to
> me, but this seems the kind of information that is theoretically, but not
> practically, free.  I'm not sure who currently advocates for fixes to
> these access problems; but it seems like something Wikimedia might want
> to do.
>
> "...the agency has allocated no money for moving collections to other
>   libraries or digitizing the holdings so that they would be available
>   online."
>
> SJ
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> For Immediate Release:  Thursday, March 16, 2006
> Contact:   Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337
>
>
> EPA Closing Its Midwest Library
>
>
> Holding Will Be Stored Indefinitely; Public Access to Research
> Compromised
>
>
>
>
>
> Washington, DC - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its
> Midwest Regional Library serving universities, the public and its own
> staff in a six-state area, according to an internal email released today
> by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The agency
> is acting without waiting for Congress to approve the proposed budget
> cuts that are the basis for dismantling EPA's entire library network.
>
>
>
> In a March 13, 2006 memo to employees, EPA Midwestern Regional
> Administrator Thomas Skinner wrote that "the library will close in the
> near future" so as "to allow time for an orderly relocation of our
> library collection."  The affected library located in the Chicago
> regional headquarters serves the six-state region of Illinois, Indiana,
> Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
>
>
>
> The memo cites a 90% loss of funding for the regional library in
> President Bush's proposed 2007 budget as the reason for closing the
> library, even though the proposal has yet to be voted on by Congress and
> the new federal fiscal year does not begin until October 1, 2006.  The
> Midwest Regional Library is one of 27 libraries across the country whose
> budget the administration has proposed to reduce by 80%.
>
>
>
> "By putting its research collections into indefinite storage, EPA might
> as well start burning books because these works are not likely to see
> the light of day again," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch,
> noting that the agency has allocated no money for moving collections to
> other libraries or digitizing the holdings so that they would be
> available online. "The loss of access to this research will remove
> potentially key information from the hands of researchers, inspectors
> and decision-makers."
>
>
>
> The plan to slash library funding is among the $300 million in EPA
> budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration.  As originally
> proposed, the plan would also have de-funded the electronic catalog
> maintained by the EPA Headquarters library.  When it was pointed out
> that eliminating the electronic catalog would make it impossible to find
> any holding within the network, EPA announced last week that it would
> restore the $500,000 reduction to its headquarters for the catalog.
> Unfortunately, EPA indicated that it would compensate for this action by
> spreading even deeper cuts cut among the other libraries.
>
>
>
> In his email, Regional Administrator Skinner pledged that limited
> electronic access to research will remain available to EPA's own staff
> but it is unclear what happens to the tens of thousands of research
> reports that are now only available as hard copies. At the same time,
> employees in other EPA regions are reporting parallel scrambles to
> cutback library services in anticipation of adoption of the agency's FY
> 2007 budget.
>
>
>
> "EPA might want to wait for Congress to act before its shutters its
> libraries," Ruch added, noting that EPA spends more than a half-billion
> dollars a year on research and the total library network budget is only
> $2.5 million.  "EPA's national research plan is supposed to build on
> what we already know; but effectively deploying our existing knowledge
> base will be increasingly difficult if decades of research are locked
> away in storage."
>
>
>
> ###
>
>
>
> Read the email announcing the library closure
>
> http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_13_03_EPA_Library_email.pdf
>
>
>
> Learn more about the Bush plan to close the EPA library network
>
> http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=643
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- You are currently subscribed to newslib as: sjklein at hcs.harvard.edu. To unsubscribe send a blank
> email to leave-11411364-5547079E at listserv.unc.edu
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] Portal subject areas

body:
Okay, I ran across [[Portal:Fascism]] today and admit it made me double
take. I'm pondering whether this is a POV fork or a legitimate subject
area for a portal.  We also have [[Portal:Anarchism]], which I don't
feel so bad about, which probably does point me in the direction of
being biased, so I've come here for a ''discreet'' sounding of opinion.

Steve block

--
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
> > It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in
> > depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
>
> Unfortunately, the more is added to our guidelines, the less likely
> they are to be actually read and understood.  The point is better made
> on article talk pages or to particular editors, I feel.
>
> -Matt

I think it has already reached the point where the only time I look at
outr guidlines is when someone is trying to use them against me.

--
geni


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/17/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
> Fastfission wrote:
> >
> > Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian
> > claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other
> > people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather
> > have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than
> > primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the
> > current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will
> > prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and
> > thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
>
> I suspect you're wrong about this being universal.  It may well be true
> for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is
> perfectly reasonable and even desirable.  The difference, of course, is
> that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.

>From what I have read, I think this would apply to mathematics as well.  I
can't remeber the exact examples, but I recall reading that several key
proofs of theorems recently have not been accepted, but rather, reviewers
could find no errors. To do something comparable to what FF was talking
about would be to quote directly from one of these proofs to support some
argument - if the experts have a hard time interpreting these proofs, we
can't take the word of any old editor that they have understood the proof.

Ian


from_name: Geoff Burling

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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] a few words on sources

body:
Just a quick note on sources--some of them are in the public domain, and,  if
possible, can be added to Wikisource with the link {{wikisourcepar|XXX}}.

Some of us have begun doing this with EB1911 articles, and I have started
looking for first person US civil war accounts in newspapers and magazine from
that period. Oral histories, while not always reliable, add considerably to
our  understanding of the period, and are a great way to learn history. It can
also  be extremely beneficial to students using Wikipedia to be able to click
to a  newspaper article from the period being studied, which can be easily
cited.  Furthermore, the amount of detail that these articles give, along with the
 anecdotal accounts, enrich our own articles considerably. And finally, they
often have great public domain illustrations.

Tonight I added _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Admiral_David_D._Porter_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Admiral_David_D._Porter)  with  a link from [[David
D. Porter]]. The image that goes along with this is  forthcoming. Personally,
I think it is a nice addition to the article, with all  kinds of information
that we do not have. I encourage others to find similar  articles for other
events (the sinking of the Titanic, as reported in the NY  Times, for instance,
or various battles of World War I, election-related  editorials, book reviews
of classic works as they were published, etc.) to  really enrich the Wikipedia
experience.

Danny


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Gregory-

As a counter-example, take a look at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Karachi_-_Pakistan-market.jpg

This image was (successfully) nominated for Featured Picture status;
during the discussion, someone objected on the grounds that the
photographed person did not give their consent. Such objections, or
acting upon them, strike me as overzealous. A fantastic photo like this
should not be removed or replaced unless there is a personal objection
from the subject.

We should not discriminate on grounds of quality. But I agree that a
person who finds themselves in a Wikipedia article illustrating a
subject where they might have reasonable grounds to find such use
_personally embarrassing_ should give their consent. This includes
obvious matters like human sexuality, but also images like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sexynose.jpg

I would not object to the inclusion of a note that such (and only such)
images may otherwise be replaced or removed, provided the photographer
is given advance opportunity to obtain a model release.

 > Encouraging people to avoid getting identifiable shots
> of people where possible would probably be good for overall image
> quality even ignoring the potential legal and ethical implications,
> because clearly identifiable faces can be distracting.

I don't agree. I prefer an encyclopedia with a human face. Have you
noticed how in Hollywood movies, directors use every trick in the book
to cover frontal nudity, by placing objects or sheets or whatever is
available before the private parts? (Stanley Kubrick wonderfully
parodied this practice in "A Clockwork Orange".) I'd rather not have a
similar culture in Wikipedia with regard to faces, with hundreds of
photos of people turning their face to the side, having their eyes
covered by black bars, or putting their hands over their head.

Erik


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 3/17/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> To address the omnipresent desire of people to know about the speed of
> vandalism reversion, it would be interesting to have a page showing
> exactly that; recent reversions, and how long the previous revision
> had remained there.

It'd probably be better to parse the IRC recentchanges data than to
have something in the mediawiki software. You can sort of do this in
CDVF by blacklisting anything that has "revert" in it, or something
like that. You wouldn't be able to see the time since the previous
revert with it, but it shouldn't be too hard for someone who knows
Java to implement that.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me!

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>So we reorder it.
>
>
> I'm not stoping you.
>

I'm not stopping *you* either. If you think it's a copyvio which can be
easily fixed, why not fix it instead of jumping up and down screaming
"copyvio! copyvio!"?

--
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: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-18

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

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Basic section headings... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Handling of sections up to level 6 and beyond... FAILED!
Running test Resolving duplicate section names... FAILED!
Running test Template with sections, __NOTOC__... FAILED!
Running test Link inside a section heading... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 275 of 297 tests (92.59%) FAILED!


from_name: Jacky PB

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan wikipedia?

body:
Hello, it appears that the discussion on the moldovan wikipedia just stopped, without a decision being reached. Don't mean to bother you, but we came here for a solution to this problem. :)

Yours,
Dpotop

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from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Slow caches

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Several of the cache boxen are running a bit slow; there's about a 100:1 ratio
> between the fast and slow boxen:

Well, if you want my wild guess, a 100:1 performance difference suggests
something is hogging memory and causing excessive swapping.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Gregory Maxwell:

> I agree, for the most part, but would you not agree that given this
> image and one almost identical but with a solid release from the
> subject that the image with the release would be more free simply
> because any objection from the subject would have far less teeth?  ...

These are slight variations on "freedom", similar to a reproduction of
public domain 2D artwork without a source vs. one made by a Wikipedian.
In both cases I would consider image quality the more important
criterion. Only if the quality is truly equal I would then distinguish
based on these criteria. In most such cases we could also simply allow
both images to be used.

 > I think we should encourage people to
> help make sure their submissions are as free as possible.

Certainly Wikimedians should be _encouraged_ to obtain (formal or
informal) model release whenever possible, just as they should be
encouraged to provide good metadata, cite sources, use dual-licensing, etc.

> So, how to set the criteria?  It sounds like what you're propose is
> that we only replace images  if their use on Wikipedia more likely
> than average to generate complaint. Thats hard to convert into
> instructions which are simple to understand... and it makes
> assumptions about what all uses of the images will be.

It's more about the content of the image than about its use. An image
which would be typically considered a private or intimate shot is
clearly different from a photo taken e.g. in a public stret. Rather than
having very precise guidelines on this, I suggest an addition to the
policy which refers to common sense and consensus, e.g.:

    When a photo shows identifiable subjects in a setting which could
    be considered private or intimate according to the predominant
    cultural norms where the photo was taken, such photos should be
    replaced with ones where model release has been obtained. The more
    private or intimate the setting, the stronger is the case to
    completely remove the image if there is no model release.

    Use  common sense, seek consensus, and give the uploader an
    opportunity to obtain model release before removing or replacing an
    image for this reason.

Note the reference to cultural norms. The Dutch have just introduced a
video to educate immigration applicants about "Dutch culture"; it
includes scenes such as topless sunbathing, a homosexual couple and nude
hippies (yay, hippies!). I wouldn't at all be surprised if not all the
persons shown in this way gave permission. Similarly, a pot smoker in
the US may be less happy about being photographed than one in the
Netherlands. ;-)

Yes, you have to make an educated guess about these matters, and that
guess might be very off-base. The idea is that you mostly act when
someone complains.

> We often have images of devices or processes which are in no way
> enhanced by people in the shot...

Absolutely. Or the typical tourist shots with the whole family posing in
front of the medieval castle. Certainly here it is a matter of
encyclopedic quality to get the damn people out of the picture. ;-)

Erik


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Portal subject areas

body:
On Mar 18, 2006, at 1:16 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On the same note, why not try making changes to the fascism portal,
> and just see what happens?
>
> Steve

If you make changes to the anarchism portal, no one really cares
because no one's in charge of it.

Changes to the communism portal are only possible after approval from
the Portal Commissar, even though the portal theoretically belongs to
all the people.

If you change the fascism portal, on the other hand, you get shot.

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


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan wikipedia?

body:
Problem? Look at the recent changes on mo.wiki. You and your band of
thugs have not been caring about that place since you left a week or
two ago. You just noticed it's still there, oh, let's go complain.

The fact is, none of you actually visits there very often.

Mark

On 18/03/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello, it appears that the discussion on the moldovan wikipedia just stopped, without a decision being reached. Don't mean to bother you, but we came here for a solution to this problem. :)
>
> Yours,
> Dpotop
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Fastfission wrote:
>
> Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian
> claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other
> people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather
> have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than
> primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the
> current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will
> prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and
> thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.

I suspect you're wrong about this being universal.  It may well be true
for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is
perfectly reasonable and even desirable.  The difference, of course, is
that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.

Of course, even in mathematics one should be vary of those primary
sources that have not passed peer review and/or public scrutiny.  But
then, the same applies to secondary sources as well.  (People _have_
been known to attempt revisionist interpretations of mathematics.  Such
kookery is usually much more obvious that historical revisionism, but it
does happen.  See various long threads in sci.math for examples.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan wikipedia?

body:
Gerard,

Thank you for this message. It summarises my view of this project
almost exactly.

Besides that, though, Alphax is a bit incorrect as far as a couple of things go:

1) It was never a "POV fork". The only significant difference is
script. It's not as if pages are copied but their contents are
replaced with POV, rather, their contents are usually simply converted
to Cyrillic.

2) Moldovan is not a relic of the cold war. Nearly half of the people
who speak Romanian or Moldovan in Moldova claim to speak "Moldovan"
nowadays. If you mean the Cyrillic script is a relic of the Cold War,
that's not exactly accurate, Latin was made official in 1989, and a
period of transition and confusion took place until about 1993~1995,
by which time nearly all citizens knew Latin, whether they liked it or
not. This isn't nessecarily the case in Transnistria, where, as Gerard
noted, "people use it".

Mark

On 18/03/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/18/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > Problem? Look at the recent changes on mo.wiki. You and your band of
> > > thugs have not been caring about that place since you left a week or
> > > two ago. You just noticed it's still there, oh, let's go complain.
> > >
> > > The fact is, none of you actually visits there very often.
> > >
> >
> > AFAICT, it was a POV fork of the Romanian Wikipedia (in Cyrillic), and
> > you were the only person adding anything to it. The fact is, Moldovan is
> > a relic of the Cold War, and the only people who still officially use it
> > are the unrecognized republic of Transnistria.[1]
> >
>
> Hoi,
> Please read what you write; '''people''' who still use it..  Of all
> the lame arguments that I have heard this is a great one. May I remind
> you of what the Wikimedia Foundation stands for? Information to all
> people in their language... Therefore if you want an argument to keep
> this project you just provided it.
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Moldovan wikipedia?

body:
Well, it's not frozen.
An anonymous IP (I suspect it's Mark, a.k.a. User:Node_ue) and the belarussian Gabix are creating loads of two-line pages to prove that there is activity there.  Again, a political stunt, like those that made me write against this wikipedia after checking that Moldovans themselves are against it (or at best neutral, but never supporting or editing).

Cheers,
Dpotop

"Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote: >
> If you mean the Cyrillic script is a relic of the Cold War,
> that's not exactly accurate, Latin was made official in 1989, and a
> period of transition and confusion took place until about 1993~1995,
> by which time nearly all citizens knew Latin, whether they liked it or
> not. This isn't nessecarily the case in Transnistria, where, as Gerard
> noted, "people use it".
>
> Mark

Even though this in itself is not a particularly good reason against closing
down the Moldovan Wikipedia, the Cyrillic script for Moldovan is very much a
relic of the Cold War. This can be seen by the fact that Latin was
introduced in Moldova right after the Cold War. Transnistria itself can be
seen as relic of the Cold War - it's government still glorifies the symbols
of the USSR and Communism.

But, anyway, it's been agreed (see Anthere's message) that the Moldovan
Wikipedia should be frozen for any editing.

Ronline
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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Portal subject areas

body:
On the same note, why not try making changes to the fascism portal,
and just see what happens?

Steve

On 3/17/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve, I'm afraid I have no immediate answer to your dilemma, though I would
> be remiss if I didn't note that the idea of having a portal to organize
> anarchism in neat little boxes makes me laugh.
>
> k
>
>
> On 3/17/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> >
> > Okay, I ran across [[Portal:Fascism]] today and admit it made me double
> > take. I'm pondering whether this is a POV fork or a legitimate subject
> > area for a portal.  We also have [[Portal:Anarchism]], which I don't
> > feel so bad about, which probably does point me in the direction of
> > being biased, so I've come here for a ''discreet'' sounding of opinion.
> >
> > Steve block
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.4/283 - Release Date: 16/03/06
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
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