from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
With a pluricentric language such as Romani, there is no realistic
hope of real linguistic regulation in the modern world.

Even languages which are "controlled" by specific countries such as
Spanish, French, German, or Portuguese, have had major problems in
aligning national standards.

Romani, on the other hand, is considered by linguists to be a family
of languages, rather than a single language, because the three main
dialect groups are not really mutually intelligible.

Here is a list of the words for "woman" in some Romani varieties:

d?uvel -- welsh
manu??i -- sremski gurbet
d?eni -- sinte
d?uuli -- romungro
d?uvli -- macedonian d?ambazi
manu??i -- lovara
d?uuli -- latvian
?uvli -- kaldera?
manu??i -- gurvari
d?uuli -- finnish
d?uvli -- dolenjski
d?uvli -- burgenland
manu??i -- banatiski gurbet
d?uvi -- bugurd?i
d?uvli -- crimean
rani -- east slovak
d?uvli -- gurbet
?uvli -- hungarian vend
d?uvli -- kosovo arli
d?ul? -- lithuanian
d?uvli -- macedonian arli
d?uvl? -- north russian
romni -- sepe?ides
d?eni -- sofia erli
?uvli -- ursari

With such differences as this in even such a basic word, it is
unrealistic to expect people to be able to understand each other,
without studying the so-called "unified romani" for years beforehand.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Something really needs to be done to Meta

body:
On 3/25/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please stop deleting redirects. Many of these are linked from other
> Wikimedia projects, and removing them is not helping to make meta more
> usable.

Totally agreed. We need consistent accessibility to documents, and
redirects do not harm.

Second, in my opinion most of meta pages needn't to be categorized -
we can simply forget it. They are enough added a comment "historical",
however I strongly doubt there are many other things we need to do in
urgent, like maintain request pages and archive,  than such
categorization to the souvenirs.

# and as for language categories, they already exists ...

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overly lengthy blocks

body:
On Mar 25, 2006, at 6:12 PM, wiki.pedia.WiseFool at spamgourmet.com wrote:
>>
> It's 169.244.143.115. Blocking that blocks every public computer in
> the
> whole state, apparently.
>
> Four months just seems excessive. I thought there was a maximum length
> for blocks on IP's that are shared, like by public libraries and
> schools.
>
>

There is. On the other hand, if we clearly see only bad contributions
from an IP, we might block it before we realize what we've blocked.
Our bad. Has someone fixed this now?

-Phil


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overly lengthy blocks

body:
wiki.pedia.WiseFool at spamgourmet.com wrote:
> Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/21/06, wiki.pedia.WiseFool at spamgourmet.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I've been blocked from editing Wikipedia from a university connection
>>> for over three months now, since the IP block stops traffic from the
>>> entire state of Maine's library/school system. Are four-month blocks
>>> really an accepted part of policy, for a system that blocks
>>> established users along with anonymous users from contributing?
>>>
>> Could you tell us what IPs this is regarding?
>>
>> -Matt
>>
> It's 169.244.143.115. Blocking that blocks every public computer in the
> whole state, apparently.
>
> Four months just seems excessive. I thought there was a maximum length
> for blocks on IP's that are shared, like by public libraries and schools.

You assume we're omniscient.  We're not.  There's no way for us to know
whether any given IP is used by a single user or by an entire state.
You're the first person who's informed us of this.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Phone calls in office

body:
On 3/25/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >In the past we have had
> > calls from people threatening suicide, and it sounds as if you support
> > treating them as though we were IR.  That sounds bloody disgusting to me.
> >
> > Ec
>
> If you are thinking of commiting suicie press 5 for the samaritans. I
> don't think we employ trained councelers. Thus it is logical to try
> and get them to someone who does have the training and skills to deal
> with them as quickly as posible.

I think we established that the Wikimedia foundation's "hotlines" is a
guy called Danny. If you'd like him to be nicer to people who call up,
just tell him directly.

Steve


from_name: Benjamin Webb

subject:
[Foundation-l] Rodovid.org, family tree wiki,
	wishes to become a wiki project

body:
Hello again.

Firstly, I didn't actually write the software myself. It was
Baya<http://engine.rodovid.org/wiki/User:Baya>who did. I am simply
publiscising the project as I am a native speaker of
English, whilst he is not. The main reason I think that becoming a WIkimedia
project would be a good idea is the recognisation. The 'Wikimedia project'
logo would bring credebility to the site.

Also, of course is the traffic. The great benefit, that I will not get if
the project is run independently is inter-wiki links. In the same way pages
have a 'commons has media about the subject: x', if Rodovid became a
Wikimedia project, we would be able to have 'Rodovid (or alternate name) has
genealogical information about x'.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me to the category Brian.

Benjamin Webb

On 25/03/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Angela wrote:
> > On 3/25/06, Benjamin Webb <bjwebb67 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I'd noticed that you'd menationed the specialised software on
> wikitree.org,
> >>I'd just be intereseted to know what you think about the specialised
> >>software of Rodovid <http://rodovid.org> and what you, as someone high
> up
> >>the the foundation, think about it becoming a foundation project.
> >
> >
> > That looks good too, and I've no opinion on whether Rodovid or
> > Wikitree is using a better approach. Perhaps there are aspects of each
> > that should be included. I'm also wondering whether Wikidata will fit
> > into this somehow, or whether the structure you're using on Rodovid
> > replaces that.
> >
> > The last time a genealogy wiki was seriously proposed as a Wikimedia
> > project, there was little interest, and few answers to the questions I
> > asked at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipeople>.  What
> > software to use and what to do with the Sep11 wiki still need to be
> > addressed. However, it is one of the proposals that comes up most
> > often, so perhaps there is interest there, certainly from editors, but
> > is there enough interest from developers to give this project the
> > software changes it would need?
>
> The software Benjamin has written himself looks quite solid and reasonably
> feature complete to me. I
> don't see why he would need to attract interest from developers when he's
> obviously quite a
> proficient one himself. Wikimedia could certainly benefit from Benjamin's
> expertise, if we could win
> him over, but I'm not sure what benefit Benjamin expects to derive from
> Wikimedia. Whether or not
> this is a Wikimedia project, Benjamin will have to do most of the
> development and promotion himself.
> Hosting costs should be small during startup, easily covered by donations.
> If he can avoid
> Wikimedia's bureaucracy and run the project himself, why not do so?
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject:
[Foundation-l] Rodovid.org, family tree wiki,
 wishes to become a wiki project

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Benjamin Webb wrote:
>
>
>
>>The main reason I think that becoming a WIkimedia project would
>>be a good idea is the recognisation. The 'Wikimedia project'
>>logo would bring credebility to the site.
>>
>>
>
>The software at rodovid.org is quite impressive and interesting.
>Genealogy is a very popular hobby.
>
<snip>

>For a genealogic project to reach the world-wide status that
>Wikipedia has as an encyclopedia, it would be necessary to try to
>catalog every person alive and dead.  This is akin to what the
>Latter Day Saints (Mormons) try to do.  They have pioneered the
>microfilming of historic population records and censuses around
>the world, and there are now several initiatives to try to put
>some of these microfilms online as facsimile images.  OCR just
>doesn't work on old hand-written records, so it would be necessary
>to manually transcribe the text from the images.  And then you
>would have to question the reliability of the old written records,
>in a way that most amateur genealogists fail to do. This is not
>going to happen within the next several decades, at least not on
>any larger scale.
>
Having already been involved with several massive volunteer
transcription efforts, including some that transcribe antique manuscript
records for old hand-written records of the sort you are discussing, I
think it is something not only possible but very likely to happen.  This
is really nothing different than what is happening right now with the
Distributed Proofreader project, if you want to give an example of a
group of complete volunteers working over the internet and skattered
across many countries.  Those volunteer transcription efforts I
participated included the transcribing of all of the records for Ellis
Island, as well as participation in transcribing the 1880 United States
Census... neither one of those were exactly trivial and wasn't just
microfilms but instead some very high resolution images sent
electronically (for current efforts).  My wife was involved with some
early 19th Century church records from Lousiana... all of them hand
written as well.  The current standard is a monochrome TIFF images, but
other data formats certainly could be used.  This isn't decades from
now, but something that is currently happening.  Software can even be
written to do some futher data processing to help clean up the image for
identification purposes... like trying to get that pesky little letter
you might think is an "o" but it could be an "a" or even an "e".

As far as the reilability, I've used both original records and the
scanned TIFFs, and frankly I think the scanned images are even better
than the original documents in terms of clarity of trying to decyper
what is there.  The originals are still valuable, and can be refered to
by a professional researcher, but the need isn't really there for the
most part.

Now it would be necessary for even more software changes to be made to a
project like this, but it is possible to do some very exacting
geneological research about people who are not even necessarily your
ancestors.  As usual, citations are very important for this kind of
research, and the amount of original material that is available would
amaze you that can be considered a primary source.  What makes this kind
of research interesting is that it has a very personal connection to the
individual doing the research.  You would be surprised at how many
people would be willing to volunteer to help others out in getting some
of this genolgical research.

One other thing to note is that geneolgists are loaded with money that
they are willing to spend on worthy research projects.  They tend to be
people at the twilight years of their life and usually retired.  Not
everybody has the money, but enough do that some incredible waste of
money is done.

Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is
actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia
Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.  And a geneology
database increases significantly in value as it grows.  I can't say what
the critical number would be, but having over a million names would
certainly be a significant milestone to make any project, and people
have paid some large amounts of money ($1,000's) for much smaller
databases that might have some information they are looking for, or are
even willing to do international travel just to get a few additional
names and references.

With 6 billion people alive right now and one estimate of about 80
billion people who have ever lived, a few million names is going to be a
very small number by comparison and there is going to be considerable
room for growth.

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Colin Delacroix

subject: [Wikitech-l] inconsistencies in dumps ?

body:
[repost, sorry if it ends duplicated]

Hi

it seems to me that there are some inconsistencies between at least the
page and revision tables, in the 20060303 enwiki dump.

The first problematic page would be page_id 12, Anarchism (sorry for the
raw mysql formatting):
| page_id | page_namespace | page_title | page_restrictions |
page_counter | page_is_redirect | page_is_new | page_random       |
page_touched   | page_latest | page_len |
+---------+----------------+------------+-------------------+-----------
---+------------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------
-+-------------+----------+
|      12 |              0 | Anarchism  |                   |
5252 |                0 |           0 | 0.786172332974311 |
20060303031540 |    41982999 |    67537 |

which indicates a revision # 41982999.

But there is no line with rev_id=41982999 in the revision table.

(these can be verified grepping for 41982999 directly in
enwiki-20060303-pages-articles.xml.bz2 and in
enwiki-20060303-page.sql.gz)

Now:
- am I missing something here ?
- it might be that the revision has changed between the dumps of those 2
tables (page has been edited)
- it ends in empty pages (i.e. with the usual stub text), for ~ 5% of
the pages (that seems huge, but I don't see where the problem lies)
- is it a temporary problem (I don't recall getting so many empty
articles with earlier dumps) ?
- is there a simple way to fix it ? (if no better idea emerges, I will
try to fix the page_latest column in the page table by doing a lookup on
rev_page in the revision table - is it right ?)

Thanks
--
Colin


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Alin Dosoftei

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
Have a look at the debate for the test Romani Wikipedia, at my last comment:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Vlax_Romany/Discussion

My point is that if it is will to make Wikipedias in other dialects, it's
OK, but I don't think this is an impediment to have one for the standard
form.

On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As far as I know, although there is a "standard romani", it doesn't
> totally bridge all Romani languages as it intends (it is apparently
> based mostly on Kalderash), and is not intelligible to diverse
> varieties such as Ursari, Sinte, or Baltic.
>
> I don't think it's right for any single language to claim to be "*the*
> Romani language", I think rom.wp should be a portal.
>
> mark
>
> On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you!
> >
> > But the proposed code name is rom. not rmy. which is only for the Vlax
> > Romani dialect. Is it because I forgot to change it at the Meta page for
> > requests? Vlax was the first proposal but then the test changed to
> Standard
> > Romani and I made the changes from rmy to rom wherever I found the older
> > code.
> >
> > Also in English it is favoured the spelling Romani instead of Romany,
> > because this is the way the other Indo-Aryan languages are spelled:
> Hindi,
> > Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri etc. The Romani dialects are spelled also
> like
> > this: Drindari, Erli, Jambashi etc. and even the dialects of other
> languages
> > spoken by Roma (with only Romani vocabulary) like Pogadi. *Romany* look
> > awkward together with other Indo-Aryan languages.
> >
> > On 3/25/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Just a question - none of the Wikipedias so far seem to have a
> localised
> > > interface. The Romany Wikipedia (code RMY) has a nearly
> fully-translated
> > > localisation file at:
> > >
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRom.php
> > >
> > > (This file still contains some Romanian-language fragments)
> > >
> > > Once this file is fully translated, how is it possible to update the
> > > interface?
> > > Neither me nor the native Romani user, Desiphral, know how to use the
> CVS
> > > system.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Ronline
> > >
> > > 2006/3/25, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>:
> > > >
> > > > YEEEAAAH!! Finaly!! :D
> > > >
> > > > Serv
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 2006/3/25, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com>:
> > > > >
> > > > > WOO HOO!!!
> > > > > Thanks so much for that!
> > > > >
> > > > > 2006/3/25, Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de>:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > the following wikipedias have been created:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > nds-nl
> > > > > > rmy
> > > > > > lij
> > > > > > bat-smg
> > > > > > map-bms
> > > > > > ksh
> > > > > > pdc
> > > > > > vls
> > > > > > nrm
> > > > > > frp
> > > > > > zh-yue
> > > > > > tet
> > > > > > xal
> > > > > > pap
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See also
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Approved_requests_for_new_languages&oldid=310831
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > JeLuF
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --
> > > > > > Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*!
> > > > > > "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
By now the "Standard Romani" is a bit in a ideal phase, with more centers of
developement worlwide. Already there are some differences in the way I have
written and the way the other Romani user has written,  but this does not
impede the mutual understanding. Personally I don't have in my mind a wiki
confined only to some specific patterns of the Romani language picked from
those disponible worldwide. Speakers of every dialect would be welcomed to
contribute to rom.wiki, and if there is standing power to make wikis in
specific dialects, let them run. But for the beginning there is standing
power for a general Romani Wikipedia.

Also, the evolution of the standardized form, is not based only on Vlax
Romani. As I wrote in the English article abot the Romani language, Romani
taught in schools from Romania has mostly the pronunciation and grammar
style of the older non-Vlax dialects, considered closer to the original
language. The language used till now for the Romani Wikipedia is not quite
Vlax, it does not stand for a Vlax Wikipedia.

Desiphral

On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The comparison to Kurdish isn't exactly valid -- the Kurdish Wikipedia
> doesn't use a single "standard form", but rather has separate
> "sections" for each dialect, beccause quite simply there is no
> Standard Kuridsh.
>
> Mark
>
> On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Have a look at the debate for the test Romani Wikipedia, at my last
> comment:
> >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Vlax_Romany/Discussion
> >
> > My point is that if it is will to make Wikipedias in other dialects,
> it's
> > OK, but I don't think this is an impediment to have one for the standard
> > form.
> >
> > On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > As far as I know, although there is a "standard romani", it doesn't
> > > totally bridge all Romani languages as it intends (it is apparently
> > > based mostly on Kalderash), and is not intelligible to diverse
> > > varieties such as Ursari, Sinte, or Baltic.
> > >
> > > I don't think it's right for any single language to claim to be "*the*
> > > Romani language", I think rom.wp should be a portal.
> > >
> > > mark
> > >
> > > On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Thank you!
> > > >
> > > > But the proposed code name is rom. not rmy. which is only for the
> Vlax
> > > > Romani dialect. Is it because I forgot to change it at the Meta page
> for
> > > > requests? Vlax was the first proposal but then the test changed to
> > > Standard
> > > > Romani and I made the changes from rmy to rom wherever I found the
> older
> > > > code.
> > > >
> > > > Also in English it is favoured the spelling Romani instead of
> Romany,
> > > > because this is the way the other Indo-Aryan languages are spelled:
> > > Hindi,
> > > > Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri etc. The Romani dialects are spelled also
> > > like
> > > > this: Drindari, Erli, Jambashi etc. and even the dialects of other
> > > languages
> > > > spoken by Roma (with only Romani vocabulary) like Pogadi. *Romany*
> look
> > > > awkward together with other Indo-Aryan languages.
> > > >
> > > > On 3/25/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Just a question - none of the Wikipedias so far seem to have a
> > > localised
> > > > > interface. The Romany Wikipedia (code RMY) has a nearly
> > > fully-translated
> > > > > localisation file at:
> > > > >
> > > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRom.php
> > > > >
> > > > > (This file still contains some Romanian-language fragments)
> > > > >
> > > > > Once this file is fully translated, how is it possible to update
> the
> > > > > interface?
> > > > > Neither me nor the native Romani user, Desiphral, know how to use
> the
> > > CVS
> > > > > system.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > >
> > > > > Ronline
> > > > >
> > > > > 2006/3/25, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > YEEEAAAH!! Finaly!! :D
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Serv
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 2006/3/25, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) < rowikipedia at gmail.com>:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > WOO HOO!!!
> > > > > > > Thanks so much for that!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Jens Frank < JeLuF at gmx.de>:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > the following wikipedias have been created:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > nds-nl
> > > > > > > > rmy
> > > > > > > > lij
> > > > > > > > bat-smg
> > > > > > > > map-bms
> > > > > > > > ksh
> > > > > > > > pdc
> > > > > > > > vls
> > > > > > > > nrm
> > > > > > > > frp
> > > > > > > > zh-yue
> > > > > > > > tet
> > > > > > > > xal
> > > > > > > > pap
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > See also
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Approved_requests_for_new_languages&oldid=310831
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > JeLuF
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > --
> > > > > > > > Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*!
> > > > > > > > "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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> > > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > >
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> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
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>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
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from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
Just a question - none of the Wikipedias so far seem to have a localised
interface. The Romany Wikipedia (code RMY) has a nearly fully-translated
localisation file at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRom.php

(This file still contains some Romanian-language fragments)

Once this file is fully translated, how is it possible to update the
interface?
Neither me nor the native Romani user, Desiphral, know how to use the CVS
system.

Thanks,

Ronline

2006/3/25, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>:
>
> YEEEAAAH!! Finaly!! :D
>
> Serv
>
>
> 2006/3/25, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com>:
> >
> > WOO HOO!!!
> > Thanks so much for that!
> >
> > 2006/3/25, Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de>:
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > the following wikipedias have been created:
> > >
> > > nds-nl
> > > rmy
> > > lij
> > > bat-smg
> > > map-bms
> > > ksh
> > > pdc
> > > vls
> > > nrm
> > > frp
> > > zh-yue
> > > tet
> > > xal
> > > pap
> > >
> > > See also
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Approved_requests_for_new_languages&oldid=310831
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > JeLuF
> > >
> > > --
> > > Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*!
> > > "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: David Newton

body:
Brian wrote:

>I understand what your saying, but should note that I have seen some
>extremely large GEDCOM files floating around RootsWeb, with tens or
>hundreds of thousands of people within one family tree. There are also
>entire websites devoted to this, which connect several family trees
>together. So, it is not as far behind as people might think. It just
>requires lots of time and manpower (think Gutenberg's Distributed
>Proofreaders for censuses).

If you want to see a genealogy-related effort similar to Distributed
Proofreaders see FreeBMD:

http://www.freebmd.org.uk

They are trying to transcribe the entire General Registry Office
register of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales. As of
9th February 2006 their database contained some 112,700,000 distinct
records. That's most of the 19th century records and most of the
records of the first decade of the 20th century. However they've still
got to cover the remainder of those periods and the remaining 90 years
of the 20th century (to say nothing about keeping up with the records
eventually).

David Newton


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews EN ArbCom

body:
Nathan Carter wrote:
> I was just wondering what the use of ArbCom is if certain users choose
> not to participate and claim that they do not recognise ArbCom procedures.
> Why should we even have it if that is the case?
> For those interested in this take a look at -
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Requests_for_arbitration/Users_Cartman02au_et_al_v_Mrmiscellanious#Statement_by_User:Mrmiscellanious
> Cheers,
> Nathan Carter (Cartman02au)

Well, presumably they would break the conditions set down by the
Arbitration Committee, in which case they could be blocked.

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews EN ArbCom


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Benjamin Webb wrote:

> The main reason I think that becoming a WIkimedia project would
> be a good idea is the recognisation. The 'Wikimedia project'
> logo would bring credebility to the site.

The software at rodovid.org is quite impressive and interesting.
Genealogy is a very popular hobby.  However, most amateur
genealogists that I know only research their own family, and
within their family they are the only genealogist.  While they can
show their findings to interested family members, and share
experience with fellow genealogists, the actual work is very
lonely.  There seems to be very little room for wiki-like,
community-wide cooperation.  It's more like a thousand bloggers,
each writing their own blog, than any kind of cooperation.

There could be exceptions to this.  The first example I stumbled
on in the English branch of rodovid.org was Charles Darwin, the
biologist.  Researching the genealogy of famous persons, nobelty
or royals, even though they are not your own family, can be an
area for wiki-style cooperation.

For a genealogic project to reach the world-wide status that
Wikipedia has as an encyclopedia, it would be necessary to try to
catalog every person alive and dead.  This is akin to what the
Latter Day Saints (Mormons) try to do.  They have pioneered the
microfilming of historic population records and censuses around
the world, and there are now several initiatives to try to put
some of these microfilms online as facsimile images.  OCR just
doesn't work on old hand-written records, so it would be necessary
to manually transcribe the text from the images.  And then you
would have to question the reliability of the old written records,
in a way that most amateur genealogists fail to do. This is not
going to happen within the next several decades, at least not on
any larger scale.  But you could try to do it for a limited area
and period of time, such as a single small town or a handful of
countryside parishes.  So instead of just building Charles
Darwin's family tree on rodovid.org, try to cover every family
tree between 1750 and 1850 in the town Shrewsbury in Shropshire,
England, where he was born in 1809.  The town has 70,059
inhabitants today, and it should have been smaller back then.
The number of people you have to map are quite within the
reasonable size of a Mediawiki installation.  When you're done you
can expand to cover more towns or more centuries.

Perhaps I'm trying to say that it would be premature to adopt
rodovid.org as an official Wikimedia project.  My best bet would
be to market it as a software package to amateur genealogists, or
perhaps provide it as a (subscriber) service like blogger.com or
wikicities.com.

I'm not speaking for the foundation, only for myself.

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


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-26

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

Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!

Passed 299 of 300 tests (99.67%) FAILED!


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Next step in "fair use" cleanup?

body:
On 25 Mar 2006, at 19:18, KWH wrote:
>
> Here's a 'modest proposal', while I'm at it:
>
> Wikipedia should partner with MajorSearchProvider (Google, for sake of
> example). Have the en image archive merge with Google Image Search.
> Since so many of these fair use images probably come from people going
> to Google Image Search and searching for the topic, wham - now they're
> all there.
>
> We all get good PR from the connection. Wikipedians can diligently tag
> and cat images, adding to the value of Google's search. Sources are
> implicit, and google's spider can probably make a good hash of
> extracting the copyright terms from the page. Google's lawyers can
> make the call on any technical measures which need to happen to meet
> fair use - e.g. automatically resizing to thumbnails, restricting
> certain images due to legal takedown notices. In event of the "big
> lawsuit", Google can use their trillions of dollars to defend it like
> they have before.
>
> Now that I've stated it, I'm not even sure that I agree with it, but
> does it spur any ideas? (other than that I'm nucking futs?)

Its fine. Except google dont keep permanent archived copies of the
images and pretend they "own" them. If we accepted externallt linked
images it would be ok. But for good reasons we dont.

Justinc


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Having already been involved with several massive volunteer
>
>transcription efforts, including some that transcribe antique manuscript
>records for old hand-written records of the sort you are discussing, I
>think it is something not only possible but very likely to happen.  This
>is really nothing different than what is happening right now with the
>Distributed Proofreader project, if you want to give an example of a
>group of complete volunteers working over the internet and skattered
>across many countries.  Those volunteer transcription efforts I
>participated included the transcribing of all of the records for Ellis
>Island, as well as participation in transcribing the 1880 United States
>Census... neither one of those were exactly trivial and wasn't just
>microfilms but instead some very high resolution images sent
>electronically (for current efforts).  My wife was involved with some
>early 19th Century church records from Lousiana... all of them hand
>written as well.  The current standard is a monochrome TIFF images, but
>other data formats certainly could be used.  This isn't decades from
>now, but something that is currently happening.  Software can even be
>written to do some futher data processing to help clean up the image for
>identification purposes... like trying to get that pesky little letter
>you might think is an "o" but it could be an "a" or even an "e".
>
I'm afraid that where this kind of ambiguity arises it is usually best
not to attempt to resolve it unless your arguments are very convincing.
Spelling in many of these old documents was atrocious.  In many cases
the affected individuals did not know how to read or write, and the
local clergyman's spelling of entries into the parish records was
scarcely more than educated guesswork.  My wife is from Quebec and her
family name is Gu?nard; another branch of the family ended up in Wyoming
in the mid-19th century.where the name became Guinard.  Misreading an
accent on an "e" for the dot on an "i" is perfectly understandable for
some handwritings, or where a person has never heard of diacritics.  I
would be very hesitant to have software resolve these issues.

>As far as the reilability, I've used both original records and the
>scanned TIFFs, and frankly I think the scanned images are even better
>than the original documents in terms of clarity of trying to decyper
>what is there.  The originals are still valuable, and can be refered to
>by a professional researcher, but the need isn't really there for the
>most part.
>
That's mostly right.  Photographic techniques can help to bring out the
contrast between the writing and its physical background.

>Now it would be necessary for even more software changes to be made to a
>project like this, but it is possible to do some very exacting
>geneological research about people who are not even necessarily your
>ancestors.  As usual, citations are very important for this kind of
>research, and the amount of original material that is available would
>amaze you that can be considered a primary source.  What makes this kind
>of research interesting is that it has a very personal connection to the
>individual doing the research.  You would be surprised at how many
>people would be willing to volunteer to help others out in getting some
>of this genolgical research.
>
I agree.  It is a community that very much understands the importance of
mutual help.  If I am seeking a small bit of information from a far away
community that would be impractical for me to visit I can easily find a
local person to help.  There may be nothing useful that I can do for my
helper in return, but I should be ready to help some other stranger when
the occasion arises.

>One other thing to note is that geneolgists are loaded with money that
>they are willing to spend on worthy research projects.  They tend to be
>people at the twilight years of their life and usually retired.  Not
>everybody has the money, but enough do that some incredible waste of
>money is done.
>
There are many commercial enterprises that just love seniors.  They may
provide one or two pages of easy research, append it to a stack of
potboiler material, and charge a big fee.

>Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is
>actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia
>Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.  And a geneology
>database increases significantly in value as it grows.  I can't say what
>the critical number would be, but having over a million names would
>certainly be a significant milestone to make any project, and people
>have paid some large amounts of money ($1,000's) for much smaller
>databases that might have some information they are looking for, or are
>even willing to do international travel just to get a few additional
>names and references.
>
Probabably so, and by charging very modest fees at that.  The question
to ask then, given the massive number of genealogical websites out
there, what can we do that will make our site more desirable than all
the others.

Ec


from_name: David Alexander Russell

body:
To be honest, I don't see this happening even if its an interesing idea.
What is 'fair use' for Wikipedia to copy and use in an article will
probably not be 'fair use' for a commercial organisation like Google to
store and make money out of.

There's really nothing in this for Google either - unless we are going
to put AdSense ads in Wikipedia (resulting in a mass exodus of editors)
all they really get from it is the goodwill from being associated with
Wikipedia - and since the chances are that only Wikipedia editors would
be aware that the fairuse images were hosted by Google, any goodwill
amongst the wider public would be fairly close to nil.

In short, theres nothing in it for Wikipedia or Google, so although it
is an original idea I just don't think it'll fly

Justin Cormack wrote:
> On 25 Mar 2006, at 19:18, KWH wrote:
>
>> Here's a 'modest proposal', while I'm at it:
>>
>> Wikipedia should partner with MajorSearchProvider (Google, for sake of
>> example). Have the en image archive merge with Google Image Search.
>> Since so many of these fair use images probably come from people going
>> to Google Image Search and searching for the topic, wham - now they're
>> all there.
>>
>> We all get good PR from the connection. Wikipedians can diligently tag
>> and cat images, adding to the value of Google's search. Sources are
>> implicit, and google's spider can probably make a good hash of
>> extracting the copyright terms from the page. Google's lawyers can
>> make the call on any technical measures which need to happen to meet
>> fair use - e.g. automatically resizing to thumbnails, restricting
>> certain images due to legal takedown notices. In event of the "big
>> lawsuit", Google can use their trillions of dollars to defend it like
>> they have before.
>>
>> Now that I've stated it, I'm not even sure that I agree with it, but
>> does it spur any ideas? (other than that I'm nucking futs?)
>>
>
> Its fine. Except google dont keep permanent archived copies of the
> images and pretend they "own" them. If we accepted externallt linked
> images it would be ok. But for good reasons we dont.
>
> Justinc
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
I think that rmy.wp should be used for Vlax, but obviously if anyone
wants to write anything else there they'll be welcome.

Somehow, though, I think any effort to have a single Romani Wikipedia,
or rather to share articles (ie, not have separate articles for the
different Roma languages as they do at ku.wp), is ultimately destined
to fail because they are simply so wildly different.

Someone who speaks Ursari, the dialect of most Roma in Rep. Moldova,
will have a difficult time understanding anything spoken or written in
Vlax, and it may be impossible.

This would be like you having to read all WP articles in Aromanian, I
think, or maybe worse.

Regarding script, while it is certainly true that Devanagari is
obviously crafted for Indic languages and thus fits naturally to the
phonology of many (though not all) Romani varieties, as far as I know
the movement to use it has very little actual support among the Roma
community, or rather, the *literate* Roma community (important
distinction).

Nearly all literate Roma use Latin AFAIK (with some using Cyrillic
although not nearly as much as earlier years), and it doesn't seem
possible that there is a single person literate in Devanagri but not
Latin for Romani.

Along these lines I think it would be a bit funny to make a Vlax
Wikipedia entirely biscriptal with both scripts on equal footing. I
think it would be a good compromise to have Latin as default, and if
people wanted to, they can click a button to convert. I also think
it's a bit strange to have both on interwikis, but whatever.

Mark

On 25/03/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think, at the moment, it's best on focusing RMY to be a general Romani
> Wikipedia. I presume in many ways the code RMY is better than ROM since it
> doesn't confuse with Romanian (which for some reason uses "ron" as its three
> letter code). In any way, if there are problems with intelligibility, then a
> new version of the Wikipedia can be made in the same way that nds-nl split
> from nds, with the original "rmy" remaining as "Vlax Romany". But I think
> there is increasing work by Roma bodies to standardise the language, and all
> the Roma bodies call the language "Romani", not differentiating between the
> different variants (though, as Mark pointed out, there is a significant
> degree of intelligiblity).
>
> Another issue we are faced with is script. Alin (Desiphral) said that he
> writes in Devanagari, and that the Devanagari script is the best
> representative script for Romani, even though it's used to a lesser extent
> officially than Latin. I think the best solution would be to have an
> automatically-biscriptal Wikipedia. Currently, there are articles in both
> Latin and Devanagari, but as long as there is no automatic conversion, the
> system is clunky and requires duplication by hand.
>
> Would it be possible to adapt the Serbian Cyrillic-->Latin script to work
> for Latin-->Hindi? The conversion is 1-on-1 and quite conventional.
>
> Another thing - the interwiki descriptor should be changed from "Romani" to
> "Romani / ??????". I will file a bug report about this (this is the proper
> procedure, is it not?)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ronline
>
> 2006/3/26, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> > With a pluricentric language such as Romani, there is no realistic
> > hope of real linguistic regulation in the modern world.
> >
> > Even languages which are "controlled" by specific countries such as
> > Spanish, French, German, or Portuguese, have had major problems in
> > aligning national standards.
> >
> > Romani, on the other hand, is considered by linguists to be a family
> > of languages, rather than a single language, because the three main
> > dialect groups are not really mutually intelligible.
> >
> > Here is a list of the words for "woman" in some Romani varieties:
> >
> > d?uvel -- welsh
> > manu??i -- sremski gurbet
> > d?eni -- sinte
> > d?uuli -- romungro
> > d?uvli -- macedonian d?ambazi
> > manu??i -- lovara
> > d?uuli -- latvian
> > ?uvli -- kaldera?
> > manu??i -- gurvari
> > d?uuli -- finnish
> > d?uvli -- dolenjski
> > d?uvli -- burgenland
> > manu??i -- banatiski gurbet
> > d?uvi -- bugurd?i
> > d?uvli -- crimean
> > rani -- east slovak
> > d?uvli -- gurbet
> > ?uvli -- hungarian vend
> > d?uvli -- kosovo arli
> > d?ul? -- lithuanian
> > d?uvli -- macedonian arli
> > d?uvl? -- north russian
> > romni -- sepe?ides
> > d?eni -- sofia erli
> > ?uvli -- ursari
> >
> > With such differences as this in even such a basic word, it is
> > unrealistic to expect people to be able to understand each other,
> > without studying the so-called "unified romani" for years beforehand.
> >
> > >From what I've heard from Roma people, Unified Romani is not really
> > wide-spread.
> >
> > On the other hand, if we have separate Wikipedias for each Romani
> > variety, they will be able to reach all literate Roma.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > By now the "Standard Romani" is a bit in a ideal phase, with more
> > centers of
> > > developement worlwide. Already there are some differences in the way I
> > have
> > > written and the way the other Romani user has written,  but this does
> > not
> > > impede the mutual understanding. Personally I don't have in my mind a
> > wiki
> > > confined only to some specific patterns of the Romani language picked
> > from
> > > those disponible worldwide. Speakers of every dialect would be welcomed
> > to
> > > contribute to rom.wiki, and if there is standing power to make wikis in
> > > specific dialects, let them run. But for the beginning there is standing
> > > power for a general Romani Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Also, the evolution of the standardized form, is not based only on Vlax
> > > Romani. As I wrote in the English article abot the Romani language,
> > Romani
> > > taught in schools from Romania has mostly the pronunciation and grammar
> > > style of the older non-Vlax dialects, considered closer to the original
> > > language. The language used till now for the Romani Wikipedia is not
> > quite
> > > Vlax, it does not stand for a Vlax Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Desiphral
> > >
> > > On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > The comparison to Kurdish isn't exactly valid -- the Kurdish Wikipedia
> > > > doesn't use a single "standard form", but rather has separate
> > > > "sections" for each dialect, beccause quite simply there is no
> > > > Standard Kuridsh.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Have a look at the debate for the test Romani Wikipedia, at my last
> > > > comment:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Vlax_Romany/Discussion
> > > > >
> > > > > My point is that if it is will to make Wikipedias in other dialects,
> > > > it's
> > > > > OK, but I don't think this is an impediment to have one for the
> > standard
> > > > > form.
> > > > >
> > > > > On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As far as I know, although there is a "standard romani", it
> > doesn't
> > > > > > totally bridge all Romani languages as it intends (it is
> > apparently
> > > > > > based mostly on Kalderash), and is not intelligible to diverse
> > > > > > varieties such as Ursari, Sinte, or Baltic.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I don't think it's right for any single language to claim to be
> > "*the*
> > > > > > Romani language", I think rom.wp should be a portal.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > mark
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > Thank you!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > But the proposed code name is rom. not rmy. which is only for
> > the
> > > > Vlax
> > > > > > > Romani dialect. Is it because I forgot to change it at the Meta
> > page
> > > > for
> > > > > > > requests? Vlax was the first proposal but then the test changed
> > to
> > > > > > Standard
> > > > > > > Romani and I made the changes from rmy to rom wherever I found
> > the
> > > > older
> > > > > > > code.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Also in English it is favoured the spelling Romani instead of
> > > > Romany,
> > > > > > > because this is the way the other Indo-Aryan languages are
> > spelled:
> > > > > > Hindi,
> > > > > > > Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri etc. The Romani dialects are spelled
> > also
> > > > > > like
> > > > > > > this: Drindari, Erli, Jambashi etc. and even the dialects of
> > other
> > > > > > languages
> > > > > > > spoken by Roma (with only Romani vocabulary) like Pogadi.
> > *Romany*
> > > > look
> > > > > > > awkward together with other Indo-Aryan languages.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On 3/25/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Just a question - none of the Wikipedias so far seem to have a
> > > > > > localised
> > > > > > > > interface. The Romany Wikipedia (code RMY) has a nearly
> > > > > > fully-translated
> > > > > > > > localisation file at:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRom.php
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > (This file still contains some Romanian-language fragments)
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Once this file is fully translated, how is it possible to
> > update
> > > > the
> > > > > > > > interface?
> > > > > > > > Neither me nor the native Romani user, Desiphral, know how to
> > use
> > > > the
> > > > > > CVS
> > > > > > > > system.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Ronline
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > YEEEAAAH!! Finaly!! :D
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Serv
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <
> > rowikipedia at gmail.com>:
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > WOO HOO!!!
> > > > > > > > > > Thanks so much for that!
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Jens Frank < JeLuF at gmx.de>:
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > the following wikipedias have been created:
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > nds-nl
> > > > > > > > > > > rmy
> > > > > > > > > > > lij
> > > > > > > > > > > bat-smg
> > > > > > > > > > > map-bms
> > > > > > > > > > > ksh
> > > > > > > > > > > pdc
> > > > > > > > > > > vls
> > > > > > > > > > > nrm
> > > > > > > > > > > frp
> > > > > > > > > > > zh-yue
> > > > > > > > > > > tet
> > > > > > > > > > > xal
> > > > > > > > > > > pap
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > See also
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Approved_requests_for_new_languages&oldid=310831
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > JeLuF
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > --
> > > > > > > > > > > Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*!
> > > > > > > > > > > "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --
> > > > > > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Cantonese WP: Report

body:
As far as I know, it's because Jasonzhuocn applied for and recieved
sysop rights at the appropriate page on Meta.

Similar things happened at some of the other new WPs, including nds-nl.

Mark

On 25/03/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's great news!
> I'm just wondering - how were they able to localise the interface so
> quickly?
> Is it possible to do the same for Romani, since we already have a
> partially-translated interface file?
>
> Also, would it possible for Desiphral and I to be given sysop rights on the
> Romany Wikipedia, for localisation, and all the necessary admin work that
> needs to be done at the beginning of a new Wikipedia.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ronline
>
> 2006/3/26, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Already, even though it has only existed for a day, the Cantonese
> > Wikipedia has been full of activity.
> >
> > Take the main talk page as an example:
> >
> > http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page
> >
> > Already, there are active discussions on:
> >
> > 1) User interface translation
> > 2) Name of the encyclopaedia (Should it be same asthe Mandarin, which
> > is pronounced in Cantonese as "wai gei", or should it be a more
> > phonetic Cantonese, like "wik gei"?)
> > 3) Promotion of cantonese wp
> > 4) "Standard Characters" (Hoeng Gong Zi)
> > 5) Subdomain (some people think it's unfair to use zh-yue, and that
> > just yue should be used instead or such)
> > 6) Getting an admin and making a logo
> > 7) Should it be "Cantonese Wikipedia" or "Yue Wikipedia"
> > 8) Name of main page
> > 9) Allmessages, namespace translation
> >
> > With such activity in such little time I have no doubt we can expect
> > phenomenal growth from this new Wikipedia.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Philosophical question re sources

body:
Mikkerpikker wrote:

>>Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just
>>a verifiable one.  It is NPOV because it represents the average of all
>>views that have been submitted until then.  In practical terms that
>>neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and
>>challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to
>>get in on the act.  A challenge to the system can be as simple as a
>>polite request for sources to be cited.
>>
>>
>So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I
>can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until
>someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this
>satisfies WP:V?"?
>
No policy of any sort can be applied until someone has seen the
article.  Perhaps you can keep your article there, but only as long as
absolutely no-one other than you sees it.  If you want it to stay a long
time maybe you should give the article a name that will be difficult for
anybody to find.

BTW I thought that your article was about the Alpha Centaurians.  The
Beta Centaurian was a visitor from your neighborhood who showed up to
testify in your favour.  Is your guy related to the Jello Monster that
ate New York City which Bill Cosby wrote about?

>>Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor
>>has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from
>>supplying proof if they so desire.  If the original statement is as
>>patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal
>>implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act
>>of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
>>
>>
>That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so
>does this give those claims "credibility"?
>
If you are saying that the purpose of the holocaust was to turn its
victimes into lime Jello, I would be inclined to question the
credibility of your statement.  Holocaust deniers don't need to be
rebutted; they are making the negative statement that something did NOT
happen.  When you undertake to rebutt such a POV you are in effect
feeding trolls.  Feeding trolls gives them more credibility than they
deserve.

Ec


from_name: Mikkerpikker

body:
> Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just
> a verifiable one.  It is NPOV because it represents the average of all
> views that have been submitted until then.  In practical terms that
> neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and
> challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to
> get in on the act.  A challenge to the system can be as simple as a
> polite request for sources to be cited.

So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I
can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until
someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this
satisfies WP:V?"?

> Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor
> has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from
> supplying proof if they so desire.  If the original statement is as
> patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal
> implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act
> of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.

That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so
does this give those claims "credibility"?


from_name: Angela

body:
On 3/25/06, Benjamin Webb <bjwebb67 at googlemail.com> wrote:

> I'd noticed that you'd menationed the specialised software on wikitree.org,
> I'd just be intereseted to know what you think about the specialised
> software of Rodovid <http://rodovid.org> and what you, as someone high up
> the the foundation, think about it becoming a foundation project.

That looks good too, and I've no opinion on whether Rodovid or
Wikitree is using a better approach. Perhaps there are aspects of each
that should be included. I'm also wondering whether Wikidata will fit
into this somehow, or whether the structure you're using on Rodovid
replaces that.

The last time a genealogy wiki was seriously proposed as a Wikimedia
project, there was little interest, and few answers to the questions I
asked at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipeople>.  What
software to use and what to do with the Sep11 wiki still need to be
addressed. However, it is one of the proposals that comes up most
often, so perhaps there is interest there, certainly from editors, but
is there enough interest from developers to give this project the
software changes it would need?

Angela.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-25

body:
On 3/25/06, Ivan Krstic <krstic at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Ivan Krstic wrote:
> > Fix attached.
>
> ... and stripped by mailman. Here:
>
>  http://solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu/~krstic/static-hook.patch

Applied


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 3/25/06, Benjamin Webb <bjwebb67 at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I'd noticed that you'd menationed the specialised software on wikitree.org,
>>I'd just be intereseted to know what you think about the specialised
>>software of Rodovid <http://rodovid.org> and what you, as someone high up
>>the the foundation, think about it becoming a foundation project.
>
>
> That looks good too, and I've no opinion on whether Rodovid or
> Wikitree is using a better approach. Perhaps there are aspects of each
> that should be included. I'm also wondering whether Wikidata will fit
> into this somehow, or whether the structure you're using on Rodovid
> replaces that.
>
> The last time a genealogy wiki was seriously proposed as a Wikimedia
> project, there was little interest, and few answers to the questions I
> asked at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipeople>.  What
> software to use and what to do with the Sep11 wiki still need to be
> addressed. However, it is one of the proposals that comes up most
> often, so perhaps there is interest there, certainly from editors, but
> is there enough interest from developers to give this project the
> software changes it would need?

The software Benjamin has written himself looks quite solid and reasonably feature complete to me. I
don't see why he would need to attract interest from developers when he's obviously quite a
proficient one himself. Wikimedia could certainly benefit from Benjamin's expertise, if we could win
him over, but I'm not sure what benefit Benjamin expects to derive from Wikimedia. Whether or not
this is a Wikimedia project, Benjamin will have to do most of the development and promotion himself.
Hosting costs should be small during startup, easily covered by donations. If he can avoid
Wikimedia's bureaucracy and run the project himself, why not do so?

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Parser.php, 1.602,
	1.603

body:
On 3/24/06, Gabriel Wicke <gabrielwicke at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/includes
> In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv12319/includes
>
> Modified Files:
>         Parser.php
> Log Message:
> Provide some cleanup if tidy is disabled:
>
> * fix invalid nesting of anchors and i/b
> * remove empty i/b tags
> * remove divs inside anchors
>
> Fixes several test cases
>
>
> Index: Parser.php
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/includes/Parser.php,v
> retrieving revision 1.602
> retrieving revision 1.603
> diff -u -d -r1.602 -r1.603
> --- Parser.php  22 Mar 2006 04:57:14 -0000      1.602
> +++ Parser.php  24 Mar 2006 16:36:29 -0000      1.603
> @@ -250,6 +250,32 @@
>
>                 if (($wgUseTidy and $this->mOptions->mTidy) or $wgAlwaysUseTidy) {
>                         $text = Parser::tidy($text);
> +               } else {
> +                       # attempt to sanitize at least some nesting problems
> +                       # (bug #2702 and quite a few others)
> +                       $tidyregs = array(
> +                               # ''Something [http://www.cool.com cool''] -->
> +                               # Somethingcool>
> +                               '/(<([bi])>)(<([bi])>)?([^<]*)(<\/?a[^<]*>)([^<]*)(<\/\\4>)?(<\/\\2>)/' =>
> +                               '\\1\\3\\5\\8\\9\\6\\1\\3\\7\\8\\9',
> +                               # fix up an anchor inside another anchor, only
> +                               # at least for a single single nested link (bug 3695)
> +                               '/(]+>)([^<]*)(]+>[^<]*)<\/a>(.*)<\/a>/' =>
> +                               '\\1\\2\\3\\1\\4',
> +                               # fix div inside inline elements- doBlockLevels won't wrap a line which
> +                               # contains a div, so fix it up here; replace
> +                               # div with escaped text
> +                               '/(<([aib]) [^>]+>)([^<]*)(
]*)>)(.*)(<\/div>)([^<]*)(<\/\\2>)/' =>
> +                               '\\1\\3<div\\5>\\6</div>\\8\\9',
> +                               # remove empty italic or bold tag pairs, some
> +                               # introduced by rules above
> +                               '/<([bi])><\/\\1>/' => ''
> +                       );
> +
> +                       $text = preg_replace(
> +                               array_keys( $tidyregs ),
> +                               array_values( $tidyregs ),
> +                               $text );
>                 }
>
>                 wfRunHooks( 'ParserAfterTidy', array( &$this, &$text ) );

This fixes the "Bug 2702: Mismatched ,  and  tags are
invalid" test case but it's not really an improvement. The test case
was supposed to demonstrate that we don't balance tags, which this
doesn't fix, it merely hacks around very specific cases with regular
expressions which fail if you insert more tags which would be fixed in
a parser that balanced tags properly.

I'm all for fixing the parser, but it's not an improvement to make
that parser test cases we have pass by basically writing a hack in the
parser to make just that test pass rather than fixing the core issue.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban Question

body:
On 3/25/06, Michael Steudle <mikesteudle at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I've been banned from editing  by Raul654 Now the only edit I did was correct an small error on Boxer Johnny Tapia's career record now .I usually just read Wikipedia otherwise .I wasnt a member at the time of edit ....... is that reason my IP was banned I'm confused.
>
It's like that your IP is shared by someone else that was blocked.

There's nothing wrong with editing articles without being a registered
user; in fact, it's great!

Sorry for accidentally blocking you (assuming that your descriptions
is accurate) -- if you tell us the IP address you edited as we can
unblock you.

-tc


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
--- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> On 3/24/06, Keith D. Tyler <keith at keithtyler.com> wrote:
> > To me, "original research" is when I perform an investigative task involving the
> > scientific or statistical methods to get information that has not been
> > determined before.
> >
> > Here's some examples.
> >
> > 1. I drive up to Seattle, and stand outside Boeing Field, and count the number
> > of planes that fly in and out over the period of a day.
> >
> > 2. I call Boeing Field on the phone and ask them how many planes fly in and out
> > every day.
>
> > To me, 1 is clearly OR, and 2 is not ...
> >
> > For some reason, though, contacting an authoritative source is OR, but finding a
> > book from an authoritative source is not.
> >
> That's because if you cite a published source, readers can easily
> check that it says what you say it does. They can't easily check that
> the guy on the phone told you 500 planes fly in and out every day.

Personal communications are valid to cite. All one needs to do to check is call the guy and ask
the same question.

-- mav

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] That other encyclopedia

body:
--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> The point for me in buying the Concise edition is that it's the sort of
> thing we'd want from a single-volume Wikipedia 1.0, so may be a useful
> model in terms of paper per topic and so forth.

Yep - and it would be very easy to create a concise version of Wikipedia by exporting all
section=0 from a selected group of articles. We'd just need to make sure those lead sections are
good. Comparing their size and content with EB Concise (which is a great product, BTW) would help
us a lot.

Speaking of which, I just proposed a change to our lead section guideline on size in order to give
us enough room in leads to create good concise encyclopedia articles:

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Changing_max_size_of_lead_sections

-- mav

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


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Benjamin Webb wrote:

>On 26/03/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is
>>>actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia
>>>Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Probabably so, and by charging very modest fees at that.  The question
>>to ask then, given the massive number of genealogical websites out
>>there, what can we do that will make our site more desirable than all
>>the others.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Surely the Wikimedia Foundation isn't going to charge fees, I thought it was
>non-profit. Have I misunderstood what you are saying?
>
>
The implication here (speaking for myself and not Ray) is that bottom
line finances are just as important to non-profit groups like the
Wikimedia Foundation as they are to for-profit organizations as well.
 Perhaps more so because the number of potential sources of income is
restricted in a number of ways.

I am not advocating that any direct fees be required for access to this
or any Wikimedia project.  I'm just pointing out that there is money
available from a great many people, and the current donation system for
the Wikimedia Foundation would be almost ideal for financing a project
of this nature.  If presented in the right context and explained
properly, there would be many voluntary donations from a great many
people to help support an on-line geneological project.  Precisely what
the Wikimedia Foundation needs to maintain its tax-exempt status.

Or if it is rejected by the board, there would be money available to
finance it, but it would require financial controls that the Wikimedia
Foundation has already established.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>
>>Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is
>>actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia
>>Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.
>>
>>
>Probabably so, and by charging very modest fees at that.  The question
>to ask then, given the massive number of genealogical websites out
>there, what can we do that will make our site more desirable than all
>the others.
>
>Ec
>
>
The thing that the spin-offs from Wikimedia users (Rodovid.org and
Wikitree.org) have in common is that the content is free to be
redistributed and is not encumbered with sometimes very draconian
copyright protections.  And a strong spirit of cooperation among users
to help each other out.  The current drive to push for citation
standards with Wikipedia is also going to have a strong spill-over
effect for a project like this, where it would be possible to
demonstrate the quality of the information.  Indeed this has been a
major complaint of some other massive on-line geneology projects like
familysearch.org, where the quality of the data is seriously lacking in
many situations.  Another big advantage is the ability for people who
have the correct information to be able to easily update the information
and not require manuvering through bureaucratic red tape and obtaining a
CS degree in order to be able to submit any changes.

I'd also like to give an example of the typical licensing terms for most
of these websites:

http://familysearch.org/Eng/policy/FSI_terms.asp

Note especially the clause:

"All material found at this site is owned or licensed by us. You may
view, download, and print material from this site only for your
personal, noncommercial use or, if you are a professional genealogist,
for use by a current client."

Compare that to the GFDL, and you will see that most data has been
signifcantly restricted for re-use in most cases, even if you were the
person who submitted the information in the first place.  GFDL (or
Creative Commons type licensing) is one area where sites like what is
being proposed here is going to blow all of the other geneology sites
out of the water.

All of these are aspects that are derived from Wikimedia users'
experience with developing other on-line content.  The current internal
push for this sort of development is where users like myself have been
so used to how things are done with Wiki software that we wonder why
this isn't be done for geneological research, where these ideas of free
access to information and the ability to freely edit the information
havn't yet caught on.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Nathan Carter

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews EN ArbCom

body:
I was just wondering what the use of ArbCom is if certain users choose
not to participate and claim that they do not recognise ArbCom procedures.
Why should we even have it if that is the case?
For those interested in this take a look at -
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Requests_for_arbitration/Users_Cartman02au_et_al_v_Mrmiscellanious#Statement_by_User:Mrmiscellanious
Cheers,
Nathan Carter (Cartman02au)


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews EN ArbCom


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] False accusations of Sock Puppetry by Ambi,
	David Gerard etc

body:
Hi Darren,

On 3/26/06, Darren Ray <darrenkray at gmail.com> wrote:
> My point is that I am not Benjamin Cass and I am not Alexander Chan. After
> on and off editing anonymously, I have edited as DarrenRay and as no one
> else. That's the point.

No one has accused you of being Ben Cass or Alexander Chan. However, I
must note that you have used the term "anonymously" to mean "editing
under a logged-in user account", so I have to disregard your comment
about "on and off editing anonymously" unless you clarify. But that's
really a matter for the arbitration case, not this list.

> I won't comment on David Gerard other than to see there is an issue with his
> impartiality.

You won't comment, other than to make vague, unsubstantiated
allegations of bias? How very generous! :)

> Discredit an auditor? 1) Dean McVeigh isn't an auditor, 2) I encourage
> people to read the McVeigh article, it is a sourced and valid article.

Sorry, I must have been drunk, tired, or both when I wrote that. I
meant liquidator.

I've also read www.makemcveighpay.blogspot.com, which is far more
entertaining [for the others on this list, a blog by Ben Cass]. I'm
not exactly sure what you mean by "sourced and valid". Is it balanced?
Is it NPOV? Is it impartial? Has it been subjected to a peer review?
Have the parts written by yourself or Ben Cass been substantially
changed by uninterested third parties?

> Clean my name? My name is perfectly clean, I merely wanted some balance and
> integrity in the article discussing controversial issues.

That explains why you removed the phrase "Optima property deal" from
the paragraph describing the deal you signed which served as the
trigger for the liquidation of the union. Ok.

> The property deal I signed is not really the point. The point is how the
> encyclopedia article should deal with it, considering the fact that it
> actually cost the union nothing as it did not proceed.

Well, to be quite frank, the only person I've ever heard express that
particular view point is you. Various newspaper articles see things
slightly differently. Sort of brings us back to [[WP:V]], doesn't it.

> The issue with returning officers is no more than the appointment of
> supposedly politically aligned returning officers is meant to be a big deal
> in one case but ought not be mentioned in another. Forgive me for pointing
> out this inconsistency.

That particular example is fairly weak. There are two fairly major differences:
- In one case, a company run by a recent previous president was chosen
as returning officer, a fact which was controversial and the subject
of some publicity.
- In the other, someone simply with political affiliations was
allegedly chosen, and all I've heard about it has come from you.

> I repeat, since registering as DarrenRay I have not edited as anyone else,
> have had no sockpuppets etc. Prior to that, like you I edited anonymously.

You've only had an account for the last 30 days. When you say that I
edit(ed?) anonymously, what do you mean? I edit almost exclusively
under my user name, and certainly don't use anonymity to make
controversial changes to articles. You seem to be using the term
"anonymously" to mean the opposite of what most Wikipedians do.

> Your POV pushing is not propaganda of course. In the Melbourne University

If you're accusing me pushing a point of view, then you should be able
to identify what point of view that is. But I'm not sure why we're
talking about me.

> related articles, I think we had largely reached a compromise anyway. You

For the benefit of the audience, I strongly reject any suggestion that
any "compromise" has been reached. I stopped work on that article due
to three things:
- sustained edit warring between several parties
- inability to reach agreement on basic points
- the request for arbitration

It seemed best to wait for the outcome of those things before
continuing any work. A "compromise" (or "consensus", as 2006BC put it)
is far from the truth.

> are clearly involved in the Student Union in some way, and are editing
> articles about it. That's an issue for you to think about.

What makes you think I'm involved in MUSU? I will, however, think
about it, if you like.

> All I want is truth and balance. Perfectly consistent with Wikipedia's
> rules.

Wikipedia wants people to contribute civilly to build an encyclopaedia
to spread accurate, unbiased knowledge to people who otherwise would
not have access to a high quality encyclopaedia. The notion of "truth"
is explicitly disclaimed by [[WP:V]].

Your pattern of editing leads me to suggest that your primary goals in
editing Wikipedia are not to help build an encyclopaedia. Which isn't
to say that your contributions could not be valuable, but I don't
believe your primary motivation is particularly philanthropic.

> So when the guy is accused of killing President Kennedy falsely, they should
> not edit it out. I think that's a real issue to be considered here.

Read [[WP:AUTO]]. There have been many discussions about editing
articles about yourself. Feel free to start one. The short answer is,
no, it's best not to edit the material yourself, but rather, to
contact the Wikimedia Foundation and ask them to edit it for you.

> I have been personally courteous to all I have dealt with, even in the face
> of personal abuse from users like Ambi, Garglebutt etc.

There is far more to WP:CIVIL than courtesy. As you probably know.

Steve


from_name: Darren Ray

body:
On 3/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Darren,
> I'd sort of wondered when you'd show up on this list. Welcome!
>
>
> > Yesterday, I was blocked from using Wikipedia on the grounds that I am a
> > sockpuppet master of two accounts, 2006BC and AChan.
> >
> > There is a big problem with this. They are two living, breathing people
> who
> > had previously already identified themselves on their user page and
> > elswehere.
>
> I note that in DG's block report, he actually says "Darren Ray is
> User:DarrenRay and User:AChan. He and Benjamin Cass are indeed
> different people, although they appear to have edited from each
> others' houses, both using their own accounts and their socks'
> accounts. Ben Cass (User:2006BC) has a string of his own socks."
>
> So, what's your point?

My point is that I am not Benjamin Cass and I am not Alexander Chan. After
on and off editing anonymously, I have edited as DarrenRay and as no one
else. That's the point.

> They have both already complained about this separately although Ambi, her
> > friend David Gerard and others are sticking to their guns despite the
> > absurdity of their position being pointed out. Ambi is a former member
> of
> > the Arbitration Committee, and her friend David Gerard seems enjoy a
> similar
> > high position. Has anyone else had experience of dealing with these
> people?
>
> Yes, David Gerard is a nice, extremely fair and respected senior admin.

I won't comment on David Gerard other than to see there is an issue with his
impartiality.

> I don't know what to do other than to request to be unblocked but it seems
> > that there is little likelihood of justice being done.
>
> Well, let's see. You've been editing a range of Wikipedia articles for
> a long time to attempt to discredit an auditor, clean your name,
> remove references to the name of the property deal you signed, and
> make allegations of conflicts of interest against returning officers
> at the Melbourne University Student Union. Not only that, you've been
> editing under a number of different accounts, feigning consensus with
> two close friends and accusing everyone who tries to work on the same
> articles of hiding behind a "pseudonymous/anonymous" cloak, defaming
> you, or being politically motivated. And now, after a huge number of
> warnings, you've been blocked. If there is an injustice here, you'll
> have to point it out to me.

Discredit an auditor? 1) Dean McVeigh isn't an auditor, 2) I encourage
people to read the McVeigh article, it is a sourced and valid article.

Clean my name? My name is perfectly clean, I merely wanted some balance and
integrity in the article discussing controversial issues.

The property deal I signed is not really the point. The point is how the
encyclopedia article should deal with it, considering the fact that it
actually cost the union nothing as it did not proceed.

The issue with returning officers is no more than the appointment of
supposedly politically aligned returning officers is meant to be a big deal
in one case but ought not be mentioned in another. Forgive me for pointing
out this inconsistency.

I repeat, since registering as DarrenRay I have not edited as anyone else,
have had no sockpuppets etc. Prior to that, like you I edited anonymously.

> Ambi had previously filed a Request for Arbitration against me and I was
> > going to respond with one relating to her abusive conduct and POV
> editing.
>
> That's not like you to hold back. Not unwelcome, but not like you either.
>
> > I would appreciate any ideas people had about what to do. My knowledge
> of
> > Wikipedia policies is pretty good in theory but has clearly come up
> short in
> > practice as I have been completely banned for no good reason.
>
> In your "pretty good" knowledge of Wikipedia policies, you obviously
> missed this one (from [[WP:NOT]]:
>
> Wikipedia is not a soapbox, or a vehicle for propaganda and
> advertising. Therefore, Wikipedia articles are not:

Your POV pushing is not propaganda of course. In the Melbourne University
related articles, I think we had largely reached a compromise anyway. You
are clearly involved in the Student Union in some way, and are editing
articles about it. That's an issue for you to think about.

  1. Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can
> report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to
> approach a neutral point of view. You might wish to go to Usenet or
> start a blog if you want to convince people of the merits of your
> favorite views. You can also use Wikinfo which promotes a "sympathetic
> point of view" for every article.

All I want is truth and balance. Perfectly consistent with Wikipedia's
rules.

  2. Self-promotion. The arbitration committee ruled on February 17,
> 2006 that: "Editors should avoid contributing to articles about
> themselves or subjects in which they are personally involved, as it is
> difficult to maintain NPOV while doing so." [1] Creating overly
> abundant links and references to autobiographical articles, or to
> articles in which you have a personal stake, is similarly
> unacceptable. See Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:Notability.

So when the guy is accused of killing President Kennedy falsely, they should
not edit it out. I think that's a real issue to be considered here.

You could probably also brush up on [[WP:CIVIL]], and even
> [[Wikipedia:Talk pages]]. Remember:
>
> Actively erasing personal messages without replying (if a reply would
> be appropriate or polite) will probably be interpreted as hostile. In
> the past, this kind of behavior has been viewed as uncivil, and this
> can become an issue in arbitration or other formal proceedings.
> Redirecting your user talk page to another page (whether meant as a
> joke or intended to be offensive or to send a "go away" message),
> except in the case of redirecting from one account to another when
> both are yours, can also be considered a hostile act. However,
> reverting such removals or redirects is not proper and may result in a
> block for edit warring. If someone removes your comments without
> answering consider moving on or dispute resolution. This is especially
> true for vandalism warnings.

I have been personally courteous to all I have dealt with, even in the face
of personal abuse from users like Ambi, Garglebutt etc.

...
>
> Furthermore WP:VAND states: Removing warnings, whether for vandalism
> or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk
> page is also considered vandalism. It is generally acceptable to
> remove misplaced vandalism tags, as long as the reasoning is solid.
>
>
> There are plenty of people here who will be more than happy to point
> out more policies or guidelines that may be relevant.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I appreciate a thoughtful response and thank you for it but you have not
identified a single breach of Wikipedia policy. I have disagreed with some
strong POV pushers, including yourself in wanting balance on controversial
subjects.

I have disagreed with Ambi on some political articles.

Those reading this should ponder whether that is sufficient basis for being
blocked from Wikipedia.

Darren Ray


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias created

body:
On 26/03/06, Alin Dosoftei <desiphral at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark, this a perfect example of why Roma get sick and tired of non-Roma
> trying to organize their lives by thinking they finally find some exotic
> puppets to play with. They come with cut and dried ideas and they try to
> impose them irrespective of the ground reality by not listening to the
> people.

If you think I discriminate against you, you are wildly mistaken. In
my life I don't have a lot of personal experiences with Roma people,
so I don't have any of the biases you may encounter with non-Roma
people in your own environment. To me, Roma people are just like any
other people. Not "exotic puppets to play with".

> In your case, it seems that your future plans for the Roma include the
> prevention of a unified Romani. I presume this  by the way you come first
> with this preconceived idea and then you try to support it by bringing some
> flawless examples. The "wildly different" (to cite your speech) words for
> 'woman' in different dialects are pretty well inteligible by every Romani
> native speaker. Most of them are variations of the root d?u(v) which are not
> hard to understand what they mean. I don't know very well the existent
> variations in English, but I think if a group of English speakers say
> 'wouman' or 'wiman' it is not hard to understand what they mean. And every,
> but every standardized language had at the beginning these variations (and
> most of them continue to have them in parallel with the generic one). As for
> the other forms to say woman, they are simply synonyms made with the suffix
> "-ni" which feminize the words with male grammatical gender: manushni and
> d?eni are from manush and d?eno (which mean "man", "chap"), words present in
> quite every dialect. Also "rani" has a specific meaning of "lady". If some
> English speaker utters "woman", other "dudette" and the other "lady" will
> you draw the conclusion they are mutually unintelligible? Try not to take
> for granted every Romani stuff you find, because most of it is not in such a
> good condition as being written by people with poor knowledge of the
> language, simply trying to show how much they know about the world.

The example was my own, yes, but the idea was not, I got it from other
Roma people I have heard from in the past, and from websites, and
books. Pretty much everybody mentions the fact that the Romani
varieties are not mutually intelligible.

> As for your comments that "it doesn't seem possible that there is a single
> person literate in Devanagri" I find them disparaging and racist as they
> allude to a presumed imposibility to be an educated Rom (the same for your
> "important distinction" of the " *literate* Roma community"). If you would

Alin, you would do well to read the entire sentence. I said "and it doesn't seem
possible that there is a single person literate in Devanagri but not
Latin for Romani".

This means that it seems everybody who uses Devanagari, also knows
Latin. This would be like Ronline saying "and it doesn't seem possible
that there is a single person literate in Cyrillic but not Latin for
Moldovan", a view that many people have expressed before -- it doesn't
mean all "Moldovan speakers" are illiterate, of course.

And the reason the distinction between literate and non-literate Roma
is important here is because of course non-literate people cannot read
an encyclopaedia. Yes, it is possible they will get it delivered in
the future in some other format, or that they will become literate in
the interim, but at the moment it is impractical to plan an
encyclopaedia for *speakers* of any language rather thna *readers*.

> So, as for the pending issues, the newly created rmy.wp has the code of the
> Vlax dialect, which is not the way was written this wp till now. The
> non-Roma made first the proposal about a Romani Wikipedia. Their debate
> reached a conclusion that a Vlax one would be better for the beginnig. When
> the two Romani contributors till now (me and Naayram) started the work, they
> wrote in a Romani used in the standadization efforts made worldwide by the
> Roma people. As I said before, there are already some differences in the
> approach for us two contribuitors but this did not impede the mutual
> understanding. If there will be problems about the way will go the Romani wp
> let us debate them first and afterwards if we can't solve them it will
> intervene the mediation of the outsiders. I see there are many small wp with
> some dozens of articles, which are patronized by non-speakers. If it will be
> the same like this for the Romani one, then I don't foresee a bright future
> for it. I don't know why some non-speakers stick to the Vlax one when there
> is no will by now to make it (btw, do you know that there are differences
> between the Vlax dialects?). What is envisaged till now is a wp for the
> generic Romani including the standardized and the dialects. First let us get
> more people (presumably much easier in this way) and if there will be
> standing power for making wp in dialects, it's OK, no problem.

What worries me is the prospect that you will call yourself the
"Romani Wikipedia" while at the same time being inaccessable to a
large portion of Roma, including but not limited to readers of Ursari.

> As for the code name, ROM. one is the internationally accepted for this kind
> of wp. It was said that it might get confusions with the Romanian wiki ( for
> their fear of not being confused with the "Gypsies") when I see that there a
> lot of other possible confusions for all the 228 wp. What then for the
> Romansh one, with its code RM?

I don't think it's so much a racist fear of "getting confused with the
'Gypsies'" (Ronline is a very un-racist person, he doesn't
discriminate at all on any grounds), so much as a worry that people
going to rom.wp will be expecting Romanian, which I think is
reasonable, However,

In the past there have been other things like this, for example MY is
for the Burmese Wikipedia but some people were afraid it would be
confused for the Malay WP (code MS), but nobody changed it of course.
Same with Sinhala (SI) and Serbian (SR), Chamorro (CH) and
Swyzerdutsch (ALS). It seems very little confusion resulted from this,
so I don't agree with Ronline that it would be for "confusion".

Mark