from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] LS Studio and pro-pedophilia pov

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> This is a kind of weird verifiability case. We don't say "God exists" in
> Wikipedia because such a
> statement couldn't be verified. But the statements in [[LS Studio]] could be
> verified if someone got
> their hands on an FBI report on the organization or somesuch. Since no one
> has yet, nothing in
> the article is verifiable... so do we delete it?

I think we absolutely should delete it, if it is as unverifiable as
people are saying.

This could be done in multiple steps, if that would help.

First, remove all unverifiable statements from the article.  Insist
firmly on the talk page that nothing goes back into the article without
a solid site to a mainstream publication.

Second, after a couple of weeks of demonstrating that there is therefore
nothing to be said, AfD would be appropriate and likely to succeed.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

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

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

Bridgeman v. Corel was a district court case, never litigated at the
appeals court level, and therefore is not a strong precedent.  It is, as
far as I have been able to determine, a fairly unusual result not likely
to be followed by other courts.

Therefore, relying on Bridgeman v. Corel for anything is likely wishful
thinking.

> Images created and published in the US that are public domain under
> Bridgeman v Corel are probably public domain everywhere else, as well.

I very much doubt this.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Steve Bennett

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

body:
On 4/11/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes, this IS english-speaker-centric, but the very fact of writing an
> > encylopedia in English is already deciding to do that.
>
> Thank you.  This is a beautiful way of expressing something I've been
> thinking about for some while.

Can you elaborate? Perhaps we should decide if we really want this
bias, or not? [[WP:CSB]] thinks we don't.

Question: To use Jimbo's well-worn poor African once again, what does
he expect? Georgia the country, or Georgia the state? Does he care
that most Wikipedians are American, British, Canadian, etc? Should he
just grateful for whatever information he can get, regardless of whose
biases, interests and prejudices it reflects? Should he not be
concerned if, when he looks up Zaire, he comes up with a suburb in
Arizona?

I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
"equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.

[[WP:CSB]] really is worth a read.

Steve


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

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>> Ohh, come on, there's a huge difference between Georgia the Country
>> and Georgia the State. Georgia is a WHOLE country. Like, bigass, we
>> got troups, "why don't we take this outside, former Soviet
>> country-style", international trade, country.
>>
>> Disambigging those two would be like disambigging "Paris" to separate
>> "Paris, Texas" and "Paris, France". This is the worst kind of
>> US-centrism.

I have no position on exactly how this disambiguation should work.
However, I would like to point out that in terms of population, physical
size, total international trade, total GDP, per capita GDP, the US state
of Georgia is far bigger than the nation of Georgia.

So the "Paris, Texas" versus "Paris, France" comparison is a bit
sketchy, at least.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Mark Gallagher

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

body:
G'day Conrad,

> Regardless of who is and is not being 'arrogant' here it seems clear
> that neither 'Georgia' is so overwhelmingly more likely to be searched
> for than the other that it can be assumed to be the intended destination
> in a high majority of cases... ergo going to a disambig page is the
> logical course.
>
> Did we really need to go out of our way to 'bash the Americans' again?

Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state,
but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would
we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would indeed have been
"obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A wasn't involved.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/2006


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] How does this prove voting is evil?

body:
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of
> Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.

Oh what nonsense.  Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common
knowledge in the Soviet era.


from_name: Philip Welch

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

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Mikkerpikker wrote:

> And why, exactly, do only first-language English speakers "count"?
> What about the 1 billion+ second/third/etc. English language speakers?

They will presumably read Wikipedia in their first language. It's
rather imperialist of us to presume that they should read the English
language Wikipedia just because it's difficult for us to do
translations--more imperialist, I dare say, than having [[Georgia]]
as a disambiguation page.

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


body:
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> If Steve Bennett's argument is that polls are evil because ignorant
> idiots who voted in the poll came up cast a majority of votes for
> what is "obviously beyond words" the wrong answer, I don't buy it. A
> majority vote for George W. Bush in a national U. S. election when it
> is obvious beyond words that that is the wrong answer does not prove
> that voting is evil. How's that for U.S.-centric for you? Pffpplsfft!

My argument could better be summed up as "Polls are evil because only
the immediate contributors to Wikipedia were asked".

> Non-rhetorical question: does the national makeup of readers differ
> in proportion from the national makeup of active editors?

I would suggest for a start that there is a large number of people who
are comfortable reading, but not contributing to Wikipedia. Those
people are probably less likely to live in Anglophone countries, no?

I feel this way with the French Wikipedia - I rarely feel comfortable
doing any kind of copyediting unless mistakes are particularly
obvious. There is certainly information I could contribute, but rarely
do. Thus I am contributing to the bias of French Wikipedia in favour
of a French/Quebecois perspective on the world.

Could someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the
Wikipedias were all supposed to reflect the same, neutral viewpoint on
the world - not the cultural biases of the individual nations that
speak the relative languages. That may be a bad assumption on my part.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Steve Bennett schrieb:
> On 4/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>> We agreed on standards for articles in these matters. We can do that for
>> the relatively low number of article titles this would affect.
>>
>
> I just suspect that if the possibilities are there, it will become
> quite fraught (unless the policies are very clear). Someone will be
> going "but company FOOBar" *always* writes the Bar in italics, and Foo
> in bold. But I don't think that Wikipedia should respect that.
>
> But you're right, we should leave that one to the community to manage.
>
>
>> I'd just use our usual WikiMarkup plus HTML and have it limited through
>> the manual of style. Inventing a whole new markup (and the appropriate
>> new parser) for a few titles which people will have to learn in addition
>> to the existing one doesn't seem prudent, somehow :-)
>>
>
> True. :) But the parser could be as simple as replace(replace(s, "<",
> "<"), "<sup>", "<sup>") etc.
>
>
>> Your list (punctuation, case, sub/sup) seems good, although I'd allow
>> italics as well (I don't have an example, though). With only the manual
>> of style limiting markup, we can expand it where necessary.
>>
>
> I have an example. [[Prima facie]] (and other latin expressions),
> [[m?nage ? trois]] etc. Would we have any call to allow a title to be
> *partially* in italics? If not, perhaps you could make a variety of
> flagtags like:
>
> {{TITLEFIRSTLETTERCAPS}}
> {{TITLEITALICS}}
>
> ...and then somehow deal with superscript/subscript :)
>
I have commited an initial attempt at {{DISPLAYTITLE|Anything goes}},
turned off by default in case of unforseen side effects
($wgAllowDisplayTitle=true turns it on). We can still restrict this, but
at least the infrastructure is there now.
> PS if you're hacking on stuff like this, can I request a flag to limit
> the depth of a contents section? Sometimes having 3rd and 4th level
> subheadings show up in the contents is just ugly and not helpful...
>
How about {{LIMITTOC|3}} ?

Magnus

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from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:
> On 4/6/06, Robth <robth1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I didn't have any luck getting an answer to this on the wiki, so I'll
>>try asking here.  I've been using the {{pd-art}} tag for Greek vase
>>paintings I've uploaded, but before I really go hog wild and start
>>uploading these on a large scale I'd like to be sure that this would be
>>a good idea. So, two questions:
>
> I am not a lawyer, but IIRC, Bridgeman v Corel only applies to
> two-dimensional copies of two-dimensional works (though it may apply
> to three-dimensional copies of three-dimensional works).  The basis of
> it is that a "slavishly accurate" copy of a work involves no creative
> effort, and so cannot establish a copyright separate from that of the
> original.  Photographing a 3D work involves creative effort, in the
> choice of lighting and camera angle.

On the other hand, while that makes sense for pictures of the vases, the
situation could be different if the pictures Robth is referring to are
attempts to accurately reproduce the painting _on_ the vase.  In such a
case, I can't see the curvature of the surface making any difference.

But yes, it's a hairy situation.  I can imagine cases where the answer
would seem to be obviously yes or obviously no, but most actual images
probably fall somewhere in the grey area between the two.  In those
cases, one would have to ask someone who actually knows about these
things, rather than random IANALs on the net like me.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
On 10/04/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Off-the-cuff remark: Why not upload a new version of the image which
> > is totally blank, and protect it with a note saying that if no
> > consensus is gained to undelete the image in a month, it should then
> > be permanently deleted?
>
> Volume.  Approximately 1,500 images are deleted every day.  It's a
> slow enough process when the image is already orphaned, and clearly
> meets the requirements for deletion.  Adding "blank, protect, and
> check back in a month" will just make things that much slower.
>
> (speaking of images, [[Category:Orphaned fairuse images]] has a
> backlog of roughly 1800 items right now)

Of which 1600 have been marked for more than a week - admins, please!

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/cgi-bin/report_orphan_fair_use.py

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:37 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> There are a massive number of people in the world who are not "English
> speakers", but can certainly read it. Hell, I work with lots of them.
> English is almost certainly the most understood language in the world,
> if not the most spoken as a first language.
>
> I'm also taking a guess here, but I suspect that for some languages,
> your best bet to get information would be to use machine translation
> of EN Wikipedia. I'm not totally positive though, because the
> languages that have machine translation on google are probably our
> best Wikipedias as well (German, Spanish, French...) but maybe
> Portuguese or something.
>
> Damn I wish we had some more stats :) Especially readership stats, if
> my hunch that there are silent masses reading Wikipedia from other
> countries without contributing much, is correct.

So we translate en. articles into other languages--and deal with the
issues of non-English speakers *then*. You denounce people for being
arrogant Americans because they want [[Georgia]] to be a
disambiguation page, but then you suggest that non-English speakers
should read Wikipedia through *machine translations of the English
edition*!?

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Tim Starling schrieb:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> I just saw the de.wikipedia article about the pKB value, which:
>> * looks like "PKB"
>> * should look like "pKB"
>> This looks pityful, and the note that it can't be shown otherwise for
>> technical reasons doesn't really help the matter.
>>
>> I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>>     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
>> which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
>> a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
>>
>> I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.
>>
>
> The Chinese Wikipedia actually has this already. The syntax is -{T|Title goes here}- . The intended
> application is to change the display title depending on the selected language variant. For example,
> the Chinese Wikipedia main page has this:
>
> -{T|zh-cn:??;zh-tw:??;zh-hk:??;zh-sg:??}-
>
Is this an extension, or in the main code already? Could it be tweaked
to work without "en:"? Does it allow for HTML to be rendered in the title?

More importantly, could it be changed to use the more "wiki standards"
(if there is such a thing) {{T|Title}} style?

Magnus

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subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
On 4/11/06, Locke Cole <locke.cole.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Something like this, IMO, seems better done as a per-user preference.
>
> /me can already imagine edit wars over how many subheadings to display
> in the TOC

Hmm, I disagree. There are articles where the 4th level of subheadings
are actual paragraphs which could decently show up in the table of
contents. Other times they're barely stubs, single lines. Perhaps
those subheadings could be rewritten in another format. In either
case, a user setting wouldn't be able to distinguish the two sorts of
articles.

And honestly, we have to stop worrying about whether edit wars will
break out every time we propose a new feature :)

PS Magnus, {{LIMITTOC|3}} would be fine - for a minute there I thought
you were telling me about an existing feature and I got all excited :)

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Finding non-Wikipedia sources (was: Re: Real-time
	mirrors as a net revenue _source_?)

body:
nice!

Steve

On 4/11/06, Jerome Jamnicky <jeronimwp at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's for exactly this problem that I started this off a while back,
> but it hasn't become widely-known yet, it seems:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirror_filter


subject:
[WikiEN-l] FYI: Daily Record: Wikipedia site filled with major
	mistakes

body:
On 4/11/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > To me, it's another example of Wikipedia being perceived as something
> > which it is not, which is basically our fault. The two biggest
> > misconceptions here are:
> > a) that Wikipedia is an "encyclopaedia" with fact checking and
> > editorial standards against publishing anything that is not known to
> > be true
>
> Er, that's not a misconception! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we do have fact checking, and we do have editorial standards. The verifiability policy is a mechanism to ensure we publish trustworthy information. And that's exactly why Boroson's addition was removed. If he had any insight, he would have commended Wikipedia for asking for sources, rather than taking him (an anonymous editor) at his word.

Ok, "fact checking and editorial standards applied *before* publish anything"...

Steve


from_name: Fastfission

body:
It's not just us who rely on it -- lots of people do -- so I don't
think it's just a case of amateur lawyering. The basic rationale for
Bridgeman v. Corel is in Feist v. Rural (Bridgeman is an application
of the "slavish copying" issue to artwork rather than text, which was
the subject of Feist), which is a US Supreme Court case and on much
firmer grounds. The idea that sheer manpower, but no transformative
effort, creates new copyright claims is fairly strong; the exact
nuances come down to how this translates in the case of, say, a
photograph of a painting (which is the exact issue in Bridgeman v.
Corel), or the more complicated cases like a photograph of a mural, a
stained-glass window, or a collage.

But it is wishful thinking to assume it applies outside the US. It is
an interpretation of US copyright law and has no strict international
implications in and of itself. The US approach to copyrights is in no
means the only conclusion or form of reasoning possible.

FF

On 4/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Mark Wagner wrote:
> > I am not a lawyer, but IIRC, Bridgeman v Corel only applies to
> > two-dimensional copies of two-dimensional works (though it may apply
> > to three-dimensional copies of three-dimensional works).  The basis of
> > it is that a "slavishly accurate" copy of a work involves no creative
> > effort, and so cannot establish a copyright separate from that of the
> > original.  Photographing a 3D work involves creative effort, in the
> > choice of lighting and camera angle.
>
> Bridgeman v. Corel was a district court case, never litigated at the
> appeals court level, and therefore is not a strong precedent.  It is, as
> far as I have been able to determine, a fairly unusual result not likely
> to be followed by other courts.
>
> Therefore, relying on Bridgeman v. Corel for anything is likely wishful
> thinking.
>
> > Images created and published in the US that are public domain under
> > Bridgeman v Corel are probably public domain everywhere else, as well.
>
> I very much doubt this.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
That's really all I'm saying. About a year ago it was so bad that it
almost wasn't worth even trying -- you could never predict when things
would just give up on you completely, and there was no end of it in
sight, for months on end. Sure, there are hiccups now, but they are
pretty minimal, at least in my experience, and nothing like the "bad
old days" of the server problems.

FF

On 4/11/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day
> > > my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the
> > > 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost
> > > constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers,
> > > etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of
> > > server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every
> > > time you tried to submit something.
> >
> > You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day
> > :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with
> > very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime
> > of other similarly-popular websites.
> >
> > Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able
> > to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which
> > probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
>
>
> It's really an issue of context.  A year or so ago things were pretty bad.
> Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison.  It's true,
> how quickly we forget.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Zend Studio

body:
Zend has kindly donated a 3-user perpetual license for Zend Studio Professional.
This is Zend's IDE thingy for PHP; most interestingly it includes a debugger,
profiler, and various such extra tools which can be helpful for tricky problems.

http://www.zend.com/products/zend_studio

Domas has expressed specific interest in this; I've got two other seats up for
grabs if anyone thinks they'll really use them.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Katie (keitei)

body:
On 4/11/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of
> > Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.
>
> Oh what nonsense.  Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common
> knowledge in the Soviet era.

Common knowledge to whom? You are making assumptions, that everyone
knows what you knew. As an American, I know somewhere in the back of
my head that Georgia is a country, but mostly to me it is a state that
grows peaches and established as a colony for debtors.

Please do NOT go all ignorant American on me. It's a matter of
perspective. It does not make me "ignorant." The name "Salem" to me
denotes "Salem, Massachusetts," not the capital of Oregon, which could
be argued to be more prominent (also prominent: it being a common
town/city name meaning "city on a hill", a common place name in the
Middle East (which I, as an American, must know nothing about)). This
isn't because of the media or movies and "witchcraft." It is because I
live very close to Salem, and have never heard "Salem" used to refer
to Oregon. This doesn't mean I am ignorant to its existence, it's just
not what comes to mind.

Similarly, Georgia the state is much closer to me than the country,
and as such, it is more important to my own life. I can't speak for
the American media because I don't watch the news, but Georgia
(country) has not been mentioned in my life. Does that make all of the
US ignorant plebes? No, we just are concerned with different things.
Is it wrong to assume that many people on English Wikipedia could
possibly be from the US? No, approximately 298,000,000 people live in
the US, 97% of whom speak English very well, and "74.9% of Americans
living in households with a fixed line phone have home access to the
Internet. This amounts to 204.307 million Americans out of the
projected 272.81 million who are at least two years old."

It's very possible that these 204.307 million people access Wikipedia.
Especially since the schools I've attended reccommend it. So the
"common" name could very well be the American idea of it. Shrug.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day
>> my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the
>> 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost
>> constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers,
>> etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of
>> server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every
>> time you tried to submit something.
>>
>
> You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day
> :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with
> very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime
> of other similarly-popular websites.
>
> Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able
> to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which
> probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
>
> Steve
>

Just to put things in context, WP is currently #17 in Alexa's rankings.

Its nearest neighbors in the rankings are:

#14 microsoft.com
#15 yahoo.com.cn
#16 google.co.uk
...
#18 google.co.jp
#19 blogger.com (ie, Google again)
#20 bbc.co.uk

Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a
multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.

I'm sure that the current engineering team could achieve similar levels
of reliability, given access to an IT budget similar to those available
to these companies.

-- Neil


body:
G'day Pedro,

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

I think a photo of a 3D sculpture has a lot more "creativity" in it than
a scan of a painting: choosing the angle, and so on.  Such a photo could
well be copyright you.  If I'm wrong, then the copyright would be held
by the original artist (in other words, PD-old).

Either way, the museum has no claim on you.  I believe that's why some
museums don't like you taking photos.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/2006


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> #20 bbc.co.uk
>
> Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a
> multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.

Just for informational purposes, 3% of the BBC's income due to the
licence fee goes towards bbc.co.uk[1]. In 2005, the BBC took in ?2940
million from the licence fee[2]. That gives just less than ?90 million
annually.

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/
2. http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/annreport/report05/94-135.txt

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Child pornography

body:
G'day Molu,

> Wikipedia is not a democracy, we need supermajority instead of
> majority to change status quo (though whether this is the best way to
> go is another question, but that's the way things currently are and
> not likely to change anytime soon), and if we did have the

Umm, *no*.  Wikipedia is not a democracy, and that means *fD don't
operate on supermajorities any more than they operate on majorities.
You get 67% support for deletion on an AfD with all deletes saying "nn
d" and the remaining 33% saying "keep, verifiable, notable, editorially
appropriate, and the article's currently featured by /The Guardian/ as
an example of why Wikipedia is awesome" ... and then ask a sensible
admin to close it.  Guess what?  It ain't gonna be a delete, baby.

> supermajority against an image it would be automatically deleted by
> the IfD system without need for unilateral actions.

IfD discussions (if there *is* any discussion) are interpreted by a
closing *admin*.  It's not automatic at all.  Like it or not, a lot of
functions on Wikipedia are carried out by admins.  If your problem is
with the concept of admins in general, then you're living in a paranoid
fantasy.  If, however, there are particular admins who cannot be trusted
by the community to carry out normal admin functions, then those people
should not be admins.

Unfortunately, these days when people talk about "the trust of the
community", the community they usually refer to is not Wikipedia at all,
but rather the fools at WR.  The trolls are a community unto themselves,
and people are actually paying attention to them!

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/2006


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Featured article deterioration

body:
On 4/11/06, Ben Greenberg <bengreenb at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Its simply naive to say that infinite edits means an infinitely good
> article.  If you dont believe that bad, non-vandalism edits take their toll
> on articles, I invite you to look at the Featured article review.  So many
> articles are ruined by people who simply aren't good at writing prose, and
> who enjoy adding useless factoids.  Articles quite often get worse-- if your
> idealism has you believing otherwise, please look at this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hip_hop_music&diff=41510779&oldid=36727078

A clearer example would be [[Omnipotence paradox]]:

The version that was featured:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Omnipotence_paradox&oldid=39463700
After two and a half months, 500 edits, and being on the front page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Omnipotence_paradox&oldid=39433100

The "popular culture" section has grown and acquired a gratuitous
non-free image, while the entire rest of the discussion has been
reduced to stray paragraphs and a few brief lists.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Drini drini

body:
Well no, you were allowed to take pictures (as long as you didn't us flash)
so I have a lot , I was asking if I can put them under a free license

On 4/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>
> >while we're a topic, a couple of months ago I took pictures (on a
> >museum) of ancient mayan sculptures. Unfortunately I was on a hurry so
> >I couldn't go talk with staff.
> >
> Once you have the pictures in legally uncertain circumstances it's
> seldom good strategy to talk with staff about it.
>
> Ec
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

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

body:
John Lee wrote:
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
>> On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Why, exactly?
>>>
>>> Two well-known things are called Georgia.  It is thus logical for the
>>> title to be a disambiguation between them, and everything else known
>>> by that name.
>>>
>>> -Matt
>>>
>>>
>> Ohh, come on, there's a huge difference between Georgia the Country
>> and Georgia the State. Georgia is a WHOLE country. Like, bigass, we
>> got troups, "why don't we take this outside, former Soviet
>> country-style", international trade, country.
>>
>> Disambigging those two would be like disambigging "Paris" to separate
>> "Paris, Texas" and "Paris, France". This is the worst kind of
>> US-centrism.
>>
>> </rant>
>>
>> --Oskar
>>
>>
> I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more
> references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire
> life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise.
>

Stalin was from Georgia...

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

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body:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/11/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> > According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US
> Museums
> > and libraries would differ with you on that. They believe that if they
> own
> > the original work, unless they license copies, all images of that work
> > belong to them. They could very well be wrong, but that's what they
> think,
> > and would probably eventually be willing to test in court. For a lot of
> > items they'll severely restrict access, just so that this sort of thing
> > won't happen, and if the precedent is upheld, this is likely only to get
> > worse. It's unclear to me whether we should use this case as a
> precedent,
> > although it's clear that both Wikipedia and the Commons
> does.  </armchair
> > lawyering>
> > Makemi
>
> Well of course they would differ on that. They see revenue going out
> the window as they tried in vain to claim active authorship rights on
> something that was made two hundred years ago. The only claims I have
> seen against the reasoning in Bridgeman and Feist are along the lines
> of "but we'd like the money" and "it takes effort/resources to make
> this product." Those are realistic economic considerations for a
> business but it is a sort of argumentation which should have nothing
> to do with copyright law -- it is the sort of argumentation which
> leads you down the horrible legislative paths like the Sonny Bono
> Copyright Extension Act ("We'd like it extended because it's worth
> money, so fuck the principles"). Fortunately librarians and archivists
> are not as potent a constituency as the music industry, or else
> Congress would probably get involved. I have very little tolerance for
> archivists who think that ownership is the same thing as authorship,
> and do not care that copyrights are supposed to be LIMITED monopolies
> on culture.
>
> The long-term effects of Bridgeman v. Corel -- which I don't think
> anybody is predicting a swift overturning of -- are worth
> contemplating but are really beyond our personal control. Whether it
> will result in restriction of access (for the purpose of preserving IP
> without resorting to IP law) is a possibility, but just one of many.
> There are other ways to make revenue besides trying to misuse
> copyright law, thank goodness.
>
> Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists
> like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think
> we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something
> horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go
> back over the images tagged as such and delete them.
>
> FF

Another example in case:
[[Image:Milaria Scotia Regium 1595.jpg]]
the website license from where ti was taken specifically states you have to
ask for a license, it got released "for educational non commercia purposes"
(so it should be deleted per Jimbo's rule from last year), it's not being
used on an article, yet IFD and WP:CP  said the image should stay (due to
PD-art)


subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day
> my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the
> 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost
> constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers,
> etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of
> server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every
> time you tried to submit something.

You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day
:) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with
very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime
of other similarly-popular websites.

Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able
to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which
probably doesn't affect casual browsers.

Steve


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

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

[[Macedonia]]

Should it point to the Greek administrative region, the modern
country, the ancient kingdom, or the geographic region?

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik van den Muijzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] 2 blocks on nl

body:
Last week I noticed that Oscar had mentioned me on this list.

Oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote on Fri Mar 24 02:01:14 UTC 2006:

 > after a fight over articles moving onto user talk pages and
finally irc,

 > muijz and waerth have been blocked this night by galwaygirl "they
are both

 > blocked until they work out a solution between themselves", for
one week, on

 > nl.wikipedia.

 > several attempts at mediation had failed before this measure was
taken, the

 > last one on irc, in which it became clear that no peace would be
agreed

 > upon: both kept on provoking the other.

 > oscar

Whereupon Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> on Fri Mar 24 07:42:29
UTC 2006 replied with:

 > You have my full support.

Oscar has used those words of Jimbo to defend his actions at
Wikipedia-NL.
However his statement is incorrect. Therefore I have asked him to
correct his statement here.
As Oscar is not willing to do so, I will correct it myself then.

1) at Wikipedia-NL, there has been a conflict between Waerth and *a
group of other users*
(Danny has described the conflict as "his conflict with the
nl.wikipedia community";
see: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-March/
006381.html )
2) there has been *no* attempts at mediation
3) Muijz and Waerth did *not* keep on provoking the other

You can find the full text of my message here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Muijz/2_blocks

grtz,
Muijz


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] 2 blocks on nl


from_name: Matt Brown

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

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The very fact that there is disagreement among sensible contributors
> > says that neither page should be primary.
>
> There, I disagree. If the sensible contributors are not representative
> of whatever they should be reperesentative of, then their disagreement
> isn't useful.

Really, the most NPOV solution for article naming is to NEVER allow an
article to occupy the primary name when there is any disambiguation
needed at all.  Placing one article above the others is bias.

However, it's impractical.  In many cases, where people link to
[[whatever]] or search for the term, it's incredibly highly likely
that they mean only one of the options.  In a sense, placing an
article, rather than a disambiguation page, at the primary topic is a
user-friendliness hack which challenges NPOV but is tolerated in the
'easy cases'.

It's my (current) belief that any disagreement that takes a name out
of the 'easy cases' category should mean that no article gets the
primary topic name.

Therefore, the question of whether those arguing are representative or
not (and of whom) is irrelevant - the fact that non-nutcases consider
it arguable at all puts it out of the 'easy cases' category.

> Hmmm...well I haven't had much experience determining such things for
> big important pages like these, but my experience with smaller ones
> has mostly been that one person makes a sensible argument, doesn't get
> much response, and just moves it. :)

True.  "Without strong disagreement" possibly works better.

> Perhaps what irks me is that there are 200 countries on the planet. 1
> of them definitely refers to Georgia, the state, without qualifiers.
> Some small number may also do so. Then there's probably a large number
> of people who would qualify the state, or explain the country. And to
> people who hadn't heard of either, no one is going to assume that "My
> Aunt was born in Georgia" would be a US state. And at the other end,
> there must be several dozen (not necessarily English-speaking) for
> whom Georgia is definitely a country and nothing else.

Georgia has only been independent for fifteen years; prior to that, in
the modern era, it was of the same status as the US state, as a
subdivision of a larger nation.  I suspect prior to 1991, people
neither from North America nor central/eastern Europe would have
struggled to locate either place, or decide which was meant.

Since then, Georgia's independence means that the nation has a little
more prominence, of course.

-Matt


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

body:
On 4/11/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> [[Macedonia]]
>
> Should it point to the Greek administrative region, the modern
> country, the ancient kingdom, or the geographic region?

None of the above, by my reasoning, but to a disambiguation page.

(goes to check)

Which it currently does.

-Matt


from_name: Mak

body:
<snip>
Note that none of this applies if you scan or photograph the image
yourself, or if it is licensed under a Wikipedia-compatible license by
someone who did.

-Matt
<snip>

According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US Museums
and libraries would differ with you on that. They believe that if they own
the original work, unless they license copies, all images of that work
belong to them. They could very well be wrong, but that's what they think,
and would probably eventually be willing to test in court. For a lot of
items they'll severely restrict access, just so that this sort of thing
won't happen, and if the precedent is upheld, this is likely only to get
worse. It's unclear to me whether we should use this case as a precedent,
although it's clear that both Wikipedia and the Commons does.  </armchair
lawyering>
Makemi


body:
On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

> However, we should certainly keep track of any image we use under the
> assumptions of Bridgeman v. Corel, so that if the law or precedent
> changes we can re-evaluate them.

In other words, basically every public-domain image except PD-self and
some PD-USGov.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


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

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 1:11 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> I understand the comments about populations, economics etc, but I'm
> not sure it's totally relevant. Hopefully I'll come up with some good
> counter examples or something.

Interestingly, this is the same way I feel about your comments about
sovereignty. Sovereignty is a political fiction--population is a
reality.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:56 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >> Yes, demographic bias.  As in the bigger region, in population, size,
> >> economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the
> >> encyclopedia's
> >> language, gets the primary link.
> >
> > Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended
> > for English speakers? I didn't think so.
>
> How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English
> Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the
> other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the
> Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.

Actually, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/???????? appears to be about
the state, while the country is at
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/??????.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
On 4/11/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US Museums
> and libraries would differ with you on that.

If the work is out of copyright, they can only do that by requiring
agreement to a legally valid and binding contract before letting you
see the work.  This is the case worldwide, in most cases.  Nations
differ as to whether an accurate 2D copy is itself copyrightable, but
my understanding of the law is that once something is out of
copyright, it can be legally copied unless you sign a contract stating
you won't.

If an 'unauthorised' copy is made, the issue is almost entirely one of
contract law, not copyright law.

I'm uncertain of what the legal position is if the owner of a work
insists that "since we require everyone accessing this work to agree
to a contract, this copy must be illegal" but fails to identify who
was in breach of their contract and thus prove the breach of contract.

There's also the issue of how binding are unsigned contracts, in the
case of things exhibited to the public.

-Matt


body:
On 4/11/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> In other words, basically every public-domain image except PD-self and
> some PD-USGov.

Not at all.

Bridgeman v. Corel only applies when you are using a copy (scan, book
print, etc) made by someone else, and that copy, if able to be
independently copyrighted, would still be in copyright.

If you own, or can get your hands on without signing a restrictive
license, the original work or a copy which is itself old enough to be
out of copyright, then it does not apply.

E.g. I have a copy of the 1922 Locomotive Cyclopedia of American
Practice.  Being published and printed in 1922, it is now out of
copyright in the US - not only the original work being out of
copyright, but any possible new copyright created by making the copy,
since the copy I own is itself old enough to be independently out of
copyright.

I can legally scan any image in the book and place it on Wikipedia.  I
do not need to assume the validity of Bridgeman v. Corel in order to
do so.

If Bridgeman v. Corel is overturned, then I can still copy MY copy of
the book, but I cannot take someone else's scans from their website
and use those.

-Matt


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
At 14:26 +0100 11/4/06, Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>Neil Harris wrote:
>>  #20 bbc.co.uk
>>
>>  Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a
>>  multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
>
>Just for informational purposes, 3% of the BBC's income due to the
>licence fee goes towards bbc.co.uk[1]. In 2005, the BBC took in ?2940
>million from the licence fee[2]. That gives just less than ?90 million
>annually.
>
>1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/
>2. http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/annreport/report05/94-135.txt
>
>Chris
>
>--
>Chris Jenkinson
>chris at starglade.org
>
>"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
>   -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

In the future, non UK users of BBC websites will be charged.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,,1745320,00.html

"The BBC is to charge overseas users of its
websites and will borrow ?350m for global
expansion. Evidence, argues Emily Bell, that it
is preparing to be self-sufficient ..."

BTW, there are stacks of BBC News Online servers
in Telehouse New York. Who pays for those?

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


list: commons-l

from_name: Antonio Kildare M. Cruz

subject: [Commons-l] A crise nas universidades federais

body:
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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
On 4/11/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a
> multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
>
> I'm sure that the current engineering team could achieve similar levels
> of reliability, given access to an IT budget similar to those available
> to these companies.

I'm not sure if you were agreeing with me or disagreeing with me. My
point was simply that WP reliability is "very good", and if you
consider their budget, "outstanding". It is not, quite obviously, as
reliable as other top 20 websites, for the simple fact that they have
money to burn that we could only dream of.

Steve


body:
On 4/11/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US Museums
> and libraries would differ with you on that. They believe that if they own
> the original work, unless they license copies, all images of that work
> belong to them. They could very well be wrong, but that's what they think,
> and would probably eventually be willing to test in court. For a lot of
> items they'll severely restrict access, just so that this sort of thing
> won't happen, and if the precedent is upheld, this is likely only to get
> worse. It's unclear to me whether we should use this case as a precedent,
> although it's clear that both Wikipedia and the Commons does.  </armchair
> lawyering>
> Makemi

Well of course they would differ on that. They see revenue going out
the window as they tried in vain to claim active authorship rights on
something that was made two hundred years ago. The only claims I have
seen against the reasoning in Bridgeman and Feist are along the lines
of "but we'd like the money" and "it takes effort/resources to make
this product." Those are realistic economic considerations for a
business but it is a sort of argumentation which should have nothing
to do with copyright law -- it is the sort of argumentation which
leads you down the horrible legislative paths like the Sonny Bono
Copyright Extension Act ("We'd like it extended because it's worth
money, so fuck the principles"). Fortunately librarians and archivists
are not as potent a constituency as the music industry, or else
Congress would probably get involved. I have very little tolerance for
archivists who think that ownership is the same thing as authorship,
and do not care that copyrights are supposed to be LIMITED monopolies
on culture.

The long-term effects of Bridgeman v. Corel -- which I don't think
anybody is predicting a swift overturning of -- are worth
contemplating but are really beyond our personal control. Whether it
will result in restriction of access (for the purpose of preserving IP
without resorting to IP law) is a possibility, but just one of many.
There are other ways to make revenue besides trying to misuse
copyright law, thank goodness.

Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists
like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think
we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something
horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go
back over the images tagged as such and delete them.

FF


from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
I don't think it's an extension - I don't see anything special in
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version.

Magnus Manske wrote:

>Tim Starling schrieb:
>
>
>>Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I just saw the de.wikipedia article about the pKB value, which:
>>>* looks like "PKB"
>>>* should look like "pKB"
>>>This looks pityful, and the note that it can't be shown otherwise for
>>>technical reasons doesn't really help the matter.
>>>
>>>I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>>>    {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
>>>which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
>>>a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
>>>
>>>I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>The Chinese Wikipedia actually has this already. The syntax is -{T|Title goes here}- . The intended
>>application is to change the display title depending on the selected language variant. For example,
>>the Chinese Wikipedia main page has this:
>>
>>-{T|zh-cn:??;zh-tw:??;zh-hk:??;zh-sg:??}-
>>
>>
>>
>Is this an extension, or in the main code already? Could it be tweaked
>to work without "en:"? Does it allow for HTML to be rendered in the title?
>
>More importantly, could it be changed to use the more "wiki standards"
>(if there is such a thing) {{T|Title}} style?
>
>Magnus
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Illegal sources

body:
On 4/10/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> Everything you say is true in a legal sense.  In a practical sense, the
> chances that information that is widely available across the Web is
> [[born secret]] is so vanishingly small, and the chances that anyone
> will actually face any sort of repercussions from republishing that
> information are so infinitesimal that my thumbrule (classified is not
> verifiable, and verifiable is not classified) is only epsilon short of
> axiomatic truth.

The question isn't whether the information would fall under the born
secret clause (in fact, huge categories of information are under it
automatically), but whether it would be prosecuted. And in this I
agree completely that it is absurdly unlikely, and something not to
worry about unless it comes up in a direct legal confrontation.

FF


from_name: Allan Patrick Medeiros Lucas

body:
Off-topic, please do not post this kind of message here. Thanks in advance.

Por favor, utilize esta lista apenas para mensagens relacionadas com o
commons. Obrigado.

Em 11/04/06, Antonio Kildare M. Cruz <nickname at pop.com.br> escreveu:
>
> ? muito importante que nos ajude nesta divulga??o, ok?
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Legal, mas o que isso tem a ver com o Commons??? O_o
>
>
>
> On 4/11/06, Antonio Kildare M. Cruz <nickname at pop.com.br > wrote:
>
> Prezados Meios de Comunica??o:
> A crise nas universidades federais seria menor se o governo  cobresse
> mensalidade dos alunos, como faz a faculdade particular. Cobrar n?o
> significa privatizar! Por que n?o cobrar mensalidade? A experi?ncia de
> cobrar mensalidade dos alunos foi institu?da no Chile em 1981. Como
> resultado, a participa??o do Estado chileno no or?amento universit?rio caiu
> de 100% para 30%. Os outros 70% s?o financiados pela mensalidade dos alunos.
> Nos meios acad?micos, os os defensores da cobran?a falam sobre o assunto com
> muita discri??o, e os opositores o tratam como se a id?ia fosse tirar o
> controle das faculdades das m?os do Estado.
> Obrigado.
> Antonio Kildare M. Cruz - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
> http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb110901.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> um abra?o,
>      Felipe. _______________________________________________ Commons-l
> mailing list Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>

--
Abra?os,
Allan Patrick Medeiros Lucas
allan.patrick at gmail.com
Caruaru-PE
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subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> I have commited an initial attempt at {{DISPLAYTITLE|Anything goes}},
> turned off by default in case of unforseen side effects
> ($wgAllowDisplayTitle=true turns it on). We can still restrict this, but
> at least the infrastructure is there now.

Well I hate to tell you, but it doesn't work. :)

1) It breaks template inclusions.

This *should* include a template:
{{My template|value}}

but instead it sets the display title to "value".

2) Most of the time it won't have any effect.

For some reason it's trying to set $wgOut's global title setting from the parser.

Most page views come from the parser cache -- the parser *does not run* at the
time when the user comes to look at it. It ran on a previous view, or when the
page was saved, and any ephemeral changes to $wgOut have long ago vanished.

To be useful at all, it would have to save the value into the ParserOutput
object, and it would have to be retrieved from that output object (either
immediately-rendered or from the cache) at display time.

3) It may have effect in places it shouldn't.

Previews, background rendering, display of message chunks inside a special page,
etc might run the parser at many times other than a page view. This could lead
to inappropriate overwriting of the special page's title information.

An immediate example is that the "Editing XYZ" message gets overwritten entirely
when previewing.

Also I noticed a few weird bits in the code, such as this:
  $st .= str_replace ( "$1", $t, wfMsg('displaytitle') );

We removed this awkward construct a couple years ago, letting wfMsg() and
friends accept parameters for replacements instead. It's generally much cleaner
and more legible.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In other words, basically every public-domain image except PD-self and
> > some PD-USGov.
>
> Not at all.
>
> Bridgeman v. Corel only applies when you are using a copy (scan, book
> print, etc) made by someone else, and that copy, if able to be
> independently copyrighted, would still be in copyright.
>
> If you own, or can get your hands on without signing a restrictive
> license, the original work or a copy which is itself old enough to be
> out of copyright, then it does not apply.

That's the theory.  In practice, the majority of our "public domain
because of age" images were grabbed off the Internet somewhere, so
someone other than the uploader did the scanning.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Shinjiman

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Tim Starling <t.starling at ...> writes:

>
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> > I just saw the de.wikipedia article about the pKB value, which:
> > * looks like "PKB"
> > * should look like "pKB"
> > This looks pityful, and the note that it can't be shown otherwise for
> > technical reasons doesn't really help the matter.
> >
> > I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
> >     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
> > which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
> > a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
> >
> > I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.
>
> The Chinese Wikipedia actually has this already. The syntax is -{T|Title
goes here}- . The intended
> application is to change the display title depending on the selected
language variant. For example,
> the Chinese Wikipedia main page has this:
>
> -{T|zh-cn:??;zh-tw:??;zh-hk:??;zh-sg:??}-
>

There's two major ways to implement the title in Chinese language wiki

-{T|zh:ZH title;zh-cn:CN title;zh-tw:TW title;zh-hk:HK title;zh-sg:SG title}-

or

-{T|title}-

seems this methods are also applicable in Slavonic wikis which includes the
LanguageConverter.php module.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] A question about Wikipedia method

body:
> >On Apr 6, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Molu Bosu Palit wrote:
> >   I have this question about Wikipedia method. If I see cntent that
> > I know for CERTAIN to be true, but the content does not cite a
> > verifiable source and I also know of none, then should I keep the
> > content or should I remove it? Thank you.
>On 4/9/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Keep it. Verification can come later. But if someone removes it and
> makes a fuss, don't put it back in.

You should remove it if it's critical of a living person, or if it's
in some other way objectionable or offensive. Also, when you say you
know of no source, if you mean you can't at the moment find one,
there's no harm in keeping it until you do. But if you mean you
believe no source exists, then you should remove it.

Sarah


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

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [[Macedonia]]
> >
> > Should it point to the Greek administrative region, the modern
> > country, the ancient kingdom, or the geographic region?
>
> You were probably asking me. I answer: The country.

And not the kingdom that at one time controlled the entire civilized world?

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
Guettarda wrote:

> It's really an issue of context.  A year or so ago things were pretty bad.
> Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison.  It's true,
> how quickly we forget.

I couldn't agree more, things are a lot better than this time last year.
  A quick trawl through the archives at
http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status should
show people how bad it was last year.  I add my weight to the subject
header.

Steve block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/06


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to use Group class

body:
On 09/04/06, ting wang <tting.wang at gmail.com> wrote:
> During the work I found a useful class "Group" in Group.php. It seems that
> this class is never used.

As far as I am aware, that's because it's left over from something
which was pulled from the software some time ago and is now
deprecated.

Rob Church


from_name: Justin Cormack

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

body:
On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 23:07 +0800, John Lee wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> >John Lee wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more
> >>references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire
> >>life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Stalin was from Georgia...
> >
> >
> Well, I don't discuss Stalin's place of birth on a regular basis. :p

So what?

Actually my aunt was kidnapped in Georgia (the country).

And it has an interesting cuisine (often reckoned to be the
best of the central european ones, based on pomegranate and
walnuts). There are several Georgian (the country) restaurants
in the city where I live, but no Georgian (the state) ones.

The oddest thing is the [[South Georgia]] is also a dab page,
even though it is an island, while all the other mentions are
just southern areas of Georgias. I think all the other uses
are basically bogus.

Justinc


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>On 11 Apr 2006, at 12:42, Andrew Gray wrote:
>
>>Of which 1600 have been marked for more than a week - admins, please!
>>
>>http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/cgi-bin/report_orphan_fair_use.py
>>
>
>And they are such a load of rubbish too. We need to stop this stuff
>from being uploaded. Maybe we should allow non-admins to delete
>images...
>
It's been said before, but further study of upload patterns bears
it out - a large percentage of bad uploads could be prevented by
disallowing image upload until a new user has been around for at
least a week, and by blocking persistent copyviolaters.

Many of the uploaders are so new they haven't even figured out
how to get images displayed in an article. The contributions list
shows edits to topic X, then upload of X-copyvio.jpg, then maybe
another couple of edits, and then that's it - the image, good or
bad, is an orphan. The especially sad cases are when they upload
pictures of themselves, but never edit their user page.

Stan


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite Block

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Indefinite_block_of_Rgulerdem

Four other editors (three admins, one user) have all concurred with an indef
block so far.

--NSLE

On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&user=&page=User%3ARgulerdem&limit=100&offset=0
>
> On 4/10/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >    Hi,
> >    My account has been blocked indefinitely by an
> > admin [[User:Cyde]] while I was blocked for a week. I
> > would like the admins reconsider the case and take
> > [[User:Cyde]]'s discretionary, unjustified, and unfair
> > action back.
> >    As an editor, I contributed to a few articles and I
> > would like to add more to Wiki.
> >    In order to understand the case you might consider
> > visiting the following pages:
> > *[[User:Rgulerdem]] and talk page
> > *[[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]
> >    Thanks,
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
I just wrote up a simple JavaScript code for the Polish (update, after
30 minutes of writing this email) and English Wikipedia. It changes
the title (h1.firstHeading) to the name of the page which is the
{{Restrictions}} (or similiar) template.

Just check my JavaScript:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Datrio/monobook.js

And here's an example (after moving the JS to your own monobook.js):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Music_Store

If anyone wants to copy it, feel free to do it.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz Siedlecki


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] BLOCKED FROM EDITING

body:
Douglas Jones wrote:
>
>   User talk:Etexzan
>
>
>       From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
> Jump to: navigation <http://dsli.com/?assistance-with-navigation>,
> search <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Etexzan#searchInput>
> Hello my name is Douglas. I go by the pen name etexzan. I request to be
> unblocked. I have recently added my website to relevant topics as an
> external link. This is not spam. I have legitimate non commercial
> information pertaining to the areas in which I am submitting my link as
> a resource. Thanks, Douglas
> [edit
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Etexzan&action=edit&section=1>]
>
>
>     SPAM
>
> To The Administrators of WIKIPEDIA,
> I have been blocked from editing pages. Why, I do not know. I offer my
> website as an external link for the wikipedia IQ page. I have no spam at
> my website and offer a comprehensive database
> <http://fonefinder.net/?probems-with-database> that is full of free
> information.
> Here is my IP Address: 70.173.162.237. This is one of the editors that
> blocked me: wikien-l at wikipedia.org This is where I am blocked
> from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq This is my link: * *Kids IQ Test
> Center* <http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/>
> I cite your website numerously in my WebPages. I am not spamming
> wikipedia and I do not understand why I am being hassled. I offer a
> unique website that offers information that is simply not found on other
> so-called IQ websites.
> Actually, I have scrolled through numerous so-called IQ websites that
> are featured in the External Links and the majorities have spam linking
> directly to the sorriest piss poor excuse for an IQ from the
> www.tickle.com website.
> If anything, I feel that I am being hassled because I actually have a
> website that is NOT TRYING TO PAWN SOME CRAPPY TICKLE TEST down a
> visitor?s throat.
> I ask that you lift <http://fonefinder.net/?lift-info> the ban on my
> site and allow me to continue to offer FREE INFORMATION regarding IQ,
> personality and other psychological tests
> <http://bigportal.com/?probems-with-tests> on the internet.
> Look past the front page of my website. Look at all the information that
> is free and that provides a service.
> Thanks for your consideration of this matter.
> Regards,
> etexzan
> [edit
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Etexzan&action=edit&section=2>]
>
>
>     Spam
>
> To understand why your links are not acceptable, please review each of
> the links in the warning message:
>
>     Please do not add <http://spokaneappraiser.com/?add-medication>
>     commercial links (or links to your own private websites) to
>     Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not> a
>     vehicle for advertising
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spam> or a mere collection
>     of external links
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links>. You are,
>     however, encouraged to add /content/ instead of links
>     <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/When_should_I_link_externally> to
>     the encyclopedia. See the welcome page
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome%2C_newcomers> to
>     learn more. Thanks. -- Barrylb
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Barrylb> 14:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
>
>
> If that is the case then all of the external links to the referenced IQ
> page should be discarded. Each and every single one of them are
> someone?s private website and each page has commercial content. Your
> rationale to ban me from providing a link to a website that is unique
> from the run of the mill websites that are listed in the external links
> section is an argument, which you could clearly not win. That is if this
> were a public debate with a cast of neutral judges.
> This is just another case of an abuse of privilege. You feel that since
> you have power over someone who disagrees with your policy that you are
> entitled to discard rationale and impose your will. By chance, are you a
> communist or related to Fidel Castro?
> To hell with your lame reply; as far as suggesting that I add content to
> your site, forget about it. I am sure that after hours of tedious work,
> some zealot with editorial powers would come by, find fault, and remove
> the topic from your index.
> Censorship is appropriate from protecting disturbing and unethical
> content from being displayed in Wikipedia. However, to ban me from
> listing a website that is a damn good reference for the "IQ" topic is
> absurd.
> However, why don't you ban the topic of autofellatio from your index? I
> am sure that MSN Encarta would not consider it for inclusion nor would
> The Britannica Encyclopedia.
> As far as me being a supporter of Wikipedia, forget it! As time permits,
> I will yank every single damn link that points to your URL. Over 87
> indexed pages in my website point a link to Wikipedia as an educational
> resource. For me to think that Wikipedia has the merit of being a
> resource of educational value has changed. Your site parades itself as
> an online encyclopedia but it is nothing other than a directory of pop
> culture.
> --etexzan
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Etexzan&action=edit>
> 16:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
>

Everyone, please take note of the spam links all throughout that
email... inserted by, well, someone who is claiming that they have been
wrongly blocked as a spammer.

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

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from_name: Fastfission

body:
Well, the UK is a place in particular where the issue raised in
Bridgman v. Corel has not been ironed out one way or another. But it
is fairly clear that under U.S. copyright law, anything published
abroad in English that long ago is currently in the public domain, and
scan or close, 2-D photograph of something in the public domain would
not create a new copyright claim (and why should it?).

If scanning it does not create a copyright claim under U.S. copyright
law, then the website/archivist/whoever cannot license it at all, much
less restrively. Licensing requires a copyright claim to begin with.
They can use it, but they can't set restrictions on how others use it,
at least not by recourse to copyright law.

The only way this would be problematic would be potentially for
re-users based in the UK, but I think that falls into the "when you
move our content into your legal realm, its up to you to figure out
which of our PD categories do not apply where you live." And in any
case I'm fairly sure that it is at best legally ambiguous in the UK;
not outright prohibitive. (If I'm wrong on this, somebody correct me.)

There is a really handy table which parses out all of the various
clauses in US copyright law in relation to the public domain
(including works created outside of the US) at:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

FF

On 4/11/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/11/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US
> > Museums
> > > and libraries would differ with you on that. They believe that if they
> > own
> > > the original work, unless they license copies, all images of that work
> > > belong to them. They could very well be wrong, but that's what they
> > think,
> > > and would probably eventually be willing to test in court. For a lot of
> > > items they'll severely restrict access, just so that this sort of thing
> > > won't happen, and if the precedent is upheld, this is likely only to get
> > > worse. It's unclear to me whether we should use this case as a
> > precedent,
> > > although it's clear that both Wikipedia and the Commons
> > does.  </armchair
> > > lawyering>
> > > Makemi
> >
> > Well of course they would differ on that. They see revenue going out
> > the window as they tried in vain to claim active authorship rights on
> > something that was made two hundred years ago. The only claims I have
> > seen against the reasoning in Bridgeman and Feist are along the lines
> > of "but we'd like the money" and "it takes effort/resources to make
> > this product." Those are realistic economic considerations for a
> > business but it is a sort of argumentation which should have nothing
> > to do with copyright law -- it is the sort of argumentation which
> > leads you down the horrible legislative paths like the Sonny Bono
> > Copyright Extension Act ("We'd like it extended because it's worth
> > money, so fuck the principles"). Fortunately librarians and archivists
> > are not as potent a constituency as the music industry, or else
> > Congress would probably get involved. I have very little tolerance for
> > archivists who think that ownership is the same thing as authorship,
> > and do not care that copyrights are supposed to be LIMITED monopolies
> > on culture.
> >
> > The long-term effects of Bridgeman v. Corel -- which I don't think
> > anybody is predicting a swift overturning of -- are worth
> > contemplating but are really beyond our personal control. Whether it
> > will result in restriction of access (for the purpose of preserving IP
> > without resorting to IP law) is a possibility, but just one of many.
> > There are other ways to make revenue besides trying to misuse
> > copyright law, thank goodness.
> >
> > Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists
> > like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think
> > we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something
> > horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go
> > back over the images tagged as such and delete them.
> >
> > FF
>
>
> Another example in case:
> [[Image:Milaria Scotia Regium 1595.jpg]]
> the website license from where ti was taken specifically states you have to
> ask for a license, it got released "for educational non commercia purposes"
> (so it should be deleted per Jimbo's rule from last year), it's not being
> used on an article, yet IFD and WP:CP  said the image should stay (due to
> PD-art)
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Matt Brown

body:
On 4/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I can legally scan any image in the book and place it on Wikipedia.  I
> > do not need to assume the validity of Bridgeman v. Corel in order to
> > do so.
>
> Perhaps but you do need to in order to tag it correctly.

In that, if there is ever a legal decision that permits copyright for
slavish reproductions of 2D art, I need to explicitly release my scan
into the public domain (or other Wikipedia-approved licensing) as
well?  Noted.

-Matt, who was going to make a snarky comment then realised you had a point


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists
> like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think
> we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something
> horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go
> back over the images tagged as such and delete them.

While I am of course sympathetic, it bears repeating that Bridgeman v.
Corel is *not* binding authority, as it was merely a district court case.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Andrew Gray

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

body:
On 11/04/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Apr 11, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > If the Americans had done the right thing and called it New Georgia to
> > follow the pattern that was started with Hampshire, York and Jersey we
> > wouldn't be having this problem.  Nobody complains about the name
> > South
> > Georgia except perhaps the Argentinians.
>
> Georgia wasn't named after the country of Georgia, it was named after
> King George II.

Then again, New York wasn't named after the city, it was named after
the person. (Admittedly, this one is a relatively unusual use of the
"New" prefix)

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


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] TOClimit

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>...
> And honestly, we have to stop worrying about whether edit wars will
> break out every time we propose a new feature :)
>
> PS Magnus, {{LIMITTOC|3}} would be fine - for a minute there I thought
> you were telling me about an existing feature and I got all excited :)
>
I'd prefer {{TOClimit|3}} to match existing documentation for {{TOCleft}}
and {{TOCright}}, that will make it easier for folks to remember.


from_name: Philip Welch

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

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 6:05 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote:

>>>> [[Macedonia]]
>>>>
>>>> Should it point to the Greek administrative region, the modern
>>>> country, the ancient kingdom, or the geographic region?
>>>
>>> You were probably asking me. I answer: The country.
>>
>> And not the kingdom that at one time controlled the entire
>> civilized world?
>
> [[Rome]].
>
> C'mon.

[[Alexander the Great]].

C'mon.

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


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

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 5:59 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote:

>> Georgia wasn't named after the country of Georgia, it was named after
>> King George II.
>
> George II ... that's the one who *isn't* The British Tyrant, right?

Right. George III was the tyrant :)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:50 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> So we translate en. articles into other languages--and deal with the
>> issues of non-English speakers *then*. You denounce people for being
>> arrogant Americans because they want [[Georgia]] to be a
>> disambiguation page, but then you suggest that non-English speakers
>> should read Wikipedia through *machine translations of the English
>> edition*!?
>
> Hi Philip,
>   I don't think I denounced any arrogant Americans. And if I did, I'm
> not sure what double standard would be committed by suggesting to a
> speaker of some non-Wikipedia-fied language that he read the English
> Wikipedia, rather than wandering in the ignorant wilderness.

It's not that. It's that the onus shouldn't be on the reader to
translate en. for himself: the onus is on us to translate en. for him.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:14 PM, Mark Wagner wrote:

>> How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English
>> Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the
>> other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the
>> Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.
>
> Actually, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/???????? appears to
> be about
> the state, while the country is at
> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/??????.

Okay, then the Slovak Wikipedia :)

I'm sure you get my point.

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 4/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Bridgeman v. Corel was a district court case, never litigated at the
> appeals court level, and therefore is not a strong precedent.  It is, as
> far as I have been able to determine, a fairly unusual result not likely
> to be followed by other courts.
>
> Therefore, relying on Bridgeman v. Corel for anything is likely wishful
> thinking.

We do rely on it quite strongly at present; in fact, it is explicitly
cited in our "PD-Art" template, which is used on thousands of
pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Art

>From the Wikipedia article about the case:

"Several federal courts have followed the ruling in Bridgeman, though
it has yet to be endorsed specifically by the Supreme Court. Moreover,
this case has not been cited by any appellate-level circuit court
meaning that it has no mandatory legal authority and its persuasive
legal authority, as a district court opinion, has not been confirmed.
However, the Supreme Court's ruling in Feist v. Rural, explicitly
rejecting difficulty of labor or expense as a consideration in
copyrightability, seems to support the fundamental reasoning behind
Bridgeman." (That case was about copyrightability of phone
directories.)

I do believe that for two-dimensional works, the principle "public
domain stays public domain" is very much one worth defending in court,
if necessary.

Erik


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:16:37 -0700, you wrote:

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

<sing style="Sam_and_Dave">
He's a troll man, he's a troll man...
He's a troll man, he's a troll man...
</sing>
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia broken

body:
David Alexander Russell wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Yes, but the problem is people who try to enforce these policies are
> referred to as 'wikilawyers' and 'process wonks' - see the recent
> (pre-CSD T1) userbox flamewar, where the people seeking to enforce
> deletion policy (ie that there was no policy allowing speedying of
> userboxes) were treated as trolls.
>
> I'm not seeking a reconsideration of the userbox 'issue' here (thank
> God/[insert alternative deity of your choice here] that's over), but it
> shows just how easy it is to ignore policy if you characterise those
> seeking to uphold policy as trolls, wikilawyers and process wonks.

Yeah, I suppose you have a good point there.  But then policy and
guidelines are descriptive, and being a wiki, actions on the ground can
ultimately change policy.  What you need is not people who slavishly
enforce policy, but people who are prepared to balance the issue, weigh
and discuss it, and get an outcome.  There are at least thirty editors
from whom I'd trust a rough majority decision on an issue. Userbox was a
hard issue, there were obvious problems, but no obvious solution. And I
think both sides gave as good as they got in that debate.  It's a shame
we couldn't get a damn compromise through on that.  Sometimes, on some
issues, I think Wikipedia really has to look at it and say, look, some
people will be pissed off whichever way this goes, but we need a
decision to end it, and if it means taking a one vote majority so-be-it.
  Maybe on a slim majority we should implement monthly trials.

Steve block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/06


from_name: Mikkerpikker

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

body:
On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, on reading [[Georgia (country)]], one learns that the
> Georgian name for their own nation in their own language is not
> Georgia at all but something quite unrelated.  Clearly the solution is
> to place the article at [[Sak'art'velo]] and move the issue to a
> /different/ flamewar.
>
> ;)
>
> -Matt

That's a really bad idea. MOST countries call themselves something
else in their own language. Germany is Deutschland, Spain is Espana,
Italy is Italia, etc. etc. etc. The WP naming convention is (and
should be) that we call countries (and languages and people etc.) by
their English name.

And I donnu, but the state of Georgia doesn't have a vote at the UN
General Assembly, nor is it a member of the WTO, nor is it sovereign,
nor is it... My personal view is Georgia (country) should be the main
article and that we're seeing some clear US-centrism in elevating some
random sub-national entity to the level of a sovereign state.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
Of all people, I think I understand this concept more than most. Of
course languages evolve. It's quite natural.

If it didn't make Wikipedia seem "less respectable", in fact I would
advocate writing en.wiki in modern colloquial English.

In fact, some people have been irritated with me because I often
justify my own "misspellings" as linguistic evolution rather than
mistakes - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=nessecary for
example yields 211,000 results (although this is very small when
compared to the 1,190,000,000 results for the "correct" spelling, it
is nonetheless significant).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ackward yields 225,000 (as
compared to 46,700,000; I don't tend to spell the word that way myself
but I have noticed that many people do).

http://www.google.com/search?q=accidently
http://www.google.com/search?q=accomodate
http://www.google.com/search?q=amature
http://www.google.com/search?q=arguement
http://www.google.com/search?q=beleive
http://www.google.com/search?q=calender
http://www.google.com/search?q=catagory
http://www.google.com/search?q=cemetary
http://www.google.com/search?q=changable
http://www.google.com/search?q=collectable
http://www.google.com/search?q=commited
http://www.google.com/search?q=concensus
http://www.google.com/search?q=momento+-%22un+momento%22+-%22momento+decisivo%22++-%22el+momento%22+-%22momento+de%22+-%22del+momento%22+-%22do+momento%22+-%22%C3%BAltimo+momento%22+-%22este+momento%22+-%22um+momento%22+-%22momento+del%22+-econ%C3%B3mico+-sobre+-entre+-ahora+-despu%C3%A9s+-tambien+-ning%C3%BAn+-cuando+-cual+-usted

etc.

However, while language change is generally only somewhat chaotic and
is governed by some specific rules, and every language is at any given
point tied down to a great degree (for example, even though English is
constantly changing, you still can't say something like "I not likes
me it much the no chocolate"), no language is ever in such a state of
linguistic chaos as Europanto is right now and will, in all
likelyhood, always be.

And while it's true that there are different ways of saying the same
thing in pretty much every language, how many of them would you use in
writing? How many of them are natural? I mean, I could certainly say
"Ahh, chocolate? Yes, I truly love that food", but could I say it
without context? If I used it to _start_ a conversation people would
think I was positively insane. There are always limitations on how you
can say something in any real language.

In Europanto, there aren't really any. You can fool around with
synonyms and word order so much that it is truly not a language
anymore.

Mark

On 11/04/06, europanto <europanto at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Yes, and ... do you have to be afraid of that ? ;o)
> Languages are not dead or frozen things.
> They all evolve. They also tend to take words from their fellow ones.
> ( French purists seem to be frightened when they see English words
> invading "their" language, but they don't see how many French
> words can be found in English )
> And you know, even in a single language, there are dozens of ways
> to express an idea, with different words and grammar rules.
> For example ( sorry, in French. I'm not good enough in English for that ) :
>
> -"J'aime les confiseries au chocolat plus que les autres."
> -"Les sucreries chocolat?es sont mes pr?f?r?es."
> -"De toutes les friandises, celles qui sont au cacao incarnent mon p?ch?
> mignon."
> -"Les bonbons ... miam ! Les bonbons au chocolat ... miam miam !"
> -"Mes papilles me le disent, bravant mon d?sarroi
> Au pays Gourmandise, le chocolat est roi"
>
> ( => I prefer chocolate sweets  )
>
> smh
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Europanto-t1056989.html#a3858151
> Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
Also, you sort of cheated with your examples.

They all have the same intent, and the same underlying meaning, but
their actual meaning is quite different.

To say "Les bonbons... miam! Les bonbons au chocolat... miam miam!" or
"Mes papilles me le disent, bravant mon desarroi au pays Gourmandise,
le chocolat est roi" do not TRULY mean the same thing as "J'aime les
confiseries au chocolat plus que les autres."

Mark


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

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Yes, this IS english-speaker-centric, but the very fact of writing an
>>> encylopedia in English is already deciding to do that.
>> Thank you.  This is a beautiful way of expressing something I've been
>> thinking about for some while.
>
> Can you elaborate? Perhaps we should decide if we really want this
> bias, or not? [[WP:CSB]] thinks we don't.
>
> Question: To use Jimbo's well-worn poor African once again, what does
> he expect? Georgia the country, or Georgia the state? Does he care
> that most Wikipedians are American, British, Canadian, etc? Should he
> just grateful for whatever information he can get, regardless of whose
> biases, interests and prejudices it reflects? Should he not be
> concerned if, when he looks up Zaire, he comes up with a suburb in
> Arizona?
>
> I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
> complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
> Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
> "equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
> seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
> I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.
>
> [[WP:CSB]] really is worth a read.
>

I'm largely in favour of primary disambiguation for precisely the reason
that without it, you get minor lawyers, actors and baseball players
taking precedance over historically important politicians who's only
crime is that they weren't from the US.

Back to the Georgia issue: suppose someone in the former Soviet
territory is trying to learn English, they have internet access, and
they look up their home country in the English Lanuage Wikipedia.
Imagine their horror when they find that their glorious homeland has
been usurped by some two-bit swamp on the East Coast of the United States...

That being said, I'm quite happy with the current status of [[Georgia]]
as a primary disambiguation page. Yes, I'll go help fix the links to it.

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

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from_name: Marc Schütz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia live mirror

body:
This mirror, which Brion Vibber blocked on April 8th, seems to be up again:

http://www.stadtspiegel-netzwerk.de/cgi-bin/enz.pl?SDT=1&ROOT=3&Query=Special:Recentchanges&LAN=en
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from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to use Group class

body:
So we should delete this file, and also delete these parts from
Messages.php.

Rob Church wrote:

>On 09/04/06, ting wang <tting.wang at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>During the work I found a useful class "Group" in Group.php. It seems that
>>this class is never used.
>>
>>
>
>As far as I am aware, that's because it's left over from something
>which was pulled from the software some time ago and is now
>deprecated.
>
>
>Rob Church
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: Ian Tresman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: Undue weight (example)

body:
For those that are interested, as an example of an article where I
feel that significant material is being excluded on the grounds of
undue weight (and other pretenses), I would point people to an
article on "The Galaxy rotation problem".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_problem

A request for comments appears
at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Galaxy_rotation_problem (see
the section RfC: The Galaxy rotation problem: Alternative theories).

I had already suggested text (see link in RfC introduction) that was
subsequently removed. Verification can be found in the following
subsection, Results.

This is typical of many articles where "alternative views" are being
completely removed.

Regards,
Ian Tresman