from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Radio interview with Clara Long yesterday

body:
Yesterday I did an interview for a prospective radio show with a young
woman called Clara Long, who is putting together something to sell to US
public radio. She's already interviewed Jimbo and Larry Sanger, then me (as
a Wikipedian who was in London) and after me spoke to Robert McHenry (the
public toilet guy from Britannica).

I rambled for about ten minutes - the community process, answering
criticisms of quality ("you're familiar with Larry and Robert's criticisms
of Wikipedia, how would you answer them?") by vaporwaring the planned
article rating feature (on hold 'cos Brion doesn't like the current code)
and criticisms of the process by pointing out that just because you can't
see inside the Britannica sausage factory doesn't mean it isn't as much or
more of one. The other question was whether articles always improve with
time - I said there is ever-more *detail*, and what tends to happen is that
you have a well-written article, people add stuff, it makes the article
clunky, then someone else edits it for flow. So articles may well be
middling for writing quality, but will tend to have lots of detailed
information.

I completely forgot to mention Wikinews (particularly egregious as she was
talking about Wikimedia, not just Wikipedia - so I didn't have a chance to
push our scoop on the London bombings!), but did consistently refer to en:
as *English* Wikipedia :-) I also pointed James Forrester at her. She says
she'll let us know when she sells the show somewhere.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikien-l

from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Plagiarism Policy, was A Missing Policy

body:
On 7/22/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> There is nobody around with the personal standing to uphold
> Shakespeare's moral rights in a civil court.

Let alone in a WP court.

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: King James version

body:
On 7/22/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> It's hard to conceive of how the notion that the British had a copyright
> on the Word of God would play out in the American Bible Belt. :-)

I'm sure that Bible Belt Biblical Scholars would find the answer they
sought in the divine scripture itself. If all else fails, there is
always Revelations for a true and forceful statement.

--
Pete, who notices that they don't quote Song of Solomon a real lot,
and that's got some great bits in, though nothing much pertaining to
copyright.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot

body:
Daniel Mayer (maveric149 at yahoo.com) [050722 03:20]:

> She did send me a kind email in response. Basically she is willing to learn
> more about us and agreed that all media need to be looked at critically.

This is one of the most important lessons of Wikipedia: that it's
unreliable, but *everything else is too*.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Poor, Edmund W (Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com) [050721 23:56]:

> A lot of problems Wikipedia has comes down to:
> * "I want the web site to reflect my own ideas, feelings and desires."
> This comes into endless conflict with our stated mission of creating an
> unbiased yet comprehensive free encyclopedia. Nonetheless, we've done an
> outstanding job. We've got the world's attention, but we need to figure
> out how to take it to the next level.

We're having fun with this on [[WP:SCN]] (a Scientology wikiproject). You
have the views of the CoS members and the views of the critics, and they're
basically almost utterly incompatible. But NPOV is achievable! With great
effort! (Also, we have a recently ex-member who's doing a great job on the
articles about the "tech", i.e. the substance of the religion itself.)
[[Xenu]] is achieving widespread fame in the blogosphere, and is being
quoted (uncredited) in just about every recent press article on Tom
Cruise's proselytisation for the Church. So we're getting just a little
attention. I'm sure we'll weather it, and Wikipedia's immune systems appear
to be kicking in just fine in at least one case ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
steve v (vertigosteve at yahoo.com) [050722 04:27]:

> Jolly good. And "next level" of course doesnt mean a
> "pushing to 1.0" mentality, or even any
> "commercially-funded real-time-DB-access
> paid-academic-supervised Wikipedia-fork," but rather a
> simple refocus on the encyclopedia as the main
> objective.

Indeed. When doing meta stuff, ask yourself: "How does this help write an
encyclopedia?"

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mulitple meaning definitions

body:
On Jul 22, 2005, at 6:03 AM, <janisc at adelphia.net> wrote:

> I read that article before I joined and I'm still confused as to
> how you do it.

There are naming conventions, see [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]].
If you have been around a long time you remember the struggles over
them, but as no one can remember the details you may still have to
consult that page to refresh youself. If you are new you may have to
consult it more frequently.

>
> And does it ever bother anyone else when you spend time making a
> page nice and neat someone comes along and messes it all up?

That happens to everyone and bothers everyone. Often changes are
useful, but sometimes folks can be quite mistaken. This may require
discussion on the talk page of the article,

>
> I had a separate page for a TV show soundtrack.  Someone came by
> and REDIRECTED it to the actual show page.  I'm afraid if I take it
> down, they'll get angry and report me.  But it really belongs on
> it's own page.  What happens if more soundtracks/books come out
> based on the TV show is that person going to put them on the main
> page too?  It looks too crowded!

Which way it ought to be is a matter of opinion, there is no
Wikipedia policy to my knowledge on this point. It doesn't sound like
the soundtrack is distinctive enough to have its own article, but I
suppose it is open to discussion. They can "report" you well enough
if you undo the redirect, but to get into real trouble you have to
persistently and aggressively insist on having YOUR way and ignore
input and warnings from other users. Isolated mistakes will not land
you in the dock.

>
> Sorry for the vent. I just spent a half hour a few days ago making
> it look nice so when someone came and cluttered it up I got flustered.

We have a few thousand editors. It is not surprising that opinions
among them differ as to the fine points.

>
> and how do you redirect?  Say someone's album is called "Helium",
> well we already know helium is a gas.  How do you redirect to
> "Helium (album)"  That's
> what I'm trying to do and the articles in the help section don't
> explain it step by step, that's why I joined the list here. I
> usually just post by trial and error, but I don't want to make any
> mistakes.

You would not want to redirect [[helium]], but a short note at the
top or bottom of the page might link to [[Helium (album)]]. The
coding for a redirect would be #REDIRECT [[Helium (album)]], but as I
say you would not want to do that, someone might want to know about
[[helium]]. Also, although there might be a town named Helium, or a
planet, or a person as helium is such an obvious subject for an
article, you would not want to make helium into a disambiguation
page, [[Wikipedia:Manual of style (disambiguation pages)]], as anyone
searching for helium is probably after the gas. However, if a
disambiguation page was made there would be a link to [[helium
(element)]].
>
> Thanks. :)
>

You just need to dig in an familiarize yourself with the details. If
you make an error, others will correct it. Best not to get into big
arguments until you are familiar with the policies.

Fred

> ______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reviving the Patrol Idea

body:
Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> I remember, a while ago, some was bold and enabled patrolling edits for
> Wikipedia. It was shortly disabled.
>
> I think the main problem with this was that anyone could mark edits as
> patrolled. I have something akin to a feature request, which basically
> reinvisions how the patrol thing should work.

Yes, that was a major problem. Note that any implementation must have
the support of the editor community. It's not much use if only a few
people are using it, so there really has to be a period of hype leading
up to it being switched on. It's only worth switching on if the response
is favourable during the lead-up.

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Explicit copyright assignment to wikimedia
	foundation

body:
Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I was wondering  what is the current status  of the explicit copyright
> assignment  to the  wikimedia  foundation.  Is it  possible  to do  so
> instead  of the  non-explicit  copyright assignment  for any  original
> wikipedia contribution ?  Is there any official procedure  and form to
> assign copyright to the foundation ?
>
> Thanks a lot for any feedback,

Just assign it to Jimbo, the effect is much the same.

-- Tim Starling


list: foundation-l

from_name: SJ

body:
On 7/21/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Yesterday I did an interview for a prospective radio show with a young
> woman called Clara Long, who is putting together something to sell to US

Fantastic!

> and criticisms of the process by pointing out that just because you can't
> see inside the Britannica sausage factory doesn't mean it isn't as much or

That said, It doesn't hurt to admint that our process has definite,
known flaws; I feel pretty confident, despite not knowing for sure,
that the Britannica process is not, in fact, more of a sausage factory
than Wikipedia's at present.

++SJ


from_name: janisc at adelphia.net

body:
I read that article before I joined and I'm still confused as to how you do it.

And does it ever bother anyone else when you spend time making a page nice and neat someone comes along and messes it all up?

I had a separate page for a TV show soundtrack.  Someone came by and REDIRECTED it to the actual show page.  I'm afraid if I take it down, they'll get angry and report me.  But it really belongs on it's own page.  What happens if more soundtracks/books come out based on the TV show is that person going to put them on the main page too?  It looks too crowded!

Sorry for the vent. I just spent a half hour a few days ago making it look nice so when someone came and cluttered it up I got flustered.

and how do you redirect?  Say someone's album is called "Helium", well we already know helium is a gas.  How do you redirect to "Helium (album)"  That's
what I'm trying to do and the articles in the help section don't explain it step by step, that's why I joined the list here. I usually just post by trial and error, but I don't want to make any mistakes.

Thanks. :)


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Case sensitivity on Afrikaans Wiktionary

body:
On Wednesday 20 July 2005 21:29, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
> > Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> I would welcome your comments about the ERD that I posted here
> >> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ERD.jpg

I haven't seen it before, and I was thinking about it on my own, so I'd like
to comment on it :)

> > Looks interesting, but is extremely bare. It would do well with a bit
> > of documentation. For much of it, the purpose isn't entirely clear.
> > I'm particularly confused as to why "Language", "Word" and "Meaning"
> > are each duplicated.
>
> Hoi,
> There is some documentation here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_data_design and
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_decisions_on_its_usage
> here.
> The duplication reflects that there is at least one table that has two
> relations to the same table. Language refers to itself for dialects,
> Word refers through Conju/Decli (conjucation or declinations) to a
> headword and derived words, Meaning is related through "Relations" this
> is to allow for thesaurus like structures.

First, I'd suggest a cosmetic change, to use "script" instead of "charset" in
table and column names. When I first saw it, I thought that you are referring
to computer charsets (ISO 8859-1, Windows-1251...) and was wondering why
wouldn't you simply use UTF-8 :)

Related to this, I'd suggest to add "ISO15924" column to "characterset" (or
future "script") table. This way a script can be formally specified and
looked up, regardless of its name.

Why is there column "gender" in table "word"? If a word can exist in multiple
genders, shouldn't that rather be represented in "inflection" table? If a
word has a gender on its own, wouldn't that rather be represented in WordType
table? If not, there are other properties of words (for example, number)
which can also be represented in "word" table, why is gender singled out?

I'd strongly suggest to add a column "inflection", to either "wordtype" or
"word" table; this would specify which inflection does a word use, and
whether it is regular or irregular. If it is known which inflexion a
word uses and if it is regular, then all its inflected forms could be
generated automatically.

I see that there is column "languageid" in "meaningtext" table. If I
understand this, it means that meaning of a word could be written down in
various languages, and I second this. But I wonder how are you going to do
the same for other data which might need to be translated (for example,
column "characterset" of of "characterset" table - I understand that this is
pure text? Were you thinking about this?

Were you thinking about a way to register examples of use, similar to meaning?
Or would examples of use be simply a raw text in "meaningtext" table?

> One reason why it is not as much documented as I would like is, because
> I am still working on the structure. At this moment I am thinking hard
> on how to include signed languages and the spoken dialects of the
> Chinese and Arabic written language.

The last one is easy. Add ISO3166_1 and ISO3166_2 columns to language table.
That way, you could formally represent a dialect within a certain country (as
for Arabic) or even a region (as for Chinese). Perhaps even better solution
would be to include a RegionID column which would point to table
"regions" (relation 1-many), which would have RegionID, ISO3166_1 and
ISO3166_2 columns; that way you could specify wider regions in which a
dialect is spoken, even if they go over country boundaries.

As a sidenote, I'd also suggest to rename ISO639-2 and ISO639-3 columns to
ISO639_2 and ISO639_3, respectively. ISO639-2 might be interpreted as ISO639
minus 2 which can lead to all sorts of confusions.

Were you thinking about a way to formally define a dialect? Ideally, beside a
region (by the way, ISO3166-2 is not granular enough, and there should be a
better way of expressing region in which a dialect is spoken, perhaps even to
the level of a village), there should be specified a time period in which a
dialect was spoken, social layer which was speaking it, and perhaps even a
particular person or entity using it. OK, I got carried away a bit but such
things might be important :) Though some of this should perhaps be (also)
tied to a word and not a dialect.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- janisc at adelphia.net wrote:
> and how do you redirect?  Say someone's album is called "Helium", well we
> already know helium is a gas.  How do you redirect to "Helium (album)"

At the top of the [[helium]] article there is this text "This page is about the
chemical element helium. For the American indie rock band Helium see Helium
(band). " Simply add a link to [[helium (album)]] as well. If too many things
called "Helium" are listed, then move all of them to [[Helium
(disambiguation)]] and put {{otheruses}} at the top of the [[helium]] article.
That is a template ref that will say "For other uses see [[helium
(disambiguation)."

All this is part of the disambiguation block style of disambiguation. Full
disambiguation is only used when there is no clearly dominant meaning for a
term. See [[Mars]] for an example.

-- mav

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


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
Gerard Meijssen stated for the record:

> When to your understanding Helium should be the dominant meaning, you
> have to understand we are not all in the funny voices or the balloon
> business. :) So as it is not obvious what should be dominant, it is
> obvious that this scheme has inherent flaws.

And when you try to compromise by using the main page to describe the
Barsoomian city, you'll discover that you have offended the Green
Martians, who insist that the city is named Gdeliumzig....

--
  Sean Barrett     | It's twelve feet tall with yellow eyes,
  sean at epoptic.com | and it wants to speak to you, sir.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I'm afraid you have offended the Green Martians again, they insist the
city is called "Gdeliumsk".

But then, if you use that you will offend the indigenous Blue
Martians, who insist that the city is called "Gduliumsk". And of
course, the Silver Martians insist it's called "Heliumts".

Mark

On 22/07/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen stated for the record:
>
> > When to your understanding Helium should be the dominant meaning, you
> > have to understand we are not all in the funny voices or the balloon
> > business. :) So as it is not obvious what should be dominant, it is
> > obvious that this scheme has inherent flaws.
>
> And when you try to compromise by using the main page to describe the
> Barsoomian city, you'll discover that you have offended the Green
> Martians, who insist that the city is named Gdeliumzig....
>
> --
>   Sean Barrett     | It's twelve feet tall with yellow eyes,
>   sean at epoptic.com | and it wants to speak to you, sir.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 24, Issue 57

body:
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 09:44:00 +0200
From: Ashar Voultoiz
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Current state of the Wikipedia motivation
survey
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15

Joachim Schroer wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> as many of you know, we have started a survey on the motivation of
> contributors to Wikipedia a week ago. So far, more than 150 participants
> from more than 10 countries completed our online survey -- thanks a lot
> to everyone!
>
> The questionnaire will be available until August 3 at:
>
> http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/

Done! I love surveys :p

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org ICQ: 15325080

I'm with you - I love surveys too - can we please have another - I suggest that we need a follow up survey - enquiring into the mental and emotional stability of wikipedians - my guess is that we are all in need of professional help - and fast!  Salutamu - pippu d'angelo, canberra

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 08:03:34PM -0400, Delirium wrote:
> I don't see a problem with that article.  What else is there to say
> about it?  The Book of Mormon claims something about a person named
> "Nephi", and we report "the Book of Mormon claims the following about
> Nephi".  Do we need to explicitly say "however, people who think the
> Book of Mormon is mostly hogwash think this claim is also hogwash"?
> Should we add to the [[Nirvana]] and [[Shiva]] articles that a lot of
> people think that Nirvana is nonsense and Shiva might not actually exist?

We do reasonably well with fictional characters.  We mention the context
in which they appear, and then go on to discuss their character and life
as presented in the story.  We don't keep saying "By the way, Luke
Skywalker doesn't exist" or "Nobody sane believes Harry Potter -really-
lives in England; after all, there's no village of Little Whinging".

The same approach should work for religious and mythological figures --
start by mentioning the context in which they appear (e.g. the Book of
Mormon) and then go on to describe them within that context.  This
should work just as well for Nephi as for Noah or Maui or Krishna or
Apollo.

Consider the following passage from [[Apollo]]:

	Apollo had an affair with a mortal princess named Leucothea,
	daughter of Orchamus and sister of Clytia. Leucothea loved
	Apollo who disguised himself as Leucothea's mother to gain
	entrance to her chambers. Clytia, jealous of her sister because
	she wanted Apollo for herself, told Orchamus the truth,
	betraying her sister's trust and confidence in her. Enraged,
	Orchamus ordered Leucothea to be buried alive. Apollo refused to
	forgive Clytia for betraying his beloved, and a grieving Clytia
	wilted and slowly died. Apollo changed her into an incense
	plant, either heliotrope or sunflower, which follows the sun
	every day.

Would this passage be improved greatly by stating that modern science
holds that the heliotrope or sunflower evolved rather than being created
by Apollo from the corpse of a princess?

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] RE: [Wikinews-l] Editorials

body:
hi, I am forwarding this mail to the foundation,
because I think it is an important one.

--- David Speakman <david at speakman.com> wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I tend to categorize things so I'll do it here too.
> I see three main points
> of concern:
> 1. Wikinews as a Wikimedia Foundation project.
> 2. Wikinews as a wiki.
> 3. Wikinews is a new form of journalism.
>
> ==As a wikimedia Foundation project==
> It needs to be clarified in every Wikinews project
> that as a Wikimedia
> Foundation project, each wikinews must adhere to the
> minimum standard
> adopted by the foundation. It also must be stressed
> that these standards are
> open to interpretation in many areas, but may not be
> overruled or ignored by
> an individual  project. Some Wikimedia Foundation
> principles are mandates
> that are not debatable. These include:
> 1. All content on the name namespace of a project
> must strive for an
> unbiased NPOV.
> 2. The creation of all content is to be
> collaborative in nature.
> 3. Use of and access to the content is to be as
> unrestricted as possible.
>
> It is clear to me that "editorials" are a clear
> violation of Foundation
> mandates since they are clearly biased in nature. I
> also have doubts that
> any opinion-type of writing can truly be
> collaborative.

Right, I totally agree with you.

We had an irc discussion today and some said it was
mostly problematic as the community is small. They
claim it would not be such a problem with a big
community. I do not agree with this opinion. An
editorial is by definition pov. Big community will not
change this fact.

Another argument was that we could balance by
providing many editorials, with several orientation.
Again, I do not agree. NPOV is not about listing major
opinions, but also about representativity of all
opinions.

Finally, it was suggested that we could possibly write
in describing editorials made by other people
(important journalists for example). But I think the
main interest of a wikinewsie writing an editorial is
not about reporting another person personal opinion...
but about reporting *his*, so I doubt that would make
it.

> ==As a wiki==
> Wikis content is open for modification. An editorial
> on a wiki needs to be
> open for editing by anyone. This means that a person
> with an opposing POV
> should have as much access to the editorial as the
> original writer(s). ON a
> wiki, an editorial - unless protected - will most
> likely devolve into an
> edit war.
>
> It also runs the risk of having that project, all
> wikinews project, or even
> the foundation taint as a biased organization where
> a given topic is
> concerned. On a legal level, I have concerns about
> liability issues for the
> foundation in regard to views expressed in the
> editorials.

Correct

> ==As a new form of journalism==
> It seems that among the Wikinews projects there is a
> common identity crisis
> when it comes to what is and what is not allowed in
> regard to content.
> The issue comes in 2 flavors: newspapers and blogs.
>
> ===Newspapers===
> I believe this stems from the fact that wikis are
> mostly text based. When it
> comes to text-based news, lowest common denominator
> that most people have
> deep familiarity with are newspapers. Many folk
> assume a newspaper-oriented
> outlook when developing an idea for where a wikinews
> project is going. This
> is strengthened by the fact that wikinews is
> internet based and currently
> most Internet-based news is controlled by media and
> news sources originally
> developed for newsprint. But, there are inherent
> flaws in this viewpoint
> since the business model and "raison d'etra" for a
> newspaper differs from
> that of a Wikimedia Foundation project. And the
> limitations of a newsprint
> mentality when applied to the Internet is astounding
> when one considers the
> complexity and opportunity of collaborative
> journalism, which may be
> thwarted.
>
> In wikinews project policy votes and community
> discussion, you will often
> see something like, "We should do it because
> [all/most/some/many] newspapers
> do it." Aside from not being a cogent argument on
> its face, a newspaper is
> more than just a news source. It contains other
> content which is not
> translatable to wiki or foundation goals. Some
> newspaper staples such as
> classified ads, horoscopes, editorials, advice
> columns, product reviews,
> games (crossword, trivia quizzes) are fun parts of a
> newspaper's business
> model - but are not news per se. And they really do
> not fit in the NPOV or
> collaborative fold.

You have it right ! Maybe there are new other types of
content which could be added in wikinews ?

> ===Blogs===
> Some tend to confuse collaborative journalism with
> the other new form of
> Internet journalism. As someone who has been
> involved in wikinews for quite
> some time, the difference between a blog and
> wikinews is obvious. In fact
> they are almost diametrically opposite. A blog
> revels in its biased POV and
> the fact that it is the work of a single person (or
> small group of people
> acting as one mind). It is clear that blog-type
> content really has no place
> in a wikinews project under current wikimedia
> foundation principles.

Totally agree with you.

> Thankfully, for those who do wish to write blog-type
> opinion columns, there
> are many free Internet alternatives to wikinews.
>
> ==Conclusion==
> Since editorials on a wikinews project declare a
> specific point of view on
> an issue in controversy, they are incompatible with
> Wikimedia Foundation
> goals.

Dan seems to imply german wikinews adopted editorials,
but Elian said they seem to have stopped. I would be
interested in knowing current situation :-)

> In addition, they may open the foundation to legal
> and/or image related
> problems since the foundation is ultimately
> responsible for defending all
> content on each of the Wikimedia projects.
>
> Furthermore, individual project participants may not
> overrule or ignore
> basic Wikimedia Foundation minimum standards for
> content. This means the
> basic principles of Wikimedia may not be put up to a
> popular vote on any of
> the individual projects, it must be a Foundation
> decision for both
> stability/uniformity among projects and legal
> reasons.

One of the major issue here is simply that many
wikinewsies have never been wikipedians before, so are
not familiar with certain mandatory rules... not with
general habits build over experience and consensus
over the past 4 years. Reinventing the wheel :-)

> --
> David Speakman
> http://www.DavidSpeakman.com
> 501 Moorpark Way #83
> Mountain View CA 94041
> Phone: 408-382-1459

Thanks for your answer

anthere

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wikinews-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
> > [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Anthere
> > Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 4:15 AM
> > To: Foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > Cc: wikinews-l at wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Wikinews-l] Editorials
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Recently, I have decided that it was time I adopt
> a
> > new project. A small one :-)
> >
> > So, I started participating to wikinews in french.
> >
> > It is quite a challenge I must say, because there
> are
> > a handful of very nice participants... but most of
> > them are not participants to wikipedia, so quite
> > newbies on some issues. On the other hand, plenty
> of
> > motivation and ideas which is good :-)
> >
> > Still, today, I have something disturbing me a
> little
> > bit. A new main page was set up this morning;
> Looking
> > at it, I realised the html was probably not
> standard
> > (some wrong columns size or locations) and saw
> that
> > some areas were just empty (for example, it did
> not
> > mention other projects or other languages).
> >
> > So it appeared to me to be a working stage, and it
> did
> > not seem a good idea to make changes live; So I
> > reverted the page to yesterday version and moved
> the
> > new version to a temp page :
> > http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Discuter:Accueil/temp
> >
> > I then was told this version had been approved and
> the
> > vote ended yesterday. So, it should be the main
> page
> > in any cases.
> >
> > Then, to list the problems of the html, I looked
> more
> > precisely at it. And I discovered 3 new sections.
> >
> > One is the "Analysis section". There is one
> example of
> > it, the link being a user sub page. So, first, it
> > means it is very likely a non editable page (since
> it
> > is a user sub page). Second, there is a mention
> below,
> > stating "the section can be ambiguous in terms of
> > NPOV, as it is only partially submitted to it"
> >
> > Two other sections are "Editorial" and "carte
> blanche"
> > (I am not sure I really see the difference). These
> > sections are empty for now, and a note indicates
> > "These two sections do not respect NPOV and have
> not
> > been adopted by the community".
> >
> > I then commented in saying that these sections
> should
> > probably not be here in any cases, since NOT
> adopted
> > by the community. I was answered they actually
> were
> > adopted, so the little text should be modified,
> but
> > they should be on the main page.
> >
> > I looked for a discussion, and found this
> >
>
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews%3ASalle_caf%C3%A9#PDV_.21.21
> >
> > So, to me, a site with
> > 1) articles submitted to NPOV,
> > 2) personal analyses only partially submitted to
> NPOV
> > and not editable, and
> > 3) editorials not submitted to NPVO
> > has a name, Indymedia.
> > Not wikinews :-)
> >
> > And I do not agree. I think all wikimedia projects
> > should adhere to NPOV. Strictly. As much as we
> can.
> >
> > But I then thought I had no idea what other
> wikinews
> > have been doing on this issue and that possibly
> some
> > of them have adopted editorials (which will quite
> > naturally report a pov).
> > Is this the case ?
> > If so, how did you organise yourself to explain
> > readers the difference between the neutral parts
> of
> > the site and the non neutral parts ?
> > And do you try to maintain an overall neutrality
> > within editorials ?
> > Or do you limit the topics concerned by editorials
> ?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your comments.
> >
> > anthere
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ____________________________________________________
> > Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home
> page
> > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikinews-l mailing list
> > Wikinews-l at Wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikinews-l mailing list
> Wikinews-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: Joseph Ballesteros

subject: [Wikitech-l] Historical wikipedia snapshots

body:
Try http://www.archive.org

They have historical snapshots of Wikipedia but I think its not extensive.

See this sample snapshot:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020928181341/http://www.wikipedia.org/

On 7/22/05, Miranche <nemojmene at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Greetings Wikitechies,
>
> I'm working on a research project on Wikipedia, and I'd like to create or obtain
> a historical snapshot of Wikipedia on or about a given date.  I'm familiar
> enough with mediawiki that I could hack my own script recreating the contents of
> the "cur" table from the corresponding history (eg. by calling getRevisionText()
> a couple of 10^5 times).  However since I'd hate to rediscover the wheel, I'd
> appreciate if you could let me know if this has been done before, if there are
> archives of old snapshots, or if there's an easier way to approach it
> technically.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Miran B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Explicit copyright assignment to wikimedia
	foundation

body:
It's definitely safer and much more clear !

Le 22 juil. 05 ? 00:24, Angela a ?crit :

>> I was wondering  what is the current status  of the explicit
>> copyright
>> assignment  to the  wikimedia  foundation.  Is it  possible  to
>> do  so
>> instead  of the  non-explicit  copyright assignment  for any
>> original
>> wikipedia contribution ?  Is there any official procedure  and
>> form to
>> assign copyright to the foundation ?
>>
>
> There isn't any standard form yet. I'm not convinced the Foundation
> should want people to assign copyright to it though. Isn't it a lot
> safer if we don't have ownership of any of the content? If we only own
> the trademarks and domain name, there's a lot less to lose should the
> Board go crazy and sell out to Microsoft or if someone successfully
> sues us.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use and Registered Trademarks

body:
>
>
>
>> Once again, trademarks are a commercial system applying to commercial
>> uses and unable to interfere with more legitimate rights.
>>
>>
>
> This doesn't make much sense to me - what are "more legitimate rights"
> exactly?
>

My explanation is not clear. To put it better copyright range is
wider than trademark range so copyright prevails on trademarks in
most cases.

> By its very existence, a legal enforcement of trademarks
> removes the rights of one party in favour of another - it loses me the
> right to market software as "Microsoft", for example - which without
> trademark law would be perfectly "legitimate".
>

But if Microsoft were to be the title of a PD book, tm or not, you
could call your software Microsoft.

>
>
>>> I really don't know
>>> what you could and couldn't do once Mickey Mouse was no longer
>>> *copyrighted*, but still considered a *trademark*.
>>>
>>>
>
> In other words: I plead ignorance, your honour. I *don't know* in what
> circumstances the trademark status would come into play. But I very
> much doubt that a trademark expires completely and incontrovertibly as
> soon as something containing that trademark enters the public domain.
>

The britannica tm will still provide protection for everything else
other than the use of the britannica PD books.

Britannica can also prevent anyone to pretend to be britannica. If
someone tries to sell these old PD editions by presenting himself as
a member of the britannica company, they will be able to sue on the
basis of unfair commerce law for inducing confusion. That's why we
need to set up a clear disclaimer.


subject: [Foundation-l] Commons copyright violotion and OTRS

body:
You can send a mail to juriwiki-l if you want assistance.

You can also come on IRC where I am very often connected.

Le 20 juil. 05 ? 21:06, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :

> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> On OTRS I received a complaint that some photo's were taken from
>>> a website. As the photo's were located on Commons, I informed the
>>> gentleman to go to the Commons administrators. In this case they
>>> were world war II photo's of machine guns. I told the gentleman
>>> that even if the photos were taken from his website, it would not
>>> matter when the photos are already in the pubic domain.
>>>
>>> The question, as it is not possible for a Dutch admin to remove
>>> photos from Commons and as it has no impact to remove the
>>> pictures from an article, is it correct to refer this gentleman
>>> to the Commons admins or is there / should there be a procedure
>>> for these issues.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Commons, if you think there is a copyright tag you can throw on
>> images you think are in dispute, which is the {{Copyvio}} tag, and
>> any user can add that onto the image.  You don't need to be an
>> admin. Please make sure you put in a reason on the image page when
>> you think there is a problem, or try and contact the user who
>> uploaded the content (to be kind to a potential new user who
>> thought uploading random stuff from web pages was appropriate).
>> The tag will get flagged to a category which the admins on Commons
>> check very regularly, and will delete if it is against Commons
>> policy.
>>
>>
> Hoi,
> In this case Commons states that it is public domain. There is this
> user who has just another WW II website and is the opinion that we
> copied his website. I am not completely aware of how these things
> are done on Commons and, I do not agree with some of the procedures
> that I do know. The thing is with OTRS, I am not just some user. By
> notifying me of this issue the gentleman may think he is talking to
> the WMF itself while in fact it has nothing to do with the
> nl.wikipedia. So the issue is also a bit bigger than just this and
> that is why I ask for some guidance.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
copyright violation workshop at wikimania (was Re: [Foundation-l]
	Commons copyright violotion and OTRS)

body:
Just for everyone : I am preparing the workshop on copyright
violations at wikimania in 2 weeks !

Anyone interested : register or contact me :-)

Le 21 juil. 05 ? 22:10, Yann Forget a ?crit :

> Hi,
>
> Le Wednesday 20 July 2005 21:06, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :
>
>> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> On OTRS I received a complaint that some photo's were taken from a
>>>> website. As the photo's were located on Commons, I informed the
>>>> gentleman to go to the Commons administrators. In this case they
>>>> were
>>>> world war II photo's of machine guns. I told the gentleman that
>>>> even
>>>> if the photos were taken from his website, it would not matter when
>>>> the photos are already in the pubic domain.
>>>>
>>>> The question, as it is not possible for a Dutch admin to remove
>>>> photos from Commons and as it has no impact to remove the pictures
>>>> from an article, is it correct to refer this gentleman to the
>>>> Commons
>>>> admins or is there / should there be a procedure for these issues.
>>>>
>>>
>>> On Commons, if you think there is a copyright tag you can throw on
>>> images you think are in dispute, which is the {{Copyvio}} tag,
>>> and any
>>> user can add that onto the image.  You don't need to be an admin.
>>> Please make sure you put in a reason on the image page when you
>>> think
>>> there is a problem, or try and contact the user who uploaded the
>>> content (to be kind to a potential new user who thought uploading
>>> random stuff from web pages was appropriate).  The tag will get
>>> flagged to a category which the admins on Commons check very
>>> regularly, and will delete if it is against Commons policy.
>>>
>>
>> Hoi,
>> In this case Commons states that it is public domain. There is
>> this user
>> who has just another WW II website and is the opinion that we
>> copied his
>> website. I am not completely aware of how these things are done on
>> Commons and, I do not agree with some of the procedures that I do
>> know.
>> The thing is with OTRS, I am not just some user. By notifying me
>> of this
>> issue the gentleman may think he is talking to the WMF itself
>> while in
>> fact it has nothing to do with the nl.wikipedia. So the issue is
>> also a
>> bit bigger than just this and that is why I ask for some guidance.
>>
>
> I think the solution is quite easy.
> Ask this person who is the photgrapher of this picture and when this
> photographer died if he knows it. If he doesn't know who is the
> photographer,
> I would think that he doesn't own the copyright of the picture. It
> doesn't
> mean that the picture is in the public domain, but at least he
> can't give you
> any trouble.
>
> That's what I did with a German organisation who claims copyright
> of Gandhi's
> photos I uploaded in Commons. I doubt very much this organisation
> owns any
> copyright on these pictures and I am still waiting for its answer,
> two months
> after my mail.
>
>
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>
> Regards,
> Yann
> --
> http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
> http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
> http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and new Wikipedias;
	Chinook Jargon?

body:
But it does provide an added benefit.

Regardless of the fact that he has been exposed to Italian since he
was a child, Nuorese is still his first language.

Anyone who becomes extremely fluent in a second language is still
never capable of the understanding and information absorption that
they can get with their native language -- someone whose native
language is German, but speaks flawless English without an accent and
has lived in an English-speaking region for 15 years, will still be
able to understand something in German at a deeper level.

It's no different for minority languages than the German/English
example above. A person whose first language is Navajo but is fluent
in English will still have a better comprehension of texts in Navajo.

This has been shown by test scores.

I once read an article with dozens of quotes from Navajo children
where even basic mathematics (ie, addition, subtraction,
multiplication, even problems like "10 x 4") was confusing to them in
English, yet when asked in the native language they were able to come
up with the correct answer very easily. This is despite their supposed
fluency in English -- they could carry on English conversations with
great fluency.

Mark

On 22/07/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >>A man born and raised with Nuorese Sardinian, but who at the age of 18
> >>moved to Rome and has since lived and worked among almost exclusively
> >>non-Sardinian-speakers for the last 30 or even 50 years, his "own
> >>language" is still Nuorese.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >And we should view our goal from at least two simultaneous perspectives.
> > If we have gotten him his free encyclopedia in standard Italian, and he
> >understands it, so that he can look up anything he's interested in, then
> >we've succeeded at one level.  If we've gotten him that *plus* the free
> >encyclopedia in Nuorese Sardinian, then we've done something more.
> >
> >
> I suppose whether we've done "something more" depends on your personal
> viewpoints on language and politics.
>
> In this case, there is very little written in Nuorese Sardinian---most
> educated Sardinians will be able to read and understand standard
> Italian, and most of their reading (beyond perhaps a local newspaper)
> will be done in standard Italian.  For example, if a Sardinian were
> interested in reading an in-depth biography of Aristotle, he would be
> most likely to purchase one written in standard Italian.  From that
> perspective, providing an encyclopedia article about Aristotle in
> standard Italian provides the information in the language it's expected
> to be in.  Providing it in Nuorese Sardinian may be interesting, but I'm
> not sure what benefits it has beyond meta-benefits like language
> perservation and curiosity---it certainly doesn't provide any additional
> benefit to the primary goal of an encyclopedia article about Aristotle,
> which is to convey information about Aristotle.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Nikola Smolenski wrote:

>On Wednesday 20 July 2005 21:29, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>
>>Timwi wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I would welcome your comments about the ERD that I posted here
>>>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ERD.jpg
>>>>
>>>>
>
>I haven't seen it before, and I was thinking about it on my own, so I'd like
>to comment on it :)
>
>
>
>>>Looks interesting, but is extremely bare. It would do well with a bit
>>>of documentation. For much of it, the purpose isn't entirely clear.
>>>I'm particularly confused as to why "Language", "Word" and "Meaning"
>>>are each duplicated.
>>>
>>>
>>Hoi,
>>There is some documentation here:
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_data_design and
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_decisions_on_its_usage
>>here.
>>The duplication reflects that there is at least one table that has two
>>relations to the same table. Language refers to itself for dialects,
>>Word refers through Conju/Decli (conjucation or declinations) to a
>>headword and derived words, Meaning is related through "Relations" this
>>is to allow for thesaurus like structures.
>>
>>
>
>First, I'd suggest a cosmetic change, to use "script" instead of "charset" in
>table and column names. When I first saw it, I thought that you are referring
>to computer charsets (ISO 8859-1, Windows-1251...) and was wondering why
>wouldn't you simply use UTF-8 :)
>
>
Done

>Related to this, I'd suggest to add "ISO15924" column to "characterset" (or
>future "script") table. This way a script can be formally specified and
>looked up, regardless of its name.
>
>
Done, however the name of the script is a record in the database in its
own right so it may have as many translations as we care to enter. The
code is just to anchor it. I understand from Erik's notes that a
language can be indicated as the default value.. The default value will
be English. So, add a translation to the English word and from then on
the User Interface will show it  localised.

>Why is there column "gender" in table "word"? If a word can exist in multiple
>genders, shouldn't that rather be represented in "inflection" table? If a
>word has a gender on its own, wouldn't that rather be represented in WordType
>table? If not, there are other properties of words (for example, number)
>which can also be represented in "word" table, why is gender singled out?
>
>
When a word is inflected to a particular form, that word is a word in
its own right and consequently will be found in the UW. The inflection
is there because it does provide information and this information is
relevant for the inflections and the headword.. A Wordtype indicates a
noun a verb an adjective etc.

>I'd strongly suggest to add a column "inflection", to either "wordtype" or
>"word" table; this would specify which inflection does a word use, and
>whether it is regular or irregular. If it is known which inflexion a
>word uses and if it is regular, then all its inflected forms could be
>generated automatically.
>
>I see that there is column "languageid" in "meaningtext" table. If I
>understand this, it means that meaning of a word could be written down in
>various languages, and I second this. But I wonder how are you going to do
>the same for other data which might need to be translated (for example,
>column "characterset" of of "characterset" table - I understand that this is
>pure text? Were you thinking about this?
>
>
The fields "Sign" :) "Gender" "WordType" all relate to meaning; Ultimate
Wiktionary will eat its own dogfood or when a translation to a word like
noun is added like I did for Afrikaans recently, this translation is the
one that will be used in the User Interface

>Were you thinking about a way to register examples of use, similar to meaning?
>Or would examples of use be simply a raw text in "meaningtext" table?
>
>
>
Idiom, proverbs will be a "wordtype" as much as noun is. Therefore a
proverb will relate to a keyword through WordRelation. I have updated
the table Relation with a newfield "SameLanguageOnly" this ensures that
the relation is applicable within the same language so the relation
would be "proverb" and it would combine "apple" with "an apple a day
keeps the doctor away".

MeaningText would be just the definition of a meaning in a given language.

>>One reason why it is not as much documented as I would like is, because
>>I am still working on the structure. At this moment I am thinking hard
>>on how to include signed languages and the spoken dialects of the
>>Chinese and Arabic written language.
>>
>>
>
>The last one is easy. Add ISO3166_1 and ISO3166_2 columns to language table.
>That way, you could formally represent a dialect within a certain country (as
>for Arabic) or even a region (as for Chinese). Perhaps even better solution
>would be to include a RegionID column which would point to table
>"regions" (relation 1-many), which would have RegionID, ISO3166_1 and
>ISO3166_2 columns; that way you could specify wider regions in which a
>dialect is spoken, even if they go over country boundaries.
>
>
The country code is irrelevant as far as this database is concerned.
This database is about words in languages and dialects.

>As a sidenote, I'd also suggest to rename ISO639-2 and ISO639-3 columns to
>ISO639_2 and ISO639_3, respectively. ISO639-2 might be interpreted as ISO639
>minus 2 which can lead to all sorts of confusions.
>
>
Done

>Were you thinking about a way to formally define a dialect? Ideally, beside a
>region (by the way, ISO3166-2 is not granular enough, and there should be a
>better way of expressing region in which a dialect is spoken, perhaps even to
>the level of a village), there should be specified a time period in which a
>dialect was spoken, social layer which was speaking it, and perhaps even a
>particular person or entity using it. OK, I got carried away a bit but such
>things might be important :) Though some of this should perhaps be (also)
>tied to a word and not a dialect.
>
Ultimate wiktionary is about words (written, spoken or signed) that is
the starting point. There will be a need for some formality; once a
dialect is recognised, it will be hard to take it away. Therefore in my
opinion it will be after some discussion. They will be added as such by
an admin. I would think that we need to consider what it takes before we
add a dialect. Tentatively I would go for at least 100 words defined as
such. With a dialect I would assume that words that are not defined are
those of the higher level language.

Things like where it is spoken and time periods at all sounds to me like
etymological content. And that is where I would have it.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Timwi

subject:
[Wikitech-l] First-letter capitalisation: What's the name of the
	option?

body:
What's the name of the option in LocalSettings.php that turns of
first-letter capitalisation?

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Zigger

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: *URGENT* Anonymous editor successfully editing
	protected article

references:
<IfpS$3AVB73CFwb5@cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<4477280.fr33mLpjCV@rose.local>
	<1b23489205072108445c220bab@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 7/22/05, Frieda Brioschi wrote:
> Is it possible having an improved protection log, which records
> automatically if  the box  was checked or not?
>...

See http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2826 .


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: First-letter capitalisation: What's the name of
	the option?

body:
Timwi wrote:
> What's the name of the option in LocalSettings.php that turns of
> first-letter capitalisation?

Found it, it's $wgCapitalLinks = false; - thanks :)
Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting that
no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon. My
cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up with some evidence.
Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...

Fred

On Jul 22, 2005, at 12:33 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Delirium:
>
>> I don't see a problem with that article.  What else is there to
>> say about it?  The Book of Mormon claims something about a person
>> named "Nephi", and we report "the Book of Mormon claims the
>> following about Nephi".  Do we need to explicitly say "however,
>> people who think the Book of Mormon is mostly hogwash think this
>> claim is also hogwash"?
>>
>
> The Book of Mormon is different from, say, ''Star Wars: Revenge of
> the Sith'', in one important respect: People believe that it
> records historical facts. This also distinguishes it from ancient
> mythologies that are no longer believed. Furthermore, many of these
> factual claims are not, on their face, absurd: There are many
> ancient tribes about whom we know little, and the discovery of new
> ancient cultures is a real possibility.
>
> When someone makes a claim about a clearly fictional universe,
> that's fine, and an initial establishment of context is sufficient.
> When they make claims, based on their scripture, about reality,
> then these claims deserve to be challenged. We challenge a 19th-
> century healing mythology like homeopathy with facts, so we should
> equally challenge the Mormon belief system, where it is not mere
> theology, with facts.
>
> A Mormon who wants to know: Did Nephi exist? Did the Jaredites
> really live? - will not find answers in Wikipedia. Instead, they
> will find what they already know: official church doctrine, and
> perhaps some other LDS-related beliefs as in:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaredite
>
> Wikipedia's mission is not "free storage space for all belief
> systems", but "free knowledge for all." Another problem with http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephi , more than the first paragraph, is the
> second one, which goes on:
>
> "Another Nephi lived around the time of Christ, and he was a
> descendant of Lehi as well. This Nephi was the son of Helaman.
> Nephi also had a son who was called Nephi after him."
>
> The context "Book of Mormon" is easily lost once established.
>
> An NPOV article
> - makes sure that the context is clear at any given point
> - balances claims about historical reality which are believed by
> many with scientific knowledge.
>
> So yes, a statement like "These claims are not accepted by
> historians of the period" is generally necessary in these articles,
> but it would almost certainly be reverted immediately by
> Wikipedia's Mormon congregation.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: mm

subject: [Wikitech-l] relation between cur_title and last part of URL

body:
Thereis a place where I can read about
relation between cur_title and last part of URL.
I am wrting some script and can't find some rows in cur using a query like:
SELECT cur_id, cur_title from cur WHERE cur_title BETWEEN 'title1' AND
'title1'
for some title1 from URL like:

id=[] title=[M%C3%B6bius_function]
id=[] title=[Per_Martin-L%C3%B6f]
id=[] title=[Ernst_Schr%C3%B6der]
id=[] title=[Fredholm\'s_theorem]
id=[] title=[Freiman\'s_theorem]
id=[] title=[H%C3%A9non_map]
Thanks for any help,
mm


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 7/22/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> What's the name of the option in LocalSettings.php that turns of
> first-letter capitalisation?

$wgCapitalLinks


from_name: Rob Lanphier

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case-insensitive login ids via AuthPlugin.php

body:
Hi folks,

I'm in the process of writing a AuthPlugin for bbPress, so that the
WordPress folks can do single sign-on between their user forums and
their MediaWiki install.  First release is here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/User:RobLa/bbPress_Auth_for_MediaWiki

One thing I'm having trouble with is the case sensitivity issue.
bbPress isn't case sensitive.  MediaWiki is.  This makes logging in
relatively simple.  As it turns out, I accidentally leveraged SQLs
default case-insensitivity in my first crack at this.

So, I try logging in as "RobLa".  My plugin checks the bbPress database,
where I've registered "robla", and allows me to check my credentials
there.  All good, so "RobLa" created.  Log out, log back in as "RobLa",
and all works well.  Yay!

However, I log back out and log back in as "RoBLA".  It allows this too.
Yay?  Looking at the user db, it appears to have auto-created accounts
for "RobLa" and "RoBLA".  Boo!

My inclination is to add a new method
AuthPlugin::getCanonicalName($username), which gets called from
User::newFromName.  That'll give my plugin (or any AuthPlugin) a crack
at munging the name just before an account is created.

Before I do all of that, though, I'm hoping that there's a better
approach that I'm not considering.  Thoughts?

Rob


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting that
> no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon. My
> cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up with some evidence.
> Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...

Where could you spend them? :-)

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Librarians, Professors, and Pundits

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> From that article:
>
>> ''We're deciding what people are going to think," said Wendy Doniger,
>> a professor in the University of Chicago's Divinity School and the
>> only member to have also served on the previous board, which had its
>> last meeting in 1995.
>
>
> There's the difference!  With our stress on NPOV we're encouraging
> people to think for themselves.
>
> They just don't get it.

In Brittanica's defense (or maybe not, depending on your point of view),
they have never seen themselves, as Wikipedia does, as simply reporting
knowledge.  They may be moving towards something like that more
recently, but historically their goal has been to present opinions of
world-renowned experts, which is why they often had their articles
signed by said experts.  Sometimes these even included an explanation of
why other viewpoints were wrong or at least misguided.

This can be seen in a lot of EB1911 articles imported into Wikipedia,
which have to have value judgments removed from them.  EB has tended not
to have a problem simply stating /ex cathedra/ things like "[X] is a
terrible novel and not up to the quality we've come to expect from [Y]".

 From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but
it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of trusted
information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Librarians, Professors, and Pundits

body:
Delirium wrote:

> From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but
> it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of
> trusted information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.

I thought I had a good analogy here and forgot what it was, and now
remembered, so I'll reply to myself.  If you considered making a travel
guide, I see Wikipedia as looking at other travel guides, books on other
countries, travel documentaries, reviews, and so on, and summarizing
consensus opinion, properly sourced.  Britannica, on the other hand, is
more in the typical style of a travel guide---they send out a reporter
who scoops out the places himself, and tells you the "real deal" on what
is good and what's bad.  Where it differs from popular opinion, they
simply assert popular opinion is wrong---"[x] is popular and gets good
reviews, but it's overrated and I'd steer clear".

Same with the encyclopedia---Britannica positions themselves as a
trusted source that looks into things, cuts through the crap, and tells
you what the truth really is, while Wikipedia doesn't claim to have any
special knowledge of what the truth really is, so sticks to reporting.

Which of these is better depends on whether you think Britannica really
*does* know what the truth is. =]

-Mark


body:
[sorry for those who got this twice; I sent it to the wrong list by mistake]

Delirium wrote:

> From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but
> it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of
> trusted information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.

I thought I had a good analogy here and forgot what it was, and now
remembered, so I'll reply to myself.  If you considered making a travel
guide, I see Wikipedia as looking at other travel guides, books on other
countries, travel documentaries, reviews, and so on, and summarizing
consensus opinion, properly sourced.  Britannica, on the other hand, is
more in the typical style of a travel guide---they send out a reporter
who scoops out the places himself, and tells you the "real deal" on what
is good and what's bad.  Where it differs from popular opinion, they
simply assert popular opinion is wrong---"[x] is popular and gets good
reviews, but it's overrated and I'd steer clear".

Same with the encyclopedia---Britannica positions themselves as a
trusted source that looks into things, cuts through the crap, and tells
you what the truth really is, while Wikipedia doesn't claim to have any
special knowledge of what the truth really is, so sticks to reporting.

Which of these is better depends on whether you think Britannica really
*does* know what the truth is. =]

-Mark


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Anthere wrote:

>>==As a wiki==
>>Wikis content is open for modification. An editorial
>>on a wiki needs to be
>>open for editing by anyone. This means that a person
>>with an opposing POV
>>should have as much access to the editorial as the
>>original writer(s). ON a
>>wiki, an editorial - unless protected - will most
>>likely devolve into an
>>edit war.
>>
>>It also runs the risk of having that project, all
>>wikinews project, or even
>>the foundation taint as a biased organization where
>>a given topic is
>>concerned. On a legal level, I have concerns about
>>liability issues for the
>>foundation in regard to views expressed in the
>>editorials.
>>
>>
>
>Correct
>
>
It seems to me that a wiki is a terrible place for editorials, as all the points listed above (and on the parent post that went into more detail) MediaWiki software is simply the wrong tool for the job.  If I were to finance and set up an editorial website, I would rather use something like slashcode (the underlying software for Slashdot.org) where the user is clearly identified and the opinion nature of the content is very clear.

IMHO it would be a facinating website to take content from Wikinews, run each story as "submissions" in slashcode, and add editorials to that article that don't have a NPOV statement.  I've learned quite a bit from similar websites, even with obvious biases involved in the community.  There is also a huge diversity of opinion, and in general I havn't been squelched when I've been very pointed on my political opinions.  At least this way you know exactly who is posting the opinion even before you get into the content.

Now if the Wikimedia Foundation should be involved in such an enterprise is yet another matter.  The bandwidth issues wouldn't be that huge to start out with, but it would require a developer that is willing to maintain a totally different software tool than MediaWiki, with inherant problems of trying to decide who gets to maintain editorial control over the content (i.e. become admins).  And it does violate the general NPOV issue that has been discussed as a general guideline.

In short, I would suggest the foundation stay away from such a project.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and new Wikipedias;	Chinook
	Jargon?

references:
<daoral$ae8$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BAY22-F4B87E20761559E45F0B1CB7DA0@phx.gbl>	<dap5l2$pq$1@sea.gmane.org>	<849f98ed050709235862ebec06@mail.gmail.com>
	<42E03D1A.7080506@wikia.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>A man born and raised with Nuorese Sardinian, but who at the age of 18
>>moved to Rome and has since lived and worked among almost exclusively
>>non-Sardinian-speakers for the last 30 or even 50 years, his "own
>>language" is still Nuorese.
>>
>>
>
>And we should view our goal from at least two simultaneous perspectives.
> If we have gotten him his free encyclopedia in standard Italian, and he
>understands it, so that he can look up anything he's interested in, then
>we've succeeded at one level.  If we've gotten him that *plus* the free
>encyclopedia in Nuorese Sardinian, then we've done something more.
>
>
I suppose whether we've done "something more" depends on your personal
viewpoints on language and politics.

In this case, there is very little written in Nuorese Sardinian---most
educated Sardinians will be able to read and understand standard
Italian, and most of their reading (beyond perhaps a local newspaper)
will be done in standard Italian.  For example, if a Sardinian were
interested in reading an in-depth biography of Aristotle, he would be
most likely to purchase one written in standard Italian.  From that
perspective, providing an encyclopedia article about Aristotle in
standard Italian provides the information in the language it's expected
to be in.  Providing it in Nuorese Sardinian may be interesting, but I'm
not sure what benefits it has beyond meta-benefits like language
perservation and curiosity---it certainly doesn't provide any additional
benefit to the primary goal of an encyclopedia article about Aristotle,
which is to convey information about Aristotle.

-Mark


from_name: MPerel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Temporary appointments to the Arbitration Committee

body:
Wow.  Well congratulations and good luck to the new arbitrators, great
choices!  And to those who've left as well as those who remain, thank
you for all your hard work, it's obviously a very difficult and
draining job.  I've been impressed with how quickly and reasonably
cases have been handled since the new committee came on in December.
Things have definitely improved since you all came on board.  And I
have great confidence in the new members that they will do a fine job
serving in their new positions.
--Miri

On 7/21/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The Arbitration Committee needs new members.  They are down to 6; 2 are
> on holiday, 3 have resigned, and 1 is permanently inactive.  This means
> that majority decisions pass with only 4 votes, which is fine in a
> sense, but may not provide the needed level of detailed analysis that
> each case deserves.
>
> The last vote was unbelievably rancorous and a huge pain in the neck for
> everyone, to no obviously good purpose, and yet I am committed in the
> long run to appointing people based on the results of community votes.
> But for an emergency, I don't think we need to go through that whole
> process.
>
> Therefore, I am appointing some special members for the next 6 months
> (to cover the period until the next election), at the advice (and plea
> for help!) of the existing arbcom and (ultimately) my own judgment about
> who seems to be available and would do a good job.
>
> JamesF
> Fennec
> JayJG
>
> This is an absolutely horrible job, guaranteed to earn you general
> condemnation for being both a wimp and a tyrant, and I most sincerely
> apologize to the poor victims I am pulling into our service here.
>
> There will be an additional appointment as soon as I confirm what
> appears to be the case, which is that Nohat is sadly leaving the
> position as well.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
I believe the church has spent quite a bit of money funding
legitimate archaeological research, in the hopes of turning up
something definite; a summary of the various projects and
their results would make a nice little WP article.

Stan

Fred Bauder wrote:

> The discovery of any evidence which tended to prove the reality of
> any person, city, nation or event which is in the Book of Mormon
> would be a revolutionary event. A coin from the nation of Nephi, even
> the tiniest scrap of ancient Semitic script, found in the New World,
> would be priceless.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting
>>> that  no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon.
>>> My  cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up with some
>>> evidence.  Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...
>>>
>>
>> Where could you spend them? :-)
>>
>> Ec
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Incidentally, google for "Los Lunas inscription" to find out more
about one particularly intriguing piece of physical evidence.
Definitely worth its own article...

Stan

Fred Bauder wrote:

> The discovery of any evidence which tended to prove the reality of
> any person, city, nation or event which is in the Book of Mormon
> would be a revolutionary event. A coin from the nation of Nephi, even
> the tiniest scrap of ancient Semitic script, found in the New World,
> would be priceless.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting
>>> that  no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon.
>>> My  cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up with some
>>> evidence.  Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...
>>>
>>
>> Where could you spend them? :-)
>>
>> Ec
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
It's a rather different situation. I have little doubt Abraham
existed, due to his being part of an oral tradition. The account
given of him may be grossly inaccurate, but it is almost certain he
existed. The Book of Mormon, supposedly delivered into the hands of
Joseph Smith by an angel, then gone!, is a whole different animal.

Fred

On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:30 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050723 07:46]:
>
>
>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting that
>> no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon.
>>
>
>
> [[Abraham]] states clearly that the only evidence for his existence
> is in
> Genesis, and says "If he was a historical person, then ..." which
> establishes context nicely.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
The discovery of any evidence which tended to prove the reality of
any person, city, nation or event which is in the Book of Mormon
would be a revolutionary event. A coin from the nation of Nephi, even
the tiniest scrap of ancient Semitic script, found in the New World,
would be priceless.

Fred

On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting
>> that  no historical evidence exists other than the Book of Mormon.
>> My  cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up with some
>> evidence.  Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...
>>
>
> Where could you spend them? :-)
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Michael P Hopcroft

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> It's a rather different situation. I have little doubt Abraham
> existed, due to his being part of an oral tradition. The account
> given of him may be grossly inaccurate, but it is almost certain he
> existed. The Book of Mormon, supposedly delivered into the hands of
> Joseph Smith by an angel, then gone!, is a whole different animal.

Yet it is something that I personally take as an article of faith, just
like the First Vision. There is a differnece between saying "There are
people who believe this to be false" and saying "This is false".

On the other hand, there are people who do in fact believe that there
were no such people as Abraham, Moses, or Jesus of Nazareth.

religious articles are always tricky since it is very hard to keep one's
pown point of view out. The trick is not to delete other people's
viewpooints when they conflict with your own.


from_name: Zachary Harden

subject: [WikiEN-l] JoeM ban

body:
Dear Mr. Wales,

If JoeM is coming back to Wikipedia, what will happen to his sock
puppet/multiple IP accounts? Will they also be unblocked?

Regards,

Zachary Harden (User:Zscout370)

>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JoeM ban
>Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 02:30:28 +0200
>
>Below is a letter that JoeM sent to this mailing list, as well as to me
>privately.  I have consulted with the ArbCom and found no opposition to
>my lifting Joe M's ban, which predates the ArbCom and was a long long
>time ago anyway.  The apology is quite sound, and I welcome him as a
>newcomer and hope that everyone will mentally wipe the slate clean and
>greet him warmly.
>
>I've recommended to Joe that he go out of his way to be extremely and
>extraordinarily mature, polite, and peaceful especially in the early
>months of his return.
>
>--Jimbo


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>But it does provide an added benefit.
>
>Regardless of the fact that he has been exposed to Italian since he
>was a child, Nuorese is still his first language.
>
>Anyone who becomes extremely fluent in a second language is still
>never capable of the understanding and information absorption that
>they can get with their native language -- someone whose native
>language is German, but speaks flawless English without an accent and
>has lived in an English-speaking region for 15 years, will still be
>able to understand something in German at a deeper level.
>
>
It depends on the level and timing of exposure.  If someone is
simultaneously exposed to two languages from birth, they could both be
said to be native languages.  In my case, I learned Greek at around 1-2
years of age, and English at around 3.  My English is much, much better
than my Greek, despite Greek being my "native language" and the primary
language I used at home through most of my childhood.  English my
"second language", but since I do nearly all my reading in English and
attended school exclusively in English, I find reading information in
English to be more natural.  I don't even read Greek very fluently
(though I speak it fluently), and don't have the vocabulary to read
about philosophy or math or whatever in Greek, since all my schooling
has been in English.  So for me, an English encyclopedia is orders of
magnitude more useful than a Greek encyclopedia.

This seems to be similar with a lot of minority languages we're
discussing---languages primarily spoken rather than written, and spoken
primarily in non-academic contexts, and whose speakers do most of their
schooling, reading, and writing in some other language.

-Mark


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Thanks everyone

body:
--- janisc at adelphia.net wrote:
> I suppose it's all trial and error.  And you certainly take your Helium
> seriously. ;)  I just used that as an example.  I would take the more dom.
> meaning would be the gas if I really was talking about helium. ;)  I really
> want to undo that one contributors redirect. Hee!  I love learning about the
> ins & outs of wikipedia. I'm going to take that one posters advice and check
> out the definition of "Mars".  Sorry I forgot your name. :)

No problemo. :) However, it turns out Mars is no longer a good example since
somebody moved the article about the planet from [[Mars (planet)]] to [[Mars]]
few months ago. Sigh - I'm not sure that was wise given that the god meaning is
comparable in popularity to the planet meaning. So, see [[Pluto]] instead.

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

> One of my other wikipedia rants--is a group of people who took a celebrities
> page and made it get the stop sign of not being a neutral article.  I tried
> correcting it, but it's a big mess, they keep putting THEIR opinion and not
> basic facts down.  Talk about another mess on wikipedia.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Thanks everyone

body:
--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> This is a possibly unsolvable problem: people who turn an article on their
> favoured celebrity into something closer to hagiography and are obsessed
> with keeping it that way.

Come come. The ArbCom has dealt with this before and can do so again. This type
of activity can not be tolerated.

-- mav

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


from_name: ilooy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Crosspolinating regarding lad.wikis

body:
Hi,
I'm once again requesting help
in setting up the Ladino language
wikis at http://lad.wikipedia.org
and http://lad.wiktionary.org

I haven't received a response
from any of the tech developers
despite repeated requests. I know
our developers are busy and they
do a worthwhile job and definitely
deserve our praise for all ther
hard work.

However, I am asking this time
for a confirmation that someone
will be looking into putting the
subdomains online, and also
by when this can be expected.

Thanks,
Jay B.

2005/7/21, ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
> There is enough support at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Ladino
> to make the following request:
>
> I'd like to request the set up
> of the Ladino wikis for subdomains
> http://lad.wikipedia.org
> and
> http://lad.wiktionary.org
>
> For this we will need the
> help of the developers.
>
> Could someone help set this
> up? Last time I requested this
> on the tech list there was no
> response. Is there another
> forum where this should be
> handled? Or could we get
> an idea of a due date where
> we could have it ready and
> available for contributions.
>
> With sincere regards,
> Jay B.
> en:User:ILVI
> ia:Usator:ILVI
>

--
--
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Crosspolinating regarding lad.wikis


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> The Book of Mormon is different from, say, ''Star Wars: Revenge of the
> Sith'', in one important respect: People believe that it records
> historical facts.

Oh contraire!  It says right up front: "A long time ago..." And George Lucas
ain't no liar!!!

Heathen!

-- mav

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


from_name: janisc at adelphia.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Thanks everyone

body:
I suppose it's all trial and error.  And you certainly take your Helium seriously. ;)  I just used that as an example.  I would take the more dom.  meaning would be the gas if I really was talking about helium. ;)  I really want to undo that one contributors redirect. Hee!  I love learning about the ins & outs of wikipedia. I'm going to take that one posters advice and check out the definition of "Mars".  Sorry I forgot your name. :)

One of my other wikipedia rants--is a group of people who took a celebrities page and made it get the stop sign of not being a neutral article.  I tried correcting it, but it's a big mess, they keep putting THEIR opinion and not basic facts down.  Talk about another mess on wikipedia.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mulitple meaning definitions

body:
On 22/07/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> When to your understanding Helium should be the dominant meaning, you
> have to understand we are not all in the funny voices or the balloon
> business. :) So as it is not obvious what should be dominant, it is
> obvious that this scheme has inherent flaws.

I'm not sure for Helium you can really argue there's much debate over
what the dominant usage is; a fictional empire, a band, an obscure
dialect of a programming language... and an element. And we only have
articles for two of them.

But, yes, if there is any significant doubt then having a "main"
disambiguation page is a good idea. This is especially the case for
personal names - see [[en:John Smith]] or [[en:John Brown]] for an
example, where if I polled this list as to the "most significant"
example I'd probably get three popular choices and arguments for a
dozen more.

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


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
steve v (vertigosteve at yahoo.com) [050722 15:07]:

> [With]in [the context of] Mormonism, Nephi is...
> Seems fairly neutral to me. However there are valid
> concerns that n/10 average random articles fail to put
> things in this context, and carry this through. Its
> easy to be overly general ("worrying trends") or
> overly particular ("Nephi") and miss the balance.

Remembering to properly place articles in their context is a common
problem. It's most pronounced with fictional characters - the writers
forget to mention that this isn't real.

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- janisc at adelphia.net wrote:
>
>
>>and how do you redirect?  Say someone's album is called "Helium", well we
>>already know helium is a gas.  How do you redirect to "Helium (album)"
>>
>>
>
>At the top of the [[helium]] article there is this text "This page is about the
>chemical element helium. For the American indie rock band Helium see Helium
>(band). " Simply add a link to [[helium (album)]] as well. If too many things
>called "Helium" are listed, then move all of them to [[Helium
>(disambiguation)]] and put {{otheruses}} at the top of the [[helium]] article.
>That is a template ref that will say "For other uses see [[helium
>(disambiguation)."
>
>All this is part of the disambiguation block style of disambiguation. Full
>disambiguation is only used when there is no clearly dominant meaning for a
>term. See [[Mars]] for an example.
>
>-- mav
>
Well,
It is one way of doing it and on several wikipedias it is very much
frowned upon. It means that you discriminate against one meaning as you
value one meaning over another. So, a better way of doing it is to
create a disambiguation page called [[Helium]] and on this page you
refer to all the different meanings of the word. The references need to
be taken care off and so do the interwiki links, but it is
straightforward and correct.

When to your understanding Helium should be the dominant meaning, you
have to understand we are not all in the funny voices or the balloon
business. :) So as it is not obvious what should be dominant, it is
obvious that this scheme has inherent flaws.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> I suggest creating more "this poll is lame" sections in, er, lame
> polls, and then linking to WP:CON and meta:Polls are evil.

I think this technique is very often useful.  Not in every case, but in
many many cases, it's the right thing to do to short-circuit a vote
which is, well, lame.

--Jimbo


from_name: Elly Waterman

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] not-working link "Wiki does not exist" on all
	wikipedias

body:
At the Dutch wikipedia somebody noted that the link on the bottom right hand
side of each page,  eg. the "powered by Mediawiki" logo leads to a page
titled "Wiki does not exist", http://www.mediawiki.org/

Is this correct? If not, does anybody know what the correct link should be
and how it should be corrected?

Elly Waterman


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] JoeM ban

body:
On 7/22/05, Zachary Harden <zscout370 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Mr. Wales,
>
> If JoeM is coming back to Wikipedia, what will happen to his sock
> puppet/multiple IP accounts? Will they also be unblocked?

IPs shouldn't be permanently blocked, so those shuld have expired by
now anyway. I've removed the block on User:JoeM but I see no reason to
remove the blocks on the sockpuppet accounts.

Angela


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Images

body:
I did my helium. ;) "Helium" as it were.

How do you an add an image to a celebrity page.  Are pages from web magazines fine? Are they public domain pictures?


subject: [WikiEN-l] JoeM ban

body:
Zachary Harden wrote:
> Dear Mr. Wales,

Mr. Wales is my father. :-)

> If JoeM is coming back to Wikipedia, what will happen to his sock
> puppet/multiple IP accounts? Will they also be unblocked?

I see no reason to unblock those.  If he makes good on his promise to be
a good user now, he won't be needing them.

--Jimbo


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Delirium:
> I don't see a problem with that article.  What else is there to say
> about it?  The Book of Mormon claims something about a person named
> "Nephi", and we report "the Book of Mormon claims the following about
> Nephi".  Do we need to explicitly say "however, people who think the
> Book of Mormon is mostly hogwash think this claim is also hogwash"?

The Book of Mormon is different from, say, ''Star Wars: Revenge of the
Sith'', in one important respect: People believe that it records
historical facts. This also distinguishes it from ancient mythologies
that are no longer believed. Furthermore, many of these factual claims
are not, on their face, absurd: There are many ancient tribes about whom
we know little, and the discovery of new ancient cultures is a real
possibility.

When someone makes a claim about a clearly fictional universe, that's
fine, and an initial establishment of context is sufficient. When they
make claims, based on their scripture, about reality, then these claims
deserve to be challenged. We challenge a 19th-century healing mythology
like homeopathy with facts, so we should equally challenge the Mormon
belief system, where it is not mere theology, with facts.

A Mormon who wants to know: Did Nephi exist? Did the Jaredites really
live? - will not find answers in Wikipedia. Instead, they will find what
they already know: official church doctrine, and perhaps some other
LDS-related beliefs as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaredite

Wikipedia's mission is not "free storage space for all belief systems",
but "free knowledge for all." Another problem with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephi , more than the first paragraph, is
the second one, which goes on:

"Another Nephi lived around the time of Christ, and he was a descendant
of Lehi as well. This Nephi was the son of Helaman. Nephi also had a son
who was called Nephi after him."

The context "Book of Mormon" is easily lost once established.

An NPOV article
- makes sure that the context is clear at any given point
- balances claims about historical reality which are believed by many
with scientific knowledge.

So yes, a statement like "These claims are not accepted by historians of
the period" is generally necessary in these articles, but it would
almost certainly be reverted immediately by Wikipedia's Mormon congregation.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
See Archaeology and the Book of Mormon on Wikipedia.

Fred

On Jul 22, 2005, at 5:49 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:

> I believe the church has spent quite a bit of money funding
> legitimate archaeological research, in the hopes of turning up
> something definite; a summary of the various projects and
> their results would make a nice little WP article.
>
> Stan
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> The discovery of any evidence which tended to prove the reality
>> of  any person, city, nation or event which is in the Book of
>> Mormon  would be a revolutionary event. A coin from the nation of
>> Nephi, even  the tiniest scrap of ancient Semitic script, found in
>> the New World,  would be priceless.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting
>>>> that  no historical evidence exists other than the Book of
>>>> Mormon.  My  cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up
>>>> with some  evidence.  Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Where could you spend them? :-)
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
See Los Lunas Decalogue Stone on Wikipedia.

Fred

On Jul 22, 2005, at 6:00 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Incidentally, google for "Los Lunas inscription" to find out more
> about one particularly intriguing piece of physical evidence.
> Definitely worth its own article...
>
> Stan
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> The discovery of any evidence which tended to prove the reality
>> of  any person, city, nation or event which is in the Book of
>> Mormon  would be a revolutionary event. A coin from the nation of
>> Nephi, even  the tiniest scrap of ancient Semitic script, found in
>> the New World,  would be priceless.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Well, we will find out. I have just edited this article, noting
>>>> that  no historical evidence exists other than the Book of
>>>> Mormon.  My  cousins can revert me, if they dare... Or come up
>>>> with some  evidence.  Maybe a few gold coins with Nephi's visage...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Where could you spend them? :-)
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 22/07/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> This can be seen in a lot of EB1911 articles imported into Wikipedia,
> which have to have value judgments removed from them.  EB has tended not
> to have a problem simply stating /ex cathedra/ things like "[X] is a
> terrible novel and not up to the quality we've come to expect from [Y]".

I don't have it to hand, but I recently acquired a 1898 copy of Pear's
Cyclopedia, one of the "small encyclopedias" that were quite common
around then - and, indeed, it still exists today.

It had a general encylopedic section. I think the most wonderfully
opinionated article I found in this was on Russia, which after a few
breathless passages on how wonderful and civilised the place was ended
with "...which is why Russia simply must get a port on the
Mediterranean!" Extreme case, but not rare...

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


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL for images

body:
Greetings,

Do I really have to include a full copy of the
GFDL wherever I want to publish a GFDL image?

Would that give me a hard time if I wanted to make
a postcard series out of our featured pictures?

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Texvc not compiling! :/

body:
Hi,

a friend of mine is trying to install MediaWiki on their server. We have

- compiled ocaml into /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/ocaml
- made sure that /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/ocaml/ocamlc is executable
- prepended all references to ocamlc, ocamllex, ocamlyacc, and ocamlopt
   in /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/math/Makefile with the absolute path
- run "make" in /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/math/

We get the following error:

	make: don't know how to make util.cmx. Stop

How do I fix this?

Thanks in advance,
Timwi


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>But it does provide an added benefit.
>
>Regardless of the fact that he has been exposed to Italian since he
>was a child, Nuorese is still his first language.
>
>Anyone who becomes extremely fluent in a second language is still
>never capable of the understanding and information absorption that
>they can get with their native language -- someone whose native
>language is German, but speaks flawless English without an accent and
>has lived in an English-speaking region for 15 years, will still be
>able to understand something in German at a deeper level.
>
>
>
Well that is true upto a point. When you have been abroad for any length
of time like I have, when you return to your homecountry you do notice
that your mother tongue has changed and you find that certain jokes
things to do with language are not as easy as you think they are.  So if
you live in abroad it changes your language. I know a Dutch person who
lived in the UK for 25 years, she has an accent and her Dutch is not as
facile as someone who stayed in the Netherlands.

Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL for images

body:
On 22/07/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Do I really have to include a full copy of the
> GFDL wherever I want to publish a GFDL image?
>
> Would that give me a hard time if I wanted to make
> a postcard series out of our featured pictures?

Would it be possible to have on the back "this image is licensed blah
by blah, see blah.com/blah for details", or is that only a valid
approach when the "link" is live, as in a hyperlink, and easily
accessible with the image?

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


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Texvc not compiling! :/

body:
On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 10:38:33PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> a friend of mine is trying to install MediaWiki on their server. We have
>
> - compiled ocaml into /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/ocaml
> - made sure that /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/ocaml/ocamlc is executable
> - prepended all references to ocamlc, ocamllex, ocamlyacc, and ocamlopt
>   in /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/math/Makefile with the absolute path
> - run "make" in /home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/math/
>
> We get the following error:
>
> 	make: don't know how to make util.cmx. Stop
>
> How do I fix this?

* Are you using GNU make ? Some stupid Unices contain
  broken utilities called "make" and the true make
  is under "gmake" (or not installed at all)
* Are you in the directory with the right Makefile and
  util.ml ?
* Can't you simply modify PATH instead of messing in the Makefile
  in bash it's
  $ export PATH=$PATH:/home/cutebitsinfo/orbwiki/ocaml/
* If you answered yes to both question, paste the Makefile
  and (if possible) output of strace make


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

body:
Oddly enough, I think the reason Boothy443 supported me was that I reverted
an anonymous vandalism of his userpage that referred to his admin votes in a
negative fashion :)

Travis Mason-Bushman
FCYTravis at en.wikipedia

On 7/20/05 8:50 AM, "David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:

> A reasoning should be mandatory for an oppose vote. See Boothy443, a while
> back, who put "ADMINS ARE EVIL" on talk pages and voted oppose on every RfA
> until FCYTravis'.