from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Pray tell me how anything to do with (eg.) the Prime Minister of Britain
> is "trivial"???
>
I can't find a trivia section in either [[Tony Blair]] or [[Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom]]. Working backward chronologically, the
first one I find is for [[Harold Wilson]] and consists of "A popular
urban myth at Oxford University
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University> states that Wilson's
grade in his final examination was the highest ever recorded up to that
date." Seems pretty trivial to me.

>> Perhaps the question is just how trivial a factoid needs to be to be
>> included. We don't need every little bit of blather.
>>
>>
>
> So why can't it go into other sections of the article?
>
He answered this earlier in the email you're responding to:

Putting them all in one section at the end of the
article is the best place for them, because otherwise we would have to find
appropriate places for them in the main body of the text, and it may not
always be easy (or concise) to do this.

Having refactored many an article in the past I agree with this, there's
sometimes stuff that is great to have but which just doesn't seem to fit
anywhere. Later on other sections may develop that provide better homes.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-23

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

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 270 of 285 tests (94.74%) FAILED!


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

>On Feb 22, 2006, at 7:24 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
>
>
>>consensuses
>>(consensi?)
>>
>>
>Consenses?
>
Oxford Style Manual says "-es".  I would read that as "consensuses",
since the word is derived from a participle rather than a third
declension noun.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>They look ugly and unprofessional.
>
Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Will someone explain what we have these "Simple English" sites for?

I don't have time to say too much right now, but figured I'd just shoot
this out quick:

Simple English Wikipedia: I can see good reasons for such a thing, but
actually working it out seems difficult, and I'm not at all interested
in it (I lean toward 'needlessly complex English', myself).

Simple English Wiktionary: Completely pointless, IMHO. I can't think of
any possible reason for such a thing, given as Simple English is
basically just a subset of English. A full dictionary is exactly what
simple-english people need to get their way to full-english. (And if the
issue is the verbiage in definitions themselves... they've got a
dictionary open right there to look that up in!)

Just a half a thought on that.

-- Jake Nelson
[[User:Jake Nelson]]


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-21

body:
Brion Vibber:
> If it doesn't pass the test case, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG that NEEDS TO BE
> FIXED. Just saying it works doesn't solve that. Either the code is wrong or the
> test is wrong, and they need to be FIXED.

Sheesh, relax :-). Jimbo, take down the servers -- the man needs a vacation!

Erik


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/22/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not only would a number of users simply leave (the benefits and final
> ramifications of which I'm sure many people have many different opinions
> on), and not only would it generate bad press from the snickering Wikipedia
> Defeatists ("looks like Wikipedia can't allow everyone to edit it after
> all!"  You know that'd start showing up), but the remaining people who want
> user pages would do what [[User:Tony Sidaway]] has done, and simply
> userpagify their talk pages (That Tony Sidaway... always sticking it to the
> man! *;-)* ), bringing us back to square one.

Um :)

My talkification of my userpage (or was it the userfication of my talk
page?) came out of boredom with a completely useless talk page.  All
the interesting stuff is on the talk page, so why waste time
maintaining both?

Needless to say I make vastly more use of userspace than most Wikipedians.

Of course this isn't about self expression at all, but about its
reverse: uniformity and regimentation.  They must die.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Trivia and popular culture sections

body:
I think it's simply that adding trivia is something that pulls newbies
in to editing the site.  Therefore, be careful of newbie-biting.
Instead,encourage higher standards, and introduce them to the joys of
research and WP:CITE!

On 2/23/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles
> > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> > Message-ID: <43FD53A3.7050804 at gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
> > suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged
> > into
> > the rest of the article?
> >
> > And while we're at it, can we get rid of "{{PAGENAME}} in popular
> > culture" sections?
>
> Much if not all of much of this content is unreferenced. People
> apparently just toss in stuff off the top of their head. Like lists,
> I think they become a game in which people try to think of something,
> anything that isn't there already.
>
> We should be proactive about putting {{unverifiedsect}} tags on these
> sections, {{fact}} tags on the unreferenced items, and removing them
> after a reasonable period of time and in a fair way. That will go a
> long way to solving the problem.
>
> I personally believe these items are valuable and interesting _if
> referenced._ Incidentally insisting on reference is also a reasonable
> filter against subtrivial cruft; if the Statue of Liberty appears _in
> an important way_ in some movie, Ebert or someone is likely to have
> mentioned it somewhere; if it is just a cameo appearance to establish
> that a ship is approaching New York, nobody is likely to comment on
> it outside of a personal blog or forum, and finding a reference will
> be hard.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Andrew Lih wrote:
>
>
>>On 2/22/06, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I hold the opinion that any article on this man is not going to be NPOV,
>>>since the only reason he is popular is because Peppers is unfortuantely
>>>stricken with a condition that makes him look funny.
>>>
>>>
>>Not entirely - the person has a Snopes.com entry, and is a registered
>>sex offender in Ohio.
>>
>>I'm not endorsing it one way or another (for now), but it's certainly
>>not a "slam dunk" case.
>>
>>
>
>Agreed.  But it was AfD'd more than once and people kept recreating it.
>
>
No.

A crappy version a long time ago that didn't read anything close to an
encyclopedia article was AfD'd.  A new version, more neutral, was
created, and it was AfD'd *unsuccessfully* something like 5 times,
interspersed with some sysops occasionally speedying it and it being
unspeedied.

Every vote on the article in question (i.e. not the very early one) has
come out somewhere near a deadlock.  The most I've seen in favor of
deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
to delete typically required on AfD.

-Mark


from_name: - Essjay -

subject: [Foundation-l] Myspace group using our logo

body:
To whomever takes care of violations of our copyrights:

http://home.myspace.com/

They are currently using a vandalized copy of an unofficial derivative;
right in the center is the copyrighted Wikipedia logo. Could we get a nice
note to myspace.com asking them to take care of the problem?

On the subject of that given
derivative<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:CVU2.5.PNG>,
if someone with Foundation authority would say so, it could be deleted....

--
Essjay
-----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


body:
Sorry, that url should have been http://groups.myspace.com/WikiVandals

Essjay

On 2/23/06, - Essjay - <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To whomever takes care of violations of our copyrights:
>
> http://home.myspace.com/
>
> They are currently using a vandalized copy of an unofficial derivative;
> right in the center is the copyrighted Wikipedia logo. Could we get a nice
> note to myspace.com asking them to take care of the problem?
>
> On the subject of that given derivative<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:CVU2.5.PNG>,
> if someone with Foundation authority would say so, it could be deleted....
>
> --
> Essjay
> -----
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
> Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
> http://www.wikipedia.org/

--
Essjay
-----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


from_name: Drini drini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/23/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Woah, a whole _year_? I'd thought the article was just temporarily
> deleted while some details got sorted out. _Now_ I've got a serious
> grounds for objection. What happens if the deleted article database gets
> purged at some point before then? And what if there are notable
> developments in the details of this topic over the course of the next
> year? We shouldn't have to be keeping notes offline for a whole year,
> we'll lose out on all sorts of opportunity for the organic article
> growth that Wikipedia excels at.
>

Hmm... I wonder why do we have articles like [[Alfonso X of Castile]]
that happened 800 years ago??
who kept notes offline so much time?

I wonder if someone did is because he actually is, *ahem* *ahem* notable?


from_name: Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Ugh. I am tempted to merge that Jeremy Rosenfeld article into something
else. I highly doubt it can be expanded beyond that single paragraph.

Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
zzyzx11 at hotmail.com

>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] Wikipedia's destiny
>Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:27:30 -0800
>
>STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> > Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but it
> > seems that the community overruled against his
> > decission and for so far, decided to keep the article.
> > :)
> >
> >
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld
>
>This is absurd.  What an idiotic article.
>
>Let me say again now what I said when I deleted it the first time, but
>with more detailed.  Even though I'm wonderful and charming and
>obviously the most noteworthy person on the planet (ha), it is still not
>the case that every person with whom I have had contact needs a
>biography in Wikipedia.
>
>I consider this bio to be a terrible invasion of privacy for Jeremy, and
>an embarassment for Wikipedia.
>
>"A-bit-stronger-than-weak Keep there exist a controversy about who
>presented Jimbo with idea about wiki. Therefore, this guy is
>controversial enough to became notable."
>
>That's such an overwhelming non sequitur I just don't even know where to
>begin.  Jeremy Rosenfeld is controversial?  I think not.  He's a nice
>guy who wandered into my office one day to show me a cool website.  The
>one quote we can come up with is that Larry doesn't remember him well?
>
>I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at AfD, because if it
>is this far broken, there's something seriously seriously worse about it
>than I thought.
>
>
>--
>#######################################################################
>#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
>#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
>#######################################################################

>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Message-ID: <43FD53A3.7050804 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
> suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged
> into
> the rest of the article?
>
> And while we're at it, can we get rid of "{{PAGENAME}} in popular
> culture" sections?

Much if not all of much of this content is unreferenced. People
apparently just toss in stuff off the top of their head. Like lists,
I think they become a game in which people try to think of something,
anything that isn't there already.

We should be proactive about putting {{unverifiedsect}} tags on these
sections, {{fact}} tags on the unreferenced items, and removing them
after a reasonable period of time and in a fair way. That will go a
long way to solving the problem.

I personally believe these items are valuable and interesting _if
referenced._ Incidentally insisting on reference is also a reasonable
filter against subtrivial cruft; if the Statue of Liberty appears _in
an important way_ in some movie, Ebert or someone is likely to have
mentioned it somewhere; if it is just a cameo appearance to establish
that a ship is approaching New York, nobody is likely to comment on
it outside of a personal blog or forum, and finding a reference will
be hard.


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
I'm not aware of this and I don't understand the
meaning of not using "primary sources". It sounds
weird. A source is a source -- if it's legitimate,
then why forbid the use of it? Link please.

Note: I wasn't the one to add those sources to the
sub, but I think that whoever did it, did a good job.

--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
>
> >Sure it can be expanded, now when Jimbo gave us
> >another reply on the subject. ;)
> >
> >
> >
> I could have sworn [[WP:V]] says something about not
> using primary
> sources. :p
>
> John
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
>
> >I'm not aware of this and I don't understand the
> >meaning of not using "primary sources". It sounds
> >weird. A source is a source -- if it's legitimate,
> >then why forbid the use of it? Link please.
> >
> >Note: I wasn't the one to add those sources to the
> >sub, but I think that whoever did it, did a good
> job.
> >
> >
>  From [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]]:
>
>     * A primary source
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source>
>       provides direct evidence for a certain state
> of affairs. This may
>       mean that the source observes a state of
> affairs directly, or that
>       they observe indirect evidence of it. In other
> words, a primary
>       source is a source very close to the original
> state of affairs you
>       are writing about. An example of
> primary-source material would be
>       a photograph of a car accident taken by an eye
> witness, or a
>       report from that eye witness. A trial
> transcript is also
>       primary-source material. Wikipedia articles
> may rely on primary
>       sources /so long as what they say has been
> published by a credible
>       publication/. For example, a trial transcript
> has been published
>       by the court. *We may not use primary sources
> whose information
>       has not been made available by a credible
> publication.* See
>       Wikipedia:No original research
>
>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research>.
>
>
> John

That sounds tricky. Well, for starters, this wasn't
original research, because I didn't ask Jimbo for
anything -- thus I made no direct attempt to find out
anything from him. Secondly, the way I interpret it, a
third-party could use this discussion as a source (as
they have already done in the past) and add it to the
article. However, I also read this:

"Wikipedia articles may rely on primary sources /so
long as what they say has been published by a credible
publication."

I would dare to say that Jimbo writing on this mailing
list is credible enough. :p It's obvious that this
rule was applied so that editors don't adopt sources
that are not credible enough, or may violate the law
of privacy, or whatever. Since we're not covering
anything of private nature, this shouldn't be a
problem. I could be wrong, tho.

>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
A quick and illustrative example at [[Brian May]]

May is a vegetarian - ok, that could be put into another section.
May is the tallest member of Queen - I don't see where else that would
fit exactly.
Some character in some computer game is *rumoured* to have been
created after him - junk that deserves to be in the bin.

Personally I don't find much redeeming value in these "Character X in
show/game Y was based on this person" references at all.

Steve

On 2/23/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Peter Mackay wrote:
> >>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> >>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax
> >>(Wikipedia email)
> >
> >
> >
> >>They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or
> >>something to suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous
> >>information" or merged into the rest of the article?
> >
> >
> > I must respectfully disagree. To many readers, these little facts add colour
> > and interest to the article and can tie the main subject to other, often
> > unexpected subjects. Putting them all in one section at the end of the
> > article is the best place for them, because otherwise we would have to find
> > appropriate places for them in the main body of the text, and it may not
> > always be easy (or concise) to do this.
> >
> > "Trivia" is the accepted name for this sort of material. It is concise and
> > descriptive.
> >
>
> Pray tell me how anything to do with (eg.) the Prime Minister of Britain
> is "trivial"???
>
> > Perhaps the question is just how trivial a factoid needs to be to be
> > included. We don't need every little bit of blather.
> >
>
> So why can't it go into other sections of the article?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A rational proposal

body:
John Lee wrote:
> What concerns me is the existence of userboxes and categories that
> exist solely for the purpose of factionalism. To me, the UDUIW stuff
> fits that definition to a tee, splitting Wikipedians into "us and them".

I agree up, down, and sideways that factionalism is very, very
bad for the project.  But given that it has begun to take root,
and especially when one of the factional splits is between those
for and against userboxes, it's not at all clear that rampant,
heavyhanded deletion of userboxes (which are, after all, merely
a symptom of the real problem) will automatically make things
any better.


body:
> They look ugly and unprofessional.

I must also disagree.  I find them neither ugly nor unprofessional.
People are interested in trivia, it adds spice, and more
importantly it can usefully spark connection-making and deep learning.

Do we have a {WP:NOT} for "stuffy, conventional, dry, humorless,
or bend-over-backwardsly professional"?  Perhaps we should.

Certainly any listed trivia must be *interesting*, and that's
obviously an endlessly subjective judgment, but one we can work
on without exorcising all trivia.

> And while we're at it, can we get rid of "{{PAGENAME}} in popular
> culture" sections?

Those bug me more than Trivia, and I've seen many more of them
that are completely out of hand.  But there was just a discussion
(here, or on one of the Village Pumps, or somewhere, I forget)
about developing policies to keep them trimmed to a reasonable
and relevant length.

I'd say, when people come across bits of trivia or popular
culture references that obviously aren't interesting, they should
be bold and just delete them.


from_name: sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com

subject:
[Wikitech-l] new install - problems with stylesheets not
	being	used? Lookit not what was expected.

body:
Well, you know what - on a (somewhat) lark) I took the xammp distribution
for solaris, put it on a system and wiki came up perfectly the first time.
The whole thing took about 15 minutes, as oppsed to the multiple hours
trying to get redhat working.

The entire redhat saga was too frustrating - the path to getting wiki
running was 1 step forward, 2 steps back, and it happened several times.
I'm sure that the apache install was probably the problem, but frankly, I
had spent too much time on it in the first place.

Ah well - will probably stick with solaris for now.

Thanks for the help, though,
/ Sid /

wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org wrote on 02/23/2006 08:49:24 AM:

> On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 03:44:19PM -0800, sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com wrote:
> > Good question. I wonder how I would know, but let me tell you
something
> > else we discovered....
>
> The Web Developer Extension for FireFox, or wget -(I think)S
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                            RFC
2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think '87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727
647 1274
>
>    A: No.
>    Q: Should I include quotations after my message body?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Sigvat Stensholt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
I was the admin who deleted the Brian Peppers article after the first AFD
(then VFD). I have looked at the two versions, both the one I deleted and the
one Jimbo Wales deleted. They are not "substantially identical".

The version which was AFDed back in June was a silly fake newspaper type
report, which was just disgusting. The last version was more neutral, and
looked a bit like an encyclopedia article.

Sorry Jimbo, but I don't agree that deleting it was an in process application
of G4. Nonetheless, it is your prerogative to make such decisions, and I also
agree that we probably should not have an article on the subject. If I had
voted in any of the AFDs it would probably have been to "delete".

Sjakkalle


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, most people seem to be strongly in favour of keeping their user
> pages for storing work in progress or their favourite links.  My next
> question:
>
> What is the worst possible thing that could happen if no one else
> could see your user page?

It would be impossible to use these resources if you are not logged in. it
would be impossible to follow some of the To Do links on other people's
pages and do some of the tasks, it would be impossible to see how people are
doing (Wikistress meters, etc)...


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Christophe Millet

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] fr.wiktionary: public domain dictionary uploaded (at
	last...)

body:
Hi all,

I'm glad to anounce that we eventually uploaded all the 8th
edition of the French Academy Dictionary (dated 1932-1935)
in the French Wiktionary
(yeah, we've been speaking about it for almost a year).

It contained about 33000 articles, some of which were already in there,
so now we have a painful job of merging / checking to do.

It's cool to see more blue links suddently :-)

Christophe / Kipmaster.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

references:
<1140576063.b66bd9bcJDGRII8338@NGCSU.EDU>
	<cblov1dikb84u7rhlpve4o9g6ga1n69jca@4ax.com>
	<f1c3529e0602220446h412b2a20m82bca3a6b2b3a40c@mail.gmail.com>
	<5c5f03dd0602220528s7c830cb7md10f68ae5f018292@mail.gmail.com>
	<44sov1dioilm9bs6oee1c5s1rbvijs07pp@4ax.com>
	<43FD1C53.90902@shaw.ca>

body:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:22:11 -0700, you wrote:

>I don't really care about the subject of this article. The
>thing that is getting my particular dander up is simply the technical
>abuse of deletion as a way to "store" content we might eventually want
>back for a long period of time.

And the fact that it had previously been deleted within process
multiple times and re-created doesn't bother you?  Seems to me it was
a case of keep re-creating and keep having it AfDd until those who
wanted the article got what they wanted, regardless of previous
consensus.  But whatever.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny - Harry Reid

body:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 20:58:08 -0500, you wrote:

>The way to get around NOR problems in this case might be to suggest
>that we recommend that they create a webpage on their own webspace
>that says "I have been characterized in X source [wherever Wikipedia
>is getting the info] as having done Y. This is untrue, in reality I
>only did Z."

Honestly, I don't see that as necessary.  If someone wants to come to
the talk page and deny it, we can say they deny it.  If they can cite
reliable sources to support the denial, we can say the denial is
supported by reliable sources.  If they can prove it's all a figment
of someone's imagination, or a vendetta conducted by a rival or
whatever, we can just remove it.  I don't have a problem interacting
directly with biography subjects, as long as they are prepared to
accept that their Wikipedia portrait will, in the end, be of the
Oliver Cromwell school: warts and all.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Michael Keppler

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Tjipke de Vries schrieb:
> If there is any way for senders to avoid this, and still PGP-sign the
> message you want to send: please do so. I'm sure I am not the only one using
> MS Outlook Express here (although I understand that this is concidered
> "lame" by some people).

I would not call that lame. But if you know that you use a mail reader
with bugs, why don't you just switch to another one, instead of
requesting everybody else (virtually the whole world) to make some
changes on their side? Although you asked your question very politely,
that attitude seems to be a very selfish one.

I use Thunderbird and never had any problems with Brions mails (or other
signed mails).

Ciao, Michael.


body:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:24:52 -0500, you wrote:

>That word has a number of different senses, some of which apply to
>Wikipedia and some that don't.  It can be accessed at no charge, but
>people using it are not free to do things that its admins and Jimbo
>don't allow them to do.

Add the community to that list.  We all have a say.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
> suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged into
> the rest of the article?

A guideline would be helpful. If something really is piece of trivia, then it
is very likely to be too trivial for an encyclopedia article about the topic
(as opposed to a "random facts" website, or a book about the topic). If it's
not, then we should try and merge it in elsewhere in the article (in cases that
I've looked at, it often can be), or just delete much of it outright. If people
are really desperate to keep trivial bits of information, split it out to a
subarticle, like [[Harry Potter trivia]], so that the main article isn't worse
off for it.

As an aside, yesterday someone added the following to the "References" section
of [[Zanzibar]]:

   The Earth levels on [[Halo 2]] Take place in "New Zanzibar"

This isn't the first time, either. Obviously, places in Africa are so exotic
that we need to list references to them from computer games if they're to have
any relevance to real people. Grr.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


body:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:07:31 -0700, you wrote:

>"A popular
>urban myth at Oxford University
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University> states that Wilson's
>grade in his final examination was the highest ever recorded up to that
>date." Seems pretty trivial to me.

Widely repeated, though, and stated in some in histories of 20th
Century British politics (stated by, I think, John Cole as "the best
First of his generation" - not quite the same thing).  So: not
necessarily trivia.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Username block (was Admin Abuse)

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't. Supposedly
> we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take action (like
> changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.

I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a behavior they can
stop. An inappropriate username is an inappropriate username. In this case,
warning just seems to be more work for the administrator when the result is
the same either way.

Ryan


from_name: geni

body:
The article has been unprotected for nearly 24 hours now and the world
hasn't ended.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, most people seem to be strongly in favour of keeping their user
> pages for storing work in progress or their favourite links.  My next
> question:
>
> What is the worst possible thing that could happen if no one else
> could see your user page?
>
> Apart from a couple of vague references to babel boxes, no one seems
> to have indicated much that would be lost without a public userpage.
>
> Steve

If you start deleting userpages or making them private, a couple things will
happen:

(1) it will be harder to track people using their userspace for
inappropriate purposes
(2) people will start moving their userboxes to their talk pages
(3) you will start to suggest that we get rid of user talk pages too,
suggesting people use IRC or email to communicate.

Ryan


body:
On 2/23/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't. Supposedly
> > we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take action (like
> > changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.
>
>
> I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a behavior they can
> stop. An inappropriate username is an inappropriate username. In this
> case,
> warning just seems to be more work for the administrator when the result
> is
> the same either way.
>
> Ryan

One little problem with that is the autoblocker - once their username is
blocked they can't register a new name.


body:
On 2/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Doesn't the autoblocker only kick in when one tries to edit?

Yep, my mistake.  But they still won't be able to edit with the new
username


body:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:03:34 +0000, you wrote:

>The article has been unprotected for nearly 24 hours now and the world
>hasn't ended.

I don't know how many contentious living person bios you've been
involved in.  My first was a guy who, according to his detractors,
"should be granted a dictionary of his own, so far has he stretched
the meaning of the English language", and "has trodden the tightrope
of confusing semantics with the balance of Blondel and the focus of a
train spotter" (taken verbatim from the article as they wrote it). Any
attempt to rephrase this in neutral terms was met with reversion
(apparently it is forbidden to change "book text, approved by lawyers"
even when released under GFDL), followed by personal attacks, and in
fairly short order the publishing of my personal details on the
website of the attackers, characterised as a hagiographer.

Not surprisingly the subject contacted the help desk and the article
was stubbed and locked by Jimbo.  It is now much more neutral, but
there is still a battle going on between the detractors and those who
have no evident vested interest.  The most recent spat in which I was
involved had them wanting to add some screed about a lecture the guy
gave which, apparently due to credible threats of disruption, was
seemingly subject to a decision by the hosts to discourage external
audience.  For some reason they think the venue (a college) and the
subject should be personally accountable to them for their failure to
be able to implement an effective protest.

I have grown wary of these things.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:06:00 +1100, you wrote:

>Most of the editorbase, I
>suggest, regard Halo 2 (whatever that might be) as more relevant to them
>than Zanzibar the island.

Ain't that the truth.  We have more biographical detail on most porn
"stars" than on some major figures in classical music.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at AfD, because if it
>is this far broken, there's something seriously seriously worse about it
>than I thought.

Well, uh, yeah, that's what I've been saying for a year ;-)

I suggest first going to and participating in [[WT:AFD]], outlining
the problems and asking for AFD regulars to come up with in-house
solutions.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:

>> Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but it
>> seems that the community overruled against his
>> decission and for so far, decided to keep the article.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld

>This is absurd.  What an idiotic article.

I wouldn't say that. It's a decent attempt at a stub, with references,
on someone who originated an important idea.

That said, there's barely any 'there' there, so I've redirected it to
[[Wikipedia#History]], which summarises the stub in a single sentence
with a reference.

- d.


body:
Herr Goebbles wrote:

>  The Wikipedia user:  HerrGoebbles, has been blocked by Wiki Admin
>MarkSweep, whose reasons given were dislike of my user name ( because I
>am German?) maybe due to MarkSweep claiming to be a former US Marine, he
>considers me to be an enemy.

I blocked one username of [[User:DrMengele]], offering to unblock if
he could offer proof of his name and his doctorate ... instead, he
picked another name and (as far as I know) is editing happily. I'm
afraid names of famous Nazis or names close to those are too popular
with pranksters and tend to get blocked on sight.

- d.


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, most people seem to be strongly in favour of keeping their user
> pages for storing work in progress or their favourite links.  My next
> question:
>
> What is the worst possible thing that could happen if no one else
> could see your user page?
>
> Apart from a couple of vague references to babel boxes, no one seems
> to have indicated much that would be lost without a public userpage.

In case you missed it the first time, deleting the userpages of my
accounts would eliminate the following:

* The ownership statement for OrphanBot.
* The description of what OrphanBot does and does not do.
* OrphanBot's current task status.
* OrphanBot's current development status.
* The statement that all my edits are multi-licensed into the public domain.

Also, in the past, it would have eliminated:

* My criteria for the use of fair-use images in featured articles (now
mostly part of [[Wikipedia:Fair use]]).

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>>Every vote on the article in question (i.e. not the very early one) has
>>come out somewhere near a deadlock.  The most I've seen in favor of
>>deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
>>to delete typically required on AfD.
>>
>>
>
>Were these votes on the basis of content or subject?
>
>Sorry to keep on harping on, but it's a pretty important question, and
>most of these arguments seem to completely blur the line.
>
>
Since most people don't explicitly give their reasoning in their votes,
it's hard to say.  I would assert that most of the original "delete"
votes were based on content, not subject, which is why once the content
improved, the percentage of "delete" votes dwindled.

But this, among other reasons, is why we need to get rid of AfD and DRV
in the first place.  "Non-notability" is often a red herring used by
people to delete articles with which they have an ideological disagreement.

-Mark


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] new install - problems with stylesheets not being
	used? Look it not what was expected.

body:
On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 03:44:19PM -0800, sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com wrote:
> Good question. I wonder how I would know, but let me tell you something
> else we discovered....

The Web Developer Extension for FireFox, or wget -(I think)S

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	A: No.
	Q: Should I include quotations after my message body?


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Those are being produced from a cron job running on the server, which
isn't signing the emails with PGP.

> The messages with subject "MediaWiki automated test run failure" proove that
> every day. (oddly enough, I can read those messages with no problem...).

Rob Church


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>I don't see a problem with an open and honest request for factual
>>correction.  We have always encouraged living people to engage with
>>the community in keeping their biographies factually accurate - just
>>not by actually editing them.  Engage on the talk page, go to the
>>Office, whatever.  And if they point out an error which can be
>>verified as an error, that's good.  And if they dislike the fact that
>>verifiable but unflattering information is in there, maybe they should
>>have thought about that before they did whatever they did :-)
>
>
> The way to get around NOR problems in this case might be to suggest
> that we recommend that they create a webpage on their own webspace
> that says "I have been characterized in X source [wherever Wikipedia
> is getting the info] as having done Y. This is untrue, in reality I
> only did Z."
>

You assume that these people have their own webspace.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Time to finish this userbox war once and for all

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Honestly, does anyone actually use these userboxes to find experts?
> This is a genuine question: I have never done so. Does anyone
> regularly use userbox categories or "what links here" on userbox
> templates to locate people who are experts in certain fields to help
> with a project?
>

I've used Babel templates on my interlanguage travels to find editors
who can help me with difficult tasks...

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Any way to get {{subst:REVISIONID}} to work?

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Would it be possible to get {{subst:REVISIONID}} to work? I.e.,
>
> {{REVISIONID}} displays the current revision id, but there's no way to
> capture it in time.
>
> Can {{subst:REVISIONID}} work, or would that be too weird for the system?

The revision ID isn't assigned until the row is inserted, at which point the
text is already recorded.

> If not, PREVREVISIONID would be very helpful; to allow you to stamp
> articles with an edit. (I'm working on Template:GFDLSource).

Not sure how reliable that would be...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Stupid bomb indeed.

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> I drooled:
>
>
>>"The two most plentiful elements in the Universe are bad Uncyclopedia
>>articles and hydrogen, and I'm not sure about the ... hydrogen. Hold
>>on, I'll try that one again." - Albert Einstein on an off day
>
>
>
> Er, wtf. Evidently my mailbox was just hit by one. This is notes for
> an Uncyclopedia article that I *meant* to email to myself, and sent to
> wikien-l by mistake. It's probably time to go home and drink copiously
> now.
>

On the plus side, it's now stored in the wikien-l archive :)

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Michael Keppler schrieb:

> I would not call that lame. But if you know that you use a mail reader
> with bugs, why don't you just switch to another one, instead of
> requesting everybody else (virtually the whole world) to make some
> changes on their side? Although you asked your question very politely,
> that attitude seems to be a very selfish one.

If you want to call a desire to communicate selfish, I cannot dissagree with
you.

Just FYI: until now, I was not aware that the problem was (only) on my side.
And, as a matter of fact, I am still not entirely convinced it is.
It could very well be that my e-mail client is handling Brion's messages to
strict, it could also be that my e-mail client is not handling Brion's
messages right. It could also very well be that it is just an
incompatibility issue between the two mailclients. I don't know. But I know
one thing: you don't know what is happening at all until you raise the
issue, and that is just what I did.

And, for the record: I know my mailclient contains bugs. So does yours and
any other client, for that matter. There ain't no such thing as bugfree
software :-)
The messages with subject "MediaWiki automated test run failure" proove that
every day. (oddly enough, I can read those messages with no problem...).

Best regards,

Tjipke de Vries
[[nl:Gebruiker:Tdevries]]


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Newest admin abuse on Wikipedia: Voter intimidation

body:
I believe that Jimbo told Kelly to do whatever she
wants to stop the spreading of userboxes. I don't
think Kelly would take on so much authority on herself
and block everyone to the right and to the left for
almost nothing. She also said that users break the
consensus on not using userboxes. What consensus? I
saw more people voting against her because of how she
handled the userbox conflict, than against the
userboxes themselves. And while everyone bumps their
head against each other, the emperor admires his new
clothes.

Lastly, I will say that Kelly seems like a cold person
who never tries to communicate with others on their
level, or on any level. She likes to keep a distance
between herself and others. If such is the case, why
then take on a dead that requires you to make a good
effort to communicate? No-one likes an "Ice Queen".

--- Joshua Griisser <JDGRII8338 at NGCSU.EDU> wrote:

> It's common for the anti-userbox crowd to say stuff
> like
> "stop stressing out over it, it's just userboxes,
> not
> real encyclopedia content". Well, the reason that I
> don't
> follow that line of thinking is that it never stops
> at
> just one abuse. It keeps building and building. We
> currently have about half a dozen admins who show
> repeated and blatant defiance for Wikipedia's
> community
> and the consensus of that community. They are not
> large
> in number, but they have a disproportionate amount
> of
> influence, almost entirely malign. They are a living
> argument for why we need a working desysopping
> process.
>
> Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
> Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
> intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a
> support
> vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
> excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote
> in
> question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
> blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
> for adminship.
>
> Kelly Martin has done far more to harm Wikipedia
> than
> Willy on Wheels ever could. By firing the first shot
> in the userbox wars, she is basically the Gavrilo
> Princip of Wikipedia. Frankly, even if you gave
> Willy sysop powers, I doubt that he could do more
> damage than our worst sysops are doing right now.
> These
> people are like hyperactive children given a machine
> gun and it is time to take their toys away before
> more
> people get hurt.
>
> I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can
> possibly
> express.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Jesse W wrote:
>
>
>>No.  They would not.  Wikipedians by field of interest could (and
>>should) be merged into the WikiProjects list - I've continued to
>>wonder
>>what benefit it is to know that a wikipedian is a firefox user *if
>>they
>>are not interested in web brower articles on wikipedia*.  What does
>>that get us in terms of writing the encyclopedia?
>
>
> They see how it renders in Firefox?
>

And they see how certain bits of Javascript and CSS (which can be used
to help write the encyclopedia) work in Firefox.

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
"Delirium" <delirium at hackish.org> wrote in
message news:43FD78D3.1030306 at hackish.org...
[snip]
> ...  The most I've seen in favor of
> deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
> to delete typically required on AfD.

...whereas WP:DRV works on a simple majority system, so if you want an
article gone and that's the vote you got, you can simply delete it and wait
for it to pop upon WP:DRV whereupon your deletion is endorsed.

Somebody tell me I'm too cyncial, go on :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Joshua Griisser wrote:

>I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
>express.
>
Yawn, I've become more bored by all this than I can possibly
express.

I'd be interested in the opinions of someone who's written 100
featured articles, however.

Stan


from_name: Victoria Powers

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Creating a form as special page...Now need help
	connecting to database

body:
I have recently developed a form and implemented it as a special page within my wiki.  I now need to connect to a mySQL database that I have created.  Can anyone please advise me on how I can do this? What classes, objects, files do I need to use? Can anyone point out some examples that are similar to what I am trying to accomplish?

Thank you for any help you can provide!

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.0.0/267 - Release Date: 2/22/2006


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On Feb 23, 2006, at 1:41 PM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> It's just plain overkill. People misusing or obsessing over
> userboxes is the
> problem. So it us those users and userboxes that need to be addressed.
> Killing all userpages is like putting everyone in jail to make sure
> you got
> the bank robbers.

It's like destroying all sentient life in the universe to contain the
Flood.

It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The proposal to delete userboxes is a sandwich short of a picnic.

A few cards short of a full deck.

A few bricks short of a wall.

It's like starving your kids to protect them from food poisoning.

It's like dying of thirst to protect yourself from drowning.

It's like burning down a forest to protect it from wildfires.

It's like destroying the village in order to save it.

Besides, without a publicly visible userpage, how else are people to
find out who the hell we are?

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


from_name: Ben Lowe

body:
>
>
> > Agree.  We should start out with statements of what the community
> > wants - "please don't create or use ideological userboxes, they upset
> > people".
>
> The evidence that the community wants that is somewhat patchy

I agree with Geni.  I think if we really want to start with what we can
agree the community wants, we start with "please don't create userboxes that
upset people."  That userboxes shouldn't be used for landmine-style trolling
("I'll just take a peek at this user page and... oh gods, that's
nauseating") is something everybody is onboard with.  But where to draw that
line, and whether it can be drawn around entire categories of expression,
that's really up for debate.  (Especially the odd notion, now being
discussed at [[WP:UBP]], that expression of one's ideologies, beliefs, pet
peeves, love/hatred of pancakes, etc., is acceptable *unless it's in a tiny
box.*  Perhaps opinions and points of view overheat and explode when so
tightly contained?)

I don't really understand the controversy over people stating their
affiliations and beliefs, so long as they're not attacking other people.  (I
have no problem with banning visible affiliation with groups where such
affiliation is an inherent attack on others, such as the Klan, or the Nazi
party.)  I've worked on several political campaigns, and I'm not offended
when I see people with userboxen for the "other" side, let alone when I see
boxes supporting, say, the "European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party".
(Actually, in full disclosure, I think learning about political parties in
other countries is fascinating.)  The same goes for religions: unless you're
part of the Church of Burning in Effigy the Symbols of Other Religions, it's
an interesting showing of Wikipedia's diversity, not an assault on my faith.

I don't think that userboxes that say "This user doesn't like it when admins
urinate on Wikiprocess" should be on Wikipedia's user pages, either, but
instead of forbidding them and going around stripping them from pages, we
really should see those as an opportunity for dialogue.  Instead of removing
something from the user page, *add* something to the *talk* page.  Find out
why these users are upset, see if you can engage them in dialogue.  Show
them that administrators are not part of Wikipedia to strike fear and awe
into mortal users by mightily wielding roll-back and blocking powers, but
that they're part of the system to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Maybe this seems rather Esperanzian of me, but if users are willing to
self-identify as being frustrated with part of the process, maybe it's a
chance to get people engaged.

Ben


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Abuse

body:
On 2/23/06, Josef Goebbles <herrgoebbles at berlin.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings:
>
> Let it not be said that justice is undone on the whims of one solitary
> man.  The Wikipedia user:  HerrGoebbles, has been blocked by Wiki Admin
> MarkSweep, whose reasons given were dislike of my user name ( because I
> am German?) maybe due to MarkSweep claiming to be a former US Marine, he
> considers me to be an enemy.  The other reason given was harassment of
> user TastyCakes, who seems to have a dislike of anyone who disagrees with
> her views of the destruction of the American Indian tribes during
> American expansion.  The user TastyCakes has used the term "Dumb Ass" as
> a personal attack and an insult towards me, (maybe because I am German,
> and not gentically as superior as TastyCakes?)  However, I do not wish to
> discuss this at length, I only wish to be given the opportunity to learn
> from any mistakes I may have made, and continue to have the ability to
> simply use Wikipedia's site without any overzealous attempts by Admins to
> silence me once and for all, with malice.
>
> Thank you for your kind consideration.
>
> HerrGoebbles
>
> --
> ___________________________________________________
> Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

We have a username policy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames

Josef Goebbels would fall under the category: "Names which refer to symbols
of hatred, including historical figures who are widely associated with
such." Even if it's your real name, I recommend you pick another one. Names
of famous nazis tend to get blocked on sight precisely because we have this
policy.

Mgm


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Tjipke de Vries wrote:
> Michael Keppler schrieb:
>
>
>> I would not call that lame. But if you know that you use a mail reader
>> with bugs, why don't you just switch to another one, instead of
>> requesting everybody else (virtually the whole world) to make some
>> changes on their side? Although you asked your question very politely,
>> that attitude seems to be a very selfish one.
>>
>
> If you want to call a desire to communicate selfish, I cannot dissagree with
> you.
>
> Just FYI: until now, I was not aware that the problem was (only) on my side.
> And, as a matter of fact, I am still not entirely convinced it is.
> It could very well be that my e-mail client is handling Brion's messages to
> strict, it could also be that my e-mail client is not handling Brion's
> messages right. It could also very well be that it is just an
> incompatibility issue between the two mailclients. I don't know. But I know
> one thing: you don't know what is happening at all until you raise the
> issue, and that is just what I did.
>
> And, for the record: I know my mailclient contains bugs. So does yours and
> any other client, for that matter. There ain't no such thing as bugfree
> software :-)
> The messages with subject "MediaWiki automated test run failure" proove that
> every day. (oddly enough, I can read those messages with no problem...).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Tjipke de Vries
> [[nl:Gebruiker:Tdevries]]
Hoi,
The fact that every larger piece of software has bugs is a fact but it
is not an argument when you discuss behaviour of software. The Outlook
Express software is /designed /to be inferior to the software that you
have to pay for; Outlook. Microsoft also has a track record of providing
non-standard compliant software.

You are right to raise the issue but there have been many reviews where
Outlook Express has been compared with other mail clients. OE is
probably one of the worst choices you can pick. It does not comply to
standards, it is a vector for attacks on your system. All in all it is
just not a great idea to use it. You do not have to go whole hog and
move to Linux or OS-X but something like Thunderbird will improve things
for you even though much of the improvements are under the bonnet. Then
again you do not have to do anything, you can choose to do something
about it.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good point. IMHO, removing trivia a week or more after it was added is
> not newbie biting. But yeah, we should probably be careful not to use
> edit summaries like "removie newbie crud" in this case :)

It would also be helpful to - instead of just deleting - help the
newbie learn where the information should be placed, if it's wrongly
placed, or ask for sources and give some help with the process, or
suchlike.  I know it takes time, but I try to do this.  Not always,
though; I confess to a 'ZOMG triviacruft! DELETE DELETE!' reaction at
times, but ...

-Matt


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 2/23/06, Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com> wrote:
> Try
> <http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=User_en-N&mode=cs&tagcat=User+de-N>.

That, my friend, is a great trick! Thank you.

FF


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:02:43 -0500, you wrote:

>I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a behavior they can
>stop. An inappropriate username is an inappropriate username. In this case,
>warning just seems to be more work for the administrator when the result is
>the same either way.

If the account is brand-new with no history it's hardly a problem, I
guess.  For an established account of course we should let them change
it first.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 02:07:42 +1100, you wrote:

>Both Fred Bauder and Yours Truly have strongly hinted that we find it
>*very* useful to view others' userpages, if only to say "oh, that
>explains it" at times.

I completely agree.  The problem is not with giving people the ability
to tell the community a little about themselves, it's with people who
misunderstand the nature of the user page.  It's not like being at
home where you can do what you want, it's more like the lounge of a
private club, where you can engage in idle banter but are still
constrained by the rules of the club and are still required to show
consideration for those around you.  That's how I see it anyway.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fight for Freedom of Geographic Data - how can
	Wikimedia help?

body:
Hi,

I tried to summarize at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/INSPIRE

I'm sorry that I cannot support with more than interest because I'm very
busy at the moment, but if anyone (yes, also you, anonymous reader!)
writes good press releases, information material, plans for activities
etc. I'm sure that there will be ways how Wikimedia Foundation and/or
local Wikimedia chapters will can help with both it's popularity and
financial support if needed.

Greetings,
Jakob

Jo Walsh wrote:
> dear Jakob et al, thanks a lot for your interest and energy. I
> apologise for the long lag in my response; i've been offline for the
> last 5 days on a long driving trip, and just got back to participate
> in another binge of publicgeodata / INSPIRE outreach.
>
> I'm cc'ing here Benjamin Henrion, who is doing the Brussels running
> and press negotiation for publicgeodata.org, in the rare moments of spare
> time allowed him by his day job with FFII.org . He's the expert on
> tone in lobbying activities.
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 02:00:25PM +0100, Jakob Voss wrote:
>>>> There is an oportunity - no: necessity - for active lobbying for Free
>>>> Knowledge in the European Union. The Proposed European Commission
>>>> Directive on European Spatial Data Infrastucture (INSPIRE) is
>>>> endangered to put more intellectual property rights on geographica
>>>> data in the European union.
>>>>
>>>> See http://publicgeodata.org/WhatIsInspire and
>>>> http://space.frot.org/docs/inspire_directive.html
>>>> Any suggestions? I'm still searching for an occasion and easy example
>>>> [2] to convince your grandma, get into the media etc.
>>> I will look into this and possibly try to contact the right people here
>>> in Poland. Since we already have one win in this field, maybe we could
>>> follow up on that.
>
>> Thank you for following this. We should use the popularity of Wikimedia
>> to get more attention to this in the public, parliament and/or where the
>> important people are but I don't know how. I press release "Wikimedia
>> criticises Inspire" is missing a specific occasion. But Wikimedia and
>> Wikipedians are mostly busy with other stuff. Maybe Stefan K?hn
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Stefan_K%C3%BChn
>> is interested to help and/or can give you more contact - he is doing a
>> PhD in cartography and is very active in the German Wikipedia with
>> Geodata (see link below).
>>
>> Jo Walsh can probably give us hints where to do lobbying with which
>> arguments (hi Jo, are you reading this?). I hope that he has some good
>> examples. We can also show what is possible with free geodata and Wikipedia:
>
> http://publicgeodata.org/ActOnInspire is the brief-notes practical
> guide to lobbying INSPIRE. http://publicgeodata.org/Arguments
> currently shows Benjamin's list of what touches MEPs minds most
> directly.
>
> I would say that part of what has made focusing on what's wrong with
> INSPIRE difficult, is how many angles there are by which to look at
> it. I would say that the strongest ones are these:
>
> - Commercial copyright and licensing of geodata risks suppressing
>   innovation, leading to less job creation and less economic activity
>   for Europeans in next-generation location services built on GALILEO
>
> - Geodata is a public good and has many use cases not addressed by the
>   market - allowing citizens to find recycling facilities, disabled
>   access facilities, etc. It actually is more expensive to distributed
>   data than to give it away.
>
> - The aims of INSPIRE and related programs are to facilitate sharing
>   of data between member states, especially in order to respond to
>   environmental emergencies and to model sustainable alternatives.
>   There are huge translation and taxonomy problems involved. The
>   quickest way to resolve these is to put the data into the public
>   domain.
>
> - INSPIRE has been designed without consultation of the broader
>   academic, freelance research and business interests which depend
>   heavily on how much European citizens have to pay for the geographic
>   information collected on their behalf.
>
> A lot of our earlier writing on the subject of INSPIRE -
> http://space.frot.org/docs/uninspired.html in particular i have seen
> quoted back at me recently - was addressed to a technical/professional
> audience. I tend to get caught up in the philosophy, carried away with
> words; Benjamin is very much immersed in the EU process.
> http://rejectinspire.publicgeodata.org/ is our best ongoing shot at a
> populist rendition of "why sign the petition".
>
> How can you help us? Let me count the ways:
>
> - We are gathering testimonials from SMEs and research users of
>   geodata. Markus Neteler of the GRASS project is hopefully offering
>   one on behalf of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.
>   This would be a great thing to have the Wikimedia Foundation do.
>   http://publicgeodata.org/Testimonies
>
> - Now we have a decent signup base on the petition, we hope to do more
>   widespread, popular oriented publicity for publicgeodata soon. It
>   would be great to be able to
>
>   * Take this out of the English-speaking, UK-oriented medium more
>   * Take this into paper press - Le Monde, Financial Times etc
>
>   This is an area in which the Wikimedia Foundation could be really
>   useful, both in offering a press release of its own, and helping us
>   get into conduits that reach through to the "mainstream" media
>   throughout Europe, more widely.
>
> - PR and rewriting advice, to help get the message across in different
>   ways, is always appreciated.
>
>> http://www.webkuehn.de/hobbys/wikipedia/geokoordinaten/index_en.htm
>> Images are always more convincing.
>
> Definitely; i've learnt from long experience that pointing and
> shouting at neat hacks like fundrace.org, or the myriad sites that use
> geocoder.us to do spatial things, aren't convincing to Europeans;
> people need to see maps of where they are, places they understand and
> feel really connected to. It's chicken-and-egg for us; we could build
> the convincing demos given access to state collected geodata!
> Markus just showed me this slide from a GRASS talk he is giving:
> http://mpa.itc.it/markus/grass61/demos/rlake/trento3d_flooding_before_after.jpg
>
> The geo-discuss list at OKFN is the central place to talk about all
> this, and would definitely be the best place to braindump any
> followups to this discussion:
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/geo-discuss
>
> We also have an irc channel on irc.freenode.net#publicgeodata
> (i am 'zool' there, Benjamin is 'zoobab')
>
> Thanks again so much for your interest; my apologies again for the
> long delay in followup; look forward to finding out more about your
> end of this conversation.
>
>
> -jo


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/23/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> A crappy version a long time ago that didn't read anything close to an
> encyclopedia article was AfD'd.  A new version, more neutral, was
> created, and it was AfD'd *unsuccessfully* something like 5 times,
> interspersed with some sysops occasionally speedying it and it being
> unspeedied.

Yet another confusion of content and subject. If the subject is un
Wikipiedia-like, then it doesn't matter whether the old version was
"crappy" or not.

> Every vote on the article in question (i.e. not the very early one) has
> come out somewhere near a deadlock.  The most I've seen in favor of
> deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
> to delete typically required on AfD.

Were these votes on the basis of content or subject?

Sorry to keep on harping on, but it's a pretty important question, and
most of these arguments seem to completely blur the line.

Steve


body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> I agree up, down, and sideways that factionalism is very, very
> bad for the project.  But given that it has begun to take root,
> and especially when one of the factional splits is between those
> for and against userboxes, it's not at all clear that rampant,
> heavyhanded deletion of userboxes (which are, after all, merely
> a symptom of the real problem) will automatically make things
> any better.

Agree.  We should start out with statements of what the community
wants - "please don't create or use ideological userboxes, they upset
people". If, a couple of months from now, people are still doing it,
then we can call the gestapo.

Steve


body:
On 2/23/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it's simply that adding trivia is something that pulls newbies
> in to editing the site.  Therefore, be careful of newbie-biting.
> Instead,encourage higher standards, and introduce them to the joys of
> research and WP:CITE!

Good point. IMHO, removing trivia a week or more after it was added is
not newbie biting. But yeah, we should probably be careful not to use
edit summaries like "removie newbie crud" in this case :)

Steve


body:
On 2/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I blocked one username of [[User:DrMengele]], offering to unblock if
> he could offer proof of his name and his doctorate ... instead, he
> picked another name and (as far as I know) is editing happily. I'm
> afraid names of famous Nazis or names close to those are too popular
> with pranksters and tend to get blocked on sight.

Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't. Supposedly
we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take action (like
changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.

Steve


body:
On 2/23/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a very hard time using them for this purpose. Even the Babel
> ones. I was looking for a good German speaker not too long ago. The
> problem is, I needed someone who was 1. fluent in German, 2. fluent in
> English, 3. had a good chance of being online soon.
>
> The Babel boxes were really no help in this -- unless I'm totally out
> of the loop, I don't know of any way to do a JOIN type query in this

Wouldn't it be great if we had tags, rather than categories, and could
do queries on multiple tags at once?

Can someone come up with a decent proposal about this? Apparently lots
of other sites have them...

Having two tags "+living" "+person" makes much more sense than a
"Category:Living people". And similarly for having "+Cuban" "+Pole
vaulter" rather than "Category:Cuban pole vaulters" (especially if the
person is also Chinese, or whatever).

Steve


from_name: Ryan Lane

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at ...> writes:

> Hoi,
> The fact that every larger piece of software has bugs is a fact but it
> is not an argument when you discuss behaviour of software. The Outlook
> Express software is /designed /to be inferior to the software that you
> have to pay for; Outlook. Microsoft also has a track record of providing
> non-standard compliant software.

Not taking any sides here, but for the record, Outlook 2003 doesn't display them
correctly either. Maybe it is just a Microsoft bug in general? I recieve signed
emails all the time, and they always display fine; Brion's however, do not.

I don't really care though, if I see an email from Brion that interests me, I
use gmane's web interface.

V/r,

Ryan Lane


from_name: Joshua Griisser

body:
It's common for the anti-userbox crowd to say stuff like
"stop stressing out over it, it's just userboxes, not
real encyclopedia content". Well, the reason that I don't
follow that line of thinking is that it never stops at
just one abuse. It keeps building and building. We
currently have about half a dozen admins who show
repeated and blatant defiance for Wikipedia's community
and the consensus of that community. They are not large
in number, but they have a disproportionate amount of
influence, almost entirely malign. They are a living
argument for why we need a working desysopping process.

Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a support
vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote in
question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
for adminship.

Kelly Martin has done far more to harm Wikipedia than
Willy on Wheels ever could. By firing the first shot
in the userbox wars, she is basically the Gavrilo
Princip of Wikipedia. Frankly, even if you gave
Willy sysop powers, I doubt that he could do more
damage than our worst sysops are doing right now. These
people are like hyperactive children given a machine
gun and it is time to take their toys away before more
people get hurt.

I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
express.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
Well, most people seem to be strongly in favour of keeping their user
pages for storing work in progress or their favourite links.  My next
question:

What is the worst possible thing that could happen if no one else
could see your user page?

Apart from a couple of vague references to babel boxes, no one seems
to have indicated much that would be lost without a public userpage.

Steve

On 2/23/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Not only would a number of users simply leave (the benefits and final
> > ramifications of which I'm sure many people have many different opinions
> > on), and not only would it generate bad press from the snickering Wikipedia
> > Defeatists ("looks like Wikipedia can't allow everyone to edit it after
> > all!"  You know that'd start showing up), but the remaining people who want
> > user pages would do what [[User:Tony Sidaway]] has done, and simply
> > userpagify their talk pages (That Tony Sidaway... always sticking it to the
> > man! *;-)* ), bringing us back to square one.
>
> Um :)
>
> My talkification of my userpage (or was it the userfication of my talk
> page?) came out of boredom with a completely useless talk page.  All
> the interesting stuff is on the talk page, so why waste time
> maintaining both?
>
> Needless to say I make vastly more use of userspace than most Wikipedians.
>
> Of course this isn't about self expression at all, but about its
> reverse: uniformity and regimentation.  They must die.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> The fact that every larger piece of software has bugs is a fact but it
> is not an argument when you discuss behaviour of software.

Thank you, my point *exactely*.

> Then again you do not have to do anything, you can choose to do
> something  about it.

What I sense here is this: "see what nice features my new whizz-bang e-mail
client has. You can't read my messages? Too bad for you, it's YOUR problem
and YOU have to upgrade."

Somehow I expected a more caring and cooperative atmosphere here, since this
is a wikimedia mailinglist. Appearantly, I was wrong. Shame on me.

Well, I made my point and it seems that nobody cares. No big deal, it
happens in the real world all the time...

Confused and dissapointed greetings,

Tjipke de Vries
[[nl:Gebruiker:Tdevries]] & [[en:User:Tdevries]]


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improvements to diffs

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:
> I don't know if it varies between Wikipedia skins, but I use Classic,
> and it shows differences as red text on green or yellow.  This makes
> it hard to see minor changes like adding or removing a comma.  I've
> set up my stylesheet to show the exact changes as red on white, while
> the paragraph containing the change is black text on green or black on
> yellow.  Hard on the eyes, but it's instantly obvious what changed.

I recently added the following line to my monobook.css:

   span.diffchange { text-decoration: underline; }

It has made spotting minor changes much easier, especially in the case
of whitespace-only edits.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Deleting userpages would make editing unnecessarily hard. I'd would
> instantly kill all the notes I keep on my wiki projects. And all the links I
> keep for easy access so I don't have to search to find stuff.
>
> Basically, I can only see downsides to doing it.
>
> Mgm
>
Why can't your notes and links be kept in the project namespace?

Anthony


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
John Lee wrote:

>Often? Please. Nobody denies it's abused. But "often"?

My main problem is "Nominate for deletion based on my own ignorance."
followed by several "I agree, delete based on my own ignorance."

>Even David Gerard
>confesses that 95% of the stuff on AfD is crap that needs to go, and
>it's difficult (to say the least) to justify deletion of articles (such
>as those on garage bands) without appealing to the concept (if not the
>phrase) of non-notability.

I have nothing against deleting the truly non-notable, and perusing
the ancient scrolls reveals that Jimbo has said pretty much the same
thing.

The problem is it's horribly subjective. Check [[WP:WEB]]'s recent
edit history and the attempts of arbitrary notability bar partisans to
make it policy by assertion, despite strong opposition.

- d.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged into
the rest of the article?

And while we're at it, can we get rid of "{{PAGENAME}} in popular
culture" sections?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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Peter Mackay wrote:
>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax
>>(Wikipedia email)
>
>
>
>>They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or
>>something to suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous
>>information" or merged into the rest of the article?
>
>
> I must respectfully disagree. To many readers, these little facts add colour
> and interest to the article and can tie the main subject to other, often
> unexpected subjects. Putting them all in one section at the end of the
> article is the best place for them, because otherwise we would have to find
> appropriate places for them in the main body of the text, and it may not
> always be easy (or concise) to do this.
>
> "Trivia" is the accepted name for this sort of material. It is concise and
> descriptive.
>

Pray tell me how anything to do with (eg.) the Prime Minister of Britain
is "trivial"???

> Perhaps the question is just how trivial a factoid needs to be to be
> included. We don't need every little bit of blather.
>

So why can't it go into other sections of the article?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
Doesn't the autoblocker only kick in when one tries to edit?

On 2/23/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't. Supposedly
> > > we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take action (like
> > > changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.
> >
> >
> > I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a behavior they
> can
> > stop. An inappropriate username is an inappropriate username. In this
> > case,
> > warning just seems to be more work for the administrator when the result
> > is
> > the same either way.
> >
> > Ryan
>
>
> One little problem with that is the autoblocker - once their username is
> blocked they can't register a new name.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax
> (Wikipedia email)

> They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or
> something to suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous
> information" or merged into the rest of the article?

I must respectfully disagree. To many readers, these little facts add colour
and interest to the article and can tie the main subject to other, often
unexpected subjects. Putting them all in one section at the end of the
article is the best place for them, because otherwise we would have to find
appropriate places for them in the main body of the text, and it may not
always be easy (or concise) to do this.

"Trivia" is the accepted name for this sort of material. It is concise and
descriptive.

Perhaps the question is just how trivial a factoid needs to be to be
included. We don't need every little bit of blather.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>They look ugly and unprofessional.
>>>
>>>
>>Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
>>makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)
>>
>>
>So, you're suggesting we should leave the vandalism *in* because we're
>not being paid to remove it?
>
Vandalism??  Please review the subject line; it's about trivia.   Your
reference to vandalism is a non-sequitur.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Updating rev_deleted as a bitfield

body:
In light of the past few months' experience in what kind of revision-deletion
people would _like_ to be doing if we had it finished, I'm starting to complete
implementation of rev_deleted, changing it from the originally planned flag to a
bitfield:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bitfields_for_rev_deleted

The bitfield gives us some more options to suppress comments and usernames where
necessary while keeping them in history in more common cases.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on small
	Wikipedias

body:
Thank you for support and interest in this issue. I made the page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding where we should
continue to organize this work. I made a little bit of organization,
but all suggestions and active participation are welcome. This is a
huge area and I am sure that I forgot a lot of things.

On 1/30/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Hi, please allow me to add my 2 cts here :-)
>
> >
> > Danny mentioned in his response that a bot could do great work. Henna
> > did remark that Wikidata could make a difference. Milos mentions that
> > data may need localisation.. I want to remind you about an e-mail that
> > Sabine Cretella send to the lists. Sabine is really active in the
> > Neapolitan Wikipedia. A project much younger than the Swahili
> > wikipedia but already with 4336 articles. The secret of this success
> > is among other things that Sabine uses professional tools to translate
> > into the Neapolitan language. OmegaT, the software Sabine uses, is GPL
> > software and is what is called a CAT or Computer Aided Translation
> > tool. This allows for an efficient translation and is /not /the same
> > as Automated Translation.
>
> I am using OmegaT for things I write in Neapolitan - for the simple
> fact, that during translation I get terminology proposed, already
> translated or similar sentences are proposed etc. This has nothing to do
> with Machine Translation. What is re-used here is a glossary and the
> translations previously done.
>
> The cities of Campania were uploaded with the pywikipediabot
> (pagefromfile.py). What is lacking here: a documentation of the single
> bots and how they work - so more people could learn how to use them
> since installing python and running the bot is not soooo difficult.
>
> Back to translations with OmegaT: the advantage for languages where we
> have a community that very often lacks in having a stable Internet
> access are obvious: translations can be planned, people who can
> translate, but who maybe would not be good writers, can translate
> offline and create contents that way. Another person can care about
> uploading the translated articles, if necessary. Once there is something
> written others, who are more likely to be writors than translators can
> start editing and adapting, improving etc.
>
> We have very different people around and not many of them are real good
> writers. I myself can write about certain stuff, but that is more
> marketing text than encyclopaedic text - so for the "translation" is the
> easiest way to do things.
>
> Steps to translate articles now:
> Copy the Text from the original language wiki in a file. (This can be
> one page or 50 pages - on file per wiki page or one file with several
> wiki pages in there ... it does not really matter)
> Create the project with OmegaT (well it must be on your computer first
> and you need java on your computer as well)
> Load the file to be translated
> Copy the glossaries you have for that language in the glossary directory.
> Copy eventual Translation Memories from previous projects in the
> directory for TMs
> Reload the project
> Translate
> Save to target
> Copy and paste the translated text to the wiki
>
> Now there are some more features that can help you - this is just to
> "see" how it basically works ... then like any application it has more
> features that can help you to easen work.
>
> People who are interested in using OmegaT for Wikipedia translations
> should show up. I know that is is being used for contents on scn
> wikipedia as well. Maybe it would make sense to create a work-group for
> this tool and exchange our TM's or upload them to Commons or another
> common place. Of course the Translation memory could also be stored on a
> wiki, but that is than another step ahead.
>
> >
> > When we have Wikidata ready for prime time, we will be able to store
> > structured data about one subject. This is not a full solution as many
> > of the words used in the presentation need to be translated, maybe
> > even localised to make sense in another language. I for instance
> > always have to think if 9/11 is the ninth of November or the eleventh
> > of September; I do know of it for the event. In order to present data,
> > labels have to be translated and data may have to be localised. The
> > WiktionaryZ project will help with the labels and standards like the
> > CLDR are what define how the localisation is to be done.
> >
> > We are making steady progress with WiktionaryZ, the first alpha demo
> > project is at epov.org/wd-gemet/index.php/Main_Page (a read only
> > project for now). There is a proposal for a project at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards that intends to help
> > us where the standards prove to be not good enough. As Sabine is part
> > of the team behind OmegaT, it is being researched how OmegaT can read
> > and write directly to a Mediawiki project.
>
> Well, see above, but even if it cannot do that now: it is very helpful
> to work on it locally and offline. The only thing I'd say is important
> is a note on the wikipedia/wikibooks whatever project of the target
> language that this article is being translated by XYZ.
>
> >
> > One other aspect that is needed in new project is commitment. People
> > who express their support for a new language project should see this
> > as an indication of /their /commitment and not as an expression of
> > their opinion. When people start to work on a new project it is
> > important that like on the Neapolitan wikipedia, there are people who
> > are knowledgeable and willing to help the newbies, I hope that the IRC
> > channel #wikipedia-bootcamp can serve a role for this as well.
>
> Hmmm ... Danke f?r die Blumen :-) but really there are so many projects
> that do good :-) very often people just don't know about existing tools
> or whatever and often these could be the things that make the difference.
>
> I always like to take the African languages as an example, because they
> somewhat have the most difficult position:
> People there often do not have the same possibilities we have... well:
> even if students don't have a stable Internet connection they could well
> have huge advantages of offline versions on a CD or versions that can be
> copied on a hd or wherever you can easily store and re-write data for a
> pc. I know that often they do not even have computers like we have.
> There is that 100 usd computer for schools ... well this one would be a
> good approach also for school kids in Europe ... from the first class
> onwards (thinking about kids here where I live) ... but let's go back to
> "offline use and work"
>
> Well considering those regions where "online" is a problem students and
> capable people who would like to see their language present in wikipedia
> could become pages to translate - even a non-native speaker could care
> about the upload of the pages. And there should be one person who
> speaks/writes enough of that language to add pictures, sound etc. Then
> the ready article can go back to them, and they can distribute it among
> people.
>
> I know, now you say Wikipedia is an "online encyclopaedia" ... well, it
> might be ... but does this mean that people who do not have stable
> online access and who cannot afford it are second class and therefore
> should not get information in their language? Why should they not be
> allowed to work on such contents, read it, distribute it ...
>
> Wikipedia is about giving people encyclopaedic information in their
> language - well I see its scope much wider than that - but basically
> that's it ... so we should give it to them, right?
>
> OmegaT runs on Windows, Linux, OSX etc. so why not take up that possibility?
>
> There would be so much more to write about these things .... well let's
> take this thread as a good start :-) and let us develop strategies and
> work together.
>
> Best,
>
> Sabine
>
> *****and there is my never ending wish ... that day of at least 48 hours
> ...*****
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
> http://mail.yahoo.it
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Kat **

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banned

body:
I moved and got this account December 8, 2005. I keep on getting banned
because a vandal previously had this IP. My ISP's tech tells me I get a new
IP every couple days. They lie. I told them they lie. They say it is not
necessary to force me to a new IP (because this will be done automatically).
I have tried releasing/renewing my IP on my machine, this does not force a
new IP. I am pretty sure every time I edit, I am logged in. account:
geekybroad, error: You were blocked by Hall Monitor Reason given: returning
vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly, *12th block*; have your
system administrator contact me (see our blocking policy), IP address
wikipedia says I have: 24.66.94.140, IP address whatismpip.com says I have:
24.79.228.12. PLEASE DO NOT BAN ME SIMPLY BECAUSE I HAVE EDITED A PAGE! Take
a look at my contributions, I am obviously not a vandal. --geeky?road. meow?
23:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The last two times I have been banned, I saw nothing that could have caused
this.  I know the last time for sure, I had just made a simple typo edit on
two different pages. WHAM! Banned.

I've emailed Hall Monitor about the last two incidents but have not received
replies.  I am still currently banned.

Please, please please tell me what to do to stop this from happening again.
This has happened a few times, and I am getting really frustrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Geekybroad


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > I agree up, down, and sideways that factionalism is very, very
> > bad for the project.  But given that it has begun to take root,
> > and especially when one of the factional splits is between those
> > for and against userboxes, it's not at all clear that rampant,
> > heavyhanded deletion of userboxes (which are, after all, merely
> > a symptom of the real problem) will automatically make things
> > any better.
>
> Agree.  We should start out with statements of what the community
> wants - "please don't create or use ideological userboxes, they upset
> people".

The evidence that the community wants that is somewhat patchy

--
geni


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On Feb 23, 2006, at 6:27 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

> On sober reflection, unless we are publishing articles on ALL
> lowgrade sex
> offenders (and what Peppers is listed as doing seems to rank very
> low on the
> scale of such things) then by having an article on him, we are
> singling him
> out for demonisation and ridicule based on his looks.

Perhaps we're singling him out for neutral, unbiased coverage based
upon the widespread ridicule he has already received based on his looks?

A funny-looking sex offender isn't  notable. A gang of internet
troglodytes pointing and laughing at a funny-looking sex offender
very well may be. Being who and what they are, the troglodytes are
unlikely to provide a fair accounting as to who Brian Peppers is and
why they're making fun of him. That's supposed to be our job.

(I don't really care one way or another whether we have an article
about him, I'm just bringing these points up in fairness.)

> It's no great step to find his address on the Ohio database thing, and
> before we know it we have crowds of the Wikicurious lurking outside
> his
> house and dogging his steps when he goes shopping so as to get a
> photograph
> for GFDL uploading. "For the good of the encyclopaedia. We're here
> to write
> an encyclopaedia. Moral behaviour and civic responsibility take second
> place."

He's wheelchair-bound and lives in a nursing home.

Incidentally, I wish we did have mobs of Wikipedians out to take GFDL
photographs of people we have articles on. It would save us from a
lot of fair use problems.

> Do we really want people to be Wikipediaed in much the same way as
> websites
> are routinely Slashdotted?

If by "Wikipediaed" you mean "having a fair and neutral biography
about them written in a freely accessible online encyclopedia",
absolutely!

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