from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>LouI wrote:

>>>This is a very slippery kind of concept, sort of like the
>>>difference between 'freedom OF religion' and 'freedom FROM religion'.

>>I don't understand the analogy;
>>it might help if I knew your opinion on freedom from religion,
>>since as it is I can't even tell which way you go on that!

>Freedom from religion is the censorship of pagan
>religions (even though there is really nothing wrong
>with them), accused cults, "destructive" faiths like
>some fundimentalist Islam, and otherwise "barbaric"
>religions. Some say that these religions do not lead
>to anything constructive and just destroy things. I
>don't believe in it, but we must acknowledge that many
>do.

Interesting.  I've *never* heard the term used this way.
OTC, it's the fundamentalist Christians that *oppose* the concept,
because it means (when I've seen it) the freedom of atheist types
to avoid even nondenominational references to "God" etc
by the government in the United States.
The religious right claims that they have no such right,
since the Consitution says only "of", not "from".
The secular left responds that "freedom from" is part of "freedom of".

>Since this POV is held almost exclusively by
>Fundimentalist Christians, I suggest that we use their
>POV about what should be blocked. I'm just trying to
>be realistic here; if we blocked [[christianity]],
>that may be more NPOV, but not practical for the
>dominant wetern world. Remember: this filter is only
>optional. It is not forced on anyone.

If the filter is found on Edupedia rather than Wikipedia directly,
then I won't oppose this decision, since I won't be making it.
But here on Wikipedia, a labelling category
that covers Islam and paganism but not Christianity
would get into a lot of trouble. ^_^
(This isn't an argument against LittleDan,
who seems to like Edupedia.)

-- Toby


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>>You hit the nail on the head (sic. you are 100% right,
>>>IMO). That is why we need a bunch of external team
>>>certification/sifter projects setting their own
>>>criteria. Let them deal with these issues and let us
>>>get back to business writting a complete, accurate and
>>>NPOV encyclopedia.

>>Keeping in mind that many of "us"
>>will want to work on a Sifter/Edupedia project.

>Also that the programming would probably be much
>harder if a seperate database and web interface had to
>be created for approval.

If Edupedia follows the model that Sifter was planning on,
the main database would remain in one place, at Wikipedia.
Any separate Edupedia database would only have to specify
which Wikipedia pages (and maybe which versions)
are included in the various categories that it supports.
To some extent, a <www.edupedia.org> domain
will necessitate a separate web interface,
but of course it could be very similar to Wikipedia's.
The bulk of the data, in any case, would be together.

-- Toby


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Best to ban all religious and political sentiments that have resulted in
killing. That should do it.

Fred

> From: Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 03:00:22 -0700
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's ban 'em all. Any objections?
>
> At 04:06 PM 6/12/2003, you wrote:
>> Freedom from religion is the censorship of pagan
>> religions (even though there is really nothing wrong
>> with them), accused cults, "destructive" faiths like
>> some fundimentalist Islam, and otherwise "barbaric"
>> religions. Some say that these religions do not lead
>> to anything constructive and just destroy things. I
>> don't believe in it, but we must acknowledge that many
>> do. Since this POV is held almost exclusively by
>> Fundimentalist Christians, I suggest that we use their
>> POV about what should be blocked. I'm just trying to
>> be realistic here; if we blocked [[christianity]],
>> that may be more NPOV, but not practical for the
>> dominant wetern world. Remember: this filter is only
>> optional. It is not forced on anyone.
>> --LittleDan
>
> Well, I'm not certain that I agree with your /definition/ of freedom FROM
> religion, but I certainly like the way it sounds. I say we ban all
> dangerous cults and barbaric religions. I also think that Christianity,
> Islam, and Judaism (and any other monotheistic religions I can find...
> maybe there's some Zoroastrianists out there) should be first to be banned.
> This would, of course, be rapidly followed by all the polytheistic
> religions. Next come the animists. Lastly, any "miscellaneus" religions
> that don't fit any of the above schema should also be banned. Once those
> are out of the way, I'm sure we will all be better off.
>
> -----
> Dante Alighieri
> dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com
>
> "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
> neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
> -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deb for sysop

body:
Yep, DEB is CIA lingo for Deep Encrypted Babe.

Fred

> From: "Stevertigo" <stevertigo at attbi.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:59:53 -0700
> To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Deb for sysop
>
> I object - on the grounds that Deb may be a CIA agent - attempting to
> corrupt the collegiality and freedoms inherent to Wikipedias lack-of-command
> structure. Just because she "hasnt gotten into any rows" with people doesnt
> mean much. Agents are trained to keep a low profile.
>
> -Steven MacGrievin'
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Menchi Zh-En WP

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Chinese 'Pedia Admin, the Lack of

body:
Since the Chinese Wikipedia began over half a year ago, we have lacked any
sort of administrator. Brion VIBBER has been kindly helping us with
programming problems, but since he can't read Chinese characters, he is
unable to help us do the dirty work of cleaning up after vandalistic acts.

As we currently only have just over 200 articles, there is not much to
vandal on yet, but occasionally, repetitive vandals (mostly Anons, some
registered) grace us with annoying visits. Moreover, 2 or 3 bothersome
nonsensical (purposeful or experimental) "articles" occur daily, usually as
new articles, or worse, as additions or total replacements.

As the number of the articles increase (and it is swiftly), among other
things, more unpleasantness -- some of which we have experienced -- will
surely arrive, unfortunately. We would like to be ready for that approaching
time whose front. Discussions between existing contributors led to the
recommendation of the following five candidates, who, based on their past
actions and communications, are all deemed responsible, objective, and
therefore qualified to be Wikipedia administrators:

* Formulax of Shanghai and Singapore (966 edits since November 2002):
Biographies, philosophy, art history, international relations, etc.
* Lorenzarius of Hong Kong (569 ed. since February 2002): Mainlander
administrations (especially provincial-level), meta-documents, etc.
* Menchi of Canada and Taiwan (472 ed. since February 2002): North American
societies, overseas Chinese, Korean studies, etc.

And two impressively gung ho newbies:

* Samuel of Canton (656 ed. since May 2002): language, education, zoology,
pathology, geography, mathematics, European societies, etc.
* Shizhao of Beijing (831 ed. since May 2002): mineralogy, classical
literature, pre-modern technology, chemistry, etc.

Together, the five above made about 60% of all existing edits on the Chinese
Wikipedia.

The potential administrators represent a variety of interest, and not the
bias of a particular ideology or region or ancestry:

* Two of the above contributors use traditional Chinese, three simplified.
* Two overseas, three "internal".
* Two are raised in Cantonese environment, two Mandarin, one Wu.
* Four are bilingual in English, one Russian. Tertiary languages include
French, Spanish and German.
* Several have been active in the English Wikipedia, such as Menchi, the
63rd most active contributor there.

The last two contributors are admittedly new, but their extensive work
should show their ability and personality.

None of us know each other personally, so these nominations were based
purely on professional understanding. There are additional good writers, but
they have not yet demonstrated an overwhelming enthusiasm or a desire to
maintain the program and protect it from vandal destruction, so they were
not included in the final list above.

We would like to improve this young project and help it grow. In order to do
that, we should be able to serve the cause of Wikipedia easier and faster.
And we believe that administratorship can allow us to achieve that goal.

-- Menchi

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


from_name: root

body:
A filter can easily be put in place by filtering any article with the
word "God."  :)

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Dante Alighieri
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 6.00
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's ban 'em all. Any objections?

Well, I'm not certain that I agree with your /definition/ of freedom
FROM
religion, but I certainly like the way it sounds. I say we ban all
dangerous cults and barbaric religions. I also think that Christianity,
Islam, and Judaism (and any other monotheistic religions I can find...
maybe there's some Zoroastrianists out there) should be first to be
banned.
This would, of course, be rapidly followed by all the polytheistic
religions. Next come the animists. Lastly, any "miscellaneus" religions
that don't fit any of the above schema should also be banned. Once those

are out of the way, I'm sure we will all be better off.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Anth?re wrote:

>key word : good faith ;-) Toby
>^_^ (borrow it in good faith)
>(Well, I have been said I was a vandal on en, so what do I know after all ?)

You have been so called, but it was not accurate.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>It came up long before in discussion of album covers.
>>It seems doubtful that our usage of these images
>>is truly "fair use" in the first place
>>(a separate issue from whether it violates the GFDL).

>It doesn't seem doubtful to me.  See Kelley v. ArribaSoft on thumbnails:
>http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/IP/copyright/kelly_v_arriba_soft.htm

Right, they're thumbnails.  I forgot.  I should have looked the discussion up!

>And also: "On the other hand, in Nunez v. Caribbean International News
>Corp.,*fn22 the First Circuit found that copying a photograph that was
>intended to be used in a modeling portfolio and using it instead in a
>news article was a transformative use."

I didn't know about this!
So how come changing purpose from ?indoctrinating people?
to ?informing the public about an organisation?
isn't transformative enough for Co$'s lawyers? -_^

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] tamilsex at google

body:
Chuck Smith wrote:

>Ok, now I'm definitely making this page a redirect to
>"About this page"... or perhaps we should write an
>article in Esperanto about Tamilsex?  uhhhh...

You'd still need a redirect, since the URL is malformed.
Google's link dates back to <eo.wikipedia.com> days!
(I'm equally mystified.)

-- Toby


body:
Sounds like a nicely balanced group.

Fred

> From: "Menchi Zh-En WP" <ebeins at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 06:38:22 -0700
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Chinese 'Pedia Admin, the Lack of
>
> Since the Chinese Wikipedia began over half a year ago, we have lacked any
> sort of administrator. Brion VIBBER has been kindly helping us with
> programming problems, but since he can't read Chinese characters, he is
> unable to help us do the dirty work of cleaning up after vandalistic acts.
>
> As we currently only have just over 200 articles, there is not much to
> vandal on yet, but occasionally, repetitive vandals (mostly Anons, some
> registered) grace us with annoying visits. Moreover, 2 or 3 bothersome
> nonsensical (purposeful or experimental) "articles" occur daily, usually as
> new articles, or worse, as additions or total replacements.
>
> As the number of the articles increase (and it is swiftly), among other
> things, more unpleasantness -- some of which we have experienced -- will
> surely arrive, unfortunately. We would like to be ready for that approaching
> time whose front. Discussions between existing contributors led to the
> recommendation of the following five candidates, who, based on their past
> actions and communications, are all deemed responsible, objective, and
> therefore qualified to be Wikipedia administrators:
>
> * Formulax of Shanghai and Singapore (966 edits since November 2002):
> Biographies, philosophy, art history, international relations, etc.
> * Lorenzarius of Hong Kong (569 ed. since February 2002): Mainlander
> administrations (especially provincial-level), meta-documents, etc.
> * Menchi of Canada and Taiwan (472 ed. since February 2002): North American
> societies, overseas Chinese, Korean studies, etc.
>
> And two impressively gung ho newbies:
>
> * Samuel of Canton (656 ed. since May 2002): language, education, zoology,
> pathology, geography, mathematics, European societies, etc.
> * Shizhao of Beijing (831 ed. since May 2002): mineralogy, classical
> literature, pre-modern technology, chemistry, etc.
>
> Together, the five above made about 60% of all existing edits on the Chinese
> Wikipedia.
>
> The potential administrators represent a variety of interest, and not the
> bias of a particular ideology or region or ancestry:
>
> * Two of the above contributors use traditional Chinese, three simplified.
> * Two overseas, three "internal".
> * Two are raised in Cantonese environment, two Mandarin, one Wu.
> * Four are bilingual in English, one Russian. Tertiary languages include
> French, Spanish and German.
> * Several have been active in the English Wikipedia, such as Menchi, the
> 63rd most active contributor there.
>
> The last two contributors are admittedly new, but their extensive work
> should show their ability and personality.
>
> None of us know each other personally, so these nominations were based
> purely on professional understanding. There are additional good writers, but
> they have not yet demonstrated an overwhelming enthusiasm or a desire to
> maintain the program and protect it from vandal destruction, so they were
> not included in the final list above.
>
> We would like to improve this young project and help it grow. In order to do
> that, we should be able to serve the cause of Wikipedia easier and faster.
> And we believe that administratorship can allow us to achieve that goal.
>
> -- Menchi
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>If you spell it out in such a way that it includes explicity sexual
>>content but not explicit religious content, then how is this NPOV,
>>given an earlier poster (Ec?) that considers the latter harmful to
>>kids.  (And if Ec is joking, I have a friend that seriously believes
>>that about Christianity in particular.)
>>
>
>End users can adjust it however they like, so what's the problem?
>
I think both Erik and I had made suggestions of that sort.  I am not a
rabid advocate of censorship, and I don't believe that he is either.  I
also agree that any such censorship would be applied '''only''' at the
end user level.

The visions which Erik and I were expressing were technically very
different in the way they would function, but probably very similar in
what they would accomplish.  The capacity of these systems for
censorship is secondary and incidental.  They would work just as well if
a person wanted to censor out articles about nuclear physics or ancient
Egyptian history, or some other subject that would leave all the rest of
us scratcuing our heads.  To me the real issue is about scaling up and
indexing in a project that is growing tremendously fast.

In my particular vision of coding the end user would simply have the
opportunity to not download articles coded for sex, religion or knitting..

Ec


body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>>>If we have an Edupedia website built on a Sifter model,
>>>then schools can block Wikipedia as long as they don't block
>>>Edupedia.
>>>
>>And that would be very unfortunate, I think.
>>
>There's one question we haven't investigated yet: would our filtering
>really lower the likelihood that schools will eventually block us
>completely?
>
Of course not.  But never underestimate the will of the zealots to try.
 A year or so ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to allow three books
depicting homosexual families to be used in the schools.  Just yesterday
the same suburban Vancouver school board again voted to ban the same
three books on the grounds that the spelling and grammar in them were
not up to standards.  They never stop trying.  We can't hope to convince
all school districts to not block us.  On the other hand, the gratuitous
publicity always helps our cause.  We only have to insist that they
spell the name correctly.

>I doubt that we could ever create a system that even comes close to
>preventing school kids from getting the Wikipedia content they want.
>At one point, a school administrator will find objectionable content in
>Wikipedia, will investigate the filtering option with the various
>categories, and will realize that kids can still get to the
>objectionable pages, e.g. by typing in the direct URL. Then our whole
>domain will be blocked.
>
Yup!  And the greater the fuss by the administrator, the more the kids
will be encouraged to hack their way to the site.  Nevertheless, many
won't even bother with the school computers when they have more
sophisticated equipment at home.

Ec


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>>Toby Bartels wrote:
>>
>>>If you spell it out in such a way that it includes explicity sexual
>>>content but not explicit religious content, then how is this NPOV,
>>>given an earlier poster (Ec?) that considers the latter harmful to
>>>kids.  (And if Ec is joking, I have a friend that seriously believes
>>>that about Christianity in particular.)
>>>
>>End users can adjust it however they like, so what's the problem?
>>
>
>If end users have to adjust for themselves
>which articles are labelled "mature content",
>then (depending on what this means), either:
>* We abandon NPOV for the label at any single given moment,
>  and instead the next person to come along adjusts it to their own POV,
>  without any security that this will last more than a minute; or
>* The user can't use the "mature content" label
>  without going through the whole site and labelling everything.
>(The first bullet point assumes a single global labelling,
>while the second assumes individual labelling for each content provider.)
>
I prefer individual article labelling with the capacity for an article
to have more than one label.  The labels themselves would be just as
editable as the articles, and just as subject to edit wars.  I can live
without the security of hard wired labels.  Once labels were adopted,
there should be no need for a mass movement to label everything
immediately.  The default label "unlabelled" could likely be implemented
by the software, as a searchable label.  Those inclined to do housework
could go ahead and apply labels when they felt so inspired.

Ec


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>>That is why we need a bunch of external team
>>certification/sifter projects setting their own
>>criteria. Let them deal with these issues and let us
>>get back to business writting a complete, accurate and
>>NPOV encyclopedia.
>>
>
>Keeping in mind that many of "us"
>will want to work on a Sifter/Edupedia project.
>
... or project'''s'''.  That's fine.  It's just another fork.  That
project will develop editorial policies of its own, and will attract its
own supporters.  It all seems like a natural evolution to me.  I would
most likely stay here with the Grandpa-Wiki project, but that's just a
personal preference not much different from the choice to work on an
other laguage Wiki.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Menchi Zh-En WP wrote:
> Discussions between existing contributors led to the
> recommendation of the following five candidates, who, based on their past
> actions and communications, are all deemed responsible, objective, and
> therefore qualified to be Wikipedia administrators:
[snip]
> * Formulax
> * Lorenzarius
> * Menchi
> * Samuel
> * Shizhao

...are now sysops on zh.wikipedia.org.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>Freedom from religion is the censorship of pagan
>religions (even though there is really nothing wrong
>with them), accused cults, "destructive" faiths like
>some fundimentalist Islam, and otherwise "barbaric"
>religions. Some say that these religions do not lead
>to anything constructive and just destroy things. I
>don't believe in it, but we must acknowledge that many
>do. Since this POV is held almost exclusively by
>Fundimentalist Christians, I suggest that we use their
>POV about what should be blocked. I'm just trying to
>be realistic here; if we blocked [[christianity]],
>that may be more NPOV, but not practical for the
>dominant wetern world. Remember: this filter is only
>optional. It is not forced on anyone.
>
This is not at all how I would define the difference between freedom
"of" and "from" religion.

Freedom of religion is the right to practise the religion you prefer.

Freedom from religion is the right not to have a religion (including a
state religion) imposed upon you.  Any country that has been established
on the basis of a particular religious belief is bound to have problems
with this.

Ec


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>Well, only a few people want to work on the [[Republic
>of Ireland]] ariticle, maybe it should be moved off to
>a seperate 'Irepedia'.
>
I'm sure that there are some of us who take Irish subjects very
seriously.  Probably as many or more will work on them as on many of our
individual language pedias.  It would be an unfortunate discrimination
to marginalize the Irish onto an "Encyclopedia of Anger" :-)

Ec.


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>No, Edupedia would be on a seperate domain
>(edupedia.org, not yet owned) to prevent just that
>blocking.
>
If that domain really isn't owned perhaps one of the interested people
should take steps to secure it.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Menchi Zh-En WP wrote:
> > Discussions between existing contributors led to
> the
> > recommendation of the following five candidates,
> who, based on their past
> > actions and communications, are all deemed
> responsible, objective, and
> > therefore qualified to be Wikipedia
> administrators:
> [snip]
> > * Formulax
> > * Lorenzarius
> > * Menchi
> > * Samuel
> > * Shizhao

I loved that mail

So rich in cultural difference

wikismile

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's ban 'em all. Any objections?

body:
root wrote:

>A filter can easily be put in place by filtering any article with the
>word "God."  :)
>
And since the backward spelling is really an encrypted code for the same
word, we may as well do the same with the word "dog". :-)

Ec


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sysop Request

body:
I, Ilyanep (on wikipedia), would like to requests Sysop privelages.

For many reasons can you trust me to be a sysop.

1. Check my contributions, which you will find to all be positive
2. Check my time here, I've familiarized myself with the wikipedia, and
know this place like the back of my hand
3. You've probably seen me around

So, if you don't like anything about me, then what?


subject: [WikiEN-l] replying to posts

body:
I'm not using the NNTP way for the lists, I'm using the other way, so
how do I reply to posts?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] replying to posts


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

body:
Marco Krohn was kind enough to email RMS on this fair use issue.

Marco asked:
>>While discussing (on the mailing list wikitech-l at wikipedia.org) the
>>usage of "fair use" images/music a lengthy discussion came up if it is
>>compatible with GFDL to use "fair use" images at all.

RMS responded:
>If the use of these images is truly fair use, then it is ok
>regardless of what license you use for your work.
>
>Whether this use of the images is truly fair use, that I don't know.

Marco:
>>This is surely covered by the "fair use" right of the United States, but is
>>the resulting article including the citation still compatible with GFDL?

RMS:
>Yes.  I don't think there is really an issue here.

Additionally, RMS doesn't seem to think we need to rely at all on the
aggregation argument, and finds that aspect of things confusing.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Deb For sysop

body:
Given her immense workload and quality of her contributions to wiki, I
would
like to propose Deb to be a sysop. She is one of the best contributors to
wiki; thorough, factual, straight-thinking, etc. I think the high standards
of excellence she has contributed to wiki would make her an ideal sysop and
it is a pleasure to nominate her. In fact I had always presumed she was one
until she asked me as a sysop to do something because she could not do it
herself. That I believe should be rectified immediately.

JT.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Seconded


subject: [Wikipedia-l] tamilsex at google

body:
Chuck Smith wrote:

>Ok, now I'm definitely making this page a redirect to
>"About this page"... or perhaps we should write an
>article in Esperanto about Tamilsex?  uhhhh...
>
Wouldn't ignoring it be better?  Creating a redirect implies that we
want this to link somewhere rather than having it just go away.

Ray


body:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Anthere wrote:
[snip]
> I loved that mail
>
> So rich in cultural difference

Menchi was eloquent enough for the both of us, what more could I add? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ilya N

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Reclaim the Public Domain Petition

body:
wow, over 12,000 signatures!

jansson at gmx.net wrote:
> "jansson at gmx.net" sends you the enclosed page from one of the Artifice web sites:
>
>    http://www.PetitionOnline.com/eldred/petition.html
>
>     **    **    **
>
> Personal comments from "jansson@":
>
> Everybody who has ever uploaded a puplic domain image or used the old Britannica should put Wikipedia in the "Something I Created Using Public Domain" field.
>
> Kurt
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> <http://www.PetitionOnline.com/petition.html>
>
> *Reclaim the Public Domain*
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> View Current Signatures
> <http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?eldred>   -   Sign
> the Petition <petition-sign.html>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     To:  Members of the United States Congress
>
>     We, the undersigned, while believing in the importance of copyright,
>     also believe in the importance of the public domain. We believe the
>     public domain is crucial to the spread of knowledge and culture, and
>     crucial in assuring access to our past. We therefore write to
>     petition you to reconsider major changes that you have made to the
>     copyright system. These changes unnecessarily threaten the public
>     domain without any corresponding benefit to copyright holders.
>
>     In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
>     (CTEA). That Act extended the term of all existing copyrights by 20
>     years. But as Justice Breyer calculated, only 2% of the work
>     copyrighted during the initial 20 years affected by this statute has
>     any continuing commercial value at all. The balance has disappeared
>     from the commercial marketplace, and, we fear, could disappear from
>     our culture generally.
>
>     For example: The vast majority of film created during the 1920s and
>     1930s is not commercially available. Because of the CTEA, much of it
>     remains under copyright. Yet because it is often impossible to track
>     down the copyright owners for these films, commercial and
>     noncommercial preservationist and distributors cannot safely restore
>     and distribute these films. And because these films were made from
>     nitrate-based stock, by the time the copyright to these films
>     expire, most of them will have dissolved.
>
>     The same is true with many other copyrighted works that are no
>     longer commercially available. Though the Internet could facilitate
>     the distribution of this work if the copyright owners could be
>     identified, the costs of locating these copyright owners is wildly
>     prohibitive. Schools and libraries are thus denied access to works
>     that otherwise could be made available at a very low cost.
>
>     Such burdens on access to work that has no continuing commercial
>     value serves no legitimate copyright purpose. It certainly does not
>     "promote the Progress of Science" as the Constitution requires. We
>     therefore ask Congress to consider changes to the current regime
>     that would free unused content from continued regulation, while
>     respecting the rights of existing copyright owners.
>
>     One solution in particular that we ask Congress to consider is the
>     Public Domain Enhancement Act. See http://eldred.cc
>     <http://eldred.cc> This statute would require American copyright
>     owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty years after a
>     copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the
>     copyright will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. But if
>     the copyright is not worth even $1 to the owner, then we believe the
>     work should pass into the public domain.
>
>     This legislation would strengthen the public domain without
>     burdening copyright owners. It would also help clarify rights over
>     copyrighted material, which in turn would enable reuse of that
>     material. The law could thus help restore balance to the protection
>     of copyright, and support the public domain.
>
>     We therefore call upon Congress to introduce this legislation, and
>     to hold hearings on the benefits that it might have to reviving a
>     vibrant public domain.
>
>     When technologists have given us a tool that could spread knowledge
>     universally, we should not allow the law to get in the way. The law
>     does so now. This Congress should change it.
>
>     Sincerely,
>
>     The Undersigned
>     <http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?eldred>
>
> View Current Signatures
> <http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?eldred>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Possible cause of slowdowns: saving pages with lotsa links

body:
During times when Wikipedia otherwise responds promptly, saving a
modification to [[List of mathematical topics]] takes upwards of five
minutes, and during that time other Wikipedia searches often also
block. (Please do *not* try it out, take my word for it.)

The page contains about 4,300 links, used to keep track of changes in
the math area with the "Related Changes" feature.

Axel

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from_name: John Knouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Foto formatting

body:
I'm often seeing fotos embedded with this kind of tagging:
<div
style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;text-align:center">
Unfortunately, the foto almost invariably then collides with
the text or ruins the formatting of a table.  This just
doesn't seem to work.  I've changed a number of these to
simple html image tagging or table cells to resolve
collisions.

--
John Knouse
jaknouse at frognet.net


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Foto formatting

body:
--- John Knouse <jaknouse at frognet.net> wrote:
> I'm often seeing fotos embedded with this kind of
> tagging:
>

style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;text-align:center">
> Unfortunately, the foto almost invariably then
> collides with
> the text or ruins the formatting of a table.  This
> just
> doesn't seem to work.  I've changed a number of
> these to
> simple html image tagging or table cells to resolve
> collisions.

Oh, I didn't know it didn't work on some browsers. I
usually do
, but in the
future, I'll use a table.
--LittleDan

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body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
> >Well, only a few people want to work on the
> [[Republic
> >of Ireland]] ariticle, maybe it should be moved off
> to
> >a seperate 'Irepedia'.
> >
> I'm sure that there are some of us who take Irish
> subjects very
> seriously.  Probably as many or more will work on
> them as on many of our
> individual language pedias.  It would be an
> unfortunate discrimination
> to marginalize the Irish onto an "Encyclopedia of
> Anger" :-)
>
> Ec.

Similarly, only some of us are interested in keeping
Wikipedia banned from schools.

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body:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> Similarly, only some of us are interested in keeping
> Wikipedia banned from schools.

Have you talked to your school board about their filtering policy?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> >>That is why we need a bunch of external team
> >>certification/sifter projects setting their own
> >>criteria. Let them deal with these issues and let
> us
> >>get back to business writting a complete, accurate
> and
> >>NPOV encyclopedia.
> >>
> >
> >Keeping in mind that many of "us"
> >will want to work on a Sifter/Edupedia project.
> >
> ... or project'''s'''.  That's fine.  It's just
> another fork.  That
> project will develop editorial policies of its own,
> and will attract its
> own supporters.  It all seems like a natural
> evolution to me.  I would
> most likely stay here with the Grandpa-Wiki project,
> but that's just a
> personal preference not much different from the
> choice to work on an
> other laguage Wiki.
>
> Ec

But we don't want a fork. In a  firk, we'd have to
rewrite (or copy) the whole encyclopedia. We don't
want to do that. We want to stay here. We just want to
make it *optional* to filter out objectionable
content.
-LittleDan

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

body:
Good news!

We'll still want to mark "fair use" materials as such and cite all
sources, naturally.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Marco Krohn was kind enough to email RMS on this fair use issue.
>
> Marco asked:
> >>While discussing (on the mailing list wikitech-l at wikipedia.org) the
> >>usage of "fair use" images/music a lengthy discussion came up if it is
> >>compatible with GFDL to use "fair use" images at all.
>
> RMS responded:
> >If the use of these images is truly fair use, then it is ok
> >regardless of what license you use for your work.
> >
> >Whether this use of the images is truly fair use, that I don't know.
>
> Marco:
> >>This is surely covered by the "fair use" right of the United States, but is
> >>the resulting article including the citation still compatible with GFDL?
>
> RMS:
> >Yes.  I don't think there is really an issue here.
>
> Additionally, RMS doesn't seem to think we need to rely at all on the
> aggregation argument, and finds that aspect of things confusing.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > Similarly, only some of us are interested in
> keeping
> > Wikipedia banned from schools.
>
> Have you talked to your school board about their
> filtering policy?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

oops, I mean keeping wikipedia from being banned from schools.

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body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >Toby Bartels wrote:
> >
> >>If you spell it out in such a way that it includes
> explicity sexual
> >>content but not explicit religious content, then
> how is this NPOV,
> >>given an earlier poster (Ec?) that considers the
> latter harmful to
> >>kids.  (And if Ec is joking, I have a friend that
> seriously believes
> >>that about Christianity in particular.)
> >>
> >
> >End users can adjust it however they like, so
> what's the problem?
> >
> I think both Erik and I had made suggestions of that
> sort.  I am not a
> rabid advocate of censorship, and I don't believe
> that he is either.  I
> also agree that any such censorship would be applied
> '''only''' at the
> end user level.
>
> The visions which Erik and I were expressing were
> technically very
> different in the way they would function, but
> probably very similar in
> what they would accomplish.  The capacity of these
> systems for
> censorship is secondary and incidental.  They would
> work just as well if
> a person wanted to censor out articles about nuclear
> physics or ancient
> Egyptian history, or some other subject that would
> leave all the rest of
> us scratcuing our heads.  To me the real issue is
> about scaling up and
> indexing in a project that is growing tremendously
> fast.
>
> In my particular vision of coding the end user would
> simply have the
> opportunity to not download articles coded for sex,
> religion or knitting..
>
> Ec

I think a built-in category system would be very
useful for other purposes, too. But I still think that
we would benefit from having a seperate domain where
certain things were by-default blocked.
--LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Deb For sysop

body:
--- "Ilya N." <ilyanep at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Given her immense workload and quality of her
> contributions to wiki, I
> would
> like to propose Deb to be a sysop. She is one of the
> best contributors to
> wiki; thorough, factual, straight-thinking, etc. I
> think the high standards
> of excellence she has contributed to wiki would make
> her an ideal sysop and
> it is a pleasure to nominate her. In fact I had
> always presumed she was one
> until she asked me as a sysop to do something
> because she could not do it
> herself. That I believe should be rectified
> immediately.
>
> JT.
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> -- Seconded
>

Third

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Categories: An implementation

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >>Currently, anyone can add and delete categories. I
> suggest that this will be
> >>restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a
> "category inflation",

I suggest that we also limit article creation to
sysops as well to avoid articles inflation :-)

And non sysops can quietly go on creating lists as
they are currently doing. We don't really need
categories anyway. Lists are fine.

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body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> If Edupedia follows the model that Sifter was
> planning on,
> the main database would remain in one place, at
> Wikipedia.
> Any separate Edupedia database would only have to
> specify
> which Wikipedia pages (and maybe which versions)
> are included in the various categories that it
> supports.
> To some extent, a <www.edupedia.org> domain
> will necessitate a separate web interface,
> but of course it could be very similar to
> Wikipedia's.
> The bulk of the data, in any case, would be
> together.
>
>
> -- Toby

Jimbo already said (I think) that he would be willing
to host a project like edupedia. And we certainly
can't have the reviewing and viewing on the same
domain, because that would defeat the purpose. Plus,
edupedia wouldn't follow the same model at all. We'd
actually make a blacklist, not a whitelist like
sifter. That's kinda a non-sequetor, though.
--LDan

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from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mailing list discussions in general

body:
Korekt mi yf A'em rang -

Does'nt it seem like group discussions in general follow a nice pattern - of
starting out with problems/assumptions/assumed problems/problematic
assumptions - and then they finally boil down to their real essence after a
couple of deiz?

The essence usually falls into the categories of - unfeasible/feasible -
resonable/uneasonable - POV/NPOV - constitutional/unconstitutional (meaning
the WP constitution ).  Just sorting these basic things out, I think is hard
sometimes - and its good to have a sorta way of explaining these fundamental
problems in discussions that get in the way before any discussion takes
place.

-S


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikipedia-l] tamilsex actress babilona?

body:
Today I looked at the stats for the Esperanto
Wikipedia and I noticed that the 7th most visited page
is  /wiki/tamilsex+actress+babilona  This page doesn't
exist, so how can it be the most visited?!  I also
checked on google and they list no site linking to
that page.  Anyone have any ideas why this is
happening?  Would it be a good idea to make it a
redirect to
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio:About_this_page
since 504 people have visited this page, this month?!
Strange, very strange...

Thanks for your help,
Chuck

=====
Learn Esperanto - http://www.lernu.net/
My homepage - http://www.amuzulo.net/
TEJO-Vikio - http://www.tejo.org/vikio/
Enciklopedio - http://eo.wikipedia.org/

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] tamilsex at google

body:
Ok, I don't understand this one bit.  Searching google
for "tamilsex" brings back as #15 result:

Redaktante Tamilsex actress babilona
Priskribu la novan pagxon cxiloke. Resumo: Bonvolu
noti, ke cxiu kontribuajxo al
la Vikipedio estu konsiderata eldonita laux la GNU
Free Documentation License. ...
test-eo.wikipedia.com/wiki/
tamilsex+actress+babilona&action=edit - 6k - Cached -
Similar pages

Ok, now I'm definitely making this page a redirect to
"About this page"... or perhaps we should write an
article in Esperanto about Tamilsex?  uhhhh...

Confused,
Chuck

=====
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My homepage - http://www.amuzulo.net/
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Enciklopedio - http://eo.wikipedia.org/

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from_name: David Levinson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Categories

body:
Some time ago it was proposed to develop trees from the Wikipedia Main
Page, so that one could identify categories based on their propinquity
to main page topics. So for instance, [[highway]] which is linked from
[[transport]] would be classified as [[category:transport]] (pages
could of course have multiple categories, with degrees of separation
from the various main page articles noted, some cut off (number of
degrees away > 5 perhaps, would be used). (e.g. [[category:blah,
degrees:2]]

This function would be automated (or semi-automated), which some may
say is not sufficiently wiki; on the other hand, it would allow us to
come up with a first cut classification for 130000 articles, which will
take a bit of time by hand.

I believe this was done for [[philosophy]]. See [[List of philosophical
topics]]

What is the status of  [[Wikipedia:Category experiment]]

David Levinson


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Filters only work if articles are assigned to categories. Setting aside wether we should use categories in wikipedia itself or only in some sifter project, categories have to be implemented in the software either way. So I hacked a barebone implementation at the test site. A list of current categories can be found at
>
>http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3ACategories
>
>
>
...

>Thoughts? Comments? Bullets? ;-)
>
>Magnus
>
At the moment, a sort of "category" function is being performed by the
lists on the en wiki called "List of XXX topics", for various values of
XXX.  These are just "dumb" pages, with no special software support,
maintained by hand.

Your category suggestion, so far,  just  automates these lists. I agree
that a proper category/scoring framework would be great, but it needs to
be more general than this. Category membership is a special case of
scoring, a much more powerful concept. For example, I'd like to be able
to cast a vote for the completeness or authoritativeness of an article.

Two comments:
* An old suggestion is magic non-displaying "[[Category:XXX]]" links
that could be put in articles to put them in a category.
* One nice thing that can be done with the dumb lists is to link to
not-yet-created articles, effectively creating category-based to-do lists.

 Regards,

Neil


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Filters only work if articles are assigned to categories. Setting aside wether we should use categories in wikipedia itself or only in some sifter project, categories have to be implemented in the software either way. So I hacked a barebone implementation at the test site. A list of current categories can be found at

http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3ACategories

Currently, anyone can add and delete categories. I suggest that this will be restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a "category inflation", as well as malicious deletion of a whole category.

Anyone can assign any article to any category, and remove that assignment as well. Wiki, right? :-)

Currently, categories are *not* shown on the article page, although I have written that code (keep getting some weird effect, though, so I turned it off).

To be done:
* Personal category filters
* Search for a category combination (in the example online, "Biology" and "Germany" should list "Anton de Bary")

Thoughts? Comments? Bullets? ;-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admins: Revert

body:
First, Wikipedians on the Chinese WP would like to thank all who supported
the presence of Chinese-speaking administrators.

The admins have a question:

We thought as an admin, one can revert vandalism much more quickly, with a
click of a button or two. But we found no such a thing, and still have to
revert by the old way, i.e., History -> click on old version -> edit ->
save.

I once heard mav said, as an admin, that he can revert in 5 seconds or
something, but the four-step way takes _at least_ 15 seconds, assuming you
have cable and WP isn't slowed down.

Thanks for answering.

Mench

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admins: Revert

body:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Menchi Zh-En WP wrote:
> First, Wikipedians on the Chinese WP would like to thank all who supported
> the presence of Chinese-speaking administrators.
>
> The admins have a question:
>
> We thought as an admin, one can revert vandalism much more quickly, with a
> click of a button or two. But we found no such a thing, and still have to
> revert by the old way, i.e., History -> click on old version -> edit ->
> save.

Should be a 'rollback' (or localized name?) link in the user contributions
display, next to any edit that is the most recent edit on that article.

If it's not there, let me know.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> > --- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> >
> >>Erik Moeller wrote:
> >>
> >>>>Currently, anyone can add and delete categories.
> I
> >>suggest that this will be
> >>>>restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a
> >>"category inflation",
> >
> > I suggest that we also limit article creation to
> > sysops as well to avoid articles inflation :-)
>
> So funny.

:-)

> "Category inflation" will be counter-productive. The
> whole *point* of
> categories is to group large number of articles into
> them. If we had
> 130000 categories for 130000 articles, it would not
> really do any good,
> would it?

Not, it would not.

Just as it would not be good to have 10 articles on
gmo (say). But the creation of list could work exactly
how the creation of articles exist right now. With a
quantitative and qualitative community driven control
process. Anyone can create a list, and add or remove
articles in the list. Quick and easy. And discuss if
there is disagreement.

Similarly, anyone could create a new category. And
anyone could contest that creation. And perhaps a
sysop delete it after common agreement that the
category is not necessary.

The current process is that everyone has an equal
right of creation and edition of articles.

You just suggest that we give up some of wikipedia
openness and very concept, just for the fear of an
event that could very well be handled through peer
pressure and votes for deletion.

> And how should filtering be done if we have
> categories "adult", "sex",
> "sexual content", "sexually explicit", etc. all for
> the same thing? If
> we want to make it an option to block "sex stuff",
> it has to be one
> option (maybe two at max), not a dozen or more.

Depends. If we only provide the tool, and end users
(such as a school) decide what is to put on the
"censored list", only one category is necessary. If
Wikipedia itself set the content of the "sexually
explicit" list, I think we will need dozens of lists.
Because clearly not everyone here will agree on what
has to be on the list, and what has not to be.

> > And non sysops can quietly go on creating lists as
> > they are currently doing. We don't really need
> > categories anyway. Lists are fine.
>
> Today, someone talked on one of the mailing lists
> about one of your
> lists that took five minutes to save and slowed down
> the whole 'pedia
> significantly.

Yes. That is a big problem. But just as it is wrong
that a non-sysop user has to go begging and waiting
for the good will of a sysop to put a link on the main
page (*this* is counter productive), I think it wrong
that regular users have to go begging a sysop to
create a category for them. If I want to have a
category about sustainable agriculture articles, and
there is no sysop caring about the topic, would I
really have to spent hours trying to find one
cooperative enough to make it for me ? I don't think
so. Again, this is counter productive.
I predict lists will go on existing if categories are
sysops restricted only.

> Categories are my implementation of the filtering
> issue, something that
> would be quite difficult with lists. It could also
> work to tag images as
> "GFDL", "public domain" or "fair use". It can also
> replace the lists.
> So, if we implement a filtering option anyway, why
> not use the opportunity?
>
> Magnus

I agree tagging images as gfdl, public domain or fair
use, or tagging text as copyrighted is very
interesting. But a sysop restricted categories to
replace open-to-any-editor lists is bad.

And I did not understand the filtering option had been
decided really.

Cheers. Ant

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from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>>Keeping in mind that many of "us"
>>>will want to work on a Sifter/Edupedia project.

>>... or project'''s'''.  That's fine.  It's just another fork.

>But we don't want a fork. In a  firk, we'd have to
>rewrite (or copy) the whole encyclopedia. We don't
>want to do that. We want to stay here. We just want to
>make it *optional* to filter out objectionable
>content.

Right, we only have to fork filtering schemes,
not the article database, which would remain together.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Foto formatting

body:
I usually don't use fotos :)

John Knouse wrote:
> I'm often seeing fotos embedded with this kind of tagging:
> <div
> style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;text-align:center">
> Unfortunately, the foto almost invariably then collides with
> the text or ruins the formatting of a table.  This just
> doesn't seem to work.  I've changed a number of these to
> simple html image tagging or table cells to resolve
> collisions.
>
> --
> John Knouse
> jaknouse at frognet.net


from_name: Kai Kumpf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] semantic wikipedia?

body:
Hi all
has anyone ever considered overlaying Wikipedia with a kind of ontology as offered by e.g. Roget's Thesaurus or, even better: OpenCyc? I personally guess that this would boost Wikipedia's usefulness enormously.
Regards

Hallo
hat schon mal jemand darueber nachgedacht, ob oder wie man Wikipedia nicht mit einer Ontologie, wie sie in Thesauri zu finden ist, oder public domain wie in OpenCyc? Ich vermute, dass der Nutzwert von Wikipedia dadurch einen immensen Schub erfahren wuerde.
Gruessle

kku


body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

>If no developer is motivated to create a "interlanguage:" or "meta:"
>namespace for them let's mount a "put all interlanguage links below
>article text" campaign. Or is this something the bots could hunt?

I do this already.

I also put a comment before tables:

<!-- To edit the main text of the article, skip past this table. -->

-- Toby


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Magnus Manske wrote:

>>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>>All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more.

>>Been there, had it implemented. Long time ago (Phase II, IIRC). No want,
>>no need, too complicated.

>Then your implementation was obviously in need of improvement ;->.

I'm pretty sure that the objection to Magnus' implementation
was more "No want, no need" than "too complicated".

You could code your version up to, Erik,
and we'll try them both out on [[test:]]!
^_^

-- Toby


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Magnus-
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3ACategories

> Currently, anyone can add and delete categories. I suggest that this will be
> restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a "category inflation",

Please, let's not have another ability that is restricted to sysops.
Wikipedia is supposed to be open.

> Anyone can assign any article to any category,

How? I see no information on how to do this.

All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more. I'm not
too worried about separating this kind of meta information from articles,
IMHO it belongs there. This makes all changes to the categorization
- listed in recent changes
- diffable
- easy to revert
It would also be trivial to use the existing links tables for category
management under that scheme.

The reason interlanguage links are so annoying is not that they are mixed
with articles, but that they are needlessly redundant. I think someone
proposed an interesting solution to that problem a few months ago (hint,
hint).

Regards,

Erik


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>>Currently, anyone can add and delete categories. I suggest that this will be
>>restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a "category inflation",
>>
>>
>
>Please, let's not have another ability that is restricted to sysops.
>Wikipedia is supposed to be open.
>

Well, let's say we have carefully searched and tagged each and every
"sexually explicit" article in the 'pedia as such. Then user:Michael
(lacking a better example) comes along and deletes the category. All
work for nothing. All tags are gone.
Yes, in a perfect world we'd have undelete here as well, but limiting
access to sysops seems an acceptable intermediate solution as well.

>>Anyone can assign any article to any category,
>>
>>
>
>How? I see no information on how to do this.
>
Next to "printable version", there's a link "Categories". Try that one.

>All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more.
>
Been there, had it implemented. Long time ago (Phase II, IIRC). No want,
no need, too complicated. Gone now.
Really, I'm trying to get rid of the language links in the future, why
add another obstacle? It's a mess as it is ;-)

> I'm not
>too worried about separating this kind of meta information from articles,
>IMHO it belongs there. This makes all changes to the categorization
>- listed in recent changes
>- diffable
>- easy to revert
>It would also be trivial to use the existing links tables for category
>management under that scheme.
>
Most of this only shows that we need to improve Recent Changes...
Seriously: diffable is no argument, if the article text is not changed
(as in my implementation). It should show on RC, but that's a problem
with RC, IMHO. Reverting is easy with my solution as well (try it).

>The reason interlanguage links are so annoying is not that they are mixed
>with articles, but that they are needlessly redundant. I think someone
>proposed an interesting solution to that problem a few months ago (hint,
>hint).
>
I don't recall...
I still have the code of *my* implementation in the test wiki, if that's
what you mean. I just can't find the database structure anymore :-(

Magnus


from_name: Menchi Zh-En WP

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
"Karl Eichwalder" wrote:
>Is such a 'rollback' button reserved for so called sysops only?  If
>"yes", I wouldd be a second class editor (and all the non-sysops,
>too) -- no good.

Rollbacks are easily abused, especially by those banned users: L-, M-, and
their split personalities.

Menchi Zh-En

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:

>Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> writes:
>
>
>
>>Should be a 'rollback' (or localized name?) link in the user contributions
>>display, next to any edit that is the most recent edit on that article.
>>
>>
>
>Is such a 'rollback' button reserved for so called sysops only?  If
>"yes", I wouldd be a second class editor (and all the non-sysops,
>too) -- no good.
>
Yes. But it doesn't do anything more than any user -- logged in or not
-- can do with three extra clicks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Foto formatting

body:
james duffy wrote:

> AAAAAGH. That tab command drives my screen nuts, it has frozen the
> screen twice when using Explorer. It has made a complete muck of pages
> on my netscape. In fact that bloody tab command is one of the reasons
> I had to stop using both browsers completely and go to safari. Far
> from using that command, we should be binning it.
>
> So please don't use the tab command until it has been established what
> the problem is, is it an isolated browser problem, is it because
> images are too big, that the command left out the width specification
> or because your preferences are set to justify? In /fixing/ your image
> (as I did fixing the image on the Robert Mugabe page) you may actually
> be producing a solution that actually doesn't work at all for anyone
> else and completely muck up the image for all other browsers.

Some of us remember the days when typewriters would work without the
inconvenience of having to be plugged into a wall.  There was no problem
with tabs then. :-)

Ec


from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
I normally wouldn't say this, because I am quite Christian myself,
but I agree we need a 'pedia with NO religion entries, except for
historical articles on the religion as one would find in a history
textbook, and in the same vein NO explicit topics, or anything of
that sort - we should have a separate, school-topics-only Wiki
encyclopedia for use at schools or other filtered environments.

The Wikipedia as a whole, as the large project to create a
comprehensive encyclopedia, is doing quite well in that respect.
If it wants to even implicitly support fair use and challenge
filters, let it do so. ''However'', these cannot be the goals
of a project that wants to serve as a research reference and
educational source for schoolchildren. And I think that there
should be such a project, even if it is not the Wikipedia.

I see so far three (ok, 2.5) reasons to implement filters: 1) to
protect the Wikipedia from a site-wide censor, 2) to protect those
who shouldn't see some content (this point is debatable), and 3) to
protect those who don't want to see some content. I realize now that
the first reason cannot be effectively implemented without impeding
the Wikipedia's larger goals. The second, apparently, is loaded with
too much POV (though I still don't see why we have to ''not'' censor
content because some people might censor ''too much''...). The third
I still believe should be implementable. Surely there can be no
subjectivity in labeling [[Transubstantiation]] as "Christianity",
and people like Toby Bartel's friend (was it?) can easily block that
for him/herself and his/her kids. Leave the "dangerous" stuff there,
just '''allow''' us (don't '''force''' us) to block it - why not?

Thus, in order to develop a useful reference for schools, I do believe
we have to run a separate project (Edupedia, PediaPedia, WiKidPedia,
call it what you may) with the rule of '''no''' religion, '''no'''
explicit content, etc. - go to the [[Wikipedia]] for those. As long
as Wikipedia is still not banned, it should suffice. But if/when
it becomes blocked, we should be able to have the benefits of a
Wiki encyclopedia, even behind school firewalls, NetNanny, etc.

So I think at some point we'll either have to fork or implement some
type of good Sifter - and for a school-targeted encyclopedia, forking
the necessary content seems better. Or, we could even start from scratch
with a new encyclopedia and have it as a separate sister project, written
at a slightly lower reading level and focusing on a separate set of
subjects.

Is there any Sifter code available? Is there a way to download, in a
serveable form, only selected articles without taking the entire 1GB tarball?

-[[User:Geoffrey]] Thomas

=====
-Geoffrey Thomas
geoffreyerffoeg at yahoo.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Other encyclopedias taking notice?

body:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2003 sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca wrote:

> As Wikipedia becomes more well known in the mainstream, the
> established players may stop ignoring us and go on a direct
> offensive. That should be interesting.

A better sign that we're entering the mainstream is that Wikipedia
is being used as a source by mainstream news organization (including the
Sydney Morning Herald (Aus), the Associated Press (USA) and The Guardian
(UK))

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Youandme

body:
On 13 Jun 2003 at 10:58, Anthere wrote:

>
> --- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> > On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Menchi Zh-En WP wrote:
> > > Discussions between existing contributors led to the
> > > recommendation of the following five candidates,
> > who, based on their past
> > > actions and communications, are all deemed
> > responsible, objective, and
> > > therefore qualified to be Wikipedia administrators:
> > [snip]
> > > * Formulax
> > > * Lorenzarius
> > > * Menchi
> > > * Samuel
> > > * Shizhao
>
>
> I loved that mail

Me too!

> So rich in cultural difference
>
> wikismile

sending bigger wikismile
 |\
:| |
 |/

Youandme


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
ROFL. This is all wrong. Everyone who has suggested that there be some other
site - some other interface for WP - some screwy way of fancifully filtering
out the content - is on the wrong track.

Essentially, then the problem becomes one of syndication - of franchise.
Each article, based on its political value - rating or assertion can be a
source of divergence. If the idea is to have the same article frame
differently - under different precepts about how to deal with... then the
problem of divergence is exascerbated. Either the article is about "God" -
interfaced through the Judeo-pedia - and they get in a tiff with someone
accessing the SAME PAGE through the SATAN's Trinity Chuch interface - THIS
WILL ONLY INCREASE DIVERGENCE!!

I will dismiss ideas that deal with being a "N*e*w* Wikipedia" - with a
little different flavoring here and there.... If you get a hundredth of the
energy that WP gets, I'll be surprised. If its quarelling that worries
people, then perhaps we should have just a plain "Pacifist-pedia" - where no
controversy is allowed.

OF the two choices - a split portal system to the same DB - or an endless
serious of mindnumbing "alternatives" to the REAL DEAL - then what the hell
do you think is going to happen?

Ive remarked before about the other different ways to "fork" the Wikipedia.
I dont like getting "forked" and I dont think the Wikipedia should get
"forked" either.

-Love, Peace and Harmoniosity
-SM

> I normally wouldn't say this, because I am quite Christian myself,
> but I agree we need a 'pedia with NO religion entries, except for
> historical articles on the religion as one would find in a history
> textbook, and in the same vein NO explicit topics, or anything of
> that sort - we should have a separate, school-topics-only Wiki
> encyclopedia for use at schools or other filtered environments.
>
> The Wikipedia as a whole, as the large project to create a
> comprehensive encyclopedia, is doing quite well in that respect.
> If it wants to even implicitly support fair use and challenge
> filters, let it do so. ''However'', these cannot be the goals
> of a project that wants to serve as a research reference and
> educational source for schoolchildren. And I think that there
> should be such a project, even if it is not the Wikipedia.
>
> I see so far three (ok, 2.5) reasons to implement filters: 1) to
> protect the Wikipedia from a site-wide censor, 2) to protect those
> who shouldn't see some content (this point is debatable), and 3) to
> protect those who don't want to see some content. I realize now that
> the first reason cannot be effectively implemented without impeding
> the Wikipedia's larger goals. The second, apparently, is loaded with
> too much POV (though I still don't see why we have to ''not'' censor
> content because some people might censor ''too much''...). The third
> I still believe should be implementable. Surely there can be no
> subjectivity in labeling [[Transubstantiation]] as "Christianity",
> and people like Toby Bartel's friend (was it?) can easily block that
> for him/herself and his/her kids. Leave the "dangerous" stuff there,
> just '''allow''' us (don't '''force''' us) to block it - why not?
>
> Thus, in order to develop a useful reference for schools, I do believe
> we have to run a separate project (Edupedia, PediaPedia, WiKidPedia,
> call it what you may) with the rule of '''no''' religion, '''no'''
> explicit content, etc. - go to the [[Wikipedia]] for those. As long
> as Wikipedia is still not banned, it should suffice. But if/when
> it becomes blocked, we should be able to have the benefits of a
> Wiki encyclopedia, even behind school firewalls, NetNanny, etc.
>
> So I think at some point we'll either have to fork or implement some
> type of good Sifter - and for a school-targeted encyclopedia, forking
> the necessary content seems better. Or, we could even start from scratch
> with a new encyclopedia and have it as a separate sister project, written
> at a slightly lower reading level and focusing on a separate set of
> subjects.
>
> Is there any Sifter code available? Is there a way to download, in a
> serveable form, only selected articles without taking the entire 1GB
tarball?


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:

> The reason interlanguage links are so annoying is not that they are mixed
> with articles, but that they are needlessly redundant.

And that they are on top of the articles (often followed by html stuff
for images or tables).

If no developer is motivated to create a "interlanguage:" or "meta:"
namespace for them let's mount a "put all interlanguage links below
article text" campaign. Or is this something the bots could hunt?

Kurt


body:
Magnus-
> Well, let's say we have carefully searched and tagged each and every
> "sexually explicit" article in the 'pedia as such. Then user:Michael
> (lacking a better example) comes along and deletes the category. All
> work for nothing. All tags are gone.

Let's say user:Michael comes along and blanks all our articles. All work
for nothing. All text is gone.

;-)

See, because we have to make the wiki principles (reversion, watchlists,
rc, diffs, attribution, protection, deletion, undeletion ...) work for any
solution that is outside the article space, I prefer one that is simply
part of the article space.

>> All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more.
>>
> Been there, had it implemented. Long time ago (Phase II, IIRC). No want,
> no need, too complicated.

Then your implementation was obviously in need of improvement ;->.

> Most of this only shows that we need to improve Recent Changes...
> Seriously: diffable is no argument, if the article text is not changed
> (as in my implementation).

Wikipedians have certain workflows. They write articles, revert to prior
revisions, do comparions over 10 past revisions and so forth. By creating
a completely separate scheme, you require them to add another workflow to
their routine. The system becomes more complex and the user is
increasingly confused. This should be avoided when implementing the same
feature within the existing workflows is reasonably possible. I believe
this to be the case with categories (but not necessarily with
interlanguage links).

> I don't recall...
> I still have the code of *my* implementation in the test wiki, if that's
> what you mean. I just can't find the database structure anymore :-(

Hm, that's why it's a good idea to use CVS branches for that kind of
ideas. Then they don't get lost. Test.wiki code is overwritten every
couple of weeks.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [WikiEN-l] Foto formatting

body:
On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 12:29:16PM -0700, John Knouse wrote:
> I'm often seeing fotos embedded with this kind of tagging:
> <div
> style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;text-align:center">
> Unfortunately, the foto almost invariably then collides with
> the text or ruins the formatting of a table.  This just
> doesn't seem to work.  I've changed a number of these to
> simple html image tagging or table cells to resolve
> collisions.
>
Hello,

Can you please provide some example pages? Which browser and
version are you using? What is your screen size?

	Best regards,

		jens frank


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>
> Categories are my implementation of the filtering issue, something
> that would be quite difficult with lists. It could also work to tag
> images as "GFDL", "public domain" or "fair use". It can also replace
> the lists. So, if we implement a filtering option anyway, why not use
> the opportunity?
>
> Magnus

Magnus,

My comments were not meant to criticise categories, or your attempts to
make an implementation.  I'm a proponent of categories: I think they can
serve useful purposes. I'm also grateful you are actually exploring the
problem space, instead of just talking about it like the rest of us.

I think the [[List of XXX topics]] categories are very useful, and
having a pointer from the category list to the article is the natural
way to do it: it also handles the case of making a category for a
non-existent article.

But it would also be nice to flag an article for membership in a
category list by adding a back-link.

The huge maths topics article shows that the "flat article" approach
does not scale well for very large lists: there are two possible routes
to making this better:
either

i: fixing the scaling problem for articles with very large lists of
links, or
ii: a special implementation for category lists

Neil


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> See, because we have to make the wiki principles (reversion, watchlists,
> rc, diffs, attribution, protection, deletion, undeletion ...) work for any
> solution that is outside the article space, I prefer one that is simply
> part of the article space.

You have removed the part of my answer where I talked about undeleting...

>>>All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more.
>>
>>Been there, had it implemented. Long time ago (Phase II, IIRC). No want,
>>no need, too complicated.
>
> Then your implementation was obviously in need of improvement ;->.

At that time, it was the mere concept of categories that was "under
attack", and the fact that I put the stuff into the articles. Well, I
guess that's my fate, being ahead of my time ;-)

>>Seriously: diffable is no argument, if the article text is not changed
>>(as in my implementation).
>
>
> Wikipedians have certain workflows. They write articles, revert to prior
> revisions, do comparions over 10 past revisions and so forth. By creating
> a completely separate scheme, you require them to add another workflow to
> their routine. The system becomes more complex and the user is
> increasingly confused. This should be avoided when implementing the same
> feature within the existing workflows is reasonably possible. I believe
> this to be the case with categories (but not necessarily with
> interlanguage links).

IMHO categories don't change the way articles do. An article about a
city will be about a city as long as the article exists. I could add a
date field to the connection category-article to make a diff, but I
don't see the point.

>>I still have the code of *my* implementation in the test wiki, if that's
>>what you mean. I just can't find the database structure anymore :-(
>
>
> Hm, that's why it's a good idea to use CVS branches for that kind of
> ideas. Then they don't get lost. Test.wiki code is overwritten every
> couple of weeks.

No, the *code* is still there (SpecialInterwiki.php, IIRC). The test
database was wiped, and that wouldn't have been in the CVS, unless I had
explicitely put a copy of the database structure there.

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Do we need a new logo contest?

body:
I love Erik's logo that includes Wikification: [[ O ]]. I must say it's very
symbolic and realistic.

Re: Eric's points

1) Making those words intentionally hard-to-see seems suspicious somehow.
You have no idea how many times I tried to stick my eyeballs in front of the
screens in various WPs just to read them. Of course, all attempts failed.

2) Agreed.  It's not representative. To be honest, I have not heard of
Hobbes before I came to WP.  Not to undermine his importance, but his
philosophy is not just mentioned and definitely not taught in most Taiwanese
and Canadian schools.

3) Definitely, speaking from a Chinese WPian's point-of-view.

Re: Eric's recommendations

* I oppose alphabet letter used as the logo (OK in subtitle/captions/title,
however). It's too regional.
* Humans are not good, because their physical characteristics are too
obviously identifiable with an ethnicity.
* Non-human creature is good.
* Books are good.

I really would like to see Wikifcation symbols used. Maybe not black beside
yellow, though! ;-)

Menchi Zh-En

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


body:
Anthere wrote:
> --- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>>Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>>>Currently, anyone can add and delete categories. I
>>suggest that this will be
>>>>restricted to sysops later, as it will prevent a
>>"category inflation",
>
> I suggest that we also limit article creation to
> sysops as well to avoid articles inflation :-)

So funny.

"Category inflation" will be counter-productive. The whole *point* of
categories is to group large number of articles into them. If we had
130000 categories for 130000 articles, it would not really do any good,
would it?

And how should filtering be done if we have categories "adult", "sex",
"sexual content", "sexually explicit", etc. all for the same thing? If
we want to make it an option to block "sex stuff", it has to be one
option (maybe two at max), not a dozen or more.

> And non sysops can quietly go on creating lists as
> they are currently doing. We don't really need
> categories anyway. Lists are fine.

Today, someone talked on one of the mailing lists about one of your
lists that took five minutes to save and slowed down the whole 'pedia
significantly.

Categories are my implementation of the filtering issue, something that
would be quite difficult with lists. It could also work to tag images as
"GFDL", "public domain" or "fair use". It can also replace the lists.
So, if we implement a filtering option anyway, why not use the opportunity?

Magnus


body:
Magnus-
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> See, because we have to make the wiki principles (reversion, watchlists,
>> rc, diffs, attribution, protection, deletion, undeletion ...) work for any
>> solution that is outside the article space, I prefer one that is simply
>> part of the article space.

> You have removed the part of my answer where I talked about undeleting...

True, because we can always add such functionality later. That's not the
point. The point is that we should avoid reinventing the wiki whenever
possible.

> IMHO categories don't change the way articles do. An article about a
> city will be about a city as long as the article exists.

Certainly, but that is a very limited view of categories. In my scheme,
you would also have

[[Category:City with population under 10]]
[[Category:Large city]]
- which could each be child categories of [[Category:City]], so if you
specify one, you do not have to specify the other. You create a child
category simply by putting [[Category:City]] on [[Category:Large city]].
[[Category:Cultural heritage site]]
[[Category:Capital]]
...

and so on, which would be used to generate the respective list articles
that are currently manually maintained. Within such a more comprehensive
metadata framework, constant changes, debates about categorization etc.
are inevitable. It makes sense to use articles/talk pages in the
traditional sense.

I'm not sure how I feel about a meta namespace. I don't really see the
need for it yet, but if this kind of metadata becomes too much, we might
go for it. Note that if we do it, we need to do it for each of the
existing namespaces.

> No, the *code* is still there (SpecialInterwiki.php, IIRC). The test
> database was wiped, and that wouldn't have been in the CVS, unless I had
> explicitely put a copy of the database structure there.

That's why it's a good idea to create patch-files (see maintenance/
archive) whenever you change the database structure. It's a bit annoying,
but prevents accidents like this.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikide-l] semantic wikipedia?

body:
hi

Kai Kumpf wrote:
> has anyone ever considered overlaying Wikipedia with a kind of ontology
> as offered by e.g. Roget's Thesaurus or, even better: OpenCyc? I
> personally guess that this would boost Wikipedia's usefulness enormously.

If you want to overlay wikipedia with an ontology you have to
provide a way to edit this ontology parallely to wikipedia articles.

Some month ago there was a guy at meta.wikipedia trying to invent
a new "semantic" wikitax. In my opinion high goals but little chances
of success. The "boost of usefullness"  leads to many disadvantages
for any contributor (have you ever tried to create an ontology
with more than one person?) - if your'e not familiar with editing
ontologies, try Prot?g? (it's open source) - you'll see why Wikis
are not the right tool for this kind of purposes.

By the way Roget's Thesaurus is no Ontology nor an ontology-like
thesaurus but a linguistic one (a kind of dictionary). Maybe wiktionary
can lead to a thesaurus, but as far as I can see there are different
opinions about what sort of dictionary (there are many!) wiktionary
should be.

The first step to any ontology is to distinguish concepts and terms
and the only way to get any kind of ontology out of wikipedia is to
consequentely eliminate (links to) disambiguation "articles".

Kai Krumpf schrieb:
> Hallo
> hat schon mal jemand darueber nachgedacht, ob oder wie man Wikipedia
> nicht mit einer Ontologie, wie sie in Thesauri zu finden ist, oder
> public domain wie in OpenCyc? Ich vermute, dass der Nutzwert von
> Wikipedia dadurch einen immensen Schub erfahren wuerde.

Naja, ich bin da eher skeptisch (aber ich bin kein NPOV, da ich mich
intensiv mit Thesauri, Ontologien, Systematiken etc. besch?ftige)

Gru?,
   Jakob


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Foto formatting

body:
>John Knouse wrote:
>I'm often seeing fotos embedded with this kind of tagging:
><div
>style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;text-align:center">
>Unfortunately, the foto almost invariably then collides with
>the text or ruins the formatting of a table.  This just
>doesn't seem to work.  I've changed a number of these to
>simple html image tagging or table cells to resolve
>collisions.
>
>--

AAAAAGH. That tab command drives my screen nuts, it has frozen the screen
twice when using Explorer. It has made a complete muck of pages on my
netscape. In fact that bloody tab command is one of the reasons I had to
stop using both browsers completely and go to safari. Far from using that
command, we should be binning it.

The div command seems to be the command that if used correctly works best,
or rather screws up least. (I have 5 browsers on my eMac; safari, camino,
opera, explorer and netscape and sometimes I have double, treble or
quadruple-checked images  - usually a page with a number of images - on all
of them to be sure. Netscape and explorer muck up the most in different ways
but whereas a div command can be made to work on them, the alternatives have
regularly created a disaster!)

Tell me, do you have your preferences set to justify? I found that whenever
I set things to justify /every/ command went all over the place. Though I
must prefer seeing text justified, it just will not work at present on wiki.
Whenever I have used the div command with a clear statement of width it
seemed to work OK, though Explorer (suprise surprise!) did sometimes muck
up. In fact it did not /actually/ muck up the page, but made it look on an
/individual/ screen as though it was mucked up whereas in reality it showed
up correctly elsewhere. (Mav and I had a heated disasgreement over one
image, until it turned out that it was /my/ browser (that f@*@+*g explorer)
that was causing the problem. And everytime /I/ fixed it (or thought I had)
all I was actually doing was mucking it up on the page for all other browers
and other versions of explorer - as what to my explorer looked OK was a
complete mess to every other browser. And when he fixed it back, my explorer
went haywire!

So please don't use the tab command until it has been established what the
problem is, is it an isolated browser problem, is it because images are too
big, that the command left out the width specification or because your
preferences are set to justify? In /fixing/ your image (as I did fixing the
image on the Robert Mugabe page) you may actually be producing a solution
that actually doesn't work at all for anyone else and completely muck up the
image for all other browsers.
JT

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from_name: Thomas Corell

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Yes. That is a big problem. But just as it is wrong
> that a non-sysop user has to go begging and waiting
> for the good will of a sysop to put a link on the main
> page (*this* is counter productive), I think it wrong
> that regular users have to go begging a sysop to
> create a category for them. If I want to have a
> category about sustainable agriculture articles, and
> there is no sysop caring about the topic, would I
> really have to spent hours trying to find one
> cooperative enough to make it for me ? I don't think
> so. Again, this is counter productive.
> I predict lists will go on existing if categories are
> sysops restricted only.

Is it realy necessary to _beg_ a sysop? I think there are enought sysops to
make such things happen fast.
The problem I have, is mainly to find the requests of the users, but if
there is a discussion page or faster, the mailing list is used for
emergency cases, I will find the requests in less than ''hours''.
And as developer of course the time to code as fast as the users invent new
ideas is a problem -- but for adding a category, including use of some
brain time*, I need 2 or 3 minutes (slow brain;).

My experiences with sysop's (on germen wiki) go more the other way. The
users complain that they are to fast ;) But of course, I think it is
possible for Magnus to implement, that only deletion is restricted.

*) Like CPU time, only its build in ;)
--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Karl Eichwalder:
>I as a regular user feel be punished.  Or say it in
>different words: it's a sad story that I cannot help
>fixing bad edits without three extra clicks.

If you want to help fix vandal edits real easy then become a sysop. Our only
real criteria is that a person known enough not to be a vandal and isn't
likely to abuse sysop powers. I hereby nominate you.

But we cannot let any random user have this ability; Vandals /will/ use it to
constantly revert every edit by users that show up in Recent Changes.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> writes:

> Should be a 'rollback' (or localized name?) link in the user contributions
> display, next to any edit that is the most recent edit on that article.

Is such a 'rollback' button reserved for so called sysops only?  If
"yes", I wouldd be a second class editor (and all the non-sysops,
too) -- no good.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> Suggestion: Limit creating categories to sysops for,
> say, two month
> after installing the category system.

The time to set things clear. Yes. That is an option.
But the names and types of categories should be
decided together.

> IMHO deleting categories should be resrticted, until
> there's an
> "undelete" option.

Agreed.
But imho, no deletion should be possible without an
undeletion

> > And I did not understand the filtering option had
> been
> > decided really.
>
> It wasn't. I just remember a few mails where Jimbo
> seemed to embrace the
> idea of a filtering option for wikipedia.
>
> Magnus

Yes. Jimbo.

But I think there are two things quite different that
could be set with your proposition. Better management
of lists and filtering. These are conceptually very
different.

Best

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Making it easier to become a sysop

body:
--- Thomas Corell <T.Corell at t-online.de> wrote:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
> > I think the point that needs to be reiterated is
> that sysops do not have
> > any special status as regards editing or creating
> content.  More sysops
> > are better, and the best way to point out that
> ''any'' well-behaved user
> > can be a sysop is to make it easier to become one,
> and publicise this.
> > Perhaps we need a "how to become a sysop" page,
> that explains this, and
> > a "requests for sysop status" page where you can
> nominate yourself.
>
> A page to nominate yourself exists e.g. in german
> wikipedia. You en guys
> are late ;) Oh, Karl Eichwalder is nominatate there
> for about a month I think.
>
>
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion%3AAdministratoren

:-)
We do the same at the same place

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert and query tips ?

body:
--- Thomas Corell <T.Corell at t-online.de> wrote:
> Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> > Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
> >>Yes. But it doesn't do anything more than any user
> -- logged in or not
> >>-- can do with three extra clicks.
> > I as a regular user feel be punished.

I understand very well you feel punished as a regular
user.
I feel that when I look at the POV english main page
news :-)
I feel that when a personal page stays listed for 2/3
weeks before being deleted. Imho, everyone should have
the right to delete pages in her user space :-)
I feel that when I can't rename an article just
because there is a redirect with no history under the
name I want to give to the new article :-)
I feel that when I can't look at the content of a very
recently deleted article :-)

And *I* is not really *I* here :-)

I basically never used the rolled back feature. I
prefer to check the content first.

I always look in the history of blanked articles, even
if the blanking was done by a trusted non-sysop,
because I always past the content of the vandalized
article in the comment box by hand.

On the french wiki, basically no pages are protected;
So, it is unnecessary to be sysop to edit them.

On that topic, could someone give us a query to list
"protected pages" ?

We avoid banning ips.

Our pb on the fr wiki right now, is not more sysops.
It is more control. We had many new users recently. It
is very hard to welcome all of them and teach all of
them. I have been updating the welcome pages recently,
made a poor welcome message to earn time. Alvaro is
currently polling newbies to try to fix a good and
informative welcome. Aoineko made us an "howto" for
images. I think we need a more proper translation of
the copyrights stuff. Plus a better FAQ, explaining
the terminology, and what is offered in the special
pages (Tarquin, could not you help there ?).
We are loosing a lot of time giving that information
of an individual basis.
Which implies additional work to fix things
afterwards.
And additional work for sysops in particular to clean
up after.
This is currently the issue, not a sysop being
superior to a regular user.
But this is french specific. Not true on en wiki.

Could someone also give me a tip how to know precisely
the list of articles in one given space (meta pages
more exactly ?)

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body:
>Suggestion: We could easily import the existing
>lists into my implementation.
>
>Magnus

Only the major ones please. Many of the lists in WikiEn are really obscure and
special purpose.

IMO there should be very few categories (at least at first); One for each
major category that is already on, for example, the en.wiki's main page
(science, mathematics, physics, Linguistics, etc - the whole lot) along with
type categories like "biography", "city/town/village", "country/nation",
"subnational entitiy", "stub" etc.

Keep it simple please (at least at first). If /that/ works then we can slowly
expand the system in a measured and thoughtful way - voting for new
categories may be a good solution here in order to prevent a rapid expansion
of categories that would render the whole system useless.

I'm very weary of allowing just anybody to create any category since from a
database management perspective it would be easy for people to create many
different variants for the same intended category ([[category:biology]],
[[category:life sciences]], [[category:life science]], [[category:living
things]], [[category:the study of living things]] etc). And having too many
categories will be very difficult for people to remember and very unwieldy
for people to choose from in a category search. Let the lists stay for the
obscure stuff.

We also need to devise guidelines for when to assign labels. Again from a
database design perspective: If this is not done consistently then the output
or any sort will be suspect and perhaps complete garbage. As KQ pointed out
we could assign the category 'crime' to [[Jesus Christ]] along with the
category of 'biography' so that JC shows up in a list of criminals. But is JC
most famous for being a crime figure? No! He is famous for being a religious
figure so the category 'religion' would be there but not 'crime.' Same for
[[Bill Clinton]] ([[category:biography]] and [[category:politics]] apply
there).

With categories in place then one day we could have our special pages use
these tags for things like Recent Changes. RC in the English Wikipedia often
has 10 or more edits a minute now! It would be nice to have the option to
only see articles that may interest the user (well for me that would be
everything but one of my biology professors may want a recent changes that
only displays articles relating to mathematics, the sciences and economics).

This will become absolutely necessary if we continue our quasi-exponential
growth pattern for WikiEn; one day in not too many years (fewer than most
people probably think) there will be an average of hundreds of edits a
minute! We need to sort that out somehow or no human will bother looking at
RC anymore and will only revert vandalism to articles on their watchlists
(even with sorting, bots would probably have to help with automatic 'probable
vandalism/copyvio detection' - outputting results on a separate RC for that
type of stuff - maybe even by assigning those categories to articles...).

Alas it looks like Wikipedia is growing up. This time next year WikiEn
Wikipedians may start to specialize their edits based on which categories
they choose RC to output and several other language Wikis may follow the year
after. Our small town is beginning to show signs of emerging cityhood (or has
WikiEn at least already become a small city?).

We are going where no wiki has gone before. There is both danger and
opportunity in that.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] ysop request-Quercus robur

body:
>Can I therefore also request sysop powers in order to
>be able to clear up vandislm without always having to
>bother somebody else via the votes for deletion page?
>
>Cheers Graham (quercus robur)

I definitely second your nomination.

---Daniel Mayer (aka mav)