from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] 7. Re: Zero information is preferred to

body:
Maybe if you calmed down a bit and explained to the concerned
administrators why unblocking you would be in Wikipedia's best
interests, you might invite invite a favourable response. Like someone
else pointed out, an overwhelming majority of your edits is to
talk-pages. In that light, after taking onto consideration your past
behaviour, administrators might be inclined to assume that the
benifits of keeping you blockied outweigh the potential benefits that
your editing might do to Wikipedia.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Foundation-l] The need for identifying languages properly for
	lexicological use

body:
2006/5/18, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com>:

> GerardM wrote:
> >
> > I propose for WiktionaryZ and for the Babel proficiency to exclusively
> > use the ISO-639-3 codes. When there are not enough codes in ISO-639-3
> > we will have to use codes that are clearly not ISO-639-3.
> >
> These two sentences are not consistent.
>
> Which is the one you actually meant?

I think what he means is:
"Use ISO-639-3 whenever possible, and if it is impossible, use codes
that cannot be ISO-639-3 codes" - where "cannot be ISO-639-3" will
presumably mean "do not consist of exactly 3 letters"

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
Hi all,
  Silly question - are "artists' impressions" (pictures attempting to
illustrate a subject in the absence of definitive information) allowed in
Wikipedia? There are topics where we will never have a free image. Could we
envisage letting editors draw an image, stating clearly that it's simply an
"artist's impression"? Would it violate WP:OR?

Steve


from_name: Harish Ganesan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 34,
	Issue 184 More Kobe Bryant hate you call this fair???

body:
You take a look at the last few posts and simishag and
tell me if they are fair here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53916581&oldid=53915809
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53917297&oldid=53916581
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53917634&oldid=53917297
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53917954&oldid=53917634
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53918069&oldid=53917954
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53918150&oldid=53918069
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53918641&oldid=53918150
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53918847&oldid=53918641
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53919148&oldid=53918847
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53919530&oldid=53919148
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53919764&oldid=53919530
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53920154&oldid=53919764
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53920324&oldid=53920154
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53920602&oldid=53920324
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53921024&oldid=53920602
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53921106&oldid=53921024
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53922948&oldid=53921106
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53923486&oldid=53922948

I am sorry for posting all this public but I just want
to let the admins who watch over these know there is a
major problem out here with bias and that is a problem.

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


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Message: 4 William M. Connolley- He wrote about
	theedit

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Earthhope Action Network

> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about
> the edit wars
> > butit makes no sense!!!!!!!!!
> >
> >
> > Why? Because the other wikipedians are vandalizing and deleting ALL
> > THE FACTS I WRITE that completely RELATE TO THE SUBJECT. I
> did not do
> > anything wrong this time, but he is upset by the info I post. I am
> > steaming about this. He is a horrible admin.
>
> You'll find any number of other editors who agree with you,
> but this isn't the place to discuss it. As advised, use the
> article discussion page to talk about it in a civil and
> constructive manner. If you still cannot get justice*, come
> back with a couple of good examples and ask for help. Don't
> expect much if you are being a self-righteous pest.
>
> Pete, speaking from experience
>
> *Justice is a nebulous concept here. Wikipedia is just a
> website. It's not a court of law, and even the community's
> most senior magistrates are overworked volunteers who will
> aim for expedience over rigorous investigation.
> ----
> And why isn't this is a place to discuss this? Are you, by
> some Divine Grace, the one to determine what one can say
> here?. And that which is okay to say is clearly what you say.
> Well just because..yes.

You can say anything you want, but regardless of how right or wrong you are,
making a big production here won't do you much good. As I say, I speak from
experience.

> "a self-righteous pest"? If I didn't know better I would
> swear that sounds like a PA. But what would I know, I've
> already been labeled as a pest myslelf and banned
> indefinitely from editing at Wikipedia.
>
> No. Justice is not a nebulous concept here. Justice is
> justice always. Wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia and
> therefore based on that claim needs to keep it's
> controversial articles as unbiased as it can. And yet it does
> the opposite and does so with a vengeance. it edits out
> neutrality in a concerted effort that is backed by
> power-hungry admins and all their tireless mob of mindless
> editors. It happens constantly. Editors such as Peter Mackay,
> Lou franklin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lou_franklin>,
> Merecat </wiki/User:Merecat>,
> myself thewolfstar <../wiki/User:Thewolfstar>, Tbeatty
> </wiki/User:Tbeatty>, Morton devonshire
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morton_devonshire>,  Jerry
> G. Sweeton Jr </wiki/User:J.sweeton%40wnri.com> along with
> many others  that try so hard to bring neutrality into a
> biased artlce constantly get stopped from doing so by a swarm
> of editors, who harass, revert, lie, block often with no
> cause and  no warning.

You speak from ignorance. Don't include me in your list of "power-hungry
admins". I'm Skyring - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skyring - and let
me tell you, when it comes to injustice here, it comes right from the top.
Deal with it.

-- Peter in Canberra


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On 5/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > That's a pretty good description of [[WP:AFC]] - and you're not the
> first to
> > consider using that as a model for *all* editors.
> >
> Well, certainly not literally [[WP:AFC]], which is a huge mess.

No, using the *model*. IMHO, AFC is a 'huge mess' in the way that a dirty
car filter is a 'huge mess'. Sure, it's dirty, but thankfully all that dirt
didn't end up in your engine.

>
> I didn't mean to imply that the request had to be fulfilled by the

original author.

Ah cool.

>
> I don't think every single fact in an article should have a footnote.

No, but we don't have a good middle ground. It'd be nice to somehow indicate
that all the unfootnoted material from one section is verifiable from one
particular source.

I see that as backward, though.  The sources should be found first,
> then the article should be written.

To use different nomenclature, I'm saying that the *stub* is written, and
when sources are found, it can become an article "start" class.
Distinguishing between *articles* and *stubs* might be valuable - anything
can be in a stub without affecting our overall quality level. Maybe?

That said, I can't say I fully remember the details of your proposal.
> I kind of skimmed over it when I first saw it.  Could you point me to
> the email where you wrote it, or (even better) to a web page where you
> described it?

It's still evolving :) But good idea, I'll attempt to write it up in my
userspace.

> What if there were only two classes, "notes" and "article"?  That'd be
> a lot easier to implement.  Just add a namespace called "notes".  Of
> course, the talk page could theoretically be used for this.  The main
> problem with that is that people don't treat talk pages like wikis.
> Rather, talk pages are used more like a mailing list or discussion
> board.

Yes. But then, the link to them is called "discussion" after all. A
notes/scrapbook/fragments/sources/material page would definitely be handy.
It would also be very useful when preparing a new version of a
section/article. What would be really ideal would be if the notes page had
some means of mirroring the structure of the actual article. It would just
provide all the same headings and subheadings as the main article, but you
could provide metacomments about the content.

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the edit wars
	but it makes no sense!!!!!!!!! (Hganesan)

body:
 CALM DOWN. You're starting to become very incoherent. Clearly explain
your grievance in a nutshell instead of ranting repeatedly.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 5/18/06, Chris L?er <chris at zandria.net> wrote:
>
> I would like to draw a line at artist's impressions that are clearly
> fictional, though. Such as drawings or paintings of people that died
> centuries before the artist's birth -- they are either fictional or
> based on another representation (and in that case we should include
> the other representation instead).

What about an artists' impression of the inhabitants of an ancient
civilisation, based on archeological evidence? Or what about a sketch of a
building before it was destroyed, based on (copyrighted) sketches or photos
that already exist?

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Parser fuzz-tester source code

body:
Hi All,

The source code to a MediaWiki Parser fuzz-tester is now available online at:
http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/wiki-mangleme.phps

Some of the problems it has found are listed at: http://nickj.org/MediaWiki

With MediaWiki 1.6.5, the breakdown of stuff I'm currently seeing that
messes up the flow of tags (as opposed to just failing HTML
validation) is roughly:
* 50% Table-Of-Contents insertion ( See Parser14 test at above URL)
* 30% double links ( See Parser22 test at above URL)
* 20% is <nowiki> or <pre> insertion + multi-line URLs ( See Parser20
and Parser23 tests respectively ).

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 5/18/06, Laura Scudder <laurascudder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think that the only people qualified to carefully interpret
> archeological evidence and render it into an artists' impression would
> be those who do it professionally (it's not as simple as interpreting
> other's drawings).

So who is qualified to write an encyclopaedia? :)

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Ok here is why Willaim Connolley and these stupid
	admins are messing up Wikipedia. (Hganesan)

body:
Not a bad tagline.

"Admins:  We make Wikipedia messed up."

k

On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 18/05/06, Harish Ganesan <kamehameha87 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > BTW my block has gone from 1 day to a week now,
> > because the fools PS2PCGAMER, Madchester, and Stifle
> > have teamed up. It's very funny that now the admins
> > are teaming up trying to stop me. Retarded admins,
> > that's all I can say. They make wikipedia messed up.
> > I've only started editing for a week and all of a
> > sudden they are all going after me after the profanity
> > I put on my discussion page in anger. What they are
> > doing reminds me of the Bush administration's plan to
> > stop terror, aka focusing on and going after the wrong
> > thing. HAHA anyways,
> [snip]
>
> It's ironic. The last post I make to this mailing list for an
> indeterminate amount of time is a rant.
>
> Why the fuck aren't these idiots on moderation?
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 5/18/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Are you using "artists' impression" to refer specifically to something
> drawn by _editors_, or are you including normal (as in
> exhibited-in-a-museum) paintings?  If it's the second option, then
> clearly yes; just look at any illustrated article about a pre-1850s
> battle or war.

Drawn by Wikipedians.

Steve


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> >Why?
> >
> >
> Presumably for the same reason that the text on your user page is GFDL.
>

Haha yeah. It's curious that people questioning the fair-use image policy
aren't questioning why we make people GFDL the text on their userpage, too.

Ryan


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New Post. It's time for the admins to explain their
	behavior

body:
On Thu, 18 May 2006 08:22:01 -0400, you wrote:

>New Post. It's time for the admins to explain their behavior

They did.  You just didn't like the explanation.  Sorry, I can't help
you with that.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Spoilers

body:
On Thu, 18 May 2006 05:30:50 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>Avoiding your annoyance is not a priority of WIkipedia, nor should it
>be

What's the reliable source for any particular detail from any
particular article being considered by reputable authorities as
constituting a spoiler?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 5/18/06, Laura Scudder <laurascudder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm saying that taking archeological primary sources on some skeleton
> to an artist's impression of the person is more difficult than taking
> several drawings to some composite artist's impression.
>
> The latter is more like what we do everyday on Wikipedia: we take
> multiple sources to generate a composite representation of the
> information out there.  We don't do OR interpreting original data
> ourselves.

Sounds like a reasonable line to draw. So to speak.

Steve


from_name: Ben Yates

subject: [Foundation-l] Design for wikipedia's front page (and corporate)

body:
There was a proposal to overhaul wikipedia's front-page design, and
wikimedia's corporate design, by holding a contest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Design_overhaul%2C_2006

But designers are mostly opposed to contests, and pro designers don't
usually compete in them (contests also pose problems for organizations
on the recieving end) -- see Talk,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Design_overhaul%2C_2006

So it looks like we have an offer from a visible designer to help us
find pro-bono firms and designers who'd be willing to do the site for
free (just not on spec).  We should put out a call for portfolios.

Cheers (and sorry about the telegraphic style; I'm a bit tired)

Ben Yates


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>
>>Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
>>patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
>>rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?
>>
>>We can then, having solved the uncontroversial part of the problem,
>>continue debating the merits of nofollow in the main namespace at leisure.
>>
>
> Looking at the patch, it seems to me that a better solution would handle
> both NOINDEX *and* NOFOLLOW.

Please note that the patch is about the rel="nofollow" attribute of <a>
tags (specifically, external links), _not_ the like-named value of the
<meta name="robots"> tag.  You seem to be talking about the latter.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Andrew Gray stated for the record:

> On 19/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>[[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
>>list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
>>The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
>>What is the proper procedure here?
>
>
> Point out the original source of the uncropped image. It's trivial to
> determine that cropped X is a derivative of uncropped Y, and thus we
> can treat Y as the source of X.

Point me to the original public domain image.  I'll crop it and remove
the antenna sticking out of his head, and release my copyright on the
modification to the public domain.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | A thunder of jets in an open sky,
 sean at epoptic.com | A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi!"
                  | A loop, a whirl, a vertical climb,
                  | And once again you know it's time....
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEbRHDMAt1wyd9d+URAkQRAJwLQo2sgUagUDNIeJYYdq0KDgRIpwCffQsN
sfCdteAz/uFozmzTxQHDJLc=
=KD0d
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
On May 18, 2006, at 4:09 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> [[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
> list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
> The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
> What is the proper procedure here?

The path of least resistance would be to upload the original image,
tag it PD-USGov, and then someone can (I volunteer to) crop that
original image the same way.

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/18/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> There was a proposal to overhaul wikipedia's front-page design, and
> wikimedia's corporate design, by holding a contest:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>
> But designers are mostly opposed to contests, and pro designers don't
> usually compete in them (contests also pose problems for organizations
> on the recieving end) -- see Talk,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>
> So it looks like we have an offer from a visible designer to help us
> find pro-bono firms and designers who'd be willing to do the site for
> free (just not on spec).  We should put out a call for portfolios.
>
Is the design going to be GFDL?

Anthony


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>
> Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
> patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
> rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?
>
> We can then, having solved the uncontroversial part of the problem,
> continue debating the merits of nofollow in the main namespace at leisure.

In the meanwhile, I've started a proposal on enwiki to confirm that
there is in fact a consensus for this, as it would appear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Spam#Proposal:_Enable_rel.3D.22nofollow.22_outside_the_main_namespace

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: jahiegel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adminship is...no big deal?

body:
Contra the proposition that "adminship is no big deal" (with which I, of course, agree), an article in the June issue of [[Milwaukee Magazine]] evaluates the history of our [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]] article, referencing discussions on the talk page and offering the assessment of a Milwaukee historian that the article is altogether accurate at the moment.  The article mentions an editor who has contributed a good bit to the article and notes that, in view of his many edits, he has been "awarded the presitgious title of ''site administrator''" (the new issue doesn't show up on the website [http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/] for a while, but I'll post a link when it's up).  I'm certain that the admin in question, for whom they don't provide a user name, didn't choose the appellative "prestigious", but it gives me hope that my decision to take a break from university studies, in part to edit WP, was the right one; sure, my resum? won't have a degree, but someday it might have "site [sic] administrator".

Cordially,

Joe Hiegel


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 18/05/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > On May 17, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Rob wrote:
> >
> > > If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
> > > want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every troll I
> > > block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of course,
> > > they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.
> >
> > Sounds like putting a pic of yourself on Wikipedia is not for you.
>
> No, it's not, and I won't be doing it regardless of what the policy
> is.  But I think contributors who wish to add pictures of themselves
> and their family to their userspace should be allowed to do so without
> giving up the rights to those photos.   I don't see why we can't give
> contributors this minor concession.

It's still all political. You're publishing something. If someone
wishes to steal and deface it, they will do.

The licence at the bottom of the page applies to everything.

Rob Church


body:
On 5/18/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro napisa?(a):
> > Is the design going to be GFDL?
> >
> After a brief talk with Delphine and some other people (including
> non-wikimedians) during the Wikimedia Polska 2006 meetup my take on this is:
>
> No, the design should NOT be GFDL, CC-whatever or under any other free
> license. The webpage design is an integral part of the sites' visual
> identity, just as much as the project logos (if not more).
>
> Monobook is currently distributed along with every MediaWiki package.
> Anybody can set up a site that looks almost EXACTLY like Wikipedia and
> be on the safe side of the law.
>
> Sure, giving our website design away under a free license is a nice
> thing to do but... Why the hell should we be nice?
>
The entire reason Wikimedia exists is to be nice.

> If this doesn't seem to convince you think about this for a moment: Why
> don't we just release the logos under a free license? When you come to
> an answer simply apply it to the design as well, cause this is the same
> area - visual identity.
>
I should point out that not everyone in the world thinks the logos
*should* be under a free license.

> (Disclaimer: No, I did not assume Anthony was implying that the design
> should be under GFDL when he asked the question above. I assumed a
> number of people might think that.)
>
Heh, I guess I'll keep you all guessing how I feel on the matter :).

> --
> Cheers,
> TOR

Anthony


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> > Wikipedia is not your desk at work.  You are not allowed to post
> > copyright-reserved material to Wikipedia.  On the other hand, you are
> > allowed to edit Wikipedia in the nude.  (But please don't tell us when
> > you do.)
>
> Would it be okay if I posted a GDFL pic of myself editing Wikipedia in
> the nude? ;)

No. The wikipedia interface is GPL.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 18/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Wikipedia is not your desk at work.  You are not allowed to post
> > > copyright-reserved material to Wikipedia.  On the other hand, you are
> > > allowed to edit Wikipedia in the nude.  (But please don't tell us when
> > > you do.)
> >
> > Would it be okay if I posted a GDFL pic of myself editing Wikipedia in
> > the nude? ;)
>
> No. The wikipedia interface is GPL.

That's MediaWiki, and be aware that he needn't include visible screen
detail. Having acted the pedant; no, it would be deleted as being
inappropriate.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 5/18/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> What about an artists' impression of the inhabitants of an ancient
> civilisation, based on archeological evidence? Or what about a sketch of a
> building before it was destroyed, based on (copyrighted) sketches or photos
> that already exist?
>
These two examples (especially the second one) don't seem to fit your
definition, which was "pictures attempting to illustrate a subject in
the absence of definitive information".

I'd say it's hard for an image drawn by a Wikipedia not to technically
violate NOR, so NOR should probably be clarified with these types of
images in mind.  What to put in the caption of the image is especially
tricky.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 18/05/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > On 18/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Wikipedia is not your desk at work.  You are not allowed to post
> >>>> copyright-reserved material to Wikipedia.  On the other hand, you are
> >>>> allowed to edit Wikipedia in the nude.  (But please don't tell us when
> >>>> you do.)
> >>> Would it be okay if I posted a GDFL pic of myself editing Wikipedia in
> >>> the nude? ;)
> >> No. The wikipedia interface is GPL.
> >
> > That's MediaWiki, and be aware that he needn't include visible screen
> > detail. Having acted the pedant; no, it would be deleted as being
> > inappropriate.
> >
>
> Only developers are allowed to work on Wikipedia in the nude, right?

That would make us even more vulnerable to stabbing. I prefer to code
*wearing* clothing, thanks. Mind you...I do only speak for myself.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's MediaWiki, and be aware that he needn't include visible screen
> detail. Having acted the pedant; no, it would be deleted as being
> inappropriate.
>
>
> Rob Church

So the original varsion of [[:Image:Sunglass.jpg]] was around for a
quite a while.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 18/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's MediaWiki, and be aware that he needn't include visible screen
> > detail. Having acted the pedant; no, it would be deleted as being
> > inappropriate.
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
>
>
> So the original varsion of [[:Image:Sunglass.jpg]] was around for a
> quite a while.

So? Precedent means nothing. I'd like to think we're getting smarter
about removing crap. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Rob Church


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
 information

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Nowadays you don't even have to go to a library to look up journal
>>articles.  Wikipedians must be getting the information they put into
>>articles from somewhere, and I find it hard to believe that more than
>>a miniscule portion of it is straight from their memory.
>>
>>
>I know heaps of stuff that isn't in Wikipedia. And I didn't get it from
>reading "reliable sources". To take another example, [[Bouchon]]. Any person
>who has spent more than a couple of days in Lyon knows what a bouchon is (a
>typically Lyonnais restaurant). Yet Wikipedia had nothing on them. I didn't
>feel like I was going out on a limb creating a stub about a bouchon saying
>that they serve very meaty dishes that many foreigners wouldn't necessarily
>appreciate. Of course for the details on exactly what they do and don't
>serve, I went to a book.
>
That was a good beginning, even without sources.  If the article had
been written by a Lyonnais he would have been too obvious to him to need
references.  People have been able to build on it, and add references.  .

>I'm offering this account not as what should be done, but what I believe is
>current practice - but the use of a book is even more stringent than most, I
>suspect.
>
Yes, it's the current practice, but in most cases that's just fine.
Your final comment there is a little difficult to follow.  Nevertheless
I tend to give more credence to paper-published sources than online sources.

>The interpretation of WP:V that says that any information that is not
>accompanied by a citation should never enter Wikipedia is, IMHO, novel. I
>would have nothing against that becoming the official interpretation, but
>it's not even close to being the dominant one at the moment.
>
Insisting that every bit of information be accompanied by a reference is
extremist. For some classes of information it is essential; in many
others it should be added as a matter of habit but with no damage done
if a person fails to include it. Someone else can add it later.
Information can be challenged if someone feels it is important to do so,
but lack of references by itself should not be reason enough to delete a
statement.

>The ad hoc system in place now is completely backwards.  You're
>
>
>>supposed to get your sources first, *then* write the article.  Believe
>>it or not I'm completely in agreement with Jimbo that unsourced
>>material should not be in Wikipedia articles.  But just telling people
>>to do a better job or "be kicked out of the project just for being
>>lousy writers" is not a very productive way of achieving that.
>>
>>
>If we don't want unsourced material, why have we tolerated it so long?
>
It's not practical.

It remains important for information about living persons to be documented.

I believe in the original idea that Wikipedia is a project that anyone
can edit, even people with minimal education who have not received ivory
tower indoctrination.

It's more important to remember our roots, rather than to put on airs
and pretences about what we are.

Ec


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On 18/05/06, Chris L?er <chris at zandria.net> wrote:
> At 08:24 AM 5/18/2006, Andrew Gray wrote:
>
> >In some circumstances ([[F-19]]!) an "artists impression" might be OR,
> >but in general terms sketching something is no more OR than touching
> >up a photo of it.
>
> ...or than writing about it!
>
> I would like to draw a line at artist's impressions that are clearly
> fictional, though. Such as drawings or paintings of people that died
> centuries before the artist's birth -- they are either fictional or
> based on another representation (and in that case we should include
> the other representation instead).

Hmm, yes. Anything which is a composite of several existing images, or
"drawn from life", is probably fine.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> So? Precedent means nothing. I'd like to think we're getting smarter
> about removing crap. Perhaps I'm wrong.
>
>
> Rob Church

The photo did have a use. It appeared on out [[Chubby culture]] page.
So if we ever end up with an article on useing the internet while nude
I supose we could end up with a picture.

--
geni


body:
The licencing debate seems irrelevant for the moment.  I'm sure
designers willing to do pro-bono work would also be willing to licence
that work under the GFDL (or under standard copyright).  It honestly
doesn't seem like a very important issue right now considering the
number of improvements that could potentially be made if we were to
set the issue aside for now.

For example: has wikimedia/wikipedia ever been formally tested for
usability, to see (in hard data) how the interface could be improved?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
[[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
What is the proper procedure here?

Anthony


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On Thu, 2006-05-18 at 19:00 +0100, geni wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So? Precedent means nothing. I'd like to think we're getting smarter
> > about removing crap. Perhaps I'm wrong.
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
>
> The photo did have a use. It appeared on out [[Chubby culture]] page.
> So if we ever end up with an article on useing the internet while nude
> I supose we could end up with a picture.
>

You never know; Po Bronson wrote a book (partly) about nude programming.

And Commons will always take these things.

Discussions a bit off topic now though.

j


body:
Alright, cool.  Of particular intrest to me was also the note from
Catherine Morley:

- - - - - - - - - - - -
"If you decide to go the pro-bono route, what Wikipedia needs to do is
put out a call for portfolios, select one designer (or design company)
with a fit to work pro-bono, write up a detailed design brief, agree
on ONE person as a contact between the designer and Wikipedia (no
designer in their right mind would agree to design by committee as it
hinders the process on both sides), then work closely to create your
new look and feel.

If you need help with the process just drop me a line and I'll walk
you through it. In addition to supporting your pro-bono design call on
NO!SPEC (www.no-spec.com), Creative Latitude
(www.creativelatitude.com) would also put out an email to our members
to alert them of your needs, as well as request that they pass it
around.

Wikipedia can also get the message out via design forums, design
blogs, adland ... and possibly BoingBoing. We'd be happy to assist
with some of this (note: we have no ins with BoingBoing).

-- Catherine Morley Project Manager: NO!SPEC & Creative Latitude"
- - - - - - - - - - - -

I think we should cast a pretty wide net, starting with feelers out
into the general design community -- discussion forum posts, etc -- to
get a sense of what they think the best thing to do is and maybe start
building interest/momentum.  (Catherine's advice looks good to me, but
it's also prudent to double-check.)

On 5/18/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
> Ben Yates napisa?(a):
> > It honestly
> > doesn't seem like a very important issue right now considering the
> > number of improvements that could potentially be made if we were to
> > set the issue aside for now.
> >
> Quite right.
> > For example: has wikimedia/wikipedia ever been formally tested for
> > usability, to see (in hard data) how the interface could be improved?
> >
> Well... Gandalf (Mozilla Europe Board Member, Lead Developer of Aviary
> PL etc.) has thrown one example of bad (usability- and
> accessibility-wise) design after the other at us during the meetup I
> mentioned. But I don't think he did a thorough test. I do know that he
> is a pro and that he was the first person I though of when I saw the
> overhaul proposal.
>
> I am going to try to contact him this weekend and get him involved in
> this. Will keep you posted.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> ?ukasz "TOR" Garczewski
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
 > I think I should learn more about 'fair use' - it could be quite
> interesting. I've wondered, for example, whether it's legitimate to use the
> cover of an autobiography (incorporating the subject's face) as the main
> image of an article about the person, when the book itself is discussed in
> passing in the text.

The one I'd like to hear answered myself is whether the desires of the
copyright holder have any bearing on whether an image can be fairly used
- I ran into this issue on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Orly.jpg>, wherein an image
that (as far as I can tell) meets fair use criteria for the context in
which it was being used was deleted because the copyright holder
apparently complained about it.


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Divisive and Inflammatory Behavior, was CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How does this differ from the policy forbidding disruptive behavior? Doesn't
> > "divisive and infammatory" constitute a subset of "disruptive"?
>
> Is "disruptive" behaviour banned? It shouldn't be. Upgrading MediaWiki
> could be disruptive. An AfD of a popular article is disruptive.
> Banning userboxes would be disruptive :)
>
> Rather, unnecessarily or unbeneficially disruptive behaviour should be
> discouraged, and not all heated debates fall into those categories. A
> passionate debate about a near-featured-article could be quite
> beneficial, for example.
>
> However, divisive and inflammatory behaviour is generally disruptive
> without having any benefits to the Wikipedia project.
>
> Steve

I have not been able to discern a difference between the disruptive
and inflammatory causal mechanism of the categorisation or
transclusion of templates onto user pages, and the fact that user
boxes express POV's of users.

Divisive and inflammatory implies the type of effect that votestacking
has. It also describes the current outcry over the userbox deletion
according to the T1 class of deletions, perhaps ironically the cause
and the effect are based in the same action to delete.

I can easily imagine a status quo where categories are banned from
userboxes and transclusion is replaced with subst: all userboxes
without deleting the source. The subst and delete opinion of many
"experienced" (and therefore more worthy to make consensus decisions
in cabal type atmospheres) editors seems to be the cause of more
divisive and inflammatory behaviour than if they had waited for a so
called "wikipedia consensus" to appear.

Peter


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Peter Mackay wrote:
> > >>Jimbo's word on the matter:
> > >>
> > >>   The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
> > >>   Republican, a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
> > >>   Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
> > >
> > > With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way it happens.
> > > Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks, but editors don't
> > > suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we want them to. We want
> > > Republicans to have input into articles on the Republican Party. We just
> > > don't want it to be Republican propaganda.
> >
> > With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly misinterpreting
> > what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't think either of us are
> > suggesting that editors should be 'opinionless automatons', just that
> > they shouldn't let their opinions influence the way they write articles.
> >
> I'd say that's pretty much impossible.  If nothing else, what you
> believe is going to affect what you know, and that's going to have a
> significant influence on the way you write an article.  IMO the way
> Wikipedians should produce an NPOV article is through the consensus of
> people with multiple points of view.  Templates regarding points of
> view can very much support this.
>
> That isn't to say that I think a template which says "This user think
> George W. Bush is a moron" is an example of such a template.  Actually
> I'd say a person using such a template is showing a lack of the skills
> needed to work with others.  But "This user is an atheist", or "This
> user is a Linux user", on the other hand, I think is not only
> non-harmful, I think it is helpful.

Apparently labelling yourself is divisive and inflammatory, taking the
most general definition of divisive (aka. categorising) and saying
that because you disagree with atheism this person is deliberately
trying to inflame you or some other person. On the other hand, when
you are making personal attacks on someone it is clearly inflammatory
to people who believe that you shouldn't say things like that about
the US president, or any other figure. How did a simple statement
about your faith in a certain religion get put together with being
divisive?

> Again just my opinion, but I don't think there's a consensus on this
> matter, and his majesty Jimbo has explicitly stated that he has not
> made an edict on the matter, so speedy deletion should be out of the
> question.
>
> Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/18/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> > Try reading WP:POINT again. I think "don't disrupt Wikipedia to make
> > a point" is a misleading title anyway?the better title is "State your
> > point; don't prove it experimentally".
>
>
> How about "Don't disrupt Wikipedia while making your point" - I agree with
> your assessment of misleadingness.
>
> Steve

I wonder whether speedy deletions under proposed criteria come under
the category of disrupting wikipedia to make a point.

Peter


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Molu wrote:
> > >  I
> > > think George W. Bush is a criminal, if you feel offended by that then
> > > by all means stay off my userpage,
> >
> > And if you feel that the best way to participate on the Internet is by
> > posting inflammatory statements on your userpage, then by all means stay
> > off of Wikipedia.  Go find a project which welcomes political rants and
> > leave us alone.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
> Inforceing that one could be interesting. The effect of deleting
>
> [[User:Kingstonjr]]
> [[User:Hashbrowns]]
> [[User:Markaci/Nudity]]
> [[User:Cyde/Weird pictures]]
> (seriously NSFW)
>
> is unlikey to involve people acting calmly. At least going by the
> normal reaction of the various wikipedia is not censored groups.
>
> --
> geni

And hence the irony in the chain of events leading to the current
userbox controversy.

Although wikipedia is indeed a sociological phenomena, it is still the
first experiment of its type, and as such it cannot make itself based
on prior rules. However, that is still not a reason, in good faith, to
force ones hand by using practical actions without an objective
statement of why actions are being taken.

Peter


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/05/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wonder whether speedy deletions under proposed criteria come under
> > the category of disrupting wikipedia to make a point.
>
> Depends on the scale and nature of the disruption, and the consequences overall.
>
>
> Rob Church

Has anyone ever made up a Wikipedia: essay on the emerging results of
this sociological phenomena. The scale and nature of the disruption of
community actions would be perfect to put in one of those. In all good
faith it could be used as a historical document with learning
objectives for the future.

Peter


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Tearing down the Chinese Firewall

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>> HTTPS does not protect anonymity for editors. Neither does Tor.
>> Low-latency encryption methods suffer a common flaw: an attacker
>> can correlate timestamps and message lengths with the size and posting
>> time of an edit. With ordinary HTTPS you can also correlate the
>> destination address. You could almost say that encryption is useless for
>> sending data which will be public 200ms after it arrives.
>>
> The biggest vulnerability of Tor is when the attacker is able to
> observe both endpoints.  Assuming the Chinese government is not able
> to do this, mere timestamps (accurate to the second) and message
> lengths are unlikely to be enough to correlate if there's even just a
> little bit of cover traffic (assuming the user is logged in and the
> Chinese govt doesn't have CheckUser access).  Tor sends multiple TCP
> streams through the same outgoing connections, so an observer at the
> client endpoint wouldn't know the size of the message if there are
> other TCP streams going at the same time.
>

... which is one of the claimed benefits of running a Tor server, even
if it's only as a middleman node.

> That said, I doubt it's perfectly safe to run Tor in China in the first place.
>

Quite so.

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

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body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> On 5/15/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> So that brought me to my current working idea, which is just a vmware
>>> player virtual machine [*] which hosts a Chinese Wikipedia mirror on
>>> https.
>>
>> Could be useful - then again, aggressively pushing SSL as a method to
>> circumvent censorship will likely lead to the authorities taking a
>> closer look at methods to block it.
>>
>> If there is indeed a shortage of Chinese mirrors, generating a fresh
>> static HTML dump + free images and advertising it a bit would probably
>> lead to hundreds of copies within weeks.
>
> HTTPS does not protect anonymity for editors. Neither does Tor.
> Low-latency encryption methods suffer a common flaw: an attacker
> can correlate timestamps and message lengths with the size and posting
> time of an edit. With ordinary HTTPS you can also correlate the
> destination address. You could almost say that encryption is useless for
> sending data which will be public 200ms after it arrives.
>

Now, if there was a way to silently lock the article and delay the
database update/timestamping for a few seconds...

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:No factions of belief

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> Based on the discussion about divisive behavior and following my
> earlier comments, I have created a new policy proposal:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_factions_of_belief
>
> Please comment!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik

It is still very ambiguous. You define beliefs and interests as if
they are independent terms. I can state my shared interest in the
religion and have it mean exactly the same thing as stating my belief
in the religion. I dont see the practical difference in reading the
two either. It is quite feasible to believe in wikipedia. Would that
be banned as a statement. Or are wikipedians allowed to state their
belief in their own organisation but not any other organisations.

Also, prejudice should not happen with rationality. Rationality needs
information though. And without prestating your belief, rationality
will not take statements in the light they were given. It is not
practical enough to say that the ideal case is always going to happen,
and so we will not allow for cases where an encyclopedia needs to draw
on areas where people need to state their views to get their messages
across in the light they were intended.

Peter


body:
On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Based on the discussion about divisive behavior and following my
> > earlier comments, I have created a new policy proposal:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_factions_of_belief
> >
> > Please comment!
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Erik
>
> I suppose exceptions will be made for upholding policy? It'd be pretty
> silly if we *weren't* a permament faction around certain beliefs.
>
> ~maru

And hence comes the definition of the wikipedian, by which all will
follow, or forever be banned by autoblock from wikipedia.

Peter


body:
On May 18, 2006, at 2:26 PM, Harish Ganesan wrote:

> You take a look at the last few posts and simishag and
> tell me if they are fair here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53916581&oldid=53915809
> ...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Kobe_Bryant&diff=53923486&oldid=53922948
>
> I am sorry for posting all this public but I just want
> to let the admins who watch over these know there is a
> major problem out here with bias and that is a problem.

All I see here is ample evidence that you should learn how to work
collaboratively with others before ever being allowed to edit
Wikipedia again. The type of editing you're engaging in is quite far
from acceptable.

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


body:
On 18/05/06, Harish Ganesan <kamehameha87 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> BTW my block has gone from 1 day to a week now,
> because the fools PS2PCGAMER, Madchester, and Stifle
> have teamed up. It's very funny that now the admins
> are teaming up trying to stop me. Retarded admins,
> that's all I can say. They make wikipedia messed up.
> I've only started editing for a week and all of a
> sudden they are all going after me after the profanity
> I put on my discussion page in anger. What they are
> doing reminds me of the Bush administration's plan to
> stop terror, aka focusing on and going after the wrong
> thing. HAHA anyways,
[snip]

It's ironic. The last post I make to this mailing list for an
indeterminate amount of time is a rant.

Why the fuck aren't these idiots on moderation?

Rob Church


body:
On May 18, 2006, at 2:48 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> If we don't want unsourced material, why have we tolerated it so long?

This could be a change in what's considered acceptable rather than an
eternal law. Early in Wikipedia's development, we took what we could
get. Now that we have a crapload of content, we can set stricter rules.

Think of it like a basketball team. If you absolutely need to have a
basketball team and no one wants to join, you'll take anyone. If
everyone in the school wants to join the basketball team, you have to
set rules and cut people. True, there's a limit to the roster of a
basketball team and no limit to the amount of information Wikipedia
could have, but more importantly there's a minimum in both cases, and
when the minimum is met, you can be more discriminating.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Darren@nocuffs

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 11:44 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>> If we allow this set of articles, then why not have others
>> covering every
>> other aspect of Californian criminal law? And for the other 49
>> states. And
>> federally? And then for every other jurisdiction in the world?
>
> Yes, why not?  Seriously?  Much more useful than yet another article
> on a minor Pok?mon character.
>
>> My feeling is that the information is encyclopaedic, but would be
>> better
>> placed elsewhere.
>
> Well yes.  But I couldn't think where, either.

We should aspire to become an encyclopedia of law. Seriously, the
great thing about Wikipedia is that Wikipedia can be more than a
general encyclopedia. Wikipedia can replace specialized enyclopedias
like encyclopedias of philosophy and encyclopedias of law (if the
latter even exist yet).

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
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Anthony DiPierro stated for the record:

> On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>Hash: SHA1
>>
>>Andrew Gray stated for the record:
>>
>>
>>>On 19/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>[[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
>>>>list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
>>>>The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
>>>>What is the proper procedure here?
>>>
>>>
>>>Point out the original source of the uncropped image. It's trivial to
>>>determine that cropped X is a derivative of uncropped Y, and thus we
>>>can treat Y as the source of X.
>>
>>Point me to the original public domain image.  I'll crop it and remove
>>the antenna sticking out of his head, and release my copyright on the
>>modification to the public domain.
>>
>
> Looking at Google, this seems to be the original:
> http://www.house.gov/clay/images/photo016.jpg
>
> Anthony

Thanks ... done.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | A thunder of jets in an open sky,
 sean at epoptic.com | A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi!"
                  | A loop, a whirl, a vertical climb,
                  | And once again you know it's time....
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On May 18, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Rob wrote:

>>> If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
>>> want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every
>>> troll I
>>> block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of
>>> course,
>>> they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.
>>
>> Sounds like putting a pic of yourself on Wikipedia is not for you.
>
> No, it's not, and I won't be doing it regardless of what the policy
> is.  But I think contributors who wish to add pictures of themselves
> and their family to their userspace should be allowed to do so without
> giving up the rights to those photos.   I don't see why we can't give
> contributors this minor concession.

I don't see why contributors can't give us this minor concession :)

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


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> Just for fun (and to boast of course;-) I ran some of the examples
> through my wiki-to-XML parser [1], and it seems impervious to them (the
> ones I've tested, anyway), as it renders invalid XML and wiki markup as
> plain text. Maybe I should adapt the fuzzer to do testing automatically,
> just to be sure (and maybe find some bugs).

Here's a small simple test script, which when dropped into the w2x/php
directory and run, will pass it fuzzed wiki text, and get w2x to
generate XHTML output: http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/w2x-test.phps

If desired, the "$_POST['text'] =" bit could be updated to read the
contents of the files generated by the fuzzer, and run w2x
sequentially over all the generated files.

W2x takes a while to generate the XHTML output - the above example
takes 120 seconds exactly on a 2 GHz 64-bit Linux box with 2 Gb RAM,
for 18 lines / 973 characters of wiki text. (May be quadratic or
polynomial run-time?)

It gives this XHTML output:
http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/w2x-test-output.html , which when
validated ( http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/w2x-test-output.html
) gives 2 errors and 1 warning :-(

Of course, I should point out that the current parser does not
generate valid XHTML either on fuzzed wiki text, and doing so is a
hard problem to solve. Writing software to find problems is much
easier ;-)

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Boalch
>
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> >> Accordingly on other articles, different points of view need
> >> to be included based on their prominence and level of support
> >> in the real world, not just on which happens to be most
> >> popular among the Wikipedia editing community.
> >
> > That's the problem. In theory, theory and practice are
> identical. In
> > practice, they aren't.
> >
> > WP articles are not written by the general community, they
> are written
> > by editors, usually a handful of core contributors. NPOV
> works out to
> > what these editors agree it is, simply because nobody else has any
> > significant input.
>
> Indeed. The point is that those editors
>
> >> Writing consistently with NPOV is not 'inflicting your
> opinion on an
> >> article'.
> >> Biasing an article towards your own opinions *is*
> inflicting your opinion on
> >> an article, is obviously not consistent with NPOV.
> >
> > Beg pardon, but it is. If (say) a Republican and a Democrat
> write an
> > article, each one only writing material that supports and
> reinforces
> > their partisan views, but the end result is balanced and consistent
> > with community support, then that is NPOV.
>
> That is entirely dependent on where you draw the line on what
> the 'end result' is. I am perfectly happy with the idea of
> Wikipedia articles gradually improving over long amounts of
> time towards some future goal, but NPOV is non-negotiable
> and, regardless of how eventualist your philosophy is, an
> article must always be NPOV. Now. Not at some time in the
> future. Now. Therefore I'm not happy with the editing process
> you suggest above, which implies one editor biasing the
> article towards one particular viewpoint then another editor
> coming along later and biasing it in a different direction.
> Every version should always be NPOV.

As noted, there is a difference between what WP *should* be and what it
actually is. You may talk theory all you like, and I will agree with your
ideals 100%, but that doesn't change what actually happens out in
articlespace.

> >> With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly
> >> misinterpreting what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't
> >> think either of us are suggesting that editors should be
> >> 'opinionless automatons', just that they shouldn't let their
> >> opinions influence the way they write articles.
> >
> > That's plain bizarre. There's absolutely nothing wrong with editors
> > inserting their own opinions into articles. It happens
> every day. So
> > long as it is done with NPOV in mind it works fine.
>
> Now I think you're deliberately misinterpreting what I mean
> in order to throw up an irrelevant straw man (note that this
> is a discussion tactic that I have absolutely no 'due respect' for).

I'm sorry you think that. You are wrong.

> Obviously writing an NPOV-compliant article isn't a problem.
> Unduly biasing an article towards your own opinions is not
> compliant with NPOV.

I don't think you understand NPOV. NPOV allows for multiple points of view,
not one. We present the facts and let the reader decide.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Artists' impressions

body:
On May 18, 2006, at 10:54 AM, Andrew Gray wrote:

>>> In some circumstances ([[F-19]]!) an "artists impression" might
>>> be OR,
>>> but in general terms sketching something is no more OR than touching
>>> up a photo of it.
>>
>> ...or than writing about it!
>>
>> I would like to draw a line at artist's impressions that are clearly
>> fictional, though. Such as drawings or paintings of people that died
>> centuries before the artist's birth -- they are either fictional or
>> based on another representation (and in that case we should include
>> the other representation instead).
>
> Hmm, yes. Anything which is a composite of several existing images, or
> "drawn from life", is probably fine.

This proposal excites me!

Seriously, we need a WikiProject to do sketches of, say, notable
people who don't have free-content photos of them taken, so we can
replace a lot of fair use cruft. If I was any good with a pencil I'd
do it myself.

Any artists?

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the edit
	warsbut it makes no sense!!! (Hganesan)

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church
>
> Please remember that admins on this site are a bunch of
> editors with a few extra tools. Their purpose is not to serve
> as moderators of content; I'm of the school of thought that
> when it comes to resolving a content dispute, the admin's job
> is akin to dragging apart two fighting children and holding
> them apart until they calm down and begin to resolve their
> differences.

Sometimes, and I need only mention the Superbowl wheel war, it's admins who
are behaving childishly. I would not rule out inappropriate behaviour on the
part of an admin.

However, I can only reiterate what has already been said: long rants about
rouge admins aren't helpful.


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Boalch

>
>
> Nick Boalch wrote:
>
> >>> Accordingly on other articles, different points of view need
> >>> to be included based on their prominence and level of support
> >>> in the real world, not just on which happens to be most
> >>> popular among the Wikipedia editing community.
> >>
> >> That's the problem. In theory, theory and practice are
> identical. In
> >> practice, they aren't.
> >>
> >> WP articles are not written by the general community, they are
> >> written by editors, usually a handful of core contributors. NPOV
> >> works out to what these editors agree it is, simply because nobody
> >> else has any significant input.
> >
> > Indeed. The point is that those editors
>
> ...should agree on what is NPOV based on the mixture of
> points-of-view *in the real world*, not just on their own opinions.
>
> (Oops.)

Yeah, I was wondering what happened - if only we could edit our posts, hey?

But you keep on saying what WP "should" be like. I'm not disagreeing with
you on this. I'm merely saying that what actually happens is often a long
way from ideal.

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Andrew Gray stated for the record:
>
> > On 19/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> >>[[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
> >>list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
> >>The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
> >>What is the proper procedure here?
> >
> >
> > Point out the original source of the uncropped image. It's trivial to
> > determine that cropped X is a derivative of uncropped Y, and thus we
> > can treat Y as the source of X.
>
> Point me to the original public domain image.  I'll crop it and remove
> the antenna sticking out of his head, and release my copyright on the
> modification to the public domain.
>
Looking at Google, this seems to be the original:
http://www.house.gov/clay/images/photo016.jpg

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
On 5/18/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>  > I think I should learn more about 'fair use' - it could be quite
> > interesting. I've wondered, for example, whether it's legitimate to use the
> > cover of an autobiography (incorporating the subject's face) as the main
> > image of an article about the person, when the book itself is discussed in
> > passing in the text.
>
> The one I'd like to hear answered myself is whether the desires of the
> copyright holder have any bearing on whether an image can be fairly used
> - I ran into this issue on
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Orly.jpg>, wherein an image
> that (as far as I can tell) meets fair use criteria for the context in
> which it was being used was deleted because the copyright holder
> apparently complained about it.

If the copyright holder approves of the use, then fair use is
unnecessary.  In all fair use cases ever heard by a court, the
copyright holder objects to the use.

IOW, no, the desires of the copyright holder have no bearing on
whether an image can be fairly used, because the fair use defense
presumes that the copyright holder objects to the use.

I'm not a lawyer, but this seems like pretty simple logic to me...

Anthony


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Spoilers

body:
On Thu, 18 May 2006 11:42:52 -0700, you wrote:

>For many hope is an essential element of life.  Some need to believe
>that an article or movie about the Titanic can have a different ending

Perhaps we should put a spoiler warning in the factual articles, too,
in case someone makes a film some day?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Thu, 18 May 2006 12:25:05 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>BTW my block has gone from 1 day to a week now,
>because the fools PS2PCGAMER, Madchester, and Stifle
>have teamed up.

[[WP:NPA]], that's heading for a month now.  It's great being a rouge
admin :-D

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ben Yates wrote:
> There was a proposal to overhaul wikipedia's front-page design, and
> wikimedia's corporate design, by holding a contest:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>
> But designers are mostly opposed to contests, and pro designers don't
> usually compete in them (contests also pose problems for organizations
> on the recieving end) -- see Talk,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>
> So it looks like we have an offer from a visible designer to help us
> find pro-bono firms and designers who'd be willing to do the site for
> free (just not on spec).  We should put out a call for portfolios.
>

Having been in several organizations that have brought in outside
designers (or design firms) to revamp their websites, I'm pretty wary of
it; the results, while sometimes nice-looking, often display a stunning
ignorance of what the site is actually *for*, and make it nearly
impossible to get actual information from it.

What would be ideal to avoid such a situation is to have a designer who
is very closely familiar with Wikipedia and how both its editors and
readers work.  And of course, Wikipedians ought to have a veto over any
final design.

-Mark


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Update to Signpost story

body:
It's been almost a month since I put out the latest article on it, but
for those of you who have been following this Lisbon earthquake /
Washington Post / roving priests / Jay Robert Nash story, I have what
may be the last piece to the puzzle of how this bit of legend made it
into Wikipedia as fact. Nash, the Post, and our contributor were still
all wrong in the end; we're still the only ones who have corrected the
mistake.

To recap:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-02-14/Misinformation_on_Wikipedia
(the original story)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-04-24/Jay_Robert_Nash
(the follow-up about Nash)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-04-24/Jay_Robert_Nash
(the final explanation)

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> IOW, no, the desires of the copyright holder have no bearing on
> whether an image can be fairly used, because the fair use defense
> presumes that the copyright holder objects to the use.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, but this seems like pretty simple logic to me...

I thought so too, and another editor who _is_ a lawyer (User:Bobak)
looked at the situation in a fair bit of detail and agreed with my
logic. But UninvitedCompany claimed at the end of the deletion review
entry
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review&oldid=50533958#Image:O_RLY.jpg>
that the Wikimedia Foundation lawyer had had a look at the situation and
said it should be deleted. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find either a
link to the Foundation lawyer's comments or the original copyright
holder's complaint anywhere, so it still leaves me completely in the
dark as to why this logic is apparently wrong in this case.


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why the fuck aren't these idiots on moderation?

List policy is to allow people to have their 5 minute rant. When it becomes
a 10 minute rant, we step in.

Steve


from_name: MuscleNerd

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
I have apparently been accused of being a sock puppet by "Cyde".  I
believe he took this action because I have been voting against his
TFD recommendations.  And I don't think that's fair at all.

I would appreciate if someone could unblock me.  Or at least email me
so I can help "clear my name" after this unjust accusation.


from_name: Eric McDonald

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
Sorry, I omitted some required info from my request!

My username is "Mnerd" and my IP address is 69.231.169.88.  I'll
follow the other recommendations in the "What to do next" section now..

On May 18, 2006, at 11:36 PM, MuscleNerd wrote:

> I have apparently been accused of being a sock puppet by "Cyde".  I
> believe he took this action because I have been voting against his
> TFD recommendations.  And I don't think that's fair at all.
>
> I would appreciate if someone could unblock me.  Or at least email
> me so I can help "clear my name" after this unjust accusation.


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/18/06, Katie (keitei) <katiefromuncyc at gmail.com> wrote:
> The image this thread was originally about did have a CC license. It's
> technically a free license, just not THE free license. CC-BY-NC-SA
> should be allowed in userpages, in my opinion.

CC-BY-NC-SA is not a free license according to http://freecontentdefinition.org/

Angela


from_name: Weekeejames

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for a new Wikipedia in the Chavacano Language

body:
This is a request to start a new Wikipedia in the
Chavacano Language.

cbk-zam.wikipedia.org

Currently, there is no standard language code
for Chavacano in the ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2
language codes.

The ISO 639-3 lists the language code for Chavacano as cbk
but since Chavacano has some dialects/varieties,
this request is for the Zamboange?o dialect
which has the largest number of this Philippine Creole Spanish
speakers in the Philippines, being the main language
of Zamboanga City, Philippines.

Hence, I am requesting the language code to be used for the
Chavacano de Zamboanga Wikipedia as cbk-zam

Please help us in the creation of this Philippine Creole
Spanish Wikipedia. Thank you very much.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
Please forgive me if this isn't the appropriate forum for this, but I
don't mind talking about this publicly.  Again, this in reference to
my user name Mnerd and IP 69.231.169.88

Cyde believes I must be a sock puppet because I have edited only the
templates for deletion pages.  Here is his accusation, and my response:

Denied. I refuse to believe you are a new, distinct user, when all of
your edits at templates for deletion. ? May. 19, '06 [06:58] <freak|
talk>

Well, I guess you are perfectly free to not believe what you choose.

I FREELY admit that all of my edits are on templates for deletion. I
said as much in my User talk page. I registered SPECIFICALLY because
I don't like your crusade. That certainly does NOT mean that I am a
sock puppet. It means I was motivated enough by what you are doing to
register tonight.

The fact that you believe I must be a sock puppet because I disagree
with you, and joined specifically to add a voice against your
actions, speaks volumes. Mnerd 07:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I don't see "edits only templates for deletion" as a
reason to suspect sock puppetry. Please do point me to a page if I am
wrong. Certainly you need something a little stronger than that?
Mnerd 07:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

On May 18, 2006, at 11:36 PM, MuscleNerd wrote:

> I have apparently been accused of being a sock puppet by "Cyde".  I
> believe he took this action because I have been voting against his
> TFD recommendations.  And I don't think that's fair at all.
>
> I would appreciate if someone could unblock me.  Or at least email
> me so I can help "clear my name" after this unjust accusation.


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

body:
Anthony DiPierro napisa?(a):
> On 5/18/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There was a proposal to overhaul wikipedia's front-page design, and
>> wikimedia's corporate design, by holding a contest:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>>
>> But designers are mostly opposed to contests, and pro designers don't
>> usually compete in them (contests also pose problems for organizations
>> on the recieving end) -- see Talk,
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
>>
>> So it looks like we have an offer from a visible designer to help us
>> find pro-bono firms and designers who'd be willing to do the site for
>> free (just not on spec).  We should put out a call for portfolios.
>>
>>
> Is the design going to be GFDL?
>
After a brief talk with Delphine and some other people (including
non-wikimedians) during the Wikimedia Polska 2006 meetup my take on this is:

No, the design should NOT be GFDL, CC-whatever or under any other free
license. The webpage design is an integral part of the sites' visual
identity, just as much as the project logos (if not more).

Monobook is currently distributed along with every MediaWiki package.
Anybody can set up a site that looks almost EXACTLY like Wikipedia and
be on the safe side of the law.

Sure, giving our website design away under a free license is a nice
thing to do but... Why the hell should we be nice?

We are supposed to gather free knowledge and distribute it under a free
license. Are we doing it? Yes. Check.
Is the design "free knowledge"? No.

So let's just forget about "the wiki way", "free content" and all that
other stuff and try to think like an *organization* for a sec. Oh, wait.
Not just any organization. *The* organization behind one of *the* 20
most visited sites on the planet.

If this doesn't seem to convince you think about this for a moment: Why
don't we just release the logos under a free license? When you come to
an answer simply apply it to the design as well, cause this is the same
area - visual identity.

(Disclaimer: No, I did not assume Anthony was implying that the design
should be under GFDL when he asked the question above. I assumed a
number of people might think that.)

--
Cheers,
TOR


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-19

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 305 of 314 tests (97.13%) FAILED!


body:
Anthony DiPierro napisa?(a):
> On 5/18/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
>
>> Sure, giving our website design away under a free license is a nice
>> thing to do but... Why the hell should we be nice?
>>
> The entire reason Wikimedia exists is to be nice.
>
Sigh... The moment I hit send I knew somebody would say this. We could
spend days discussing the reasons for Wikipedia's existence ("purpose of
meaning" anyone?) as well as the degrees of niceness. ;)

I simply believe that we're being nice simply by gathering and providing
knowledge. We do not have to be really, really, reaaaally nice by also
saying "Please, confuse people and mess with our visual identity by
using our site design! Go ahead! It's free!". That's not even being nice
anymore. That's being dumb (I know I will most probably regret using
this word when I wake up tomorrow...).

Goodnight.

--
?ukasz "TOR" Garczewski


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Darren@nocuffs

body:
On May 18, 2006, at 9:12 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

>> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Philip Welch
>
>> We should aspire to become an encyclopedia of law. Seriously, the
>> great thing about Wikipedia is that Wikipedia can be more than a
>> general encyclopedia. Wikipedia can replace specialized enyclopedias
>> like encyclopedias of philosophy and encyclopedias of law (if the
>> latter even exist yet).
>
> Mmmm, but you'd have to be a right nong to use it as more than a
> casual
> reference. A legal encyclopaedia that anyone can edit?

That's just our development pattern. In the end we will have stable
versions that are verified accurate.

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


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I realize it's written out of frustration, but you really have to
> appreciate much more how difficult it is to "kick out" people. You do
> know that Lir is still around, right? How many times did we block the
> guy? The fact that problem users become invisible in terms of
> traceable identities doesn't make them go away. It makes the problem
> worse. And you also remember User:Michael, I'm sure. I think that
> experiment is generally considered to be successful?

I am not talking about trolls and problem users in this case, though.  I
am talking about bad editors, editors who don't stop to think that
reverting someone who is trying to remove libel about themselves is a
horribly stupid thing to do.

> Unless we want to radically reduce that level of openness, we need to
> stick to our usual patience in dealing with problem users.

Right, and I do not think we have a problem with that.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> It was a WP:OFFICE action. No further explanation is required.

I thought only Danny could do that and he wasn't involved in this.
There's no indication on UninvitedCompany's userpage that he can do
OFFICE actions.

The only reference to WP:OFFICE anywhere in the relevant talk pages was
a suggestion that it should be contacted at one point right near the
end, but there's no indication that this was actually done. Is there any
way to check this?

IMO further explanation _is_ required because otherwise a lot of people
are misunderstanding something about how fair use works here without any
way to correct it.


body:
On May 18, 2006, at 11:22 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> Think of it like a basketball team. If you absolutely need to have a
>> basketball team and no one wants to join, you'll take anyone. If
>> everyone in the school wants to join the basketball team, you have to
>> set rules and cut people. True, there's a limit to the roster of a
>> basketball team and no limit to the amount of information Wikipedia
>> could have, but more importantly there's a minimum in both cases, and
>> when the minimum is met, you can be more discriminating.
>
> Has the minimum officially been met yet? Are we now being more
> discriminating?

In terms of content, absolutely. In terms of users, not even close.

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


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> One of the things I do is
> add {{citation needed}} when I hit statements that look particularly
> significant and unsupported, in the hopes that someone who _does_ know
> about the subject will be prompted to check them and fill in the blanks
> at some point later on. How is this "wrong"? Seems like perfectly
> straightforward collaborative editing to me, dividing labor between
> proofreading and doing the actual problem-fixing work.

There is nothing wrong with this, except what I am saying is this:

If you see an unsourced statement that would be libel if false, and it
makes you feel suspicious enough to want to tag it as {{citation
needed}}, please do not do that!  Please just remove the statement and
ask a question on the talk page.

Here is an example from an article I deleted:
"The most recent disaster that <name omitted> claims his organization
has responded to is the 2004 South Asia Tsunami, although there is no
convincing evidence that he or any of his team has been there.[citation
needed]"

That is really really really awful.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unfairly blocked/called a sockpuppet

body:
I'm a newly registered user, "Mnerd", and I would appreciate someone
looking at my talk page to see my complaint about being unfairly
blocked.  I did send some email to this list earlier tonight, but
looking at the archives, it seems like those earlier messages are
still in moderation.

Anyhow, the whole story is laid out on my talk page.  Thanks for
anything you can do.  My blocked IP is 69.231.169.88 and my user name
is "Mnerd".  Thanks.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> I'm happy to be corrected, but I was under the
> impression that as long as we can convey that the information is not
> guaranteed accurate (by the use of cite tags), then "speculative"
> information is better than none.

Absolutely not.  Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your
words.  We are not tabloid journalism, we are an  encyclopedia.

> As a reader, often you approach a topic knowing nothing at all. If
> Wikipedia can at least give you a broad outline of the topic with some
> clues as to where it fits with respect to other topics, then it's
> doing well. Whether or not it's a neutral, balanced and totally
> factually accurate article is a secondary concern to me, as a reader.

That can be true to a degree and in some cases, but this is not the sort
of thing that I am talking about at all.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>> In the case of living individuals?  You want to pay for the lawsuits?
>> I can't see any problem at all with requiring all critical information
>> on living individuals to be robustly sourced before insertion. Where's
>> the downside?  That we fail to repeat speculation on blogs and attack
>> sites?  Seems to me that would improve credibility, not reduce it.
>
> Living individuals aside.

Right, although there are other categories where this can be important:

1. Existing companies and other organizations (an extension of the
living persons, since these are groups of living persons)

2. Information which might have some significant safety implications


body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> WP:V is deliberately vague on this point and editors have to use
> common sense. If an article says "John Smith is a killer" and there's
> no source, remove it immediately. But an edit saying "Skiiing is
> Switzerland's top sport" can be tagged (but please remember to go back
> at some point to see if a source has turned up), or better still, the
> editor who's questioning it could look for a source himself. There are
> so many gradations of unsourced material between these two examples
> that we couldn't possibly be algorithmic about it, so editors have to
> be sensible: the more harmful or the sillier an unsourced edit looks,
> the faster it should be removed.

Precisely!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> While I respect Brad's opinion very much, we need to be very careful
> that "because I've spoken to Wikimedia's lawyer about it" does not
> become equivalent to "end of discussion". The only question is where,
> and with whom, such discussion should take place. I think wikien-l or
> DRV are good places to start in most cases.

This is the situation I'm getting concerned about here. I don't really
care about the specific image or its subject myself, I stumbled into
this completely by chance, but I am a little disturbed by how much
careful and detailed work went into justifying its inclusion only to be
trumped with completely unsupported "the artist doesn't like it" and
"the Foundation lawyer doesn't like it" assertions. How am I supposed to
know what's valid fair use under these circumstances?


from_name: Nicholas Barry

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki Activism (Project Proposal)

body:
Hello! - my name is Nicholas Barry. I am "willing to take responsibility" for this project, but I don't feel that this description/proposal is ready to go on the actual Proposals for new projects page (so it's on the Talk page). I'm new at the project proposals game, so I would really appreciate help, advice, or constructive criticism. Actually, even hateful, unconstructive criticism could help let me know where I go wrong (ha ha).
 The Idea:
 WikiActivism is a project for past and present social movements such as the Civil Rights movement, Animal Rights movement, and the blooming Immigrant Rights movement. The meat and potatoes of the project will be a page for each separate movement. The majority of pages (great in number, though less important than the main page for each movement) will list evidence used by or against each movement, organizations associated with each movement, and other such items. (Most links on each page will probably go to Wikipedia for explanation of various terms and issues.)
 How is this different than the existing pages on Wikipedia?

   It will be more in-depth than the Wikipedia articles. This will include:
      Evidence and statistics cited for or against movements
      Organizations associated with movements
      Detailed mapping of the inter-relations between movements
      A deeper consideration of the issues of the movement

   There will be sections devoted to the ongoing activity of each movement (almost like melding Wikipedia with Wikinews for these movements).
   Each movement will have a page or pages describing practical actions that potential movement members or supporters can take to further the movement
 Issues, Concerns, Objections and Questions:
 Many of the concepts and ideas on the pages have explanations on Wikipedia, and would be unnecessary (and maybe against copyright) to copy over content from the 'pedia to this project. Is it considered bad form for many of the links on a particular project to actually lead off to other projects? Or is that considered necessary? I notice that Wikibooks has a lot of that, so I guess it's okay.
 It is possible that this project will not fall under the WikiMedia Foundation charter, which is to spread information. This project is meant to spread information, but is also meant to have practical information on how to contribute to various movements. Is that okay? Please opine.
 - Nicholas Barry


body:
Ben Yates napisa?(a):
> It honestly
> doesn't seem like a very important issue right now considering the
> number of improvements that could potentially be made if we were to
> set the issue aside for now.
>
Quite right.
> For example: has wikimedia/wikipedia ever been formally tested for
> usability, to see (in hard data) how the interface could be improved?
>
Well... Gandalf (Mozilla Europe Board Member, Lead Developer of Aviary
PL etc.) has thrown one example of bad (usability- and
accessibility-wise) design after the other at us during the meetup I
mentioned. But I don't think he did a thorough test. I do know that he
is a pro and that he was the first person I though of when I saw the
overhaul proposal.

I am going to try to contact him this weekend and get him involved in
this. Will keep you posted.

--
Cheers,
?ukasz "TOR" Garczewski


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>> IMO further explanation _is_ required because otherwise a lot of people
>> are misunderstanding something about how fair use works here without any
>> way to correct it.
>>
>
> I can't reveal the exact details, but "fair use" most definately did
> *not* apply. The image was a copyvio.

But then I get right back to the problem that sparked my initial email.
Evidently there's some detail of fair use policy that is not accurately
described, since so many people are convinced that this was a fair use
image - including at least one editor who's also a lawyer. I don't care
about the specific details of _this_ case, but why can't the general
principle that was violated be explained? How else can I and other new
editors who come along avoid the same mistake?


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image:Ali.jpg

body:
On 19/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> [[Image:Ali.jpg]] is currently marked for deletion because it does not
> list a source.  The original image was a work of the US government.
> The copyright holder of the cropped image wishes to remain anonymous.
> What is the proper procedure here?

Point out the original source of the uncropped image. It's trivial to
determine that cropped X is a derivative of uncropped Y, and thus we
can treat Y as the source of X.

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


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
Hello,

> I simply believe that we're being nice simply by gathering and
> providing
> knowledge. We do not have to be really, really, reaaaally nice by also
> saying "Please, confuse people and mess with our visual identity by
> using our site design! Go ahead! It's free!". That's not even being
> nice
> anymore. That's being dumb (I know I will most probably regret using
> this word when I wake up tomorrow...).

Sure, let's fight anyone who uses fragment of our 'trademarks'.
Or who use fragments of our 'visual designs'.

I feel that we are here because of what we want to do, not because of
what we've done. If we see, that we can be out-competed by anyone else,
who can be nicer and more efficient, let them lead the way.

Screw all that what we've built, it's all GFDL, it all can be forked.
Let's concentrate on what we, as a community may create and we
won't have to care about trademarks, designs or any power ladders.

And yes, you will regret the word.

Let's confuse everyone with the idea that knowledge can be free.

Let's confuse everyone that they can find information they need in
seconds.

Let's confuse everyone by relying on idea, that in confusion people
start to think and bring new ideas.

Total world domination is nice, but people should have a choice (and
fun :).

And we should not be the watchdog of 'what is our only asset' -
trademarks or whatever else.

Our real asset is potential. And if there's general feeling
otherwise, that would be perfect demotivation.

Domas


from_name: Max Völkel

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Installing Seamntic MediaWiki extension on meta or
	mediawiki.org?

body:
Hi,

  in order to document the "Semantic MediaWiki" extension [1],
  it would be great to put the stuff on mediawiki.org.
  But: Can we use the extension on that site?
  I   read   about   the   big    move   from  meta.wikipedia.org  to
  www.mediawiki.org and the trouble you have to structure the content.
  Maybe the extension could help there ...

[1] http://wiki.ontoworld.org

Kind regards,

  Max V?lkel
--
Dipl.-Inform. Max V?lkel, Universit?t Karlsruhe / FZI
            nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
voelkel at fzi.de   +49 721 9654-854   www.xam.de

First Workshop on Semantic Wikis: http://semwiki.org


from_name: Eric Demolli

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent edit son the Windows Media Player Article

body:
Recent edits on the article have removed several criticism about
Microsoft. Now the article is mainly focused on the "exciting" features
of WMP 11 and the availability of WMP for other platforms.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
I intend to do more than just "vote" on the deletions.  In fact, I
have made edits in the past (for instance, the last edit to http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beachmont%2C_MA )    I just did it before
bothering to register.  But now I'm registered.

Also, I see now I'm unblocked.  I will stay away from TfD for a
while, but I still feel I was unfairly dealt with by Cyde.   But
thanks for hearing me out.

On May 19, 2006, at 2:23 AM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> Eric McDonald wrote:
> <snip>
>> I FREELY admit that all of my edits are on templates for deletion. I
>> said as much in my User talk page. I registered SPECIFICALLY because
>> I don't like your crusade. That certainly does NOT mean that I am a
>> sock puppet. It means I was motivated enough by what you are doing to
>> register tonight.
>>
>
> You have registered for the purpose of making your opinion about the
> deletion of some templates heard. Do you intend to actually contribute
> to Wikipedia, or just use it as a webhost? Please keep
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT in mind.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
Hi Erik,

Thanks for believing me.  It is a bit distressing to be accused of
being something you aren't (a sock puppet) and being banned on
something as "little" as voicing my opinion about the TFD controversy.

I do appreciate your words and those of the other admins here who
believe me.  My big mistake was contributing anonymously until the
night it really mattered :)

On May 19, 2006, at 1:50 AM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 5/19/06, MuscleNerd <mnerd at musclenerd.com> wrote:
>> I have apparently been accused of being a sock puppet by "Cyde".  I
>> believe he took this action because I have been voting against his
>> TFD recommendations.  And I don't think that's fair at all.
>
> I don't think Cyde should have blocked you, given that he is the
> person who made the TFD requests which you disputed. However, please
> do understand that creating accounts apparently solely for the purpose
> of voting is generally frowned upon. I can also understand the
> suspicion of sock puppetry given that the issue you commented on,
> userboxes, is one which is dominated by a lot of trolling and noise,
> and is generally a highly Wikipedia-internal affair.
>
> I am more inclined to believe that you are acting in good faith now
> that you have shared your identity. Where does your interest in
> commenting on this issue come from? Do you intend to contribute to
> Wikipedia beyond sharing your opinion on this issue?
>
> Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Darren@nocuffs

body:
On May 19, 2006, at 1:41 AM, Peter Mackay wrote:

>> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Philip Welch
>>
>> On May 18, 2006, at 9:12 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:
>>
>>> Mmmm, but you'd have to be a right nong to use it as more than a
>>> casual
>>> reference. A legal encyclopaedia that anyone can edit?
>>
>> That's just our development pattern. In the end we will have stable
>> versions that are verified accurate.
>
> And therefore obsolete. Law, both legislation and common law, changes
> rapidly nowadays.

There's no reason stable versions couldn't be vetted weekly or
biweekly. Law still does not change as quickly as technology.

> You could have an encyclopaedia of legal basics, but having an
> uptodate
> comprehensive legal reference using volunteer labour is probably a
> very big
> ask.

Having an up-to-date comprehensive encyclopedia using volunteer labor
is a very big task :)

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 18/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 5/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wikipedia is not your desk at work.  You are not allowed to post
>>>> copyright-reserved material to Wikipedia.  On the other hand, you are
>>>> allowed to edit Wikipedia in the nude.  (But please don't tell us when
>>>> you do.)
>>> Would it be okay if I posted a GDFL pic of myself editing Wikipedia in
>>> the nude? ;)
>> No. The wikipedia interface is GPL.
>
> That's MediaWiki, and be aware that he needn't include visible screen
> detail. Having acted the pedant; no, it would be deleted as being
> inappropriate.
>

Only developers are allowed to work on Wikipedia in the nude, right?

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

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