body:
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:51:19 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:17:35 +0200, Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> >Amongst some truly great discussion, we should remember pt:, and ask again
> >if all the nn: and nb: folks could swallow their differences and skim
> >through the other dialect as if it were their own. We have been told that
> >they all understand both.
>
[snip]
> As for Alemannish, I have no serious problem reading it with my background
> in knowing German, Yiddish and some Dutch. But I will not ask for it to be
> closed down, and I do not think would be appropriate in any way for me as
> an outsider to tell them to quit their project and work only within the
> German or French wikipedias instead!

I don't think any of your many analogies about linguistic communities
than can read multiple languages apply here.  Bokm?l and Nynorsk are
(apparently) separate orthographical conventions for the same spoken
language, which is not true for any of your other examples (e.g.
Alemannic is not spoken like German or French).

That said, if  Bokm?l and Nynorsk differ orthographically to the
degree that people have said, the idea of having two wikipedias
certainly makes sense to me.

Just one more middling factual point:

[snip]
> fact support. The topic we are discussing is whether the mostly Bokm?l
> Wikipedia on no: should move from the countrycode no: for Norway to the
> language code nb: for Bokm?l. Also, we are discussing -- and your input

In this context, 'no:' is not the ISO countrycode for Norway (NO) but
the ISO 639-1 language code for the Norwegian language (no).

None of the wikipedia subdomains correspond to country codes.  For
example, Swedish wikipedia is sv.wikipedia.org (because Swedish
language has ISO 639 code 'sv'), even though the country code for
Sweden is SE.

Steve


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Shane King

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

body:
On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 08:10:23PM -0800, Mark Richards wrote:
> --- Shane King <wikipedia at dontletsstart.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 06:02:51PM -0800, Mark
> > Richards wrote:
> > > So you think that in science pages, for example,
> > space
> > > should be given to different theories based on
> > their
> > > relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
> > > evolution, not to mention gravity!
> > > Are you really serious?
> > > Mark
> >
> > I'm not discussing what I think should be done, I'm
> > discussing what I
> > believe current policy to specify. I believe
> > creationism has no place at
> > all in an article on science. That's neither here
> > nor there though.
> >
> > Shane.
>
> But if we take seriously the idea that if many people
> believe it it should be given space, you must do that,
> surely.
> Mark

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I must do what?

If you're saying I must put those views in articles, I disagree. I can
choose not to edit those articles and let other people work on them.

If you're saying that if I do choose to work on articles, I'm obliged to
put views in that I personally think to be wrong but are popular, then I
think you're absolutely right. Like I said, I personally feel
creationism has no place in an article on science. I don't edit to my
personal feelings though, I edit to policy (or at least I try). That's
why I said my personal feelings are neither here nor there: only what's
currently policy matters.

Anyway, we're probably getting a bit off topic now, so I'll shut up. :)

Shane.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Lars Alvik

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: no:/nb:/nn:/etc. - modified suggestion

body:
P? 17. nov. 2004 kl. 12.46 skrev Ulf Lunde:

> Lars Alvik:
>
>>> "1" is unfair to nynorsk and politically very explosive.
>>
>> Bokm?l is, unlike nynorsk, can accualy be called a national language,
>> with 90% of the population speaking/writting in it.
>
> I wish you would stop citing relative size as if it were an argument
> which entitles
> the *bigger* of the two languages to special treatment (such as the
> right to
> call itself "the" Norwegian language).

It's not the right to call one self the only norwegian language. It's
an argument that "most" norwegians consider their language for
norwegian and most norwegians use bokm?l, simple train of though. But
yes, i belive norwegian should keep no:.

I cite relative size because i mean it's a important agrument. And to
this date i haven't heard any argument that counter it (besides "stop"
and "you don't seam to get it" (the last one is freely translated from
norwegian)).

>> You should perhaps look at Lars Aronsens mail:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-November/
>> 035836.html
>> its a clear and unbiased view on the conflict.
>
> I have read it (and all other contributions to this discussion).
> Aronsen does indeed
> state that "There is an oppression component here, where the mere
> number of
> people who prefer Bokm?l creates a problem for the brave Nynorsk
> minority."
> He does not use the number 90%, but rather 85% (which is probably
> pretty
> close to being accurate).  Remember, there are also Norwegian people
> without
> any preference, who can write with equal ease in both languages.

97,3 % of all statistics is made up :P
Yep, i can't argue with the oppression, but i belive you missed the
important parts of that mail: " It might be a good idea to call it
"norsk (bokm?l)", but I'm surprised by the strong sentiments that met
me when I suggest the renaming of no: to nb: would be unnecessary."

And the comparison of a renaming and extreme political correctness. And
i hold the same views, That you seem to ignore, so in your own words
"you don't seem to get it do you" (translated from norwegian).

> The only numerical statistics I know about concerning the size of
> bokm?l
> vs. nynorsk, I found at a pro-nynorsk web site:
> http://www.nm.no/english.cfm
> It claims that 640 000 Norwegians (14%) use nynorsk as their primary
> written language.  The no: Wikipedia puts the number at 10%-12%.  But
> even if it were just 1%, nynorsk would still deserve fair (meaning
> equal)
> treatment.  At any rate, it is small enough for its users to scream
> "oppression"
> when the larger bokm?l community carelessly ignores nynorsk's rights.
>
> I do not wish to be part of conscious oppression of a minority
> language.

I still don't see how awarding (ie. officialzing) the bokm?l/no:
wikipedia the no: code is oppression of the other. Nynorsk is still
going to be advertised on the frontpage and probably get some extra
attention on each page.

As i said earlyer the debate should be taken at the villagepump at the
no: wiki, and the debate that has been going on there has resulted in
this: 5 no: admins have said that they wanted suggestion (1.) (4 of
them have publicly stated that they are tired of the debate), 3
non-admins (allthough they are admins on nn: so i consider them as
primary nynorskusers) have stated that they want another solution. Some
of them was initatialy positive to my suggestion. Others have not dared
to come forward.

mvh. Lars Alvik


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Go button for new pages

body:
On Nov 17, 2004, at 2:11 PM, Roy wrote:
> The manual states: another way is to perform a search (as you should
> have done before) with the Go button and coming up with nothing,
> pressing "create the article".
>
> When I click on GO to create a new page I don't see the link "create
> the article". How can I enable it?

Please see:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2004-October/001671.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Baseldytsch Wikipedia: Who can put it online?

body:
As has been noted before, we already have an Alemannic Wikipedia, and
so far all SD speakers seem to have been attracted to it, whereas BSD
(not the OS) seems to have received a different reaction.

Mark

On 16 Nov 2004 23:44:00 +0100, Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de> wrote:
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
>
> Or, alternativly, create an schwytzerd?tsch wikipedia, instead of
> starting with a small subset of schwytzerd?tsch?
>
>
>
> >Could you please check http://als.wikipedia.org first? It was
> >started as a Wikipedia in Elsassisch, but has recently been
> >extended to cover all Alemannic dialects, to which Baseldytsch
> >also belongs.
>
> >Andre Engels
>
> >On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:58:10 +0100 (MET), cdamvvwgs at gmx.ch
> ><cdamvvwgs at gmx.ch> wrote:
> >> Hello dear Wikipedians,
> >> I listed a proposal for a Wikipedia in Baseldytsch (a
> >> swiss-german dialect in Switzerland with its own dictionary and
> >> orthography, about one million speakers; see also
> >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Request_for_new_language). I'm
> >> currently translating the interface (http:/
> >> /meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Locales_for_the_Wikipedia_Software),
> >> but is there anyone who can put the Baseldytsch Wikipedia online
> >> under the domain http: //bsd.wikipedia.org/ ??? If yes, please
> >> do so! Or send me an e-mail how to do so. Thank you very much,
> >> CdaMVvWgS
> >>
> >> --
> >> Geschenkt: 3 Monate GMX ProMail + 3 Top-Spielfilme auf DVD
> >> ++ Jetzt kostenlos testen http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail ++
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>  __ .
>  / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
> . .
>   . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
>   . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
>   . . . . .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

body:
Yes, for sure, but the original poster seemed to be
saying that if many people were espousing something,
then it must be right.
Mark

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >So you think that in science pages, for example,
> space
> >should be given to different theories based on
> their
> >relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
> >evolution, not to mention gravity!
> >Are you really serious?
> >
> >
> We can simply contextualize what we're talking
> about.  If an article is
> in the context of a scientific theory, it should say
> what the scientific
> viewpoint on it is.  If other communities disagree,
> these could be
> mentioned briefly.  If there is a lot to mention, a
> separate article
> such as [[creationism]] or [[controversies involving
> evolution]], or
> something of that sort, is warranted.
>
> Sometimes this is hard to do, but I think usually
> it's possible.  To
> take one example, something like [[clinical
> depression]] could describe
> the orthodox psychiatric view of clinical
> depression, with a mention
> that it's controversial and a link to a more general
> article and/or an
> article specifically about the controversy.  If this
> had been 1970, when
> orthodox psychiatry considered homosexuality a
> mental illness, we'd have
> a similar case, where we'd have [[homosexuality
> (paraphilia)]]
> describing psychiatry's take on it and linking to
> [[homosexuality]] or
> [[gay]] or something of that sort describing
> controversies and other
> views on the matter.
>
> The problem with a hardcore scientism point of view
> is that scientists
> are not always right, as the homosexuality example
> illustrates.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com


body:
No, Steve.

Bokm?l and Nynorsk are not different written forms of the same spoken
language, rather they are a separate tradition altogether. If you read
either one, they will sound different from each other but will also
not match colloquial speech since Norwegian has many dialects.

Mark

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:24:20 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:51:19 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:17:35 +0200, Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> > >Amongst some truly great discussion, we should remember pt:, and ask again
> > >if all the nn: and nb: folks could swallow their differences and skim
> > >through the other dialect as if it were their own. We have been told that
> > >they all understand both.
> >
> [snip]
> > As for Alemannish, I have no serious problem reading it with my background
> > in knowing German, Yiddish and some Dutch. But I will not ask for it to be
> > closed down, and I do not think would be appropriate in any way for me as
> > an outsider to tell them to quit their project and work only within the
> > German or French wikipedias instead!
>
> I don't think any of your many analogies about linguistic communities
> than can read multiple languages apply here.  Bokm?l and Nynorsk are
> (apparently) separate orthographical conventions for the same spoken
> language, which is not true for any of your other examples (e.g.
> Alemannic is not spoken like German or French).
>
> That said, if  Bokm?l and Nynorsk differ orthographically to the
> degree that people have said, the idea of having two wikipedias
> certainly makes sense to me.
>
> Just one more middling factual point:
>
> [snip]
> > fact support. The topic we are discussing is whether the mostly Bokm?l
> > Wikipedia on no: should move from the countrycode no: for Norway to the
> > language code nb: for Bokm?l. Also, we are discussing -- and your input
>
> In this context, 'no:' is not the ISO countrycode for Norway (NO) but
> the ISO 639-1 language code for the Norwegian language (no).
>
> None of the wikipedia subdomains correspond to country codes.  For
> example, Swedish wikipedia is sv.wikipedia.org (because Swedish
> language has ISO 639 code 'sv'), even though the country code for
> Sweden is SE.
>
> Steve
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en

body:
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:55:24 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:58:37 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "Or are you happy to contribute copyright violations as long as they
> > are 'in the target language'?"
> >
> > If I were me, I'd ask Angela to apologise if she asked me to apologise.
>
> I think that's a quite reasonable thing to ask. You took a text from a
> website, and put it on Wikipedia. In my book that's a copyright
> violation. Your argument that it was a government website does not
> hold water - US government publications are free of copyright, but
> other countries have other rules. In general, it is a bad thing to
> take texts from other sites unless they specifically state that they
> are not under copyright.

It's not what she asked, it's the way she asked it. Had I said the
same thing in the reverse situation, you would probably be telling me
I should apologise to her.

And how do you know I haven't checked the copyright laws that are
applicable in this case? Also, since another site based in that
country similarly used them without any attribution but attributed all
other works to their respective authors and sometimes gave copyright
and permission notices, I think that, given the multitude of sources
used by that site, it is not unreasonable to trust their judgement
especially when added to the facts: It was published by a governmental
organisation and was not sold but rather distributed freely. Also, if
you take into account the social and political tendencies of the
government in question, there is quite a different conclusion than for
countries which are highly protective of government works. There is no
royalty (one common reason for such measures), there is no
totalitarian regime (another reason), and their economic views would
not generally support such laws.

If you want to tell me that it *is* illegal and show me your sources,
I will be happy to put copyvio notices up myself.

Mark


from_name: Philipp

subject: [Wikitech-l] "medium-level"-CSS in mediawiki

body:
Hello,

known possibilities for integrating styles in mediawiki are

 - selecting one of the included styles/"skins" around monobook etc.
 - uploading some selfmade CSS and selecting this one for even more
   individual preferences

OK so far. What I'm looking for is a way to integrate file-level CSS which is
usually located inside the <head>...</head> section for formatting only parts of
the whole wiki resp. defining a handfull of classes.

Let's say all tables in articles regarding workgroup XYZ are intended to have a
background color of ffdd55 (whatever) one would define a class groupxyz.table
{...} and have this information provided in the head section, as described. It
would be comfortable to get it somehow with {{Template:xyz}}, but that would
include within the body section, thus no interpretation of CSS definitions.

Is there a place to insert such information in mediawiki. Some possibility of
influencing the head section? Or a general CSS file which is read regardless of
the selected skin?

Thanks
 Philipp


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>So you think that in science pages, for example, space
>should be given to different theories based on their
>relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
>evolution, not to mention gravity!
>Are you really serious?
>
>
We can simply contextualize what we're talking about.  If an article is
in the context of a scientific theory, it should say what the scientific
viewpoint on it is.  If other communities disagree, these could be
mentioned briefly.  If there is a lot to mention, a separate article
such as [[creationism]] or [[controversies involving evolution]], or
something of that sort, is warranted.

Sometimes this is hard to do, but I think usually it's possible.  To
take one example, something like [[clinical depression]] could describe
the orthodox psychiatric view of clinical depression, with a mention
that it's controversial and a link to a more general article and/or an
article specifically about the controversy.  If this had been 1970, when
orthodox psychiatry considered homosexuality a mental illness, we'd have
a similar case, where we'd have [[homosexuality (paraphilia)]]
describing psychiatry's take on it and linking to [[homosexuality]] or
[[gay]] or something of that sort describing controversies and other
views on the matter.

The problem with a hardcore scientism point of view is that scientists
are not always right, as the homosexuality example illustrates.

-Mark


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] AC election oversight

body:
After some consideration, I would like to volunteer to provide oversight
for the upcoming AC election.

I do not intend to be a candidate for the AC, and at present do not plan
to vote in the election.  However, I would be happy to help be sure that
the election is conducted fairly and impartially.  I believe it would be
best if there were several people serving in such an oversight role and,
accordingly, would hope to work with others.

The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipedia process
	andcontent

body:
At 10:21 PM 11/17/2004 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
>So, where I can put my finger on my unease, is that I can see a case where,
>if pressed to review an article some months ago, I would have said
>'sub-standard'.  Clearly a term paper, wierd notation, author not quite on
>top of it.  The problem is, it took me half a year of having it on my
>conscience to realise that I did know enough to rescue it, and get the point
>straight.  And I think the wiki process shows up well, there; it has done
>little harm, and, with all due modesty, if I wasn't already familiar with
>the point, it pushes the envelope on the WP coverage.

I'm not sure what your objection here is. If you're on the review board and
you come across an article you think is substandard, then you can just skip
it and move on. Half a year you get the epiphany on how to fix it, so you
go back and fix it and then you can mark it as being "1.0 quality" or
whatever the tag will be. I don't think any of the variant systems that
have been proposed include any sort of deadline or schedule for reviewing
specific articles.


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:37:37 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> As has been noted before, we already have an Alemannic Wikipedia, and
> so far all SD speakers seem to have been attracted to it, whereas BSD
> (not the OS) seems to have received a different reaction.

I'm not sure I understand you.

Baseldytsch *is* Schwytzerd?tsch (Swiss-German).  There are a number
of regional dialects of Schwytzerd?tsch; Baseldytsch is just the one
corresponding to the area around Basel (in Switzerland).  All of these
belong to the Alemannic language family, but each is highly distinct
in pronunciation and orthography, and distinct in turn from the
Els?ssisch, the Alemannic language spoken in Alsace in France.

According to the requester on [[meta:Request for new language]],
"Baseldytsch is like other swiss dialects extremely different from the
"language" used on the Alemannic Wikipedia."

If this is correct, then it isn't true, as you say, that
Schwytzerd?tsch speakers have been attracted to the Alemannic
wikipedia.  I would guess that most of the language used to this point
is Els?ssisch, since that's what that wikipedia started as.

The requester also writes: "And please, don't think about a
swiss-german wikipedia, the differences are extremely big, too big."

The question is, is it reasonable to grant a wikipedia to every
Alemannic dialect?  Probably this discussion should involve whoever
decided to generalize Els?ssisch to Alemannic, since we can't really
call it an 'Alemannic' wikipedia if it's mostly Els?ssisch and each
Alemannic dialect wants its own namespace.

Steve


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on Radio 4

body:
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:17:48 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> There will be a discussion of encyclopedias, including, of course,
> Wikipedia, on the "You and Yours" programme on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow
> (Wednesday) afternoon.

For those who missed it, the permanent link to the description of
today's program is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/index_20041117.shtml and you
can access the Encyclopedias segment with this RealPlayer [ick] link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/ram/youandyours_20041117_5.ram

You might want to seek forward a few minutes to the discussion part
(about 8 minutes in, I think); the first half is a more magazine-y
thing with families challenging each other to find facts. I must say,
I thought Wikipedia came off quite well; well done Angela, and thank
you for spreading the "good word of wiki" :)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Michael Snow

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cleaning the Wikipedia namespace (was [[Extreme article
 deletion]] is up for deletion)

body:
Zoney wrote:

>See my comments on that debate. Are people content for the Wikipedia
>namespace to have items other than the essentials needed for running
>en:? I mean, even with just that, there's a LOT of operational clutter
>(I think someone pointed this out on the village pump recently -
>suggesting a cleanup).
>
>I would suggest we try to tidy up the Wikipedia namespace, and move
>jokes and satire to people's user space. I'm even suggesting this for
>BJAODN. It would also mean that a user would have to take
>responsibility for each page.
>
>Surely the Wikipedia namespace is just there to help out with the
>running of the project?
>
>Am I completely out of touch with everyone else on this?
>
>
I definitely agree with Zoney on this, although I don't particularly
think use of the Wikipedia namespace for joke material is the real
concern. This particular frivolity should have been relatively harmless
by itself.

However, we do have a longstanding serious problem in that there are
fundamentally *way too many* pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Even
discounting the pages dedicated to things like WikiProjects, or BJAODN,
we have so many Wikipedia: pages that it is excessively difficult for
people to find information when they need it. This is especially a
problem for newcomers, and poses a significant barrier for anyone
wishing to learn how to be an effective contributor. You can't exactly
tell someone to "read the manual" when the manual's pages have been
strewn all across the playfield.

If I thought it was realistic to enforce such a thing, I would suggest a
moratorium on creating any new pages in the Wikipedia namespace. As it
is, I think we should seek out opportunities to severely condense our
statements of policy, redirect relic pages to more helpful locations,
and generally weed out material of limited usefulness. This would make
Wikipedia much more "user-friendly", something we fail abysmally at
right now.

--Michael Snow


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipedia process and
	content

body:
Daniel Mayer (maveric149 at yahoo.com) [041117 10:43]:
> --- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I very much hope this does not happen. Setting up
> > 'expert reviews' would be the death of the project.

> But the goal of the project is to create the largest free resource of knowledge
> that has ever existed. Wiki is a means to that end. So if some aspects of that
> process start to result in a drive toward mediocre content, then we *must* make
> some changes to put us back on track.

We went through this (you and I) on this very list just recently. You're
still reasoning along the lines of:

1. We must do something.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore, we must do this.

Not only is this logically fallacious, you haven't really proven 1. as yet.
Note that de: Wikipedia recently beat two commercial encyclopedias in blind
testing without imposing review boards.

> Adding some type of article review system that could scale to cover a large
> part of our content would be a massive improvement. Experts should have seats
> on those review boards, but so should non-experts. Neither the views of experts
> or non-experts would carry more weight - both would be equal (the consensus
> view of the board itself is what would count).

I suspect review boards will not scale. What is the processing rate of a
review board likely to be? How many articles are there again? How many
being created each day?

While reviewing content sounds like a good ide (to me too), there should be
a way to do it wihtout seeming to repudiate the concept of the wiki. I'm
not actually wedded to the idea myself, but repudiating it as you describe
would be extremely jarring culturally and - and this is the important point
- demotivating for the volunteers.

If it can at all be done within the wiki process, it should be. de: is
solid evidence it can be achieved within the wiki process; neither your
assertions nor those of the Britannica editor are solid evidence it can't.

(And I'm still seeking details of what de: did to get to that standard!
Could someone on de: please tell us? cc'd to wikipedia-l for this purpose)

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipedia
	process and content


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark being used incorrectly

body:
In an article on Slyck.com ( http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=609 ),
the author improperly refers to infoAnarchy as a "Wikipedia". The
relevant excerpt reads:

> InfoAnarchy.org has been involved with the P2P community for a
> considerable amount of time - about the same as Zeropaid and Slyck.
> Like P2Pnet.net, InfoAnarchy.org contains an impressive amount of
> original content written by owner Erik M?ller. One of its major
> accomplishments is an extensive Wikipedia
> <http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page> containing a
> wealth of P2P and file-sharing information. Members of the site
> maintain the Wikipedia. All InfoAnarchy.org needs is more frequent
> news updates to make this a leading P2P news site.

I've already sent an email to Slyck in a public relations capacity, so
we don't need to flood them with more. However, I think it would be
helpful if Erik would also contact them, since he runs infoAnarchy, to
help make sure this kind of confusion doesn't get perpetuated. Because
Wikipedia is easily the largest and most recognizable wiki, we need to
be vigilant against people misusing the Wikipedia name if we intend to
protect our trademarks.

--Michael Snow


list: wikimedia-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cleaning the Wikipedia namespace (was [[Extreme
	article deletion]] is up for deletion)

body:
When was the last time a newbie was told to 'read the
manual'?! ;) Mark

--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Zoney wrote:
>
> >See my comments on that debate. Are people content
> for the Wikipedia
> >namespace to have items other than the essentials
> needed for running
> >en:? I mean, even with just that, there's a LOT of
> operational clutter
> >(I think someone pointed this out on the village
> pump recently -
> >suggesting a cleanup).
> >
> >I would suggest we try to tidy up the Wikipedia
> namespace, and move
> >jokes and satire to people's user space. I'm even
> suggesting this for
> >BJAODN. It would also mean that a user would have
> to take
> >responsibility for each page.
> >
> >Surely the Wikipedia namespace is just there to
> help out with the
> >running of the project?
> >
> >Am I completely out of touch with everyone else on
> this?
> >
> >
> I definitely agree with Zoney on this, although I
> don't particularly
> think use of the Wikipedia namespace for joke
> material is the real
> concern. This particular frivolity should have been
> relatively harmless
> by itself.
>
> However, we do have a longstanding serious problem
> in that there are
> fundamentally *way too many* pages in the Wikipedia
> namespace. Even
> discounting the pages dedicated to things like
> WikiProjects, or BJAODN,
> we have so many Wikipedia: pages that it is
> excessively difficult for
> people to find information when they need it. This
> is especially a
> problem for newcomers, and poses a significant
> barrier for anyone
> wishing to learn how to be an effective contributor.
> You can't exactly
> tell someone to "read the manual" when the manual's
> pages have been
> strewn all across the playfield.
>
> If I thought it was realistic to enforce such a
> thing, I would suggest a
> moratorium on creating any new pages in the
> Wikipedia namespace. As it
> is, I think we should seek out opportunities to
> severely condense our
> statements of policy, redirect relic pages to more
> helpful locations,
> and generally weed out material of limited
> usefulness. This would make
> Wikipedia much more "user-friendly", something we
> fail abysmally at
> right now.
>
> --Michael Snow
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
Bcc
Subject: [WikiEN-l] About the CVability of Wikipedia process and content
Reply-To:
In-Reply-To: <419AE74D.7080909 at earthlink.net>
Return-Receipt-To: fun at thingy.apana.org.au

Charles Matthews wrote:

>Correct as far as it goes.  But more to the point is that until WP editing
>looks good on a CV, no academic worth having will give it the attention.

I recently got a new job. On my CV under "Interests" I listed Wikipedia.
We chatted about it at the interview. (I said "it's good to pub quiz level,
but the technical and computer stuff tends to be very good and
comprehensive indeed." Which I think it is, generally.) I got the job :-)

(Sysadmin at a financial information publisher, not academic. But anyway.)

- d.


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] AC election oversight

body:
Elian and I have also offered our services. I look forward to working with
Uninvited Company if he agrees, in the belief that more oversight will confirm
the reliability of the election

Danny


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> In an article on Slyck.com (
> http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=609 ),
> the author improperly refers to infoAnarchy as a
> "Wikipedia". The
> relevant excerpt reads:
>
> > InfoAnarchy.org has been involved with the P2P
> community for a
> > considerable amount of time - about the same as
> Zeropaid and Slyck.
> > Like P2Pnet.net, InfoAnarchy.org contains an
> impressive amount of
> > original content written by owner Erik M?ller. One
> of its major
> > accomplishments is an extensive Wikipedia
> >
>
<http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>
> containing a
> > wealth of P2P and file-sharing information.
> Members of the site
> > maintain the Wikipedia. All InfoAnarchy.org needs
> is more frequent
> > news updates to make this a leading P2P news site.
>
> I've already sent an email to Slyck in a public
> relations capacity, so
> we don't need to flood them with more. However, I
> think it would be
> helpful if Erik would also contact them, since he
> runs infoAnarchy, to
> help make sure this kind of confusion doesn't get
> perpetuated. Because
> Wikipedia is easily the largest and most
> recognizable wiki, we need to
> be vigilant against people misusing the Wikipedia
> name if we intend to
> protect our trademarks.
>
> --Michael Snow

Is there any good reason why we don't place a trade
mark symbol (or registered trade mark, if appropriate)
next to the word "Wikipedia" at the top of each page?
Or somewhere? I know the symbol is not needed for the
word to be a trademark, but I think the symbol would
help reinforce to various parties that the word is
indeed a trademark.

Seems like a simple step. Can't see that it would
hurt.

-Rich Holton

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Mav wrote

> Scale issues are very important so we must develop ways to to quickly
review
> content.

I say 'thanks but no thanks' to review boards.  They have impressive
support, so I should present an argument.

At present I write about 50% in an area where I have 11 years post-doctoral
experience, and 50% in another where I last took an exam at age 13.  In the
first I should expect to be 'reviewing' others' contributions; in the second
I'm not confident in anything I can't fact-check in several sources.

So, where I can put my finger on my unease, is that I can see a case where,
if pressed to review an article some months ago, I would have said
'sub-standard'.  Clearly a term paper, wierd notation, author not quite on
top of it.  The problem is, it took me half a year of having it on my
conscience to realise that I did know enough to rescue it, and get the point
straight.  And I think the wiki process shows up well, there; it has done
little harm, and, with all due modesty, if I wasn't already familiar with
the point, it pushes the envelope on the WP coverage.

Charles


body:
Zoney (zoney.ie at gmail.com) [041117 22:57]:

> I have seen some articles degrade. In my opinion, some aspects of
> [[European Union]] have degraded through the wiki process during my
    [....]
> There are failings in the wiki system, and it does us no harm to
> recognise them, rather than cry foul at our detractors. I feel there
> are many ways that content can be kept more organised / reviewed, and
> there's ample prospects of getting past any problems we have. But they
> shouldn't be ignored.

Certainly. I've seen the process myself.

What I'm saying is that a quality improvement process should fit with the
culture, so as not to kill the golden goose. It's not that I have a dislike
of review boards per se, but that I think they'd be way too jarring and
fundamentally repudiate the wiki process.

Some sort of review process that leverages the wiki process - let the wiki
do the work.

There are plenty of things we can do before adding something so clearly
anti-wiki as a review board.

e.g. more work and tweaks on the experimental review software (at
test.wikipedia.org); the proposed syntax for references, so as to make
checkable referencing down to the sentence level *really easy*, so that an
expectation of referencing can be more easily brought into the culture of
Wikipedia. That sort of thing.

- d.


from_name: Pablo Mayrgundter

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automated Categorization for Wikipedia

body:
Hi,

I'm a wikipedian and have helped on a few articles.  I've noticed the
new categorization feature and have a suggestion.

I happen to have professional experience with automated categorization
software, and think you could use it to automatically populate
categories with relevant articles.

The basic approach:

- Prepare a dataset
 - Specifiy a taxonomy to be learned, e.g. the current category taxonomy.
 - Populate the taxonomy with example documents, e.g. a sample of
existing articles from each category.
- "Learn a odel" using a statistical text classifier.
 - This requires a fair amount of server time.. say a day or so on a
beefy server with lots of RAM.
- Evaluate the results and select well modelled categories.
- Set up a classification server that funnels all wikipedia articles
through the selected categories.
 - Those articles/nodes that are a strong match for a category get
annontated with a special tag showing an automated categorization has
been made and a link is added to the article page back to the
category.
 - The category lists all such articles/nodes, sorted by confidence, size, etc.

If this sounds interesting, I may be able to get a donated copy of
ReelTwo's classification system:

  http://reeltwo.com/products.html

for permanent use in the wikipedia.  It's very high performance.

ReelTwo is my old company.  It's a small datamining shop.  The staff are
all supporters of OSS and enjoy using wikipedia, and I think they'd
appreciate the opportunity to contribute to wikipedia, and also be
proud to be associated.  As would I.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Pablo Mayrgundter
freality.org/~pablo


from_name: John Davenport

body:
I agree that the Wikipedia: namespace is way too full, but I'm not
clear what sort of information we should put in Wikipedia: , we also
have a Help: namespace, and that looks like a good place for "manual"
type info, and currently has copies of pages from meta, and Wikipedia:
seems like a place for policy decision.

So am I missing something? What's the purpose of Wikipedia: and Help:?

If we have answers to this already, I think we need to make them more
clear, as Wikipedia: seems a mixture of both.


from_name: Michal Jurosz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Please update LanguageCs.php

body:
Please update LanguageCs.php (from
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageCs.php). Thanks.

Michal Jurosz


subject:
[WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the  Wikipedia
	processandcontent

body:
At 07:07 AM 11/18/2004 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
>Bryan Derksen wrote
> > I don't think any of the variant systems that
> > have been proposed include any sort of deadline or schedule for reviewing
> > specific articles.
>
>Given the number of ideas thrown around, I'd have to concede the point to
>anyone who follows the details with greater interest than I.  But I think
>it's a bit naive to assume there would be no time pressure.  For example,
>any subsequent publishing venture would probably take reviewed articles as
>the base line; and publishers, IMX, are forever setting inconvenient (for
>others) deadlines.

If we don't meet the deadlines these hypothetical publishers want us to,
will they dock our pay?

I think you're jumping a few steps ahead and making a lot of assumptions
here. Coming up with ways to be more confident in the quality of our
articles is a good thing all on its own, even when considered completely
independently of any paper publishing goals. We can try out ways to do that
without having to give any consideration to whether it makes it easier for
publishers to come up with a printable version.


from_name: Rhobite

body:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:48:02 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> However, we do have a longstanding serious problem in that there are
> fundamentally *way too many* pages in the Wikipedia namespace.

I don't really know where to propose it, but I've been thinking about
this one for a while. I believe there are too many choices for
"problem resolution" pages, particularly pages in the Wikipedia:
namespace designed to list articles which need to improve in some way.
This includes Cleanup, Pages Needing Attention, Peer Review, and
Requests for Expansion. I think PNA is particularly redundant with
Cleanup, and PNA should be phased out. Four months ago I was a newbie
and I had no idea what the difference was between those pages. I'm
still a little unsure about PNA vs. Cleanup.

Rhobite


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL 4.1 & MediaWiki backup corruption warning

body:
Just a note of warning for those of you using MySQL 4.1: changes in the
new charset options may result in mysqldump outputting bogus data into
backups which can't be restored without data loss.*

This may affect some Unicode text, and certainly can irretrievably
corrupt compressed old revision text (using $wgCompressRevisions
option). If you're using MySQL 4.1, you should probably examine and
test your backup dumps to make sure they can be restored and used
successfully.

Passing an option like --default-character-set=latin1 may stop
mysqldump from trying to 'convert' (and thus corrupt) your data. (If
your server is not set to the defaults, this may or may not be the
correct value for you.) In the future hopefully we'll be able to play
nicer with the new character set settings, but for now MediaWiki
follows prior practice for older versions of MySQL where there was (and
remains) no ability to correctly indicate the charset used in a
particular database, table, or field.

* Specifically, a default "latin-1" to UTF-8 conversion silently
corrupts all bytes with the values 0x81, 0x8d, 0x8f, 0x90, or 0x9d by
turning them into literal question marks. The question marks cannot be
returned to their original byte values when the data is re-imported.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [041118 04:42]:

>  I think most veterans are very sensitive about this, and do a
> pretty good job of policing articles for violations of NPOV, and educating
> newbies.  I just think we haven't done as good a job with
> "verifiability."  I think the explanation we have on the verifiability page
> is very good -- but I am talking about the culture of the place. I think it
> is time for people actively to look for opportunities -- on article talk
> pages, personal pages, and here -- to talk about "verifiability;" how do
> you recognize that an article is verifiable; what are the warning signs
> that it may not be; how to go about making it more encyclopedic.

Agreed 100%!

> My second suggestion is to try to find a way to appropriate the one good
> thing I have found in peer-review -- when a few scholars who really are
> experts in a topic give considerable attention to one person's work, and
> give them focused feedback.  NOTE, the purpose is not to give a stamp of
> approval or to veto the work, the purpose is to engage the work on a very
> high level, to call attention to the elements of the work that can be
> developed, and to suggest alternatives.  I am trying to imagine a process
> that is more intense than what usually happens on a talk page.  What I
> suggest is that there be a directory of editors grouped by expertise on
> major topics (biology, art, US history, etc).  When it is clear that one
> editor is writing a new article or substantially rewriting or adding to an
> existing article, members of one of these panels can review the changes as
> a whole with an eye towards making constructive suggestions and educating
> the new editor in Wikipedia values.  There need be no threat of veto or
> sanction power -- I think if three veterans reviewed an article of mine and
> told me "look, deal with our criticisms now, and address these issues, or
> sometime over the next year other wikipedians will spot these problems and
> delete or change your work at will," it will be strong enough incentive.

Have a look at [[Wikipedia:Peer review]] or, more intensively, [[WP:FAC]].
The latter can get very pointed and show up deficiencies the original
author never even noticed. The regulars are also relly big on references.

Probably the main problem with WP:FAC is that it may not be very scalable.
It's not quite letting the wiki do the work. There must be a way.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipedia
	processandcontent

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote

> I don't think any of the variant systems that
> have been proposed include any sort of deadline or schedule for reviewing
> specific articles.

Given the number of ideas thrown around, I'd have to concede the point to
anyone who follows the details with greater interest than I.  But I think
it's a bit naive to assume there would be no time pressure.  For example,
any subsequent publishing venture would probably take reviewed articles as
the base line; and publishers, IMX, are forever setting inconvenient (for
others) deadlines.

Charles


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 09:35:14PM -0800, Rich Holton wrote:

> Seems like a simple step. Can't see that it would
> hurt.

It does.
Also it's fun to laugh about folks and journalists who
are too stupid to know the difference between Wikipedia
and a wiki.

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Pablo Saratxaga

body:
Kaixo!

On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 06:29:05PM -0500, Stephen Forrest wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:37:37 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>> As has been noted before, we already have an Alemannic Wikipedia, and
>> so far all SD speakers seem to have been attracted to it, whereas BSD
>> (not the OS) seems to have received a different reaction.
>
> I'm not sure I understand you.

He says that only people from Basel want their own idiosyncrasic
wikipedia, and that all other Alemannic speakers agree to put their
efforts in common (I don't know how true that is, however).

> Baseldytsch *is* Schwytzerd?tsch (Swiss-German).

Well, is it or not?
You keep telling how extremely different it is.

> but each is highly distinct in pronunciation and orthography,

Pronunciation and orthography are not major features of a language
(pronunciation and orthography change a lot over time, and in case of
languages with not yet normalized writting form, orthography changes
from place to place, and even from people to people, yet the
language is the same).
What is a feature of a language is it grammar and lexicon.

So, is Baseldytsch different in grammar and vocabulary from what is
used in Alemannic as to require a different Wikipedia?
Or are the differences simply on the orthographic conventions used?

(A similar problem exists with Walloon language, if you write it
phonetically, at least 4 major orthographies exist (with dozens of small
variants for each one of them) to match the pronunciation differences;
however, as it is the same language, a common orthography has been
developped recently (in the 1995-2000) and that is what is used in the
Walloon Wikipedia, as that is the only way to have consistency for a
work done by multiple people from different places and different
accents)

> According to the requester on [[meta:Request for new language]],
> "Baseldytsch is like other swiss dialects extremely different from the
> "language" used on the Alemannic Wikipedia."
>
> If this is correct, then it isn't true, as you say, that
> Schwytzerd?tsch speakers have been attracted to the Alemannic
> wikipedia.

Why not?
"Distinctiveness" is often a very subjective thing.
I can perfectly believe that people from a big city are less inclined to
change their orthographic habitudes to adapt to a broader system than
people from smaller places.

> I would guess that most of the language used to this point
> is Els?ssisch, since that's what that wikipedia started as.

I would guess exactly the opposite.
(it may even be possible that no Els?ssisch is left, and that all old
articles have been converted to a common orthography yet).

> The question is, is it reasonable to grant a wikipedia to every
> Alemannic dialect?  Probably this discussion should involve whoever
> decided to generalize Els?ssisch to Alemannic, since we can't really
> call it an 'Alemannic' wikipedia if it's mostly Els?ssisch and each
> Alemannic dialect wants its own namespace.

That is indeed the question.

As building an encyclopedia is a *VERY BIG* task, it would be advisable
not to divert efforts, imho; so there should only be one Wikipedia
per language, not per dialect.
Note that some define themselves as different languages while,
linguistically, they are not; but they feel as different enough; but
that doesn't seem the case here.
So, imho, as long as speakers of "Baseldytsch" define themselves as
speakers of Alemannic, then a separate Wikipedia should not be created;
only if speakers of Baseldytsch claim that they don't speak Alemannic
but a different *language* should a separate Wikipedia be created.

--
Ki ?a vos v?ye b?n,
Pablo Saratxaga

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or Esperanto]
[min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]


from_name: Noha Abdel-Motttaleb

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 16, Issue 33

body:
I think it is not right for people to make up
information or rely on their memory, because people
look up info on this website frequently and it is
important to provide them with the most accurate
information we can get. :-)
noha

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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Shane King <wikipedia at dontletsstart.com> wrote:
> I feel the risk of the review board is mostly dependent on how much
> faith people put in them. If people put too much faith in the abilities
> of the review board compared to the normal process, we can get the
> situation where people assume the reviewed version must be better than
> the non-reviewed version. I was just pointing out that this will not
> always be the case. So long as people maintain a healthy scepticism in
> the review process, I think there's a lot of potential in the idea.

Yes - any such system will have to make it clear that the reviewed versions are
*not* perfect and that the current version may be more up to date and better in
other ways as well.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Ulf Lunde

body:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:41:40 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, Steve.
>
> Bokm?l and Nynorsk are not different written forms of the same spoken
> language, rather they are a separate tradition altogether.

Point Of View, and I beg to differ.

To make an analogy, if you and your friend both write "I'm not" in English, but
one of you says "I aint" and the other "I am not" in your respective
dialects (or
sociolects), then all three are valid examples of the same language: English.

In much the same way, Norwegian is Norwegian, whether represented by
written bokm?l, written nynorsk, or some spoken dialect.  It is all one and
the same language, and I would agree with Stephen Forrest that nb and nn
are just two orthographical notations (notably, the official ones) for
that language.

Ulf Lunde


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [[Extreme article deletion]] is up for deletion

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> Zoney wrote:
>
>>Surely the Wikipedia namespace is just there to help out with the
>>running of the project?
>>
>>Am I completely out of touch with everyone else on this?
>
>
> Not sure, but as for me, I think a little fun is part of helping out
> with the running of the project.  The Germans already think we are
> humor impaired enough as it is. ;-)
>
> --Jimbo

Yow! When the /Germans/ think that, you know we're in trouble...

That said... *I'm* having fun with the deletion. Who says Americans
don't get irony?

Ta bu shi da yu


from_name: Andreas Brändle

body:
This is my first post to the list. I'm a swiss german (Schwytzert?tsch)
native speaker, not Baseldytsch though. I'm not a linguistic specialist
but  maybe I can give you a feeling for our language:

*Baseldytsch is one of several swiss-german/Alemanic dialects.
*All speakers of swiss-german dialects understand every other dialect
without any difficulties.
*swiss-german dialects usualy don't have a normalized writting form or
spelling rule.
*Swiss read and write in German. We don't learn how to write and read
in swiss german at school
*Baseldytsch is not further from every other swiss-german dialect than
Brooklyn-english from Manhattan-english or Paris-french from
Bretagne-french.

Am 18.11.2004 um 07:30 schrieb Pablo Saratxaga:
> As building an encyclopedia is a *VERY BIG* task, it would be advisable
> not to divert efforts, imho; so there should only be one Wikipedia
> per language, not per dialect.

I agree. As speakers of Baseldytsch usualy write and read in German and
perfectly understand German there shouldn't be one more Wiki for the
same content. As you can see there are only 245 Articles in Alemanic WP
so far.

Am 18.11.2004 um 07:30 schrieb Pablo Saratxaga:
> Note that some define themselves as different languages while,
> linguistically, they are not; but they feel as different enough; but
> that doesn't seem the case here.

  That is the case here

Am 18.11.2004 um 00:29 schrieb Stephen Forrest:
> According to the requester on [[meta:Request for new language]],
> "Baseldytsch is like other swiss dialects extremely different from the
> "language" used on the Alemannic Wikipedia."

Spelling might be slightly different, 99% of the used words are the
same.

As long as Wikipedia aims to build an encyclopedia that wants to
provide the world with free knowledge, the German WP serves this aim
perfectly for all swiss-german/Alemanic dialects.

If WP helps to preserve local and regional dialects and language
culture, a Baseldytsch WP should be set up. But also a Wikipedia for
Berne-dialect, Zurich-dialect, Grisons-dialect, St.-Gallen-dialect and
every other swiss-german dialect.

I hope this gives you an impression 'from the inside'

Cheers
Andreas

>


subject: [WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipediaprocessandcontent

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote

> I think you're jumping a few steps ahead and making a lot of assumptions
> here. Coming up with ways to be more confident in the quality of our
> articles is a good thing all on its own, even when considered completely
> independently of any paper publishing goals.

Maybe so.  The creation of a system of version control, and new institutions
which will 'argue from authority', are no small matters.  We can know what
the _intended_ consequences are.  Compare those with some extended use of
categories, and refining what page histories say.

Charles


from_name: Roy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Go button for new pages

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Nov 17, 2004, at 2:11 PM, Roy wrote:
>
>> The manual states: another way is to perform a search (as you should
>> have done before) with the Go button and coming up with nothing,
>> pressing "create the article".
>>
>> When I click on GO to create a new page I don't see the link "create
>> the article". How can I enable it?
>
>
> Please see:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2004-October/001671.html
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Tnx, it worked.


from_name: Till Westermayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Baseldytsch Wikipedia: Who can put it online?

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Andreas,

>As long as Wikipedia aims to build an encyclopedia that wants to
>provide the world with free knowledge, the German WP serves this
>aim perfectly for all swiss-german/Alemanic dialects.

>If WP helps to preserve local and regional dialects and language
>culture, a Baseldytsch WP should be set up. But also a Wikipedia
>for Berne-dialect, Zurich-dialect, Grisons-dialect,
>St.-Gallen-dialect and every other swiss-german dialect.

What I proposed was intended as a middle way: don't divert efforts into
every single dialect, but group them, so that there is a critical mass.
I live in Freiburg/Germany, so I'm a bit familiar with Swiss-German
dialects as well as high German and Alemanic dialects (even if I speak
only high German). I'm sure German WP won't allow for dialectial
variants (but for Switzerland's high German variants). On the other
hand, I'm not convicted that all the Alemanic dialects are similiar
enough to put them into one WP, at least my impression of Swiss German
is quite different from Freiburg area Alemanic, Alsatian or Swabian. So
my proposal to group all the Swiss German dialects into one WP.

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Boards disabled for now

body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Boards disabled for now

body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia Boards disabled for now

body:
For a while we experimented with a bulletin-board discussion site
(running on phpBB) at http://boards.wikimedia.org/  This hasn't been
used since August as far as I can see.

A serious security vulnerability has been announced in phpBB recently;
rather than add to our maintenance burden for an unused site I'm taking
the boards offline. If there's a sudden demand for it, we could upgrade
it and put it back online.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Zoney

body:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:43:59 -0500, John Davenport <flockmeal at gmail.com> wrote:
> we also have a Help: namespace

We do?!

Wow! I do not believe I have read any pages in that namespace!

Hmmm... this does call for some reorganisation (or minus the "re").
Surely the Manual of style and such pages should be in this "Help"
namespace.

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: David Rossel

body:
Please, don't think about one wikipedia for all swiss-german dialects. That
would be the same thing like the Alemannic wikipedia: An uncommon mixture of
native dialects. Surely all Baseldytsch speakers understand the Z?rit??tsch
(zurich-german) speakers and vice versa.

And please tell me: Why is there already a Plattd??tsch wikipedia? And a
L?tzebuergesch wikipedia? They also seem to be dialects (although
L?tzebuergesch is official in Luxemburg). So, why shouldn't there be other
dialect wikipedias? In Swabian, in Bernese German, in Saxony-German?

And yes, Baseldytsch has ist own orthography and dictionary (which many
dialects don't). I think that's also an argument for this wikipedia. The
interface are already translated into Baseldytsch. So lets just put it
online under bsd.wikipedia.org and we shall see how it'll be running and
what the reactions are. Then we can take it offline, or we just let it be in
its developpment to a useful encyclopedia.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: no:/nb:/nn:/etc. - modified suggestion

body:
Right, that's exactly what I said. Note, "separate tradition" and not
separate language.

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:10:27 +0100, Ulf Lunde <ulf.lunde at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:41:40 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, Steve.
> >
> > Bokm?l and Nynorsk are not different written forms of the same spoken
> > language, rather they are a separate tradition altogether.
>
> Point Of View, and I beg to differ.
>
> To make an analogy, if you and your friend both write "I'm not" in English, but
> one of you says "I aint" and the other "I am not" in your respective
> dialects (or
> sociolects), then all three are valid examples of the same language: English.
>
> In much the same way, Norwegian is Norwegian, whether represented by
> written bokm?l, written nynorsk, or some spoken dialect.  It is all one and
> the same language, and I would agree with Stephen Forrest that nb and nn
> are just two orthographical notations (notably, the official ones) for
> that language.
>
> Ulf Lunde
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Chitu Okoli

body:
Hi y'all,

I looked up the older trademark discussion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Fromwikipedia#Wikipedia_Trademar
k, and it seems that I might have a different perspective from what I've
read so far. I have three general comments:

1. I think the Foundation should indeed officially register the "Wikipedia"
trademark (I was surprised to learn--correct me if I'm mistaken--that this
wasn't done ages ago), so that it can easily defend any cases that might
have to go to court.

2. Once the trademark is registered, I really don't understand why "we have
to protect our trademarks". I've always thought it was a good thing for a
company when its registered trademark becomes a household commodity to the
extent that it becomes synonymous with the generic item. For example, when I
used to live in the southern USA, people could go to a restaurant and order
a Coke. Then the waiter might literally ask, "What kind? Do you want a
Pepsi, a 7-Up, Dr. Pepper, or Coca-Cola?" Another example, though no longer
quite so prevalent, is that for a long time an "IBM PC" included a computer
manufactured by Dell, Compaq, or HP, as well as those made by IBM. A
"Kleenex" includes store-brand tissues for wiping your nose, "Cutex" means
any brand of nail polish, and "Vaseline" means petroleum jelly. In all these
cases, I think the genericness helps these brands to stand out as the de
facto standard. In fact, for a while IBM advertised its products with the
line, "Don't just get IBM-compatible, get IBM".

The only threat I do see is when competitors make a product that is just as
good for a better or comparable price, as in the case of 3M defending its
trademark on "Post-It Notes". Of course, in that case, then why pay more for
the real "Post-Its" when you can get another company's "Post-Its" for less
money, that work just as well? While that is a legitimate businesses threat,
I would hardly think that there is any such risk in Wikipedia's case--though
pursuing violators of the trademark seems to imply that this is the case.

My point is that I find it hard to understand what the problem is if people
begin to use "Wikipedia" to mean any generic wiki-based encyclopedia. I
think Wikipedia is popular enough that people would always come back to "the
real Wikipedia" eventually. I think that the Wikipedia name being used in
this way *helps* it in the long run, not harms it. Of course, I might be
totally missing something here that is obvious to everyone else, so I'd
appreciate people's comments.

3. Related to my previous point, I also think that the (TM) superscript is
*semantically* ugly, if not aesthetically so, because of the corporate image
it gives--so very un-free like. And I don't think chasing down violations of
the trademark helps Wikipedia's image. I don't think it's necessary, if the
Foundation has a legal registration in its pocket to pull out when it might
really become necessary.

Salut,
Chitu Okoli
(User:cokoli)

--===============1430519822==
Content-Type: message/rfc822
MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net>
Precedence: list
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark being used incorrectly
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 20:27:58 -0800
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
References: <20041114231206.58B831AC02D6 at mail.wikimedia.org>
In-Reply-To: <20041114231206.58B831AC02D6 at mail.wikimedia.org>
Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <419C24CE.7060001 at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message: 7

In an article on Slyck.com ( http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=609 ),
the author improperly refers to infoAnarchy as a "Wikipedia". The
relevant excerpt reads:

> InfoAnarchy.org has been involved with the P2P community for a
> considerable amount of time - about the same as Zeropaid and Slyck.
> Like P2Pnet.net, InfoAnarchy.org contains an impressive amount of
> original content written by owner Erik M?ller. One of its major
> accomplishments is an extensive Wikipedia
> <http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page> containing a
> wealth of P2P and file-sharing information. Members of the site
> maintain the Wikipedia. All InfoAnarchy.org needs is more frequent
> news updates to make this a leading P2P news site.

I've already sent an email to Slyck in a public relations capacity, so
we don't need to flood them with more. However, I think it would be
helpful if Erik would also contact them, since he runs infoAnarchy, to
help make sure this kind of confusion doesn't get perpetuated. Because
Wikipedia is easily the largest and most recognizable wiki, we need to
be vigilant against people misusing the Wikipedia name if we intend to
protect our trademarks.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Chitu Okoli wrote:
> 1. I think the Foundation should indeed officially register the "Wikipedia"
> trademark (I was surprised to learn--correct me if I'm mistaken--that this
> wasn't done ages ago), so that it can easily defend any cases that might
> have to go to court.

The registration has been filed.

--Jimbo


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
--- Chitu Okoli <cokoli at jmsb.concordia.ca> wrote:

> My point is that I find it hard to understand what
> the problem is if people
> begin to use "Wikipedia" to mean any generic
> wiki-based encyclopedia. I
> think Wikipedia is popular enough that people would
> always come back to "the
> real Wikipedia" eventually. I think that the
> Wikipedia name being used in
> this way *helps* it in the long run, not harms it.
> Of course, I might be
> totally missing something here that is obvious to
> everyone else, so I'd
> appreciate people's comments.
>
>
> 3. Related to my previous point, I also think that
> the (TM) superscript is
> *semantically* ugly, if not aesthetically so,
> because of the corporate image
> it gives--so very un-free like. And I don't think
> chasing down violations of
> the trademark helps Wikipedia's image. I don't think
> it's necessary, if the
> Foundation has a legal registration in its pocket to
> pull out when it might
> really become necessary.
>

If in fact we don't care if others are misusing our
trademark, then absolutely we should not add any
marking. But then we also should not complain (either
here or to the "offender") when it is misused.

I'm not 100% certain, but as I recall, brands such as
Kleenex, Coke, Q-Tips, etc. have very mixed feelings
(at best) about the generic use of their trademarks.
Why spend tons of money advertising your product when
someone will just as easily buy an equivalent? When I
go to pick up a box of Kleenex (read: facial tissue),
I have no particular brand in mind, and will likely
buy whatever fits my needs and is cheapest. Kleenex
has become meaningless as a trademark.

The real danger I see with not protecting our
trademark, even after it's registered, is the
likelihood that another "wikipedia" will do something
completely antithetical to our goals. Inevitably, some
people will then write off "wikipedias" and we will
suffer as a result. Not my idea of a good time.

If our problem is not wanting to "appear too
corporate", then we should just give up protecting our
trademark, and let whatever happen.

To actually defend our trademark, by registering it
and by pursuing violators (however gently), and at the
same time keep it off the Wikipedia pages is, to my
mind, simple hypocrisy. A trademark should either
receive protection, or it should not. If it should,
then we should be open about doing it.

It also seems to me that trademarks are inherently
different from copyrights. By protecting our
trademark, we are not restraining information.
Actually, we're preserving information and encouraging
its distribution, by maintaining the real distinction
between this project and others.

-Rich Holton

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


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:35:14 -0800 (PST), Rich Holton
<rich_holton at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Is there any good reason why we don't place a trade
> mark symbol (or registered trade mark, if appropriate)
> next to the word "Wikipedia" at the top of each page?
> Or somewhere?

This was suggested before - specifically, to put it in the "From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" message on each page - and
personally I approved of the idea. But some complained that it would
look ugly, or in one user's words "so corporate ... it makes me want
to puke." So essentially no consensus was reached, and the idea was
essentially forgotten. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Fromwikipedia#Wikipedia_Trademark

Out of interest, when clearing up naming issues like this, you might
(or might not) find it useful to point people at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/Names which clarifies [or aims to] all the
confusingly similar names that one encounters in the Wikimedia and
MediaWiki universes. (And of course, if you don't think it's clear
enough, please edit it to make it clearer!)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Mark Richards

body:
A good point, well made.
Mark

--- Noha Abdel-Motttaleb <nohaone at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think it is not right for people to make up
> information or rely on their memory, because people
> look up info on this website frequently and it is
> important to provide them with the most accurate
> information we can get. :-)
> noha
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Shane King

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

body:
On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 06:06:15AM -0800, Mark Richards wrote:
> Hi - ok, let me give an example. Let's suppose that
> the religious right were able to muster a relatively
> small number of people to edit here on the evolution
> pages. Are you saying that, if there are a large
> number of people editing on the 'side' of that, then
> it should go in?
> If not, can you clarify what you did mean?
> Thanks,
> Mark

Well, there are a few scenarios here:

If what they're putting in is something they can demonstrate is believed
by a large number of people (ie the wider community, and not just the
few editing), and they write it in such as way that it doesn't violate
the NPOV policy, then yes.

If they fail to write to the NPOV policy, then what they're saying
should still go in, but it will need to be reworked.

If they're pushing a very minority point of view that's not widely held
in the greater community, then it's probably one of the few cases where
the fact that there are a large number of people on one side isn't
indicative of the validity of their additions.

Of course, in reality, I can't imagine a high traffic page like
evolution only having one person opposing.

My point isn't that the number of editors believing a point of view
makes it valid to go in the article. My point was that if we have a
large number of editors thinking something should go in the article, and
only one person against it, then more often than not the majority is
going to be right. It's just simple probability, if you think about it.

Shane.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] About the reliability of the Wikipedia process and
	content

body:
On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 11:25:40AM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> The review board reviews, they would not edit except as individuals. A review
> may reject an article but have a list of items that would have to be addressed
> before the article could be put up for review again. The quality of the process
> depends on the mix of people involved and their level of dedication. So yes,
> results may vary. But that is no different than dead-tree encyclopedias.

I agree that it's no different to traditional encyclopedias in that
respect.

I feel the risk of the review board is mostly dependent on how much
faith people put in them. If people put too much faith in the abilities
of the review board compared to the normal process, we can get the
situation where people assume the reviewed version must be better than
the non-reviewed version. I was just pointing out that this will not
always be the case. So long as people maintain a healthy scepticism in
the review process, I think there's a lot of potential in the idea.

Shane.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] enable full file upload for WikipediaNL

body:
On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:30 PM, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> I noticed that now you can not upload anymore a lot of file types.
> Like zip, gz, doc, xls, sxw, sxc
>
> I understand that some types of files are not allowed for legal and
> system security reasons. But this is not the case here. For creating
> and maintaining the wikipedia software all are the system developers
> greatful. But to use or not to use those files is a editorial decision
> that has to be made by every wikipedia. It is not something that may
> be decided by the system developers.

It's not an editorial decision at all; it's purely a security decision.

zip and gz are compression formats which can carry other, dangerous
files. doc, and xls are notorious carriers of macro viruses (thanks,
Microsoft!) There's been some sample code submitted for running uploads
through the clamav virus scanner; I'll try and get this integrated this
weekend, and we can then enable a bunch of formats with greater
confidence.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: John Lee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cleaning the Wikipedia namespace (was [[Extreme	article
	deletion]] is up for deletion)

body:
Rhobite wrote:

>On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:48:02 -0800, Michael Snow
><wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>However, we do have a longstanding serious problem in that there are
>>fundamentally *way too many* pages in the Wikipedia namespace.
>>
>>
>
>I don't really know where to propose it, but I've been thinking about
>this one for a while. I believe there are too many choices for
>"problem resolution" pages, particularly pages in the Wikipedia:
>namespace designed to list articles which need to improve in some way.
>This includes Cleanup, Pages Needing Attention, Peer Review, and
>Requests for Expansion. I think PNA is particularly redundant with
>Cleanup, and PNA should be phased out. Four months ago I was a newbie
>and I had no idea what the difference was between those pages. I'm
>still a little unsure about PNA vs. Cleanup.
>
>Rhobite
>
>
I've been editing since September 2003, and I still don't know the
difference between PNA and Cleanup. :-P

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:55:24 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:58:37 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Or are you happy to contribute copyright violations as long as they
>>>are 'in the target language'?"
>>>
>>>If I were me, I'd ask Angela to apologise if she asked me to apologise.
>>>
>>>
>>I think that's a quite reasonable thing to ask. You took a text from a
>>website, and put it on Wikipedia. In my book that's a copyright
>>violation. Your argument that it was a government website does not
>>hold water - US government publications are free of copyright, but
>>other countries have other rules. In general, it is a bad thing to
>>take texts from other sites unless they specifically state that they
>>are not under copyright.
>>
>>
>
>It's not what she asked, it's the way she asked it. Had I said the
>same thing in the reverse situation, you would probably be telling me
>I should apologise to her.
>
>And how do you know I haven't checked the copyright laws that are
>applicable in this case? Also, since another site based in that
>country similarly used them without any attribution but attributed all
>other works to their respective authors and sometimes gave copyright
>and permission notices, I think that, given the multitude of sources
>used by that site, it is not unreasonable to trust their judgement
>especially when added to the facts: It was published by a governmental
>organisation and was not sold but rather distributed freely. Also, if
>you take into account the social and political tendencies of the
>government in question, there is quite a different conclusion than for
>countries which are highly protective of government works. There is no
>royalty (one common reason for such measures), there is no
>totalitarian regime (another reason), and their economic views would
>not generally support such laws.
>
>If you want to tell me that it *is* illegal and show me your sources,
>I will be happy to put copyvio notices up myself.
>
>Mark
>
>
Mark, when dealing with copyrights, tread carefully and don't assume
anything. If there is no explicit statement that the material is free
from copyright, or otherwise free for use, most countries assume the
material to be copyrighted and unusable without permission. "Another
website used it" is a poor excuse, as that's similar to trying to
justify a crime by saying other people commit crimes too.

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] ABC News: Silicon Insider on Robert McHenry

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> (I'm going to have to learn decent Perl just to get my ideas into the
> codebase, aren't I.)

Sadly, no. MediaWiki is written in PHP. When I tried to pick up PHP
(partially with an eye toward contributing to MediaWiki), I ran
screaming back to Perl.


from_name: Scott Nelson

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark being used incorrectly

body:
On Nov 18.2004, at 16:42, Rowan Collins wrote:

> as Rich Holton said, someone uses the term for something
> that goes completely against our goals, or in such a way that our
> image is tarnished?

And you're suggesting that this would somehow be different if the
reference was to a Wiki instead of a Wikipedia?

Wiki software is far from ubiquitous yet (at least when compared with
such things as PHP) and exerts a strong personality on sites that it's
used to build (unlike, say, PHPNuke.)

To my mother, there is no difference between a Wiki and a Wikipedia.
The risk your describing is real as long as the foundation continues to
use the word Wiki in it's project names. This is quite distinct from
the situation with Movable Type which, to the media, produces "blogs"
but can in fact be used for much much more.

I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing; if the goal is to promote Wiki
software rather than the Wikipedia, it's helping. I'm simply pointing
out that it's perpetuating the confusion.
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:33:28 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Right, that's exactly what I said. Note, "separate tradition" and not
> separate language.

I really don't want to belabour this point, but if you don't disagree
with Ulf Lunde, then why did you disagree with me?

I said:
> Bokm?l and Nynorsk are (apparently) separate orthographical
> conventions for the same spoken language".

You said:
> No, Steve.
> Bokm?l and Nynorsk are not different written forms of the same spoken
> language, rather they are a separate tradition altogether.

If you acknowledge that they are in fact the same spoken language
(Norwegian), which you seem to have just done, then what do you object
to about what I said?

Steve


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
An encyclopedia in the form of a wiki.  My God, we can't have somone
calling that a Wikipedia!  Thanks for the laugh, Michael.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 20:27:58 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> In an article on Slyck.com ( http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=609 ),
> the author improperly refers to infoAnarchy as a "Wikipedia". The
> relevant excerpt reads:

> --Michael Snow


body:
Because they have different grammars and vocabulary from any single
dialect. Thus, they are like dialects, except they are only written.

In this way, both of my statements still stand.

Mark

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 18:07:59 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:33:28 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Right, that's exactly what I said. Note, "separate tradition" and not
> > separate language.
>
> I really don't want to belabour this point, but if you don't disagree
> with Ulf Lunde, then why did you disagree with me?
>
> I said:
> > Bokm?l and Nynorsk are (apparently) separate orthographical
> > conventions for the same spoken language".
>
> You said:
> > No, Steve.
> > Bokm?l and Nynorsk are not different written forms of the same spoken
> > language, rather they are a separate tradition altogether.
>
> If you acknowledge that they are in fact the same spoken language
> (Norwegian), which you seem to have just done, then what do you object
> to about what I said?
>
> Steve
>


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
>*All speakers of swiss-german dialects understand every other dialect
>without any difficulties.

Just BTW, that I'm not so sure... (Wallis)

>*swiss-german dialects usualy don't have a normalized writting form or
>spelling rule.

some of them have: e.g. the dialect spoken around Zurich ("Z?rit??tsch")
has some written grammar books

Regards,
Michael


body:
The thing is though, these are intended to be dialect groups.

As such, we have Platt and not a dialect of any particular city, and
L?tzebuergesch because it is the national language of Luxembourg
(although it is indeed similar to surrounding dialects, it also has
lots of French loanwords).

I would have no objection to a Swabian Wikipedia and all sorts of
other Wikipedias for German languages (vs Germanic languages or German
language).

However I'm not sure about Baseldytsch or other dialects (or
"subdialects" in some opinions). My personal philosophy says that if
people want to build a Baseldytsch Wikipedia and it is not actually
identical to another language or dialect, and Baseldytsch is a natural
language (or for that matter a conlang with native speakers), then it
should be created.

So when it comes down to it, I support it, yes.

Mark

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:55:20 +0100, David Rossel <cdamvvwgs at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Please, don't think about one wikipedia for all swiss-german dialects. That
> would be the same thing like the Alemannic wikipedia: An uncommon mixture of
> native dialects. Surely all Baseldytsch speakers understand the Z?rit??tsch
> (zurich-german) speakers and vice versa.
>
> And please tell me: Why is there already a Plattd??tsch wikipedia? And a
> L?tzebuergesch wikipedia? They also seem to be dialects (although
> L?tzebuergesch is official in Luxemburg). So, why shouldn't there be other
> dialect wikipedias? In Swabian, in Bernese German, in Saxony-German?
>
> And yes, Baseldytsch has ist own orthography and dictionary (which many
> dialects don't). I think that's also an argument for this wikipedia. The
> interface are already translated into Baseldytsch. So lets just put it
> online under bsd.wikipedia.org and we shall see how it'll be running and
> what the reactions are. Then we can take it offline, or we just let it be in
> its developpment to a useful encyclopedia.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Thanks for your replies, Sber of Pelamar. I guess I *did* miss something
that was obvious to everyone else :-)

>> 2. Once the trademark is registered, I really don't understand why "we
have
>> to protect our trademarks". I've always thought it was a good thing for a
>> company when its registered trademark becomes a household commodity to
the
>> extent that it becomes synonymous with the generic item.

>I think, in general this is *not* considered the case. If a trademark
>is not used, or no action is taken to correct generic use of it, the
>trademark becomes invalid - you can't just let everyone call it Coke
>and then complain when someone else writes "Coke" on the label.

I read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark after you pointed to it, and I
see what you're saying. I didn't realize the scenario that you have to
defend every abuse, otherwise lose the right to ever do so. Thanks for the
clarification!

~ Chitu


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>So you think that in science pages, for example, space
>should be given to different theories based on their
>relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
>evolution, not to mention gravity!
>Are you really serious?
>
The opposite of gravity is levity. :-)

Ec.


body:
The key point of proposal 3 is that names are not automatically blocked in all other projects. That way someone using a name in one or five projects doesn't prevent ten other people from using their first choice of name in the other 500+ (561 total databases at the moment, not all in use yet likely to be thousands within a few years). There are some 133,000 accounts on en, about ten percent of which have uploaded an image.

The key differences between the proposals:

1. Major pain and lots of inaccurate data in talk pages and so on, where names become wrong to at least some degree, or old records need to be changed. Many people forced to change name in one proposed version (the one I first wrote), in another (the one JeLuF replied with) everyone with a conflicting name forced to change name so existing records remain accurate and conversion is fast. Acceptability to the community is likely to be low - all those people forced to change names. Personally, I'd say this is by far the worst of the options.

2. (me misunderstanding what zwitter had in mind and partially inaccurately describing the results of a discussion between us) Don't force changes, link via global ID (GUID). One person signing up a name in any wiki blocks all others from using that in any other wikis in the future. All existing data remains accurate and "conversion" is a non-event. Most people don't understand many languages or participate in many projects, so names are reserved in a vast number of places where they won't ever be used by the first registrant.

3. (me finally understanding zwitter) Same as 2 except don't lock a name in all wikis. Don't force any name changes. All existing data remains accurate and "conversion" is a non-event. Login is to a single login database with GUID (log in to any project with any ID gets the global ID equivalent as the behind the scenes login). More people get their first choice of name than with 2. Anyone can reserve their name either by visiting any project with it if nobody else is using the name. Or a variation where you don't reserve until you try to edit, to let you read without unnecessarily reserving the name. A default name in the global profile which is used automatically in the new project if it's available; if it's in use, get a form to select another, leave default blank if you always want to choose. Can make it easy to register in many projects for anyone who cares about it. Options for that include check boxes either with all projects or with same-language projects and telling people whether the name they are after is already in use somewhere. Should provide a report to show the user in other projects and resolve trolling problems. zwitter has already implemented a simple version of this, which uses the email address as the link - the real solution would use the GUID.

Effectively, the three proposals reflect the evolution of my thoughts on this as I considered more and more aspects of the problem. What prompted me to go the way of 3 was considering the AOL namespace problem: every good name you want is already taken by someone you don't know, who has no involvement with anything you do. 3 tries to reduce that problem by requiring names to be unique at the finest grained practical level - the individual project.

It's easy for me to register my name in all projects. I haven't bothered to do it: I know I won't ever participate significantly in them because I don't understand the language. So, no pioint in me stopping someone else from using the name.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:00:46 -0800
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Single login - decision 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Option 3 looks best to me. The trolling issue would be no worse than
> it is now.  One way to *improve* that potential issue would be to
> grandfather-in currently conflicting names as proposed in option 3
> but lock user names from now on.

Yes.  What I would say is that we should go with option 3, and that we
should prevent any *future* conflicts by making it simple for people
who do not currently have a name conflict to reserve their username
globally if they like (this should be the default for new accounts).

For people with name conflicts, this can be a valuable inducement for
them to eliminate the conflict - as long as you're conflicted, you
have no guarantee on the username in a new wiki.

And finally, I would agree with Angela that this should not be a board
decision at this point, but rather a very widely publicized community
poll.

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Single login - decision 2004


from_name: John Collison

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cleaning the Wikipedia namespace (was [[Extreme
	article deletion]] is up for deletion)

body:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:31:44 +0000, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:43:59 -0500, John Davenport <flockmeal at gmail.com> wrote:
> > we also have a Help: namespace
>
> We do?!
>
> Wow! I do not believe I have read any pages in that namespace!
>
> Hmmm... this does call for some reorganisation (or minus the "re").
> Surely the Manual of style and such pages should be in this "Help"
> namespace.

Same here, just shows that the namespaces need something serious done to them.
IMO, ideally all help pages should be part of one big series or at
least category, and all in the help namespace. AFAIK that would be the
majority of the Wikipedia namespace problems fixed...

Ludraman


from_name: Ribamar Santarosa de Sousa

body:
On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 06:39:02PM -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> An encyclopedia in the form of a wiki.  My God, we can't have somone
> calling that a Wikipedia!  Thanks for the laugh, Michael.

I see no problems too. I think is cool Wikipedia be remembered more than
a site or a trademark, but as an concept.

-Riba


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Learn PHP (was Re: ABC News: Silicon Insider on Robert
	McHenry)

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Nicholas Knight wrote:
>
>> David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>> (I'm going to have to learn decent Perl just to get my ideas into the
>>> codebase, aren't I.)
>>
>>
>>
>> Sadly, no. MediaWiki is written in PHP. When I tried to pick up PHP
>> (partially with an eye toward contributing to MediaWiki), I ran
>> screaming back to Perl.
>
>
> Excuses excuses. We have 2000 times as many active editors as we do
> active developers. Everyone has damn excuses. What's so hard about
> learning a language or two? It'll only take you a few months, and you'll
> come away from it with a skill you can use elswhere in life.

Months? It takes me a few *hours* to be able to create useful code in a
new language. A few days and I can embark on significant projects. This
isn't about difficulty or time (though I'd not be happy about wasting
the time), it's about not wanting to subject myself to the horror that
is PHP just to be able to do a couple things with MediaWiki, probably
never to touch the code again.

Call me when you're using a sane programming language. I'll be happy to
help. I'd even be willing to deal with Java, of all things, but I will
not touch PHP.