from_name: Jean-Christophe Chazalette

body:
Again a personal attack ? Please give me break now. I blanked my :en.page at
a time where I got fed up with all the projects ... for 48 hours or so. You
can check this out. I blanked my French page too, I blanked my Commons page
and so on. It has *nothing* do to *at all* with my personal view toward en:
wikipedia, this is childish ; on the contrary, it was caused by a huge troll
on the French wikipedia. So please, don't be parano?d. What about,
again, "assume
good faith"?

As to the fact I declared once that I didn't *care* about the position of
the English community, you know very well that it was to underline that, on
a special contentious issue for Foundation (and I specify that it was
related to a French project), my job as a lawyer was not to fathom *any*
community but to try to give a legal advice. And I added that people like
you or others in the Comcom were in situation of caring for communicating
with communities and that it was a good thing too. Didn't I wish good luck?

I resent very much you're acting with such a bad faith that you dare telling
I have contempt for the English community. This is wrong and dishonnest.
Many of my wiki friends belongs to the English community. I spend a lot of
time on the French project, on the Commons, on meta, in the Legal Dpt and in
the Special Projects Committee, does that make me an ennemy.

I'm trying my best to help out, but I'm not prepared to such a bashing. To
make it short, unless you express some apologies, you should be ashamed of
yourself to pretend talking for the English community. You are *not* this
community but only a unpleasant individual.

villy ~~JC

2006/3/29, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >Actually, you know what I *really* think deep inside ?
> >I think that for some reasons, en.wiki is not keeping you busy enough.
> >So, you are looking for other things to do. If you want to play moving
> >the dust around, fine. This might be useful. But I hope that you do not
> >remove very precious artifacts, as you call them.
>
>
> That's nice. Are you speaking for the Foundation here? I ask because
> of opinions expressed by Aurevilly and Delphine on the Communications
> Committee list regarding en: Wikipedia. Fairly problematic ones
> considering Wikimedia France is the one local chapter that is actually
> legally affiliated with the Foundation. I note that Aurevilly just
> blanked his en: Wikipedia user page, coinciding with expressing his
> contempt for en:wp openly. Just the thing for a Foundation person to
> show their high regard for cross project issues.
>
> What on earth is going in in WMF France? Has en: wikipedia been
> declared the enemy?
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 3/29/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I am not on the communication committee. I do not have access to the
>>communication committee mailing list.
>
>
> What exactly do you mean by "You do not have access"? Is it a matter
> of Foundation policy that Board members are explicitly excluded from
> reviewing the interactions of  committees they aren't part of? That
> would seem very strange and unnecessary to me. Or are you saying you
> simply did not ask a developer or list moderator for access, because
> you don't have time to deal with this additional volume of
> information? Just trying to understand what exactly the current
> situation is.
>
> Erik

The list is private. It has a restricted list of members. Those who are
on the committee. This is logical (and good).

I am not on that committee, so do not have access to the emails (which
again, is logical). However, when there is a discussion, if one of the
person in the discussion is not put in the cc, that person misses part
of the discussion.

Non members emails are naturally moderated. So, we do not know when our
emails are read.

A good idea would be that at least board members emails (as well as some
other people) be automatically approved.

As I said...growing pains ;-)

ant


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/29/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The list is private. It has a restricted list of members. Those who are
> on the committee. This is logical (and good).

Being a member and having read access to the archive are separate
things. You could access the archive if given the mailman password. Do
you currently not have this read access to the archive? Do you not
want it?

Erik


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 3/30/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/29/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > That's nice. Are you speaking for the Foundation here? I ask because
> > > of opinions expressed by Aurevilly and Delphine on the Communications
> > > Committee list regarding en: Wikipedia. Fairly problematic ones
> > > considering Wikimedia France is the one local chapter that is actually
> > > legally affiliated with the Foundation. I note that Aurevilly just
> > > blanked his en: Wikipedia user page, coinciding with expressing his
> > > contempt for en:wp openly. Just the thing for a Foundation person to
> > > show their high regard for cross project issues.
> > >
> > > What on earth is going in in WMF France? Has en: wikipedia been
> > > declared the enemy?
> >
> > Bringing this back on the topic of the meta cleanup,  this post/thread
> > is obvious evidence that http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dick is still
> > needed and important and shouldn't be removed.
> >
> > ;)
> >
> > Just an observation.
>
> Sort of a follow on to this, since it's something I said to other
> folks and was told it was thoughtful enough to bear a public
> repetition:
>
> I think we need to do more to make everyone understand that we're
> working for common goals even if we don't always agree on methods.  I
> used to get far more upset with Angela, Florence, and Jimbo when I
> disagreed with them.  ... After spending more time talking with them,
> and more time talking to people who've spent time talking with them I
> am far more willing and able to accept disagreements as just that,
> disagreements. For a counter example, I was still a dick to Tim (on
> the toolserver-list) today, largely because I've not reached a point
> where I believe in my heart that he and I share common goals.
>
> This is an issue common to all organizations, and I've seen this play
> out many times within Wikimedia both for myself and for others. Even
> when you are aware of it, it can be hard to escape.  I think this is
> just one of those things which will always challenge us, and which we
> will always have find ways to improve.

"Et ? la fin de l'envoi, je touche."
(in Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand)

:-)

Delphine

--
~notafish


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Mediametry survey (was )Re: Language versions'
 popularity vs. number of articles...)

body:
Miguel Chaves wrote:

>Hi, I wonder if wikipedia only relies on this sort of external statistics
>(like Alexa) to gather information about visits to the sites.
>Aren't there statistcs collected on wikipedia servers itself? This would be
>more useful and reliable.
>BTW, if we want to know the popularity of an specific article (not a
>specific wikipedia), is there a tool for that?
>
There used to be a long time ago. It was switched off for various
reasons .... unfortunately :(

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

> This still raises some questions; for example the Catalan WP has over
> 20k articles while the Arabic WP has just over 10k; numbers for
> Chinese, Spanish, and even Japanese (!) are similarly incongruent.

To write a wiki with 100K articles, you don't need the 480M
speakers of Hindi, the 46M speakers of Polish or the 4.6M speakers
of Norwegian.  All you need is 20 or 50 very determined people,
who really want to write a wiki with 100K articles. This
determination is a mindset, which can be very hard to reach.
Have you tried to convince your parents to contribute actively to
Wikipedia?  I suppose that pyramid schemes, religious cults, and
even suicide bombings need a similar mindset.  Most people just
wouldn't get it into their head, that this is a good idea.  But
once you are determined, the actual job is not so hard to do.

Perhaps we have an understanding of ideas, ideologies, and
mindsets today that is similar to the medical understanding of
viruses and bacteria 200 years ago.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 3/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've just put some notes on
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta_talk:MetaProject_to_Overhaul_Meta#How_not_to_piss_people_off

I've just replied, and copied text of that below.

[snipped text and pasted below]

>
> The essential conflict appears to be between:
>
>    1. Those who want Meta to be a good repository of historical documents
>    2. Those who want Meta to be usable as an active work wiki.
>
> The impetus for this project is that the first function is actively
> hampering the second. The piles of historical stuff masquerade as
> currently useful documents and get in the way of doing work.

Prove it. How are the historical documents actually hampering the
usability of Meta? Point me to a page, category, template, image,
whatever, that is stopping people from doing work on Meta. Since some
people are confused about what goes on Meta, then, of course, this
project is a great opportunity to start addressing that and to bring
about some system for finding current work and how it relates to past
work. But just how is the old stuff really bad? This project doesn't
need to piss people off at all, but, in many cases, it is doing just
that. On this, I agree with Anthere that these categories describing
something as various shades of useless are, themselves, potentially
incendiary. (this text pasted from Meta)

>
> I asked on m:RFA "What is the local community? There isn't one."
> Anthere answered with a *long* paragraph which didn't answer that
> question, answered several I didn't ask and accused me of all sorts of
> things ... I've asked again and await an answer.
>

I go along with Anthere's subsequent response to this. I'll also give
you a picture of my own sense of community on Meta.

I check my watchlist much more regularly on Meta than I do on en:WP.
For the simple reason that it's far more interesting. On en:WP: "Oh
look, someone vandalised this page and then someone reverted it.
Someone made one of the words on this page a hyperlink (yet didn't
create the page). Someone added a category, a language link, a word."
On Meta: "Oh look, someone just proposed a new Wikimedia project.
Someone has just contacted a whole group of academics and invited them
to Wikimania. Someone just added a quiz functionality to their
proposed course for Wikiversity. Someone just added their
Wikimedia-related PhD topic. Someone is testing out a new language
Wikipedia (and i've no idea what that language is).."

I am connected with these people, I know them, I work with them - just
as others do on any active Wikimedia project.

I also value Meta for the sense of Wikimedia community history it
gives me. Wow, arguments between Larry Sanger and Cunctator - great.
Philosophical speculations on what it means to be a Wikimedian -
interesting, sometimes funny. Loosely written, vague, imperfect essays
on issues that arose from conflicts at some time - intriguing, also
funny. I feel connected to Wikimedia through knowing about this.

"Ghost wiki"? My arse. "Unorganised rubbish"? Yes, could do with with
a bit more organisation, yes, some of it is rubbish that any wiki will
accumulate, but be very careful in labelling it so - even "looks
useless" or "apparently irrelevant" (though Category:Possible_deletia
is fine, IMO). Some of these pages are really very valuable, not just
to the "museum staff" but also to the people who wrote them, and to
the Wikimedia community as a whole.

> For now, I suggest appropriate categorisation and tagging (e.g.
> {{historical}} ) will do for the moment. Deletion really isn't urgent
> - it can wait as long as we like for the museum staff to go over the
> artifacts carefully dusting and categorising them further.
>
> Does this sound workable to all?

Yes, this is definitely the way to go, providing it is "appropriate" :-)

Cormac / Cormaggio


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2006, Matt Brown wrote:

> On 3/29/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> * In the three months since then, you made a handful of article edits.
>> Then last week, over the span of a few days, you made 1500 categorizations
>> and 800 deletions, many of them irreversible image deletions, with almost
>> no discussion.  (The images had been listed on RfD for a long time without
>> action, but this was in part because the image deletion policy on meta
>> needed refining.)
>
> Were all the image deletions of images listed for deletion with no/few
> objections for a long time? That seems to be what you're saying, in
> which case I'd say deleting them is understandable; it just looks like
> a task not done through inertia / nobody interested, rather than
> anything else.

Yep, it's understandable.  They were listed for bulk deletion; there were
no active objections.  But a few hundred irreversible deletions, mixed w/
unusual article deletions, are unnerving as someone's first admin actions.
One feels the urge to double-check...

SJ


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] Redémarrage du Wikiquote Francophone / French Wikiquote Relaunch

body:
Bonjour,

Apr?s avoir expertis? l'?tat des donn?es contenues dans le site
fr.wikiquote, la fondation Wikimedia consid?re que le mat?riel
h?berg? dans la base
du site fr.wikiquote ne pr?sente pas les garanties minimales de
s?ret? juridique n?cessaires ? la
p?rennit? du projet. Le site va donc ?tre enti?rement repris pour
?tre effac? et relanc?. Une politique
plus exigeante de tra?abilit? des citations mises en ligne sera
instaur?e sur la version II de
fr.wikiquote. Cette d?cision a ?t? prise dans l'int?r?t de l'ensemble
des projets mis en oeuvre par la
fondation Wikimedia.

--English Translation --

Hello,

After analyzing the data contained in the fr.wikiquote site, the
Wikimedia Foundation has determined that the material stored in the
fr.wikiquote database does not provide the basic assurance of legal
soundness necessary to the permanence of the project. Therefore, the
site will be entirely taken down to be erased and relaunched. A
policy requiring greater traceability of quotations will be put in
place on fr.wikiquote version II. This action has been taken for the
benefit of all Wikimedia Foundation projects.
Translations can be made into other languages after the announcement
for the benefit of Wikiquotes in other languages that may be
interested. Any such translations should if possible work from the
original French text, this is a French announcement.

----

Jean-Baptiste Soufron
wikimedia foundation
chief legal officer


list: wikien-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 29/03/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at rdrop.com> wrote:

> It should be a straightforward task for any computer technician to create
> a filter to keep out all of the articles marked [[Category:Sex]],
> [[Category:Porn star]], & even [[Category:Pokemon]], if a school or
> workplace desires. Explicit metatags duplicate information that is
> already part of the article & thus is unneeded -- unless some person
> starts making contributions that confuse this categorization, for example
> adding pictures of naked bodies to articles like [[Triangle]] & [[George
> W. Bush]]. In that case these edits would be vandalism & dealt with
> accordingly.

Smart one. We also have the nice (though oddly motivated) people
who've put together little galleries of all the nekkid pictures on
Wikipedia. It'd be a little tricker, but certainly not impossible, to
come up with on-the-fly page filtering based on the inclusion of those
images, or by sporadically generating Special:Whatlinkshere
references, or something...

This is stuff we're already doing. Regardless of the merits of
actually including filtering aids, tagging images and so on, it might
be worth creatively thinking about how someone can use features
already present in the live version to come up with filtering *at
their end*.

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


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> Can you point out who actually suggested filtering Wikipedia at the
> source?
>

That would be you, on 26-03-2006:

Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> On 3/26/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I find it very curious that of all the things they can attack
>> wikipedia for, the fact that wikipedia is not censored is the one they
>> focus on. Very strange indeed.
>
> All the more reason to tag Wikipedia articles as kidsafe/worksafe.
>
> Steve
>

HTH HAND
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/%28No-subject%29-t1365372.html#a3668461
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gregory Szorc

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
Let me start by saying that MediaWiki is great wiki software and I have enjoyed
writing many extensions and plugins for it.  The requirements of Wikipedia have
demanded features that are hard to come by in other wiki software, especially in
the areas of caching and optimization.  However, this is a double-edged sword,
as development decisions in MediaWiki are often filtered through the question of
whether they are desired for Wikipedia.  If this litmus test is not met,
features are abandoned and never see the light of day.  If so, they are
implemented to the delight of Wikipedians.  I don't mean to criticize this
methodology and I certainly don't wish to bad-mouth MediaWiki (after all,
someone was kind enough to make the product open source and kind enough to make
it generic that anyone could use), but I have a few questions that have been on
my mind.

My questions to the MediaWiki developers are as follows:

Will features perhaps never desirable for Wikipedia ever be considered for
MediaWiki?  For example, wiki spaces (much like XWiki or Confluence) that either
exist as self-contained wikis or as areas that are more stand-alone (e.g.
attaching documents to individual pages).  Another desirable feature is a
fine-grained permission system, although I argue this goes hand-in-hand with the
aforementioned concept of wiki spaces.

Will MediaWiki development ever take a significant step away from Wikipedia
so drastic overhauls to the core can be made?  Right now, MediaWiki development
is mainly implementing features on a production site and spewing them back out
in the form of a new version release. Will this model ever change?

I see MediaWiki as much more than the software that powers Wikipedia. One
only has to look at the hundreds of independent wikis in existence that are
powered by MediaWiki.  However, there is much ground that can be won.  I argue
that because of Wikipedia's popularity, the MediaWiki wiki syntax is the most
recognized of any wiki syntax in existence. Combined with its proved track
record, MediaWiki is immediately a front-runner for anyone wishing to deploy a
wiki.  However, we all know MediaWiki isn't ideal for some situations.  Well,
basically it is ideal for only one simple use case:  a wiki focusing on one
subject matter with blanket access control to all content therein.  Any other
use is a stretch.  In other words, there is a considerable market share in which
MediaWiki can't even compete.

MediaWiki is great software and will continue to be great software.  In order
to take it to the next level, a slight departure from the Wikipedia-centric
development cycle will be required.

I kindly ask that the MediaWiki core developers lend their thoughts on
this matter.

Gregory Szorc
gregory.szorc at case.edu


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Neal Horsley explains: "Why I Am Suing Wikipedia "

body:
We were alerted to his threats by Chip Berlet, and other user.
Horsley never sent a message to the list.

Fred

On Mar 29, 2006, at 10:34 PM, Mark Ryan wrote:

> On 30/03/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Has anyone checked the mailing lists for his supposed email yet?
>>
>> Mgm
>>
>
> No trace of 'Horsley' on any emails that have reached WikiEN-l (or
> gone into moderation on WikiEN-l) since I've been a list admin (almost
> a couple of years now) - unless the Gmail spam filter's picked them
> up. Also no messages to Wikipedia-l in that time either.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 3/29/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yep, it's understandable.  They were listed for bulk deletion; there were
> no active objections.  But a few hundred irreversible deletions, mixed w/
> unusual article deletions, are unnerving as someone's first admin actions.

Not so much when someone is accustomed to being an admin on another
project and sees a job that needs to be done, I think.

It seems that Meta is unused to people doing such things, which seems
quite strange to me.

-Matt


body:
On 3/30/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Certainly. Have meta and enjoy it as a separate community increasingly
> unusable by any other, as is working so well for Commons, rather than
> the service project it purports to be; just stop representing it as
> such, because it simply isn't.

Am I right in feeling that a lot of your frustration here, David, is
that you feel that Meta and Commons were not supposed to be
'communities' at all?  That they were supposed to be shared project
space and managed as such?

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica quote of the day (Johntex)

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> So, a girl can't look at her own breasts then.
>

Seems only fair: if we can't look at them, why should she?
--
Phil
not entirely looking forward to being the father of a teenage girl :-)
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-Britannica-quote-of-the-day-%28Johntex%29-t1353120.html#a3672324
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Jonathan

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Naturally we have some constraints because MediaWiki has to actually work for
>some purpose. :)
>
That is most likely the #1 factor why MediaWiki is ahead. Most software
is developed for a purpose. Those that developed software without a
purpose usually don't get a substantial ground in the market. There are
excellent pieces of software out there, but there is no purpose to use
them. Wikipedia is the purpose for MediaWiki of course. However, there
are obviously side benefits.

Software also gets limited in this sense also. While MediaWiki benefits
from Wikipedia, MediaWiki is also limits by the use of Wikipedia. Other
purposes have to exist. With Meta, there are some obvious other purposes.

MediaWiki could follow as path of constant modification and
customization to make it more powerful. People may want to reconfigure
the database layout. They may want to implement a more fine permission
systems. Maybe, they want quotas and greater control over file storage.
There is already a desire for validation and stable versions. There is
already a desire for forums rather than page history for talk. Some of
this is limited by PHP itself. PHP would need further customization and
modification to make it more powerful for MediaWiki and then Wikipedia.
Such customization doesn't stop at Mediawiki itself.

I still have an effort to implement software like MediaWiki in the VM
that I have made. I slowly work on it. I just completed a few more
features last week. I have to put it on hold for a little while. It had
purpose to process a large automated loan document system at one time.
It was used until the agency wanted to rid of the main server in favor
of a Windows-only network.

Jonathan


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>There are a few things Meta needs:
>1) Archiving historical pages as such. This is being done through
>[[Meta:Historical]]. That's not necessarily the best way of doing it,
>but it may work.
>2) Multilingual MediaWiki. This is under development. Much of the mess
>is the result of people using very different mechanisms to
>disambiguate pages in different languages.
>3) Standardized categories, standardized page hierarchies. There are
>many hierarchies which are internally consistent, but not with each
>other.
>4) Clean-up the so-called software documentation or move it to mediawiki.org.
>5) Better separation of different types of content beyond
>categorization, e.g. discussions from concrete proposals.
>
>Some of the mess also results from the organization (WMF) being in
>flux - old structures are replaced with new ones which are just now
>being created. I might also dig up my CPOV policy proposal from a long
>time ago. ;-)
>
>

I think this is a better approach to dealing with Meta:  Helping to
define what is Meta rather than trying to decide what should be culled
out one piece at a time.  Meta has changed its mission over the years
because all of the various projects have changed quite a bit over the
years.  Things like Wikibooks and Wiktionary were afterthoughts when it
was created, and it was originally for meta discussions about Wikipedia,
which it still largly has and many of the major content pages on Meta
are almost exclusively focused toward Wikipedia alone... even a strong
emphasis about just en.wikipedia at that.  Over half of the content on
all of the sister projects is now not even in English, and the day will
come when over half of the Wikimedia content won't even be on Wikipedia
(in all languages).  Meta needs to reflect these changes, but it has
been slow to occur.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/30/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30/03/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Has anyone checked the mailing lists for his supposed email yet?
> >
> > Mgm
>
> No trace of 'Horsley' on any emails that have reached WikiEN-l (or
> gone into moderation on WikiEN-l) since I've been a list admin (almost
> a couple of years now) - unless the Gmail spam filter's picked them
> up. Also no messages to Wikipedia-l in that time either.
>
> ~Mark Ryan

I don't recognise the name from helpdesk-I but i would have been easy to miss.

--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.

I propose something called Meta2 which can actually be used as a work wiki.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2


body:
Aphaia wrote:

>I have been  claiming the page which contains the obscene word
>mentioned should be deleted because of its obscenity and making
>editors who are really working on there displeased.

The word "dick"? As those of us who are native speakers of English
suggested: how about moving the page to "Don't bowdlerise Meta."

I recall you writing a long paragraph in Japanese explaining why this
page in English should be deleted. Is that an example of the
multilingual side of Meta, advocating deletion in a language the
people you are replying to won't understand?

I also recall you attempting to delete the various test wikipedias
from Meta, after they were told by Jimbo to set up there.

Jimbo said to Linuxbeak to go for it with this attempt to make Meta
actually usable as a work wiki, and cautioned that many had foundered
before. The reason becomes increasingly obvious. So I suggest a meta2
be created as an actual current work wiki, and meta be kept with its
primary function as an archive.

- d.


from_name: Angela

body:
This was just an error. One of Anthere's emails was on the auto-accept
list, but presumably not the one she was using. I've adding a couple
of others, as well as Michael and Tim so the board should be able to
post to the cc list now.

Angela.


from_name: Rich Morin

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
At 8:46 PM -0800 3/29/06, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Gregory Szorc wrote:
>> Will features perhaps never desirable for Wikipedia
>> ever be considered for MediaWiki?
>
> Where nice and clean. Modular extensions are always a
> huge plus!

I read this as:

  If the feature doesn't impair the maintenance or performance
  of MediaWiki for Wikipedia, and it has a plausible reason for
  existing, it is likely to be allowed into the mainline code.
  If it can be written as an extension, so much the better.

MediaWiki isn't a "category killer" for wikis; there are too
many ideas about what wiki engines should be able to do.  It is
an extremely attractive option, however, as I discuss here:

> The Project Wiki
>
> Start up a wiki for the project.  Take some care in selecting
> the wiki software.  You'll want it to be comfortable, popular,
> robust, scalable, and rich in useful features. It should also
> be undergoing active development in areas such as dynamic
> content, semantic wikis, etc.
>
> My current choice, FWIW, is  MediaWiki, the technology
> underlying Wikipedia.  It is written in PHP, so it installs
> easily on a wide range of platforms.  It has extensive
> documentation, a variety of mailing lists, etc.  Although
> MediaWiki's principal focus is supporting Wikipedia, some
> of its development goes beyond this purpose.
> ...

  http://www.cfcl.com/~rdm/MBD/mbd_advice.php

It is also an attractive option for developers who want to see
their ideas get used by large groups of people.  The Semantic
MediaWiki folks, for example, are clearly focused on making
their additions and changes in a way that would allow use by
Wikipedia, etc.

> But since we do get used for other purposes, it is worth
> spending some time and effort to keep them in mind.  ...

What he said.

> Domas and I are going to be at the MySQL User Conference
> next month in Santa Clara; if anyone interested in
> non-Wikipedia-like use of MediaWiki is going to be there,
> that'd be a great time to meet and exchange thoughts and
> make evil plans.

Most conferences allow (at least, tacitly) BOF attendance
by the general public, so this might be the way to go:

  http://www.mysqluc.com/pub/w/45/bof.html

-r

P.S. The person setting up the BOF should be an attendee.
     Brion, could you be persuaded to set this up?
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: Alex Schenck

body:
I was afraid this was going to happen. Apparently, what we have
here is a serious lack of understanding towards each other's
goals and now we're lowering ourselves to screaming at each
other.

I'm going to second David's proposal that we start a Meta2
or something similiar. Assume that we suddenly cause time
to stop and Meta to be placed in stasis. What is it that
people like David and I want?

1.) A usable work-wiki that included things that aren't
necessarily appropriate for storage on Wikipedia
(such as essays) but should be allowed to be placed
somewhere.

2.) No historical content about Wikimedia whatsoever.
That'll be the original Meta's baby and not Meta2.

3.) Faster process and community than Meta; keep Meta the
way it is, but give us our own Meta2 to play around with.

4.) It doesn't *need* to be named Meta2.

5.) Encourage Wikipedia users to start using it after the
basic policies and infrastructure are written; don't worry,
we can handle it.

6.) Strict[er than Meta] image policies.

If we can just have that, then I (and others) will probably
forget about the current Meta, and everyone can keep Meta
just the way it is and some other person can go ahead and
try to make heads and tails out of it. So... can we please
have this project?

--Alex

On 3/30/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l>> wrote:
>* :If you don't want to make more people angry at you than you
*>* :already have, then I suggest you take a break from this discussion
*>* :right about now.
*>*
*>*
*>* Certainly. Have meta and enjoy it as a separate community increasingly
*>* unusable by any other, as is working so well for Commons, rather than
*>* the service project it purports to be; just stop representing it as
*>* such, because it simply isn't.
*>*
*>*
*>* - d.
*
David,

You can continue doing work on making Meta *more* usable. Nobody is
suggesting that Meta become less usable.

But:
*Stop making unwarranted accusations about what Meta is or isn't (ie.,
again, point me to a page etc. that's stopping people adding content
to Meta)
*Stop being a [[m:DICK]] - it's doing us no good whatsoever

Cormac

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
Whether something is child- or worksafe is entirely subjectional and
someone's opinion on what is and isn't objectionable shouldn't be
forced on all other Wikipedia users. Use your own filter software to
control what comes in on your end. Don't try to filter Wikipedia from
the source.

Mgm


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 3/30/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Whether something is child- or worksafe is entirely subjectional and
> someone's opinion on what is and isn't objectionable shouldn't be
> forced on all other Wikipedia users. Use your own filter software to
> control what comes in on your end. Don't try to filter Wikipedia from
> the source.

Hi,
  You're probably about the third person to make this point. Can you
point out who actually suggested filtering Wikipedia at the source?

Steve


from_name: amgine at saewyc.net

body:
> Well, besides from being a clean canvas that we can work from, it would
> boast some things that Meta currently does not:
>
> A.) It would be heavily based upon most of the policies from en.wikipedia.
> Some things can change, but it will be a site designed with the purpose of
> being an extention of en.wikipedia instead of an entirely separate
> project.
> Meta2 will exist for Wikipedia instead of being a standalone project.
>
> B.) Seeing that it is being built from the ground up, it will be several
> exponential degrees easier to keep things organized in a clear and concise
> manner. Read: categorization.
>
> C.) It would be much cleaner and accessible by regular Wikipedians. Meta
> as
> it stands right now frightens many people on en. I know... I've talked to
> them.
>
> D.) Old material three years from now would be in a category called
> "archive" or something akin.
>
> E.) It would have the potential expandability that Meta boasts, except in
> a
> more defined and controlable setting.
>
> As far as the essays are concerned, I was only using that as an example. I
> apologize if that caused any confusion.
>
> Angela, I really hope you don't think that we're trying to completely
> destroy Wikimedia. The very reason why we're sticking around is because we
> like this project. I've made some fabulous friends here, including
> yourself,
> Anthere, David, Jimbo, and so on and so forth. I know I have a tendency to
> create total havoc, but I do so in the attempt to improve, not destroy.
> We're only trying to push the envelope a little further. If you can give
> us
> the resources to do such, you will not be disappointed.
>
> --Alex

I think this response neatly proves Angela's point: en.Wikipedia is not
interested in collaboration, but wishes to have a separate wiki for itself
to play on.

The concept has merit, but it also suggests that every large project has
these needs. At what stage are Wikipedias granted a meta sandbox? 100 000
users? 500 000 articles? Meta was originally set up when en.Wikipedia had
100 000 articles or less; perhaps we should set up these sandbox wikis at
50 000?

Of course en.Wikipedia could, instead, be one of the "tribes inhabiting
the ruins" and simply continue to work on Meta, like all the rest of the
projects.

Amgine


from_name: Sigvat Stensholt

subject: [WikiEN-l] The blocking policy proposal

body:
The blocking policy proposal to implement a new form of "semi-blocking" at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy_proposal

allowing logged in users to edit has been up for several months now. Is there
going to be any movement on implementing this soon?

Sigvat Stensholt a.k.a. "Sjakkalle"


body:
Well, besides from being a clean canvas that we can work from, it would
boast some things that Meta currently does not:

A.) It would be heavily based upon most of the policies from en.wikipedia.
Some things can change, but it will be a site designed with the purpose of
being an extention of en.wikipedia instead of an entirely separate project.
Meta2 will exist for Wikipedia instead of being a standalone project.

B.) Seeing that it is being built from the ground up, it will be several
exponential degrees easier to keep things organized in a clear and concise
manner. Read: categorization.

C.) It would be much cleaner and accessible by regular Wikipedians. Meta as
it stands right now frightens many people on en. I know... I've talked to
them.

D.) Old material three years from now would be in a category called
"archive" or something akin.

E.) It would have the potential expandability that Meta boasts, except in a
more defined and controlable setting.

As far as the essays are concerned, I was only using that as an example. I
apologize if that caused any confusion.

Angela, I really hope you don't think that we're trying to completely
destroy Wikimedia. The very reason why we're sticking around is because we
like this project. I've made some fabulous friends here, including yourself,
Anthere, David, Jimbo, and so on and so forth. I know I have a tendency to
create total havoc, but I do so in the attempt to improve, not destroy.
We're only trying to push the envelope a little further. If you can give us
the resources to do such, you will not be disappointed.

--Alex

Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 01:58:32 +1100
> From: Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <8b722b800603300658s77322f64p256c1b30789c1c53 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I wonder if what you're looking for with Meta2 is actually a meta for
> the English Wikipedia. I'm not saying that as a criticism since it
> might actually be a useful thing, but would certainly be something
> very different to the existing meta which is a
> cross-wiki/project/language area.
>
> How would Meta2 differ from the current meta other than just being
> new? And what happens in 3 years time when the content on that is
> "historical" as well?
>
> How does the existence of an essay prevent whatever "work" you think
> meta should be used for?
>
> Angela.
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.

This is patently false.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060330/a2d70300/attachment.pgp


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.

This is patently false.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060330/a2d70300/attachment-0001.pgp


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.

This is patently false.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060330/a2d70300/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.

This is patently false.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060330/a2d70300/attachment-0001.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
Rich Morin wrote:
> Most conferences allow (at least, tacitly) BOF attendance
> by the general public, so this might be the way to go:
>
>   http://www.mysqluc.com/pub/w/45/bof.html
>
> P.S. The person setting up the BOF should be an attendee.
>      Brion, could you be persuaded to set this up?

Will do...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060330/e0fbae63/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatically put text on a non existing page?

body:
Jan Vanoverpelt wrote:
> Does MediaWiki allows to automatically put a certain text in advance on a
> non-existing page? What I am trying to do is this: when users click on a
> picture, a (link to a) new page is generated with the name
> "{{PAGENAME}}-more-detailed-name".
>
> Is it possible to already put automatically some text (e.g. "{{template}}")
> on this new (non existing) page?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Inputbox

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060330/23d5a586/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
>> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
>> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.
>
> This is patently false.

Wait! That's patently true. I just can't read. ;)

Foundation wiki is a few pages of public information. Meta is the work wiki, and
we already have one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060330/2dd4fdc7/attachment.pgp


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
>> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
>> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.
>
> This is patently false.

Wait! That's patently true. I just can't read. ;)

Foundation wiki is a few pages of public information. Meta is the work wiki, and
we already have one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060330/2dd4fdc7/attachment-0001.pgp


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
>> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
>> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.
>
> This is patently false.

Wait! That's patently true. I just can't read. ;)

Foundation wiki is a few pages of public information. Meta is the work wiki, and
we already have one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060330/2dd4fdc7/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: meta2

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> The Foundation wiki isn't a work wiki because nearly no-one can edit
>> it, and those who can don't - for most people, it's basically a
>> read-only website that happens to have Mediawiki behind it.
>
> This is patently false.

Wait! That's patently true. I just can't read. ;)

Foundation wiki is a few pages of public information. Meta is the work wiki, and
we already have one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060330/2dd4fdc7/attachment-0001.pgp>


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Parser.php, 1.602,
 1.603

body:
Gabriel Wicke schrieb:
> On Sun, 2006-03-26 at 03:08 +0000, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
>
>
>> This fixes the "Bug 2702: Mismatched <i>, <b> and <a> tags are
>> invalid" test case but it's not really an improvement. The test case
>> was supposed to demonstrate that we don't balance tags, which this
>> doesn't fix, it merely hacks around very specific cases with regular
>> expressions which fail if you insert more tags which would be fixed in
>> a parser that balanced tags properly.
>>

>> I'm all for fixing the parser, but it's not an improvement to make
>> that parser test cases we have pass by basically writing a hack in the
>> parser to make just that test pass rather than fixing the core issue.
>>
>
> ?var,
>
> i'm the last one to disagree with you about the core issue.
> I did start an (unfinished) attempt to write a Bison-based parser, and i
> added tidy support to MediaWiki to get at least close to xhtml.
> Timwi and others got further with the flexbisonparse module in CVS.
>
I'm not joking (and not trying to spam the mailing list yet again with
my stuff;-) when I say that my PHP-based wiki2xml parser/converter is
probably the only working alternative out there. Note that this is not
one of my many abandoned, half-finished toys; this one works, on the
whole syntax, on real pages.

Among other nice habits, it nests HTML tags correctly (or converts them
to plain text, which makes it easy to see the error). Same of course for
wiki markup. It might be a little more strict than the current MediaWiki
parser; that might be a good thing, actually.

It is also surprisingly fast for its approach (which is similar to the
code structure flexbisonparse generates as C code). It converts
[[en:Biology]], including all templates, to XML in less than 0.5 seconds
(not counting the time it takes to load the source texts via web). I am
certain these times can be reduced by further tweaking. However, an
additional step to generate XHTML form XML has to be added (which should
be quite fast IMHO).

During the XML generation, it can collect all links in the page, which
can then be looked up with the usual single query before converting it
to XHTML, making the current replacement hell obsolete. Actually, it
doesn't use *any* regexps, except to remove HTML comments.

While there are likely lots of new, fun bugs to discover, IMHO they can
be squashed far more easily than in the current parser, due to its
cleaner structure (hey, don't laugh! I can write structured code if I
really want to!:-)

I will go ahead and add an XHTML export function to the wiki2xml code.
Anyone interested in outfitting MediaWiki with a decent almost-parser is
invited to help ;-) especially with a potential integration into
MediaWiki itself.

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060330/3d95bf7e/attachment.pgp>


from_name: tba

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] tiki-install.php will not create all tables in tiki
	mysql db

body:
Hi all
I'm new to tikiwiki
I downloaded the latest version tikiwiki (tikiwiki-1.9.2.zip)
followed all th instruction:
- installed apache version 2.0.55
- installed php version 4.4.2
- installed mysql DB version 5.0.19
- installed phpMyAdmin version 2.8.0

Now, after all this when I point my browser to the tiki-install.php and
select to create the default db the following tables are not created:

tiki_articles
tiki_submissions

The error displayed:

Message: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near
'reads int(14) default NULL,
  votes int(8) default NULL,
  poi

Do I have to downgrade the server? Or where can the problem be situated?

Any help is welcome
Thanx

th*

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/tiki-install.php-will-not-create-all-tables-in-tiki-mysql-db-t1370723.html#a3677240
Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.


subject: [Foundation-l]  Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta

body:
:If you don't want to make more people angry at you than you
:already have, then I suggest you take a break from this discussion
:right about now.

Certainly. Have meta and enjoy it as a separate community increasingly
unusable by any other, as is working so well for Commons, rather than
the service project it purports to be; just stop representing it as
such, because it simply isn't.

- d.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Angela wrote:
> This was just an error. One of Anthere's emails was on the auto-accept
> list, but presumably not the one she was using. I've adding a couple
> of others, as well as Michael and Tim so the board should be able to
> post to the cc list now.
>
> Angela.

Cool.
Thanks a *lot* Angela.

Ant


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/30/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> So I suggest a meta2
> be created as an actual current work wiki, and meta be kept with its
> primary function as an archive.

There are a few things Meta needs:
1) Archiving historical pages as such. This is being done through
[[Meta:Historical]]. That's not necessarily the best way of doing it,
but it may work.
2) Multilingual MediaWiki. This is under development. Much of the mess
is the result of people using very different mechanisms to
disambiguate pages in different languages.
3) Standardized categories, standardized page hierarchies. There are
many hierarchies which are internally consistent, but not with each
other.
4) Clean-up the so-called software documentation or move it to mediawiki.org.
5) Better separation of different types of content beyond
categorization, e.g. discussions from concrete proposals.

Some of the mess also results from the organization (WMF) being in
flux - old structures are replaced with new ones which are just now
being created. I might also dig up my CPOV policy proposal from a long
time ago. ;-)

What it doesn't need is misplaced anger or silly forks. What it
doesn't need is people with very little involvement in all the things
that are and have been happening on Meta (contests, votes, proposals,
discussions, essays, specifications, papers, promotion materials,
translations, community pages, and so forth) to insult the project and
its community as a whole by referring to its primary function as an
"archive". If you don't want to make more people angry at you than you
already have, then I suggest you take a break from this discussion
right about now.

Erik


from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

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

Yes, what you say is true. However, PICS labelling (the ICRA stuff I
suggested a few days ago) is an accepted W3C standard, supported by
every filtering software there is. On the other hand, your solution
would require the school to employ a skilled IT technician to reprogram
the filtering software. It would be hard for a school to justify
spending that amount of public money to give students safe access to one
website - the most likely result is that the whole site will get blocked.

With PICS labels, however, individual Wikipedia pages would be
automatically filtered by the settings of the filtering software.

Cynical

Geoff Burling wrote:
> On Sun Mar 26 19:08:45 UTC 2006 Steve Bennett stevage at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On 3/26/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I find it very curious that of all the things they can attack
>>> wikipedia for, the fact that wikipedia is not censored is the one they
>>> focus on. Very strange indeed.
>> All the more reason to tag Wikipedia articles as kidsafe/worksafe.
>
> It occurs to me that this entire debate about tagging articles is
> entirely moot. If a school or workplace wishes to filter Wikipedia
> content by articles, we have already provided the means for them to
> identify unwanted material: use the article category.
>
> It should be a straightforward task for any computer technician to create
> a filter to keep out all of the articles marked [[Category:Sex]],
> [[Category:Porn star]], & even [[Category:Pokemon]], if a school or
> workplace desires. Explicit metatags duplicate information that is
> already part of the article & thus is unneeded -- unless some person
> starts making contributions that confuse this categorization, for example
> adding pictures of naked bodies to articles like [[Triangle]] & [[George
> W. Bush]]. In that case these edits would be vandalism & dealt with
> accordingly.
>
> The means to bar information on Wikipedia that is not safe for children &
> the workplace already exists. How they could make this work is thankfully
> not our concern.
>
> Geoff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEK7/Og8fvtQYQevcRAggQAJ4xz0wlYA7ttI6Bu28Aau+QvpRZJwCgiOcy
wTIzDvO30MONYYLo90jDiD4=
=5hwt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 3/29/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The list is private. It has a restricted list of members. Those who are
>>on the committee. This is logical (and good).
>>
>>
>Being a member and having read access to the archive are separate
>things. You could access the archive if given the mailman password. Do
>you currently not have this read access to the archive? Do you not
>want it?
>
All Board members should have at least read access to ALL committee
archives.  It is a part of their duties as corporate directors to be
aware of issues when they arise.

Ec


body:
Aphaia wrote:
> I have been  claiming the page which contains the obscene word
> mentioned should be deleted because of its obscenity and making
> editors who are really working on there displeased.
>
> Others, most of them were from en.wikipedia opposed strongly.
>
> And now, that word which I can't utter without harming my own dignity
> and decency appears by thank of an editor  whose edits on meta I don't
> know.
>
> In addition, on RfD on meta, two unexperienced users obsessively claim
> certain pages which are *very useful* for me as a translation
> coordinator should be deleted because they can't understand their
> relevance to meta activity, coordination between projects.
>
> I am fed up with those absurdity.
>
> Anthere said the issues on meta had nothing to the Foundation. If so,
> is it also unappropriate for me to oppose those requested deletions on
> the behalf of communication committee whose subcommittee I belong to?
>
> I feel myself being mimed by those "overhaul" folks. They want to
> deprive my tools from me. I can't imagine in this circumstance what I
> can for coordination.
>
> Aph.

Hi Britty

By "issues on meta had nothing to do with the Foundation", I mean that
meta goes much beyond Foundation issues. It includes Foundation issues,
it includes community issues, it includes technical issues. That's a
melting pot.

If folks want to deprive you from tools you need for your job, request
that they explain why the pages need to go. And explain why they need to
be kept. If they are speedy deleted, speedy undelete them... if you need
a hand, call us ;-)

ant

> On 3/30/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 3/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>>That's nice. Are you speaking for the Foundation here? I ask because
>>>of opinions expressed by Aurevilly and Delphine on the Communications
>>>Committee list regarding en: Wikipedia. Fairly problematic ones
>>>considering Wikimedia France is the one local chapter that is actually
>>>legally affiliated with the Foundation. I note that Aurevilly just
>>>blanked his en: Wikipedia user page, coinciding with expressing his
>>>contempt for en:wp openly. Just the thing for a Foundation person to
>>>show their high regard for cross project issues.
>>>
>
>
>>>What on earth is going in in WMF France? Has en: wikipedia been
>>>declared the enemy?
>>
>>Bringing this back on the topic of the meta cleanup,  this post/thread
>>is obvious evidence that http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dick is still
>>needed and important and shouldn't be removed.
>>
>>;)
>>
>>Just an observation.
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
> email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 30/03/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Has anyone checked the mailing lists for his supposed email yet?
>
> Mgm

No trace of 'Horsley' on any emails that have reached WikiEN-l (or
gone into moderation on WikiEN-l) since I've been a list admin (almost
a couple of years now) - unless the Gmail spam filter's picked them
up. Also no messages to Wikipedia-l in that time either.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Parser.php, 1.602,
	1.603

body:
On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 08:29:20PM +0200, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> > I'd like to get maybe 75-80% of the pertinent parts of the parser glued
> > into WebGUI as a replacement for it's current article markup
> > facilities, but that will entail rewriting it in perl.
> >
> > Is that even remotely practical-sounding?
>
> Hmm- depends on how you weigh things to get those 75-80% ;-)

Understood. Most of what I'm after is easier markup: graf breaks, links,
italics and bold, maybe lists. The table stuff is nice, but lower on my
list. Transclusion is probably Right Out, since there's already a way to
accomplish that, and the page framing of WebGUI is sufficient different,
semantically, to make it hard to describe what it would do, anyway.

I'll check out that article brion pointed me to.

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


body:
Anthere wrote:

>By "issues on meta had nothing to do with the Foundation", I mean that
>meta goes much beyond Foundation issues. It includes Foundation issues,
>it includes community issues, it includes technical issues. That's a
>melting pot.
>
You're probably right to say that meta is all of the above, but the fact
that the Foundation is a significant element of meta implies that
Foundation policy issues that are included there *must* be clearly
identified.

My earliest impressions of Meta was that it was a convenient place for
POV rants that were not suitable for the NPOV environment of Wikipedia.
It has taken on additional roles since then including all those that you
have listed, and probably a few others.  Votes happen there which some
interpret as having a broad application to all projects, while others,
who do not maintain a constant watch on Meta's activities, are surprised
when something that may have been thoroughly discussed on Meta appears
as decided policy on a specific project where the matter was never
discussed at all.

Individual projects have enough difficulty with creeping policy
obsession in their own right.  Someone proposes a policy which cannot be
deleted without a serious breach of Wikiquette; everyone who has better
things to do than wrangle over policy promptly ignores it; several
months later someone attempts to enforce it on the presumption that it
must be valid policy since no-one opposed it.  Familiar?

Wikimedia is big, very big, maybe even too big.  That makes the process
of open communications more important than ever.  It also means that we
are in desparate need of clarification of Meta's role.

If committees are seen as participants in secret backroom deals
credibility suffers.  There may be quite valid and legal reasons for
maintaining the confidentiality of arrangements with outsiders.  When
that happens we need to examine whether the deal or the community is
more important.  When the inertial impulse toward unchecked growth comes
into conflict with the ethics of openness there are some fundamental
concepts that need to be re-examined.

Ec


body:
On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 10:43:54PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/29/06, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  or some other things like that), because having a test
> > suite that passes when we still have some core parsing problems
> > doesn't mean that we have a decent parser, it means that the test
> > suite has become worthless.
>
> Maybe "insufficient" would be a nicer way of putting it than "worthless"? :)

It might well be nicer, but optimizing the language to avoid offending people
may not be the most effective solution, and a test suite -- or at least any
component thereof -- *is* sort of a binary proposition.

In fact, "worse than useless" fits this case nicely; the test suite *implies*
that all is well, but it's providing a false sense of security; all is not
well.

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


subject: [Wikitech-l] New to Wiki - want to know how use for my web site

body:
On Thu, Mar 30, 2006 at 01:55:24PM +0200, Petr Kadlec wrote:
> On 3/30/06, Roger <roger at superclown.org> wrote:
> > I am new to Wiki. I want to know if this Wiki method could be used on a Web
> > Site to edit text on a specfic page or pages ONLY by one person (via
> > password) I want only specific indaviduals to edit text and not use a web
> > editing software.  Thank you Roger
>
> Well, it probably could be tweaked for that use, but a general content
> management system
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system) would be
> probably better suited for such task than a wiki
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).

And since the MW crowd is (happily) never real annoyed when people say "use
what you need instead of our software" (:-), let me suggest you look at WebGUI

http://www.plainblack.com/what_is_webgui

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Petr Kadlec

body:
On 3/30/06, Roger <roger at superclown.org> wrote:
> I am new to Wiki. I want to know if this Wiki method could be used on a Web
> Site to edit text on a specfic page or pages ONLY by one person (via
> password) I want only specific indaviduals to edit text and not use a web
> editing software.  Thank you Roger

Well, it probably could be tweaked for that use, but a general content
management system
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system) would be
probably better suited for such task than a wiki
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Aphaia wrote:
>
>
>>I have been  claiming the page which contains the obscene word
>>mentioned should be deleted because of its obscenity and making
>>editors who are really working on there displeased.
>>
>>
>The word "dick"? As those of us who are native speakers of English
>suggested: how about moving the page to "Don't bowdlerise Meta."
>
A euphemism of a euphmism!

I've always viewed "Don't be a dick," as a polite way of saying "Don't
be an asshole." :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Rich Morin wrote:
>> Most conferences allow (at least, tacitly) BOF attendance
>> by the general public, so this might be the way to go:
>>
>>   http://www.mysqluc.com/pub/w/45/bof.html
>>
>> P.S. The person setting up the BOF should be an attendee.
>>      Brion, could you be persuaded to set this up?
>
> Will do...

http://www.mysqluc.com/cs/mysqluc2006/view/e_sess/9299

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060330/8061e132/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 08:46:47PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Of course, MediaWiki does not *have* to compete in other markets.
> We're not in *competition* with anybody; I wholeheartedly welcome the
> existence of other wiki packages.
>
> But since we do get used for other purposes, it is worth spending some
> time and effort to keep them in mind. We've done some things in the
> past for the 'small' market: the web installer wizard, replacing the
> fragile PHPTAL skin, merging Tom Gries' email notification patches,
> providing authentication hooks usable for LDAP and HTTP auth plugins,
> etc.
>
> Paying some more attention can be good; among other things it'll
> encourage cleanup and modularization of existing code. :)

Can I just stand up for a minute and say what a wonderful attitude this is?

I think it's almost the perfect balance between "we do what we do and
there's lots of other stuff available that does other stuff" and "but
we're not going to go out of our way to make life *difficult* for those
people in the middle".

And as one of those people in the middle, this is important to me.  :-)

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Aphaia

body:
I have been  claiming the page which contains the obscene word
mentioned should be deleted because of its obscenity and making
editors who are really working on there displeased.

Others, most of them were from en.wikipedia opposed strongly.

And now, that word which I can't utter without harming my own dignity
and decency appears by thank of an editor  whose edits on meta I don't
know.

In addition, on RfD on meta, two unexperienced users obsessively claim
certain pages which are *very useful* for me as a translation
coordinator should be deleted because they can't understand their
relevance to meta activity, coordination between projects.

I am fed up with those absurdity.

Anthere said the issues on meta had nothing to the Foundation. If so,
is it also unappropriate for me to oppose those requested deletions on
the behalf of communication committee whose subcommittee I belong to?

I feel myself being mimed by those "overhaul" folks. They want to
deprive my tools from me. I can't imagine in this circumstance what I
can for coordination.

Aph.

On 3/30/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > That's nice. Are you speaking for the Foundation here? I ask because
> > of opinions expressed by Aurevilly and Delphine on the Communications
> > Committee list regarding en: Wikipedia. Fairly problematic ones
> > considering Wikimedia France is the one local chapter that is actually
> > legally affiliated with the Foundation. I note that Aurevilly just
> > blanked his en: Wikipedia user page, coinciding with expressing his
> > contempt for en:wp openly. Just the thing for a Foundation person to
> > show their high regard for cross project issues.
> >

> > What on earth is going in in WMF France? Has en: wikipedia been
> > declared the enemy?
>
> Bringing this back on the topic of the meta cleanup,  this post/thread
> is obvious evidence that http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dick is still
> needed and important and shouldn't be removed.
>
> ;)
>
> Just an observation.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Beyond Wikipedia

body:
On Thu, Mar 30, 2006 at 09:37:24AM -0800, Rich Morin wrote:
> At 8:46 PM -0800 3/29/06, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Gregory Szorc wrote:
> >> Will features perhaps never desirable for Wikipedia
> >> ever be considered for MediaWiki?
> >
> > Where nice and clean. Modular extensions are always a
> > huge plus!
>
> I read this as:
>
>   If the feature doesn't impair the maintenance or performance
>   of MediaWiki for Wikipedia, and it has a plausible reason for
>   existing, it is likely to be allowed into the mainline code.
>   If it can be written as an extension, so much the better.

That was my perception as well, for what it's worth.

> MediaWiki isn't a "category killer" for wikis; there are too
> many ideas about what wiki engines should be able to do.  It is
> an extremely attractive option, however, as I discuss here:

It may not be a category killer, but I suspect it gets more than 50% of
new starts.  It's *much* more polished, and easier to get your head
around, IMHO, than it's competition.

> > The Project Wiki
> >
> > Start up a wiki for the project.  Take some care in selecting
> > the wiki software.  You'll want it to be comfortable, popular,
> > robust, scalable, and rich in useful features. It should also
> > be undergoing active development in areas such as dynamic
> > content, semantic wikis, etc.
> >
> > My current choice, FWIW, is  MediaWiki, the technology
> > underlying Wikipedia.  It is written in PHP, so it installs
> > easily on a wide range of platforms.  It has extensive
> > documentation, a variety of mailing lists, etc.  Although
> > MediaWiki's principal focus is supporting Wikipedia, some
> > of its development goes beyond this purpose.
> > ...
>
>   http://www.cfcl.com/~rdm/MBD/mbd_advice.php
>
> It is also an attractive option for developers who want to see
> their ideas get used by large groups of people.  The Semantic
> MediaWiki folks, for example, are clearly focused on making
> their additions and changes in a way that would allow use by
> Wikipedia, etc.

I do have to say I have a growing soft spot for Trac, in the specific space
of software project management, though.  Both can be utilized, though, as
demonstrated by the MythTV project, which has a MW *and* a Trac.

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Ilia Alshanetsky

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP 5.1.3RC1 testing

body:
Hello!

You are receiving this email because your project has been select to
take part in a new effort by the PHP QA Team to make sure that your
project still works with PHP versions to-be-released. With this we hope
to make sure that you are either aware of things that might break, or to
make sure we don't introduce any strange regressions. With this effort
we hope to build a better relation between the PHP Team and the major
projects.

If you do not want to receive these heads-up emails, please reply to me
personally and I will remove you from the list; but, we hope that you
want to actively help us making PHP a better and more stable scripting
language.

The final release candidate of PHP 5.1.3 can be found at
http://downloads.php.net/ilia/php-5.1.3RC2.tar.bz2. I would like to ask
you to test your application against this release and let us know about
any issues that you discover. We are particularly interested in
backwards compatibility breaks and new issues appeared in this release,
but were not present in prior 5.1 versions. If you find any issues,
please contact the PHP QA team at "php-qa at lists.php.net".

In case you think that other projects should also receive this kinds of
emails, please let me know privately, and I will add them to the list of
projects to contact.

regards,

Ilia Alshanetsky
5.1 Release Master


subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 3/30/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
> >
> > Can you point out who actually suggested filtering Wikipedia at the
> > source?
<snip>

> > All the more reason to tag Wikipedia articles as kidsafe/worksafe.

filter <> tag

Tagging allows people to install client side (or proxy-level) software
to filter pages based on the tags. Filtering "at the source" would
mean preventing *everyone* from seeing certain content. This latter
idea seems to be causing a lot of distress, despite the fact that no
one has actually suggested it.

Steve


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Language versions' popularity vs. number of
	articles (vs. number of speakers)

body:
One way is posting flyers at universities and other intellectual
"hotspots". The Icelandic Wikipedia had printable fliers a while back
for people to post around your school, they were neat, and could
probably very easily be adapted to any other language. (sort of like,
"Come help us build the first free online encyclopedia in Icelandic"
or something like that).

Other ways, especially for minority languages, are to contact groups
which promote the language, if they exist. If there is any sort of
periodical in that language, it might be good if you can get them to
write something about your Wiki, and if you can't, you can possibly
place an ad if you're willing to spend money. Even if there isn't a
periodical in the language, though, you may be able to get a local
newspaper (in the LWC) to write an article.

You can also post flyers around town (on lampposts, public telephones,
abandoned buildings, etc., as long as it's legal where you live).

Now, this generally assumes people have internet -- so they can visit
Wikipedia and edit it. However, if internet access is low, you can
have "If you want to help us write the encyclopaedia, call for more
information" with your phone number. If phone access is low, you can
give your address, or some other way they can reach you.

Mark

On 30/03/06, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> How one can keep in touch with the work of the committee?
>
> Another question: can somebody take the effort to summarize all the
> great ideas about promoting a smaller wp that have sounded in this
> discussion (and probably the others)? Enthusiasts of new and smaller
> wikipedias might be glad to find such a text.
>
> ru/os:User:Amikeco
>
> 2006/3/29, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com>:
> > The new Communications Committee might be able to help with raising
> > Wikipedia-awareness in specific countries:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee
>
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Berto

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Mediametry survey (was )Re: Language versions'
	popularity vs. number of articles...)

body:
> To write a wiki with 100K articles, you don't need the 480M
> speakers of Hindi, the 46M speakers of Polish or the 4.6M speakers
> of Norwegian.  All you need is 20 or 50 very determined people,
> who really want to write a wiki with 100K articles. This
> determination is a mindset, which can be very hard to reach.
> Have you tried to convince your parents to contribute actively to
> Wikipedia?  I suppose that pyramid schemes, religious cults, and
> even suicide bombings need a similar mindset.  Most people just
> wouldn't get it into their head, that this is a good idea.  But
> once you are determined, the actual job is not so hard to do.
>
> Perhaps we have an understanding of ideas, ideologies, and
> mindsets today that is similar to the medical understanding of
> viruses and bacteria 200 years ago.

LOL Count this as signed by me, too :) It's an absolutely EXACT picture :)
B?rto


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 3/30/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been  claiming the page which contains the obscene word
> mentioned should be deleted because of its obscenity and making
> editors who are really working on there displeased.
>
> Others, most of them were from en.wikipedia opposed strongly.
>
> And now, that word which I can't utter without harming my own dignity
> and decency appears by thank of an editor  whose edits on meta I don't
> know.
[snip]

Your reaction to this article title indicates a shortcoming in your
understanding of English.  You should find the response from the
native English speakers informative. Or are you so biased against
other cultures that you believe all the native English speakers are
heathens without regard to decency?

All it is in a word, and  in most English speaking cultures very few
words carry substantial power or meaning on their own. The word you
object to is certainly not one that would be expected to offend in
most contexts.  Whatever you think it means, you are likely wrong,
because the word does not carry the importance you obviously think it
does.  You may have the litteral meaning correct, but I'm sure you're
aware words have much more than their litteral meaning.  I doubt there
is a word in English which has the same complete meaning as whatever
you are thinking of.


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 3/30/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> :If you don't want to make more people angry at you than you
> :already have, then I suggest you take a break from this discussion
> :right about now.
>
>
> Certainly. Have meta and enjoy it as a separate community increasingly
> unusable by any other, as is working so well for Commons, rather than
> the service project it purports to be; just stop representing it as
> such, because it simply isn't.
>
>
> - d.

David,

You can continue doing work on making Meta *more* usable. Nobody is
suggesting that Meta become less usable.

But:
*Stop making unwarranted accusations about what Meta is or isn't (ie.,
again, point me to a page etc. that's stopping people adding content
to Meta)
*Stop being a [[m:DICK]] - it's doing us no good whatsoever

Cormac

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


from_name: Benjamin Webb

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal:Consumer Wiki?

body:
To be honest, I don't like google adds. I think the thinking at the
moment is that google ads will only be used as a last resort.

About the consumer idea, have a look at http://consumerpedia.org.

On 30/03/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Guruprasad Baskaran wrote:
> > Hi All!
>
> Hello
>
> >
> > This is my first post on the mailing list  and I am not sure if this is the
> > right mailing for this topic.
> >
> > Actually I had two ideas
> >
> > 1)I have found that people tend to use the internet a lot to research about
> > about various products/services that they wish to buy.And as far as I know
> > most of the sites that offer information on the products or services are
> > commericial sites either hosted by the creator of the product or service or
> > by some other commercial site which would probably also be selling the
> > product, so there is no guarantee how unbiased the information is.So I was
> > wondering if we can create a web site which will have unbiased information
> > about all the products/services in the world, where users will create the
> > pages with product/service information , how good , how bad it is, what are
> > the alternatives, what price the user paid etc etc.Something similar to the
> > wikipedia site for knowledge where users can log in and edit.I have not
> > thought about the design of the web site, its just a rough idea so far, but
> > what do you people think?wouldnt it be great to have just one web site where
> > you can look up all the unbiased information of whatever product/service you
> > want to buy?
>
> There was a site which was meant to do something of the sort
> www.consumerium.org.
> I think it is dead now, but it might give you some ideas.
>
> > 2)I was reading that wikimedia projects need lot of donations to support
> > hardware and software requirements for the staggering growth its
> > having.Iwas wondering if wikimedia could earn this money by itself for
> > example by
> > just showing some small non intrusive adds(like google adds) which are
> > selected in a fair fashion by a search algorithm(again its a rough idea not
> > sure how to do it yet), wouldnt that be good?Obviously all this money can be
> > pushed back into the primary goal of wikimediafoundation 'Imagine a world in
> > which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human
> > knowledge. That's what we're doing." wouldnt that make the
> > wikimediafoundation much more stronger to achieve its goal?Just a thought
> > what do you people think?
>
> Hmmmm; there is a significant proportion of editors who would consider
> googleadds as actually intrusive... Right now, I fear this solution does
> not meet wide support...
>
> > Thank you!
> >
> > Regards
> > GP
>
>
> see you
>
> Ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal:Consumer Wiki?


from_name: Zafer Yaman

body:
>
> The biggest divorce seems to be with the Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and
> Turkish Wikipedias.
>
> This may or may not have something to do with it, but take a look at
> the Spanish vs French mainpages -- the French one mentions very, very
> prominently that anyone can edit, the Spanish one does not. The
> Chinese WP does mention it, I'm not 100% sure about the Arabic or
> Turkish.

Turkish Wikipedia clearly mentions on its main page (using large font size)
that everyone can edit.

There's so little Turkish language content on the Internet in general and
most Turkish speaking people don't speak English or any other language. This
may be one of the reasons of the inconsistancy between article number and
visit count.


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Status update regarding Wikiversity

body:
On 3/30/06, michael_irwin at verizon.net <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Extracted from:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Resolutions
>
>
>       "2006-21
>
> The SPC authorize the creation of a subcommittee dedicated to
> Wikiversity. Its purpose will be to clarify the scope of this project
> and to set up Wikiversity as a sister Wikimedia project. The
> subcommittee will consist initially of Cormac Lawler, and will report
> back to the SPC on its formation, no later than the 31st of March.
>
>     * Date of last vote: march 20, 2006"
>

Well spotted ;-)

>
> I do not recall any discussion, nomination or election of Cormac to
> represent the Wikiversity project proponents within the Wikiversity
> proposal, at the Wikiversity discussions at meta, or on Wikiversity
> pages at Wikibooks.   Perhaps this will be a useful reference the next
> time some gullible researcher cites Wikipedia as Democracy in action.

I'm on the Special projects committee, and at least one member of this
committee needs to be on whatever subcommittees are formed. I'm
currently organising this subcommittee, and will post full details on
Meta, hopefully by tomorrow. The work of this subcommittee will be
done largely, if not exclusively, in the open, on Meta, with the
collaboration, as always, of the people who are interested in setting
up Wikiversity.

I'll leave the rest of your (amusing) speculation on how the process
will go - suffice to say that I anticipate we'll have results a long
time before you think :-)

Cormac

>
> OTOH Perhaps the special projects committee only intends to delegate the
> tedious task of writing the draft memo (potentially asking Brion to
> activate a new set of wiki databases at the existing URL:
> http://wikiversity.org/) for review and revision of Jimmy's personal
> staff and advisors prior to seeking approval to proceed from the God
> King himself via official signature, timestamp, and seal in simulated blood.
>
> Proposed draft  milestone schedule for authorizing memorandum revision:
>
> 1 April 2006
>
> Cormac reports back to SPC in appreciation of the trust they have
> bestowed upon him.
>
> 1 May 2006
>
> Draft memo circulates the stealthy Wikiversity prototype site at
> Wikibooks and/or meta for comment
>
> 1 Jun 2006  - 1 Sept 2006
>
> All work suspended as busy volunteer leadership figures prepare for
> Wikimani presentation on how virtual free knowledge shall revolutionize
> the 3rd rock from the sun no later than the 42nd century.
>
> 1 Oct 2006
>
> Suspense routing slip completed for final review cycle of the revised by
> consensus memo to be submitted by the designated leader of the
> Wikiversity project participant wanna bes (Cormac, the first) to the
> Special Project's Committee for approval per prespecified quorum
> criteria to request blessing and permission from the God-King (and or
> delegated staff ... Jimmy's legislative review calendar currently
> available no sooner than one week prior to review time allocated by
> order of the super secretive service pending update of the risk
> management matrices established by the Board's partner's security
> consultants on loan from U.N.)  to deliver to Brion for evaluation of
> technical feasibility.
>
> 2 Oct 2006
>
> Technical go or nogo from Office of the Technical Administrators (Brion)
>
> 15 Nov 2006
>
> New review time slot allocated from God King's 07 calendar for final
> review and decision.
>
> Break for holidays.
>
> 15 Jan 2007
>
> Draft memo's electronic data font discovered to be in obsolete 06 format
> previously utilized by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Authority to authenticate
> Presidential Launch Orders to USN Ballistic Missile Submarines.  Memo
> returned to Cormac for appropriate font revision and formatting along
> with request to eliminate phrase "distance elearning" from the proposal.
>
> 15 Feb 2007
>
> Apparently all versions of the revised wikiversity proposal were erased
> during the great meta cleanup of 06 and nobody noticed the links were
> dead until now ...
>
> 15 Mar 2007
>
> As a joke somebody proposed that the Special Projects Committee be
> reorganized.  Unforunately an involuntary knee jerk (conditioned
> reflexive) second in the IRC log activated automated quorum call
> procedures and the effort to set aside the motion failed by one vote.
>
> 15 Apr 2007
>
> We think we can get on Jimmy's calender in 2009.  We will know more by
> NLT July 2008.
>
> Sept 2008
>
> Cormac takes leave to defend 3rd P'hd Thesis.
>
> Nov 2010
>
> Mav149 enters the obelisk bearing the official Wikimeda DVD archive
> documenting the singularity minus wikiversity.
>
> (Note to makeup and/or lighting,  need a duller black sheen on the
> spacesuit.  Cool backpack thruster exhaust!)
>
> Feb 2012
>
> authorization to proceed with wikiversity.org pending approval by
> technical staff
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal:Consumer Wiki?

body:
Guruprasad Baskaran wrote:
> Hi All!

Hello

>
> This is my first post on the mailing list  and I am not sure if this is the
> right mailing for this topic.
>
> Actually I had two ideas
>
> 1)I have found that people tend to use the internet a lot to research about
> about various products/services that they wish to buy.And as far as I know
> most of the sites that offer information on the products or services are
> commericial sites either hosted by the creator of the product or service or
> by some other commercial site which would probably also be selling the
> product, so there is no guarantee how unbiased the information is.So I was
> wondering if we can create a web site which will have unbiased information
> about all the products/services in the world, where users will create the
> pages with product/service information , how good , how bad it is, what are
> the alternatives, what price the user paid etc etc.Something similar to the
> wikipedia site for knowledge where users can log in and edit.I have not
> thought about the design of the web site, its just a rough idea so far, but
> what do you people think?wouldnt it be great to have just one web site where
> you can look up all the unbiased information of whatever product/service you
> want to buy?

There was a site which was meant to do something of the sort
www.consumerium.org.
I think it is dead now, but it might give you some ideas.

> 2)I was reading that wikimedia projects need lot of donations to support
> hardware and software requirements for the staggering growth its
> having.Iwas wondering if wikimedia could earn this money by itself for
> example by
> just showing some small non intrusive adds(like google adds) which are
> selected in a fair fashion by a search algorithm(again its a rough idea not
> sure how to do it yet), wouldnt that be good?Obviously all this money can be
> pushed back into the primary goal of wikimediafoundation 'Imagine a world in
> which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human
> knowledge. That's what we're doing." wouldnt that make the
> wikimediafoundation much more stronger to achieve its goal?Just a thought
> what do you people think?

Hmmmm; there is a significant proportion of editors who would consider
googleadds as actually intrusive... Right now, I fear this solution does
not meet wide support...

> Thank you!
>
> Regards
> GP

see you

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal:Consumer Wiki?


from_name: dake

subject: [Foundation-l]Redémarrage du Wikiquote Francophone / French Wikiquote Relaunch

body:
>
> After analyzing the data contained in the fr.wikiquote site, the
> Wikimedia Foundation has determined that the material stored in the
> fr.wikiquote database does not provide the basic assurance of legal
> soundness necessary to the permanence of the project. Therefore, the
> site will be entirely taken down to be erased and relaunched. A
> policy requiring greater traceability of quotations will be put in
> place on fr.wikiquote version II. This action has been taken for the
> benefit of all Wikimedia Foundation projects.
> Translations can be made into other languages after the announcement
> for the benefit of Wikiquotes in other languages that may be
> interested. Any such translations should if possible work from the
> original French text, this is a French announcement.

Are you sure it is a good idea to reopen fr.wikiquote ? Look at the
history.. most contributors are IP, there is no regular control by
users.. In other words, the wikiquote community is insufficient to
fullfil the legal criterias you mentionned above. In one year or so, you
will have to delete the DB again.

The site should be kept closed until a trusty group of people show some
interest in this project. Afaik, there is no such group atm.

-dake


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Aphaia schrieb:

> I feel myself being mimed by those "overhaul" folks. They want to
> deprive my tools from me. I can't imagine in this circumstance what I
> can for coordination.

What is always a bit neglected: Many tools can be stored without any
problems in userspace on your user subpage where nobody would bother to
delete it.

greetings,
elian


body:
Samuel Klein schrieb:

> Yep, it's understandable.  They were listed for bulk deletion; there were
> no active objections.  But a few hundred irreversible deletions, mixed w/
> unusual article deletions, are unnerving as someone's first admin actions.
> One feels the urge to double-check...

I scanned through the pictures before they were deleted and I saw
nothing worth keeping. And you can be sure that I would have protested
if someone attempted to delete a candidate in the logo contest or
whatever nice picture _relevant_ to wikimedia or any of its projects.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta

body:
On 3/30/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> No if it is pure En it should probably be in the wikipedia namespace.

Unfortunately, people have gone through 'Essays should be in userspace
or on Meta:' rampages before on En:.

-Matt