body:
On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> The point is that when making a photograph or scan of a 2D work, one
> is attempting to accurately reproduce the original.  In other words,
> one is seeking to have NO difference between the original and one's
> copy; imperfections are flaws (acceptable or not).   All one's efforts
> are attempting to get rid of any 'creative' differences.

Heh, you mean if there's a flaw, such as a scratch, in the
photocopying process, copyright could reside in the flaw? :)

(could a third party then claim copyright in removing the flaw?)

Steve


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deterioration: losing references

body:
On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some editors seem to be unaware of a corollary of WP:CITE and WP:V;
> references should never be removed if the material that relies on that
> reference remains, unless a better reference can be found that
> completely supercedes the earlier one.

I go further. I almost *never* remove references, because they're such
a bitch to find and format in the first place. If I absolutely have to
remove them (like, I really can't make any kind of case for relevance
of the material) then I either just comment them out or move them to
the talk page.

To me, it's kind of like a gardener who's been told to mow the lawn,
only this beautiful rose has growing just inside the line of the lawn.
Most people would try and leave it as long as possible. Some people
would take pleasure in mowing it straight away, because "it has to be
done some time".

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Mark Bergsma

subject: [Wikitech-l] Initial post-mortem notes for April 9, 2006 outage

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> We also need to make sure that:
> * Squid error messages are easily configurable and can be updated with necessary
> information.

This is just a matter of overwriting files in /usr/share/squid/errors/
on all squid servers. I think there's a script to do that somewhere, but
of course it can be done manually when the Florida cluster is down.

> * DNS can be easily updated when the Florida cluster is offline, eg so that we
> could redirect hits from Florida to another cluster for an error page or
> read-only mirror.

This is easy as well. The entire PowerDNS configuration directory
structure is present on all external DNS servers. Usually updating is
done by rsyncing from zwinger, but there's no reason why it can't be
done from any of the other servers if zwinger is unreachable.

--
Mark

mark at nedworks.org


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/10/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state,
> but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would
> we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would indeed have been
> "obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A wasn't involved.

You're still trying to argue based on taxonomic importance, which is
NOT what Wikipedia's naming conventions are supposed to be about.

In other words, you think that Wikipedia's naming conventions should
recognise a natural order of primacy, and the MOST IMPORTANT user of a
name by that order should get the name, and the others should have to
be disambiguated.  You think that a nation should automatically have
primacy over a subdivision of another nation, simply by fact of the
one being a nation and the other one a state in a larger nation.

That's not the way our naming conventions work (except in a few
specific areas where we've decided that consistency is good).
Instead, something gets the primary article if it overwhelms other
meanings of the word, and we disambiguate at the primary spot if
nothing overwhelms.

Yes, this IS english-speaker-centric, but the very fact of writing an
encylopedia in English is already deciding to do that.

-Matt


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
* Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Steve,

>>   Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
>> obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and
>> the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
>> However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia
>> is a disambiguation page.

>> I find this sad. :(

> It's not "obvious beyond words" to an American.  Who are we, us
> interfering non-Seppos who've been graciously allowed to join this
> project, to dictate to the Americans that their fantastic state is less
> important than some country they've never even heard of?

> For shame, you arrogant foreigner!

Setting aside the facts that the state is bigger, has a larger population,
and is more heavily wiki-linked to than the country... the current
'Georgia = disambiguation page' to 'Georgia (country)' and 'Georgia (U.S.
state)' is decidedly non 'US centric'.

Regardless of who is and is not being 'arrogant' here it seems clear that
neither 'Georgia' is so overwhelmingly more likely to be searched for than
the other that it can be assumed to be the intended destination in a high
majority of cases... ergo going to a disambig page is the logical course.

Did we really need to go out of our way to 'bash the Americans' again?


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:29:29 +0200, you wrote:

>Eep, I feel dirty. I was thinking of mischievously redirecting the
>article to some presumed list on disputed sexual acts, but all the
>acts actually have "articles" on them.

That's because the list article was deleted as... wait for it...
unsourced.  So now instead of one unsourced article we have dozens.

I am soooooo tempted to just nuke the suckers.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] What happens when you try to harass admins

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Admins_willing_to_make_difficult_blocks

I'd add myself to that page (my home address and home and mobile
numbers are findable), but I don't have time for the abuse cases of
this sort I already get asked to investigate. How annoying!

That said: we need hardarses, but our hardarses need to remember to
block with *love*.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
* Mark Gallagher wrote:

> Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state,
> but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would
> we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would indeed have been
> "obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A wasn't involved.

Depends. In the hypothetical are we assuming that 'Georgia Australia'
would still have twice as many wiki-links to it as the country does?
Double the population?

If so then yes... I'd think we'd still be having this debate. It seems
obvious to me that people who type 'Georgia' into the search box are going
to be looking for the state a good deal of the time... possibly even a
majority of the time (regardless of a long outdated claim to the contrary
on that talk page).

THAT should be the determinant. What is most helpful to our users. Not
which set of xenophobic ideals we determine to be 'superior'. If people
typing 'Georgia' are going to want the country alot of the time and the
state alot of the time then they should GET the disambig page so they can
choose. ONLY if they were overwhelmingly more likely to be looking for the
country would it make sense to go there automatically... and that just
isn't the case.


from_name: geni

body:
On 4/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Admins_willing_to_make_difficult_blocks

The problem is that it isn't easy to predict in advance which cases
are going to cause problems.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:35:57 -0400, you wrote:

>I don't blame you. But it will be recreated. Probably taken to Deletion
>Review. Is it worth it?

Is it?  I don't know.  It is - literally - a crap article.  It drags
the project's average down.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
On 4/10/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Volume.  Approximately 1,500 images are deleted every day.  It's a
> slow enough process when the image is already orphaned, and clearly
> meets the requirements for deletion.  Adding "blank, protect, and
> check back in a month" will just make things that much slower.

Well, obviously that could be streamlined, but since I'm not an admin,
I won't push the point.

Steve


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Real-time mirrors as a net revenue _source_?

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
>>
>> I guess that within this theoretical framework, you have to decide whether
>> you're more interested in what's good for the internet or what's good for
>> WMF. Fortunately, that's a false dilemma, as we seem to be getting by just
>> fine with donations. The only way we would be forced to make such a decision
>> is if we chose to adopt this idea.
>>
>> Ryan
>>
>
> Well... no. We are not doing just fine with donations. The site survives
> with donations. No more. However, the people working for Foundation
> related issues are all the time on the thin edge. We desperately need to
> hire some people to do as simple things as answering the phone or
> helping with the hundred of emails received everyday. We need more
> developers. We need support on the legal side, if only to write
> contracts. We need help for the accounting. Most of this work is not
> necessarily the most interesting one for volunteers, plus, it holds a
> responsability such as it is better there is a contractual agreement
> betweent the Foundation and the worker. We also need to pay for the
> audit. So... any other source of income is welcome... there is so much
> more we could do with decent human power :-(
>
> Regarding Tim analysis, there is another issue not considered. Those
> (potentially) interested in the live feed are not only "simple" mirrors;
> They may also be websites which have an original content, but rely in
> part on our content for time-sensitive information. Those can not afford
> displaying an outdated content. They need daily updated information.
> Hence, the interest of the live feed as well.
>
> ant
>
>
>
A real-time RSS feed of recent changes would be a natural complement to
the ability to get a real-time feed from the servers.

In addition, it might be an option when leech sites are cut off to
initially replace the WP content being served to them with a message:
"Wikipedia traffic to this site has been disabled: click [[here]] to see
how to get access to an authorized [[real-time Wikipedia feed]]", for a
short time (a week?) prior to cutting them off completely.

-- Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite Block

body:
Sorry, personally I think it's completely justified.

k

On 4/10/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   Hi,
>   My account has been blocked indefinitely by an
> admin [[User:Cyde]] while I was blocked for a week. I
> would like the admins reconsider the case and take
> [[User:Cyde]]'s discretionary, unjustified, and unfair
> action back.
>   As an editor, I contributed to a few articles and I
> would like to add more to Wiki.
>   In order to understand the case you might consider
> visiting the following pages:
> *[[User:Rgulerdem]] and talk page
> *[[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]
>   Thanks,
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of <ref></ref><references/>

body:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
> By the way, I've created a references converter that does a pretty good
> job of automatically converting from the old {{ref}} and {{note}} format
> into the new <ref> format.  Check it out here:
> http://teamgamer.org/cgi-bin/wikirefs.pl
>
> Just make sure to follow the instructions to the letter.
>
Ooh, beautiful! I've never used any "helper" applications before, but
this one I think I'll give some exercise to. :)


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Lolicon picture IfD result (was:deletion)

body:
  Molu Bosu Palit,

  Just to keep things clear... the latest IfD on that image wasn't closed when
Sam Korn deleted it.  I closed that day's IfD and would certainly have deleted
the image, for no other reason than if an editor goes to the trouble of jumping
through all of the hoops involved in listing a replacable image on IfD that is a
copyright infringement, I'm pretty much guaranteed to delete it.

  This shouldn't be read as my offering any comment on the content of the image.
 One should certainly read it as an encouragement to have an ironclad "fair use"
rationale on any unfree image that one wants to keep that has been nominated to
IfD.

  Given that it certainly worked out well for me that Sam Korn speedied it, as
otherwise I'd be the target of some of this grieving over an image no
Wikipedian actually owned, I thought I might point out that you're operating
from an incorrect assumption here.

                           Jkelly

Quoting Molu Bosu Palit <loom91 at yahoo.com>:

>   Your rationale for deleting the image without consensus (that the IfD had
> failed to delete the image) is very strange, surely that's why the IfD is
> there for, to prevent the deletion of images when Wikipedia editors don't
> want to delete the image? "I will let the IfD delete images when I want them
> deleted but when it keeps images I want to be deleted then I'm just going to
> go ahead and delete them": doesn't this sound wrong to anyone?

>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Application of the {{pd-art}} tag

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>G'day Pedro,
>
>
>>while we're a topic, a couple of months ago I took pictures (on a
>>museum) of ancient mayan sculptures. Unfortunately I was on a hurry so
>>I couldn't go talk with staff.
>>Now, who owns the copyright? Those sculptures are like a thousand year
>>old, but pd-old doesn't apply (it will apply 100 years after I die in
>>case I actually hold the copyright of my pictures)
>>
>>Can I upload such pictures to wikipedia? Can museum claim copyright on
>>the ancient sculptures? and if so, can it claim copyright on my
>>pictures?
>>
>>
>I think a photo of a 3D sculpture has a lot more "creativity" in it than
>a scan of a painting: choosing the angle, and so on.  Such a photo could
>well be copyright you.  If I'm wrong, then the copyright would be held
>by the original artist (in other words, PD-old).
>
>Either way, the museum has no claim on you.  I believe that's why some
>museums don't like you taking photos.
>
It's important to note that in many countries you may hold the copyright
on your photographs of 3D objects, but that copyright lasts for a
shorter time than for literary works.

I think that the Hungarian National Museum has an interesting policy.
Admission to the museum is free, but you need to buy a permit to take
photographs.  The rate was the equivalent of about $20.  There is a
higher rate if you want to use a video camera.

Ec


body:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:

>while we're a topic, a couple of months ago I took pictures (on a
>museum) of ancient mayan sculptures. Unfortunately I was on a hurry so
>I couldn't go talk with staff.
>
Once you have the pictures in legally uncertain circumstances it's
seldom good strategy to talk with staff about it.

Ec


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>>> * Squid error messages are easily configurable and can be updated with necessary
>>> information.
>> This is just a matter of overwriting files in /usr/share/squid/errors/
>> on all squid servers. I think there's a script to do that somewhere, but
>> of course it can be done manually when the Florida cluster is down.
>
> When we last tried this, it didn't work. All of the servers continued to show
> the old error messages, and no one was able to say why.
>
> Are you sure the path is consistent on all machines, not being overwritten by
> anything, etc?

It's in the Squid RPM anyway, rpm -ql lists these files. It *should*
work, but I have never tried it.

Perhaps there are some old files in /usr/local/squid/something lying
around that you were trying to overwrite? I think I made sure they were
the same during the transition to the RPM, but I'm not entirely sure
anymore, and things might have changed since.

--
Mark

mark at nedworks.org


from_name: Anthere

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>How many mirrors is enough? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? Eventually I imagine
>>the market will become
>>saturated, when a new mirror can't recover its minimal startup costs, even
>>with the most aggressive
>>SEO techniques. What will the Internet look like then? Will the average
>>user be able to find
>>independent information in the search engines, which didn't come from
>>Wikpedia?
>>
>
>
> I guess that within this theoretical framework, you have to decide whether
> you're more interested in what's good for the internet or what's good for
> WMF. Fortunately, that's a false dilemma, as we seem to be getting by just
> fine with donations. The only way we would be forced to make such a decision
> is if we chose to adopt this idea.
>
> Ryan

Well... no. We are not doing just fine with donations. The site survives
with donations. No more. However, the people working for Foundation
related issues are all the time on the thin edge. We desperately need to
hire some people to do as simple things as answering the phone or
helping with the hundred of emails received everyday. We need more
developers. We need support on the legal side, if only to write
contracts. We need help for the accounting. Most of this work is not
necessarily the most interesting one for volunteers, plus, it holds a
responsability such as it is better there is a contractual agreement
betweent the Foundation and the worker. We also need to pay for the
audit. So... any other source of income is welcome... there is so much
more we could do with decent human power :-(

Regarding Tim analysis, there is another issue not considered. Those
(potentially) interested in the live feed are not only "simple" mirrors;
They may also be websites which have an original content, but rely in
part on our content for time-sensitive information. Those can not afford
displaying an outdated content. They need daily updated information.
Hence, the interest of the live feed as well.

ant


body:
Mak wrote:

><snip>
>
>
>
>>>This has come up in an article I'm working on- does this ruling apply to
>>>images from books or manuscripts? Are books three dimensional art works,
>>>even if what you're reproducing is a single page from them? My father, a
>>>librarian, seems to think the owning library continues to hold copyright
>>>
>>>
>>for
>>
>>
>>>all such images. I'm not so sure.
>>>
>>>
>>Photocopying a page of a book is a slavish copy... but you can make a
>>good case that photography of any book as an archival process, or with
>>the intent of producing high-quality images, is a sufficiently
>>difficult process that it passes the minimum-creativity standard.
>>
>>I don't know what the caselaw is on it, but I would be wary of an
>>overbroad reliance on Bridgeman.
>>- Andrew Gray
>>  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>>
>>
>
>
><snip>
>
>The specific image I'm thinking of is my own scan of a really crummy
>black-and-white microfilm, not an art-book/good facsimile level
>reproduction. I can see how in some cases such work would conceivably be
>copyrightable, but not how any image made from a book which is itself out of
>copyright would be copyrightable by the owning institution.
>
In the US if the book is in the public domain so are the pictures in
it.  This would follow logically if the duration of copyright is based
on when the book was published.  Where the duration is life plus some
number of years, one needs to consider the possibility that the
photographer may have died later than the person who owned the copyright
on the book.

The Bridgeman case is based on US law.  The UK, where Andrew is from,
has a much less clear situation, or so the museums holding large
collections of paintings would have you believe.  Physical ownership of
an object does not determine copyright.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-04-11

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!

Passed 300 of 303 tests (99.01%) FAILED!


subject:
[WikiEN-l] live feed (was Real-time mirrors as a net revenue
	_source_?)

references:
<44393F54.8060802@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<e1buku$bvv$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4439F76E.2090002@gmail.com>
	<e1e3gv$qna$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
mdangers wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>>Anthere wrote:
>><snip>
>>
>>>The live feed service exist. Generally, it is a bad idea to let
>>>live-mirrors as they are a drain on our resources. For this reason, a
>>>service is provided against a certain fee, meant to at least cover the
>>>costs of feeding the live-mirror.
>>>
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>Why is it so ? Well, it may be a mixture. Possibly Terry contacting few
>>>potential customers. Possibly blocked live mirrors not being informed of
>>>that solution (now, you know, so next time a blocked mirror complains,
>>>please tell it to contact us). Possibly a lack of reactivity to propose
>>>contracts. Or lack of understanding from the people in OTRS about what
>>>the live feed is...
>>>
>>
>>Uh, yeah. Actually letting people know that it exists would be a good
>>start...
>>
>>
>
> I second that request. If the WMF actually is interested in selling this
> service, it would make sense to inform Terry (to my shame I must admit I
> do not even know who this is) of the existence of live mirror sites.

Hi

Terry is a person working for Bomis and Wikia. He gives a bit of time
for live feed from time to time. Unfortunately, he does not participate
to Wikipedia really, so is unlikely to know which mirrors could be
contacted ...

> As one of the people dealing with mirrors on de:, I would be happy to do
> so. Additionally, it might be a good idea to establish some official way
> to get live mirrors blocked. I tried to find someone to block those
> listed at [1] at #wikimedia-tech three times, but didn't succeed. Of
> course, I absolutely understand this is far from top priority for our
> server and software people, overworked and few as they are.

A few days ago, I drafted this answer
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AAnthere&diff=326698&oldid=324837#OTRS
(which was fixed by Brion, then heavily edited by Uninvited Company for
proper english) to provide on OTRS. We rather frequently have emails
sent from mirrors and complaining they have been blocked. This answer is
now available on the board queue, but might be added to other queues as
well if necessary.

There are three requirements for taking care of live mirrors
1) getting them blocked (this mostly concerns the english and german
wikipedia for now I suppose)
2) contact them to explain why they are blocked and to propose a live feed
3) if they are interested, have some one trusted handle the transaction
and make them sign a contractual agreement (note that the contractual
agreement is available en english at least).

Brion should write in the next few days/weeks a page to explain the
technical considerations of the live feed.

In case some editors on en.wikipedia and de.wikipedia could draft a page
where it would be explained to blocked mirrors why they are blocked, and
explain them what alternatives are available, it would be great.

Cheers

Anthere

> I am also aware this issue may not be fully suitable for this list, but
> my mail to wikitech-l seems to be stuck in moderation and at least the
> thread seemed appropriate :-).
>
> Cheers,
> de:mdangers
>
> [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Mdangers/rot
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

>On Apr 10, 2006, at 2:53 PM, SPUI wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Sarojini Naidu wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jimbo wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the
>>>>>fact that
>>>>>we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
>>>>>involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
>>>>>herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious
>>>>>questions
>>>>>of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people
>>>>>may of
>>>>>course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to
>>>>>censor.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll'
>>>>red herring
>>>>in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
>>>>editorial judgement.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You're trolling.
>>>
>>>
>>You're trolling.
>>
>>
>You're trolling.
>
Red herrings are a nice catch for a troller. :-)

Ec


body:
On 4/10/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> Why can't we just use Checkuser (if this is coming from a registered
> user) to discover the ISP or employer of a harassing/abusive user
> (wherever they're accessing WP from) and inform them of this sort of
> abuse. Or, perhaps, get their identity so the harassed editor has
> legal (or, dare I say, extra-legal) recourse.

Legal tends to be the expenisive and impracticle. Extra-legal tends to
be a bad idea. In any case the case which has triggered this has
already gone offline. that is rather the problem. Welcome to the next
stage of the internet when activities online start to have increaseing
meatspace effects
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cleanup is not working

body:
Cleanup is not working. So what else is new? This time, what's new is a
proposal to fix it by referring articles to the pertinent active
WikiProjects. You can read all about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup_process/Cleanup_sorting_propo
sal.

Titoxd.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
> which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
> a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?

Keeping titles and link names the same is a key part of the wiki system.

As noted years ago on the bug report, I'd recommend only allowing swapping the
case of the first letter with such a method.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Locke Cole

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
On 4/11/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> As noted years ago on the bug report, I'd recommend only allowing swapping the
> case of the first letter with such a method.

What about otherwise illegal characters?

BTW Magnus: I think this is a good idea.

-L


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> I only wish (well, you knew that was coming) that there was a way for
> a reader to hide/show the superscripted links to the references.

Presuming you mean the <ref>s in the article text to the part
generated by the <references/> tag, you can get rid of them in user
css:

.reference {display:none;}

Is that what you were thinking of?

--
Sam


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: Undue weight

body:
2006/4/10, Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net>:

> > You can tell that feminists from such-and-such period opposed
> > something as being oppressive to women without giving a list of
> > arguments why it is and why it isn't oppressive, no?
>
> No, because then you leave the reader to decide what is oppressive, and what
> is not. The reader ends up in making an interesting decision, but sadly
> gains no knowledge whatsoever about the subject of the article.

I disagree. The knowledge is in the fact that a certain opinion
exists, and an indication of its backgrounds, not on detailed
arguments for and against.

> When speaking of morals in the roman classical period, if you do not include
> a list of what was then considered as normal (pedophilia was, just to name
> one thing), most readers will get the word as "what is normal NOW".

Of course one should. But that's not what I am rallying against. What
I say we should NOT do, is add a paragraph to that giving (from the
modern perspective) opposing pedophilia and a paragraph (from the
Roman perspective) defending it. We just mention it, perhaps give some
background on the thinking behind it, but don't go into deep arguments
for or against.

> And no
> one will ever understand the deep affective meaning of a phrase like "tu
> quoque Brute, fili mii". It's exactly when speaking of different
> times/cultures that you need to give a clear picture of what local normality
> was. When you make an article on the american Weathermen movement you cannot
> simply say they were "left wings". Because the north american concept of
> being a left-wing is extremely different even just from its european
> equivalent, not to mention Africe and Asia.

So? I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. What I'm saying is that we
should give their ideas, but not start giving arguments for or against
it.

> If you do not specify a context in an extremely precise way, you end up in
> creating confusion, instead of spreading knowledge. Besides, how are going
> to describe the internal debate in the feminists' movements? If we simplify
> their positions, they end up in being all the same, so it looks like
> different positions were due to ego-trips only. Leadership IS a matter, in
> describing the evolution of political/philosophical movements, but it cannot
> be awarded with a monopolistic role.

Again, I'm not saying we should not be stating positions, but that we
should not be argumenting for or against them. And if it is done, that
argumenting from the other side as well is not the solution, but at
best part of it. Telling what kind of arguments are given is a good
thing. Doing the argumenting itself is not. And when you go into
detail, that's often what you do - you don't explain the argument, you
give supporting arguments for it.

> Same applies to any history of the
> protestant movement, unless we want to just say they were "heretics". Just
> in the way we need to mention gravity, when speaking of physics, we need to
> mention phenomena that were at the very base of the construction process of
> an opinion/idea/ideal. We are going to have a very hard time in explaining
> why the Christian revolution took over the classical world, unless we
> explain its implied social consequences (the role of widows and the chance
> for slaves to get a human-like burial, just to name a couple of them).
> Things are always complicated. Making them look simpler it's the best way to
> tell blatant lies.

So? Where am I opposing what you put forward here?

> > A wiki is a collection of knowledge, not a collection of arguments and
> > opinions.
>
> Is there any difference among the two? A scientific theory is no more than a
> theory. That is, a useful OPINION. Until we can use it to make computations
> we do use it, then we throw it away to use a more suitable opinion.

There is definitely a difference among the two! We should *report* on
arguments and opinions. We should not *do* argumenting ourselves.

> > But not
> > in arguing for or against them, not even if we do both at the same
> > time.
> Put my signature here, too. Our role is into referring the matter, not into
> jumping in the discussion. BUT... by choosing waht to say and what to omit
> (like it or not), we do become an active part in the discussion. It's
> unavoidable, and it must be managed. This is why I oppose using the term
> NPOV altoghether. There simply isn't any such thing, so we cannot lie to
> ourselves and to the readers.

So what's your proposal instead?

> > And any evidence given by
> > Von D?niken in favor of his claims, or by Sagan and archaeologists
> > against it, needs only be mentioned fleetingly if at all, to come back
> > to my previous point.
>
> They belong in the [[Von D?niken]] article, and should be properly covered
> there. Not censored or excluded, but simply orderly treated in the right
> place.

And that's where we disagree. Or at least, what we disagree about is
what is 'orderly'. In my opinion, what we should do is give the gust
of his arguments, and the gust of his opponents' arguments. Just say
that he is of the opinion that the technique of the day was not
capable of doing such enormous works. No need to mention what exact
techniques he finds lacking, and why they are so important. Just say
that mainstream archeologists believe the aforementioned techniques
are not necessary, and they have found Egyptian gravures showing how
they did it. No need to specify the exact techniques used by the
Egyptians (at least, not in this context, as a part of the pyramid
article it would be very welcome to me), or the exact location where
the aforementioned gravures have been found and what exactly they
show. Report on the arguments, don't argue them.

> Personally I'd never read [[Von D?niken]] , but this does not mean it
> cannot bring readers and potential contributors in. Any article is a hook,
> by which we fish fresh readers and contributors. [[playstation]] and [[Da
> vinci code]] will get you in much more people than [[epistemology]]. Yet, a
> small percent of those guys may end up in knowing what [[epistemology]] is,
> even starting their surf from [[playstation]]. This is way all correct
> information is useful, although I repeat, often the problem is that one
> begins to write [[Von D?niken]] text right in the middle of [[pyramid]].
> Which is not undued weight, but a plain context error, which does not
> require censorship, but simply a new indipendent page. That's nothing but my
> humble POV, obviously. :)

In my opinion this IS undue weight. Giving small minority opinions on
general pages is in my opinion undue weight to those opinions. That
this is best resolved not by removing the material altogether but
moving it to the minority's page does not mean it was out of context
on the subject page - just that it gave undue weight by being there.

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


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Commons moving helper

body:
nice work, it'll save me a lot of time.

but can you please make it UTF-8-safe?


body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 4/10/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for anyone who was
>> unaware of the new system. I'm loving it. :)
>>
>
> I've already had one editor remove my references in this format,
> seemingly out of not liking it.  Reverted and posted to his talk page
> and he hasn't done it again, but it was annoying.
>
I've wound up in "fights" over switching to the new reference formatting
twice now. But I remember similar problems back when the automatic image
thumbnailing feature was added to Wikimedia, with people who'd spent a
lot of effort creating separate thumb-sized versions of images getting
bent out of shape when their hard work started getting orphaned and
deleted as redundant, and eventually everyone came around to the new
way. I suspect this too shall pass.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Why, exactly?
>>
>>Two well-known things are called Georgia.  It is thus logical for the
>>title to be a disambiguation between them, and everything else known
>>by that name.
>>
>>-Matt
>>
>>
>
>Ohh, come on, there's a huge difference between Georgia the Country
>and Georgia the State. Georgia is a WHOLE country. Like, bigass, we
>got troups, "why don't we take this outside, former Soviet
>country-style", international trade, country.
>
>Disambigging those two would be like disambigging "Paris" to separate
>"Paris, Texas" and "Paris, France". This is the worst kind of
>US-centrism.
>
></rant>
>
>--Oskar
>
>
I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more
references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire
life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise.

John


from_name: europanto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Europanto

body:
Yes, and ... do you have to be afraid of that ? ;o)
Languages are not dead or frozen things.
They all evolve. They also tend to take words from their fellow ones.
( French purists seem to be frightened when they see English words
invading "their" language, but they don't see how many French
words can be found in English )
And you know, even in a single language, there are dozens of ways
to express an idea, with different words and grammar rules.
For example ( sorry, in French. I'm not good enough in English for that ) :

-"J'aime les confiseries au chocolat plus que les autres."
-"Les sucreries chocolat?es sont mes pr?f?r?es."
-"De toutes les friandises, celles qui sont au cacao incarnent mon p?ch?
mignon."
-"Les bonbons ... miam ! Les bonbons au chocolat ... miam miam !"
-"Mes papilles me le disent, bravant mon d?sarroi
Au pays Gourmandise, le chocolat est roi"

( => I prefer chocolate sweets  )

smh
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Europanto-t1056989.html#a3858151
Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:42:09 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>
>>Although I may have a slightly more liberal attitude toward NOR; I would
>>still view NPOV as having equally high sources.  To me citing sources is
>>implicit in verifiability.
>>
>>
>
>You'd have thought so.  But we still could not achieve consensus to
>delete this unsourced monstrosity:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cleveland_steamer_%28second_nomination%29
>
>See how the deleters cited policy while the keepers simply asserted
>"it is true" or that deleting it would be "censorship"?  If it is
>true, surely there must be ''some'' reliable source, but none has been
>presented even after two AfDs - a process which often results in
>speedy resolution of that particular problem.
>
>So once again we have kept by default an article which is completely
>unverified, and given the lack of verifying evidence presented at two
>AfDs almost certainly unverifiable.
>
>Perhaps like Donkey Punch it will hang around until it achieves some
>kind of tenuous reality - sexcruft seems to be one area where
>protologisms are allowed on Wikipedia.
>
>Guy (JzG)
>
>
Just a sidenote, but I would have closed that as a delete. Most of the
keep "votes" came from anons or new editors, so that combined with the
fact that none of them cited policy as a reason to keep (while the
deleters did) should have been enough to discount their votes (assuming
we are pretending WP:IS a democracy). The article as it stands right now
*really* tempts me to speedy it right away, but fortunately I've learnt
not to meddle with the community's will, which apparently choose and
picks policy as it likes (incidentally, so do admins -- so we're all
guilty here). Yeah. Just rambling here. :p

John


subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
On 4/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:

> Steve Bennett schrieb:
> > PS if you're hacking on stuff like this, can I request a flag to limit
> > the depth of a contents section? Sometimes having 3rd and 4th level
> > subheadings show up in the contents is just ugly and not helpful...
> >
> How about {{LIMITTOC|3}} ?

Something like this, IMO, seems better done as a per-user preference.

/me can already imagine edit wars over how many subheadings to display
in the TOC

=)

-L


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia categories compared to classification and
	social tagging

body:
Hi,

I compared MediaWiki's category system and its usage in Wikipedia with
traditional classfication and collaborative tagging. In my impression of
discussion about categories people confuse a lot so maybe my paper can
help a bit (or confuse you even more - it's scientific ;-)

http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0604036
http://wm.sieheauch.de/?p=35

Greetings,
Jakob


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] How does this prove voting is evil?

body:
> On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>   Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
>> obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country,
>> and
>> the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
>> However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping
>> Georgia
>> is a disambiguation page.
>>
>> I find this sad. :(

It is obvious that this particular issue is going to be
_contentious._ I don't know what proportion of Wikipedia users or
Wikipedia editors live in the United States, but it is large enough
to matter. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of
Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown. Frankly, the only thing I knew
about it was that it was the Stalin's birthplace, and even that was
only because of a joking reference I'd heard to some politician:
("He's from Georgia? So was Stalin.).

Given that this issue is contentious, it's going to be hard to
settle. Straw polls are just one of a number of techniques for trying
to reach stability in an article. Unless it is clear that some other
technique _would_ have produced a clear, stable consensus and that
the straw poll is _preventing_ a consensus that would otherwise have
gelled, it doesn't prove polls are evil.

And since, no matter what the outcome is, anyone who types in
"Georgia" will quickly find what they are seeking, it doesn't matter
what the outcome is. Many of these article-naming debates seem to me
just to be arenas for people who enjoy trying to win arguments, and,
unlike edit wars, they are relatively harmless because the results
_do not matter_.

If Steve Bennett's argument is that polls are evil because ignorant
idiots who voted in the poll came up cast a majority of votes for
what is "obviously beyond words" the wrong answer, I don't buy it. A
majority vote for George W. Bush in a national U. S. election when it
is obvious beyond words that that is the wrong answer does not prove
that voting is evil. How's that for U.S.-centric for you? Pffpplsfft!

Our naming policy calls for the "most common" name, not the most
correct or most appropriate name. Arguments on geographic names are
always difficult to resolve because "most common among _whom_" is
somewhat undefined for Wikipedia. Unless you are going to suggest
that polls should be weighted to reflect what the outcome would be if
participation included proportional representation by every English-
speaking person in the world... that is, that Wikipedia should serve
what is ideally its potential audience rather than its real audience.

Non-rhetorical question: does the national makeup of readers differ
in proportion from the national makeup of active editors?


from_name: nunh.huh at mac.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] FYI: Daily Record: Wikipedia site filled with
	major	mistakes

body:
| He's pretty cluey. He reckons some Wikipedia editors have no
| professional editing experience at all.

That's funny. He doesn't look cluish. - Nunh-huh


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 4/10/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Photocopying a page of a book is a slavish copy... but you can make a
> good case that photography of any book as an archival process, or with
> the intent of producing high-quality images, is a sufficiently
> difficult process that it passes the minimum-creativity standard.

Difficulty does not equal creativity. In fact, in the Bridgeman case,
the argument that they had expended huge amounts of effort to make it
look accurate worked against them, because the judge ruled that they
were in fact making it as uncreative as possible in the process (the
value of the reproduction was in its uncreativity, aka its being a
perfect match with the original).

FF


from_name: Pete Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Georgia/Victoria

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in
>fact, a US state,
>but an Australian state, or a British county, or ...
>whatever ... would
>we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would
>indeed have been
>"obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A
wasn't >involved.

To back up Mark's point with a concrete example,
[[Victoria]] has had no controversy, despite the
Australian state getting far less prominence on that
page than it deserves.

Always amazed by how much energy this particular
debate consumes though. Who really cares about
primacy, the other page is only a click away....

Pcb21

___________________________________________________________
NEW Yahoo! Cars - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online! http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day
my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the
'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost
constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers,
etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of
server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every
time you tried to submit something.

So... whoever is keeping things smooth as butter, thanks! Its a bad
paradox of tech support that if your work is really good it is
actually quite transparent, but I wanted to just say that, upon
reflection, it is quite impressive indeed.

FF


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] In praise of the tech people

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day
> > my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the
> > 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost
> > constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers,
> > etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of
> > server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every
> > time you tried to submit something.
>
> You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day
> :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with
> very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime
> of other similarly-popular websites.
>
> Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able
> to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which
> probably doesn't affect casual browsers.

It's really an issue of context.  A year or so ago things were pretty bad.
Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison.  It's true,
how quickly we forget.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> THAT should be the determinant. What is most helpful to our users. Not
> which set of xenophobic ideals we determine to be 'superior'. If people

I don't think there is anything remotely xenophobic about a rule that
states that given a conflict between any country and any lower
political entitiy, the country takes precedence. If there is, please
enlighten me.

Also, I don't think you'd be particularly shocked if you typed Georgia
in the search box, found yourself at the country page and had to click
"Georgia (US state)" at the very top. Well, I'd hope not.

Steve


from_name: Joakim Larsson

subject: [Commons-l] Commons moving helper

body:
Yes would you please

2006/4/11, helix84 <helix84 at centrum.sk>:
> nice work, it'll save me a lot of time.
>
> but can you please make it UTF-8-safe?
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


from_name: Ben Greenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Featured article deterioration

body:
Its simply naive to say that infinite edits means an infinitely good
article.  If you dont believe that bad, non-vandalism edits take their toll
on articles, I invite you to look at the Featured article review.  So many
articles are ruined by people who simply aren't good at writing prose, and
who enjoy adding useless factoids.  Articles quite often get worse-- if your
idealism has you believing otherwise, please look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hip_hop_music&diff=41510779&oldid=36727078

This should be a big wakeup call to anyone who thinks that the pure wiki
system allows articles to get better indefinitely.  Unless we do something
about it, wikipedia will simply be a place where articles get great then
start to deteriorate.  I'm not suggesting stable versions, but surely...
something needs to be done.


from_name: Matt R

body:
----- Original Message ----
From: Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, 11 April, 2006 9:36:55 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] FYI: Daily Record: Wikipedia site filled with major mistakes

> http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060411/COLUMNISTS04/604110302/1103/COLUMNISTS
> "Every time I look up something I know a bit about, I find errors."

> In a summary, it's a nice little rant with some pointers to articles
> that might need cleanup (or NPOV protection from dear Warren)

Hmm...in the bit about Barry Goldwater he seems to be a disgruntled person not familiar with our policies on citing sources and our normal venues for article discussion (and is rude and obnoxious about it, to boot). After having his addition removed from the article, he (Warren Boroson) writes:

   "[A Wikipedia editor] never contacted me directly, as he should have; he just high-handedly dismissed my note, going on and on like a nutcase about: Where's the evidence? Well, if that yahoo had written to me, as he should have, I would have replied: I was a primary source. I was the magazine's managing editor."

It seems he's referring to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Barry_Goldwater#Libel_and_sanity

In which case, yes -- he needs to provide a verifiable source (we can't take his word for it), and the talk page is the appropriate page to discuss it.

Best of all, he closes his piece with:

   "I suspect that whoever edited my contribution had no professional editing experience whatsoever. I suspect, in fact, that if he went to college, he must have majored in."

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/10/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> * Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
> > Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state,
> > but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would
> > we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would indeed have been
> > "obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A wasn't involved.
>
> Depends. In the hypothetical are we assuming that 'Georgia Australia'
> would still have twice as many wiki-links to it as the country does?
> Double the population?

The issue of wiki-links is a bit problematic - a US state will have more
Wiki-links than an Australian state of equal prominence (population, global
impact, newsworthiness - assuming there was such a way to compare such a
thing) because there are more US-centric editors.  It's the whole systemic
bias thing - not only are American editors more likely to be aware of the
American state, so would Canadian editors, probably West Indian, maybe
European - because of the importance of US-based news organisations.  If we
want a truly balanced encyclopaedia, we need to take these things into
account


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
I just saw the de.wikipedia article about the pKB value, which:
* looks like "PKB"
* should look like "pKB"
This looks pityful, and the note that it can't be shown otherwise for
technical reasons doesn't really help the matter.

I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
    {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?

I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.

Magnus

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from_name: Ian Tresman

body:
At 17:56 09/04/2006, you wrote:
>Point of view editing is not a content dispute. The policy is clear,
>but some chose not to implement it. Without looking at the articles
>involved it is impossible to tell what is going on.

How would you characterise the difference between a content dispute,
and a point of view dispute? Presumably the latter is a policy issue?

Regards,
Ian Tresman

>Fred
>
>On Apr 9, 2006, at 10:14 AM, Ian Tresman wrote:
>
> > At 16:28 09/04/2006, you wrote:
> >
> >> This is an on-going problem. It is done both by those who
> >> misunderstand the policy and by those with a point of view agenda.
> >> The only reasonable recourse is to patiently discuss the policy. I'm
> >> not sure the section on undue weight could be made any clearer. If
> >> you are unable to negotiate successfully with those who have a point
> >> of view agenda please use the dispute resolution procedure. Please
> >> don't edit war with them.
> >>
> >
> >
> > This is the one policy where I have had almost a year of
> > "discussion". I have tried various dispute resolution processes, and
> > am invariably told that it is a content dispute (presumably because
> > nearly all policy relates to content).
> >
> > It seems to me that policy should be sufficiently clear for editors
> > to implement, not decide by consensus?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ian Tresman
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>John Lee wrote:
>
>
>>Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>>
>>
>>I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more
>>references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire
>>life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise.
>>
>>
>Stalin was from Georgia...
>
>
Yes, but he did not become famous by retaining the name Dzhugashvili.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> Yes, demographic bias.  As in the bigger region, in population, size,
> economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's
> language, gets the primary link.

Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended
for English speakers? I didn't think so. Well, not until the other
Wikipedias all have a million articles as well.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>G'day Conrad,
>
>
>>Regardless of who is and is not being 'arrogant' here it seems clear
>>that neither 'Georgia' is so overwhelmingly more likely to be searched
>>for than the other that it can be assumed to be the intended destination
>>in a high majority of cases... ergo going to a disambig page is the
>>logical course.
>>
>>Did we really need to go out of our way to 'bash the Americans' again?
>>
>>
>Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state,
>but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would
>we have had all those arguments?  I suspect it would indeed have been
>"obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A wasn't involved.
>
If the Americans had done the right thing and called it New Georgia to
follow the pattern that was started with Hampshire, York and Jersey we
wouldn't be having this problem.  Nobody complains about the name South
Georgia except perhaps the Argentinians.

The other alternative might be the Greek solution of using FSRG (Former
Soviet Republic of Gerogia). :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
On 4/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
> which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
> a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
>
> I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.

I love the idea. I agree that notes like "The correct title of this
article is eBay. It's shown incorrectly due to technical restrictions"
are, um, suboptimal".

What kind of restrictions could you put in to ensure that
oldlimitations(HTML-encoded title) = actual title? In other words, you
don't want to allow someone to make "PKb" display as "Jerry's huge
cock", or even worse, "Abortion" or something.  Actually, a more
likely problem is people using it as a loophole around
page-move-protection ("what? you won't let me move it? I'll just
rename it!")

That problem is probably not too hard, right? Rip out all formatting
and punctuation, and case-insensitive compare against actual title?

Although it occurs to me that you don't really want to allow HTML
coded titles (colors, images, blinking, underlines...), either. You
really only want treat the major specific technical limitations:
* punctuation
* lower case first letter
* superscript/subscript

Otherwise there will be a whole new grey area of what should and
shouldn't be kept in the page title. Should Google appear in different
colours? Can a company title have certain letters in bold? Are
different font sizes acceptable?

So it might be better to define a special markup (possibly resembling
real HTML markup), and simply ignore the entire template tag if it
fails any requirement.

Just brainstorming...

Steve


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Child pornography

body:
On 4/10/06, Molu Bosu Palit <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 4/8/06 Sam Korn wrote:
>
>   >No, so you make sure that the majority of people would consider
> >something child pornography.
>
>   Wikipedia is not a democracy, we need supermajority instead of majority to change status quo (though whether this is the best way to go is another question, but that's the way things currently are and not likely to change anytime soon), and if we did have the supermajority against an image it would be automatically deleted by the IfD system without need for unilateral actions.

You mistake "people" for "Wikipedians".  In truth, they are not the same.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lolicon pictures deletion

body:
On 4/10/06, Molu Bosu Palit <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   People left and right are saying things like "It was child porno" or "it was inappropriate for Wikipedia". These sort of things are what are called weasel words on Wiipedia articles. Wikipedia should not be edited according to the personal likings and dislikings of one or even several editors.

"Inappropriate" is not a weasel word.

>   I believe it is accepted process to maintain status quo unless there is consensus to change, not change unless there is consensus to keep. We don't start by deleting articles and then undeleting them if people demonstrate a super-majority for retaining them, we do it the other way. I don't see why the process should be otherwise for image deletions.

Jimbo has requested that we *not* maintain status quo while arguing
over it, and Jimbo trumps consensus. Take it up with him if you don't
like it.

>   Your rationale for deleting the image without consensus (that the IfD had failed to delete the image) is very strange, surely that's why the IfD is there for, to prevent the deletion of images when Wikipedia editors don't want to delete the image? "I will let the IfD delete

I think it's more to allow the deletion of images when Wikipedia
editors *do* want them deleted.

>images when I want them deleted but when it keeps images I want to be
deleted then I'm just going to go ahead and delete them": doesn't this
sound wrong to anyone?

Of course. If it was purely a personal decision made for selfish
reasons. But it wasn't.

>   Supposedly an admin has only abilities and not rights, but clearly in this case an admin has the right to irreversibly delete images that are not to his taste while an ordinary user doesn't have the right to keep images that are to his taste.

You're claiming that the admin's personal "taste" was the only concern
here. There's significant evidence that that's not the case. And in
any case, you're wrong - there's nothing (besides common sense,
civility and good manners) stopping you from uploading the exact same
image again. You certainly have that "ability".

Steve


body:
On the hip hop music article you can see how huge, informative chunks of
text are replaced with useless, POV edits.  For example:

"What many fail to recognize is the distinct importance of the gritty,
choppy sound of hip hop. The music seldom sounds like other organic forms.
Even hip hop crews that have their own band often use samples and the
gritty, choppy texture of machines to create their beats in the studio as
featured on their album (when performing live, they usually recreate this
sound with a full band). One popular misconception is that samples and drum
machines exist in hip hop music as merely a lazy substitute for a real band;
in fact, hip hop producers obsess over the [[timbre]], texture and frequency
of specific samples and drum machine sounds. A session drummer playing James
Brown's Funky Drummer break is no substitute for the sampled break from the
original record. However, in recent years, there has been a tendency towards
original instrumental compositions in hip hop from the likes of artists and
producers such as [[Timbaland]], [[OutKast]], [[The Roots]] and [[The
Neptunes]]."

is replaced with:

"Many producers and listeners pride certain records for being hip hop lore,
the source of samples and breaks. To this day, producers use arcane
equipment to replicate the same rough sound used in older records. This
lends credibility to the records and serves as a historical reminder to the
listeners of hip hop's origins."


subject:
[WikiEN-l] FYI: Daily Record: Wikipedia site filled with major
	mistakes

body:
<stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> To me, it's another example of Wikipedia being perceived as something
> which it is not, which is basically our fault. The two biggest
> misconceptions here are:
> a) that Wikipedia is an "encyclopaedia" with fact checking and
> editorial standards against publishing anything that is not known to
> be true

Er, that's not a misconception! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we do have fact checking, and we do have editorial standards. The verifiability policy is a mechanism to ensure we publish trustworthy information. And that's exactly why Boroson's addition was removed. If he had any insight, he would have commended Wikipedia for asking for sources, rather than taking him (an anonymous editor) at his word.

-- Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deterioration of Featured Articles

body:
On 4/10/06, Katie (keitei) <katiefromuncyc at gmail.com> wrote:
> It'd be a sad day if Wikipedia were complete, but even so, I don't
> think that FA should be a goal for any or every article. The goal
> should be to get every article to FA quality; whether it's been
> featured or not is rather irrelevant in the long run.

Maybe my terminology is confused. As I understood "featured article"
means, having passed the certification, and being listed in the
appropriate place. There's not much difference between that and an
article that is "FA quality", is there? So, getting articles to FA
quality (or getting them "featured") should certainly be the goal of
every article, except possibly lists, redirects etc.

Of course, the issue of whether the articles appear on the front page
is totally separate.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lolicon pictures deletion

body:
On 4/10/06, Molu Bosu Palit <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 8/4/2006 Sam Korn wrote
> >Yes, in terms of laws.  This image might not fall under child
> >pornography rules in some country or another, but that doesn't
> >actually stop it being child pornography.
>
>   Of course that does! Whether something is or is not child pornography is clearly subjective

That's precisely my point.  People are using laws of various countries
to say "this image isnt' child pornography".  However, a rational
consideration of the issues would lead to most people saying it is.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite Block

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&user=&page=User%3ARgulerdem&limit=100&offset=0

On 4/10/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>    Hi,
>    My account has been blocked indefinitely by an
> admin [[User:Cyde]] while I was blocked for a week. I
> would like the admins reconsider the case and take
> [[User:Cyde]]'s discretionary, unjustified, and unfair
> action back.
>    As an editor, I contributed to a few articles and I
> would like to add more to Wiki.
>    In order to understand the case you might consider
> visiting the following pages:
> *[[User:Rgulerdem]] and talk page
> *[[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]
>    Thanks,


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

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

Jimmy Wales stated for the record:
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
>>>Ohh, come on, there's a huge difference between Georgia the Country
>>>and Georgia the State. Georgia is a WHOLE country. Like, bigass, we
>>>got troups, "why don't we take this outside, former Soviet
>>>country-style", international trade, country.
>>>
>>>Disambigging those two would be like disambigging "Paris" to separate
>>>"Paris, Texas" and "Paris, France". This is the worst kind of
>>>US-centrism.
>
>
> I have no position on exactly how this disambiguation should work.
> However, I would like to point out that in terms of population, physical
> size, total international trade, total GDP, per capita GDP, the US state
> of Georgia is far bigger than the nation of Georgia.
>
> So the "Paris, Texas" versus "Paris, France" comparison is a bit
> sketchy, at least.

/me assiduously avoids making any comparisons among the world leaders
produced by the two Georgias.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There's very little advice in men's magazines,
 sean at epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing.
                  | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
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from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
> complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
> Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
> "equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
> seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
> I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.

>From my point of view, it's not expressing that [[Georgia (U.S.
state)]] and [[Georgia (country)]] are equal.  Rather, it's saying
that neither SO OVERWHELMS THE OTHER that it deserves the primary
topic.

The very fact that there is disagreement among sensible contributors
says that neither page should be primary.  One page should occupy the
primary name only when there is broad consensus that it should.

I'm very glad, by the way, that the existance of the "City, State"
convention among Americans means that we avoid many disambiguation
battles over their names.

I agree that one should read [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering
systemic bias]] and its subpages, and think about it.  (BTW, don't you
hate all those TLAs you have to look up?) However, I think in this
case a disambiguation page is the correct thing to counter systemic
bias; assuming what someone wants when they link or search to
[[Georgia]] is a strong bias in itself, when both the state and the
country are commonly referred to by different populations without
qualifiers.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> If the Americans had done the right thing and called it New Georgia to
> follow the pattern that was started with Hampshire, York and Jersey we
> wouldn't be having this problem.  Nobody complains about the name South
> Georgia except perhaps the Argentinians.
>
> The other alternative might be the Greek solution of using FSRG (Former
> Soviet Republic of Gerogia). :-)

Actually, on reading [[Georgia (country)]], one learns that the
Georgian name for their own nation in their own language is not
Georgia at all but something quite unrelated.  Clearly the solution is
to place the article at [[Sak'art'velo]] and move the issue to a
/different/ flamewar.

;)

-Matt


from_name: Thommandel at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ethics - conflict of interest - relia

body:
In a message dated 4/2/2006 7:20:01 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
Thommandel at aol.com writes:

In a  message dated 4/2/2006 1:32:51 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
guettarda at gmail.com writes:

The  essence of NPOV is to be able  to "write for your enemies".  It's a
great
(and somewhat  humbling) experience to write fairly about something  you
disagree  with or someone you dislike.

Sounds good, but what if the  writing is not fair?  How does the NPOV  handle
that?  What  if the writing is contradictory data, and the admin says  on
entry
(A) that it belongs on entry (B) and on entry (B) he says it belongs  on
(A)?
Is that what you call   Neutral

Where is the WikiEthics aritcle?

I posed a question to this community concerning cross editing. I am a new
editor focused on the plasma cosmology article.  There are three other  editors
who also edit the Big bang article. It is clear from what these three  say
that they support the big bang theory. The big bang theory is the most  widely
accepted theory of cosmology. Plasma cosmology is what they have called a  non
standard cosmology. It is an alternative theory to the big bang.  The  primary
contention of plasma cosmology is that the redshift is not a Doppler  effect.
The primary contention of the big bang theory is that redshift is  a measure
of Doppler effects, and thus a movement toward expansion if  inferred.  Plasma
cosmology contends that the redshift is caused by some  process such as the
CREIL effect.  In short the big bang theory entire  foundation rests on the
assumption that the observed redshift is a measure of  velocity. Without this
velocity component there would be no reason for  expansion, no basis for a
beginning, no need for Inflation, and no big bang.

Now, the three editors mentioned above are big bang advocates. They  are over
here "to help us" they say. But their idea of help is to ignore what  plasma
cosmology actually says, instead they edit to say it their way.  And  only
what they say is what goes up. Anything else gets reverted. (I'm not sure  where
the contest started)  They allowed an incorrect definition to stand  for
months. They wrote in claims like "discredited by most cosmologists." And  when
they were confronted with the new facts, they decided to ridicule and  insult
those who would argue with them "disrupting the entire wiki process. and
threaten to RFC or Ban.

I went to your list, and asked about the ethics of editing a competing
article. The first answer I got was "a good wikipedian can edit as he damn well
pleases." There were the yes'es. For the most part general agreement that
editors can do as they please. On newbi wrote that if the edit is disparaging,  it
is unethical. If it is positive it is ethical.

Well, scientists are not above ethics. Indeed, some values are placed  higher
in science, and a greater ethical conduct is required.  For example,
manipulating the evidence is especially ethically constrained.

To the degree that it is a different story at Wikipedia is the degree
Wikipedia distances itself from real science.  Wikipedia then would become
Wikifiction

Tommy Mandel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, this IS english-speaker-centric, but the very fact of writing an
> encylopedia in English is already deciding to do that.

Thank you.  This is a beautiful way of expressing something I've been
thinking about for some while.

--
Sam


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 10:23 AM, Sean Barrett wrote:

> /me assiduously avoids making any comparisons among the world leaders
> produced by the two Georgias.

Jimmy Carter vs. Stalin? That SHOULD be left as an exercise to the
reader.

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


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060411/COLUMNISTS04/604110302/1103/COLUMNISTS

"Every time I look up something I know a bit about, I find errors."

In a summary, it's a nice little rant with some pointers to articles
that might need cleanup (or NPOV protection from dear Warren)

Mathias


body:
On 4/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Bridgeman v. Corel was a district court case, never litigated at the
> appeals court level, and therefore is not a strong precedent.  It is, as
> far as I have been able to determine, a fairly unusual result not likely
> to be followed by other courts.

I wouldn't go that far, personally.  In fact, my reading of why it was
never litigated at the appeals court level is that Bridgeman and
others feared setting a better precedent thereby, and one not in their
interest.

I believe fear of an adverse precedent is exactly why there have been
few cases to cite post-Bridgeman, as well.

Within the sensible reading of the law as it stands, Bridgeman v.
Corel reached the correct verdict; /however/, as we all know, the law
is not sensible and courts frequently side with the vested interests
in copyright cases.

I truly doubt anyone would try to use Wikipedia in a precedent-setting
test case - we're a sympathetic defendent.  Corel, as a commercial
company making money from their alleged copyright infringement, was a
better test case, and they lost.

However, we should certainly keep track of any image we use under the
assumptions of Bridgeman v. Corel, so that if the law or precedent
changes we can re-evaluate them.

Note that none of this applies if you scan or photograph the image
yourself, or if it is licensed under a Wikipedia-compatible license by
someone who did.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is English Wikipedia only intended
> for English speakers? I didn't think so. Well, not until the other
> Wikipedias all have a million articles as well.

No,  but it is intended *primarily* for English speakers.  Let's put
this another way: if I were to go to frwiki, I would thoroughly expect
topics to be disambiguated with bias towards what French-speakers
would generally expect.

I am, however, interested to look at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9orgie

And they haven't had any controversy.

--
Sam


body:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> But it is wishful thinking to assume it applies outside the US. It is
> an interpretation of US copyright law and has no strict international
> implications in and of itself. The US approach to copyrights is in no
> means the only conclusion or form of reasoning possible.

US copyright law requires creativity, while the laws of many nations do not.

-Matt


body:
He's pretty cluey. He reckons some Wikipedia editors have no
professional editing experience at all.

Steve

On 4/11/06, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060411/COLUMNISTS04/604110302/1103/COLUMNISTS
>
> "Every time I look up something I know a bit about, I find errors."
>
>
> In a summary, it's a nice little rant with some pointers to articles
> that might need cleanup (or NPOV protection from dear Warren)
>
> Mathias
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Brion Vibber schrieb:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>>     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
>> which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
>> a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
>>
>
> Keeping titles and link names the same is a key part of the wiki system.
>
> As noted years ago on the bug report, I'd recommend only allowing swapping the
> case of the first letter with such a method.
>
Similar to "Redirected from", there could be a message
    "Link to this page as [[PKB value]]"
on all pages that have DISPLAYTITLE.

Note that this will only be applicable to a small number of articles,
compared to the million we have. But for those, it will make a huge
improvement in appearance.

Magnus

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> If the Americans had done the right thing and called it New Georgia to
> follow the pattern that was started with Hampshire, York and Jersey we
> wouldn't be having this problem.  Nobody complains about the name
> South
> Georgia except perhaps the Argentinians.

Georgia wasn't named after the country of Georgia, it was named after
King George II.

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


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
G'day Guy,

> On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:42:09 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>Although I may have a slightly more liberal attitude toward NOR; I would
>>still view NPOV as having equally high sources.  To me citing sources is
>>implicit in verifiability.
>
> You'd have thought so.  But we still could not achieve consensus to
> delete this unsourced monstrosity:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cleveland_steamer_%28second_nomination%29

Oh, good grief!

That's just bloody votecounting.  Just as we're starting to make some
progress, new bloody admins show up and start bowing down to the
almighty tally ... aaargh.

I had higher hopes for Stifle than *this*.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/2006


subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
Steve Bennett schrieb:
> On 4/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>> I suggest the implementation of a new magic template:
>>     {{DISPLAYTITLE|HTML-encoded title}}
>> which will change the display of the title. I am aware that it would be
>> a potential target for vandals, but hey, what on wikipedia isn't?
>>
>> I'd be willing to implement it if there's no major objection.
>>
>
> I love the idea. I agree that notes like "The correct title of this
> article is eBay. It's shown incorrectly due to technical restrictions"
> are, um, suboptimal".
>
> What kind of restrictions could you put in to ensure that
> oldlimitations(HTML-encoded title) = actual title? In other words, you
> don't want to allow someone to make "PKb" display as "Jerry's huge
> cock", or even worse, "Abortion" or something.  Actually, a more
> likely problem is people using it as a loophole around
> page-move-protection ("what? you won't let me move it? I'll just
> rename it!")
>
> That problem is probably not too hard, right? Rip out all formatting
> and punctuation, and case-insensitive compare against actual title?
>
> Although it occurs to me that you don't really want to allow HTML
> coded titles (colors, images, blinking, underlines...), either. You
> really only want treat the major specific technical limitations:
> * punctuation
> * lower case first letter
> * superscript/subscript
>
> Otherwise there will be a whole new grey area of what should and
> shouldn't be kept in the page title. Should Google appear in different
> colours? Can a company title have certain letters in bold? Are
> different font sizes acceptable?
>
We agreed on standards for articles in these matters. We can do that for
the relatively low number of article titles this would affect.
> So it might be better to define a special markup (possibly resembling
> real HTML markup), and simply ignore the entire template tag if it
> fails any requirement.
>
I'd just use our usual WikiMarkup plus HTML and have it limited through
the manual of style. Inventing a whole new markup (and the appropriate
new parser) for a few titles which people will have to learn in addition
to the existing one doesn't seem prudent, somehow :-)

Your list (punctuation, case, sub/sup) seems good, although I'd allow
italics as well (I don't have an example, though). With only the manual
of style limiting markup, we can expand it where necessary.

Magnus

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Mikkerpikker <mikkerpikker at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's a really bad idea.

Um, the smiley was intended to indicate that the foregoing was humor
and not a serious proposal.

-Matt


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 10/04/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>Off-the-cuff remark: Why not upload a new version of the image which
>>>is totally blank, and protect it with a note saying that if no
>>>consensus is gained to undelete the image in a month, it should then
>>>be permanently deleted?
>>>
>>Volume.  Approximately 1,500 images are deleted every day.  It's a
>>slow enough process when the image is already orphaned, and clearly
>>meets the requirements for deletion.  Adding "blank, protect, and
>>check back in a month" will just make things that much slower.
>>
>>(speaking of images, [[Category:Orphaned fairuse images]] has a
>>backlog of roughly 1800 items right now)
>>
>
>Of which 1600 have been marked for more than a week - admins, please!
>
>http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/cgi-bin/report_orphan_fair_use.py
>
<groan> Those aren't going to get so much attention as long as we have
thousands of of bad uploads streaming in on a daily basis, and admins
have to clean everything up with the equivalent of a teaspoon, because
OMG we might inadvertantly delete a highly valuable view up somebody's
nostrils taken with a cellphone camera.

Arbcom should consider that for a new category of punishments - "clean
up 1,000 image uploads".

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On 4/11/06, Mikkerpikker <mikkerpikker at gmail.com> wrote:
> And I donnu, but the state of Georgia doesn't have a vote at the UN
> General Assembly, nor is it a member of the WTO, nor is it sovereign,
> nor is it... My personal view is Georgia (country) should be the main
> article and that we're seeing some clear US-centrism in elevating some
> random sub-national entity to the level of a sovereign state.

Once again, you are assuming that Wikipedia's naming convention should
be by some taxonomic scheme of importance.

That isn't how it works.

We make the primary name a disambiguation page if one use of a name
does not completely overwhelm the other uses of the name.  In the case
of Georgia, neither does - plenty of people will say 'Georgia' and
mean the nation, and plenty more will say 'Georgia' and mean the
state.

-Matt


body:
On 4/11/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of
> > Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.
>
> Oh what nonsense.  Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common
> knowledge in the Soviet era.

I think Daniel really meant a different word than 'unknown'.
Georgia-the-SSR was rarely MENTIONED, and if it was, it was rare for
it to be mentioned in non-specialist circles outside a little piece of
trivia about Stalin's birthplace.

-Matt


from_name: Antonio Kildare M. Cruz

subject: [Commons-l] A crise nas universidades federais

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subject: [Wikitech-l] DISPLAYTITLE

body:
On 4/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> We agreed on standards for articles in these matters. We can do that for
> the relatively low number of article titles this would affect.

I just suspect that if the possibilities are there, it will become
quite fraught (unless the policies are very clear). Someone will be
going "but company FOOBar" *always* writes the Bar in italics, and Foo
in bold. But I don't think that Wikipedia should respect that.

But you're right, we should leave that one to the community to manage.

> I'd just use our usual WikiMarkup plus HTML and have it limited through
> the manual of style. Inventing a whole new markup (and the appropriate
> new parser) for a few titles which people will have to learn in addition
> to the existing one doesn't seem prudent, somehow :-)

True. :) But the parser could be as simple as replace(replace(s, "<",
"<"), "<sup>", "<sup>") etc.

> Your list (punctuation, case, sub/sup) seems good, although I'd allow
> italics as well (I don't have an example, though). With only the manual
> of style limiting markup, we can expand it where necessary.

I have an example. [[Prima facie]] (and other latin expressions),
[[m?nage ? trois]] etc. Would we have any call to allow a title to be
*partially* in italics? If not, perhaps you could make a variety of
flagtags like:

{{TITLEFIRSTLETTERCAPS}}
{{TITLEITALICS}}

...and then somehow deal with superscript/subscript :)

PS if you're hacking on stuff like this, can I request a flag to limit
the depth of a contents section? Sometimes having 3rd and 4th level
subheadings show up in the contents is just ugly and not helpful...

Steve


from_name: Felipe Micaroni Lalli

body:
Legal, mas o que isso tem a ver com o Commons??? O_o

On 4/11/06, Antonio Kildare M. Cruz <nickname at pop.com.br> wrote:
>
> Prezados Meios de Comunica??o:
> A crise nas universidades federais seria menor se o governo  cobresse
> mensalidade dos alunos, como faz a faculdade particular. Cobrar n?o
> significa privatizar! Por que n?o cobrar mensalidade? A experi?ncia de
> cobrar mensalidade dos alunos foi institu?da no Chile em 1981. Como
> resultado, a participa??o do Estado chileno no or?amento universit?rio caiu
> de 100% para 30%. Os outros 70% s?o financiados pela mensalidade dos alunos.
> Nos meios acad?micos, os os defensores da cobran?a falam sobre o assunto com
> muita discri??o, e os opositores o tratam como se a id?ia fosse tirar o
> controle das faculdades das m?os do Estado.
> Obrigado.
> Antonio Kildare M. Cruz - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
> http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb110901.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>

--
um abra?o,
     Felipe.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
Forgive me for reordering this!

On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
> complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
> Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
> "equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
> seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
> I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.

Note that I am actually of the opinion that the country is of more
prominence (how often have I heard Georgia-the-state on the UK news?
Not since November 2004, and not a great deal then).  But I recognise
that others disagree, so I think the disambiguation is a good and
satisfactory compromise.

Note though that I think having the country first is more useful, not
less biased.

> On 4/11/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Yes, this IS english-speaker-centric, but the very fact of writing an
> > > encylopedia in English is already deciding to do that.
> >
> > Thank you.  This is a beautiful way of expressing something I've been
> > thinking about for some while.
>
> Can you elaborate? Perhaps we should decide if we really want this
> bias, or not? [[WP:CSB]] thinks we don't.

I don't think the naming of an article can itself make said
article/Wikipedia as a whole biased.  It's the content and the
*existance* (or non-existance) of the articles that causes the bias.
That to me is what CSB is about.  In the English encyclopaedia, we
should look to what most English speakers will expect, because they
are our primary audience and, in a very real sense, our customers.

> Question: To use Jimbo's well-worn poor African once again, what does
> he expect? Georgia the country, or Georgia the state? Does he care
> that most Wikipedians are American, British, Canadian, etc? Should he
> just grateful for whatever information he can get, regardless of whose
> biases, interests and prejudices it reflects? Should he not be
> concerned if, when he looks up Zaire, he comes up with a suburb in
> Arizona?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that last statement, given that
Zaire is about the African country...  Anyway, yes, we should take
into account our poor African.  We also take into account Australians,
Indians, Texans and penguins by using disambiguation notices at the
top of articles.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
G'day Steve,

>   Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is
> obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and
> the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]].
> However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia
> is a disambiguation page.
>
> I find this sad. :(

It's not "obvious beyond words" to an American.  Who are we, us
interfering non-Seppos who've been graciously allowed to join this
project, to dictate to the Americans that their fantastic state is less
important than some country they've never even heard of?

For shame, you arrogant foreigner!

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/307 - Release Date: 10/04/2006


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 4/11/06, Ben Greenberg <bengreenb at hotmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hip_hop_music&diff=41510779&oldid=36727078

Can you guide us through this one? I see lots of small positive
changes (and some less good ones), and some big slabs of text coming
and going, but I can't immediately say which is better.

> This should be a big wakeup call to anyone who thinks that the pure wiki
> system allows articles to get better indefinitely.  Unless we do something
> about it, wikipedia will simply be a place where articles get great then
> start to deteriorate.  I'm not suggesting stable versions, but surely...
> something needs to be done.

I don't think they "get better then deteoriorate", I would say they
get better then plateau. How could this Hip Hop article actually be
any better?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:00 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
> complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
> Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
> "equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
> seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
> I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.

Current political status is really somewhat of an irrelevant topic.
What about 20 years ago, when Georgia was simply part of the USSR?
Georgia wasn't "a country" then, but it was largely the same place.

Here's the objective metrics:

Total GDP, Per-Capita GDP, Population, Foreign Trade, Land Area, No.
of Wiki-Links: The US State
Sovereignty, membership in int. organizations: The Nation

Now, this Wikipedia is written in English. (Arguments about African
customers are irrelevant, as organizational style will change in a
translation to an African language). There are 8 million people in
Georgia (the state), almost all of whom speak English. There are 300
million people in the United States, likewise. Georgia (the country)
is not an English-speaking country.

There are 380 million people who speak English as a first language.
Some 79% of English-speakers are thus Americans. Now, assuming that
British, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, et. al. are all more
interested in the country than the state, they only make up some 21%
of the English-speaking population. You're asking to inconvenience
4/5 of the potential user base for en. out of the belief that
sovereignty and membership in international organizations not only
outweigh all other considerations, but overwhelm it so much that the
default page should not be a disambiguation page.

That's anti-Americanism.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why voting is evil

body:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:56 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> Yes, demographic bias.  As in the bigger region, in population, size,
>> economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the
>> encyclopedia's
>> language, gets the primary link.
>
> Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended
> for English speakers? I didn't think so.

How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English
Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the
other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the
Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.

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


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] Child pornography

body:
All people are Wikipedians, but not all Wikipedians are people.

Or something like that.

On 4/11/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/10/06, Molu Bosu Palit <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On 4/8/06 Sam Korn wrote:
> >
> >   >No, so you make sure that the majority of people would consider
> > >something child pornography.
> >
> >   Wikipedia is not a democracy, we need supermajority instead of
> majority to change status quo (though whether this is the best way to go is
> another question, but that's the way things currently are and not likely to
> change anytime soon), and if we did have the supermajority against an image
> it would be automatically deleted by the IfD system without need for
> unilateral actions.
>
> You mistake "people" for "Wikipedians".  In truth, they are not the same.
>
> --
> Sam
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 4/11/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hmm...in the bit about Barry Goldwater he seems to be a disgruntled person not familiar with our policies on citing sources and our normal venues for article discussion (and is rude and obnoxious about it, to boot). After having his addition removed from the article, he (Warren Boroson) writes:

To me, it's another example of Wikipedia being perceived as something
which it is not, which is basically our fault. The two biggest
misconceptions here are:
a) that Wikipedia is an "encyclopaedia" with fact checking and
editorial standards against publishing anything that is not known to
be true
b) that Wikipedia has "editors" who are "in charge" of its articles.
This is particularly unfortunate - we use the term "editor" in the
sense of someone who uses a text editor, rather than as a term of
managerial responsibility.

I would like us to do something about these misconceptions, but I
think I'm in the minority.

Steve