subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/13/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > I think you're wrong that Jimbo has any ultimate power over Wikipedia.
> > Sure, if he wanted to ban someone he'd probably get away with it, but
> > only if the community accepted it.
>
> You might want to reread the banning policy and some recent Arbcom cases.
> The view that Jimbo cannot ban people by fiat or dictate Wikipedia policy is
> a minority one. Those who disagree can fork.
>
All that you say is true, but being written on a Wikipedia page does
not make it fact.

> Maybe I come off as a Jimbo defender or that I enjoy the situation. In fact,
> I don't have any feelings on it either way. He doesn't interfere with me
> writing the encyclopedia, which is what I'm here to do.
>
> And if it's such a pointless issue, then why does it have to be
> > addressed in the first place?
>
>
> Because people take it so seriously that they edit war, wheel war, and leave
> the project over it, as incomprehenible to me as that is.

And now that userboxes are banned, there's no more edit warring, wheel
warring, or people leaving the project?

> It's as if the
> result of this battle over userboxes will have any direct impact on the
> quality of the articles. It won't. Whether userboxes stay or not, I really
> wish we would all just let it go and write the fucking encyclopedia already.
> The fact that some people spend so much time on the mailing list trying to
> ensure that they get their way in this shitheap of an "issue" makes me
> wonder what you are all really here to do.
>
> Ryan

I really don't see anyone doing that.  I'm more concerned with people
claiming that Jimbo is unilaterally passing CSD criteria despite a
lack of consensus than I am with what the CSD criteria are.

Anthony


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/13/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> All that you say is true, but being written on a Wikipedia page does
> not make it fact.
>

It's fact. Deal with it or fork. I don't have anything else to say.

Ryan


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rotem Liss

subject:
[Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical
	to	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
The language in Simple English Wikipedia is defined ($wgLanguageCode) as
"simple", but because this language is not exist, all the messages fall
back to English (except the changed ones). It's an ugly workaround and
the configuration ($wgLanguageCode) should be changed into "en" in
simple.wikipedia.org. I don't think it will break the settings: the
custom messages ("change this page" instead of "edit", "show any page"
instead of "random page", etc.) *will* remain, because they are defined
in MediaWiki namespace. However, the "lang" and "xml:lang" attributes
will be "en" as well if $wgLangaugeCode="en".

So finally, we should just apply:

- $wgLanguageCode = "simple";
+ $wgLanguageCode = "en";

in LocalSettings.php of simple.wikipedia.org to fix the problem there,
and it *won't* break any messages. However, I don't understand the
problem in Chinese Wikipedia.

Brion Vibber wrote:

>Shinjiman wrote:
>
>
>>As this, we still don't have any values that defines the lang attribute in the
>>HTML tag, but currently defined by the $wgContLanguageCode. However, if Brion
>>(or any developers having the shell access) changed the $wgContLanguageCode
>>from "simple" into "en" in the LocalSettings.php at simple, it can correct the
>>mislabelled tag. But this change is going to *break up* the user language
>>settings to using the English messages instead of Simple English messages,
>>
>>
>
>No it won't. There is no "simple English" language, it's just English. The
>defined user interface messages on the wiki will be shown when English is selected.
>
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>

--
#define Name RotemLiss
#define Mail mailSTRUDELrotemlissDOTcom
#define Site www.rotemliss.com


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject: [WikiEN-l] You got mail...

body:
I agree with Pradad, unfortunately. New users often have problems
understanding notability and verifyibility.

On 5/13/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've come across these "petitions" all across the net. No big
> surprise. Perhaps votes casted by new users should be disregarded on
> the basis that their accounts were created solely to oppose the
> deletion of this article?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/13/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>> I think you're wrong that Jimbo has any ultimate power over Wikipedia.
>>> Sure, if he wanted to ban someone he'd probably get away with it, but
>>> only if the community accepted it.
>> You might want to reread the banning policy and some recent Arbcom cases.
>> The view that Jimbo cannot ban people by fiat or dictate Wikipedia policy is
>> a minority one. Those who disagree can fork.
>>
> All that you say is true, but being written on a Wikipedia page does
> not make it fact.

Common practice does make it fact, though.  If you were reverting
Jimbo's edits on-wiki I'd give you about five minutes before you were
forced to make the decision between fork and leave.  Most people do know
who's in charge here.  Just because you claim it ain't so doesn't make
it not so.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical to
	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 10:37:36PM +0100, Rob Church wrote:
> On 13/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There's no Zlatiborian language, but we have a test wiki in it.
> >
> > <zlatibor humour>The glorious Zlatiborians shall soon triumph over
> > their evil Serbian overlords and will be able to speak their beautiful
> > language and practice their magnificent culture freely once
> > again!</zlatibor humour>
>
> Next up, the Vogon poetry wiki.

Like plurdled gabblebloggits on a lurgid bee, I'm tellin' ya.

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

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

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/13/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > On 5/13/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >>> I think you're wrong that Jimbo has any ultimate power over Wikipedia.
> >>> Sure, if he wanted to ban someone he'd probably get away with it, but
> >>> only if the community accepted it.
> >> You might want to reread the banning policy and some recent Arbcom cases.
> >> The view that Jimbo cannot ban people by fiat or dictate Wikipedia policy is
> >> a minority one. Those who disagree can fork.
> >>
> > All that you say is true, but being written on a Wikipedia page does
> > not make it fact.
>
> Common practice does make it fact, though.  If you were reverting
> Jimbo's edits on-wiki I'd give you about five minutes before you were
> forced to make the decision between fork and leave.  Most people do know
> who's in charge here.  Just because you claim it ain't so doesn't make
> it not so.

As I've said, I don't deny that he'd probably get away with it.

Anthony


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Is "Wikipedian:" category space possible?

body:
"William Allen Simpson" wrote:
> Technical:
> Anyway, over at Wikipedia:Categories for Deletion, today folks are
> proposing making a clean demarck between user space categories and
> "encyclopedic" categories. Seems reasonable to me.  Dunno whether it will
> make some folks happier, but is worth a try.
>
> Surely it's just a tag of some kind, but categories require some software
> support.  Is it possible to add a second group of category space labeled
> "Wikipedian:"?
>
> For example, "Wikipedian:Politicians" instead of the current
> * "Category:Wikipedian politicians", previously known as
> * "Category:Wikipedians who have run for public office"
>
> Pointers to code would be appreciated.

Well, everything is possible. But not everything is going to happen.
Categories are identified by namespace 14, and functionality is linked to
it. Then "Category:" prefix is added to refer to it. This name can be
changed, but then you're changing all the names referring to it.

The problem is that you want this duplicated. So it would all be copying and
pasting chunks of code, while changing little bits. Not really difficult,
but dirty.
Category special pages wouldn't work for the new one, neither.

Maybe you could have Wikipedian: working as an alias for Category: but you
could see it as Category:Politicians as well as Wikipedian:Politicians

I don't thing that this could be a real solution for this.


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On May 13, 2006, at 5:32 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> No, you haven't been misled.  It is an accepted part of policy,
> confirmed by Jimbo Wales and the Arbitration Committee.

As I recall, the Arbirtation Committee doesn't set policy, although
Jimbo does.

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


from_name: Brian Salter-Duke

subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC radio refer listeners to the wikipedia entry
	on	the doosra

body:
On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 02:30:17PM +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 12 May 2006 14:14:05 +0100, you wrote:
>
> >Who or what is Aggers?
>
> A cricket commentator on the wireless - specifically the BBC's Home
> Service, m'lud.
>
> [[Jonathan Agnew]] to be precise.  I made a redirect for you :-)

We even have an article now explaining this kind of nickname -
[[Oxford '-er']]!

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

--
         Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) b_duke at octa4.net.au
       Post: 626 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood, VIC, 3015, Australia
    Phone 03-93992847. http://members.iinet.net.au/~linden1/brian/
Honorary Researcher Fellow, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Univ.


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

body:
On May 13, 2006, at 6:57 AM, Prasad J wrote:

> Actually I believe it was you who brought this up on the mailing list
> Anthony,although I do agree that this is not a matter which is within
> the scope of this list. I must however mention here that you claim the
> Chinese citizens are being *oppressed* by their Governemnt. I,
> personally, also feel the same way, but then let us not forget that
> these policies are put in place by an elected Government-perhaps for
> legitimate reasons- and the said laws are a part of China's internal
> affairs. So for us to pass judgement on this matter would not be
> entirely fair-since we are both citizens of other countries.

The People's Republic of China has never held elections. The Chinese
government is not elected, it is appointed by the Chinese Communist
Party.

On May 13, 2006, at 11:49 AM, geni wrote:

> Nope. China doesn't exicute minors. It's one of their better points.

Well, not without tanks they don't.

On May 13, 2006, at 10:49 AM, Prasad J wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong but
> didn't the FBI recently admit to tapping phones of citizens without
> legal consent?

That would be the NSA, not the FBI.

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On Sat, 13 May 2006 12:03:28 -0400, you wrote:

>If it's made
>absolutely clear that the template rule does not apply to templates in
>the user space, then I suppose that's an acceptable compromise.

For my money they should be under User:Box/foo, with the usual proviso
that blatantly divisive ones are removed, and they should be substed
for preference.

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

references:
<e42kmd$gvg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380605121140m68050055p5788e01dcb316cc0@mail.gmail.com>
	<e42lfu$k13$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380605121209j4cd61ef8m8dbcccd76e28a48d@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90605121643s297d0c8cvf8a806abb3ceb5fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<lp7b62d4qphva3kq2o5bvpjqdahiao052d@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90605130604q505f15b9s7042481a4cfc6b3e@mail.gmail.com>
	<rcsb62h56276ln0sseuv7lmslkercpdie4@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90605130903h466f9642p9cc17097d303ba2a@mail.gmail.com>
	<7u1c62ld0sfdhb87i6tqav9p4ii42qmdht@4ax.com>

body:
On 5/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 13 May 2006 12:03:28 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >If it's made
> >absolutely clear that the template rule does not apply to templates in
> >the user space, then I suppose that's an acceptable compromise.
>
> For my money they should be under User:Box/foo, with the usual proviso
> that blatantly divisive ones are removed, and they should be substed
> for preference.

It has been tried. The anti userbox bunch slightly deleted it.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

references:
<e42kmd$gvg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380605121140m68050055p5788e01dcb316cc0@mail.gmail.com>
	<e42lfu$k13$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380605121209j4cd61ef8m8dbcccd76e28a48d@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90605121643s297d0c8cvf8a806abb3ceb5fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<lp7b62d4qphva3kq2o5bvpjqdahiao052d@4ax.com>

body:
On 5/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Because some people have to be beaten vigorously with a cluebat before
> they realise that their userboxes are divisive - as far as some people
> are concerned an opinion which is shared by all "right-thinking"
> people can't possibly be divisive.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Nothing wrong with admitting an opinion and anyone who has problems
with the idea of people haveing opinions different to themselves isn't
going to last long on wikipedia anyway.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

references:
<e42kmd$gvg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380605121209j4cd61ef8m8dbcccd76e28a48d@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90605121643s297d0c8cvf8a806abb3ceb5fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<lp7b62d4qphva3kq2o5bvpjqdahiao052d@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90605130604q505f15b9s7042481a4cfc6b3e@mail.gmail.com>
	<rcsb62h56276ln0sseuv7lmslkercpdie4@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90605130903h466f9642p9cc17097d303ba2a@mail.gmail.com>
	<7u1c62ld0sfdhb87i6tqav9p4ii42qmdht@4ax.com>
	<f80608430605131016odb9f2a2u8795310c4d7c53b5@mail.gmail.com>
	<4466157F.6010505@student.canberra.edu.au>

body:
On 5/13/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Err, not exactly.  From memory, a userbox was deleted under T1.  Some
> damn fool recreated it in the article space with the name [[Userbox:User
> hates admins]] or something like that, and then said "nyah nyah nyah you
> can't touch it, it's not in Template: namespace".
>
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher

I think there have been a couple of attempts. been a long time though.
In any case [[User:Sam Hocevar/burninhell]] still exists so it appears
that userpages do provide some kind of protection.

--
geni


from_name: Prasad J

body:
I agree with Timwi, encouraging Chinese citizens to break the laws of
their country is probably not the right thing to do, even though such
forms of censorship seem unfair. Also, what if the Chinese authorities
manage to track down those who break their censorship laws? Let us not
forget what the government does to  "dissidents" in China. And what is
the press gets hold of this? The issue of Wikipedia and Chinese
Government censorship has been in the news. If we start encouraging
Chinese Wikipedians to break the law, it will only mean bad publicity
for the Foundation.


body:
On 5/13/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> If the situation in China is that bad, then why is the U.S developing
> dimplomatic ties with the former?

Money

> Why is China given a UNSC seat?

Historical reasons.

> These are aspects of China's internal affairs-not even international
> bodies like the U.N have the right to intervene.

I don't think anyone here is an international body.

>The Chinese government probably has geo-political concerns about this matter.

Probably who cares?

> Like
> I stated earlier, if you do help Wikipedia-users in that country
> circumvent this block, and they are caught they will probably be dealt
> with very severely.

I suspect they know that.

>And I know about VoA-it's, quite frankly, just a
> propaganda tool. If you think the U.S is trying to get Iranians to
> access blocked sites in the interest of "liberating" them, then you
> are mistaken. America most likely just wants the Iranian people to
> hear Mr.Bush talk about why "rogue states" like theirs should not
> possess "nucular technology".

It is generaly more suptle than that.

> As I said, allowing Chinese users to break the law, is abbetment.

So what? I'm not in china. I could allow french and germans to break
the law simply by putting Mein Kampf online. Should I be prevented
from doing that?

>And it's not the kind of abettment that's justified-the condition in
China is very much >liveable-they are not under some Nazi-like fascist
regime.

No democracy.

>Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the FBI recently admit to tapping
phones of citizens >without legal consent? If that was justified then
so is the Chinese
> governments' policy.

Ad hominem tu quoque

--
geni


body:
>
> I'm not sure we should be *encouraging* Chinese citizens to break any
> laws, but I'm fully behind supporting those that choose to do so.
>
> As for bad publicity for the Foundation, I'm not a member of the
> Foundation and never made any claim to speak for them (not that I
> accept that it would be bad publicity, mind you).  I do feel that this
> discussion is "beyond the scope of this mailing list" though.  If
> you'd prefer to send any responses to me off-list, please do so.
> Another place you can reach me is at
> http://jnanabase.org/index.php/User_talk:Anthony, although I don't log
> on there as often as I used to.
>
> Anthony

Actually I believe it was you who brought this up on the mailing list
Anthony,although I do agree that this is not a matter which is within
the scope of this list. I must however mention here that you claim the
Chinese citizens are being *oppressed* by their Governemnt. I,
personally, also feel the same way, but then let us not forget that
these policies are put in place by an elected Government-perhaps for
legitimate reasons- and the said laws are a part of China's internal
affairs. So for us to pass judgement on this matter would not be
entirely fair-since we are both citizens of other countries.


body:
On 5/13/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As, I said by allowing Chinese Wikipedians (who are probably just kids
> who aren't aware of what exactly their government does to
> "dissidents") will do them more harm than good. You wouldn't be
> breaking any laws, you would just be getting some Chinese teenager
> shot for being a "traitor".

Nope. China doesn't exicute minors. It's one of their better points.

> America tried to bring democracy to Iraq and only succeeded in instigating a civil war.

I think the democracy bit was secondary and in any case thier methods sucked

>Americans were not put on this planet for the express purpose of
preserving >democracy-why don't you give it a rest for a while?

You do relise I'm not a US citizen?

Free flow of information is the most effective safeguard against tyranny.

--
geni


from_name: charles matthews

body:
Prasad J wrote

> As, I said by allowing Chinese Wikipedians (who are probably just kids
> who aren't aware of what exactly their government does to
> "dissidents") will do them more harm than good. You wouldn't be
> breaking any laws, you would just be getting some Chinese teenager
> shot for being a "traitor". America tried to bring democracy to Iraq
> and only succeeded in instigating a civil war.Americans were not put
> on this planet for the express purpose of preserving democracy-why
> don't you give it a rest for a while?

There are good reasons why this list is dedicated to improving the English
Wikipedia.  Rather than the world situation in general.

The main purpose of Wikipedia can be defined as a (new) kind of publishing,
namely putting high quality and informative and neutral, factual articles
into the public domain, under the GFDL.  That is what we do.  This is not
propaganda.  If it is difficult for people to read them online, there are
other ways they  can be distributed, such as on a CD-ROM.  It is essentially
pointless for governments to try to prevent people having some sort of
access to Wikipedia, short of running the country on the lines of North
Korea.

I suggest we get back to editing, so that if people have extra difficulty in
accessing the English Wikipedia, for any reason, it will be all the more
worth reading in the end.

Charles


body:
Although I agree with you guys that these censorship laws are unfair,
I do believe that there are other organizations (like the U.N or the
International Human Rights Commission) to deal with (what we consider)
oppression. However not even the U.N has the authority to prevent
people from being prosecuted for breaking laws which were legislated
upon by elected Governments-in this case the Chinese Government.Again,
let us note an important point-the present Government of China is an
elected one, it is not a military junta or a dictatorship so it will
be rather difficult for us to actually prove that they are suppressing
the Chinese in the manner in which (for example) the North Korean
Government oppresses its people.The Chinese government is receiving
some flak from the international community as a result of these
policies, however as the Chinese Government has pointed out-these are
their internal affairs. Having said this, I do stand by my earlier
statement that to aid Chinese citizens in their efforts to break the
law of their land (even if the said law is unjust) is tantamount to
abetting a crime.

PS,Rob:I'm from India, not the U.S so I'm not sure about how the
American Government handles privacy issues.


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On Sat, 13 May 2006 18:18:03 +0100, you wrote:

>Nothing wrong with admitting an opinion and anyone who has problems
>with the idea of people haveing opinions different to themselves isn't
>going to last long on wikipedia anyway.

For some values of opinion (and indeed expressing).

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


body:
On May 13, 2006, at 8:47 PM, Prasad J wrote:

> Like I said, the Chinese government probably has it's reasons for
> doing what it does.

Well, as long as they have *reason*, let's let them get away with
murder!

> And even if you do bring down this firewall-do you
> really think the government will just admit defeat? As for 1989, could
> the U.S or any other nation do anything during the  Tien-a-mien
> massacre? No. Because each country has the right to manage it's own
> affairs-even if that may see unfair to us.

No one has the right to murder and kidnap people for peacefully
expressing their opinions.

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


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC radio refer listeners to the wikipedia entry on
	the doosra

body:
On 5/13/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, 12 May 2006 14:14:05 +0100, you wrote:
> >
> > >Who or what is Aggers?
> >
> > A cricket commentator on the wireless - specifically the BBC's Home
> > Service, m'lud.
>
> And who are "The Beatles"?

Oh, that just reeks of <s>US</s> UK centric POV. Don't assume that
just because you <s>Americans</s> Brits know all about someone then
the rest of the world will too. Don't force your culture on me man!

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 13/05/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because people take it so seriously that they edit war, wheel war, and leave
> the project over it, as incomprehenible to me as that is. It's as if the
> result of this battle over userboxes will have any direct impact on the
> quality of the articles. It won't. Whether userboxes stay or not, I really
> wish we would all just let it go and write the fucking encyclopedia already.
> The fact that some people spend so much time on the mailing list trying to
> ensure that they get their way in this shitheap of an "issue" makes me
> wonder what you are all really here to do.

I don't usually agree with Ryan Delaney much, but let it go on the
record that I fully endorse this particular viewpoint. Can't the whole
userboxen issue be let go? We have a CSD and people are enforcing it.
The bitching is slowly ceasing, so let's not do anything to provoke
another full-scale riot, huh?

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] We need a policy to deal with new policies

body:
>
> "Wikipedia could be really cool, if only
> it weren't an encyclopaedia."

What about a WikiPOV or POVpedia  :D. I'm sure it would be a way for these
people to make POV edits, such as reviews.

(the above is humour)
--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reporting/dealing with whitewashing/smearing

body:
G'day Raphael,

> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>How does one editor notify other editors that there may be a salaried
>>employee of X editing the article about X or about X's enemy in a
>>whitewash/smear way? It's not exactly vandalism...
>
> Of course it is vandalism, if it's a deliberate act to reduce the quality
> of this encyclopedia.

That's a dangerous definition.  Sooner or later, if we use that
definition, we'll get people who write Pok?mon articles accused of
"vandalism".

--
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: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/338 - Release Date: 12/05/2006


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>As a general rule, policy in an environment like Wikipedia is a Good
>Thing.  It means people get to know what to expect, those comparatively
>few users with power over other users are kept accountable, and a bunch
>of other fine things.  Thanks to policy, users can comfortably
>contribute to the encyclopaedia knowing that they are protected by
>English law, as is their birthright.
>
>Wikipedia has a few basic, overarching, dreadfully important policies:
>* we are an encyclopaedia
>* we write from a neutral point-of-view
>* we don't abuse Wikipedia to publish our own theories
>* we treat each other with civility and respect and do our very best to
>   assume good faith and not behave like dicks and disrupt the project
>* anything that is not on this list is negotiable
>
I generally agree with this, though I would add
* our contributions are subject to verification
* we respect copyrights

To a large extent all these rules ezcept the first one apply to the
sister projects.  Variations of the first rule serve as the basis for
defining the specific sister projects.

>Somehow, however, this is not sufficient.  People start to look at our
>principles as a game of Nomic: "Wikipedia could be really cool, if only
>it weren't an encyclopaedia."; "This article is about X, so *of course*
>it's going to be written from X's point-of-view.  Anything else is
>crazy!"; "Why should I need good sources?  You're just trying to censor
>THE TRUTH!"; "I didn't know edit warring was wrong."; "We should get rid
>of Ignore All Rules, it just encourages anarchy".  How many of these
>statements are fictitious?  They look awfully familiar, don't they?
>
Thanks to you I just had to waste two hours learning about Nomic!  :-(

Perhaps we could look at the principles as being the immutable rules,
and the policies and processes as the mutable rules.

>Now, we can't rely on our basic principles for day-to-day dealings.
>There's too much potential for abuse: sure, NPOV, but *how* NPOV?  What
>*does* NOR mean, anyway?  Why should admins be allowed to decide who is
>and isn't being disruptive?  So we have to define, and define, and
>define, over and over again, in a never-ending bid to create the Grand
>Unified Policy of Everything.  If we don't have an exact definition,
>people won't know what to expect ... and that's tyranny!  But there are
>no perfect definitions, and there are always gaps in policy.  Admins who
>fall back on basic common sense to deal with stuff that falls into such
>a gap are rounded on by policy wonks and wikilawyers: "can you point to
>the policy that forbids <insert dickish behaviour here/>?  Then why
>should I not be allowed to do it?  The First Amendment says I can!"
>
Would it make more sense to change "Ignore all rules" to "Ignore all
mutable rules"?  Perhaps the distinction is that the wikilawyers still
believe that they can win their game of Nomic by acquiring some number
of points, while others of us will only accept a victory by paradox.

>Whenever we run into an unexpected situation, the first cry heard is
>always "we need a policy to deal with this!"  As the amount of policy
>increases, the feeling that we need to strictly adhere to policy also
>increases ... until we cannot do anything unless there's a policy to
>back it up.  Which, in turn, makes the gaps in policy gape all the more
>broadly ... which leads to yet more cries: "we need a policy to deal
>with this!"  Seal that gap!  What does one put into a policy-shaped hole
>except policy?  Every gap in policy proves that we need more rules ...
>
It's a lot more fun to put a principle-shaped peg into that
policy-shaped hole.  To be sure high speed computing has permitted the
codification of an increasingly broad corpus of laws.  Some people never
learn that the series 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + ... does not converge.

>If "don't be a dick!" is insufficiently enlightening as to what is and
>is not acceptable in a collaborative environment, then there's probably
>no hope for you in mountains of policies guiding social interactions
>either.  And our reaction to anyone who triumphantly proclaims the
>discovery of a loophole in our policy should not be to say "oh, no!
>He's right!  We can't touch him!", but rather to reply with something
>like "well done!  You're still banned, though."
>
Dicks are ruled by the brains contained in a dickhead.

>It seems we can't trust ourselves to do the right thing, to use common
>sense, to work within broad guidelines.  Why on Earth not?  Are we
>afraid of making mistakes?  Doing the Wrong Thing, with policy support,
>can never be considered a mistake: we were just following the
>community's orders, Jimbo!  And if we need a Byzantine collection of
>poorly-understood, constantly-shifting commands and definitions to cite
>as authority for any argument, then so be it.  At least we can't be
>blamed for anything!
>
>Come *on*, people!  Do the Right Thing, and accept the plaudits if you
>get it right, and apologise if you don't!  So long as you're
>level-headed and honest with yourself, you can't go wrong.  Mistakes can
>be forgiven, and their effects will not last long; the same cannot be as
>easily said about process fetishism.  Remember when people discussed
>what was best for the project, rather than what was most likely to fit
>in with policy?
>
EB is a professionally run publication, and preofessionals never make
mistakes.

Congratulations Mark for a well expressed criticism.

Ec


body:
On 13/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's no Zlatiborian language, but we have a test wiki in it.
>
> <zlatibor humour>The glorious Zlatiborians shall soon triumph over
> their evil Serbian overlords and will be able to speak their beautiful
> language and practice their magnificent culture freely once
> again!</zlatibor humour>

Next up, the Vogon poetry wiki.

Rob Church


body:
"William Allen Simpson" wrote:

> Perhaps someday in the future, in conjunction with the unified username
> project, the user namespace could have its own categories and templates.
>
> In the meantime, I'll just remind the disputing folks that there is
> currently no such thing as "encyclopedic" namespace and "non-encyclopedic"
> namespace.  Categories and Templates apply to all namespaces.
>
> Bits are bits are bits.

Yes, they use to be mixed, but *any* page can act as a template, if called
with {{ }} Template: is simply a namespace to avoid having to type the
namespace name.
We haven't such global-action for categories yet.


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Somebody wrote:

> >> Anyway, over at Wikipedia:Categories for Deletion, today
> >> folks are proposing making a clean demarck between user space
> >> categories and "encyclopedic" categories. Seems reasonable to
> >> me.

One alternative, at least in theory, could be to introduce
globally unique login names and keep all user pages and
"wikiproject" portals on meta, not only for all languages of
Wikipedia, but for all projects.  Then categories such as "users
who speak Danish" could reside on meta, once and for all.
Wikiprojects on meta could be designed to address multiple
languages and multiple projects, synchronizing Wikipedia with
Wikisource and Wiktionary.

While this change might be "too big" and "too late" to be
practical, it can be introduced on an individual, voluntary basis.
Those who like the idea, can move the content of their own various
user pages over to meta, keeping just a short reference on each
local language.  Those who disagree, don't have to change
anything, but can continue as if nothing happened.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] We need to recognize that advocating is a basic right

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>What next? All users have the right to interpret policy as /they/ see
>fit? The customer is always right? Anyone who disagrees with being
>blocked will be unblocked? Any page which someone objects to the
>deletion of shall be kept? Any POV-whitewashing shall be acceptable?
>
The first one sounds interesting, but I would be loath to support the
others.

Ec


from_name: Dan Rosenthal

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On 5/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/12/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Mark Gallagher wrote:
> > >Ben wrote:
> > >> I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just
> not
> > >> seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
> > >> know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or
> annoying,
> > >> but not offensive.
> > >
> > > Mocking the cross?  You can't see what's wrong with that?
> >
> > I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with it.
> <snip>
> > Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
>
> I don't worship icons either. I'm completely atheist, but I would
> never DREAM of mocking it. It's simple human decency not to mock
> something that many people love, and worship. It is, at the very
> least, a massive breach of WP:CIVIL.
>
> And even if I'm not religious and don't get personally offended by
> mockery of religious symbols, there are many things that if mocked I
> would get enourmously offended by. For instance, I'm swedish, and if
> anyone says a cross word about Anna Lindh (our Minister of Foreign
> Affairs, who were murdered a couple of years ago), I'm gonna punch him
> out. I'm sure americans say the same thing about, for instance, the
> people who died on 9/11. I'm sure you have a number of things to that
> you wouldn't want mocked, but that other people may not care about.
>
> Also, as Mark Gallagher said, there is a HUGE difference between this
> and the Mohammad Cartoons. Those were for an article on a very notable
> event that demanded that the images were displayed for context. You
> were mocking the worlds largest religion, just for fun.
>
> We're talking simple human decency and civility here. You need to
> apologise.
>
> --Oskar
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I'm sorry Oskar but I don't see a difference. The muhammed cartoons were
offensive because they depicted Muhammed. That's what I've always heard the
controversy to be about: any graphic depiction is blasphemous. The cross is
as well a religious symbol. in this case, a slightly modified picture is
being considered "blasphemous". I think there is a difference between
"mocking" and "satire", but it's very slight. Perhaps I'm viewing this all
wrong, I don't know. Oh and if anyone is going to reply to this, odds are I
won't be able to respond until tuesday, sorry.

-Swatjester


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Marco Chiesa

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
I thought wikipedia was organised by languages, not by countries. The fact
that only one is official does not mean that the other is not spoken. So, if
the community wants 2 wikis, let them have 2; if they want to try to build a
single one, let's support them on this. Personally, I don't speak either of
the two, so I feel I'm not in a position to judge.

Cruccone

On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The main difference is that Nynorsk and Bokm?l are both official in
> Norway; only Narkamauka is official in Belarus.
>
> Mark
>
>


body:
If the situation in China is that bad, then why is the U.S developing
dimplomatic ties with the former? Why is China given a UNSC seat?
These are aspects of China's internal affairs-not even international
bodies like the U.N have the right to intervene. The Chinese
government probably has geo-political concerns about this matter. Like
I stated earlier, if you do help Wikipedia-users in that country
circumvent this block, and they are caught they will probably be dealt
with very severely. And I know about VoA-it's, quite frankly, just a
propaganda tool. If you think the U.S is trying to get Iranians to
access blocked sites in the interest of "liberating" them, then you
are mistaken. America most likely just wants the Iranian people to
hear Mr.Bush talk about why "rogue states" like theirs should not
possess "nucular technology". As I said, allowing Chinese users to
break the law, is abbetment. And it's not the kind of abettment that's
justified-the condition in China is very much liveable-they are not
under some Nazi-like fascist regime. Correct me if I'm wrong but
didn't the FBI recently admit to tapping phones of citizens without
legal consent? If that was justified then so is the Chinese
governments' policy.


body:
geni wrote:

>On 5/5/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 05/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 5/5/06, Craig Whitford <craigwhitford1 at emailaccount.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I've heard about the Request for comment from the United States Congress.
>>>>It's true, Wikipedia is used as a PR/spin machine.
>>>>I've also noticed Commons is being used to upload PR pictures too, for spin purposes.
>>>>
>>>>Craig
>>>>
>>>>
>>>A PR photo is better than nothing.
>>>
>>>
>>"PR photo" implies non-free licencing, which means that it's not
>>acceptable on Commons, our free media repo. So in this case, and in
>>others, no image *is* better.
>>
>>Rob Church
>>
>>
>I assumed that people were releasing them under a free lisence (it
>might be a logical course of action for politicians although not so
>much for celebrities).
>
This is one of those areas where fair use would be easily applicable.
At a time when a copyright notice mattered the publicists could just
give out these pictures, and no one would give a second thought to their
re-use.  Many of these pictures simply went into and still are in the
public domain.  With the notice requirement gone the situation became
ambiguous.  Perhaps a category "Fair use - PR" should be considered.
These pictures were intended to be given away free, so using them does
not harm the primary market for them.  Whether they can be modified
seems like a non-issue; who would want to?

Ec


body:
Also, let us not forget the Wikimedia Foundation is based in the U.S,
and though it may international in it's scope, the general perception
is that Wikimedia is an American organization. Wikipedia and the
Foundation have been receiving quite an ampunt of media-attention of
late and an issue like this is unlikely to go unnoticed. This is
already a time when most of the world accuses the U.S of meddling in
other nations's affairs too much, and like it or not anti-Americanism
is gaining support world over (not only in Muslim nations but also in
Europe,Asia and else-where). At such a juncture if Wikimedia tries to
help Chinese people break the law, the press is hardly likely to
portray Wikimedia as "saviour of the oppressed". Infact the Foundation
is probably going to be portrayed as a propaganda tool used by the U.S
Governement to further the latter's geo-political objectives in
China,Iran and the like. Needless to say such accusation are far from
good-news for the Foundation.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
And how easy would it be to make an automatic transcripter (such as the one
for traditional/simplified Chinese or some southern Slavonic languages)?

Cruccone

On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The thing is, they're only different when you write them. You can't
> "speak" in Narkamauka or Tarashkievitsa.
>
> Mark
>
> On 13/05/06, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I thought wikipedia was organised by languages, not by countries. The
> fact
> > that only one is official does not mean that the other is not spoken.
> So, if
> > the community wants 2 wikis, let them have 2; if they want to try to
> build a
> > single one, let's support them on this. Personally, I don't speak either
> of
> > the two, so I feel I'm not in a position to judge.
> >
> > Cruccone
> >
> > On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > The main difference is that Nynorsk and Bokm?l are both official in
> > > Norway; only Narkamauka is official in Belarus.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
As, I said by allowing Chinese Wikipedians (who are probably just kids
who aren't aware of what exactly their government does to
"dissidents") will do them more harm than good. You wouldn't be
breaking any laws, you would just be getting some Chinese teenager
shot for being a "traitor". America tried to bring democracy to Iraq
and only succeeded in instigating a civil war.Americans were not put
on this planet for the express purpose of preserving democracy-why
don't you give it a rest for a while?


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-14

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!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 304 of 314 tests (96.82%) FAILED!


from_name: Andreas Vilén

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
As Marco Chiesa, I don't see how that argument is relevant... Let them
have two wikis, no harm done, right? Let's make information free for
more people!

/Andreas
On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The main difference is that Nynorsk and Bokm?l are both official in
> Norway; only Narkamauka is official in Belarus.
>
> Mark
>
> On 13/05/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/05/06, Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann at gmx.de> wrote:
> > > > > New articles are supposedly allowed to be written in either variety,
> > > > > however the vast majority of existing articles are written in the
> > > > > alternative style. According to proponents of the official
> > > > > orthography, this makes it intimidating to newcomers, and they give
> > > > > that as the reason why the Belarusan Wikipedia is so small still.
> > > > It does not make much sense to mix. We have been very unhappy with mixed
> > > > dialects in the Low Saxon wikipedia. After a lot of discussion and a lot of
> > > > struggle agains a lone crusader (node_ue :) )we finally managed to have
> > > > nds.wikipedia.org PLUS nds-nl.wikipedia.org. Now the western folks are happy
> > > > and we are happy and both wikipedias are flowrishing.
> > >
> > > Not a lone crusader -- other people tried for unity as well, for
> > > example User:Fidi, but they didn't know much about the inner workings
> > > of Wikipedia and so when you silenced their voices, they simply left
> > > instead of shouting louder.
> > >
> > > You may not think it makes much sense to mix, but plenty of other
> > > Wikipedias do it. The Norman Wikipedia mixes dialects and
> > > orthographies. I don't really agree with that, Jerriais, Dgernesiais,
> > > Serquiais, and Contentiais should, in my view, have separate WPs, but
> > > they seem to be making it work, so it can't be said to be undoable.
> > >
> > > The nds-nl Wikipedia mixes dialects and orthographies -- ask Servien
> > > even. They don't use a single " Dutch Low Saxon" orthography, they use
> > > different spelling systems depending on which dialect they are
> > > writing.
> > >
> > > The Alemannic WP also mixes dialects, I think; orthographies are mixed
> > > in the Lombard Wikipedia; orthographies are mixed (to an extent) in
> > > the Breton Wikipedia.
> > > Mark
> >
> >
> > Cutting out the stuff I don't reply to. I just want to mention nnwiki
> > and nowiki, which are two Wikipedias for the two Norwegian
> > scripts/dialects/languages. They have existed for ages. Why can't we
> > do the same with other languages? It seems much more convenient than
> > to mix two different scripts in one Wikipedia.
> >
> > /Andreas
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Prasad J wrote:
> Again, let us note an important point-the present Government of China is an
> elected one, it is not a military junta or a dictatorship so it will
> be rather difficult for us to actually prove that they are suppressing
> the Chinese in the manner in which (for example) the North Korean
> Government oppresses its people.

Elected? In what sense? It's a one-party system, the CPC doesn't tolerate
any serious opposition. Maybe you should read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China

North Korea also holds token elections:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_North_Korea

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
G'day geni,

> On 5/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 13 May 2006 12:03:28 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>>If it's made
>>>absolutely clear that the template rule does not apply to templates in
>>>the user space, then I suppose that's an acceptable compromise.
>>
>>For my money they should be under User:Box/foo, with the usual proviso
>>that blatantly divisive ones are removed, and they should be substed
>>for preference.
>
> It has been tried. The anti userbox bunch slightly deleted it.

Err, not exactly.  From memory, a userbox was deleted under T1.  Some
damn fool recreated it in the article space with the name [[Userbox:User
hates admins]] or something like that, and then said "nyah nyah nyah you
can't touch it, it's not in Template: namespace".

--
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: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/338 - Release Date: 12/05/2006


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
I'm not sure. Some people are saying it is, and that a conversion
script would be easy to write, but others are saying they are too
different. I'm not familiar enough with the situation on the ground.

Mark

On 14/05/06, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> Mark Williamson napisa?(a):
> > The thing is, they're only different when you write them. You can't
> > "speak" in Narkamauka or Tarashkievitsa.
> >
> > Mark
>
> Is automated conversion possible?
>
> --
> Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: 百楽兎

subject: [Wikitech-l]The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical to	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

>
> Shinjiman wrote:
> > <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="XXX" lang="XXX">
> >
> > The lang (and xml:lang) attribute defined at the HTML tag in
>>some language is
> > not correct and it's supposed to not making this value identical to
> > $wgContLanguageCode.
>
>

Hi, Brion, how about the second idea which Shinjiman said?

"An alternative way to solve this issue is adding a new option
in user's preference setting, then the lang attribute in the
HTML tag can be customizable and Logged on users can change
the value to meet their actual need."

We need your professional advices, thank you.

And I would like to present to you again why correct lang code is
important for Chinese users and how it is complicated. Please see
 this screenshot:

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9348/zhfamily6zw.png

You may not read Chinese, but it's alright, because you can identify
there are 8 lang codes and 2 fonts in the table.
You may also find character structures are also different between
the 2 fonts. It does be the point. To Chinese people, different
character structure affects their reading. Therefore, I think making
<HTML lang="XXX"> customizable is a wiser method because of
the complication of Chinese.

???


from_name: Happy Rabbit

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

>
> Shinjiman wrote:
> > <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="XXX" lang="XXX">
>

Hi, Brion, how about the second idea which Shinjiman said?

"An alternative way to solve this issue is adding a new option
in user's preference setting, then the lang attribute in the
HTML tag can be customizable and Logged on users can change
the value to meet their actual need."

We need your professional advices, thank you.

And I would like to present to you again why correct lang code is
important for Chinese users and how it is complicated. Please see
 this screenshot:

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9348/zhfamily6zw.png

You may not read Chinese, but it's alright, because you can identify
there are 8 lang codes and 2 fonts in the table.
You may also find character structures are also different between
the 2 fonts. It does be the point. To Chinese people, different
character structure affects their reading. Therefore, I think making
<HTML lang="XXX"> customizable is a wiser method because of
the complication of Chinese.


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Like I said, the Chinese government probably has it's reasons for
> doing what it does.

Yeah it doesn't want people asking anoying questions such as "why are
we not allowed to ellect a goverment?"

> And even if you do bring down this firewall-do you
> really think the government will just admit defeat?

No. But allowing them to keep it up doesn't help matters.

> As for 1989, could the U.S or any other nation do anything during the  Tien-a-mien
> massacre? No. Because each country has the right to manage it's own
> affairs-even if that may see unfair to us.

"Rights" have no logical basis and thus no position in rational debate.

>Countries don't go out of their way to help each other without there
being something for >them to gain

Historicaly that is incorrect.

>The U.S is not trying to bring democracy to China in the interest
> of goodwill, the former has major geo-political interests in two
> emerging powers (China and India) the Americans are just trying to
> achieve their longterm goals by bringing about a change in the Chinese
> government so that when the U.S tries to better it's ties with that
> nation, it will not be accused of supporting the oppressive Peoples'
> Government. If indeed America wanted to rescue the oppressed why did
> it turn a blind eye to Tibet and (more importantly) the Rwandan
> genocide?

In the first case it didn't have a choice (china can tell pretty much
anyone to get stuffed). In the second there was a UN presence. They
just followed your doctrien of non interfearence.

> Please do not be taken in when the VoA and other agencies
> try to de-stabilize (which is in a way what this will do) the
> government in the (apparent) intention of delivering the Chinese from oppression.

We are not VoA.

>Anyway, even if you do bring down the firewall, they will
> probably have it up again in a jiffy-(the government is hardly likely
> to concede defeat to the Foundation) then would not your efforts have
> gone to waste?

If it wasn't for people prepeared to follow hopeless causes human
history would be very different. I doubt we would have got much beyond
Sumer style city states.

--
geni


body:
Prasad J wrote:
> If the situation in China is that bad, then why is the U.S developing
> dimplomatic ties with the former? Why is China given a UNSC seat?

I suggest you do your own research on this subject. Yes, it is that bad,
and there are answers to your questions, but they are off-topic for this
list.

> These are aspects of China's internal affairs-not even international
> bodies like the U.N have the right to intervene. The Chinese
> government probably has geo-political concerns about this matter. Like
> I stated earlier, if you do help Wikipedia-users in that country
> circumvent this block, and they are caught they will probably be dealt
> with very severely. And I know about VoA-it's, quite frankly, just a
> propaganda tool. If you think the U.S is trying to get Iranians to
> access blocked sites in the interest of "liberating" them, then you
> are mistaken. America most likely just wants the Iranian people to
> hear Mr.Bush talk about why "rogue states" like theirs should not
> possess "nucular technology". As I said, allowing Chinese users to
> break the law, is abbetment. And it's not the kind of abettment that's
> justified-the condition in China is very much liveable-they are not
> under some Nazi-like fascist regime. Correct me if I'm wrong but
> didn't the FBI recently admit to tapping phones of citizens without
> legal consent? If that was justified then so is the Chinese
> governments' policy.

You should learn a bit more about China before you go making comparisons
like that. China is not a democracy, the events of 1989 should have cast
away any doubt about that. Yes, things are "generally livable" as long
as you don't cross the line, yes the US sucks in its own special way.
That doesn't mean we should comply with whatever unfair laws either
regime happens to pass. China has a long way to go towards democracy,
and in my opinion, unbiased mass education and open discourse can only
aid the process. Yes, non-compliance brings risks with it, but there are
many people inside China and outside it who are prepared to face those
risks in the hope that a long-term benefit might be gained.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
The point is, we have the Mohammad Cartoons are for an article. It is
crucial for the context of the article, and it's a better article for
it. We have plenty of other very offensive images illustrating
articles that are equally crucial, for instance the images depicted in
[[Hogtie bondage]] are very disturbing to me, and I imagine to a large
number of other people. They do however illustrate the concepts very
clearly and the articles are much better for them. The same with the
Muhammad Cartoons-image, the article simply wouldn't be as good
without it.

However this wasn't for an article. This was for a userbox. This was
mocking for mockings sake, the only purpose it served was to make fun
of a belief shared by a huge number of wikipedians, and indeed to the
largest religion in the world. It is simply not ok to act like that on
wikipedia.

All of us wants the best encyclopedia possible. We are all working
towards the same goal. We need to show respect for our peers, no
matter if we disagree with them. This kind of school-yard bully
behaviour is not worthy of a Wikipedian.

--Oskar

PS. Don't worry about not responding right away, that's no problem. We
all have real lifes too, and it's perfectly reasonable that not
everyone can spend all their time on the mailinglist :P

On 5/14/06, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/12/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA1
> > >
> > > Mark Gallagher wrote:
> > > >Ben wrote:
> > > >> I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just
> > not
> > > >> seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
> > > >> know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or
> > annoying,
> > > >> but not offensive.
> > > >
> > > > Mocking the cross?  You can't see what's wrong with that?
> > >
> > > I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with it.
> > <snip>
> > > Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
> >
> > I don't worship icons either. I'm completely atheist, but I would
> > never DREAM of mocking it. It's simple human decency not to mock
> > something that many people love, and worship. It is, at the very
> > least, a massive breach of WP:CIVIL.
> >
> > And even if I'm not religious and don't get personally offended by
> > mockery of religious symbols, there are many things that if mocked I
> > would get enourmously offended by. For instance, I'm swedish, and if
> > anyone says a cross word about Anna Lindh (our Minister of Foreign
> > Affairs, who were murdered a couple of years ago), I'm gonna punch him
> > out. I'm sure americans say the same thing about, for instance, the
> > people who died on 9/11. I'm sure you have a number of things to that
> > you wouldn't want mocked, but that other people may not care about.
> >
> > Also, as Mark Gallagher said, there is a HUGE difference between this
> > and the Mohammad Cartoons. Those were for an article on a very notable
> > event that demanded that the images were displayed for context. You
> > were mocking the worlds largest religion, just for fun.
> >
> > We're talking simple human decency and civility here. You need to
> > apologise.
> >
> > --Oskar
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> I'm sorry Oskar but I don't see a difference. The muhammed cartoons were
> offensive because they depicted Muhammed. That's what I've always heard the
> controversy to be about: any graphic depiction is blasphemous. The cross is
> as well a religious symbol. in this case, a slightly modified picture is
> being considered "blasphemous". I think there is a difference between
> "mocking" and "satire", but it's very slight. Perhaps I'm viewing this all
> wrong, I don't know. Oh and if anyone is going to reply to this, odds are I
> won't be able to respond until tuesday, sorry.
>
> -Swatjester
> _______________________________________________
> 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: geni

body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > >Countries don't go out of their way to help each other without there
> > being something for >them to gain
> >
> > Historicaly that is incorrect.
>
> >  If you are of that opinion, geni, I must say you are incredibly idealistic. Show me a single instance where one country has helped another with purely good intentions.

Polands actions during the Battle of Vienna.

British actions after the invasion of Poland in 1939.

>If the Chinese government can tell other countries to "stuff
themselves" about the Tibet >issue, can't they do the same about this
one?

They are free to try however I doubt they are going to invade florida.

>Also, none of you have replied to my earlier mail wherein I expressed
concers about how >the media (if it learnt about this) would portray
Wikipedia.

The media can always trash us if they want.

>At present anti-Americanism is sweeping the world,  if you choose to
deny it I suggest >you look at the photos of the star-spangled banner
being burnt everywhere from >Amsterdam to Seoul-, and many accuse the
U.S of meddling too much in the affairs of >other countries. At such a
juncture, the press is less likely to portray Wikipedia as >"saviour
of the oppresed" than as "U.S government tool".

Doubful. First we have no links to the US goverment. Secondly we are
mostly writen by europeans
--
geni


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, none of you have replied to my earlier mail wherein I expressed concers
> about how the media (if it learnt about this) would portray Wikipedia.

I did.

Wikimedia has nothing to do with this.  It's just something done by a
group of individuals.

Of course, I agree with the other answer as well.  I don't
particularly care about how the media portrays Wikipedia.


body:
On 5/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Perhaps a category "Fair use - PR" should be considered.
> These pictures were intended to be given away free, so using them does
> not harm the primary market for them.

[[Template:Promophoto]]

--
geni


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> America has an ulterior motive for wanting to
> help would-be dissidents from China circumvent this firewall. So,
> having said that I do not think Wikipedia should go by what the VoA or
> other American agencies say/do-again it is mainly the U.S which seems
> to be bothered to a great extent by this issue.

Strawman.  No one ever said that Wikipedia should go by what the VoA
or other American agencies say/do.  I pointed out the fact about the
VoA only to dispel your belief that Americans or American companies
would be committing a crime in the US by helping people circumvent the
Chinese firewall.

On the contrary, the US Government would more likely give a company
helping to circumvent the Chinese Firewall a grant, not charge it with
a crime.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 13 May 2006 at 10:44, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Guettarda wrote:
>
> > All Americans (and
> > other similarly deprived poor souls) should have cricket forced onto them.
>
> I'll thank you not to force-feed me cricket. We have plenty already, and
> they can be interesting to listen to (unless you're trying to go to
> sleep), but I have no interest in eating them.

Then you'd better not become a contestant on a reality TV series;
various shows (Fear Factor, Survivor, The Amazing Race) have at times
compelled its contestants to eat crickets or similarly gross things.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


body:
On 14 May 2006 at 00:08, "Prasad J" <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:

> As, I said by allowing Chinese Wikipedians (who are probably just kids
> who aren't aware of what exactly their government does to
> "dissidents") will do them more harm than good. You wouldn't be
> breaking any laws, you would just be getting some Chinese teenager
> shot for being a "traitor". America tried to bring democracy to Iraq
> and only succeeded in instigating a civil war.Americans were not put
> on this planet for the express purpose of preserving democracy-why
> don't you give it a rest for a while?

It's interesting that you first proclaim that China is not "some Nazi-
like, fascist regime" (thus invoking [[Godwin's Law]] by making
comparisons with Nazis), but then seem to believe that a Chinese
teenager who exercises free speech is likely to be shot by the
government.

At any rate, I don't think anybody here is suggesting that the
Wikimedia Foundation officially support people in any country
breaking the law or engaging in anti-government activity; Wikimedia /
Wikipedia is committed to its policy of maintaining a neutral point
of view, which precludes taking a stand on political issues.  If
individuals, in and out of China, provide means of evading the
Chinese firewall, that's their own business and their own
responsibility if they should happen to get arrested, shot, or
whatever.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Prasad J wrote:
> I agree with Timwi, encouraging Chinese citizens to break the laws of
> their country is probably not the right thing to do, even though such
> forms of censorship seem unfair. Also, what if the Chinese authorities
> manage to track down those who break their censorship laws? Let us not
> forget what the government does to  "dissidents" in China. And what is
> the press gets hold of this? The issue of Wikipedia and Chinese
> Government censorship has been in the news. If we start encouraging
> Chinese Wikipedians to break the law, it will only mean bad publicity
> for the Foundation.

It should be noted that Erik posted his own thoughts on his own website
as a private person.  The Foundation officially neither encourages nor
discourages people from doing what they need to do to get around the
Chinese firewall.

Our official position is that the block is in error, that there is
nothing about Wikipedia in general which fits into the category of
things that are normally blocked, and we hope that the block will
eventually be lifted when we are able to reach the right decision makers
to explain the situation to them.

If they want to filter certain pages, we do not support that, but
obviously it would be a lot better than what they are doing now, which
is blocking everything.  The Chinese intellectual who has studied
Swahili and desires to work in a charitable effort to help Africans by
bringing uncontroversial knowledge to them in their own language is
current blocked from doing so -- this is certainly not consistent with
what the Chinese government is trying to achieve.

Speaking personally, and not as the voice of the foundation, which takes
no position on these matters, people who take personal risks to edit
Wikipedia from places where doing so may be illegal or dangerous to
them, are heroes to me.

I was recently awarded a "Pioneer Award" by the EFF.   In my acceptance
speech, I said, I am not the real pioneer, because it is very easy for
me.  I live in the United States, firmly protected by the First
Amendment, and I am celebrated in the culture as being a "prophet" and
"pioneer" and other absurdly kind adjectives.  It is easy for me.

The real heroes of this movement live in China, Iran, etc.

--Jimbo


body:
Prasad J wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong but
> didn't the FBI recently admit to tapping phones of citizens without
> legal consent? If that was justified then so is the Chinese
> governments' policy.

Emphasizing again that I am making a personal statement here, not
speaking for the Foundation, I rather think that the point is that
*neither* of these is justified.

I am going to shut up now because wikien-l is  not really the right
place for a general discussion of the ethics of civil disobediance in
the face of human rights violations.

--Jimbo

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


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
 not censored for minors?

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

Steve Bennett stated for the record:

> Doing this would be common sense. But then, IMHO, so would labelling
> individual pages that actually contained such content.
>
> Steve

And exactly whose POINT OF VIEW would decide which pages those were?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Careful. We don't want to
 sean at epoptic.com | learn from this. --Calvin
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/14/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> It should be noted that Erik posted his own thoughts on his own website
>> as a private person.  The Foundation officially neither encourages nor
>> discourages people from doing what they need to do to get around the
>> Chinese firewall.
>
> Is the Foundation making a statement on the copying of Wikipedia's
> material (presumably in breach of the GFDL) by Baidupedia? Or did I
> miss it already?

They are welcome to copy our work, so long as they comply with the
license.  If they don't comply with the license, then they are doing
something unethical.  As with other people who start new mirrors and at
first often make mistakes in license compliance, I am sure that they
will do the right thing in due course.  We usually don't have to get too
agitated about it. :)

--Jimbo


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > British actions after the invasion of Poland in 1939.
>
> Incase you are not aware of this Anglo-German relations were hostile
> at the time-what with Hitler promising to conquer Britain and all.

Nope. britian may not have liked germany too much but there was no
logical reason to go to war.

> Even otherwise, in 1939 the U.K did not declare war UNTIL the 3rd of
> September, when Hitler launched a blitzkreig on France.

False. France was not seriously attacked untill 10 May 1940.

> It was at this point that England realised that the Nazis were seriously intent on
> conquering England. Only when it became clear that Hitler was going to
> invade England after France fell (which was pretty obvious), did the
> U.K declare war on Germany.

Nope Uk declaired war on sept 3rd

> It must be noted here that upto that point
> of time Britain had been following a "policy of appeasement" allowing
> Hitler to attack and conquer Austria, and Mussolini to invade
> Abyssinia (now called Ethiopia) to deter the fascist leaders from
> concentrating their efforts on Britain. Britain did not wage war on
> Germany till the former realised that war was, in fact, inevitable.
> Thus, the U.K's actions were by no means well-intentioned. Also while
> we're talking about Britain, I hope you know the atrocities committed
> by that country in it's colonies-have you heard of the Jallianwallah
> Bagh Massacre?Or the Andaman Cellular Jail?

tu quoque and strawman logical fallacies

>As for the battle of Vienna, The Polish King had
> been made the Commander-in-Chief of the Christian forces (if I may
> call it that). So naturally Poland would have to take part.

No he was made that once the battle started.

> Wikipedia-english is written by Americans or  people who come from countries which are >U.S allies (U.K Australia etc.). To put in a nutshell-white people.

What has skin colour got to do with anything?

>Secondly as I explained the general perception is that Wikipedia is
an American >organization.

Evidences?

>Also, though China may not actually send the Peoples' Army into St.
Petersburg FL, it is >highly likely that Wikimedia will be sued for
violating it's own policies which state that the >Wikimedia sites may
not be used to break local laws.

Nothing against US law in what has been proposed.
--
geni


from_name: Prasad J

body:
Like I said, the Chinese government probably has it's reasons for
doing what it does. And even if you do bring down this firewall-do you
really think the government will just admit defeat? As for 1989, could
the U.S or any other nation do anything during the  Tien-a-mien
massacre? No. Because each country has the right to manage it's own
affairs-even if that may see unfair to us.Countries don't go out of
their way to help each other without there being something for them to
gain The U.S is not trying to bring democracy to China in the interest
of goodwill, the former has major geo-political interests in two
emerging powers (China and India) the Americans are just trying to
achieve their longterm goals by bringing about a change in the Chinese
government so that when the U.S tries to better it's ties with that
nation, it will not be accused of supporting the oppressive Peoples'
Government. If indeed America wanted to rescue the oppressed why did
it turn a blind eye to Tibet and (more importantly) the Rwandan
genocide? Please do not be taken in when the VoA and other agencies
try to de-stabilize (which is in a way what this will do) the
government in the (apparent) intention of delivering the Chinese from
oppression. Anyway, even if you do bring down the firewall, they will
probably have it up again in a jiffy-(the government is hardly likely
to concede defeat to the Foundation) then would not your efforts have
gone to waste?


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
	not censored for minors?

body:
Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:

    Steve Bennett stated for the record:
    > Doing this would be common sense. But then, IMHO, so would labelling
    > individual pages that actually contained such content.

    And exactly whose POINT OF VIEW would decide which pages those were?

That sums up all the potential problems pretty well.  On top of that, by categorizing the 2++ (and lets not forget to add PG-13 and NC-17 ratings) as minor "friendly" or not, you create targets for vandals and trolls to insert naughty thoughts.

There's already a small software industry out there doing this.  Will the schools that use this software care how Wiki marks it?  Will it actually change anything other than how much time contributors use marking and unmarking articles instead of research and writing?  I don't see any benefit to using a lot of contributor time marking things as "safe" or "naughty", not to mention the aforementioned POV wars over what is and is not naughty.~~~~Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
Hoi,
It will only work if the difference is one of orthography or script.
When the differences are more pronounced and semantic drift between the
two has set in, it will be a kludge and a bad one at that. It will not
really help a language / a dialect whatever you want to call it .. :)
Thanks,
    GerardM

Berto wrote:
> Would it work for the interface, too? I guess this is the main issue, and it
> might be of interest for a number of other languages.
>
> B?rto
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marco Chiesa" <chiesa.marco at gmail.com>
> To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 1:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP
>
>
> And how easy would it be to make an automatic transcripter (such as the one
> for traditional/simplified Chinese or some southern Slavonic languages)?
>
> Cruccone
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Britain did not "like" Germany but as I explained war was inevitable.

Doubtful. Hitlers racial ideas included britian as part of the master race.

> It was only a question of which country made the first move-this
> country would also perhaps have the advantage of being the first to
> act. This much was obvious from Hitler's actions. And I urge you to
> re-read your history book, Germany declared war on France in 1939
> itself.

If His Majesty's Government has not received satisfactory assurances
of the cessation of all aggressive action against Poland, and the
withdrawal of German troops from that country, by 11 o'clock British
Summer Time, from that time a state of war will exist between Great
Britain and Germany.

That was how britian declaired war. France did something simular.

> And if Britain really wanted to help countries threatend by
> the Nazis, why didn't the U.K  intervene when Hitler attacked Austria,
> or for that matter when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia?

Britian didn't have much of a militry capacity when hitler occupied
Austria. Like most of the world at that time they were not too
bothered about the rights of africans. In any case this is beside the
point

> As for the "logical
> fallacies" you foynd when I highlighted the atrocities committed by
> the U.K in India to advance the Crown's agendas there, I will not
> honour your "objection" with a reply.

So you conceed you are comitting logical fallacies?

> Although no U.S laws may be
> broken as a result of this act there are international laws in place
> to regulate internet-related issues.
>

Name one. There are very few international laws and most of them are
to do with war.

> PS-What does skin colour have to do with it? As a side-note (unrelated
> to this discussion) can you name one (active) Arb Com member who is
> South Asian-as in of Indo-Aryan descent?

No. Last I cheacked it was not considered likely that humans evolved there.

>Or an Arbitrator who is Muslim?

No idea. Neither do I care. The religion of arbcom members is a matter
of supream indifference to me.

>No offence but I am pretty sure there are South-Asian and
> Muslim editors out there. Only none of them will be voted into ArbCom.

How do you know? Generaly any long term admin who hasn't caused much
in the way of trouble has a reasonable chance of being elected. I
didn't run across any questions relating to religion at the last
arbcom election.

--
geni


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
Mark Williamson napisa?(a):
> The thing is, they're only different when you write them. You can't
> "speak" in Narkamauka or Tarashkievitsa.
>
> Mark

Is automated conversion possible?

--
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As for my "logical fallacies", you may engage me in
> your trivial wordplay

Logical fallacies are not trivial wordplay. Makeing your case while
avoiding them is the bais of debate. You have no case to rest.
--
geni


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time 100 footage

body:
I often visit Amanda's vlog, and you see it on TV and such. It'll be good to
get these free photos.

Unfort. I have a capture card, but I doubt my VCR or w/e is capable (as it's
PAL).

On 5/13/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
> Amanda Congdon (rocketboom.com) was gracious enough to be our press
> representative at the recent Time 100 party in New York.  She got a lot
> of footage of the guests, which was quite a group of famous people,
> probably at least 100 people at the party already have wikipedia
> articles, many with no photos or fair use photos.
>
> As a condition of being invited, I asked that she release her footage
> and photos under a free license.
>
> I do not know yet exactly how we will get this, but based on what I saw,
> her team was mostly just doing filming, so it will probably be raw video
> (I asked for the highest possible resolution, so that would be the raw
> tape).  To get good screen caps, someone will have to take this raw
> footage and import it into something and do captures or whatever.
>
> My guess is that, due to the size of it all, we will get a tape rather
> than a downloadable file.  I am looking for someone with good experience
> with video to do something useful with it. :)
>
> Please volunteer by emailing me directly.  Since I will probably just
> have them mail a tape copy to you, you must be reliable and known to me,
> because I don't want to have them mail the tape to someone who vanishes.
> :)
>
> --Jimbo
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
Would it work for the interface, too? I guess this is the main issue, and it
might be of interest for a number of other languages.

B?rto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Chiesa" <chiesa.marco at gmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 1:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

And how easy would it be to make an automatic transcripter (such as the one
for traditional/simplified Chinese or some southern Slavonic languages)?

Cruccone


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

body:
The problem is not only with them. AFAIK there is a similar problem in the
Occitan wiki (just to name one). There the situation is closer to Low-Saxon,
though. There is a number of different "flavours" of the language, and only
one is represented in the sysop structure. When there is a small number of
people being able to read and write in the language (or a small number of
them has internet access), this may really end up in being a damage to the
edition's capability to collect and organize content.

B?rto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Vil?n" <andreas.vilen at gmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP

As Marco Chiesa, I don't see how that argument is relevant... Let them
have two wikis, no harm done, right? Let's make information free for
more people!

/Andreas
On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The main difference is that Nynorsk and Bokm?l are both official in
> Norway; only Narkamauka is official in Belarus.
>
> Mark
>
> On 13/05/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/05/06, Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann at gmx.de> wrote:
> > > > > New articles are supposedly allowed to be written in either
variety,
> > > > > however the vast majority of existing articles are written in the
> > > > > alternative style. According to proponents of the official
> > > > > orthography, this makes it intimidating to newcomers, and they
give
> > > > > that as the reason why the Belarusan Wikipedia is so small still.
> > > > It does not make much sense to mix. We have been very unhappy with
mixed
> > > > dialects in the Low Saxon wikipedia. After a lot of discussion and a
lot of
> > > > struggle agains a lone crusader (node_ue :) )we finally managed to
have
> > > > nds.wikipedia.org PLUS nds-nl.wikipedia.org. Now the western folks
are happy
> > > > and we are happy and both wikipedias are flowrishing.
> > >
> > > Not a lone crusader -- other people tried for unity as well, for
> > > example User:Fidi, but they didn't know much about the inner workings
> > > of Wikipedia and so when you silenced their voices, they simply left
> > > instead of shouting louder.
> > >
> > > You may not think it makes much sense to mix, but plenty of other
> > > Wikipedias do it. The Norman Wikipedia mixes dialects and
> > > orthographies. I don't really agree with that, Jerriais, Dgernesiais,
> > > Serquiais, and Contentiais should, in my view, have separate WPs, but
> > > they seem to be making it work, so it can't be said to be undoable.
> > >
> > > The nds-nl Wikipedia mixes dialects and orthographies -- ask Servien
> > > even. They don't use a single " Dutch Low Saxon" orthography, they use
> > > different spelling systems depending on which dialect they are
> > > writing.
> > >
> > > The Alemannic WP also mixes dialects, I think; orthographies are mixed
> > > in the Lombard Wikipedia; orthographies are mixed (to an extent) in
> > > the Breton Wikipedia.
> > > Mark
> >
> >
> > Cutting out the stuff I don't reply to. I just want to mention nnwiki
> > and nowiki, which are two Wikipedias for the two Norwegian
> > scripts/dialects/languages. They have existed for ages. Why can't we
> > do the same with other languages? It seems much more convenient than
> > to mix two different scripts in one Wikipedia.
> >
> > /Andreas
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: [Wikitech-l] automated welcome template

body:
The other thing to remember is that you are welcoming people, not
computers.  The personal touch helps to make people feel involved.
Commenting in a friendly and positive way about something in one of
their edits goes a lot further than an automated list of links to rules.

Ec

Platonides wrote:

>But you probably don't want to welcome EVERYBODY.  At least on major
>wikipedias, there are a lot of account creations that make no edit (why do
>they create those account is a mistery :s). So you probably prefer welcome
>people that has made at least one edit.
>
>"Essjay" :
>
>
>>Claudi Meneghin wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hello,
>>>  I am admin in Lombard wikipedia, which is still small.
>>>  I would like to ask you if there is any way to send automatically a
>>>welcome message to any new user who creates a new account.
>>>  Many thanks.
>>>
>>>  Sincerely yours,
>>>
>>>  Claudi
>>>
>>>


body:
On 14/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> >Countries don't go out of their way to help each other without there
> being something for >them to gain
>
> Historicaly that is incorrect.

>  If you are of that opinion, geni, I must say you are incredibly idealistic. Show me a single instance where one country has helped another with purely good intentions. It has never happened and it never will. Let me illustrate with an example-the Truman Doctrine. The U.S offered billions of dollars in aid to European countries PROVIDED they agreed not to accept Communism. On the surface it appears that America was doing an admirable deed but in reality it was only making sure that it's own needs were met. As I have explained the U.S has a hidden agenda for helping the Chinese destabilise their government, just as they had a hidden agenda for Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L). And it's not only the U.S-every country looks to secure it's own goals. That's the way diplomacy works. Do not be fooled into thinking that nations try to bail each other out just out of compassion and fraternal love. As for Rwanda-I suggest you check the Wikipedia article on the subject-the U.S requested America for help but the latter chose to decline. If the Chinese government can tell other countries to "stuff themselves" about the Tibet issue, can't they do the same about this one? Also, none of you have replied to my earlier mail wherein I expressed concers about how the media (if it learnt about this) would portray Wikipedia. At present anti-Americanism is sweeping the world,  if you choose to deny it I suggest you look at the photos of the star-spangled banner being burnt everywhere from Amsterdam to Seoul-, and many accuse the U.S of meddling too much in the affairs of other countries. At such a juncture, the press is less likely to portray Wikipedia as "saviour of the oppresed" than as "U.S government tool". Before doing this I ask that you consider whether such bad publicity is realy neseccary for Wikipedia-which was recently in the news for being used as a propaganda tool by politicians.


body:
Prasad J stated for the record:

> The U.S was not the only country to gain Independence through war....

I am very familiar with the process through which India achieved
independence from Britain.  Note that India was a set of independent
nations that were conquered by Britain that then unified and threw
Britain out ... and a good job it was, too.  The United States, however,
were created as colonies by Britain, then rebelled against their own
countrymen -- not against a foreign conquerer.  I suggest that that
difference is what gives you the tendency to say that government should
be obeyed even when it is killing you and for me to say that government
should be overthrown early and often.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed --
which necessarily implies that the governed can withdraw that consent.
See also [[Mandate of Heaven]].

--
 Sean Barrett     | There are four boxes to use in the defense
 sean at epoptic.com | of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo.
                  | Use in that order. --Ed Howdershelt.


body:
Timwi wrote:

>Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>
>>I've written down some thoughts on the problem of distributing IP
>>addresses and anonymization tools a while ago:
>>
>>http://intelligentdesigns.net/Freedom_Tools
>>
>>
>That page does not consider the possibility that circumventing the
>censorship may be illegal in the affected countries. Of course /you/
>think you're in the right because you "know" that censorship is wrong,
>but you're nevertheless encouraging people to commit a crime in their
>country, which itself may be illegal or at least immoral.
>
Just because something is illegal does not mean that it is wrong; it is
merely contrary to the intentions of the state.  Getting around copy
protect devices on CDs may be illegal, but it's not wrong.

Providing information on how to circumvent laws is not in itself
immoral.  What would be immoral would be failing to alert the potential
user that using this information may be illegal for him.  Only when he
knows about the laws can he make an informed choice about going ahead.

Ec


body:
On 5/14/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Once again, you have avoided the issue? Also, what you were doing
> (twisting my words to make them appear like admissions of logical
> fallacies) IS trivial wordplay.

You were commiting the tu quoque and strawman logical fallacies.

> Also am I to assume you have no
> comments to make on the racist policies adopted by the British
> Government?

It isn't relivant to the original issue.

--
geni


body:
Prasad J wrote:

>I agree with Timwi, encouraging Chinese citizens to break the laws of
>their country is probably not the right thing to do, even though such
>forms of censorship seem unfair. Also, what if the Chinese authorities
>manage to track down those who break their censorship laws? Let us not
>forget what the government does to  "dissidents" in China. And what is
>the press gets hold of this? The issue of Wikipedia and Chinese
>Government censorship has been in the news. If we start encouraging
>Chinese Wikipedians to break the law, it will only mean bad publicity
>for the Foundation.
>
Providing technical information is not the same as encouraging.

The press is often unpredictable.  It is also important to remember that
China does not like to be embarassed, especially not in the period
leading up to the 2008 Olympics.  After that event progress may be more
difficult, and countries whose international debt is largely bankroled
by the Chinese may want to limit their support of freedom to just enough
isolated acts of lip service to prevent being accused of hypocrisy.

Ec


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On May 13, 2006, at 5:21 AM, Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>>>Of course it is vandalism, if it's a deliberate act to reduce the
>>>quality of this encyclopedia.
>>
>>That's a dangerous definition.  Sooner or later, if we use that
>>definition, we'll get people who write Pok?mon articles accused of
>>"vandalism".
>
> No, because the intent of writing Pokemon articles is not to reduce
> the quality of the encyclopedia, whether or not it actually does so.

...and surely the encyclopedia is better if it says nicer things about
me, right?

Defining (and communicating) what is good for "the quality of the
encyclopedia" is hard enough as it is, without _also_ trying to divine
the intentions of random contributors regarding it.  Of course, in some
case it is obvious -- for example, I doubt the Squidward guy really
thinks his edits improve the encyclopedia -- but generally it's not that
easy.  Does adding valid criticism improve the encyclopedia?  What about
  removing _in_valid criticism?  Who gets to decide what criticism is or
is not valid?  Surely these allegations about his cousin's financial
activities in the 70's are *exactly* the kind of thing people *need* to
know about Joe Bloggs in order to make an informed decision in the
upcoming election...?

There's also the fact that many people simply do not see how an
encyclopedia (a freely editable one in particular!) _could_ serve any
other purpose _but_ to promote a given POV.  In fact, they may not even
be entirely wrong -- there's a reason why the N in NPOV stands for
"Neutral", not "None".

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 14, 2006, at 6:05 AM, Prasad J wrote:

> Helping people circumvent the Chinese firewall is tantamount to
> abetting a crime-and thereby unethical, unless a competent
> international body (like the U.N) officially makes a statement to the
> effect that China is a fascist state where citizens are brutally
> oppressed by the Government and denied any human right whatsoever.

I simply cannot understand this standpoint. First off with describing
the UN as "competent", but let's move past that.

The determining factor to you about whether to (non-violently!)
resist an oppressive government isn't whether it is, in fact,
oppressive, but rather whether or not it's officially designated
"oppressive" by the UN?

Did Gandhi wait for the British colonization of India to be
designated "oppressive" by foreigners before he began his resistance?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On May 12, 2006, at 9:16 AM, Sean Barrett wrote:

>> I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with
>> it.
>
> This statement is clearly intended to insult and offend.  I recommend
> that you conceal your malice a little more effectively, Ben.

You know, one thing I like more than anything is waking up in the
morning to an exchange of snarky, one-to-two line remarks on the
listserv.

Not to point you two out, since everyone on this list (myself
included) seems guilty of this crap. But it's pretty damn pointless,
and we should all show more self-control and restraint in the future.

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


from_name: SPUI

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Steve Bennett stated for the record:
>
>
>>Doing this would be common sense. But then, IMHO, so would labelling
>>individual pages that actually contained such content.
>>
>>Steve
>
>
> And exactly whose POINT OF VIEW would decide which pages those were?

[[WP:TOBY]] is still the only NPOV solution (assuming there's a "problem").