body:
Bill Konrad said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>> Suppose we had a rule saying "no use of the word 'sparrow'".
>
> Now you're just being even more exagerratedly silly.

Absolutely not.  I'm trying to illustrate that it is technically easier
for a group that has a specific need for bowdlerized content to filter
existing unbowdlerized content than to require all editors to edit to yet
another limitation of their expression, and that instruction creep of this
kind is both undesirable (because it limits appropriate use of certain
words, concepts and images) and unnecessary (because only the group in
question knows at any given time what it does and does not find acceptable
to it).


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Polite Thoughtful Neo-Nazis, was NSM88,
	deletion of user page image, personal attacks

body:
David Gerard said:
>
> Astroturfing

Astrowhat?

astroturfing - definition from jargon
  astroturfing
   n.

     1. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular
     movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant
     `concerned citizens', paid opinion pieces, and the formation of
     grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group
     (AstroTurf is fake grass; hence the term).

     2. What an individual posting to a public forum under an assumed name
     is said to be doing.

     This term became common among hackers after it came to light in early
     1998 that Microsoft had attempted to use such tactics to forestall
     the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust action against the
     company. The maneuver backfired horribly, angering a number of state
     attorneys-general enough to induce them to go public with plans to
     join the Federal suit. It also set anybody defending Microsoft on the
     net for the accusation "You're just astroturfing!".

Oh.  I learned something new.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
Stirling Newberry (was Article ownership Re: avoiding forks (was
	Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads in Wikipedia?))

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:26:59 -0800 (PST), wiki pedista
<wikipedista at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well, I am not polite enough. Stirling, if you don't
> like our project and policies, please feel free not
> to adopt them in yours, but leave us alone, and
> stop making noise on the list.

I think reviewing our policies is a very valid thing to do. Even more
so if those policies mean we are technically not conforming to the
GFDL and/or they mean that potential good contributors are being
discouraged. "This is the correct way because it is the way we are
doing it" is not the kind of logic that is beneficial to the project.

Andre Engels


list: wikitech-l

from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikitech-l] www.en.wikipedia.org

body:
On Thursday 17 February 2005 14:40, Ginu George wrote:
> Type http://en.wikipedia.org
> remove that www from the browser

Yes, of course I know that, but in many cases browsers add a www. For example,
I am used to press the down arrow key after I type an address, because this
causes Konqueror to add www. To understand better what I mean, you need to
see how I use my browser:

1. If I want to visit my website, I type wikinerds.org and I press the down
key arrow, so the browser takes me to http://www.wikinerds.org
2. When I wanted to visit English Wikipedia before the introduction of the
Portal, I was just typing wikipedia.org and then I was pressing the down
arrow key. So I was being redirected to http://en.wikipedia.org
3. Now, I *should* type en.wikipedia.org and press Enter to visit directly the
English Wikipedia, but because I was used to the down arrow key before, many
times I still press it and I end up at http://www.en.wikipedia.org

I am sure I am not the only surfer which does that mistake, so I think a dns
alias www.en would be useful. Users are too used to www.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


list: foundation-l

from_name: notafish

subject: For improvement of JA situation (Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked again)

body:
> I did make a check, and found that indeed the Japanese Wikipedia has
> a remarkably low number of admins. It has about the same number as the
> Dutch one (ja: 31, nl: 34), even though the Dutch one is about half
> the size of the Japanese one, and compared to other languages is
> relatively low. The Polish and Swedish Wikipedias have considerably
> more admins. I think that to compare to the other languages, the
> Japanese number could easily be doubled.
>
> > Before diving into the topic, I would like you to remark a fact I am
> > not there a sysadmin.
> > I thought JA WP needed more helper and requested sysopship twice. My
> > requests were
> > rejected with 65-72% approvals [JA WP holds 75% criteria for
> > promotion]. In my view
> > some of JA users are afraid I am a sort of authoritarians, with an
> > iron rod, and/or suspect
> > I don't shere with them the view what Wikipedia should be.

Kind of the same problem arose on fr, Admins were considered cream of
the cream. I have put in place a demythification process here :
*http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Administrateur/Tableau_de_bord_de_l%27administrateur
*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_suppression
*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_blocage
*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_protection
(other links can be found at the bottom of the first page)
which goal was to de-sacralize the admins job. This has definitely
worked on fr to make the admin position clearer and a lot of people
who dreaded becoming an admin for fear of being cast into an
authoritarian category have expressed interest in becoming admins. (4
in the last two weeks), which helps.

I don't know whether this can solve any problems, but it could be a
starting point and I am willing to help putting it together for other
languages if anyone is interested, providing I am supplied with the
appropriate shotscreens.

Cheers,

Delphine


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Jim Trodel said:
>
> As I have recently commented on the image in questions talk page - the
> intransigence of some to the completely reasonable proposal to
> exercise some discretion by making it a link just makes me want to the
> take the battle up a notch and just get rid of the picture from
> wikipedia - make it an external link (still not censorship - just what
> I would consider better discretion).

If there is a consensus to delete the picture, it should be deleted.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Bill Konrad said:
> I think  we need to aim for the semi-mythical Golden
> Mean in which the vast majority  of the content is acceptable to the
> vast majority of people, even if it  means excluding or "bowlderizing"
> a tiny fraction of content at the extreme  edges.
>
We already have processes to do that, and they're in operation on a daily
basis, on an article-by-article, picture-by-picture basis.  The argument
here seems to stem from the fact that, so far, we have not reached a
consensus that the item in question is either acceptable for inline use or
for linking, nor a consensus to delete it.
If a consensus had been found for any of those, we would not be having
this discussion.
On the other hand I think we're getting towards a working conensus now.
We currently seem to have an inlined drawing (not ideal, I think Rama can
do better) and a link to the photographic image underneath.


from_name: Sj

subject: [WikiEN-l] "The God-King drives a Hyundai"

body:
Daniel Pink's WIRED article about Wikipedia, "the self-organizing,
self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future," has hit the
shelves.

Titled "The Book Stops Here", the six-page piece opens with a picture
of Jimbo gazing levelly over a large stack of Britannica volumes and
-- are those the 2001 Florida Statues?   It follows up with a set of
beautiful sketches of six active wikipedians (Angela, Bryan Derksen,
Carptrash, Kingturtle, Ram-Man, and Raul654), whose stories are woven
into the article.

Pink deals quite well with the nuances and motivations of the en:
community, and the Wikipedia healing factor.  However he all but
ignores other languages (the article's one real flaw), and makes no
mention of Wikimedia, New York, or other gatherings.  He also
demonstrates a Pelligrinesque affection for the term "God-King" (the
subject is a quote from the article).

More :  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2005/02/17#a797

Cheers,
   SJ

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "The God-King drives a Hyundai"


from_name: Caroline Ewen

body:
Now that I've watched the discussion, I have some things to say about this.

First of all, I *strongly* object to arguments like "nothing more 'graphic'
than a 'Nazi uniform'."...wearing a Nazi uniform is quite a strong
statement, at least for Europeans. "If I should upload an image of myself
wearing a Democratic or Republican pin, for example, would that be
"disruptive"?" -> How can one even THINK of putting a democrat or republican
on the same level as a Nazi ?

I completely support NSK when he says that "the administrators were right to
delete it. Neo-Nazis will not be tolerated in Wikipedia." Maybe people
outside Europe don't get the point as much as we do, since we had
grandparents fighting in WWII, lost family members, and obviously have
already a different attitude towards all Nazi-symbols. Plus, on the lb wiki,
the guy would have been banned from the start since nazi-symbols are
considered to be illegal and must not be posted in Luxembourg (even if the
servers aren't in Lux, the pages are written in luxembourgish and the public
is luxembourgish).

Ok, maybe the way the administrator proceeded to make the blocks was not in
the same way that someone else would have done them, but that's the only
objection I have to make. How can we possibly tolerate a user who already by
his username does offend a great deal of other contributors and moreover has
links on his userpage to a site where I can't even find the words to
describe it.

IMHO,

Caroline aka Bris?is (lb, fr).

-----Message d'origine-----
De : wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] De la part de David Gerard
Envoy? : jeudi 17 f?vrier 2005 15:29
? : wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Objet : Re: [Wikipedia-l] Polite Thoughtful Neo-Nazis, was NSM88,deletion of
user page image, personal attacks

Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050218 01:23]:

> True and in our human attempt to adequately describe such folks we use
> the words "totalitarian" and "terrorist", in reference to such
> organizations and governments as the People's Republic of China and
> individuals such as Osama bin Ladin. Such folks do not hesitate to
> "mess up other things for the cause". There is every reason, based on
> their history, to presume that they will conduct themselves in that
> way on Wikipedia and in fact they routinely do so, some crudely, some with
a measure of sophistication.

Astroturfing in general is going to be a problem. See:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:204.251.90.242

The edit in question is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yahoo%21&diff=prev&oldid=10339741

That's a crude example. I am certain there are much less crude examples
ongoing as we speak.

- d.
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

body:
Thanks, SJ! I'll have to pick up a copy, since "I Was There"!

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:07:56 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Pink's WIRED article about Wikipedia, "the self-organizing,
> self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future," has hit the
> shelves.
>
> Titled "The Book Stops Here", the six-page piece opens with a picture
> of Jimbo gazing levelly over a large stack of Britannica volumes and
> -- are those the 2001 Florida Statues?   It follows up with a set of
> beautiful sketches of six active wikipedians (Angela, Bryan Derksen,
> Carptrash, Kingturtle, Ram-Man, and Raul654), whose stories are woven
> into the article.
>
> Pink deals quite well with the nuances and motivations of the en:
> community, and the Wikipedia healing factor.  However he all but
> ignores other languages (the article's one real flaw), and makes no
> mention of Wikimedia, New York, or other gatherings.  He also
> demonstrates a Pelligrinesque affection for the term "God-King" (the
> subject is a quote from the article).
>
> More :  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2005/02/17#a797
>
> Cheers,
>    SJ
>
> --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Cool Hand Luke

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 09:25:16 +0000, Christiaan Briggs
<christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> I'm intrigued by the efforts to label this an issue of editorial
> control. That presumes an extremely narrow definition of the word
> censorship and seems wholly disingenuous to me.
>
> Still no one has attempted a rational response to my question to
> Jimbo...
> What is it about a picture of a man performing autofellatio in an
> article about autofellatio that makes it "pornographic"?

Well, I'm not Jimbo, but I don't think he ever claimed it was
pornographic. One doesn't even need to tackle the pornography question
to realize it's a bad photo. Jimbo said that it was "unacceptable".
"This photo is terrible."

> It hurts the eyes on purely aesthetic and editorial grounds which have
> nothing to do with prudishness or censorship.

Editorially, this should make sense. As he said, it has high shock
value, distracting readers from the article, but has low educational
value. Furthermore, it's not clinical. It looks like porn, so it's not
an NPOV document of the act, and Jimbo analogized it to the original
clitoris image, which likely derived from porn and much less
educational than our current and indisputably GDFL image.

> And it is also objective to say that if the purpose
> of a photo is educational, then it should focus on the informational
> aspect rather than on sexually arousing (or shocking, or whatever) the
> viewer.

Finally, as he points out, it's almost certainly a copyright violation.

I believe appropriately illustrative photos of sex acts must have a
place on wikipedia (presumably presented in such a way to avoid
shocking viewers), but this photo is just plain bad for an
encyclopedia.


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
> What you are pointing to are the different levels of censorship. This
> discussion may involve a proposal of low-level censorship but it is
> censorship none the less.

We're not individuals working on an encyclopedia, we're a community
working jointly on an encyclopedia.

This isn't anyone censoring anyone, it's the community choosing not to
do something.


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO
	to	that image)

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Rich Holton said:
>
>>
>>I plead half-awakeness as my excuse for not seeing your point.
>>
>
> No problem.  Sometimes I don't express my point as well as I should.
>
> What's hitting me on the funny bone is that I don't see the same people
> who are asking for the Autofellatio picture to be justified making the
> same point about the Lolicon picture.  On the face of it, most of the

Sometimes it's better to just let your opponent in a debate make your
point for you. You're doing a beautiful job making my point for me.


from_name: Ginu George

subject: [Wikitech-l] www.en.wikipedia.org

body:
Type http://en.wikipedia.org

remove that www from the browser

Regards

Ginu George

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:04:22 +0200, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
> I cannot access www.en.wikipedia.org, I know this isn't supposed to be the
> right domain but I am sure many users make this mistake from time to time,
> and it can easily be avoided by enabling some new dns aliases.
>
> --
> NSK
> http://portal.wikinerds.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Regards
Ginu George
Journalist and Media Researcher
Dubai, United Arab Emirates


from_name: geni

body:
> Absolutely not.  I'm trying to illustrate that it is technically easier
> for a group that has a specific need for bowdlerized content to filter
> existing unbowdlerized content than to require all editors to edit to yet
> another limitation of their expression,

Except that your demonstartion fails in that it would be very little
effort to add the word sparrow to the spam blacklist
--
geni


from_name: Felix Wan

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again

body:
On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> Hi Felix,
>
> Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as
> to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
>
> What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50
> characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
>
> Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal
> things." without giving a valid reason?
>
[snipped]

That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese, even
native Cantonese speakers.  It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^  Compared to
those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.

However, also look at the brighter side.  If there was not such a debate,
I may not have done so much research and found this group of enthusiasts:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/

There are some excellent articles on why we should encourage Cantonese
speakers to write their own speeches:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/poorcantonese.htm
The first one is written in Cantonese, the second in standard Chinese
(Mandarin).

They have even compiled a list of Cantonese specific words, with
references, and they stated on the web site to release the following
two pages to the public domain:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm

Those can be a good starting point for the orthography of the potential
Cantonese Wikipedia.

Felix Wan


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to
	that image)

body:
> No problem.  Sometimes I don't express my point as well as I should.
> What's hitting me on the funny bone is that I don't see the same people
> who are asking for the Autofellatio picture to be justified making the
> same point about the Lolicon picture.  On the face of it, most of the
> reasons advanced for getting rid of the autofellatio picture, or at least
> making it a link, seem to hold up for Lolicon--if not even stronger.  But
> the chap in the autofellatio picture is clearly an adult having a whole
> heap of fun.  The girl in the Lolicon picture is submitting to child
> abuse, and the presentation is, or is intended to be, erotic.  Perhaps the
> fact that the latter picture is an anime drawing is the reason why it
> seems to fly under so many radars.

I'm currently involved in more content dissputes that I really have
time for when those are resolved I'll start to think about what to do
about this case.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Naughty/violent pictures

body:
> [[Paul Hardcastle]] and [[posttraumatic stress disorder]] may
> suffice.

Nope because they to suuport your claim that it is the contrast
between people's normal condition and combat conditions that cause the
problem.

>  Is it possible to reduce the number of young girls beeing (unwanted)
> pregnant by telling tham about the mechanics of pregnancy?

False analogy a better one would be to show pregant women aborted
fetuses so they will be less tramertised if it happens to them (and
even that one doesn't really work)

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: www.en.wikipedia.org

body:
In my end the http://en.wikipedia.org works well and there is no
re-direct for http://www.en.wikipedia.org. Its showing  not found

Regards

George

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:00:59 +0000, Jim Higson <jh at 333.org> wrote:
> Ginu George wrote:
>
> > Type http://en.wikipedia.org
> >
> > remove that www from the browser
>
> I think NSK knew that, but was pointing out it should redirect.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Regards
Ginu George
Journalist and Media Researcher
Dubai, United Arab Emirates


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net>
wrote:

> On 17 Feb 2005, at 5:29 pm, Puddl Duk wrote:
>
> > If you really want to look at it that way then
> every time you've
> > reverted someone, or deleted a single letter in an
> edit, you have
> > censored.
>
> Following this logic nothing could be considered
> censorship! Let's not
> play semantics here; censorship involves the removal
> or suppression of
> information on political or moral grounds. This is
> not our game. But
> yes, many edits could be seen as censorship and I
> would argue so.
> However this doesn't make it right and it certainly
> doesn't justify
> institutionalised censorship.
>
> Christiaan
>

Christiaan, you are the one who labeled this
censorship. I disagree;

Censorship, in this context, is when rules or
authority prohibit an image. And you have no say in
the matter. Wikipedia doesn't do this (outside of
illegal images).

Instead, we have an image policy that suggests
discussion before adding an objectionable image. I
guess you could label the winners of a vote to remove
an image as censors, but I wouldn't.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: www.en.wikipedia.org

body:
Thanks for the laugh :-)))))

ant

Ginu George a ?crit:
> Type http://en.wikipedia.org
>
> remove that www from the browser
>
>
> Regards
>
> Ginu George
>
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:04:22 +0200, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
>
>>I cannot access www.en.wikipedia.org, I know this isn't supposed to be the
>>right domain but I am sure many users make this mistake from time to time,
>>and it can easily be avoided by enabling some new dns aliases.
>>
>>--
>>NSK
>>http://portal.wikinerds.org
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Stats

body:
Is there any hope for stats to be fixed and run again ?

Please ?

Anthere

-------

#fr.wikipedia

Anthere: pourquoi les stats sont elles bloquees a decembre ?
     Med: Anthere: parce que le format des dump a chang??, que l'auteur
n'a pas modifi?? son script et qu'on n'a pas de machine pour les faire
tourner ?
Anthere: :-(
...
Anthere: j adore repondre ca a un journaliste...
     Med: Anthere: prend un d??veloppeur au hasard sur #mediawiki, pends
le par les couilles et rel??che le uniquement quand c'est ?  jour :)


from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Wikipedia-l] NSM88, deletion of user page image, personal attacks

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> .  There is a fundamental contradiction when you try to suppress
> Neo-Nazis by emulating their behaviour.

Godwin Point (i.e. baselessly accusing people of emulating nazi/fascist
behavior).

Perhaps we should concentrate on some facts: namely, that person was
editing articles related to Jews and heavily pushing certain very
specific points of views (holocaust denial) everywhere (even though
these points of views were already discussed in relevant pages),
including in headlines.

In short, the user was very very probably a troll intent on disrupting
Wikipedia.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: NSM88, deletion of user page image,
	personal attacks

body:
NSK a ?crit:
> On Thursday 17 February 2005 19:52, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>There is a fundamental contradiction when you try to suppress
>>Neo-Nazis by emulating their behaviour.
>
>
> Democracy should not protect those who seek to destroy it.

I get very similar messages on my blog. Generally, they come from casino
bots.

Ant


from_name: MilchFlasche瑋平

body:
Hello,

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:45:53 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
<felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
> On Tue, February 15, 2005 11:44 pm, Alex Y. Kwan said:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Felix Wan wrote:

>
> Meanwhile, I am trying to recruit new volunteers for the project:
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/bbsxp/ShowForum.htm?forumid=6
We really need contributors. I pray that more people who types
Cantonese hanzi everyday should join the testing.
>
> Let's see the response.  Also, go ahead to edit anything on the test site:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-WP/zh-yue
I'll spread this news on zh, hoping to attract more attention among
Hong Kong users but avoiding arousing the same murmuring such as
"????????????" ("Isn't this still written in hanzi? What's the
difference?") Yes, there ARE differences.
>
> >> People may still disagree, but at least that will be better than
> >> arguments without any backup.
> >
> > Yep.
> >
> > little Alex
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
2005, make signs happen!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: www.en.wikipedia.org

body:
NSK....

Stop the spam please.

anthere

NSK a ?crit:
> On Thursday 17 February 2005 14:40, Ginu George wrote:
>
>>Type http://en.wikipedia.org
>>remove that www from the browser
>
>
> Yes, of course I know that, but in many cases browsers add a www. For example,
> I am used to press the down arrow key after I type an address, because this
> causes Konqueror to add www. To understand better what I mean, you need to
> see how I use my browser:
>
> 1. If I want to visit my website, I type wikinerds.org and I press the down
> key arrow, so the browser takes me to http://www.wikinerds.org
> 2. When I wanted to visit English Wikipedia before the introduction of the
> Portal, I was just typing wikipedia.org and then I was pressing the down
> arrow key. So I was being redirected to http://en.wikipedia.org
> 3. Now, I *should* type en.wikipedia.org and press Enter to visit directly the
> English Wikipedia, but because I was used to the down arrow key before, many
> times I still press it and I end up at http://www.en.wikipedia.org
>
> I am sure I am not the only surfer which does that mistake, so I think a dns
> alias www.en would be useful. Users are too used to www.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Rebecca wrote:
> Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. What would the default setting be?

Let whoever codes it decide. Then we can have a functional system while
we spend months arguing about the default.


body:
On Thursday 17 February 2005 19:52, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> There is a fundamental contradiction when you try to suppress
> Neo-Nazis by emulating their behaviour.

Democracy should not protect those who seek to destroy it.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fwd: [Foundation-l] Import
	question

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> This might be raised in [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour]], but I suspect
>>> that it would not receive a warm reception.  While the words which
>>> are not yet in Wiktionary might be welcomed there would remain the
>>> question of how do you propose to reconcile your contributions with
>>> the words that we already have.  To the extent that any upload may
>>> be possible it should also be done at a rate that is slow enough to
>>> allow others to ask questions about each of your contributions.
>>> Perhaps by first entering a small sample of your files you could
>>> develop the confidence of the Wiktionary community that your
>>> contributions are acceptable.
>>>
>>> Ec (en:Wiktionary sysop)
>>
>>
>> Hoi,
>> This is a great example where the en:wiktionary assumes that is only
>> has been adressed when dictionary terms are mentioned. It also
>> assumes that its practices are the same on all wiktionaries. It is
>> only one wiktionary and they are not.
>
>
> What a liar!!!

A liar is someone who does not speak the truth. I am sorry that it hurts
you to hear something that has some truth.

>> There are several wiktionaries that welcome quality content and load
>> them in bulk with a bot onto their pages. We even apply for temporary
>> bot status so that it can be uploaded with a personalised bot (good
>> for the GFDL requirements). This is a great way of beefing up the
>> content of a project. Certainly when as often happens, the content is
>> either specialised or with translations to a specific language it can
>> be an extremely worthwhile addition to the wiktionary.
>
>
> If some other language Wiktionary is more interested in quantity than
> quality, or wants to use a bot just to beef up its article numbers the
> members there are welcome to come to such a community decision.

As neither you nor I have seen the data mentioned we are both in no
position to say something about the quality of the data. I do appreciate
quality data and, when I get quality data, I am happy to upload it to
the wiktionaries that appreciate it. We do use a bot for that and, why
should this be an issue when we know its source and when the quality of
the data is excellent ?

>
>> The argument that the upload should be slow enough for the community
>> to ask questions is based on what, fear ?? There is already plenty of
>> content on en: that is questionable like words spelled wrong, this is
>> spelled out, but hey, it is a dictionary and content SHOULD be
>> correct. So when you argue let us know what the content is about, I
>> could agree. When you say do it slowly as we want to look into every
>> addition, I would say that this is not feasible using a bot.
>
>
> If you believe that there are words spelled wrong on the en:wiktionary
> then fix them, rather than whining here that they should be correct.
> In the first place the members of a community need to know what a bot
> will do so that they can decide on whether it is acting
> appropriately.  Suddenly adding 20,000 entries without any opportunity
> to adapt them to current formatting practices is just adding 20,000
> tasks for other people to fix.  I am not prepared to arrogate to
> myself the authority to decide such a thing, nor can I accept that
> such a thing will be decided on a mailing list to which only a
> fraction of the active community subscribes.  The proposal needs to be
> put to a broader community of the en:Wiktionary before it can be
> implemented there.
>
> Ec
>
I do not have time to spend more time on the en:wiktionary. (I run a bot
on the en:wiktionary as we speak, and I run it on request.) I do agree
that a community may know in advance what is going to happen. But why
the community should be against data with words, descriptions and
translations that currently do not exist is beyond me. Your idea that a
file cannot be created that does conform to a standard is also something
that is based on .. what ??

When I get this file, I will look at it. If it is any good I will create
a big file that may be used as input for the bot. I will leave the
translation part as is customary to me and the other bits as is
customary to you. I will write in the beer parlour that I have quality
data that I can upload to the en:wiktionary and when I get reasonable
questions I will give reasonable answers.  And after a week, given a
reasonable outcome, I may start uploading the data. There will be no
need to adapt them, do not worry :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
geni said:
>> Absolutely not.  I'm trying to illustrate that it is technically
>> easier for a group that has a specific need for bowdlerized content to
>> filter existing unbowdlerized content than to require all editors to
>> edit to yet another limitation of their expression,
>
>
> Except that your demonstartion fails in that it would be very little
> effort to add the word sparrow to the spam blacklist

I don't see that it does.  Editors would still use the word sparrow and
end up having to think up some alternative that was close but not quite
the same.  We'd end up with a poorer encyclopedia, even if you had this
simple technical fix (which doesn't exist for pictures in any case).


body:
NSK said:
> On Thursday 17 February 2005 19:52, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> There is a fundamental contradiction when you try to suppress
>> Neo-Nazis by emulating their behaviour.
>
> Democracy should not protect those who seek to destroy it.

Well whether or not you think it should, the fact is that it does.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
JAY JG said:
>
>
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>
>>
>>JAY JG said:
>> >
[on forks]
>> > You would end up with different articles on
>> > the same  subject contradicting each other.
>>
>>Is this necessarily a problem?
>
> Yes. If two articles on the same subject contradict each other, then
> either  we haven't done a proper NPOV job in writing them, or one is
> wrong.
>
I don't agree with that premise. Different writers will have different
information and will produce divergent articles that may be reasonably
NPOV.  There is no perfect NPOV article on any subject, so NPOV articles
on the same subject will naturally differ according to their editors.
As I said in an earlier email, I think the "too few eyes" argument
convinces me.  I think divergence could be an asset if we could learn how
to harness it.


from_name: Douglas Gordin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatic Generate of MediaWiki Pages

body:
I would like to automatically generate MediaWiki pages based on an external
data source. These pages may link to one another and have associated images.
How can I do this, say from Java or PhP? Thanks.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Alex Y. Kwan

body:
Hello,

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 08:15:42 +0100, pinco <pinco at kiesperanto.org> wrote:
> Hi Alex,
> thank you for your attention!
>
> I'm changing the page. You'll find a Chinese enter (?ina, in Esperanto)
> where you can add your sentences under "mandarena" (Mandarin) or
> "kantona" (Cantonese). I know nothing abour Chinese! What's the
> difference between: Mandarin, Cantonese, Ming-Nan, Simplified Chinese,
> Traditional Chinese? Should I add all of them?
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Nino
In the language aspect, Mandarin, Cantonese and Minnan are distinct
languages, while "Simplified Chinese" and "Traditional Chinese"
actually refer to two type of hanzi writing system. Mandarin can be
written in both, while Cantonese is usually written in Traditional
Chinese hanzi.
>
> > I'd love to, but I don't know exactly where I should add it. Under
> > Chinese, probably, but that means the "wo ai ni" should be under
> > Chinese->Mandarin so that I can add a Chinese->Cantonese category.
> > Don't know what's either of those in Esperanto, though. :)
> >
> > little Alex
>
> --
> http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
> http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidariet? per la Tanzania)
> http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
2005, make signs happen!


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
As I recall from the Dune books, a real God-Emperor goes around on a sort of
trolley.  We can't deny Jimbo the prescience, but I think the transformation
to sandworm will take work.

Charles


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > A picture of a man fellating himself.
>
> And what information do we gain from that?
>
> --
> geni

How many times do you need to hear the same answer?
How many times do you need to ask the same question?
Are you not reading the answers, or don't understand
them, or have you fallen to the depths of trolling?

As has been repeatedly said to you, the information
that we gain is evidence that the act can actually be
performed.

RickK

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] New Users on New Wikipedia?

body:
--- Arno M <redgum46 at lycos.com> wrote:

> "Look what the cat dug up:  [[User:NSM88]]"
>
> For someone who was only in Wikipedia for about 2.5
> hours ,NSM88 has
> certainly created a lot of fuss here.
>
> (see
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=NSM88)
>
> What if two of them had come by....
>
> Incidentally, if this guy did blow in from the
> Stormfront, then there seems to have
> been a change of mind over there. Here's a St
> Valentines Day note that appeared there:
>
> "The only solution is to setup our own wikipedia,
> which is called a fork and to set it up with the
> idea of promoting neutrality, balance and a wide
> range of point of views. Not to mention keeping a
> very close eye on Jewish topics and people suspected
> of being jew biased."

We've also been visited by [[User:SS-88]] and
[[User:SS88]].

RickK

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


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO
	tothat image)

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> > The image in question is a cartoon of a little
> girl with her bare bottom
> > exposed. That's all, just her bare bottom. I don't
> know about Florida, but
> > commercials for baby products in California *very*
> often show the bare bottoms
> > of very young children (real ones, not cartoons).
> >
> > -- mav
>
> I wonder what these overly-sensitive people would
> have done a few
> decades ago when one could see the classic
> Coppertone ad on a
> billboard, right out in public and all.
>
> For those whose childhood didn't include this iconic
> image: Coppertone
> was a sunscreen product, the advertisements for
> which showed a drawing
> of a very young (under 10 years old) girl whose
> swimsuit bottom (as I
> recall, she wore nothing on top) was being pulled
> down by a cocker
> spaniel to reveal the contrast between her
> well-tanned back and very
> pale bottom.

The little girl who modeled for those ads was Jodie
Foster.

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Yann Forget

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation and the World Summit on
	Information Society

body:
Hi,

I take part to the preliminary session of the World Summut on Information
Society (WSIS) [1] in Geneva, from February 17th to 25th.

There are already a lot of people supporting our ideas (sharing knowledge and
free content) who take part in the WSIS. These people do lobbying for these
ideas to members states delegates for adopting a resolution in the WSIS.
So these ideas get also promoted among people taking part in the process.

I propose that Wikimedia Foundation gets involved with the WSIS:
* The foundation should start the process to get official recognition from
WSIS.
* The foundation should look for financial support to send delegate(s) to
Tunis.
* Does the foundation have a proposition or a recommendation to the WSIS ?

Comments and propositions:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_Summit_on_Information_Society

Regards,
Yann

[1] http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/pc2/index.html


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050217 23:28]:

> As our policy is currently written, running off neo-nazis or Stalinist (or
> Trotskyist or Maoist) revolutionaries is not permitted. Nor is exclusion of
> open advocates of Islamic (or Zionist) terrorism. In my opinion we should
> change that policy and permit exclusion of open advocates of totalitarian
> ideologies and terrorism.

I'm not sure we actually *need* this as yet. The Wikipedia immune system
appears to be working fine from here.

> The actions you describe are not acceptable behavior from Wikipedia
> administrators.

The blocks were seen as unfair and promptly undone by other admins, which
demonstrates to the original blockers that their reason was seen as
inadequate. Though my block (for being a trolling account with no good
edits - I am entirely unconvinced that User:NSM88 has anything to do with
the personit purports to be operated by) stuck, until being unblocked
yesterday by Snowspinner as it was clogging an AOL proxy. (The way to get
around that one, as I understand it, is to undo the IP number block but
leave the username blocked.)

Admins not sure about whether something should be blocked should ask on
[[WP:AN]], which is excellent for sanity checking of janitorial decisions.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Christiaan Briggs (christiaan at last-straw.net) [050217 20:25]:

> The beauty is we don't have to come to an agreement; many of us have
> been able to agree to a technical solution that skirts around the whole
> issue and leaves censorship up to the enduser. So why we're still
> debating instead of implementing the idea I'm not entirely sure.

Because email is easier than coding ;-)

(I so need to learn enough PHP to hack Mediawiki.)

- d.


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Nicholas Knight said:
>
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>>the chap in the autofellatio picture is clearly an adult having a whole
>>>heap of fun.  The girl in the Lolicon picture is submitting to child
>>>abuse, and the presentation is, or is intended to be, erotic.
>>
>>Sometimes it's better to just let your opponent in a debate make your
>>point for you. You're doing a beautiful job making my point for me.
>
>
> Hardly.

Yeah, it relies on you not realizing you're doing it.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] French wikipedians requesting to install Wikiforum
	extension on French Wikipedia

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> - Look at the source [3] and give me a list of needed
> security/performance fix.

I fixed a couple of the most obvious security problems:

* The Special:Newthread edit form provided a very nice cross-site
scripting injection point. Once a user is tricked into visiting a
certain URL (can be via a redirection or frame) their authentication
cookies can be stolen, or nearly any authenticated action on the wiki
can be performed as that user via JavaScript manipulation from the
hacked form.

* The Special:Newthread form submission didn't use the edit token,
allowing for cross-site request forgery to submit new threads under a
victim's user account if they visit an offsite page containing a form
and a little JavaScript.

Before anyone should consider deploying this in the field, there are
other very significant problems with how it accepts edits:

* It doesn't check for read-only mode

* It doesn't check if the user is blocked

* It doesn't check whitelist-edit mode

* It doesn't check content against the spam blacklist or filter callback

And some general functional issues:

* The localized text doesn't fit with MediaWiki as a whole; the user's
selected language is ignored, and the messages aren't customizable
through the MediaWiki: interface.

* Edit comments aren't formatted in the Special:Forum list the way they
are elsewhere

* Edit comments are cut off manually at a byte offset, which could break
UTF-8 characters. Instead, use $wgContLang->truncate() or show the
complete comment.

* The code that outputs the table on Special:Forum is very fragile. Many
pieces are done with wikitext which can break when some characters are
used (try for instance making a thread titled "''Spiffy''"; the link
becomes broken in the list).

* The use of the unlabeled magnification icon to show/hide a chunk of
in-place text is very nonintuitive. Consider using the arrows from the
enhanced recent changes display.

* Obviously these don't work at all if the client has JavaScript
disabled; consider not displaying the unmanipulable bits in this case.

* Whatever it looks like, a tiny icon is a tough target to click on; I
constantly have the urge to click on the _title_ and assume it will
expand the text, but this links to the separate page.

More generally it seems a bit confusing; at the demo site at
http://test-wikipedia.saewyc.net/index.php/Special:Forum there are two
entire tables of threads one after the other without an obvious reason
or explanation. One has expando-bits, the other doesn't.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:37:41 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
> <felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
>>> Hi Felix,
>>>
>>> Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as
>>> to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
>>>
>>> What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50
>>> characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
>>>
>>> Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal
>>> things." without giving a valid reason?
>>>
>> [snipped]
>>
>> That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese,
>> even
>> native Cantonese speakers.  It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^  Compared
>> to
>> those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.
>>

If I may venture to speculate, it seems likely that the source of the
Cantonese wikipedia push comes, not from the desire of a large number
of Cantonese speakers to have Cantonese as a separate written language,
but in a social problem involving the attitude of the writers of the
"standard" dialect of a language towards others who use culturally
important, but not formally approved of, versions of the language.
People whose home dialect is close to the standard dialect often
display this attitude, and because of the educational and professional
incentives on the mainland, speaking the official version of the
language - essentially a formalized version of the Beijing dialect -
has a tremendous cultural cachet. The response is, often, for users of
the culturally significant vernacular to declare that they are a
separate formal language, even if this is not entirely supportable. In
some cases this is enough to split the language, but usually it is not.

While this is not to discourage the people trying to start a cantonese
wikipedia, it suggests that even if it works, it does not address the
root problem of a cultural/language clash involving usage on the
chinese wikipedia. This would indicate, therefore, that regardless of
the outcome of the cantonese wikipedia, that some measures should be
taken to reduce the strain on the chinese wikipedia in some fashion.

Perhaps this will make people reconsider my call for dialectical
support in wikipedia - where people can choose not only their own
language, but the dialect of it, and it would be possible to add markup
information which would allow for differences in what is displayed
based on dialect of the viewer. I feel that in the case of cantonese,
this ability would be sufficient to reach a resolution - where
cantonese speakers could enrich the content of the chinese wikipedia
with cantonese native words and usage, without triggering the ire of
the beijing dialect users.


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
On 17 Feb 2005, at 3:37 pm, Jim Trodel wrote:

> Editorial control is what we do everyday in deciding what stays in our
> out. Censoring would be to delete all mention of a specific item
> including systematically deleting any reference or access to the
> subject matter. Censorship is not continuing to provide easy access to
> information or images while not forcing it on everyone. Read Farenheit
> 451 for (albiet extreme) real censorship - or other efforts in the
> past to systemically burn books to remove them from the library and
> prevent all access. Limiting access is often called censorship but is
> not.

What you are pointing to are the different levels of censorship. This
discussion may involve a proposal of low-level censorship but it is
censorship none the less.

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
As part of the discussion about the Autofellatio image Jimmy (Jimbo)
Wales wrote:

> But, consider this restatement: Are we trying to build an
> encyclopedia, or an electronic playpen where annoying trolls can dump
> their porn photos without supervision?

Many other people have also objected to the image on the grounds that
it is "pornographic'.

Christiaan

On 17 Feb 2005, at 11:18 pm, Cool Hand Luke wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 09:25:16 +0000, Christiaan Briggs
> <christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
>> I'm intrigued by the efforts to label this an issue of editorial
>> control. That presumes an extremely narrow definition of the word
>> censorship and seems wholly disingenuous to me.
>>
>> Still no one has attempted a rational response to my question to
>> Jimbo...
>> What is it about a picture of a man performing autofellatio in an
>> article about autofellatio that makes it "pornographic"?
>
> Well, I'm not Jimbo, but I don't think he ever claimed it was
> pornographic. One doesn't even need to tackle the pornography question
> to realize it's a bad photo. Jimbo said that it was "unacceptable".
> "This photo is terrible."
>
>> It hurts the eyes on purely aesthetic and editorial grounds which have
>> nothing to do with prudishness or censorship.
>
> Editorially, this should make sense. As he said, it has high shock
> value, distracting readers from the article, but has low educational
> value. Furthermore, it's not clinical. It looks like porn, so it's not
> an NPOV document of the act, and Jimbo analogized it to the original
> clitoris image, which likely derived from porn and much less
> educational than our current and indisputably GDFL image.
>
>> And it is also objective to say that if the purpose
>> of a photo is educational, then it should focus on the informational
>> aspect rather than on sexually arousing (or shocking, or whatever) the
>> viewer.
>
> Finally, as he points out, it's almost certainly a copyright violation.
>
> I believe appropriately illustrative photos of sex acts must have a
> place on wikipedia (presumably presented in such a way to avoid
> shocking viewers), but this photo is just plain bad for an
> encyclopedia.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net>
wrote:

> On 18 Feb 2005, at 2:58 am, Puddl Duk wrote:
>
> > Censorship, in this context, is when rules or
> authority prohibit an
> > image. And you have no say in the matter.
> Wikipedia doesn't do this
> > (outside of illegal images).
>
> What do you mean in this context? Censorship has a
> meaning. You are
> simply describing one kind of censorship. You can't
> just define it for
> your own purposes. We would be actively
> participating in
> self-censorship if we were to link or remove this
> image on the grounds
> that it was explicit. Please can we stop kidding
> around that this would
> not constitute censorship.
>
> Christiaan
>

If you want to make this a black and white issue then
'please stop kidding around' and admit that every time
you make a reversion you too are censoring.

And (repeating) the part you snipped and didn't reply
to;

...Instead, we have an image policy that suggests
discussion before adding an objectionable image. I
guess you could label the winners of a vote to remove
an image as censors, but I wouldn't...

The main point (in my mind) is that censorship is
imposed on a community by power of authority, and the
community has no say. Wikipedia image use policy
doesn't do this, instead it asks for people's
collective judgment.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On 17 Feb 2005, at 5:29 pm, Puddl Duk wrote:

> If you really want to look at it that way then every time you've
> reverted someone, or deleted a single letter in an edit, you have
> censored.

Following this logic nothing could be considered censorship! Let's not
play semantics here; censorship involves the removal or suppression of
information on political or moral grounds. This is not our game. But
yes, many edits could be seen as censorship and I would argue so.
However this doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't justify
institutionalised censorship.

Christiaan


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Hi Stirling and Cathy,

I will respond separately.

Cathy, these are all good and fine issues you raise.

>The answers vary but in sum, none of us have ever written anything in
>full Cantonese in the context of article-writing.  Contrary to what
>you may believe, it is actually hard to write in full-Cantonese
>without mixing in formal Chinese in a passage.  But on an
>interpersonal level - that is much easier and we do write short memos
>an notes to one another in Cantonese.

This has been experienced by many a language in the past. For example,
the O'odham language local to where I live had some issues at first
where people thought English should be used in all formal contexts and
O'odham should only be used for interpersonal communication and the
like.

People found it difficult to write O'odham because they had been
taught to write English in school.

However, with a little bit of effort on the part of everybody, these
people decided it was worth it to use their native language in /all/
realms of life with only one exception, communication with people who
do not know O'odham at all.

At first it was difficult - people kept substituting English words
when there was a perfectly suitable O'odham equivalent, at least in
formal writing - but in a short while people really got the hang of it
and it was even fun for them.

Now there is radio, minor newspapers, road signs, local government,
utility bills, business, and school all operating entirely in O'odham
(with the exception of the schools which are bilingual - if they
didn't teach English as their first language they would get hate mail
from all over the country and pressure from the federal government to
cease), and it has really experienced a wonderful blossoming (still no
novels or post secondary education - that may have to wait).

What I'm saying here is that the reason it is difficult for you and
your friends and colleagues to write long passages in Cantonese is
because you don't have a lot of experience with writing Cantonese.
That is to say, you may have experience writing messages like "Please
have the papers ready for me in 5 minutes", but you don't have
experience writing longer passages with content more like "It was my
idea originally, but to Connie it was so intriguing that I let her fly
with it. The results were more successful than we could imagine, they
have increased the net worth of the division 150%. It's amazing nobody
had thought of it before".

I don't know for sure but I am willing to hazard a guess that people
like those at cantonese.org.cn can write longer passages in Cantonese
relatively easily, purely, and fluently because it is something they
do often.

As far as the Hong Kong vs Guangdong thing, I think a lot of this
arises from terms that would be more used in daily conversation than
informative speech, if you are talking semi-formally about Germany I
think there would be very few problems compared to if you are talking
informally about your family or especially about "extreme
colloquialised" topics such as romantic relationships.

The differences between written HK Cantonese and GD Cantonese are
very, very small when compared to those between written HK Cantonese
and Baihuawen - the character used for negation in Cantonese means "to
bite" in Baihuawen (this is partially because the etymologically
correct character was phased out of colloquial Cantonese writing some
time ago, and replaced with the more recent idea to use the current
character).

Stirling,

We have already discussed between you and I what you are currently suggesting.

I do not want to argue with you about it so I only ask one thing.

Is it or is it not full-blown machine translation? It requires not
only conversion of minor vocabulary differences, but grammatical,
syntactic, and many other changes.

Mark

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:26:05 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:37:41 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
> > <felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
> >> On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> >>> Hi Felix,
> >>>
> >>> Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as
> >>> to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
> >>>
> >>> What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50
> >>> characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
> >>>
> >>> Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal
> >>> things." without giving a valid reason?
> >>>
> >> [snipped]
> >>
> >> That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese,
> >> even
> >> native Cantonese speakers.  It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^  Compared
> >> to
> >> those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.
> >>
>
> If I may venture to speculate, it seems likely that the source of the
> Cantonese wikipedia push comes, not from the desire of a large number
> of Cantonese speakers to have Cantonese as a separate written language,
> but in a social problem involving the attitude of the writers of the
> "standard" dialect of a language towards others who use culturally
> important, but not formally approved of, versions of the language.
> People whose home dialect is close to the standard dialect often
> display this attitude, and because of the educational and professional
> incentives on the mainland, speaking the official version of the
> language - essentially a formalized version of the Beijing dialect -
> has a tremendous cultural cachet. The response is, often, for users of
> the culturally significant vernacular to declare that they are a
> separate formal language, even if this is not entirely supportable. In
> some cases this is enough to split the language, but usually it is not.
>
> While this is not to discourage the people trying to start a cantonese
> wikipedia, it suggests that even if it works, it does not address the
> root problem of a cultural/language clash involving usage on the
> chinese wikipedia. This would indicate, therefore, that regardless of
> the outcome of the cantonese wikipedia, that some measures should be
> taken to reduce the strain on the chinese wikipedia in some fashion.
>
> Perhaps this will make people reconsider my call for dialectical
> support in wikipedia - where people can choose not only their own
> language, but the dialect of it, and it would be possible to add markup
> information which would allow for differences in what is displayed
> based on dialect of the viewer. I feel that in the case of cantonese,
> this ability would be sufficient to reach a resolution - where
> cantonese speakers could enrich the content of the chinese wikipedia
> with cantonese native words and usage, without triggering the ire of
> the beijing dialect users.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Then allow me to be more precise: self-censorship.

Christiaan

On 18 Feb 2005, at 12:40 am, Nicholas Knight wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>> What you are pointing to are the different levels of censorship. This
>> discussion may involve a proposal of low-level censorship but it is
>> censorship none the less.
>
> We're not individuals working on an encyclopedia, we're a community
> working jointly on an encyclopedia.
>
> This isn't anyone censoring anyone, it's the community choosing not to
> do something.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Well let's start a page of the meta where we can thrash the idea out
and get some input from coders.

Christiaan

David Gerard wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs:
>
>> The beauty is we don't have to come to an agreement; many of us have
>> been able to agree to a technical solution that skirts around the
>> whole
>> issue and leaves censorship up to the enduser. So why we're still
>> debating instead of implementing the idea I'm not entirely sure.
>
> Because email is easier than coding ;-)
>
> (I so need to learn enough PHP to hack Mediawiki.)


body:
Andre Engels (andreengels at gmail.com) [050218 00:35]:

> The Arbcom cannot and should not exclude _advocates_, but it would
> have good grounds to exclude _advocacy_, because that is hardly if
> ever NPOV. If someone spends a large part of their Wikipedia time in
> an area where after repeated attempts they do not seem to be willing
> and able to write NPOV, I think arbitration could step in to forbid
> them from editing on that subject.
> However, such should be judged from the extent to which their POV
> hinders their NPOV editing, not from the nature of the POV they are
> editing from. Although it can hardly be avoided that we put the bar
> higher for people with a more extreme and uncommon POV, this to me
> means that we should encourage those who manage to pass that higher
> bar and compliment them. I would be happy to see a neonazi write about
> the major groups and leaders in their field.

The ARbCom has addressed this precise issue in two recent cases - LaRouche
2 (just closed) and Robert the Bruce (ongoing). Holding and advocating a
strong point of view elsewhere is not considered prima facie evidence of
POV-pushing on Wikipedia itself - only the edits are that. Of course, if
someone is here owing to a call to action on a mailing list, or from a
group known for uncompromising evangelism of their position, their edits
are likely to be under considerable scruitiny.

But most activists are activists because they want to make the world
better; only a minority are sufficiently obsessed with their cause to
blithely mess up other things for the cause. So there's no reason to
presume they're not comporting themselves properly here unless and until
they actually do just that. Indeed, a proper NPOV presentation is probably
the best way to get one's point into Wikipedia.

That said, Wikipedia may be tolerant but we're not stupid.

- d.


body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050218 01:23]:

> True and in our human attempt to adequately describe such folks we use the
> words "totalitarian" and "terrorist", in reference to such organizations and
> governments as the People's Republic of China and individuals such as Osama
> bin Ladin. Such folks do not hesitate to "mess up other things for the
> cause". There is every reason, based on their history, to presume that they
> will conduct themselves in that way on Wikipedia and in fact they routinely
> do so, some crudely, some with a measure of sophistication.

Astroturfing in general is going to be a problem. See:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:204.251.90.242

The edit in question is here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yahoo%21&diff=prev&oldid=10339741

That's a crude example. I am certain there are much less crude examples
ongoing as we speak.

- d.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Stats

body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 02:39:54 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So we can expect fresh stats in a few weeks :-)
> Very good news so :-) thanks Erik
>
> ant

In the meantime it would be great to have the webalizer stats back.

>
> Erik Zachte a ?crit:
> >>Is there any hope for stats to be fixed and run again ?
> >
> >
> > The Wikipedia archives for some major languages have been restructured (*),
> > in order to reduce database size. The conversion took many weeks, during
> > which no new dumps were made. About a week ago dumps in the new format
> > became available. Now the stats scripts need a non-trivial update.
> >
> > Unfortunately I have been very busy lately. I hope to start working on this
> > within a week or so.
> >
> > By the way: I'll probably need to turn away from the dumps towards direct
> > SQL access after the major database scheme change planned for the next major
> > MediaWiki release. This will probably mean the stats job should become
> > restartable and data should be collected incrementally. As I can only work
> > seriously on that after the databases shuffle has been completed, or a good
> > test set has become available, expect a similar outage by then.
> >
> > Erik Zachte
> >
> > ----
> >
> > (*) 10 article revisions are grouped together, compressed and stored in one
> > database entry, other 9 entries contain a pointer to this entry.
> >
> > Brion and Tim talked about this in Berlin, and explained this was critical
> > to keep database server up and running, as there was only free disk space
> > left for a week or two and no more open slots to plug in extra disks.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] French wikipedians requesting to
	install Wikiforum extension on French Wikipedia

body:
Can you edit other people's posts? ;)

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:46:48 +0100, Emmanuel Engelhart
<emmanuel at engelhart.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:48:32 +0900
> Guillaume Blanchard <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp> wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> That's my feeling too.
> We all need a forum system compatible with the wiki principes.
> Guillaume worked on it, and provides now a first version which is useable.
> French wikipedians have massive voted YES to try this new feature.
> So, I hope too, that our main developpers will bring it on fr:
>
> Best regards
>
> Kelson
>
> > Hi all,
> > After my previous e-mail about Wikiforum [1] I got many feedbacks from
> > users, but only few from developers. I made all requested fix, then,
> > _nothing. I can't personally force developers to look closely at this
> > extension likewise I can't force them to install it even if there is no
> > problem. Hoping a strong mobilization of the French community can do
> > that, we organized a pool few days ago [2]. The result is limpid: 55
> > French users are now requesting this extension (0 against and 5 that
> > prefer "real" forum or Usenet). 55 users for a pool in 2 days is very a
> > lot for the French community (ie. vote to decide arbitrators' rules have
> > actually 30 votes in 9 days) and I hope you will respect it by:
> > - Install this extension "as it" on French Wikipedia.
> > or:
> > - Look at the source [3] and give me a list of needed
> > security/performance fix.
> > You can still test this extension on Amgine's server [4].
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Aoineko
> >
> > [1] Description:
> > -- French: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikiforum
> > -- English (few information): http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiforum
> > [2] Pool to implement Wikiforum on French Wikipedia:
> > http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Mise_en_place_du_Wikiforum
> >
> > [3] Sources are on the CVS repository at "/extensions/wikiforum" (please
> > don't change the pagination while I'm developing)
> > [4] Test server: http://test-wikipedia.saewyc.net/index.php/Special:Forum
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne conna?t pas.
>         -- Blaise Pascal
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Emmanuel Engelhart      ICQ UIN : 53388731   TEL (+49)(0)6.22.15.88.03.31
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikitech-l] Stats

body:
> Is there any hope for stats to be fixed and run again ?

The Wikipedia archives for some major languages have been restructured (*),
in order to reduce database size. The conversion took many weeks, during
which no new dumps were made. About a week ago dumps in the new format
became available. Now the stats scripts need a non-trivial update.

Unfortunately I have been very busy lately. I hope to start working on this
within a week or so.

By the way: I'll probably need to turn away from the dumps towards direct
SQL access after the major database scheme change planned for the next major
MediaWiki release. This will probably mean the stats job should become
restartable and data should be collected incrementally. As I can only work
seriously on that after the databases shuffle has been completed, or a good
test set has become available, expect a similar outage by then.

Erik Zachte

----

(*) 10 article revisions are grouped together, compressed and stored in one
database entry, other 9 entries contain a pointer to this entry.

Brion and Tim talked about this in Berlin, and explained this was critical
to keep database server up and running, as there was only free disk space
left for a week or two and no more open slots to plug in extra disks.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Stats

body:
So we can expect fresh stats in a few weeks :-)
Very good news so :-) thanks Erik

ant

Erik Zachte a ?crit:
>>Is there any hope for stats to be fixed and run again ?
>
>
> The Wikipedia archives for some major languages have been restructured (*),
> in order to reduce database size. The conversion took many weeks, during
> which no new dumps were made. About a week ago dumps in the new format
> became available. Now the stats scripts need a non-trivial update.
>
> Unfortunately I have been very busy lately. I hope to start working on this
> within a week or so.
>
> By the way: I'll probably need to turn away from the dumps towards direct
> SQL access after the major database scheme change planned for the next major
> MediaWiki release. This will probably mean the stats job should become
> restartable and data should be collected incrementally. As I can only work
> seriously on that after the databases shuffle has been completed, or a good
> test set has become available, expect a similar outage by then.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
> ----
>
> (*) 10 article revisions are grouped together, compressed and stored in one
> database entry, other 9 entries contain a pointer to this entry.
>
> Brion and Tim talked about this in Berlin, and explained this was critical
> to keep database server up and running, as there was only free disk space
> left for a week or two and no more open slots to plug in extra disks.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> Haven't read the article yet, but I thought "benevolent dictator" was
> the term of choice. Not that I think Jimbo isn't God-like.

'GodKing' in wiki circles is not a term of endearment:

"Kings that are so arrogant that they suppose they are "god". A GodKing is a
site owner or administrator who uses their special authority more than
absolutely necessary. Wikis (especially MeatBall) generally frown on this sort
of thing, so any such use may be considered an abuse. A GodKing is a bad thing
(an AntiPattern; see CategoryRole)."

Cite: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?GodKing

That does not describe Jimbo at all.

--mav

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
So, to summarize

Until a little while ago, the only requirement was that 5 people show interest.
It did not matter that these 5 were trolls, or were regulars, or even voted 3 months ago.

I suggested a change in policy, requiring that amongst these 5 people, at least 2 are regular editors of at least one of our projects.
You agreed with this suggestion.

One week later, you would like to change it again, and change the 2 regular editors requirement to a at least 2 editors are creating/translating policies on meta.

When I object that a project started by 5 totally unknown editors is likely to have problems respecting our basic principles, you answer that the requirement of being a long term editor is not a proof that the editor is well versed in our policy.

Though I agree with this statement, I consider it a fallacy. There is much much more chance that an editor having been for a while on a project is aware of our policies, and the fact he might NOT be is NO argument to support people with no experience is better than people with experience.

We do have three major points to consider

* understanding that the project is a collaboration, that a sysop is not the boss, and that being the sysop of a project absolutely does not mean that the sysop should restrict access to pages such as the main page.

* understanding our neutrality policy, which is not always easy for a newbie, and results sometimes in main page being covered with advertisement

* understanding our copyright policy; though less visible, it is for wikinews the more tricky one, and very likely the one most likely to get us in trouble.

When someone will start a new wikinews, it is VERY likely a wikipedia will already exist in that language, so there is no need to translate ANYTHING. THe editor can just go to the relevant projet language, and COPY the NPOV rules, copy the COPYRIGHT rules. Just copy and past text does not mean this text is understood, nor that it is applied.

If you mean by COPYING rules, just going to the english version and copying the rules of the english version, I will object that no project should exist which has no community able to make their own rules.

If you do want an example of what I mean, I invite you to visit http://wo.wikipedia.org

This is a new project.
A group of editors from an african NGO want to work on it.
For it to start, one of those guys asked me to be sysop on it (needed for decent start).

In his country, french is widely spoken, so he just copied french wikipedia rules.
Then, as soon as he was sysop, he put some advertisement for his NGO on the main page, then when the main page was restored to a more neutral situation, he put back the advertisement (in good faith I am sure) and protected the main page.

In 24 hours, this editor, who want to nurture a group of at least 5 people,
* broke the rule of neutrality (though he had copied them from fr)
* broke the rule of collaborative writing (restricting access to main page to him only)
* broke the rule of admin just being no more powerful than another editor (in reverting and protecting the page to his preference)

For all I know, the text he put on the main page could be under copyright as well.

In short, what you are asking is basically that we remove the requirement we just agreed upon, which was frankly not very demanding. Why did you agree on it to immediately remove your agreement ?

Anthere-

>
> * activity shows interest, so avoid missed launches such as the french
> wikinews one

Actually, it doesn't. French Wikinews would have passed the edit count
requirements (haven't checked user duration); as you yourself said,
Greudin is a very active user on fr.wikipedia and has pledged support
for the French Wikinews, yet he has only made a handful of edits there.

Translating/creating policies seems to be a much better test of actual
interest in doing work. Once you do that, that shows a commitment to the
project.

>
> * past activity of at least 2 editors on a wikipedia (for example)
> indicates that at least 2 editors are aware of our basic principles
> and in particular NPOV requirement.

What better test could there be for people understanding a policy like
NPOV than requiring them to translate it?

> Again, the is a security measure. If 5 people, not even one oldby on
> one of our project, decide to  launch a wikinews with no experience at
> all, there is rather high risk that some of our principles are not
> respected;

I don't see it that way. Just because someone has been on Wikipedia for
months doesn't mean that they respect policies at all. Quantity is not
quality, and measuring quality is almost impossible while keeping the
process scalable and fair. One could even argue that malicious trolls or
otherwise harmful users who know how to manipulate policies in their
interest are more likely to come from our existing user base. In fact,
Wikinews will especially attract people who are fed up with Wikipedia
and want to work on another wiki.

> and since it is not in a language we necessarily manage, it might go
> on for a long time.

This is more likely if key policies like NPOV are *not* translated. If
we can agree on which parts of our policies are not negotiable, we can
make sure that they are in place. One of these policies can even include
instructions on what to do if your wiki doesn't follow the Wikimedia
spirit (contact stewards etc.).

Future projects don't necessarily match our current userbase. To tie the
process for creating new language editions directly to that userbase
seems needlessly restrictive. Building a small community on Meta and
writing key pages before launching the project is also simply good
planning -- exactly the kind of thing that could have helped to prevent
the current fr.wikinews.org situation, much more so than algorithmic
requirements whose actual predictive value is very low, as that
experience has shown.

Regards,

Erik

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
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subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
I regret that you use fallacies so much Erik.
Trying to remove the requirement that 2 over 5 people are regulars so as to start a project,
by arguing that these 2 might be trolls or want to destroy wikipedia, strike me as deeply dishonnest.

I was deeply deeply unhappy of the creation of the french wikinews,
because this creation was not done according to the support of the french community.
The result is a broken project, which I deeply regret.

I find disquieting that you tried to cool down people like notafish and I by agreeing to add a new requirement
for the creation, only to try to cancel it two weeks later.

You can not at the same time FORCE all communities, without asking their opinion, of not using
images uploads, due to the fear of copyright violations (which is what you did a week ago)

, and at the same time object to using very simple indicators to assert whether editors are aware of our policies (in particular the copyright ones).

This is just illogical. Or rather... the only logic is to open more and more wikinews as quickly as possible.

You just can't expect I support this Erik.

=Nicolas Weeger-> And how can you check the> translation is correct unless you speak the language? :)How do I know the "regular" is not actually a troll without speaking the language? How do I know that the only reason he wants to start a Wikinews isn't that he hates Wikipedia after having spent several months there? How do I know his intentions are good? You could require one of the people to be a sysop, but that seems like an onerous requirement. An algorithmic contribution check is *not* a quality check.Let's be realistic here. What kind of person would intentionally manipulate policies and get away with it under the auspices of other users: a random person who's never been involved in our projects, or someone who is intimately familiar with them? Furthermore, remember that there would still be a requirement of *multiple users* participating. How likely is it that a malicious person would get away with deliberately falsely translating something like NPOV when working with 4
 others?And let's not forget about http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AssumeGoodFaith - the very idea of a wiki is to be open and welcoming to newcomers, rather than requiring people to be members of an existing "clique". If the risk of malicious people ruining the project was so big, then Wikipedia itself could never have been started. Yes, Wikinews is different -- but a Wikinews edition which is likely to attract attention from the outside is also likely to attract attention from the inside, allowing us to deal with malicious users. Yes, Wikinews is different -- and that's why we should be welcoming to *people* who are different and not yet part of our community.Regards,Erik

---------------------------------
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subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


body:
Right, so it is up to the entire community rather than just the
speakers of a language whether or not they get a separate Wikipedia?

So if Scots requests a separate Wikipedia from English, but
en.wikipedia votes against it, we tell them they can't have it?

If I recall correctly there was never a consensus in zh.wikipedia that
a Minnan Wikipedia should be created.

Its original creation was as an entirely separate project "Holopedia"
due to extreme community opposition from zh.wikipedia and the
probability that people like Jimbo would at the time have been
unwilling to consider it if his anonymous Chinese advisors said
"????????????".

As it was eventually turned into a small Wikipedia with a small number
of articles (rather than 0), the general Wikipedia community accepted
it somewhat hesitatingly although on zh.wikipedia it was widely
disputed as to whether it should exist.

Especially different in this case is use of Cantonese characters
instead of Whites' languages' characters. Some people will ask "What
is the difference?" but many of these people are the same people who
would "correct" vernacular content posted to zh.wikipedia itself,
showing that there really is a difference (I tried it once - it kept
being reverted to the "correct" grammar ie baihuawen).

This is the issue of self-determination of this community of people
writing colloquial Cantonese, it is not fair to let others decide to
make them choose between writing Baihuawen or not write at all.

As for the bible in Cantonese, yes there are, and they are still used.

There are also versions in Hakka (kejiahua), Wu, Minnan, and all other
Chinese vernaculars. Most of them use hanzi, but some use Whites'
languages' characters, and some use a mixture (representing only some
functions words with the roman letters).

I daresay that most of these aren't widely used but this is for the
alternative reason that Christianity is, for various reasons, not well
tolerated in China (except in ethnic minorities), and outside the
mainland most Chinese speak Cantonese, Minnan, and Hakka besides
Mandarin. Thusly Minnan and Hakka bibles are used by some peoples in
Taiwan, and Cantonese and Hakka bibles is used by some people in
Hongkong and maybe Macao.

This delves into the debate on whether the Bible should be written in
an extra formal literary language that is difficult to imagine
happening (in most of the widely-used English translations, it's
difficult to imagine real people in real situations speaking that
way), or to use a colloquial style that is easier for people to
understand and relate to.

I, not being religious (and what religion I do have is an amalgamy of
Judaism and Christianity but with more Atheism than either), don't
have a preference, but in Bible translation it is always a
consideration.

Some Arabic churches prefer to read the Bible with God's speech in a
formal manner, while others use local colloquial forms because it is
easy to imagine people saying the words, in real life, although I
think most Arab churches use vernacular versions (the exception would
be churches where there is populations from many different dialects -
it would be difficult to read vernacular Bibles in a church which is
25% Algerian, 25% Yemeni, 25% Lebanese, and 25% Bahraini, you would
need 4 different bibles)

Mark

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:18:47 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys, I do admire your passion and your enthusiasm (although I have no
> idea how long will that last). I am not against you having a try on
> writing serious things in Cantonese (which you have not yet quite
> started, as far as I know, since till now all you have written are
> just stubs less than even 200 characters). I still hold my opinion
> that there is not a necissity for a Cantonese Wikipedia(or any other
> Chinese dialect Wikipedias) to exist, but I encourage helpful
> discussions and even a vote if necessary should you decide to formally
> propose setting up one. What I do not want to see is the set up of a
> Cantonese Wikipedia without the consent of the entire Wikipedia
> community, especially the Chinese Wikipedia community (as in the case
> of Ming-nan Wikipedia).
>
> (Someone mentioned about Bible translated into Algerian Arabic. I just
> wonder: is there any Cantonese translations of Bible, and if there is,
> is anybody still uses this version?)
>
> [[User:Formulax]]
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews

body:
>As news considered let it be 24X7 always. So need more than 5 people
>in the team i think

>And if you all prefer mark one specific domains, as they have
>expertise, like politics, business, technology etc etc..

>So more than a number the team needs good journalists rather than just
>information providers..

>--
>Regards
>Ginu George
>Journalist and Media Researcher
>Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I strongly agree with you Ginu.

There is a huge difference with the encyclopedia.
With wikipedia, we do not need all expertises at the same time, one area can be greatly improved for a couple of months, while another goes unnoticed for months.

Wikinews on the other hand, requires much more that people makes team, if only to try to cover a couple of areas.
Even if there are few editors and cannot cover all news, a team of 4-5 in scientific covering could make it very successful in a small areas.

This is doubly interesting in Wikinews as news are interesting only for a couple of days, not weeks, months or years as in the encyclopedia.

As long as a wikinews will be unable to cover all news topics, I think it should focus on providing good news in *one* area and get famous thanks to it.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 The all-new My Yahoo! ? What will yours do?


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews


from_name: Frank Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Client certificate-based user login mechanism

body:
On Wed, 2005-02-16 at 07:20 +0100, Thomas Gries wrote:
> I have such a patch for loadFromSession() see
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360 Auto-login /
> Auto-account-creation by hostname for intranet MediaWikis. The patch
> code itself has not yet been uploaded but is rather short.
>
> Brion and Marcus: let me know, if you are interested - pls .study for
> this the text on the bugzilla; then I would revisited my code and upload
> the patch as a diff.

In related news, I've just written a first working version of a patch
to loadFromSession() which logs you in as the Common Name from a
client certificate presented by your browser as part of the SSL
handshake to a secure Apache server.  Not very elegant yet, but
it seems to work okay.  In effect, it punts the problem of
getting the user's credentials up to Apache, but for what we're
doing, that makes more sense anyway.

My questions are:

1) anyone interested in the patch (with documentation on how
   to set up Apache to pass in the bits MW needs, etc., once
   I get the time to scribble some down)?

2) ought I to append it to Thomas's bug #1360 discussion, or
   should this go elsewhere?

Note that I'm still in the middle of tweaking this for production
use, and since I only started looking at MW's code a few hours
ago, I probably have some cleaning up to do before it's very
presentable.

But I'm happy to toss it out with some notes anyway for comment,
especially if it turns out that I'm doing something majorly wrong.
--
Frank Wales [frank at limov.com]


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews

body:
>Anthere,

>I am doing a news wire for the last 3 years.

I am glad to know we have journalists among us, they will help avoid the worse directions.

>I know the real pain
>behind that. We need a full desk to do news. Not like encyclopedia.

Agreed
I can perfectly well see the absolutely amazing force which could be behind a wikinews.
With a full desk, a united team, the impact of a wikinews will be huge.

But this could happen right now in english, possibly german. Possibly another language.
But it just do not make sense that we have a wikinews site with only 2 editors.
Even though they really try their best, they just can't manage.
And as Britty mentionned, it is important that each wikinews has a couple of people interested in building the committee, not taking care of news, just drafting policies, strengthening the project. Unfortunately, not every one likes doing this.
In the end, building a wikinews on 5 people... just makes little sense to me.

>If one person who is not taking the responsibility will destroy the
>aunthenticity of wikinews. If the people is ready then i am ready to
>contribute well with my desk.

I would be glad that you do so in arab.
But this community is probably not ready at all.

>Let us think from the top ......

What do you mean here George ?

>george

Ant

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
For improvement of JA situation (Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked
	again)

body:
>Kind of the same problem arose on fr, Admins were considered cream of
>the cream. I have put in place a demythification process here :
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Administrateur/Tableau_de_bord_de_l%27administrateur
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_suppression
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_blocage
>*http://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip?dia:Administrateur/Processus_de_protection
>(other links can be found at the bottom of the first page)
>which goal was to de-sacralize the admins job. This has definitely
>worked on fr to make the admin position clearer and a lot of people
>who dreaded becoming an admin for fear of being cast into an
>authoritarian category have expressed interest in becoming admins. (4
>in the last two weeks), which helps.
>
>I don't know whether this can solve any problems, but it could be a
>starting point and I am willing to help putting it together for other
>languages if anyone is interested, providing I am supplied with the
>appropriate shotscreens.
>
>
>
I kind of did the same on nl: We had only 14 sysops or so. I then went
on a drive to get more and voila we have 34 now. We also had the problem
that people though being a sysop is som kinf of authoritive thing but I
was able with the help of others to debunk that. We got a couple of more
applications now for adminship. So our total number will rise even more!

 I have offered Britty to go around all Japanese users and ask them to
become admin. Maybe we should co-ordinate an effort by first writing a
tex in Japanese oon demystifying the adminship and explain to people why
jawp needs more and then go to everybody's user talkpage we think is
usefull and ask them personally to apply for adminship??? Same like I
did on nl:.

Walter van Kalken

Walter van Kalken


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews

body:
>>>Let us think from the top ......

>> What do you mean here George ?

>hi, am not well versed in arabic, really am Indian, so dont expect any
>arabic version from me.

Oh well...

>First of all we have to make the english edition running well,
>meantime think about the languiage versions. So if people will
>translate the english to german and vice versa thats more good and
>regional news will become global.

>As a global village make all the news for the global community. So i
>prefer english first and i will think other languages...

I agree we should focus on having german and english run well before focusing on other languages.
I disagree with considering these two languages the "top" while others are the "bottom".

>My Specialisation is Media, Health and Business.....And Global Cinema
>(Parallel Cinema)

quite eclectic... :-)

>Regards

>George

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
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subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[Foundation-l] Intent to launch pt., pl., ro. Wikinews;
	further procedure

body:
As per the procedure on

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition

I'd like to launch three new editions later today or tomorrow:
Portuguese, Polish, and Romanian. For Portuguese, I count Carlosar as a
valid vote, because he has made 3000+ edits on the English Wikinews, and
he is a native speaker.

For future editions, I'd also like to suggest changing the language
procedure in the following way:

    The "activity on existing Wikimedia projects" requirement can be
    dropped if a few support pages (FAQ, Mission Statement, etc.) are
    created on Meta for the project to be launched. These can be
    translations or original creations.

Such an effort indicates a genuine interest in working on a Wikinews
edition in a language. It also reduces the dependency of new projects on
existing ones -- we already know that many key people working on
Wikinews have not done substantial work on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia
projects. There would still be a requirement of at least 5 signatures,
so it's not just one person playing an overarching role.

If this works out, perhaps we can substitute one procedure for another;
I prefer the translation procedure, because it also makes sure that
certain pages are in place before the wiki is set up (a problem on some
new editions which were essentially blank for several days).

I'd like to credit the Memory Alpha wiki for this procedure, which has
successfully used it for setting up new languages.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On 18 Feb 2005, at 2:58 am, Puddl Duk wrote:

> Censorship, in this context, is when rules or authority prohibit an
> image. And you have no say in the matter. Wikipedia doesn't do this
> (outside of illegal images).

What do you mean in this context? Censorship has a meaning. You are
simply describing one kind of censorship. You can't just define it for
your own purposes. We would be actively participating in
self-censorship if we were to link or remove this image on the grounds
that it was explicit. Please can we stop kidding around that this would
not constitute censorship.

Christiaan


body:
On Feb 18, 2005, at 2:30 AM, MilchFlasche?|?? wrote:

> Hi Striling,
>
> I was a little shock seeing you still speculating that Cantonese is
> merely a "dialect" of "Chinese".

I'm a little shocked that you are confusing Cantonese's status as a
written dialect and a spoken language. I'm a little shocked that you
take a lecturing tone, and a little shocked that you seem to want to
make this an adversarial relationship.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Nicholas Knight said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> the chap in the autofellatio picture is clearly an adult having a whole
>> heap of fun.  The girl in the Lolicon picture is submitting to child
>> abuse, and the presentation is, or is intended to be, erotic.
>
> Sometimes it's better to just let your opponent in a debate make your
> point for you. You're doing a beautiful job making my point for me.

Hardly.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Rebecca said:
> Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. What would the default setting be?

No pictures until the reader accepts the disclaimer and gets a cookie.  If
we're so certain that pictures are that toxic, that's the way to go.