subject: [Textbook-l] Announcing... CommonsTicker

body:
Hello,

CommonsTicker is a special tool created by
(commons:,meta:,:de:w:)User:Duesentrieb to allow for greater
communication and transparency between the Commons and local projects
(all projects, all languages) that use the Commons. When it is set up,
a log page is created and a bot posts updates about any critical
events that occur to any Commons images that are being used by that
project. Critical events are: image replacement (a new version of an
image being uploaded over the top of an existing one), an image being
marked or unmarked with a deletion tag (including no source, etc), and
an image being deleted.

This allows local project users to immediately identify any images
that have been nominated for deletion, giving them plenty of notice to
take part in the deletion discussion, as well as checking that image
replacements are not vandalism and removing any red links from deleted
images.

CommonsTicker is completely translatable (if you provide a
translation). All it needs to be set up is a project admin to
"sponsor" it through the early days. Now taking requests! :)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker :
instructions on set-up, contact, translation, request queue
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:CommonsTicker : Example
Ticker in English
(There are also Tickers already set up in German, Indonesian, Italian,
Dutch, Chinese and Slovak.)

cheers,
Brianna (commons:user:pfctdayelise)


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] jobs

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this
>>thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly
>>discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised
>>publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they
>>do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not
>>welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.
>
>
> Well, my perspective on the above comments:
>
> I complain about the Foundation to many people.  I don't do anything
> about it because the structure of the Foundation is such that I am
> disenfranchised from actually having any influence other than through
> backchannel politicking.  The bylaws of the Foundation concentrate all
> power in the Board, and further structured so that a majority of Board
> members are not responsible to anyone but themselves.  This structure
> makes the Board inherently resistant to change.  I am not sanguine
> that the Board will ever even recognize all of the problems that exist
> right now, let alone come up with a useful solution.

it is the second time I see you using that expression. What does that
mean "I am not sanguine" ? except for not being an orange which is
probably true ?

   So I complain to
> my friends and associates, and try to convince them to agree with me
> (that the Board is going about the business of running the Foundation
> in the wrong way) with the vague hopes of eventually convincing enough
> of the Board members to put their personal interests behind their
> fiduciary duty to the Foundation and, for once, start making decisions
> that reflect what is best for the Foundation instead of what is best
> for that individual Board member.  (No, I shall not name names.  If
> you are on the Board, it's up to you to decide whether I'm talking
> about you or not.)

I do not feel concerned.

> As to being asked to help: The only representatives of the Foundation
> who have ever asked me to help are Danny Wool and Brad Patrick.
> (Well, except for when Jimbo asked me to serve on the enwiki ArbCom,
> but he was doing that as Jimbo, not as CEO of the Board.)  Even when I
> told people that I was ready and willing to help, I never got
> requested to do anything.  So I've concluded that WMF doesn't really
> want my help.  Either this is because the WMF has concluded that my
> talents are of no use to it, or because the WMF has ignored me when
> I've offered to help.

Right. I have one job for you. I forwarded on checkuser list yesterday
an email of someone complaining of misuse of checkuser on fi. I do not
have the time to study the case. You are in charge of exploring the
issue, clarify if there was blantant abuse (in this case, please ask us
to remove the status) or mostly ignorance (in that case, please inform
the checkuser). Do you accept the job ?

> So, yes, you may be asking for help, but frankly I find it hard to
> figure out what help you need or who to talk to about it -- and
> besides, your volunteer coordinators should be working to match
> volunteers with tasks that need doing, instead of making volunteers
> hunt around to find something to do that fits their talents.  But then
> again, that's yet another one of the myriad defects of the WMF: the
> Foundation appears to have no clue how to manage volunteers, either.
> (Does WMF even have a volunteer coordinator?)

Interesting question.
Is the job of a board member
1) define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
2) manage everyday operations of the organisation
3) focus on human management of volunteers ?

According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to
wishes, is it 3 ?

Let me see... I need

1) someone with good knowledge of cell phones to help us figure what we
could do with wikipedia and cell phone (technical description). Able to
answer all emails on OTRS of cell-phone people proposing various
partnership.

2) Someone with good graphical skills to improve the look of a CD for
kids 7-13. And make the external jacket. Speaking french will be a bonus.

3) Someone to clean up and rearrange all pages on meta related to the
Foundation. Good english skills required as well as knowledge of the
Foundation structure

4) Someone to update various pages on the foundation website. To check
the discrepancies between the english version and the other languages
version. To contact the various editors responsiable of this version to
tell them about the discrepancies. Require : access to WMF site and good
communication skills.

5) A baby-sitter at Wikimania for my baby. Skills : knowledge of kids.
Plump preferred. Male, female, trans welcome. Date and location : early
august in Boston.

6) A lawyer or legal counselling to fix broken contracts received on
OTRS. Skills required : patience and availability.

7) Checkuser issue : it seems the privacy policy, the checkuser policy
are not making everyone happy. I am looking for someone to review both
and make new proposals. Additional jobs : doing stats of useage. Asking
Brion to add a system to allow easier consulting. Skills : tough skin.

8) OTRS assistant : job, improve the spam filter. OR, clean up the board
queue.

9) Fundraising assistant : someone to help Mav to write a resolution
allowing the creation of that committee. Then, help to make a GREAT
fundraising before summer. Skills : being creative with good
communication ability. Urgent job.

10) Business development : I need someone to help figuring out how much
are trademarks are worth. Example : if we make a dvd, how much to ask
per item. If we make a board game : how much to ask per item.

11) Also in business development. I need someone to collect the names
and addresses of all mirrors (in all languages) and to contact them one
by one to propose them a live feed; Will require to contact translators
to fix languages templates. Should get a tech description from Brion.
Skills and various : should have tech knowledge and OTRS access.
Multilingual preferred.

More later as soon as I had time to really think about it.

> I imagine I'll anger more than a few people with this email.  I hope
> so; maybe out of that anger will come the desire for change (instead
> of the desire to kill the messenger, which I fear is more likely to be
> the result).
>
> With regards,
>
> Kelly


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] jobs


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] jobs

body:
Anthere schrieb:

> 10) Business development : I need someone to help figuring out how much
> are trademarks are worth. Example : if we make a dvd, how much to ask
> per item. If we make a board game : how much to ask per item.

The Wikimedia trademarks won't be worth a damn in the near future
because the Wikimedia Foundation does nothing to prevent them from
becoming generics.

No offense meant to you, you've done your best.

greetings,
elian

PS: second enquiry: Has anything been done about
http://onepiece.elwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page and the
[http://www.elwiki.com/gallery.php rest]?

PPS: Wikimedia Deutschland got 1 Euro per sold DVD, to answer your question.


subject: [Foundation-l] jobs


subject: [Foundation-l] jobs

body:
Patrick, Brad schrieb:
> I have contacted El Wiki about their logo and trademark usage.  I
> have not heard back.  This situation will escalate if I don't hear
> from them.

Thank you :-)

Good to know that someone's taking care.

greetings,
elian


subject: [Foundation-l] jobs


list: textbook-l

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Textbook-l] Use of this mailing list...

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:

>Just wondering if this list gets very much use.  Any ideas?  Wouldn't
>this be the appropriate place for the whole "game guides" discussion?
>Thanks.
>--LV
>
>
>
Not that there was much community input sought before any action took
place anyway with the game guides policies.

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] autoloading classes

body:
Hi Timwi,

> Not questioning anything, but out of interest: I don't understand how
> this saves any stat()s? Surely multiple calls to require_once for the
> same file still require only one stat().

require_once() calls realpath() every time, which calls stat() for
every directory up to the root.

Domas


list: wikien-l

from_name: Death Phoenix

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Aww, so cute,
	a banned user is trying to take us down with a DMCA notice
	(Forwarded email)

body:
On 6/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Wait untill you see some try to claim you can't deleted stuff claimed
> as fair use becuase that consitutes giving legal advice.
>

[[WP:BEANS]] ;-)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
On 6/2/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Surely the most useful solution would be to make the Go button redirect
> non-silently, i.e. in the same way as a real redirect. A wikilink [[Lyon
> metro]] would still be a redlink, but typing "Lyon metro" in the Go box
> or the actual URL should bring up [[Lyon Metro]] with the note,
> "(redirected from _Lyon metro_)", where "Lyon metro" is, of course, a
> redlink. You can then use that to create the page if you wanted to.

Yes...why didn't I think of that?

Steve


from_name: Traroth

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs

body:
----- Message d'origine ----
De : Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
? : foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Envoy? le : Vendredi, 2 Juin 2006, 3h27mn 12s
Objet : [Foundation-l] jobs

>Interesting question.
>Is the job of a board member
>1) define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
>2) manage everyday operations of the organisation
>3) focus on human management of volunteers ?

>According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to
>wishes, is it 3 ?

Actually, according to point 1, the Board should find a solution for point 2 and also for point 3. What else could mean "define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run", if it doesn't begin with solutions for all day problems ?

>Let me see... I need

>1) someone with good knowledge of cell phones to help us figure what we
>could do with wikipedia and cell phone (technical description). Able to
>answer all emails on OTRS of cell-phone people proposing various
>partnership.

Could you be a little more precise, maybe by private mail ? What is the aim ? To get Wikipedia on a cell phone ? Isn't it already possible ?

Traroth

Traroth


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs

body:
On 6/2/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
> For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the
> freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is
> what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!)
> without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b)
> publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner,
> and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be
> very contrary to good corporate governance.

Why would a shortlist need to be publicised? Do you mean actually
listing the names of the candidates, or simply stating that "there is
a short list of candidates"?  I am not sure posting the names of those
"still in the running" is that common a practice.  Or are you
referring to more publicity within the higher-ups of the Foundation?
Thanks.
--LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Jun 2, 2006, at 7:57 AM, Sam Spade wrote:

> Do I hurt the wikipedia? Have my 30,000+ edits been harmful?
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Sam
> +Spade&dbname=enwiki_p
>
> Or is it perhaps simply a personality conflict with a certain
> "cabalist" which has damned me?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/
> Sam_Spade/Proposed_decision#Sam_Spade_assumes_bad_faith
>
> I would argue that the wikipedia power structure interferes with the
> production of quality articles, discourages ordinary contributors
> (resulting in the high rate of editor turnover) and reduces what could
> have been a competent and rewarding process of peer review into a
> punishing and arbitrary "arbitration committee".
>
> I recommend to anyone with any say about how things are being done to
> review any authoritative text on Behavior Modification. Punishment
> results in resentment, rewards encourage desired behavior.

Sam, you're a highly controversial personality, but I believe that
Wikipedia is stronger overall with you around. Sometimes you baffle
me, but your dedication to the project is unquestionable. I would
hate to see you gone for whatever reason.

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


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
On 6/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nick Boalch wrote:
> > Steve Summit wrote:
> >> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
> >> saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
> >> ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.
> >
> > Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
> > and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
> > up longer ago...
> >
>
> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between you and a
> banned troll is that you're not banned yet...
>

If you feel like making bold statements (ie, banning) based on someone
saying that two religions do not provoke inflammatory responses in
their view, then feel free and go ahead. It would be a dangerous
precedent but isn't that what WP:BOLD is all about, being bold and
putting your views down in a tangible way.

Peter Ansell


body:
On 6/2/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
> >>>>>> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
> >>>>>> saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
> >>>>>> ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
> >>>>> and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
> >>>>> up longer ago...
> >>>>
> >>>> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between you and a
> >>>> banned troll is that you're not banned yet...
> >>>
> >>> Does [[WP:NPA]] apply to the mailing list?
> >
> > If it did, your attack on religious believers would eliminate the
> > difference between you and a banned troll.
>
> There's an awful lot of difference between attacking an individual and
> 'attacking' a belief system.

This thread was started with a statement that a particular belief
system would bring wikipedia into disrepute. Attacking people because
they are discussing this, and equating them with trolls, together with
a threat to ban them if they feel like discussing anymore, doesn't
exactly serve to keep a community together. Try to see this discussion
in good faith.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Elliott F.Cable

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Wantedpages only once

body:
I am thinking what it looks like we need is two special pages -
because the 'wantedness' of the page, and the number of pages it
shows up as a red link on, are two totally different things. For this
new special page, I would recommend only counting templates once; and
only counting stuff in the main namespace. Or at least, NOT in the
talk namespace.

On Jun 2, 2006, at 8:10 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/2/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Is it possible to count template links only once ?
>>
>> That would be very harmful, as it would under-report the actual
>> impact of the
>> breakage.
>
> Does this discussion apply to images as well? If so, I can think of
> times it would be useful to see how many times the image is applied
> directly, rather than through a template such as a userbox. For
> example, the "file links" for the Picture of the Day is always totally
> useless, due to the number of people who transclude it via a template
> on their user page. (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Monument_Valley_2.jpg).
>
> Perhaps what is really needed is simply to be able to better
> distinguish in lists such as "what links here" "genuine links" from
> transcluded links, as they have different meanings:
>
> Number of direct links: how many topics refer to this one, how many
> people like this image, is this image actually being used in any
> articles, and not just in userboxes.
> Number of transcluded links: what is the impact of making a change,
> how many people will see it...
>
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
> Anthere:
>
> > There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread.
> > It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed...
> > but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly.
> > It is seeing people complain things are not done...
> > but they do not do things themselves.
> > It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help...
> > but they say no when we ask them.
>
> Anthere, it is difficult to argue against generalisations. Several people
> who argued in this thread are doing a lot,
> be it in Mediawiki activities that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the
> board or any subcommittee. Do you accept critical remarks only from people
> that you work with every day?
>
> Clearly all comments in this thread are here because an issue was indeed
> raised publicly, namely about Mediawiki core values.
> I for one consider it good taste not to reply on a thread unless I feel I
> have something new to contribute and feel strongly about the issue.
> So from me no 'yes, I think so too' replies. Actually I only send part of
> the replies that I write and occasionaly only after several revisions and
> more thought. Hopelessly out of touch with the IRC generation.
>
> If people are overdemanding here and plainly work-shy everywhere else please
> be specific.
>
> Even then, it is one of the preconditions for a non-autocratic system that
> people in a position of power answer to the public at large regardless of
> what specific members of the public are doing themselves, at least those
> members read posts and ask questions and show they are involved to a certain
> degree.
>
> In the outside world, in established political systems of any kind, power
> corrupts almost without exception. Lip service is paid to a free press until
> one has to deal with those 'press mosquitos' oneself, those people who
> 'always whine' and 'should start to do somethings themselves for the country
> instead of scandalizing good people' etc etc. Clearly we do things
> differently here and need not worry, or do we?
>
> If your answer to people who ask critical questions is to discredit them, I
> start to worry even more that Wikimedia has come close to the outside world.
>
> Please let us not get personal. I respect your work for Mediawiki a lot.
> Please assume good faith of others.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
>

Erik, you do fantastic work on gathering the stats on Wikipedia
project activity [1] - and that's the kind of work that needs to be
consolidated within the organisational level. The board need stats (I
hear), and one of the remits of the Special Projects Committee is to
coordinate these efforts [2] - along with the pretty inactive
Wikimedia Research Network [3]. Maybe you should be recognised better
for this work, and work with the SPC in this regard (?).

I didn't mean to include you in my previous statement (on another
thread) that "people who are complaining aren't bothering to get
involved". In fact, that's unfair in many cases - of course there are
plenty of people who do great work who raise good and valid
criticisms, which we need to address in order to grow and learn as an
organisation. If you remember, we had a discussion like this on this
list after last year's Wikimania, around the time of Erik Moeller's
resignation as chief research officer.

But I still think Anthere has a point, and I understand her
frustration (which, hopefully, as a result of this discussion, is
being addressed). She's one of these people who *are* the Wikimedia
Foundation - living it, breathing it. I should probably let her speak
for herself, but I myself feel that, with Anthere around, the
foundation is in *very* good hands.

Cormac

[1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/2/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
> > The promote statement was a rhetorically worded question, which
> > implied a position based on the previous post which implied that any
> > other action was disruption of wikipedia (which is a serious and
> > blockable offense no less).
> Thank you, that explains it.  Promote was indeed the wrong word, but
> one that is an easy mistake to make when considering matters related to
> userboxes, as they have a great tendency to provoke such mistakes,
> blurring as they do the distinctions between userpages and public parts
> of the wiki, and between public expressions of personal attributes and
> promotion and advocacy of those attributes.  This is yet another reason
> why userboxes are a troubling thing to both the community and the wiki.

The fact that user space exists at all to me is a distinction. The
fact that outsiders may not make the distinction does not change the
fact that it exists and had a specific purpose. If someone who did not
realise that templates were "accommodated" for within a part of
wikipedia which also accommodates other template objects used in the
encyclopedia, discovered a user page with a belief statement, and a
user page with a belief userbox, they are not likely to be any less
inflamed by the statement than they may be by the userbox. Even
stating interest in satanism is likely to provoke a person who would
have been affected by the userbox.

> >  The word promote may not have been the right word,
> > however, the action which based the wikipedia definition of
> > inflammatory and divisive in the american christian way of life has
> > not been rebutted.
> I realize this.  I have no comment either way on that subject at this
> time.

It is a complex issue, I respect that. However, I will say something
on it, more for to further articulate myself than anything else.

Having said what I did above, it is not simply a reason to delete the
ones with beliefs just because an outsider may think a certain way.
Maybe we should be questioning the whole idea of having any allowance
of statement about anything on user pages. It is either that or risk a
long unhealthy internal discussion on just what other things are
possibly inflammatory and divisive. Simply changing userboxes to
"interest" as opposed to belief userboxes will not change anything as
the subject is what is provoking responses, not the word "believe".

> > I didn't actually say that wikipedia was not allowing people to edit
> > based on their background. I apologise if it came across that way.
> Understood.  But if Wikipedia is not preventing people from editing
> based on their background, but instead, not providing them with
> pre-made templates to express one aspect of that background - I don't
> really see the connection here.  You imply that not providing a
> pre-made template to express every aspect of every contributor would be
> a violation of our principle of encouraging edits by any serious,
> good-faith contributor.  I don't see where you justify this.

As I said above, the providing of a template does not have any greater
effect over text based statements of belief. It is still wikipedia
allowing a statement of belief. I did not mean to say that wikipedia
should necessarily provide a premade template for ever aspect,
however, I did mean to say that deleting just because editors or
viewers of a certain background will be inflamed by the statement does
not have precedent on wikipedia. We allow the most inflammatory thing
possible, ie, the danish cartoons depicting Allah and Mohammed. If the
encylopedia can detail such an inflammatory thing why can't user pages
have simple statements of belief in long established religions.

It reeks of American Christian bias to me. (And for those who discount
the cartoons just because they have been discussed previously, Don't!,
they are for the time being the single most inflammatory thing
available)

Peter Ansell


body:
On 6/2/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:38 PM, Delirium wrote:
> > I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
> > userpages what their religious beliefs are.
> This is a semi-straw man argument.  Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON
> USER PAGES*.  If they were, the conflict (while possibly still present)
> would be vastly reduced.  Userbox templates are a number of other
> places as well as being on userpages.  Specifically, they are 1) In
> Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes.  I look forward
> to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having
> people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I
> mentioned.  Thanks!

Template space and Wikipedia: space are not linked to any user, and
therefore, they are in a different position. The actual placement of
the HTML on a user page to display the box will have the same effect
no matter where it comes from. If someone does not understand the
difference between user space and article space when they put a
userbox down then it is a failure of wikipedia to make the difference
obvious. User space is not classed as encyclopedic content, so why
should template space come under the encyclopedic content category, as
there are numerous in house templates that are clearly not
contributing to human knowledge. The running of the encyclopedia and
the personal notations given by users to help others understand their
biases better are two very valid uses of template space in my view.

If an only if an editor transfers their statements of bias in a bad
faith way to articles they personally should be told off for it. If an
editor takes offense to anothers statement of bias they should think
about how that particular statement could possibly contribute to the
improvement of the community effort to build up a neutral human
knowledge resource, without discounting opinions by others about
statements of bias being useful. It is the inflamed person who chose
to be inflamed, not the user who made a good faith statement in the
place they felt was best suited to the overall effort.

A question I want to know an answer for is just how inflammatory can
something be and still stay. Allusions have been made to pseudo
sciences in discussions so far as well as beliefs. How many sciences
for instance are deemed not to be inflammatory and divisive enough to
be allowed as statements of belief and or interest on user pages.

Peter Ansell


body:
On 6/2/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 6/2/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Tony is going around pissing people off badly enough that they RfC him
> > over
> > > it.
> >
> > George, if I breathe someone gets pissed off. This isn't normally
> > regarded as a cause for concern.
> >
>
> No, actually, your day to day stuff only ruffles people's feathers.
>
> Your attitude that it's ok to do that is annoying.
>
> Your attitude that it's ok to move beyond that into actually pissing them
> off, and doing things like rejecting RfCs out of hand merely because they're
> silly, is a serious problem.
>
> If people are actively pissed off at the way you're behaving it is a serious
> problem.  You are the single most active visible WP admin a lot of the time,
> and you're going around causing disruption and conflict throughout the
> community, and acting proud of it.  What, exactly, do you think that sends
> as a message to new editors?
>
> It is not ok to go around pissing people off.  It is important to figure out
> how to get things done without pissing them off.
>

Well said, And to think that people are worrying about "possible
polemical" effects and ignoring the deeper problems with the wikipedia
community structure.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Origin of <fundraising> Parser tag?

body:
Platonides wrote:
> It must be some extension. It was used during the fundraising campaign to
> know how much money was donated. In fact, if you try it on the wikipedia, it
> will show you the graphic at $321,350.02
>
> It's specific of the wikimedia foundation. However, i guess it should be at
> the SVN somewhere.... :s

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/FixedImage/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:
> We are an open project and, imho, our recruitment at the most senior
> positions needs to be as open as possible. Whilst I would not expect to
> see wikipedians 'voting' on the appointment - there are too many legal and
> capability considerations for that to be at all a possibility - the wider
> knowledge of the class of people coming forward for the job, and the
> general knowledge that the WMF has chosen the *best* available rather than
> the nearest/easiest/cheapest available can only be a good thing for wider
> support around our projects.

I agree with this 100%.  Please note that what is currently being
contemplated is the hiring of an internal counsel and an *interim*
executive director.  One of the foremost tasks for that interim
executive director would be precisely to participate in exactly the sort
of process you are describing! :)

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] to Andrew Dunbar, thanks

body:
Dear Andrew,
  many thanks for your kind answer.
  I will try to set it up. Probably, I'll follow these guidelines:
  1) creating a new namespace for Main Page and its subpages
  2) using CSS for this namespace.
  Yours sincerely,
  Claudi

---------------------------------
 Yahoo! Mail r?invente le mail ! D?couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface r?volutionnaire.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:
> I do hope that this is an error, or an extremely *temporary* measure
> whilst a proper and effective process is put in place, though imho there
> should be no need to rush to an interim appointment given the survival so
> far and that a fit and proper appointment could be made within 2-3 months
> anyway.

Well, the idea here is to have someone in the role right away because an
enormous amount of work needs doing right away, and that we will work
toward a "proper and effective" process for an appointment into the future.

We need help, and we need it now.  :)  And one of the roles of the
interim ED will be to help drive forward the process.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Jun 2, 2006, at 8:57 AM, Sam Spade wrote:

> On Jun 1, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Sam Spade wrote:
>
>
>> There is only one rule : don't offend the "cabal" (or any of the
>> cliques w admin members), or you will be punished. The policies as
>> written seem nice, but they have nothing to do with who is punished
>> and who is not. Quality of articles has nothing to do with it either.
>> Nepotism determines everything.
>>
>
> Technically this will always be true, but ideally, admin cliques
> should only be offended by things that hurt Wikipedia.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
>
> Do I hurt the wikipedia? Have my 30,000+ edits been harmful?
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Sam
> +Spade&dbname=enwiki_p
>
> Or is it perhaps simply a personality conflict with a certain
> "cabalist" which has damned me?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/
> Sam_Spade/Proposed_decision#Sam_Spade_assumes_bad_faith
>
> I would argue that the wikipedia power structure interferes with the
> production of quality articles, discourages ordinary contributors
> (resulting in the high rate of editor turnover) and reduces what could
> have been a competent and rewarding process of peer review into a
> punishing and arbitrary "arbitration committee".
>
> I recommend to anyone with any say about how things are being done to
> review any authoritative text on Behavior Modification. Punishment
> results in resentment, rewards encourage desired behavior.
>
> SS

We are not trying to modify your behavior, just reminding you that if
you can't play nice, you can't play at all. Choosing to be alienated
is your own choice.

Fred

> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
> Executive committee : inactive committee. Should be replaced by a CEO

I'd say it never existed,  not that it's inactive, though the creation
of it has been authorised.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_board_expansion_committee

I thought the idea was to expand the Board before having this committee.

> Financial committee : Michael on it. Hummm, not really (yet ?) a committee

Doesn't exist due to disputes over who should be on it.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_creation_finance_committee

> Insurance committee : jeeee, so inactive that I do not even remember who
> is on it... (personal note : what is going on here ?)

This was more of a working group than a committee, designed just to
fill in the forms for insurance in January. I don't know if those
forms were ever sent, but the committee disbanded after they were
finished. Perhaps Danny knows more?

> Technical committee : no board member on it. But Michael (and I as a
> pompom girl) follow what is going on.

I thought Michael was actually on it.

I agree with the need for a fundraising committee.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

body:
On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >On 5/31/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>And we
> >>haven't even mentioned the usefulness of the yellow pages in
> >>establishing the existence of a business over a time frame.
> >>
> >>
> >>>It's even easier to put false information into the yellow pages section.
> >>>
> >>So?  That doesn't mean that every entry has false information.
> >>
> >No, it doesn't.  However, it does mean that a phone book isn't a
> >*reliable* source.
> >
> That conclusion is not logical..If you are going to be imposing such
> strict criteria on one kinde of publication you should be applying these
> criteria to them all.  Very few publications would pass your test of
> reliability.
>
> Ec

What other reliable publications are there that are easy to put false
information into?  I don't think we should consider as reliable
sources wikis, or random Internet websites, or the newspaper
classifieds sections either.

There are millions of academic publications - ones that actually
attempt to verify the information they publish.  To call that "very
few" is ludicrous.

Anthony


body:
On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >On 6/1/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>No, it doesn't.  However, it does mean that a phone book isn't a
> >>*reliable* source.
> >>
> >>
> >I don't think it's ever been stated that Wikipedia only incorporates
> >material from known, infallible sources. Our minimum requirements are
> >much more vague however - words like "reliable" and "verifiable" get
> >used a lot, but with no clear definition.
> >
> >Given that, providing the source of all information and taking steps
> >not to ridiculously misuse sources (eg, quoting speculative material
> >from a tabloid and presenting it as established fact), is what we
> >should be aiming for. So far, we're not even close.
> >
> I essentially agree.  Some people still argue that Wikipedia itself is
> not a reliable source.  On the other hand "Scientific American" for this
> month used [[Sudoku]] as a reference in an article on the same subject.
>
Wikipedia *isn't* a reliable source.  I certainly don't think it
should be used as a reference in another encyclopedia article.

Unless Scientific American was using the Wikipedia article for a
trivial piece of information which is already obvious, I think they
made a big mistake.  Even Jimbo has said that Wikipedia shouldn't be
used, for instance, as a reference in an academic paper.

Anthony


body:
On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > I essentially agree.  Some people still argue that Wikipedia itself is
> > not a reliable source.  On the other hand "Scientific American" for this
> > month used [[Sudoku]] as a reference in an article on the same subject.
>
> A good example - it depends how you use Wikipedia whether you would
> call it a "reliable source". If it makes a definitive, unsourced
> claim, I would not call it reliable. If it provides the source further
> upstream, and you check them out, it's a very useful source.
>
If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
the original source, not the encyclopedia article.

Anthony


from_name: Rob

body:
On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > > I essentially agree.  Some people still argue that Wikipedia itself is
> > > not a reliable source.  On the other hand "Scientific American" for this
> > > month used [[Sudoku]] as a reference in an article on the same subject.
> >
> > A good example - it depends how you use Wikipedia whether you would
> > call it a "reliable source". If it makes a definitive, unsourced
> > claim, I would not call it reliable. If it provides the source further
> > upstream, and you check them out, it's a very useful source.
> >
> If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
> the original source, not the encyclopedia article.

I just looked at the new Scientific American (ah, the advantages of
working in a library) and skimmed the article.  I may have missed it
but I don't see any instances of the author citing Wikipedia as a
source.  The article does include a link to Wikipedia under a list of
"More to Explore" weblinks, which seems an entirely proper use.


from_name: geni

body:
On 6/1/06, Wildrick Steele <wildrick.steele at gmail.com> wrote:
> We've had some problems with this user on en.wiktionary as well, including
> legal threats about the Wikimedia bylaws in Florida and such.
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Wytukaze#Block_indeed
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Tea_room#Irresponsible_Sysop_Actions
>
> I've been wondering whether his threats were anything serious, but this
> incident clarifies it all. It seems that on Wiktionary, we're going to see
> more things that I had always thought would remain restricted to Wikipedia
> (compare the Primetime incident, for instance).
>
> Cheers,
> Wildrick
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Vildricianus

Wait untill you see some try to claim you can't deleted stuff claimed
as fair use becuase that consitutes giving legal advice.

--
geni


body:
On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I essentially agree.  Some people still argue that Wikipedia itself is
> not a reliable source.  On the other hand "Scientific American" for this
> month used [[Sudoku]] as a reference in an article on the same subject.

A good example - it depends how you use Wikipedia whether you would
call it a "reliable source". If it makes a definitive, unsourced
claim, I would not call it reliable. If it provides the source further
upstream, and you check them out, it's a very useful source.

>
> Diferent sources will have different levels of reliability for different
> types of information.  It's ultimately up to the user to exercise
> critical thinking in making such evaluations, not us.

Yep.

Steve


body:
On 6/2/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Wait untill you see some try to claim you can't deleted stuff claimed
> > as fair use becuase that consitutes giving legal advice.
> >
>
> [[WP:BEANS]] ;-)

Doesn't apply becuase it has already been tried:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#A_proposal

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
Incidentally, I just noticed that the current case massaging (Lyon
metro -> Lyon Metro) is more complex than I thought. Anyone know the
exact rules? It seems like these are possible:

SOME ARTICLE -> some article
some article-> SOME ARTICLE  (eg, sdi silently -> SDI)
some article -> Some Article
Some Article -> some article
some ARTICLE -> some article (or Some Article)
sOme artIclE -> some article  (or Some Article)

*but* this isn't:
some other article -/-> Some other Article
(example: "departements of france" -/-> "Departements of France")

So it seems like it tries this:
match name verbatim
try lowercasing the entire search string
try uppercasing the first letter of each word
try uppercasing the entire search string

But that's it.

With a bit of testing (not at Wikipedia) I determined that the order
is as above. That is, the search string "soMe artICLE" will match
"Some Article" before it matches "SOME ARTICLE". This strikes me as
another limitation: when the capitalisation of an article's title is
ambiguous, no warning is displayed to the user. I guess we usually
handle that situation with dablinks at the top of the page, but
still...

Anyway, to improve the matching it would presumably be necessary to
store some sort of canonical hash for each title, perhaps lowercased,
and with all accents replaced by non-accented letters, or whatever.
But there are probably better places to expend that effort. (like
fixing search :))

Steve

On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Surely the most useful solution would be to make the Go button redirect
> > non-silently, i.e. in the same way as a real redirect. A wikilink [[Lyon
> > metro]] would still be a redlink, but typing "Lyon metro" in the Go box
> > or the actual URL should bring up [[Lyon Metro]] with the note,
> > "(redirected from _Lyon metro_)", where "Lyon metro" is, of course, a
> > redlink. You can then use that to create the page if you wanted to.
>
> Yes...why didn't I think of that?
>
> Steve
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs

body:
Traroth wrote:
>
> ----- Message d'origine ----
> De : Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> ? : foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Envoy? le : Vendredi, 2 Juin 2006, 3h27mn 12s
> Objet : [Foundation-l] jobs
>
>
>
>
>>Interesting question.
>>Is the job of a board member
>>1) define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
>>2) manage everyday operations of the organisation
>>3) focus on human management of volunteers ?
>
>
>
>>According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to
>>wishes, is it 3 ?
>
>
> Actually, according to point 1, the Board should find a solution for point 2 and also for point 3. What else could mean "define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run", if it doesn't begin with solutions for all day problems ?

True.

For that matter, a job description for hiring a CEO was recently
drafted. It seems the board agrees on the job description. We are
currently voting to approve or not a candidate.

Here is the job description (it may have some imperfections, but
overall, it seems to be pretty much what we need).

Position summary of CEO
The chief executive is responsible for the overall administration and
management of WMF, including service programs, fundraising, and business
operations. Areas of responsibility include assisting and working
closely with the board on planning and evaluation, operational policy
development and administration, personnel and fiscal management, and
public relations. This is a full-time position, hired by and directly
accountable to the board of directors through its elected board chair.

Responsibilities
Management and administration
*Develop and facilitate an active planning process.
*Develop organizational goals and objectives consistent with the mission
and vision of WMF, as defined by the board of directors
*Develop and administer operational policies.
*Oversee WMF infrastructure services and public relations activities, to
ensure WMF objectives are met.
*Oversee business development.
*Ensure compliance with funding sources and regulatory requirements.
*Provide information for evaluation of the organization's activities.

Fiscal
*Develop, recommend, and monitor annual and other budgets, in
consultation with the appropriately constituted budget committees, CFO,
Treasurer.
*Ensure effective audit trails with the constituted audit committee
*Approve expenditures consistent with board-approved policies
*Provide for proper fiscal record-keeping and reporting.
*Submit monthly financial statements to the board of directors.
*Prepare and submit grant applications and funding proposals as
appropriate, in consultation with the Grants Officer and special project
committee

Personnel
*Administer board-approved personnel policies.
*Ensure proper (legal) hiring and termination procedures.
*Oversee all personal disciplinary actions.
*Provide for adequate supervision and evaluation of WMF staff and WMF
volunteers

Board relations
*Assist the board chair in planning the agenda and materials for board
meetings.
*Initiate and assist in developing policy recommendations and in setting
priorities.
*Facilitate the orientation of new board members.
*Work with the board to raise funds
*Staff board committees as appropriate.

Public relations
*Assist the communication committee in public relations activities, to
ensure WMF objectives are met.
*Ensure appropriate representation of WMF by all employees.
*Coordinate representation of WMF to legislative bodies and other groups.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>
>>Anthere:
>>
>>
>>>There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread.
>>>It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed...
>>>but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly.
>>>It is seeing people complain things are not done...
>>>but they do not do things themselves.
>>>It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help...
>>>but they say no when we ask them.
>>
>>Anthere, it is difficult to argue against generalisations. Several people
>>who argued in this thread are doing a lot,
>>be it in Mediawiki activities that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the
>>board or any subcommittee. Do you accept critical remarks only from people
>>that you work with every day?
>>
>>Clearly all comments in this thread are here because an issue was indeed
>>raised publicly, namely about Mediawiki core values.
>>I for one consider it good taste not to reply on a thread unless I feel I
>>have something new to contribute and feel strongly about the issue.
>>So from me no 'yes, I think so too' replies. Actually I only send part of
>>the replies that I write and occasionaly only after several revisions and
>>more thought. Hopelessly out of touch with the IRC generation.
>>
>>If people are overdemanding here and plainly work-shy everywhere else please
>>be specific.
>>
>>Even then, it is one of the preconditions for a non-autocratic system that
>>people in a position of power answer to the public at large regardless of
>>what specific members of the public are doing themselves, at least those
>>members read posts and ask questions and show they are involved to a certain
>>degree.
>>
>>In the outside world, in established political systems of any kind, power
>>corrupts almost without exception. Lip service is paid to a free press until
>>one has to deal with those 'press mosquitos' oneself, those people who
>>'always whine' and 'should start to do somethings themselves for the country
>>instead of scandalizing good people' etc etc. Clearly we do things
>>differently here and need not worry, or do we?
>>
>>If your answer to people who ask critical questions is to discredit them, I
>>start to worry even more that Wikimedia has come close to the outside world.
>>
>>Please let us not get personal. I respect your work for Mediawiki a lot.
>>Please assume good faith of others.
>>
>>Erik Zachte
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Erik, you do fantastic work on gathering the stats on Wikipedia
> project activity [1] - and that's the kind of work that needs to be
> consolidated within the organisational level. The board need stats (I
> hear), and one of the remits of the Special Projects Committee is to
> coordinate these efforts [2] - along with the pretty inactive
> Wikimedia Research Network [3]. Maybe you should be recognised better
> for this work, and work with the SPC in this regard (?).

I suggested Eric to join when we made the original group. At that time,
the group thought it would be best to limit us at 9, which imposed
limitations. I would be happy to have Eric with us, if he is available
enough.

> I didn't mean to include you in my previous statement (on another
> thread) that "people who are complaining aren't bothering to get
> involved". In fact, that's unfair in many cases - of course there are
> plenty of people who do great work who raise good and valid
> criticisms, which we need to address in order to grow and learn as an
> organisation. If you remember, we had a discussion like this on this
> list after last year's Wikimania, around the time of Erik Moeller's
> resignation as chief research officer.
>
> But I still think Anthere has a point, and I understand her
> frustration (which, hopefully, as a result of this discussion, is
> being addressed). She's one of these people who *are* the Wikimedia
> Foundation - living it, breathing it. I should probably let her speak
> for herself, but I myself feel that, with Anthere around, the
> foundation is in *very* good hands.
>
> Cormac
>
> [1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm
> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee
> [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network

Thanks for your support Cormac. Yes, admittedly, I sometimes get very
frustrated. I am sorry about that. I also apology to my rude tone to
Birgitte. She did not deserve to be the recipiendary of my frustration.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs

body:
On Fri, June 2, 2006 13:16, Anthere wrote:
> For that matter, a job description for hiring a CEO was recently
> drafted. It seems the board agrees on the job description. We are
> currently voting to approve or not a candidate.

I've read Angela's response, and I'll cover the matter of the JobSpec in
another mail as it is clearly very imperfect, but I am very shocked and
saddened at that last sentence there.

For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the
freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is
what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!)
without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b)
publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner,
and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be
very contrary to good corporate governance.

I do hope that this is an error, or an extremely *temporary* measure
whilst a proper and effective process is put in place, though imho there
should be no need to rush to an interim appointment given the survival so
far and that a fit and proper appointment could be made within 2-3 months
anyway.

Alison Wheeler


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs


from_name: Elliott F. Cable

body:
Well that could also be a problem... perhaps an administrator should
be able to discard pages in a category from affecting it - for
instance, if a massive asteroid-creation effort is going on, an admin
could at request make dead links from pages in the
[[Category:Asteroids]] not count or something... that seems pretty
dumb, maybe there is a 'smarter' way to do it...

On Jun 2, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Elliott F. Cable <ecable at avxw.com> wrote:
>> I am thinking what it looks like we need is two special pages -
>> because the 'wantedness' of the page, and the number of pages it
>> shows up as a red link on, are two totally different things. For this
>> new special page, I would recommend only counting templates once; and
>> only counting stuff in the main namespace. Or at least, NOT in the
>> talk namespace.
>
> Sounds good. Dunno if it's still the case, but asteroids known only by
> a 6 digit number always showed up high on the "most wanted" pages
> previously, due to other asteroid articles linking to them or
> something. There is lots of information that Wikipedia really badly
> links, but detailed  info on obscure asteroids probably isn't it...
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Normann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re : sanger on 'open meritocracies'

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
>
> Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean
> it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at
> once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and
> control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work
> where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an
> environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more
> database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might
> well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free
> editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as
> necessary.
>
>
>
I agree. The wiki format works very well to collaboratively create a
text. But for other purposes it doesn't suite that perfect.
An other example is discussions. I think, it would actually be nice if
the MediaWiki software would be changed in that way that the
'discussion' page of each article had a more automated formatting, more
like a forum, while still enabling the wikimedia-syntax. Outdated
discussions could simply be hided and a rating system for comments
(maybe similar to /.) could also work very well.
To enable more semantic and meta-data support, or a more data-base-like
feeling for Wiktionary etc. there's being worked at the Semantic
MediaWiki (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki). Looks
very promising!

Mauro Bieg


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs

body:
On Fri, June 2, 2006 14:56, Lord Voldemort wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
>> For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the
freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that
is
>> what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!)
>> without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b)
>> publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner,
>> and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be
very contrary to good corporate governance.
>
> Why would a shortlist need to be publicised? Do you mean actually
listing the names of the candidates, or simply stating that "there is a
short list of candidates"?  I am not sure posting the names of those
"still in the running" is that common a practice.  Or are you
> referring to more publicity within the higher-ups of the Foundation?

My own view is both. Whilst it might not be a common practice it certainly
happens in some charities/foundations and WMF / wikiprojects generally are
a special case to my mind in that we have a *very* large number of people
involved at editing and sysop management level, with a very *very* small
fiscal/legal/organising operation trying to co-ordinate it all. That
co-ordination function has, I think everyone realises, not been working as
well as it could have in many ways. There are possible solutions I
believe, and being open about the process of trying to improve the
situation is one of the ways to get the buy-in from the general
wikipedians to the required structure.

We are an open project and, imho, our recruitment at the most senior
positions needs to be as open as possible. Whilst I would not expect to
see wikipedians 'voting' on the appointment - there are too many legal and
capability considerations for that to be at all a possibility - the wider
knowledge of the class of people coming forward for the job, and the
general knowledge that the WMF has chosen the *best* available rather than
the nearest/easiest/cheapest available can only be a good thing for wider
support around our projects.

Alison Wheeler


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs


from_name: Timwi

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Plyd wrote:
>
>>Special:Wantedpages doesn't mean anything now because it gives a too
>>high value to links included in very-used templates.
>
> What is a "too high value"?
>
> Broken links in massively-used templates are *EXACTLY* the sort of thing you
> want to know about!

Weeell... five of the currently top-wanted articles are the redlinks in
[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Task template]]. That template is used on
all Talk pages that are claimed as part of that WikiProject (thousands,
apparently), but not in any actual articles. The redlinks don't actually
have any real impact.

Almost all of the currently-listed top-wanted articles appear to be on
the list because of this WikiProject talk-page template craziness. Some
appear to be on the list for no reason: their what-links-here list is
actually very short, but maybe they were linked to from such a template
when the wanted pages list was generated.

By the way -- notice that one of the redlinks is [[Project: Pegasus]],
which gets reinterpreted as [[Wikipedia:Pegasus]]. How would one fix this?

Timwi


from_name: Platonides

body:
It must be some extension. It was used during the fundraising campaign to
know how much money was donated. In fact, if you try it on the wikipedia, it
will show you the graphic at $321,350.02

It's specific of the wikimedia foundation. However, i guess it should be at
the SVN somewhere.... :s


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Sam Spade wrote:

> There is only one rule : don't offend the "cabal" (or any of the
> cliques w admin members), or you will be punished. The policies as
> written seem nice, but they have nothing to do with who is punished
> and who is not. Quality of articles has nothing to do with it either.
> Nepotism determines everything.

Technically this will always be true, but ideally, admin cliques
should only be offended by things that hurt Wikipedia.

--
Philip L. Welch

Do I hurt the wikipedia? Have my 30,000+ edits been harmful?

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Sam+Spade&dbname=enwiki_p

Or is it perhaps simply a personality conflict with a certain
"cabalist" which has damned me?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sam_Spade/Proposed_decision#Sam_Spade_assumes_bad_faith

I would argue that the wikipedia power structure interferes with the
production of quality articles, discourages ordinary contributors
(resulting in the high rate of editor turnover) and reduces what could
have been a competent and rewarding process of peer review into a
punishing and arbitrary "arbitration committee".

I recommend to anyone with any say about how things are being done to
review any authoritative text on Behavior Modification. Punishment
results in resentment, rewards encourage desired behavior.

SS


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/2/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Is it possible to count template links only once ?
>
> That would be very harmful, as it would under-report the actual impact of the
> breakage.

Does this discussion apply to images as well? If so, I can think of
times it would be useful to see how many times the image is applied
directly, rather than through a template such as a userbox. For
example, the "file links" for the Picture of the Day is always totally
useless, due to the number of people who transclude it via a template
on their user page. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Monument_Valley_2.jpg).

Perhaps what is really needed is simply to be able to better
distinguish in lists such as "what links here" "genuine links" from
transcluded links, as they have different meanings:

Number of direct links: how many topics refer to this one, how many
people like this image, is this image actually being used in any
articles, and not just in userboxes.
Number of transcluded links: what is the impact of making a change,
how many people will see it...

Steve


body:
On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
> > the original source, not the encyclopedia article.
>
> You should cite both.
>
Why?


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
Hi All,

I notice that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version lists one
"Parser extension tag" which I don't know the origin of, namely
"<fundraising>".

The http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_site_notice page
doesn't seem to mention this tag.

Is there an extension that implements "<fundraising>"? Is it perhaps in SVN?

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 31, 2006, at 6:13 PM, George Herbert wrote:

> I kicked up the ANI not because I object to T2; I object to a point
> of view,
> selective application of T2.  If it were applied globally to the
> religious
> userboxes, I wouldn't have objected at all.

"Point of view" is not an adjective.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs

body:
> For that matter, a job description for hiring a CEO was recently
> drafted.

Very recently... and now it's being voted on already, despite the
issue that the proposed meeting to discuss this position as not yet
happened.

> It seems the board agrees on the job description.

No... so far two members agree on it, and I'm opposing it.

> We are currently voting to approve or not a candidate.

No... you're voting on whether Jimmy can hire an unnamed candidate of
his choice. The Board are not voting on that candidate.

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Sam.  You want straight answers?  You want plain speaking?  OK.

Do you hurt the encyclopedia?  Yes.  Do you also do good things?  Yes,
probably; it's pretty hard to make 30,000 edits from the same account
without some of them being good.  Do you do more damage to the
encyclopedia than the good that you do?  With the behavior that got the
restrictions put on you by the ArbCom, yes, you do more damage.  With
some other set of behavior, maybe not.  It continues to be your choice
between leaving in a huff (which I doubt; if you were to go that way
you would have done so already), or changing your behavior.  The number
of votes you get in elections to the ArbCom says nothing about if you
damage the 'pedia or not, or if you behave in a manner which allows
others to contribute effectively.

Jesse Weinstein

On Jun 2, 2006, at 3:36 PM, Sam Spade wrote:

> We are not trying to modify your behavior, just reminding you that if
> you can't play nice, you can't play at all. Choosing to be alienated
> is your own choice.
>
> Fred
>
> I'm not alienated from most users, that should be obvious based on the
> results of past elections:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
> Arbitration_Committee_Elections_July_2004
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
> Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2004
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom
>
> Notice a pattern? Growing support. I had the support of 30% of the
> voters in the last election. I understand that I am alienated from
> ''you'', but that is your choice, based on your behavior.
>
> I'm not here to play games, I am here to help. I am about to stop
> helping however, because of your insulting behavior, and the
> ineffectual system that empowers you.
>
> SS
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
On 6/2/06, Nurdan Isik <brightlightning at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>    Hi all,
>    I would like to report a 'misunderstanding' and ask someone please
> correct it:

As Freakofnurture said on WP:ANI, Occam's razor would seem to apply here.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-03

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!

Passed 332 of 343 tests (96.79%) FAILED!


body:
On 6/2/06, Elliott F. Cable <ecable at avxw.com> wrote:
> I am thinking what it looks like we need is two special pages -
> because the 'wantedness' of the page, and the number of pages it
> shows up as a red link on, are two totally different things. For this
> new special page, I would recommend only counting templates once; and
> only counting stuff in the main namespace. Or at least, NOT in the
> talk namespace.

Sounds good. Dunno if it's still the case, but asteroids known only by
a 6 digit number always showed up high on the "most wanted" pages
previously, due to other asteroid articles linking to them or
something. There is lots of information that Wikipedia really badly
links, but detailed  info on obscure asteroids probably isn't it...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
We are not trying to modify your behavior, just reminding you that if
you can't play nice, you can't play at all. Choosing to be alienated
is your own choice.

Fred

I'm not alienated from most users, that should be obvious based on the
results of past elections:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_July_2004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2004

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom

Notice a pattern? Growing support. I had the support of 30% of the
voters in the last election. I understand that I am alienated from
''you'', but that is your choice, based on your behavior.

I'm not here to play games, I am here to help. I am about to stop
helping however, because of your insulting behavior, and the
ineffectual system that empowers you.

SS


body:
On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
> the original source, not the encyclopedia article.

You should cite both.

Steve


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] reporting error 1213

body:
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

     (SQL query hidden)

from within function "oaiUpdatePage". MySQL returned error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.2)".


body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>>> I kicked up the ANI not because I object to T2; I object to a point
>>> of view,
>>> selective application of T2.  If it were applied globally to the
>>> religious
>>> userboxes, I wouldn't have objected at all.
>>
>> "Point of view" is not an adjective.
>
> How do you explain the term "POV fork"?

A cultural inability to use the word "biased". Also, the ability of
acronyms to disguise what they stand for, allowing for bizarre usage
that wouldn't exist in the spelled-out version (e.g. "PIN number",
"ATM machine").

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML normalization, transclusions, nesting

body:
I'm in the process of rewriting the old Sanitizer::removeHTMLTags to work much
better. The new code properly closes implied end-tags and obeys some additional
HTML rules about what can go where.

In-progress patches posted at:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5497

Before I finish this up, though, it would be good if we can agree on how to
handle a few things.

** HTML across template boundaries

Right now there's a big behavior difference between the regular mode and the
behavior with Tidy enabled. In regular mode, the HTML nesting and closing rules
are separately applied to every transcluded text chunk. In Tidy mode, only the
allowed-HTML check is applied at that stage, and nesting and closing is left for
Tidy to fix things up at the very end.

An example of a construct that breaks is a template that defines a table header
like:

and is included like this:

  {{cool-table-start}}
  {{cool-row|blah}}
  {{cool-table-end}}

In current non-Tidy mode, this breaks violently as the
 gets closed in
the first template, and then all the following
,  etc are rejected as
they're not allowed in body text.

In current Tidy mode this is allowed to pass on through just fine; the pieces
are assembled and then checked for nesting later.

I really don't like this kind of construct as it makes it harder to treat
transclusions at the abstract-parse-tree level in the future; in order to
understand the markup _following_ the transclusion you need to have already
expanded it. Yucky!

However the current system allows the same thing to work with wiki tables (eg
{|class="fooba") in either mode. I'm pretty sure at least the latter are in
fairly common use on Wikipedia.

So we either need to decide to Kill Them All, or accept the sacrifice for
compatibility.

** Inline HTML across wiki blocks

Currently, removeHTMLTags is applied before most other parsing steps, most
notably doBlockLevels which handles paragraph splitting, wiki lists, etc.

A consequence of this is that bad nesting / illegal overlapping can occur with a
construct like this:

  First paragraph

  Second paragraph

The HTML normalizer adds the missing close tag:

  First paragraph

  Second paragraph

and later the wiki block levels adds
 tags:

First paragraph

Second paragraph

This is fairly obviously incorrect; it _probably_ would make a reasonable amount
of sense to rework how the block levels interact with stuff so it happens either
up before, or in concert with, the HTML normalization.

** Mixing of HTML and wiki tables

Running tests on pages from French Wikipedia, I found a cute bugger that does
something like this:

  {|

A table caption

  |-
  |blah
  |}

Since tables haven't been replaced in the output yet, this
 is in a
 context as far as the HTML normalizer sees and it fails. But the old code
let it through, in both tidy and non-tidy mode.

While this kind of admixture looks *supremely ugly* to me, do we have any reason
to disallow it?

Should we think of the wiki table syntax as just a shortcut/transformation to
HTML table tags, or should they be entirely separate entities?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
brion at pobox.com wrote:
> Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
> Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!

These are all fixed by my working patch for 5497. :D

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Resid Gulerdem

subject: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform

body:
>Message: 6
>Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:05:09 +1000
>From: "Peter Ansell" <ansell.peter at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion
review of the
>	satanism	userbox
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>
<a1be7e0e0606011805x7203ed79i526f32d1ae3ef1d0 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
format=flowed
>
>On 6/2/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 6/2/06, George Herbert
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Tony is going around pissing people off badly
enough that they RfC him
> > > over
> > > > it.
> > >
> > > George, if I breathe someone gets pissed off.
This isn't normally
> > > regarded as a cause for concern.
> > >
> >
> > No, actually, your day to day stuff only ruffles
people's feathers.
> >
> > Your attitude that it's ok to do that is annoying.
> >
> > Your attitude that it's ok to move beyond that
into actually pissing them
> > off, and doing things like rejecting RfCs out of
hand merely because they're
> > silly, is a serious problem.
> >
> > If people are actively pissed off at the way
you're behaving it is a serious
> > problem.  You are the single most active visible
WP admin a lot of the time,
> > and you're going around causing disruption and
conflict throughout the
> > community, and acting proud of it.  What, exactly,
do you think that sends
> > as a message to new editors?
> >
> > It is not ok to go around pissing people off.  It
is important to figure out
> > how to get things done without pissing them off.
> >
>
>Well said, And to think that people are worrying
about "possible
>polemical" effects and ignoring the deeper problems
with the wikipedia
>community structure.
>
>Peter Ansell

   I think one should not expect any action, in
general, from the people who are well fed by the
current structure which makes them feel superior, make
any attempt towards a bit of change. It is a
sociological principle that status quo always resists
to the reforms. The community needs to take initiative
in that direction. [[WP:OURS]] was a humble example of
such efforts waiting for the community involvement.
   Resid

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
The proposed arbitration remedy is very limited, reflecting the fact
that the vast majority of your work on Wikipedia is both useful and
welcome. Probation permits an administrator to ban you from an
article which you disrupt by tendentious editing. It may only be
applied in cases where that is what you are doing. Clearly, in a few
articles you have done so.

If you had been elected to the arbitration committee you would no
doubt have found probation useful yourself. It permits action in only
the articles which the user has disrupted without interfering with
their other activity. I know it is hard to accept, but a case like
yours is why it was created, to give some middle ground between a
total ban and having to endlessly put up with disruption and edit
warring.

Fred

On Jun 3, 2006, at 7:12 AM, Sam Spade wrote:

> Sam.  You want straight answers?  You want plain speaking?  OK.
>
> Do you hurt the encyclopedia?  Yes.  Do you also do good things?  Yes,
> probably; it's pretty hard to make 30,000 edits from the same account
> without some of them being good.  Do you do more damage to the
> encyclopedia than the good that you do?  With the behavior that got
> the
> restrictions put on you by the ArbCom, yes, you do more damage.
>
> Then I should have been banned along time ago. I think your wrong (or
> else I wouldn't have wasted so much time). How did you come to your
> conclusion, might I ask?
>
> SS
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFC needs your help!

body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 5:43 AM, Timwi wrote:

>> The few people who work at "Articles For Creation" are getting
>> overworked.
>
> Isn't that a clear hint that AfC shouldn't exist, and that
> unregistered
> users should be able to create articles again?

No. When IP accounts could create articles, the few people who work
at "Candidates for Speedy Deletion" were overworked.

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/3/06, Gavin Chait <gchait at gmx.net> wrote:
> WMF has gotten big.  Very quickly.  An organisation that could be easily
> understood and navigated by a few volunteers now needs a lot more effort.
>
> I'm sure developing the job description for the CEO was a useful exercise.
> The CEO is the Chief Executive Officer.  I stress this.  They are there to
> execute tasks.  A large number of the objectives and responsibilities listed
> by the board are left very vague:  "as defined by the board of directors",
> "consistent with board-approved policies".
>
> It is no good starting with a CEO and then figuring out who needs to be
> hired next and what they're going to be doing.  It's as bad as hiring an
> office with no idea of who needs to be there.
>
I disagree, and I'll explain why below.

> Imagine going on a road trip with no map, no idea of where you are, and then
> giving the job of steering to a CEO who has to take directions from the
> committee in the back seat who never declare where they want to go for fear
> of hurting people who want to go somewhere else.
>
> I reiterate:  first develop the system you wish to see in its entirety;
> list all the tasks, responsibilities and line functions as they relate to
> each other and along with their dependencies; group related tasks together
> as single areas of responsibility; decide on the tools necessary to support
> these functions ... and so on.
>
> Once this is in place then it is easier to hire people and easier for them
> to know what they do on Day 1, and thereafter.
>

The thing is, none of the current Wikimedia board knows very much
about how to run an international non-profit organization.  Moreover,
they don't even know how to hire people to run such an organization.
About the only thing they really do know is that it isn't something
they can handle themselves.  (None of this is to knock them, and I'm
not saying I would do any better myself.)

You've given your own suggestions above, but what is the board going
to do, say "hey, Gavin Chait said this is how we should do it, so lets
go with it"?  I don't think it's going to happen.

I think the idea of an interim CEO is a perfect one (even if "CEO"
isn't the perfect terminology).  Someone is needed to bootstrap the
organization.  In part their job would be to say some of those very
same things you've said above.  I think it's important to make it
clear that this isn't a permanent position, though.  In part, because
it's dangerous to assign such a position when you really have no clue
what the position is, and in part because there are probably people
out there who would be excellent candidates for the position who don't
want to spend the rest of their life running Wikimedia.

One thing I think is important though is the interim CEO should be
made aware that a big part of eir job is going to be explaining eir
actions to the entire membership.  This doesn't have to be done
directly, of course - someone would have to help.  (What exactly
constitutes the membership of the Wikimedia Foundation is probably
going to be tweaked a bit, though.  I don't think it makes sense to
say that everyone who edits a Wikimedia project, whether they want to
or not, is automatically a Wikimedia Foundation member.  Hopefully the
interim CEO will agree with me there.)

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geo meta tags on wiki pages

body:
On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 10:39:21AM -0800, Elliott F. Cable wrote:
> More the belief that it is needed. The point is not to bloat things
> and confuse people, which semantic MW does.

The idea of wiki syntax is to be simple. Easy to learn. MediaWiki
already includes many features where this does not apply:
* table markup
* templates
* advanced image syntax

The additional changes to the syntax needed for Semantic Mediawiki would
make the syntax even more difficult to understand, especially for people
who are not aware of semantic markup. Things like

	San Diego is a [[is a::city]]. It has a population of
	[[population:=1300000]].

are not very intuitive any more. Good ideas how to hide the complexity
from newbies would be very welcome.

Another problem with SMW is code quality, which currently is not good
enough for use at Wikipedia. Scalability has improved with 0.4, but
more improvement is still needed.

SMW also needs a security review, looking at the code for a few minutes
already showed XSS issues that need to be fixed urgently.

Regards,

	jens


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] blatant state-sponsored copyright violations (by
	Baide Baiku of the PRC)

body:
On 6/3/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31/05/06, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think it would be wise for the foundation to take any action
> > that would not be correctly backed up by a chinese law firm
> > explaining us what we can do, and what we cannot do. As much from a
> > legal point of view, than from a PR or a political one.
> >
> > Jean-Baptiste Soufron
> >
> Something at least needs to be done, turning a blind eye to it will only
> make things worse.
>
> -Selina

There are thousands of people whose copyrights are allegedly being
infringed.  Any one of you is free to hire a lawyer and start a
lawsuit.  In fact, you're perfectly free to get together and talk
about how you can effectively combine resources to do so.  It'd be
fine with me if someone sets up a mailing list or website and then
sends a message here redirecting anyone interested to it.

But I don't think it's worth the Wikimedia Foundation spending its
time or money on, from a cost/benefit analysis.  In fact, I think it's
questionable whether or not it would be beneficial at all to sue Baidu
over this.  The only thing I see them doing *really* harmful is that
they're censoring content, and this is perfectly legal under the terms
of the GFDL anyway (I suppose Wikipedia could add an invariant section
ranting about Chinese censorship, but it's not going to happen).

Anthony


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
> > Please do not use big terms that have meaning next time.

Yes Anthony, please don't use big words that have meaning! Only use
big words with no meaning, like "plapalolpadolpalopicatosis"!

Mark

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


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
 userbox

body:
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Alphax (Wikipedia email) stated for the record:

> You're wrong. Most (United States of) Americans on Wikipedia aren't
> Christians.

{{citation required}}

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Attention! Your attention please!
 sean at epoptic.com | A newsflash has this moment arrived
                  | from the Tikrit Front! Our forces in
                  | Northern Iraq have won a glorious victory!
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from_name: Selina .

body:
On 31/05/06, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't think it would be wise for the foundation to take any action
> that would not be correctly backed up by a chinese law firm
> explaining us what we can do, and what we cannot do. As much from a
> legal point of view, than from a PR or a political one.
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron
>
> Le 31 mai 06 ? 20:15, Lars Aronsson a ?crit :
>
> > Andrew Gray wrote:
> >
> >> We can't fight China; it'd waste our time and they wouldn't even
> >
> > This could be the case if the PRC were to put all its muscle
> > behind it, but it's not necessarily so.  Their encyclopedia is
> > apparently a small part of this Internet company, which is a small
> > part of something bigger, in several steps.  We don't mind their
> > making their own encyclopedia, only the GFDL violation.  Perhaps
> > this violation was just a mistake by some middle manager, and not
> > this decade's strategic policy of the whole communist party.
> >
> > Make a map of their power hierarchy and figure out whose decision
> > we're fighting, and how we can turn that person's boss into our
> > friend.  Make it easy for them to prune this dead branch from
> > their organization tree.  This may involve their NASDAQ status,
> > their U.S. trading partners, etc.
> >
> > What does Baide Baiku write about copyright, WIPO and such things?
> > Do they explain concepts like licensing and copyright violations?
> >
> >
> > --
> >   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
> >   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> > _______________________________________________

Something at least needs to be done, turning a blind eye to it will only
make things worse.

-Selina


body:
On 6/3/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/6/3, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org>:
>
> > But I don't think it's worth the Wikimedia Foundation spending its
> > time or money on, from a cost/benefit analysis.  In fact, I think it's
> > questionable whether or not it would be beneficial at all to sue Baidu
> > over this.  The only thing I see them doing *really* harmful is that
> > they're censoring content, and this is perfectly legal under the terms
> > of the GFDL anyway (I suppose Wikipedia could add an invariant section
> > ranting about Chinese censorship, but it's not going to happen).
>
> I see that somewhat different - if Baidu would be convinced to adhere
> to the GNU/FDL, anything changed on their site could also be
> back-imported into the Chinese Wikipedia. If this is going to be a big
> thing that might be a big plus for us as well.
>

Well, I don't see incorporating Baidu's changes into Wikipedia to be a
good thing.  It would be impossible to automate because so many of
their changes are negative, and if you're going to import the changes
manually you might as well change the wording while you're at it and
avoid any copyright problems.  (Also there's the fact that Wikipedia
would have to start complying with the GFDL, but let's ignore that
one.)  And in any case it is a hypothetical - we could always wait
until Baidu actually *does* add useful content and *then* decide
whether to sue them.

Besides, the way I see it backporting could be done anyway.  Or do you
think Baidu is going to sue the Wikimedia Foundation?

Anthony


body:
On 6/3/06, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org> wrote:
> The additional changes to the syntax needed for Semantic Mediawiki would
> make the syntax even more difficult to understand, especially for people
> who are not aware of semantic markup. Things like
>
>         San Diego is a [[is a::city]]. It has a population of
>         [[population:=1300000]].
>
> are not very intuitive any more. Good ideas how to hide the complexity
> from newbies would be very welcome.

The two specific examples you give could be handled by rigorous use of
categories and infoboxes respectively. If all cities belonged to a
subcategory of Category:Cities, and all cities had an infobox derived
from some {{City infobox}} with a "population" parameter, you would
have some "semantic markup" for nothing.

Steve


body:
On 6/3/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
> > > the original source, not the encyclopedia article.
> >
> > You should cite both.
> >
> Why?

I realised after I sent this that I had misread. If you're checking
the source, then you're right, you probably don't need to cite
Wikipedia, though it may be polite to do so.

Steve


body:
On 6/3/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 31, 2006, at 6:13 PM, George Herbert wrote:
>
> > I kicked up the ANI not because I object to T2; I object to a point
> > of view,
> > selective application of T2.  If it were applied globally to the
> > religious
> > userboxes, I wouldn't have objected at all.
>
> "Point of view" is not an adjective.

How do you explain the term "POV fork"?

Steve


body:
On 6/3/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > But I don't think it's worth the Wikimedia Foundation spending its
> > time or money on, from a cost/benefit analysis.  In fact, I think it's
> > questionable whether or not it would be beneficial at all to sue Baidu
> > over this.  The only thing I see them doing *really* harmful is that
> > they're censoring content, and this is perfectly legal under the terms
> > of the GFDL anyway (I suppose Wikipedia could add an invariant section
> > ranting about Chinese censorship, but it's not going to happen).
> >
> > Anthony
> Hoi,
> Please tell me how you arrive at your conclusion. What do you consider
> the costs, how did you quantify them.

The costs are mostly legal fees or the time spent by volunteers giving
legal advice (which could be used elsewhere).  Just to quantify them
more exactly would require enough cost to me that it isn't worth it.

If you've know a lawyer willing to give an estimate as to how much
it'd cost to successfully win a copyright infringement lawsuit against
Baidu, I for one would love to hear it.

Hell, if you're one of those thousands of people whose copyright is
being infringed, you're free to enter into a lawsuit yourself.

> What are the expected benefits,
> are they economical, political or of another nature, how did you
> quantify them.

As I've said, I don't really see much of any benefit in suing Baidu.
I suppose it'd be a test case for the GFDL.  But if that's all you
want there are plenty of other companies which would be a lot easier
to sue.

The purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation is to write and distribute
free content, not to stop other people from distributing mostly free
content with a copyright notice attached to it.

> How did you compare the one with the other and again how
> did you come to this conclusion..
>
Something > 0.

> PS Did you consider the long term costs of doing nothing ?

I can't think of any.

> Thanks,
>     GerardM

You're welcome,
Anthony


body:
On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 09:19:28AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org> wrote:
> > The additional changes to the syntax needed for Semantic Mediawiki would
> > make the syntax even more difficult to understand, especially for people
> > who are not aware of semantic markup. Things like
> >
> >         San Diego is a [[is a::city]]. It has a population of
> >         [[population:=1300000]].
> >
> > are not very intuitive any more. Good ideas how to hide the complexity
> > from newbies would be very welcome.
>
> The two specific examples you give could be handled by rigorous use of
> categories and infoboxes respectively. If all cities belonged to a
> subcategory of Category:Cities, and all cities had an infobox derived
> from some {{City infobox}} with a "population" parameter, you would
> have some "semantic markup" for nothing.

The category is of only limited use the way it's currently implemented.
There is no efficient way to find the sub/supercategory relationships.

And the {{city infoboxes}} aren't a usability improvement at all. Their
syntax is even worse. And of course we could put all the information
into city infoboxes, but then we could stop writing articles and just
create tables. There is more information about a city then the infobox.
[[discovered by::Columbus]], [[founded by::Caesar]], [[conquered
by::William II.]], ...

Regards,

	jens