body:
On 22 Mar 2007 at 16:31, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> National Intelligence is explicitly derived from "various internet
> sources including wikipedia.org." A March 21 OSC profile of Rajnath
> Singh, president of India's Bharatiya Janata Party, is likewise
> "sourced from wikipedia.org."
>
> An OSC report last year on the leader of the terrorist group
> Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabhakaran, noted that
> he and his wife "have two children, a girl and a boy. According to
> wikipedia.com, the boy is named Charles Anthony and the girl,
> Duwaraha."

They can't seem to make up their mind whether it's 'wikipedia.org' or
'wikipedia.com', though.

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


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
On 22/03/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/22/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yep. A constitution.

> I tend to feel that would be overkill. A Magna Carta might be a better aproach.

Ooooh ... could be good.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 22/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/03/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/22/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Yep. A constitution.
>
> > I tend to feel that would be overkill. A Magna Carta might be a better aproach.
>
>
> Ooooh ... could be good.

Magna Carta: a document of which at least three versions were made at
the time; which was reissued by every subsequent leader for a century;
and where almost every item involved had the effect of confirming the
status quo with regards to something insanely trivial and obscure.

Given what the community would make of it, the analogy could be more
apt than anticipated...

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


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 22 Mar 2007 at 23:22, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 22/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Without these minimal "confines" everything flies away. A painting needs a
> > solid canvass.
>
> Yep. A constitution.

You're going to take the Constitution out of the National Archives,
and paint on it?  Blasphemy!

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:

>You and I aren't entitled to demand an explanation and to know every
>small detail. It's between Danny and the Foundation.
>
We can demand explanations as much as we want, but he's just not
required to answer.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 22 Mar 2007 at 19:28, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia.
> You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least
> a little bit interesting, maybe unique, but they all seem to go back
> to the, "And then I put in false information! Look, even I could do
> it! Ha!" and end it there. I'm not sure if they are really all
> imbeciles, or if they just assume their audience is made up of
> imbeciles, but it is sad to say the least. When I wrote for the high
> school newspaper we had higher standards than that.
[top-posting/fullquoting snipped]

Wikipedia is hardly the first thing that has spawned a "stock story"
that journalists use repeatedly.  For decades now, coverage of
anything pertaining to comic books has gone into predictable molds
like "Bam! Pow! Zap! Comics aren't just for kids any more!" or "Biff!
Sock! Boom! Old comics are worth big bucks!"

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-23

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20634).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


from_name: Ian Woollard

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 22/03/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia.
> You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least
> a little bit interesting, maybe unique, but they all seem to go back
> to the, "And then I put in false information! Look, even I could do
> it! Ha!" and end it there. I'm not sure if they are really all
> imbeciles, or if they just assume their audience is made up of
> imbeciles, but it is sad to say the least. When I wrote for the high
> school newspaper we had higher standards than that.

I shouldn't worry about it. As Richard Feynmann pointed out, all
journalists are whores.

Basically what will happen is we'll have a spate of these kinds of
stories, over the fact that there's this thing called the wikipedia
and how you can..like.. edit it and stuff, and how risky that is.
They'll do this until their audience starts to yawn

Then they'll spin it the other way, talk up how amazing the wikipedia
is, and how its got this huge team of people constantly tidying up,
how its in the top 10 webisites and how the EB isn't any better for
being citeable either(!). They'll do that a few times until the
audience starts to yawn...

Then they'll go back down on the wikipedia again, really stick the
boot in. Then they probably won't mention it much more after that.

And it's all to sell advertising. That's all they do, and all they're
there for at the end of the day.

> FF

--
-Ian Woollard

Military Commissions Act - for your own security the government is
detaining you indefinitely pending evaluation of whether we need to
evaluate you further.


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/22/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> As I said, I think most of the problems are emergent behaviour of a
> large volunteer organisation.
>
> Are there relevant antecedents to what we're doing here? The OED ran
> (and runs) on volunteer contributions, but doesn't have an emergent
> bureaucracy of volunteers.

Hmm. Most volunteer organisations start with structures dictating
officers, power structures, decision making etc. We haven't needed
that, but we're starting to need to formalise our decision making a
bit.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tiddlywiki

body:
On 3/23/07, Alex Powell <alexp at exscien.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I don't suppose anyone has taken a look at:
>
> http://www.tiddlywiki.com/

Wow! This is really, really clever. Half blog, half wiki. And so much
faster than the form-based mediawiki approach...

Steve


from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
In a message dated 3/23/2007 12:03:52 AM Central Daylight Time,
jossifresco at mac.com writes:

This is  proof of the poor state of affairs in journalism these days.
Maybe  we should demote the notion that newspaper and broadcast media
are  reliable sources, due to lack of basic fact-checking...  :)

Agreed.

************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone.
 Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibooks NL is changing License

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Unless I am mistaken, GNU based licenses become null and void if you
> modify the license terms in any way. This includes
> publishing under multiple licenses (which is modifying the terms). I do
> agree that making the more open is a good thing, but I
> think you may void the GFDL terms if you release under dual licenses.
>
> Jeff
>

This is not nearly as difficult as it seems.  It would be much more
problematic if they were trying to switch from the GFDL to the Creative
Commons license and not be under dual licensing terms.

As I've pointed out on other forii, there is nothing that would stop you
from simultaneously licensing content under the terms of the GFDL and
the Microsoft EULA.  You are merely offering multiple methods of being
able to reuse the content, and for "downstream" users, you can
judiciously select one or the other license and use strictly those
terms.  While not the MS EULA, MySQL AB offers this same approach to
their software (the MySQL database), where you have the choice to copy
their software under the GPL and connect it to other GPL'd software, or
you can use it under a very propritary and closed-source commercial
license that you must pay for.  This is indeed a part of their revenue
model, and I've even had to negotiate the price with them for some
projects I've worked with.  Compared to an Oracle database, the MySQL
terms for a commercial license really aren't that bad at all.... if the
MySQL database is sufficient for your needs.  I don't want to get into a
holy war over what databases are best here, just to illustrate where a
major commercial example of dual licenses are being used similar to the
GFDL.

I don't see a substantial problem here as long as the portions that were
previously licensed under only the terms of the GFDL are clearly marked,
and that when you edit those pages that the contributors know that their
edits will only be valid under the terms of the GFDL.

I got into a debate with the Strategy Wiki about this topic, however
they were trying to do a full switch of their license from the GFDL to
the CC-by-SA license.  Of particular note here is that a substantial
portion of their content was formerly on Wikibooks ("ordered" by Jimbo
to be removed... long story there) and they were trying to come up with
a system to be able to keep that older content yet make all new pages be
only available under the CC license.  It is a similar issue, but instead
there were some proposals to "gradually" rewrite some of the older
Wikibooks content in such a way that eventually the older GFDL'd stuff
would go away.  It was here that I thought they were flat out wrong, as
the GFDL would "contaminate" what they were working on as nearly every
edit of the older content would still be a derivative work.  I had a
standing with the discussion because some of the content they were
trying to relicense had been my edits when it was previously on
en.wikibooks.

In this case with nl.wikibooks, I think they are taking a better
approach.  "reverting" this license change is trivial, if the members of
the nl.wikibooks communty want to go back to just the GFDL-only
content.  For all new Wikibooks that are created under this dual-license
approach, the end user has the choice of either keeping the dual license
arrangement or selecting one or the other license and forking it... but
as a project policy they are trying to maintain the dual license as long
as the content stays within the project.

The only real problem I can see is if there are derivative works that go
across language editions of Wikibooks.  Most notable is the Wikijunior
Solar System, that I've seen reproduced in several languages, as well as
some of the language (2nd language learning) textbooks that may try to
borrow portions from other language editions... for example a German
textbook in Spanish and English (tri-lingual).  This sort of licensing
arrangement is going to cause some difficulties for such cross project
efforts that may involve nl.wikibooks.  I would agree that such efforts
tend to be rare, but they are not completely unheard of.  In this case,
if translated documents come from GFDL'd text, that GFDL-only license
would have to be somehow preserved.  Going the other way from
nl.wikibooks to other language editions would not be affected as the
GFDL would still be one of the options.

-- Robert Horning


body:
Kim Bruning wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 03:52:57PM -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>> The copyright holder is the editor. The website is a distributor. Look
>> again.
>>
>
> Exactly right.
>
> The GFDL does not apply to the first person to add a particular piece of
> content, insofar as that content is concerned. He/She sets the terms
> under which the information may be propagated.
>
> The editor can certainly choose to do so under two different sets of
> mutually exclusive terms, and simply declare that people may choose to
> use either or both. In fact, as the copyright holder, the editor can set
> whatever terms they like [1].
>
> Note that on the long term, this particular situation will go away, as
> future revisions of CC-BY-SA and GFDL will likely be made compatible.
>
> read you soon,
> 	Kim Bruning.
>
> [1] In theory, an editor can even set terms that are not acceptable to the
> community (such as CC-NC or CC-ND, or some proprietary license). When
> such a case comes up in practice, the content is typically refused by
> the community, and deleted from the wiki.
>

I think we are in agreement here, but the point here is that the
community is establishing a standard (noted on the edit box, I hope)
that the only edits that will be accepted into the project will be those
that are dual licensed.  This isn't that the content will eventually be
deleted, but that you are implictly signing an agreement each time you
hit the "save" button that you agree to those terms and conditions.

What is being done here is that the nl.wikibooks community is changing
the terms of what happens when you press that "save" button.  And they
are trying to get this accomplished "early" enough in the history of
their project so that the older content is the exception rather than the
rule.  nl.wikibooks currently has about 1600 pages of content, and ranks
#10 in terms of size compared to other wikibooks projects.  By doing
this sort of bold move to change the licenses, they are showing that
there is definitely an active community working on trying to develop
content here.  That is some very good news, even if you may have
disagreements about the move to this dual license scheme.

I would say that I hope that the WMF would establish a general policy
that all Wikimedia user projects should be available under the GFDL
(with obvious exceptions for Wikinews).  I think this is assumed and has
been stated informally, but I don't know of any formal policy that
suggests this concept.  Even if that were the case here, however, what
is being done in this situation is not incompatible with such a
philosophy.  They are just making additional choices available to those
who may want to use the content.

In addition to the other issues that may come up such as importing
content from other Wikimedia projects (including nl.wikipedia) and the
issue of not being able to bring content back in that has been forked
onto other web pages, this dual licensing scheme also has an additional
problem that it might discourage purists from participation.  I think
ultimately this is a moot issue, as the number of people who might
participate with the knowledge they can choose separate licenses,
including Creative Commons fans, might actually be more than those who
want to stick with a GFDL-only environment.  For the most part the
average contributor really isn't going to care, as long as they can use
the content freely and have some means to reuse the content on their own
if they want.  If they were paranoid about copyright laws and wanting to
keep the content to themselves, they wouldn't be contributing to
Wikimedia projects.

-- Robert Horning


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikisource] 200k

body:
Wikisources are going to reach 200 000 articles (now all 52 Wikisources have
190 865 articles) [1]. Are in plans of anyone to write a Press release? The
"war" for the second position between French and Spanish wikis and for the
fourth position between Portuguese and Chinese wikis is promising :)

[1] http://s23.org/wikistats/wikisources_html.php


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikisource] 200k


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/23/07, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> This specific concept is public knowlege. It has been heavily advertised
> both online and offline [1] as a good compromise and legal solution by
> Lawrence Lessig (a Law Professor at Stanford Law School).

Not under these conditions.

>
> Many people already implement this particular method [2].
>
> read you soon,
>         Kim Bruning
>
> [1] Including many (public) speeches around the world, including a
> speech at wikimania 2006.
>
> [2] For instance, en.wikipedia offers this exact licensing option for
> images in a pulldown menu. This option has also been heavily advertised
> elsewhere wikimedia community, for many years.

However we accept images under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5. You would not accept
text under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5 thus the cycle of being able to us the
changes of others (a key principle behind most of our licence choices)
is broken.

--
geni


from_name: Kim Bruning

in_reply_to:
<4602FAB9.8090108@wolfmountaingroup.com>;
	from jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com on Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at
	03:52:57PM -0600

body:
On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 03:52:57PM -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Kim Bruning wrote:
>
> >On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 03:41:49PM -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >As a license, the GFDL applies to a licensee. The copyright holder is
> >not a licensee.
> >
>
> The copyright holder is the editor. The website is a distributor. Look
> again.

Exactly right.

The GFDL does not apply to the first person to add a particular piece of
content, insofar as that content is concerned. He/She sets the terms
under which the information may be propagated.

The editor can certainly choose to do so under two different sets of
mutually exclusive terms, and simply declare that people may choose to
use either or both. In fact, as the copyright holder, the editor can set
whatever terms they like [1].

Note that on the long term, this particular situation will go away, as
future revisions of CC-BY-SA and GFDL will likely be made compatible.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning.

[1] In theory, an editor can even set terms that are not acceptable to the
community (such as CC-NC or CC-ND, or some proprietary license). When
such a case comes up in practice, the content is typically refused by
the community, and deleted from the wiki.

--
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body:
On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 07:34:44PM -0400, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
> Lodewijk, this is lovely news.  Thank you for sharing.  --SJ

<aol>Me too</aol>

Excellent news, well done. :-)

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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body:
On 3/23/07, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 02:44:36AM +0000, geni wrote:
> > However we accept images under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5. You would not accept
> > text under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5 thus the cycle of being able to us the
> > changes of others (a key principle behind most of our licence choices)
> > is broken.
>
> No one is suggesting we should accept text under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5 .
>
> sincerely,
>         Kim Bruning

I didn't say that.

Ok consider the following:

We release text under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5. Someone makes some
modifications but only releases those modifications under
CC-BY-SA-2.5. We then cannont use the modified text.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Brad and Danny

body:
On 3/23/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/22/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Within areas where we need more help are considerations around
> > intellectual property rights, internet law, press law, and international
> > labour law. If you know some wikipedians willing to help on such
> > matters, or lawyers willing to help us pro-bono, please contact me.
>
> Before the Foundation goes ahead and starts its own law firm, maybe WP
> needs an editor-in-chief first. Jimbo of course would be the natural
> choice.
>
> -Stevertigo

We appear to be getting by without one. We have a reasonable number of
very skilled editors across our community.

A lot of the lower level legal stuff (is this image a copyvio?) tends
to be delt with by whoever was on IRC at the time.

--
geni


in_reply_to:
<a4359dff0703221540r912a9c4pcc1cb3f111aab966@mail.gmail.com>;
	from thomas.dalton@gmail.com on Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 10:40:00PM
	+0000

body:
On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 10:40:00PM +0000, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> I strongly suggest you seek legal advice before proceeding.

This specific concept is public knowlege. It has been heavily advertised
both online and offline [1] as a good compromise and legal solution by
Lawrence Lessig (a Law Professor at Stanford Law School).

Many people already implement this particular method [2].

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

[1] Including many (public) speeches around the world, including a
speech at wikimania 2006.

[2] For instance, en.wikipedia offers this exact licensing option for
images in a pulldown menu. This option has also been heavily advertised
elsewhere wikimedia community, for many years.

--
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from_name: Florence Devouard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Brad and Danny

body:
Christiano Moreschi wrote:
>> From: Guy.Chapman at spamcop.net
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Brad and Danny
>> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:15:04 +0000
>>
>>
>> I can't see any comments elsewhere here, so I thought I'd point you to
>> these:
>>
>>
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-March/028404.html
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BN#User:Dannyisme
>>
>>
>> Unrelated, I understand.
>>
>>
>> Guy (JzG)
>>
>>
>>
>
> Yeah, seen both of those. That sucks. Slightly more importantly, who steps
> in as replacements? Does this not leave Jimbo alone at WP:OFFICE? And will
> we need a new lawyer? Presumably.
>
> Moreschi

We decided to hire Bastique a few days ago as a volunteer coordinator.
Bastique will be able to help on such matters. So, not an issue.

On the legal side, I would like to clarify that we are not left alone.
We have a network of lawyers helping us. However, we may indeed not have
a GC for a while, but we'll probably have soon a legal coordinator.
Whether we have a coordinator or not, this will be one of my priority
task to find a new lawyer in Florida, in office or not.

Our legal needs go far beyond WP:Office right now :-)
For example, most of our contracts or agreements are handled by Lin, a
florida lawyer. Trademarks issues are handled in good part by Hugot, a
french lawyer. Thorsten, a german lawyer is helping a lot on various
issues, such as legal threats in Germany.

Within areas where we need more help are considerations around
intellectual property rights, internet law, press law, and international
labour law. If you know some wikipedians willing to help on such
matters, or lawyers willing to help us pro-bono, please contact me.

anthere


body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 02:44:36AM +0000, geni wrote:
> However we accept images under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5. You would not accept
> text under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5 thus the cycle of being able to us the
> changes of others (a key principle behind most of our licence choices)
> is broken.

No one is suggesting we should accept text under pure CC-BY-SA-2.5 .

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning
--
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subject: [Foundation-l] Rob, full time computer technician

body:
The Foundation evolves. Some are leaving, some are joining and
reinforcing the current team.

Rob was not mentionned till now, but Rob is an important part of the
puzzle as well, who will become a bit more important.

Rob Halsell has been our part-time data center technician since December
2006, maintaining servers in our Tampa facility on the recommendation of
our previous tech, Kyle Anderson. Since January he has additionally been
working on securing and improving the office network in St. Petersburg.
With 200+ servers to maintain in Tampa and a growing office staff with
the attendant IT needs, we needed him available additional hours. Rob
will now be working full-time for the Foundation, under the direction of
Brion.

Primary responsibility:
* data center technician at Tampa facility.
* Maintaining servers and network.
* Receiving and setting up hardware.
* Diagnosing and returning failed hardware, working with vendors as
necessary on RMAs and fixes.

Secondary responsibility:
* office IT technician in St. Petersburg office.
* Maintaining desktop and server computers and wired and wireless networks.
* Technical support for software and hardware issues in the office.
* Setting up and maintaining backup system for in-office desktop
computers and file servers.

Rob is a very smily and talkative person, bringing sunlight in the office.

Welcome Rob

Florence


from_name: Skyring

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Reverting banned users,
	and users who engage banned users

body:
On 3/23/07, Denny Colt <wikidenny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/22/07, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The merits aside, again... it's specifically for if we know its them
> > (they
> > > announce it is them) or fits the  standard form for a puppet/sock, why
> > > shouldn't they be nuked on sight?
> >
> > They should be, to discourage banned editors from violating their
> > bans. It takes some pretty bad behavior to warrant a banning on
> > Wikipedia, and a great deal of effort to get a ban.
>
> Exactly, thats why I posted this... it seemed like some editors were/are
> determined to give Brandt and Scwartz free passes to post, even as Doc
> Glasgow posted, threatened to block anyone who removed comments from
> Brandt
> at one point... I also had people each time I redacted out Brandt's posts
> on
> the article talk page put in links BACK to his redacted comments.
>
> Why do/should Brandt & Schwartz get free passes?

I've seen some people get really anal over this, and indeed I've seen some
editors go to a lot of effort to revert good edits or article creations,
even going so far as to label them "vandalism in progress", so long as they
were by a banned editor they didn't like.

This sort of wikinazi behaviour does nothing to enhance our image; it's
fodder for yet another round of articles poking fun at the community, and
confirmation that Wikipedia is a place where silly power games are
encouraged.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

> I interpret that as meaning edits to GFDL-only articles will be
> dual licensed.

The edit (the diff) is not the same thing as the resulting
(derivate) work.

Suppose somebody named Richard M. Stallman has written a fine
manual (under GFDL) for the GCC compiler.  I write on my own
website a little text called "some personal comments on the GCC
compiler".  I have full copyright to my own original text, but I
decide to dual license it under CC-SA-BY and GFDL.  Later RMS
decides to include my text as a chapter in the GCC manual.  He can
do this because it is licensed under GFDL.  But another person can
reuse my text in another context based on its CC-SA-BY license.
In the editing history of the GCC manual, the addition of my text
is one step, "one edit", one contribution.  This contribution is
apparently dual licensed.  But the GCC manual, both before and
after this edit, is still only GFDL licensed.  That's not a
contradiction.

RMS will probably never ask people to dual license their
contributions, but I suppose he could if he wanted to.  And now
the Wikibooks NL community will.  I see no problem with that.

Anybody who wants to make a contribution that is *only* GFDL
licensed, can fork the project and do this on another server.
The GFDL frees the contents (you can take it and walk away), but
doesn't require anybody to provide a server for the editing.

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


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 3/22/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You and I aren't entitled to demand an explanation and to know every
>> small detail. It's between Danny and the Foundation.
>
> It is, however, unreasonable not to expect there to be curiosity and
> no small degree of consternation when two longtime key employees
> announce their departures over a couple of days.

The difference is that Brad gave about a month's notice. Danny left last
Tuesday with no prior notice. Danny's resignation caused some comment on
internal-l. Anthere decided that since we were talking about resignations,
this would be a good time to announce Brad's pending resignation, also to
internal-l. That is why Brad has chosen this time to make his announcement
to foundation-l, simultaneously with Danny's announcement. The close
timing is artificial. Brad was careful to make this point on internal-l,
so I don't think he will mind me making it here.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] U.S. Intelligence uses Wikipedia

body:
On the one hand, one would assume that Wikipedia is more reliable
than _most_ sources U. S. Intelligence uses.

On the other hand... imagine that someone from the Policy Counter-
Terrorism Evaluations Group gallops into the President's office
excitedly waving a computer printout and saying "We have hard,
actionable intelligence that Iran's so-called 'centrifuge tubes' are
actually intercontinental missiles, which they have given to Al-Qaeda
to fill with radioactive anthrax..."

...and it's a Wikipedia article dated April 1st and the last diff is
by someone with a funny name.


from_name: Anthony

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway? - "nofollow"
	decision

body:
On 3/22/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 12:01:36 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond"
> <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> >That is, if there was *really* an immediate spammer problem to be had.  I
> >recall Brad Patrick's breathless essay about how inundated we're getting
> >with spam, and then the G11 abomination occurred, but the actual necessity
> >of such a reaction was never really introduced - we seem to be extremely
> >trusting of those in the home office, don't we?
>
> We were inundated with spam.  We still are.  G11 is a necessary tool,
> and in any case we could creatively delete blatant spam as vandalism
> anyway.  The vast majority of G11 tagged articles *are* abominations,
> unlike G11.  Spend time looking at CAT:CSD some time.
>
Personally I like I95.  With BBD/JLD doing 72 in a 98 328i.  LMAO.

Anthony


from_name: cohesion

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 3/22/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least
> a little bit interesting, maybe unique

Such dry humor! :)

Judson
enwiki:cohesion


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?
	-	"nofollow"	decision

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>> With all due respect, that's certainly the company line.  I spend plenty
>> of time w/CAT:CSD - we're not inundated in a way that required such a
>> breathless, panicky, rushed situation like we ended up with.
>
> Rushed?  People had been asking for G11 for as long as I can remember.
> It was going to happen sooner or later anyway, and a firm steer from
> Foundation that spam, abuse of Wikipedia resources for self-promotion,
> is an abuse and should be stamped on, is hardly a controversial idea.

I'm referring more to the post-Patrick handling more than the typical
cries for expansions of various criteria for speedy deletion.
>
>> Of course, we're deathly afraid of anything that might actually benefit
>> someone outside of the project, to boot, so I guess I shouldn't be that
>> surprised by the general Office/Foundation reaction.  I just chalk it up
>> to another one of those bizarre deals.
>
> You have a strange view of things.  The entire project is for the
> benefit of people outside the foundation, mainly people like you and
> me and my kids.

I don't think so.  Look at how we handled Kohs and the Microsoft issue
and our COI guideline/policy - it's not meant to be flamebait, Kat,
thank you very much, but it's sometimes realy sad how we handle things
that may actually beenfit us as well as outside people financially.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly
	because you kind of get the impression she
	sang every song either about or to her cats.
	They seem to be the driving force in most of
	her creative process."     - Chuck Klosterman


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Brad Patrick Resigns as General
	Counsel

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 22/03/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am stepping down as General Counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,
> > effective March 31, 2007.  I tendered my resignation to the Board some
> > weeks ago, which was accepted.
>
>
> Thanks for your fantastic work for Wikimedia and the general infusion
> of clue you have given the organisation :-)

Indeed. Brad was a very influential force behind many positive changes the foundation underwent in
the last year. In fact, his hard work was pivotal in bringing the foundation from a barely running
and haphazard organization to something that now resembles a professional organization. On top of
that, he is real nice guy and was a true pleasure to work with.

-- Daniel

____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't get soaked.  Take a quick peek at the forecast
with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] What can you do under a GDFL licence

body:
On 23 Mar 2007 at 3:38 PM, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

[re Larry Sanger on Citizendium]
> which should have been the impetus to delete all references to Wikipedia not
> only from the content pages, but also in the minds of the
> contributors.

Sanger has managed to implement editing power over the minds of his
contributors?  Neat!  Now we ought to work on creating a similar, but
more democratic, capability for *our* site, so it can be "Wikipedia:
The Free Encyclopedia whose Editors' Minds Anyone can Change!"

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway? -
	"nofollow"	decision

body:
On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:59:41 -0400, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>> We were inundated with spam.  We still are.  G11 is a necessary tool,
>> and in any case we could creatively delete blatant spam as vandalism
>> anyway.  The vast majority of G11 tagged articles *are* abominations,
>> unlike G11.  Spend time looking at CAT:CSD some time.

>With all due respect, that's certainly the company line.  I spend plenty
>of time w/CAT:CSD - we're not inundated in a way that required such a
>breathless, panicky, rushed situation like we ended up with.

Rushed?  People had been asking for G11 for as long as I can remember.
It was going to happen sooner or later anyway, and a firm steer from
Foundation that spam, abuse of Wikipedia resources for self-promotion,
is an abuse and should be stamped on, is hardly a controversial idea.

>Of course, we're deathly afraid of anything that might actually benefit
>someone outside of the project, to boot, so I guess I shouldn't be that
>surprised by the general Office/Foundation reaction.  I just chalk it up
>to another one of those bizarre deals.

You have a strange view of things.  The entire project is for the
benefit of people outside the foundation, mainly people like you and
me and my kids.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>On the one hand, one would assume that Wikipedia is more reliable
>than _most_ sources U. S. Intelligence uses.
>
This is a well known fact that needs no sourcing.

>On the other hand... imagine that someone from the Policy Counter-
>Terrorism Evaluations Group gallops into the President's office
>excitedly waving a computer printout and saying "We have hard,
>actionable intelligence that Iran's so-called 'centrifuge tubes' are
>actually intercontinental missiles, which they have given to Al-Qaeda
>to fill with radioactive anthrax..."
>
Hmm!  I wonder whether such anthrax would be viable.  If some lizard
were also in the tube we could generate our own modern Godzilla. I'm
sure that we would have no problem convincing some people that it's all
true.   :-)

Ec


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow on external links, and interwiki links

body:
On 3/23/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's some discussion on wikien-l at present about nofollow on
> external links, and how that doesn't apply to interwiki links.
>
> 1. I understand when the nofollow was switched on for all external
> links, Brion suggested people code something finer-grained if they
> didn't like the all-or-nothing nature of denying pagerank to good
> external links. Has anyone been working on this?

It seems that unless there's something more fine-grained, there won't
be an option for nofollow on interwiki links:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8753

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Brad and Danny

body:
On 3/23/07, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Does this not leave Jimbo alone at WP:OFFICE?

WP:OFFICE is essentially a mechanism for Jimbo or Brad to proxy
important actions through someone working in the office when for
whatever reason they can't perform the action themselves (the classic
scenario is when one of them are without internet access, for
example).

So anyone in the office can act as the proxy, although it was always
Danny who did it because he was good at it. There are still staff in
the office who can take office actions:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Current_staff

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>Danny left last Tuesday with no prior notice.
>>
>>
>Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?
>
I hadn't realized that you were privy to employment contracts.  If
that's what you read in the contract it must be true.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
On 3/23/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:

> Huh? He's free to resign.

Yes.

> He's not forced to give an explanation to
> anyone who asks.

Yes.

>
> He's specifically said he doesn't want  to discuss his reasons *at the
> moment*, so please stop demanding so.

The way he said it left two questions open, I asked them and I feel
free to do so. If you mean "demanding" in a way that he is morally
bound to behave differently, I don't know. Of course he is free to
answer my question or not. Or he can choose to wait for his statements
until he is in the middle of his election campaign. Of course, anyone
is free to make up his own mind about that as well.

Thanks,
Mathias


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


body:
On 3/23/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> As I said, I think this scheme voids the GFDL -- at least based upon the
> plain language
> of the GFDL license. It says clearly that sublicensing is prohibiting.
> Copyright holder or not, the
> GFDL is a binding contract if you choose to accept it. At least that's
> my read of the plain
> language of the license. Other folks may have another interpretation though.

You're getting confused about the term "sublicencing". Sublicencing is
where the licenced user of a work relicences that work. It's not the
same as the situation where the copyright holder licences the work
under multiple licences.

So say that A is the copyright holder, and licences the work under the
GFDL, and B uses it. If B were then to try to licence the work under
CC-BY-SA, that would be sublicencing, and is prohibited by the licence
he is using the work under. If however A licenced the work under
CC-BY-SA also, that would be fine.

The other section you mention above, the prohibition on adding terms
to the licence, similarly does not apply. That only prevents people
from adding terms to the GFDL: ie, you must licence under GFDL or not
under GFDL, there is no third option for a "modified GFDL". It doesn't
prevent multiple licencing.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Raimond Spekking

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20615]
	trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES

body:
Rob Church schrieb:
> I was stating the long-standing convention we have. If you'd like to
> start a dialogue on a better way to rearrange the release notes, then
> here's your thread.

I start the dialogue...

Maybe we could split the section "== Changes since 1.9 ==" into
"Enhancements/New features since 1.x" and "Bugfixes since 1.x". This is
more friendly to read for all MediaWiki admins/users who are not daily
updating from trunk.

And at the moment "Major new features" is empty...

Any objections against splitting/resorting the current release notes?

Another idea: What about extensions? Aren't they worth to be mentioned?
At least the more important used on WMF projects? I know, this could be
POV *hides*

Raymond.

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from_name: bert.van.der.auwera at skynet.be

subject: [Wikitech-l] Multiple Languages

body:
Hi all,

Our soccer club, Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht, will exist 100 years in
2008 and for this we're starting up a RSCApedia (www3.rsca.be/wiki). Now, as
a Belgian club, we're multilangual: Dutch/French/English. For this, I wanted
to ask you how to install this wiki-site with multiple languages. How can we
make it happen that the people who visit this site can choose their language
and switch from it by using the menu at the left?

Vriendelijke groeten,

Bert Van der Auwera
--------------------------------------------------
Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht
bert at rsca.be <mailto:bert at rsca.be>    -   0477-416.097


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 23/03/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
>>reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
>>think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.
>>
>>
>Incredibly so. In my experience, journalists *love* Wikipedia because
>it's the universal backgrounding resource.
>
I like that interesting expression.  It should also be kept in mind by
the millions who are writing school essays, and the teachers who are
marking them.  Thus in an essay about 17th century french literature it
would seem legitimate to cite Wikipedia about the general background of
the french kings who were in power during that time.

Ec


from_name: Jerome Banal

body:
Hi,

For records, a similar request has been made to the board after some
discussions on the list for allowing a potential switch to dual-licensing
for Wiktionary FR beginning of December.
This has still not received approval so I suppose you decided this without
seeking this first. Am I wrong?
Not at all that I am complaining, I would be happy to see this happening,
but I suppose that as no answer has come that means that the Foundation
might see some problems with it. In particular, it seems that they have a
lot of discussions with FSF and CC regarding licensing right now, so I guess
they don't have much visibility about potential changes.

Regards,
Jerome (Eden2004)

2007/3/22, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com>:
>
> Dear all,
>
> The Wikibooks NL community has decided to change the default license
> of the textbooks for the future. That will mean that from a certain
> point in the near future all new submitted changes and new texts will
> be default double licenced under GNU FDL *and* CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later.
> The texts that are currently in Wikibooks NL will be marked as "GFDL
> only". This is so the project will be better able to spread it's
> content (as the reuser has a choise to use only a page of the
> wikibooks project without printing all the license etc)
>
> If every contributor of a certain page has agreed to relicense all
> his/her contributions on Wikibooks NL, also those in the past, under
> both licenses, the template stating the excemption of the default will
> be removed.
>
> It will still be possible to import pages from Wikipedia NL to
> Wikibooks NL. This will mean that a small part of the newly created
> pages will also be marked as "GFDL only". The community has taken some
> more precautions, such as creating templates to relicense all you
> contributions (HINT: {{Dubbel}}) and a page with explanation, but it
> would be too much in detail to explain that on this list. See this
> please as announcement, and contact the Wikibooks NL community through
> our Tutors' Chamber ([[b:nl:Wikibooks:Lerarenkamer]])
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Lodewijk Gelauff
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Fernando Correia

subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.10 pretty much all working with MS Sql
	Server

body:
I'd like to praise your thorough work on this. I'm sure it will help
expand MediaWiki's presence on intranets. I know I'd rather run it on
SQL Server than on MySQL. It would also be simpler to do so, because
we already have SQL Server as our main database.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[20615]	trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES

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

Raimond Spekking wrote:
> Maybe we could split the section "== Changes since 1.9 ==" into
> "Enhancements/New features since 1.x" and "Bugfixes since 1.x". This is
> more friendly to read for all MediaWiki admins/users who are not daily
> updating from trunk.

*thumbs up*

> Another idea: What about extensions? Aren't they worth to be mentioned?
> At least the more important used on WMF projects? I know, this could be
> POV *hides*

Mentioned where? They're not part of a MediaWiki release, so
RELEASE-NOTES maybe doesn't make sense. :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] How to include RSS feeds of history pages

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

thomas Armstrong wrote:
> I'm trying to code it by hand, but I'm not able to generate the same RSS code :(

Er, why code by hand when you can use the existing code? :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 23/03/07, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:

> Note that on the long term, this particular situation will go away, as
> future revisions of CC-BY-SA and GFDL will likely be made compatible.

I wish. Have you seen CC by-sa 3.0? Some versions are free content
licences and some aren't! With onerous codification of moral rights
that are disjoint with copyright, and default anyway in the countries
affected. Well done CC.

*aaaaargh*

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Creative_Commons_3.0_Licenses

I can trust that CC is a good organisation, and better than bad. But.
They're not all about the free content. We are, so that's an immediate
source of problems.

I have had real life examples of this, e.g. a discussion with Channel
4 FourDocs. Their words: "We'd love our stuff on Wikipedia. It's all
Creative Commons!" It's CC by-nc-nd. ARGH.

The Creative Commons confusion factor is (a) real (b) a serious
problem for us right now in getting content freed. Their jawdropping
idiocy in making some CC by-sa 3.0 licenses free content and others
not actually makes this much worse than before.

Stallman was right. Again.

- d.


from_name: Silas Snider

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>
	<200703231245.30856.kmw@armory.com>
	<mb5803h4rimqmn9qhgn8m3vju8d2d87jlg@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/23/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:45:30 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber
> <kmw at armory.com> wrote:
>
> >> The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
> >> Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.
>
> >How is that "harmful"?
>
> It promotes the idea that we celebrate childish vandalism.  What is
> good about that, exactly?
<snip />

Actually, it promotes the idea that we are willing to recognize humor
where it lies -- note that your definition of most of it as childish
is inherently subjective -- I often find the humor of the people
around me 'childish'. Since they are more mature than I, I must assume
that it is a problem with me rather than them.

Remember that one oft cited complaint about bureaucracy is that it is humorless.

Sincerely,
Silas Snider

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silas Snider is a proud member of the Association of Wikipedians Who
Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category
of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad
Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
(AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD) , and the Harmonious
Editing Club of Wikipedia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


body:
On 23/03/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 22 Mar 2007 at 23:22, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 22/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> > > Without these minimal "confines" everything flies away. A painting needs a
> > > solid canvass.

> > Yep. A constitution.

> You're going to take the Constitution out of the National Archives,
> and paint on it?  Blasphemy!

No no no. We'll use the *British* one. Much more malleable!

ahem.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Sourceforge page outdated

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

Tels wrote:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/
>
> still lists 1.9.1 as the latest release.

Bah, "news" post didn't get updated. Have posted.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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=JbYg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: thomas Armstrong

body:
I'm trying to code it by hand, but I'm not able to generate the same RSS code :(

On 3/21/07, thomas Armstrong <tarmstrong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Working with MediaWiki v1.6.10, I'd like to include RSS feeds of
> history feeds (similar to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MP3&action=history&feed=rss )
>
> How to implement it?
>
> Thank you very much.
>


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 3/23/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> Sanger has managed to implement editing power over the minds of his
> contributors?  Neat!  Now we ought to work on creating a similar, but
> more democratic, capability for *our* site, so it can be "Wikipedia:
> The Free Encyclopedia whose Editors' Minds Anyone can Change!"

Heh!

The Tinfinger guy has a point, though; it's not good for a project for
its leader to be so obsessed with comparisons to another project, or
indeed its contributors to be (if they actually care as much as Larry
Sanger thinks they do.)

I'm not sure how much Larry Sanger realises how this demeans his
project by making it look like simply a sour-grapes attempt to show
Wikipedia, and Jimmy, that he was the one with the right ideas all
along.

-Matt


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Status of BitTorrent Downloads

body:
para wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>There have been a large number of downloads of the torrent files for the
>>images, however, there does not seem to be a lot of interest
>>form folks in helping seed the images files.  I have had a lot of folks
>>connect then disconnect.
>>
>>
>
>?Torrent 1.6.1 490 on XP:
>
>  Unable to load "enwiki-allimages-20070206.tar.torrent.6969": Invalid
>torrent file!
>
>
Because of the size of the file, only rtorrent and and bittorrent seem
able to process files this large.
(Master images archive if 213 GB).

Use Bittorrent or rTorrent (Bittorrent prefferred).  Azureus also cannot
load a torrent file this large
(crashes with out of memory).

Jeff

>YMMV HTH HAND.
>
>-- Para
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: Jim Wilson

body:
On 3/23/07, thomas Armstrong wrote:
> Cause I'm not able to find the "existing code" :(

That's because it wasn't implemented until a later version of MediaWiki.
Versions in the 1.6.x chain don't contain RSS for history.

If possible, you should upgrade to a more recent version of MediaWiki
(1.9.3would be best at this time).  If you can't upgrade, then your
best bet is to
get a copy of 1.9.3 and see how they handle the History RSS.

You could write an extension that hooks "UnknownAction", check if the
$action is "history", check for a 'feed' URL var,  and then perform the same
steps that 1.9.x does.  It's not trivial, and it'll probably be tedious
work, but if you're set on doing it, this is, IMHO, the best way.

-- Jim

On 3/23/07, thomas Armstrong <tarmstrong at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Cause I'm not able to find the "existing code" :(
>
> On 3/23/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > thomas Armstrong wrote:
> > > I'm trying to code it by hand, but I'm not able to generate the same
> RSS code :(
> >
> > Er, why code by hand when you can use the existing code? :)
> >
> > - -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFGA9/7wRnhpk1wk44RAoTuAKCKp3iaV2To6/rmPzYf34WLqpmayQCglToH
> > BqHwgY6dR89FyWbTk8pGZ9U=
> > =ePS1
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: commons-l

subject:
[Commons-l] [daily-image-l] Technical problem: some emails are
	missing the image link

body:
On 19/03/07, Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day
<daily-image-l at lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Some of you may have occasionally received daily-image-l emails that
> are missing the image link (URL) and copyright information, where the
> email starts (rather unhelpfully) at "Descriptions".
> I am aware of this problem but I don't know yet what causes it or how
> it can be fixed. I will try and find out. The archives always show the
> full email, and different people report the problem on different days,
> so it seems quite random.

I've reported it to Gmail at:

    http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py

If everyone having this problem reports it to Google, that would be
good and give them more reports to work with.

Paste in the message as received, then paste in the original message
as sent, which you can get by clicking on the down-arrow next to
"Reply" and going to "Show original."

- d.


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/23/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Stallman was right. Again.

Anyone who create a supposedly free licence that allows for two lots
of invariant sections and requires a complete reading of the thing if
it is used for audio has little right to criticise others.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 under DOS Attacks

body:
Wikigadugi.org has been under a massive Bot-Net generated denial of
service attack since late yesterday.  The IP addresses are from China,
Korea, Turkey, and Russia.  Blocking at the firewall or proxy just
results in more spawned attacks from hundreds of new and unrelated IP
addresses.  I found one solution which was limit the number of
connections httpd allows concurrently and this seems to allow legitimate
users to access the system though the attacks persist.  The attack
pattern seems very specific to MediaWiki behavior.    It attempts to
load an article then aborts the HTTP request while MediaWiki is churning
through the database, then immediately issues another request for
another article.  It in essense shotguns through the entire name space
of articles rapidly.  It has trouble taking MediaWiki to its knees but
had no trouble taking squid down to a crawl on the proxies and choking
the network with garbage.

What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?

Jeff


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 under DOS Attacks


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] purpose served by anonymity / unmoderated edits

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> My first impression from your response is that you would end up with
> something even more complicated than what I would imagine. :-
> (    While
> I see the value of having this ones preferences set to have a certain
> version as preferred, the drive-by viewer just looking for information
> is not likely to know about this.  He can, however, be guided by
> whether
> an article has (in big numbers) a reliability rating of 2.6 or 7.9.

I think user rating of article versions ought to be as simple as
possible: one-click approval. It ought to be as easy as clicking on
the "watch this article" tab to add an article to your watchlist.
This means that all users do is decide yes or no for approval.
Anything further adds complexity to the system but offers little gain
in utility.

I don't think it's a good idea to try to have each user attach a
numerical rating to their approval level or to break out approval
into different categories. Both of those would just complicate the
system. For example, if we have a numerical rating, what numerical
range should we use for the scale? 1 through 3? 1 through 5? 1
through 10? If it's 1 through 10, does 1 mean "exceptional" and 10
mean "horrible" or is it vice versa? These are trivial questions, but
they have to be answered, and the interface has to convey the answers
to these questions so plainly that even new users don't get confused.
With Wikipedia, moreover, users have the ability to edit articles
themselves to come up with a version that they are willing to
approve, so there's less need to rate versions according to DEGREE of
approval. If someone sees an article that they would rate 7 on a
scale of 1 to 10, they can just edit it themselves into a condition
where they think it rates 10 and then approve that version. And if
someone subsequently edits it into an even BETTER condition, they can
just click to approve the new version, superseding their previous
choice.

I think it would be an even bigger mistake to try to set up a system
that scores article versions according to multiple criteria such as
"accuracy," "neutrality," "comprehensiveness," etc. Not only would
this complicate the rating system and the user interface, it would
inevitably be arbitrary in its choice of rating criteria, because
there are any number of criteria that could be used, and the system
would have to arbitrarily choose a subset: OK, we'll rate according
to "accuracy" and "neutrality" but not according to "clarity" or
"fairness" or "grammar" or "well-referenced" or "suitable for
children" or "appropriate use of graphics."

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 3/23/07, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or how any story on video games must include their imminent and
> ever-increasing danger to society?
>
> --Ryan

That one is becomeing less popular if only because an increaseing
number of journalists play computer games themselves.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 3/22/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least
> a little bit interesting, maybe unique

I think it's as mistaken to lump all journalists together as it would
be to lump together all Wikipedians or all bloggers. Some, probably
most, journalists are indeed guilty of superficial pack journalism.
(That's why they call it a pack.) However, you can also find quality
reporting that avoids cliches and genuinely informs.

Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 23/03/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?
>>
>>
>
>
>Be a top-10 website that could slashdot other sites if it wanted to? :-)
>
>
Well, I found if you take squid out of the mix, MediaWiki is resilent
and withstands these attacks
very well if you limit how much of the pipe gets chewed up by the
excessive connections.
Squid did not handle it well.

Jeff

>
>- d.
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


references:
<20070321181450.GA4759@sethf.com>
	<71cd4dd90703220804n7bc52f2bwa41b5a7e93e90ce5@mail.gmail.com>
	<fbad4e140703220812w6e97e75brec5fc3b7c89f3d93@mail.gmail.com>
	<1679.69.21.252.114.1174578629.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<fbad4e140703220854n483e5dcfv8bf991554b9ff86@mail.gmail.com>
	<1897.69.21.252.114.1174579296.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<h31603tkpr930q6tv8t73detcj5fc4s8ma@4ax.com>
	<4603348D.2010806@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<ja17039fhd1vi0rnq349qllcef82efnrss@4ax.com>
	<4603B6EA.2050408@internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
On 23/03/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

> I don't think so.  Look at how we handled Kohs and the Microsoft issue
> and our COI guideline/policy - it's not meant to be flamebait, Kat,
> thank you very much, but it's sometimes realy sad how we handle things
> that may actually beenfit us as well as outside people financially.

I think we sorted out the Microsoft one well enough. I seemed to have
bored at least one TV news story on the issue out of existence ...

- d.


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [Foundation-l] Help with impersonation

body:
Hmm... just thought I'd point out - post-impersonation incident, he's now
going around finding people with usernames similar to other ones, and
warning them about impersonation in bad-faith. Little bit too much t'be a
coincidence, I think.


subject: [Foundation-l] Help with impersonation


body:
> Ok, though the extensions are no part of MW release, what do you think
> about a separate RELEASE-NOTES EXTENSIONS in the extensions dir? Would
> it be useful?

I wouldn't find this useful.  However, if each extension had its own
RELEASE-NOTES, this might help.

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)

On 3/23/07, Raimond Spekking <raimond.spekking at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber schrieb:
>
> > *thumbs up*
>
> [X] Done. I hope, the sections and devision of existing entries are
> satisfying.
>
> > Mentioned where? They're not part of a MediaWiki release, so
> > RELEASE-NOTES maybe doesn't make sense. :)
>
> Ok, though the extensions are no part of MW release, what do you think
> about a separate RELEASE-NOTES EXTENSIONS in the extensions dir? Would
> it be useful?
>
> Raymond.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] GeoHack can now be localized

body:
By request, I changed my geohack tool, which is used by many
wikipedias to provide a list of map and data resources for given GPS
coordinates, to optionally use localized templates.

For that purpose, I've moved the en template to
[[Template:GeoTemplate]]. For localization (say, "fr"), you have to
1. copy the text of [[en:Template:GeoTemplate]] to [[fr:Template:GeoTemplate]]
2. edit [[fr:Template:GeoTemplate]] to the local language
3. call geohack with the additional parameter "language=fr" (URL
generation is usually done by templates, so a few fixes on your
wikipedia should do)

I still say that Map Sources/GeoHack should become part of the default
MediaWiki installation for wikipedias via extension. Using the
toolserver for this was a quick hack (thus the name) after the
original server went offline. It HTTP-GETs the
[[Template:GeoTemplate]] for /every single request/, which is bad for
both toolserver and wikipedia servers and could be solved internally
much more elegantly.

Magnus


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibooks NL is changing License

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 03:01:44AM +0000, geni wrote:
>
> We release text under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5. Someone makes some
> modifications but only releases those modifications under
> CC-BY-SA-2.5. We then cannont use the modified text.

Yup, that's the downside.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>My first impression from your response is that you would end up with
>>something even more complicated than what I would imagine. :-
>>(    While
>>I see the value of having ones preferences set to have a certain
>>version as preferred, but the drive-by viewer just looking for information
>>is not likely to know about this.  He can, however, be guided by
>>whether
>>an article has (in big numbers) a reliability rating of 2.6 or 7.9.
>>
>>
>I think user rating of article versions ought to be as simple as
>possible: one-click approval. It ought to be as easy as clicking on
>the "watch this article" tab to add an article to your watchlist.
>This means that all users do is decide yes or no for approval.
>Anything further adds complexity to the system but offers little gain
>in utility.
>
We did have somehing of this sort back in 2002(?) before we went to the
1.4 versionb of the software.  Adding information to the watchlist is
only good for established users. It does nothing for the casual visitor
who just wants to look up information, and these are the people who are
most concerned about reliability.  Insiders already have their own ways
of judging the worth of an article, but these are by no means uniform.

>I don't think it's a good idea to try to have each user attach a
>numerical rating to their approval level or to break out approval
>into different categories. Both of those would just complicate the
>system. For example, if we have a numerical rating, what numerical
>range should we use for the scale? 1 through 3? 1 through 5? 1
>through 10? If it's 1 through 10, does 1 mean "exceptional" and 10
>mean "horrible" or is it vice versa? These are trivial questions, but
>they have to be answered, and the interface has to convey the answers
>to these questions so plainly that even new users don't get confused.
>
Although I prefer a 10 or 100 point scheme with the good articles at the
high end, I realize that whatever scale we use is arbitrary.  Whatever
decision is made on these it should be easy to explain.  Whether an
article is good could be related to the general valuation of all
articles.  When people are asked to rate things the average rating tends
to be higher than the expected average of 5 on a 10 point scale.  An
average rating would be equal to the average for all articles.  To make
things more readable the number rating of articles between +1 and -1
standard deviations of the average could be black.  We could use orange
of  those between -2 and -1, red for those below -2, blue for those
between +1 and +2, and green for those above +2.

>With Wikipedia, moreover, users have the ability to edit articles
>themselves to come up with a version that they are willing to
>approve, so there's less need to rate versions according to DEGREE of
>approval. If someone sees an article that they would rate 7 on a
>scale of 1 to 10, they can just edit it themselves into a condition
>where they think it rates 10 and then approve that version. And if
>someone subsequently edits it into an even BETTER condition, they can
>just click to approve the new version, superseding their previous
>choice.
>
In the context of a simple edit war both combattants are likely to rate
their own versions as a 10. :-)

A statistical mathematical model should be capable of marginalizing the
effect that idiots have on the article.  What goes into the formula
would be public information, but they would still operate in the background.

>I think it would be an even bigger mistake to try to set up a system
>that scores article versions according to multiple criteria such as
>"accuracy," "neutrality," "comprehensiveness," etc. Not only would
>this complicate the rating system and the user interface, it would
>inevitably be arbitrary in its choice of rating criteria, because
>there are any number of criteria that could be used, and the system
>would have to arbitrarily choose a subset: OK, we'll rate according
>to "accuracy" and "neutrality" but not according to "clarity" or
>"fairness" or "grammar" or "well-referenced" or "suitable for
>children" or "appropriate use of graphics."
>
I wouldn't call it a mistake, but I do fully appreciate the difficulties
that you raise.  Until a workable system is established for giving a
single overall rating, it would be pointless to try adding any greater
sophistication.  The single rating would need to be debugged first.
After that additional criteria could be added individually, or could be
made to apply only to articles within a particular category.

Ec


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Hoi,
The sad thing of cliff hangers like this is that we do not celebrate the
good that Danny did. In stead questions have been raised about why Danny
sought to leave. Given that the impression is given that there are issues,
it is sad that they cannot be addressed now because what is there to
address?
Thanks,
     GerardM

PS Thanks for all the good work that you did.

On 3/23/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>
> >You and I aren't entitled to demand an explanation and to know every
> >small detail. It's between Danny and the Foundation.
> >
> We can demand explanations as much as we want, but he's just not
> required to answer.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


subject: [Commons-l] zomg POTD RSS!

body:
On 23/03/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks to Duesentrieb being a legend, we now have RSS feeds for the
> Picture of the Day. :D
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/Picture_of_the_Day_RSS
> ^^^^^ edit this as you see fit, and then someone on Monday can "?nnounce" it?

See if we can get the Gmail bug sorted out first, I suggest!

- d.


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
I approached Brad, and I understood from him that it is, if correctly
done (things like good notes, clear explanation etc), ok. The
foundation is still working on a licensing policy, Erik Moeller posted
a few times about this on this list, and as far as what I know about
the current status, the proposal that has been on this list, this
licensing is within those borders. The dual license is actually more
free for re-users, so from that point of view, it should be fine.

@David Gerard: We chose CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later. So a re-user can choose
which one to use, 2.5 or 3.0 or any later version. If someone has
important reasons to choose even an earlier version, please let us
know.

Further I think Robert Horning explained very well what the idea is
behind this. It is true that we make it a little harder for ourselves
when writing content. But I beleive that we make it a lot easier to
re-users and that this makes it worth while. I beleive strongly that
the combination of GFDL and CC-BY-SA offers the best opportunities to
people who want to print books at the end, and that is what Wikibooks
is going I hope. I hope we can show that the problems are minimal, and
that for small communities it is still possible to switch to dual
licensing. Of course I understand that for most Wikipediae this doesnt
count.

One more advantage of Wikibooks in this: a wikibook has usually a more
limited number of users who are writing on a page. This way it would
be easier to approach them all to ask to relicense their previous
contributions under this dual license, so the examptions would be
less. Of course we have to watch out that imported pages can not that
easily be relicensed. But nl.wikibooks has already activated the
import-function for quite a while, so it is clear who wrote what. (as
you import a page with history then)

Lodewijk

2007/3/23, Jerome Banal <jerome.banal op gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> For records, a similar request has been made to the board after some
> discussions on the list for allowing a potential switch to dual-licensing
> for Wiktionary FR beginning of December.
> This has still not received approval so I suppose you decided this without
> seeking this first. Am I wrong?
> Not at all that I am complaining, I would be happy to see this happening,
> but I suppose that as no answer has come that means that the Foundation
> might see some problems with it. In particular, it seems that they have a
> lot of discussions with FSF and CC regarding licensing right now, so I guess
> they don't have much visibility about potential changes.
>
> Regards,
> Jerome (Eden2004)
>
>
>
> 2007/3/22, effe iets anders <effeietsanders op gmail.com>:
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The Wikibooks NL community has decided to change the default license
> > of the textbooks for the future. That will mean that from a certain
> > point in the near future all new submitted changes and new texts will
> > be default double licenced under GNU FDL *and* CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later.
> > The texts that are currently in Wikibooks NL will be marked as "GFDL
> > only". This is so the project will be better able to spread it's
> > content (as the reuser has a choise to use only a page of the
> > wikibooks project without printing all the license etc)
> >
> > If every contributor of a certain page has agreed to relicense all
> > his/her contributions on Wikibooks NL, also those in the past, under
> > both licenses, the template stating the excemption of the default will
> > be removed.
> >
> > It will still be possible to import pages from Wikipedia NL to
> > Wikibooks NL. This will mean that a small part of the newly created
> > pages will also be marked as "GFDL only". The community has taken some
> > more precautions, such as creating templates to relicense all you
> > contributions (HINT: {{Dubbel}}) and a page with explanation, but it
> > would be too much in detail to explain that on this list. See this
> > please as announcement, and contact the Wikibooks NL community through
> > our Tutors' Chamber ([[b:nl:Wikibooks:Lerarenkamer]])
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> > Lodewijk Gelauff
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
I approached Brad, and I understood from him that it is, if correctly
done (things like good notes, clear explanation etc), ok. The
foundation is still working on a licensing policy, Erik Moeller posted
a few times about this on this list, and as far as what I know about
the current status, the proposal that has been on this list, this
licensing is within those borders. The dual license is actually more
free for re-users, so from that point of view, it should be fine.

@David Gerard: We chose CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later. So a re-user can choose
which one to use, 2.5 or 3.0 or any later version. If someone has
important reasons to choose even an earlier version, please let us
know.

Further I think Robert Horning explained very well what the idea is
behind this. It is true that we make it a little harder for ourselves
when writing content. But I beleive that we make it a lot easier to
re-users and that this makes it worth while. I beleive strongly that
the combination of GFDL and CC-BY-SA offers the best opportunities to
people who want to print books at the end, and that is what Wikibooks
is going I hope. I hope we can show that the problems are minimal, and
that for small communities it is still possible to switch to dual
licensing. Of course I understand that for most Wikipediae this doesnt
count.

One more advantage of Wikibooks in this: a wikibook has usually a more
limited number of users who are writing on a page. This way it would
be easier to approach them all to ask to relicense their previous
contributions under this dual license, so the examptions would be
less. Of course we have to watch out that imported pages can not that
easily be relicensed. But nl.wikibooks has already activated the
import-function for quite a while, so it is clear who wrote what. (as
you import a page with history then)

Lodewijk

2007/3/23, Jerome Banal <jerome.banal at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> For records, a similar request has been made to the board after some
> discussions on the list for allowing a potential switch to dual-licensing
> for Wiktionary FR beginning of December.
> This has still not received approval so I suppose you decided this without
> seeking this first. Am I wrong?
> Not at all that I am complaining, I would be happy to see this happening,
> but I suppose that as no answer has come that means that the Foundation
> might see some problems with it. In particular, it seems that they have a
> lot of discussions with FSF and CC regarding licensing right now, so I guess
> they don't have much visibility about potential changes.
>
> Regards,
> Jerome (Eden2004)
>
>
>
> 2007/3/22, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The Wikibooks NL community has decided to change the default license
> > of the textbooks for the future. That will mean that from a certain
> > point in the near future all new submitted changes and new texts will
> > be default double licenced under GNU FDL *and* CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later.
> > The texts that are currently in Wikibooks NL will be marked as "GFDL
> > only". This is so the project will be better able to spread it's
> > content (as the reuser has a choise to use only a page of the
> > wikibooks project without printing all the license etc)
> >
> > If every contributor of a certain page has agreed to relicense all
> > his/her contributions on Wikibooks NL, also those in the past, under
> > both licenses, the template stating the excemption of the default will
> > be removed.
> >
> > It will still be possible to import pages from Wikipedia NL to
> > Wikibooks NL. This will mean that a small part of the newly created
> > pages will also be marked as "GFDL only". The community has taken some
> > more precautions, such as creating templates to relicense all you
> > contributions (HINT: {{Dubbel}}) and a page with explanation, but it
> > would be too much in detail to explain that on this list. See this
> > please as announcement, and contact the Wikibooks NL community through
> > our Tutors' Chamber ([[b:nl:Wikibooks:Lerarenkamer]])
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> > Lodewijk Gelauff
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] zomg POTD RSS!

body:
On 23/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/03/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Thanks to Duesentrieb being a legend, we now have RSS feeds for the
> > Picture of the Day. :D
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/Picture_of_the_Day_RSS
> > ^^^^^ edit this as you see fit, and then someone on Monday can "?nnounce" it?

> See if we can get the Gmail bug sorted out first, I suggest!

I've suggested to the ComCom that daily-image-l would be a good thing
to do a proactive press release on, once the Gmail bug's fixed.

- d.


in_reply_to:
<46038A64.8050001@netzero.net>;
	from robert_horning@netzero.net on Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at
	02:05:56AM -0600

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 02:05:56AM -0600, Robert Horning wrote:
> I would say that I hope that the WMF would establish a general policy that
> all Wikimedia user projects should be available under the GFDL (with
> obvious exceptions for Wikinews).  I think this is assumed and has been
> stated informally, but I don't know of any formal policy that suggests this
> concept.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues

Issue #4

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
Slim Virgin wrote:

>On 3/23/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
>>reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
>>think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.
>>
>>
>Yes, indeed, though I sense that's coming to an end.
>
Yeah.  The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting
Wikipedia in proper perspective means.  They might even have to check
their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. :-)

Ec


body:
" This document doesn't necessarily reflect the view of Wikimedia
Foundation. Also this document may contain outdated and thus wrong
information."

2007/3/23, Kim Bruning <kim op bruning.xs4all.nl>:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 02:05:56AM -0600, Robert Horning wrote:
> > I would say that I hope that the WMF would establish a general policy that
> > all Wikimedia user projects should be available under the GFDL (with
> > obvious exceptions for Wikinews).  I think this is assumed and has been
> > stated informally, but I don't know of any formal policy that suggests this
> > concept.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues
>
> Issue #4
>
> read you soon,
>         Kim Bruning
>
> --
> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
> gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
" This document doesn't necessarily reflect the view of Wikimedia
Foundation. Also this document may contain outdated and thus wrong
information."

2007/3/23, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 02:05:56AM -0600, Robert Horning wrote:
> > I would say that I hope that the WMF would establish a general policy that
> > all Wikimedia user projects should be available under the GFDL (with
> > obvious exceptions for Wikinews).  I think this is assumed and has been
> > stated informally, but I don't know of any formal policy that suggests this
> > concept.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues
>
> Issue #4
>
> read you soon,
>         Kim Bruning
>
> --
> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
> gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource.com ("Wiki does not exist")

body:
Bence Damokos wrote:
> Dear Foundation!
> I would like to ask the Foundation, is it intentional that
> http://wikisource.com doesn't redirect to http://wikisource.org the same way
> wikipedia.com and wiktionary.com does?
> Also I would like to know why doesn't the "Wiki does not exist" page at
> wikisource.com suggest the project Wikisource, and why is Wiktionary so
> prominently featured?
> I hope this is just a mistake, and my letter helps correct it.
> Regards,
> Bence Damokos
>

I would like to add that http://wikijunior.org does not currently work
either, although in the past it automatically redirected to
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior

I'm not sure if somebody forgot to pay the bill for the domain, or if
this is merely an oversight where some configurations were changed in
the Wikimedia domain server and these records were wiped out.

If this needs to go to Bugzilla, I'll do that too.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  BJAODN

body:
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:

>On Friday 23 March 2007 13:37, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>
>>No, I have no problem at all with humour.  Or humor.  As long as it is
>>actually funny - but 99% of what's on the BJAODN pages is not. Not
>>even remotely so.
>>
>>
>Says you...
>
He's English.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?
>>>
>>>
>> I hadn't realized that you were privy to employment contracts.  If
>> that's what you read in the contract it must be true.
>>
>
> There's no need for sarcasm, pretty much every employment contract
> requires notice (under UK law, you even have to give notice if you
> don't have a written contract - I don't know about US law, of course),
> so it's a fair question.
>

Where I live (Utah), you are not required to issue a formal resignation
unless it is explictly in your contract.  In fact, you can resign from
your employment simply by not showing up to work or three consecutive
days.  It is the option of the employer to decide if they will hire you
back if you have an accident and were unable to contact them due to some
unfortunate circumstances.  This is state law, and overrides most
employment contracts as well in most situations.  A corporate officer is
a bit different, as this might have applied in this exact case.
Officers of non-profits are even trickier, as there are some
notifications that may have to be filed with the government that may
also be public records.  The WMF doesn't have to make it easy for you to
get those notifications, however.

Still, I understand where you are coming from, and it isn't unreasonable
to be curious here.... just that you may not get the answers you are
seeking.  Nor should you be expecting them.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 3/23/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
> reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
> think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.
>
Yes, indeed, though I sense that's coming to an end.

Sarah


body:
Bennett Haselton wrote:

>At 11:05 AM 3/23/2007 -0500, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>My first impression from your response is that you would end up with
>>>something even more complicated than what I would imagine. :-
>>>(    While
>>>I see the value of having this ones preferences set to have a certain
>>>version as preferred, the drive-by viewer just looking for information
>>>is not likely to know about this.  He can, however, be guided by
>>>whether
>>>an article has (in big numbers) a reliability rating of 2.6 or 7.9.
>>>
>>>
>>I think user rating of article versions ought to be as simple as
>>possible: one-click approval. It ought to be as easy as clicking on
>>the "watch this article" tab to add an article to your watchlist.
>>This means that all users do is decide yes or no for approval.
>>Anything further adds complexity to the system but offers little gain
>>in utility.
>>
>>
>Also, one reason I was advocating a means for verified experts to sign off
>on the accuracy of an article, was to enable people to cite or reference
>that article, saying that even if Professor X didn't write it, he vouches
>for its authenticity.
>
Saying that Professor X vouched for the article only begs the question,
"Who the hell is professor X?"  For someone who is not familiar with the
subject area Professor Y would be just as valuable even if he has an
opposing opinion.

>If you go with a sliding scale from 1 to 10 instead of a yes/no option,
>then there's some ambiguity in whether you can cite an expert as vouching
>for the correctness of the article.
>
I'm not completely opposed to some professor's anecdotal evidence.  TV
ads for medical products regularly show some doctor proclaiming the
virtues of some product.

>How high does their rating have to be
>before you can put them down as "vouching" for the article?  7?  10?  I
>have no idea.
>
How about two standard deviations above the statistical mean.

Ec


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>

body:
On Friday 23 March 2007 12:22, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> >
> >You haven't quantified any actual harm, and your last sentence is so
> >far speculation. Got any hard info?
>
> The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
> Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.

How is that "harmful"?

Your assertion does not make it so.

Looks like you're just looking for an excuse to power-trip.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


from_name: Bennett Haselton

body:
At 11:05 AM 3/23/2007 -0500, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > My first impression from your response is that you would end up with
> > something even more complicated than what I would imagine. :-
> > (    While
> > I see the value of having this ones preferences set to have a certain
> > version as preferred, the drive-by viewer just looking for information
> > is not likely to know about this.  He can, however, be guided by
> > whether
> > an article has (in big numbers) a reliability rating of 2.6 or 7.9.
>
>I think user rating of article versions ought to be as simple as
>possible: one-click approval. It ought to be as easy as clicking on
>the "watch this article" tab to add an article to your watchlist.
>This means that all users do is decide yes or no for approval.
>Anything further adds complexity to the system but offers little gain
>in utility.

Also, one reason I was advocating a means for verified experts to sign off
on the accuracy of an article, was to enable people to cite or reference
that article, saying that even if Professor X didn't write it, he vouches
for its authenticity.

If you go with a sliding scale from 1 to 10 instead of a yes/no option,
then there's some ambiguity in whether you can cite an expert as vouching
for the correctness of the article.  How high does their rating have to be
before you can put them down as "vouching" for the article?  7?  10?  I
have no idea.

         -Bennett


subject:
[Foundation-l] Foundation issues deprecated!? (Re: Wikibooks NL is
	changing License)

in_reply_to:
<73f3ff1b0703230414w4739480ew8111eb96b39a68d7@mail.gmail.com>;
	from effeietsanders@gmail.com on Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 12:14:02PM
	+0100

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 12:14:02PM +0100, effeietsanders wrote:
> " This document doesn't necessarily reflect the view of Wikimedia
> Foundation. Also this document may contain outdated and thus wrong
> information."

These 5 issues are basically what I "signed on for" when I decided
to stick around on wikipedia.

Aphaia added that statement on 7 march 2007, that's just this month.

Ut oh. Welcome to tempest-in-teapot #5137 ;-)

<duely proceeds to start tempest>

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning
--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
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5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20643]
	trunk/phase3/includes/Parser.php

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

mkroetzsch at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Added parser hook InternalParseBeforeLinks, closes Bug#8578. The hook is relevant for all parser extensions that want templates, nowiki, etc. to
> be taken care of before they do their magic.

New hook? Don't forget to update documentation in hooks.txt...

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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bjJf+CmXEJiV1RPFTsEoJ/k=
=qXGb
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subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Robert Horning wrote:

>Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>
>>>>Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I hadn't realized that you were privy to employment contracts.  If
>>>that's what you read in the contract it must be true.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>There's no need for sarcasm, pretty much every employment contract
>>requires notice (under UK law, you even have to give notice if you
>>don't have a written contract - I don't know about US law, of course),
>>so it's a fair question.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Where I live (Utah), you are not required to issue a formal resignation
>
>

So Robert, where in Utah do you live? Are you closeby at all?

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation