from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
>
> So ... written any good articles lately?

No, but I've really _enjoyed_ making a stab at "Free lunch," http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_lunch , and expanding "Raines law," http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raines_law .

For me, probably the most enjoyable thing about WIkipedia is the
discovery of self-assigned research projects on topics I'm curious
about and know absolutely nothing about.

Having read old novels, I was vaguely aware of the institution known
as the "free lunch." I still haven't got the whole picture, but
obviously it went out with prohibition and I _believe_ it never came
back, presumably since after prohibition there was no need whatsoever
to promote saloons, and probably because depression economics didn't
make it feasible for saloon keepers. I don't have a clear picture of
its rise and fall, or its regional aspects. I kind of have the idea
the saloon's "free lunch" was universal in big cities but not in
small towns. But I'm sure it was strongly influenced by local
regulations regarding alcohol licensing.

(It's always annoyed me that people that quote "There ain't no such
thing as a free lunch" don't understand that it is a specific
reference to the "free lunches" offered by saloons).

The fascinating thing about "Raines law" and "Raines law hotel" is
that they are such totally _unfamiliar_ phrases, although when I
started poking into "free lunch" I found dozens of references to
them... in New York State it seems to have been conspicuous and
disliked a law, and as much of a topic of public discourse, as
prohibition itself was later.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
> From: "James Hare" <messedrocker at gmail.com>
>
> Yeah, I find that annoying, too.
>
> Like this one time when I found an excellent article from the Mayo
> Clinic
> about Tinnitus, so I run over to the Wikipedia article about it and
> find a
> detailed article. Aww, so much for that!

I've read a few articles about tinnitus and one thing which none of
them (including ours) explain is why the word is "tinnitus" when
you'd think it ought to be "tintinnitus."

(Oh, the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, the
tinnabulation of the bells... see what I mean?)


from_name: Chris Picone

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
It's terrible. Many are obvious, but some are so subtle that I only
found them through randomly Googling a phrase. (also, thanks a bundle
for the Perl script. I got halfway there with Applescript, but now I
don't have to worry!)

Chris

On 11/24/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> The fact that people continually insert copyvios into articles is very
> distressing.
>
> On 11/24/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 23/11/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > If I can't finish this, would any of you Wikipedians be so kind as to
> > > write a script for me to run? Thanks,
> >
> > Sure. Try this:
> > http://downlode.org/Code/Perl/Wikipedia/copyviofinder.txt
> >
> > It's a little rough and ready, but seems to work. A couple of random
> > examples:
> >
> > [[USS Dale (DD-290)]]
> > Search phrase: Dale operated with Destroyer Squadrons, Scouting Fleet,
> > on the Atlantic
> > Found:
> >   http://www.historycentral.com/navy/destroyer/DaleIIIdd290.html
> >   http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/dd-290.htm
> >   http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd290txt.htm
> >
> > [[Cincinnati Bengals]]
> > Search phrase: The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American
> > football team based
> > Found:
> >   http://www.jazzsportsnews.com/nfl/teams/64.html
> >
> > http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=Cincinn
> > ati_Bengals
> >   http://www.acheapseat.com/cincinnati_bengals_tickets.html
> >   http://www.blinkbits.com/bits/viewforum/cincinnati_bengals_bio?f=2552
> >   http://www.frontrowking.com/football/cincinnati_bengals_tickets.html
> >   http://www.ticketstogo.com/sport/nfl/Cincinnati-Bengals.html
> >   http://www.free-picks.org/nfl/articles/bengals.html
> >   http://www.foxboroticketking.com/vscincinnatibengals.html
> > [lots more URLs snipped]
> >
> > Whether the copyvio is an inward or outward bound one in each case is
> > sadly beyond the scope of my programming skills, so I leave that to
> > you.
> >
> > --
> > Earle Martin
> >             http://downlode.org/
> > http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
I don't know anything about Perl, but I get this foreign error trying
to run the script in my ocmmand line:

Can't locate HTML/FormatText.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /sw/lib/perl5
/sw/lib/perl5/darwin
/System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/System/Library/Perl/5.8.6
/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6
/Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl
/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6
/Library/Perl/5.8.1/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .)
at copyviofinder.pl line 37.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at copyviofinder.pl line 37.

hope it's of any use and thanks a lot!
Chris
On 11/26/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's terrible. Many are obvious, but some are so subtle that I only
> found them through randomly Googling a phrase. (also, thanks a bundle
> for the Perl script. I got halfway there with Applescript, but now I
> don't have to worry!)
>
> Chris
>
> On 11/24/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The fact that people continually insert copyvios into articles is very
> > distressing.
> >
> > On 11/24/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 23/11/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > If I can't finish this, would any of you Wikipedians be so kind as to
> > > > write a script for me to run? Thanks,
> > >
> > > Sure. Try this:
> > > http://downlode.org/Code/Perl/Wikipedia/copyviofinder.txt
> > >
> > > It's a little rough and ready, but seems to work. A couple of random
> > > examples:
> > >
> > > [[USS Dale (DD-290)]]
> > > Search phrase: Dale operated with Destroyer Squadrons, Scouting Fleet,
> > > on the Atlantic
> > > Found:
> > >   http://www.historycentral.com/navy/destroyer/DaleIIIdd290.html
> > >   http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/dd-290.htm
> > >   http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd290txt.htm
> > >
> > > [[Cincinnati Bengals]]
> > > Search phrase: The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American
> > > football team based
> > > Found:
> > >   http://www.jazzsportsnews.com/nfl/teams/64.html
> > >
> > > http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=Cincinn
> > > ati_Bengals
> > >   http://www.acheapseat.com/cincinnati_bengals_tickets.html
> > >   http://www.blinkbits.com/bits/viewforum/cincinnati_bengals_bio?f=2552
> > >   http://www.frontrowking.com/football/cincinnati_bengals_tickets.html
> > >   http://www.ticketstogo.com/sport/nfl/Cincinnati-Bengals.html
> > >   http://www.free-picks.org/nfl/articles/bengals.html
> > >   http://www.foxboroticketking.com/vscincinnatibengals.html
> > > [lots more URLs snipped]
> > >
> > > Whether the copyvio is an inward or outward bound one in each case is
> > > sadly beyond the scope of my programming skills, so I leave that to
> > > you.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Earle Martin
> > >             http://downlode.org/
> > > http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 11/25/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > I say show me the creativity.  I don't see it.  I actually don't
> > see much creativity in any satellite photography, but...
>
> Um, have you ever looked at Google Earth?  It contains much more
> than satellite photography.

And I never said all of Google Earth imagery is public domain.  I said
"Much of Google Earth imagery *is* public domain."

> The stuff ain't PD.  I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but as
> far as I know, it's quite legitimately copyrighted.

Are you trying to say *none* of it is PD, or are you saying *some* of
it isn't?  I agree completely that *some* of it likely isn't PD.

Anthony


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with whitelists

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

Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> Let's say example.com and example.net are blacklisted, but
> subsite.example.com is whitelisted.
>
> Then, subsite.example.com.example.net is allowed. Isn't this incorrect
> behavior?

Maybe you wanted a more precise regex?

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFab04wRnhpk1wk44RAlmdAKC2P0/7WnAGr6o1ut9CmNLKTNQBwACg0G7i
C0IRMnWSHtsIucI2rSr2gAg=
=rmwH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 11/26/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Careful and precise are not the standards for copyright protection.
> > Creative is.  In the case of an image which is completely from a
> > single public domain source, there just isn't anything creative being
> > done.  You stitch together the tiles in a completely algorithmic
> > manner.  If anyone holds the copyright on the resulting work, it would
> > be the person who chose what scene to picture (the user of the
> > software), not the person who wrote the software.  That is also the
> > person who put the work in fixed form, another requirement for
> > copyright protection.
> >
> > I say show me the creativity.  I don't see it.  I actually don't see
> > much creativity in any satellite photography, but when it comes to
> > creativity from Google in a typical Google Earth shot, I don't see any
> > at all.
>
> The algorithm would be creative, which should be enough.

Depends on the purpose of the algorithm.  If the purpose of the
algorithm is, for instance, to simulate as accurately as possible the
curvature of earth, then while the algorithm itself might be creative,
and worthy of copyright, the resulting output wouldn't be.  (If the
purpose of the algorithm is to make a pretty picture, then it probably
would be.)

> Would you say
> a painting made using a rubber stamp wasn't creative because anyone
> can cover stamps in paint and put them on a piece of paper? The
> creativity comes in making the stamp, and so, what you make with that
> stamp is copyrightable.

A painting made using a rubber stamp is a copy of the stamp.  Not all
output from computer algorithms are copies of that algorithm.

Would you say a photograph made using a camera was copyrighted by the
person who wrote the firmware on the camera (the image stabilization
algorithm, the sharpening algorithm, etc.)?  Of course not.  The
algorithm is likely copyrighted by the programmer (the standard for
creativity in computer software is unfortunately very low), but that
doesn't mean the output of the software is copyrighted by the
programmer.

Anthony


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Bug 7948] importDump.php: warn no Recentchanges

body:
RC> There's a script to rebuild recent changes, isn't there?

Well, it, rebuildrecentchanges.php, says:
 * Rebuild link tracking tables from scratch.  This takes several
 * hours, depending on the database size and server configuration.

Therefore, one is forced to use Special:Import, lest one face hours of
rebuilding from scratch as the price for just importing one or two
pages. Therefore if one would like to do things in batch mode instead
of being chained to a GUI, one must make a LWP::UserAgent script to
interact with Special:Import.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
Kat Walsh wrote:
> The coverage issues that the thread started with are more interesting
> to me. Why are topics that are traditionally of female interest,
> whatever they are, less well-covered? My
> completely-unsupported-by-evidence anecdotal conjecture is that the
> intersection of people interested in those topics with the people who
> spend a lot of time online and think it would be enjoyable to edit an
> online encyclopedia is somewhat less than that with, say, those who
> are interested in computing and military history.
>
Hmm, it occurs to me that if the dateless geeks learn enough about
blowdryers and such to write articles, they have excellent conversation
starters for the women they've always been tongue-tied with before. A
little risky though - sometime after "Hi, I notice you're wearing Prada
- DYK that Prada..." one would have to get in "No, I'm not gay, just a
Wikipedian".

:-)

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 11/26/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Depends on the purpose of the algorithm.  If the purpose of the
> > algorithm is, for instance, to simulate as accurately as possible the
> > curvature of earth, then while the algorithm itself might be creative,
> > and worthy of copyright, the resulting output wouldn't be.  (If the
> > purpose of the algorithm is to make a pretty picture, then it probably
> > would be.)
>
> It sounds like you're saying copyright depends on the intention of the
> creator - I'm not sure that's true. If the output is the same, it
> shouldn't matter if it was intended to be an accurate representation
> or intended to look pretty. It's the same piece of work, created the
> same way, so it has the same copyright.
>
Well, I certainly shouldn't have been saying that copyright depends on
the intention of the creator, because I'm fairly sure case law
disagrees with me on that one.  If the purpose of the algorithm were
simply to make a pretty picture, and the output of it happened to be
an extremely accurate representation of the curvature of the earth -
well, I really don't have any clue what the courts would say.  But it
doesn't matter, because the chances of that are pretty much nil.

In the hypothetical I'm talking about, I assume the purpose is to make
an accurate representation of the curvature of the earth, and that the
algorithm succeeds in serving that purpose.

We're getting a bit too hypothetical, though.  I don't have the source
code to Google Earth sitting in front of me (and even if I did I
wouldn't care enough to thoroughly examine every line), so I really
can only really speculate as to what they're doing to manipulate the
imagery they receive from others.  One interesting thing to look at is
just how much Google Earth screeshots differ from 1) World Wind
screenshots; and 2) the real thing - from that location and angle.  Of
course, once you've done that, for the purposes of Wikipedia, you
might as well just use one of the two "safe" images.

Anthony


subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old
	enough	encyclopedias?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the
> 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
>
I bought one of those a while back. The most fun part has been comparing
articles to their 1911 versions, and seeing how little of the text has
changed - a few word/syntax modernizations, plus most articles have had
their sources and references entirely deleted(!) . So it's been useful
to me mostly as a cross-check against our 1911-based text. But I tell
you, if that CD is the best they can do, EB is doomed.

Stan


list: foundation-l

from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Foundation-l] CISCO TV Commericals using Wikipedia Logo

body:
On 11/26/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yup, Danny Wool negotiated with Cisco to use Wikipedia in the commercial.
>
> If I remember Danny correctly, he said he got the Foundation a nice sum of
> moolah for it.

If you look for "the human network" at youtube, you will find a
low-res version of that ad.

Mathias


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 11/25/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> Um, have you ever looked at Google Earth?  It contains much more
>> than satellite photography.
>
> And I never said all of Google Earth imagery is public domain.
> I said "Much of Google Earth imagery *is* public domain."

Oh, okay, sorry.

>> The stuff ain't PD.  I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but as
>> far as I know, it's quite legitimately copyrighted.
>
> Are you trying to say *none* of it is PD, or are you saying *some*
> of it isn't?  I agree completely that *some* of it likely isn't PD.

Well, I was going to hazard a guess that most if not all of the
*interesting* portion of it is not PD, where "interesting" means
"is likely to be screenshotted by Wikipedia editors".

> One interesting thing to look at is just how much Google Earth
> screeshots differ from 1) World Wind screenshots; and 2) the real
> thing - from that location and angle.

That would be interesting, and I'd be happy to help, but
I don't have access to World Wind (it's Windows-only, AFAIK).
We could start with the five images which Bogdan Giusca cited
to start this thread:

>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Irvine_Sat_View.jpg

Someone has already replaced this with a World Wind image.
Since it covers a wide area, it's comparable.

>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RanchoSatView.jpg

This one's already tagged as a copyvio, and will be deleted in
a few days.  It's centered on lat/long 33.663065, -117.806551.
If someone can make a 2000 foot (600 meter) wide World Wind
screenshot centered on those coordinates, that would be a useful
comparison.

>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Migrationdinka.png

This is also a wide-scale image, so the World Wind data is likely
to be comparable.  It's about 300 miles / 480 km  wide, centered
on lat/long 8.90, 28.94.

>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hhi-troads.jpg

This one is pure map data, not satellite or aerial photography
at all.

>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:St_cath_wifi.png

This one has evidently already been deleted.

(But, hmm, given that two out of three of the remaining images
are wide-scale, I may have been wrong in my guess that "most of
the interesting data" is unavoidably copyrighted.)


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old enough
	encyclopedias?

body:
On 26/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the
> 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.

:-D

I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is
*really* like ;-)

- d.


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Arbcom-l] Fwd: Example II

body:
Example Two: Same Old Stuff

Ellen Schrecker article now reads,

"John Earl Haynes charged that "Schrecker? devotes hundreds of pages
to demonizing opposition to communism in any form." Schrecker argues
that her position is that "in this country[,] McCarthyism did more
damage to the constitution than the American Communist party ever
did."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_W._Schrecker

Hence Wikipedia is used as a soapbox to defame Prof. John Earl Haynes
of the Library of Congress as an appologist for McCarthyism by
equating McCarthyism with "opposition to communism in any form".  This
method of allowing "criticsim of critics" for NOPV was raised at
Talk:Chip Berlet while the page was protected from editing an
unsubstaniated defamatory charge against Mr. Laird Wilcox as "an
unethical reporter".  I asked,

"...is this the normal format in Wiki articles were "Criticism" subhead
have been created for NPOV, where than the critics are then
smeared..."

A neutral editor proposed "criticism of the criticism...should be pruned out."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chip_Berlet&diff=prev&oldid=28710669

I of course was charged with personal attacks and this group of
editors continues to push POV under license as a result of the
evidence now admitted to have been errantlly disallowed in my case.

Nobs01


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
On 11/26/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/26/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Could you message this list in the future to tell us what has been
> > decided in terms of this kind of thing? It was the right decision,
> > IMO, but it would be good to have the transparency and community
> > involvement.
> >
>
> Decisions would been needed at a reasonable rate and trademarks and
> foundation held copyrights really are board issues.

Who said anything about the community deciding? Oldak just said (and I
agree) that it'd be good to let the community know.

-- Jake Nelson


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 11/26/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 11/25/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > One interesting thing to look at is just how much Google Earth
> > screeshots differ from 1) World Wind screenshots; and 2) the real
> > thing - from that location and angle.
>
> That would be interesting, and I'd be happy to help, but
> I don't have access to World Wind (it's Windows-only, AFAIK).
> We could start with the five images which Bogdan Giusca cited
> to start this thread:
>
http://www.mcfly.org/coord/{latitude}/{longitude} will give you links
to many of the raw tiles that are used by World Wind.  The database of
sources isn't complete yet, though, and pretty much none of the
manipulation of the images done by World Wind is done by this script.
The quality in areas of the US is sometimes quite good.  See for
instance http://www.mcfly.org/coord/33.684065/-117.792581

I really wish these images were better tagged, for instance with a
lat/long and zoom level, or even better with a bounding rectangle.

> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Irvine_Sat_View.jpg
>
> Someone has already replaced this with a World Wind image.
> Since it covers a wide area, it's comparable.
>
> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RanchoSatView.jpg
>
> This one's already tagged as a copyvio, and will be deleted in
> a few days.  It's centered on lat/long 33.663065, -117.806551.
> If someone can make a 2000 foot (600 meter) wide World Wind
> screenshot centered on those coordinates, that would be a useful
> comparison.
>

http://www.mcfly.org/coord/33.663065/-117.806551
(http://ims.cr.usgs.gov/wmsconnector/com.esri.wms.Esrimap/USGS_EDC_Ortho_Urban?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GETMAP&LAYERS=Dec_2003-Feb_2004_0.3m_Color_LosAngeles&Format=JPEG&SRS=EPSG:4326&WIDTH=512&HEIGHT=512&BBOX=-117.808504125,33.661111875,-117.804597875,33.665018125)
Now, this is ZoomIt data.  Is it declared to be public domain, or is
someone claiming copyright?  It's off the USGS website, FWIW.

BTW, the centering and framing could probably be tweaked a bit, I just
made a quick link.

> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Migrationdinka.png
>
> This is also a wide-scale image, so the World Wind data is likely
> to be comparable.  It's about 300 miles / 480 km  wide, centered
> on lat/long 8.90, 28.94.
>
http://www.mcfly.org/coord/8.90/28.94 looks very different.  The zoom
level is probably too high or too low.  I really don't know enough
about the feature I'm trying to show to do a good job of this one.

> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hhi-troads.jpg
>
> This one is pure map data, not satellite or aerial photography
> at all.
>
It's in the US, so it should be covered by the public domain
Tiger/Line data.  The data is available, among other places, from
http://www.esri.com/data/download/census2000_tigerline/index.html

ESRI has freeware software to make maps from the data, and they don't
claim a copyright on the resulting map.  Otherwise, there are freeware
packages out there to do it.

I'm not going to volunteer for this one right now :).

Anthony


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
"Gregory Maxwell" wrote

> I believe that while bringing in people who like X to write about X is
> a good start, it will not be enough to produce even coverage.

I think it's important to point out (a) WP has grown largely by word-of-mouth, (b) it has worked and indeed snowballed; and so (c) we want to continue on the basis of _good_ WoM.

Which is why our reputation matters.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
On 26/11/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "Gregory Maxwell" wrote

> > I believe that while bringing in people who like X to write about X is
> > a good start, it will not be enough to produce even coverage.

> I think it's important to point out (a) WP has grown largely by word-of-mouth, (b) it has worked and indeed snowballed; and so (c) we want to continue on the basis of _good_ WoM.
> Which is why our reputation matters.

I suspect our solution to systemic bias in article coverage will be to
bring in people interested in those subjects. Because they complain
the most about the lack of coverage.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 11/26/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 11/26/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RanchoSatView.jpg
> >
> > This one's already tagged as a copyvio, and will be deleted in
> > a few days.  It's centered on lat/long 33.663065, -117.806551.
> > If someone can make a 2000 foot (600 meter) wide World Wind
> > screenshot centered on those coordinates, that would be a useful
> > comparison.
> >
>
> http://www.mcfly.org/coord/33.663065/-117.806551
> (http://ims.cr.usgs.gov/wmsconnector/com.esri.wms.Esrimap/USGS_EDC_Ortho_Urban?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GETMAP&LAYERS=Dec_2003-Feb_2004_0.3m_Color_LosAngeles&Format=JPEG&SRS=EPSG:4326&WIDTH=512&HEIGHT=512&BBOX=-117.808504125,33.661111875,-117.804597875,33.665018125)
> Now, this is ZoomIt data.  Is it declared to be public domain, or is
> someone claiming copyright?  It's off the USGS website, FWIW.
>
Looking at the vehicles on the highway, it's obviously derived from
the exact same photograph.  I believe this is a USGS photo, which
would make it public domain, but I'm not sure how to prove it.

Anthony


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
On 25/11/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 11/24/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think Google have done enough for it to count as a derived work.
> > It's not just a compilation of images, they are put together in a very
> > careful and precise way.
>
> ...  You stitch together the tiles in a completely algorithmic
> manner... I say show me the creativity.  I don't see it.... when it comes
> to creativity from Google in a typical Google Earth shot, I don't see any
> at all.

This dizzying shot of Chicago skyscrapers colliding from different
perspectives has clearly been edited by a human.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1&z=17&ll=41.881544,-87.631084&spn=0.003627,0.007725&t=k

Even if it was done algorithmically, which I doubt, then any algorithm
smart enough to produce a result like that is pretty damn creative.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
On 11/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> If your writing is totally dependant on what you know, then you
> probably have a [[WP:NOR]] related problem.
>

Not at all. most people don't do much in the way of OR.

> A side effect of NOR is that completely disinterested parties should
> be able to do a job of similar quality to our interested writers,
> although perhaps with a somewhat greater expenditure of energy.
>

Evidences suggest otherwise.

> ... and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to expend
> energy. We call our contributors volunteers for a reason.  Are people
> vacationing at Disney land called 'volunteers'?   :)
>
> We do see evidence of folks working on subjects that are not primary
> interests to them... I saw it in the last danny contest, but I'm sure
> there are many other examples.
>

The Danny contest was won by the mililtry history guys.

> I do not claim that it's trivial. Only that it's actionable.   ...  We
> don't really know what to expect.  It's my thought that  on many of
> the subjects that need work it will be fairly easy... if anyone cared
> enough to fight over the content of the article then the article
> probably wouldn't stink.  If this turns out to be true, then our
> policy for paid writers could be to tell them to just walk away from
> any subject where community interest presents an obstacle to their
> efforts.

So we can't even be sure of getting what we paid for. Mercenry editors
are of little use to us.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
"Gregory Maxwell" wrote

> A side effect of NOR is that completely disinterested parties should
> be able to do a job of similar quality to our interested writers,
> although perhaps with a somewhat greater expenditure of energy.

Yeah, well, that's only true 'on paper'. It would be useful to have a name for the fallacy involved: it's 'nominalism' or 'the minus oneth law of thermodynamics' (empathy never needs to increase at all). Or something.

When I write about mathematics, I do have a reasonably full range of insights; when I write about poetry, not. Does it make a difference? Undoubtedly. I can do better dropping a bit of history and context into mathematical articles, because I have some gut feeling about it all. NOR is (under the current and basically philistine reading) supposed to stop me putting spin in when I do that. OK, but that assumes I forget NPOV, and I think I don't.

Charles

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
This is true enough, and there were brief experiments at paying people
to write in Ossetian and Bambara.  At this advanced stage, however, we
can look backi at Larry's work as getting the ball rolling to the point
where there would be enough material for us to be noticed.  There are
probably some lesser known languages where paying people for a limited
time would have a similar effect.

In the long run we need to recognize that the work done by our hordes of
volunteers has most often been damn good.  We will always have pockets
that are full of problems, and we shouldn't dwell on these negatives in
the overall evaluation.

Ec

Ryan Wetherell wrote:

>It's not very wiki-like, you're right, but Wikipedia actually began
>with one of the founders getting paid to write articles.
>
>On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and
>>probably very un-wiki..  There would be no more effective way of
>>creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they
>>want the project to look.  We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
>>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
"David Gerard" wrote

> I suspect our solution to systemic bias in article coverage will be to
> bring in people interested in those subjects. Because they complain
> the most about the lack of coverage.

Correct, to the extent that 'equilibrium' is that the topic coverage is balanced in the same way as the interests of the community. On the other hand, WP is not in equilibrium, has never been in equilibrium, and (if ever in some sort of equilibrium) would become a quite different animal.

We basically started with a 'stub' of a really comprehensive encyclopedia. Respect for stubbiness as a state is the tribute we pay to comprehension of the non-equilibrium nature of the 'management' issues.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>"Gregory Maxwell" wrote
>
>
>>A side effect of NOR is that completely disinterested parties should
>>be able to do a job of similar quality to our interested writers,
>>although perhaps with a somewhat greater expenditure of energy.
>>
>>
>When I write about mathematics, I do have a reasonably full range of insights; when I write about poetry, not. Does it make a difference? Undoubtedly. I can do better dropping a bit of history and context into mathematical articles, because I have some gut feeling about it all. NOR is (under the current and basically philistine reading) supposed to stop me putting spin in when I do that. OK, but that assumes I forget NPOV, and I think I don't.
>
A person writing about poetry without an appreciation for metaphor can
be brutally literal.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>"David Gerard" wrote
>
>
>>I suspect our solution to systemic bias in article coverage will be to
>>bring in people interested in those subjects. Because they complain
>>the most about the lack of coverage.
>>
We wish.  But {{sofixit}} does not always work.

>Correct, to the extent that 'equilibrium' is that the topic coverage is balanced in the same way as the interests of the community. On the other hand, WP is not in equilibrium, has never been in equilibrium, and (if ever in some sort of equilibrium) would become a quite different animal.
>
Yes, but once a hypothetical equilibrium is achieved there is nothing
left to do.  Stagnancy will have been accomplished ... just like in EB.

>We basically started with a 'stub' of a really comprehensive encyclopedia. Respect for stubbiness as a state is the tribute we pay to comprehension of the non-equilibrium nature of the 'management' issues.
>
Stubs are perfectly fine in the fractal universe.  I wouldn't
characterize them as "tribute". The whole thing did indeed have to start
as one stub on Day 1.  As the fractal grows we can expect these little
knobby stubs to keep appearing all over the place.  We can't predict
which will grow bigger, or produce healthy mutations, and which will
remain like male nipples on the fractal surface.

Ec


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
> Careful and precise are not the standards for copyright protection.
> Creative is.  In the case of an image which is completely from a
> single public domain source, there just isn't anything creative being
> done.  You stitch together the tiles in a completely algorithmic
> manner.  If anyone holds the copyright on the resulting work, it would
> be the person who chose what scene to picture (the user of the
> software), not the person who wrote the software.  That is also the
> person who put the work in fixed form, another requirement for
> copyright protection.
>
> I say show me the creativity.  I don't see it.  I actually don't see
> much creativity in any satellite photography, but when it comes to
> creativity from Google in a typical Google Earth shot, I don't see any
> at all.

The algorithm would be creative, which should be enough. Would you say
a painting made using a rubber stamp wasn't creative because anyone
can cover stamps in paint and put them on a piece of paper? The
creativity comes in making the stamp, and so, what you make with that
stamp is copyrightable.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
Jim Schuler wrote:

>Huh?
>
>On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Jim Schuler wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Drawing an odd inference there -- if anything was implied it was that
>>>silence is tolerance of misogyny, not misogyny itself.
>>>
>>>
>>Bullshit.  That inference is too odd to be taken seriously.
>>
You said yourself that the inference was odd.  The majority is normally
silent.  Some people are silent because they don't want to flood the
carburetor with too much gas.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>"Gregory Maxwell" wrote
>
>
>>I believe that while bringing in people who like X to write about X is
>>a good start, it will not be enough to produce even coverage.
>>
>>
>I think it's important to point out (a) WP has grown largely by word-of-mouth, (b) it has worked and indeed snowballed; and so (c) we want to continue on the basis of _good_ WoM.
>
>Which is why our reputation matters.
>
Even more important is that these sound premises reflect the virtue of
going back to basics.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Foundation-l] About web streaming in Wikimania

body:
On 11/26/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> I recommend;
> - try to get the recordings online between 15 and 60 minutes after every
> event online. That is really not difficult.
> - give priority on the audio recording above the video recording
> - providing a stable distribution channel for the media. Consider bittorrent

I watched a few recordings of the 2006 Wikimania, and the problem for
me was mostly that you' either see the speaker OK but not the slide,
or (almost) read the slide but only when the speaker was out of the
camera's range.

I'd suggest recording the speaker in both audio and video, while also
grabbing and recording the VGA signal of the presentation. Both videos
should then be merged into one (maybe side-by-side, making it
wide-screen;-)

While this should not be hard to do, it could prove difficult to do it
on the Wikimania itself. I'f I can't visit in 2007, I'd much prefer
such good quality recording a few days after the event than crappy
live-streams.

My 2 cents,
Magnus


from_name: Jim Schuler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
I wonder what Santa's security clearance level is.

On 11/25/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> David Gerard stated for the record:
> > Come to this thread and be not stupid!
> >
> > So ... written any good articles lately?
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> I've been bringing [[NORAD Tracks Santa]] into the era of Homeland
> Security.
>
> Not being stupid, tho ... that's not going so well.
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | What good does it do merely to
> sean at epoptic.com | stun them? --Worsel of Velantia
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFFaPuN/SVOiq2uhHMRAuz1AKDTse91CLc+HQHuFD/K4561KwiBngCgpvXK
> lWj6VQmf2iZJYxHGpKdZHvo=
> =Zbyj
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
> Depends on the purpose of the algorithm.  If the purpose of the
> algorithm is, for instance, to simulate as accurately as possible the
> curvature of earth, then while the algorithm itself might be creative,
> and worthy of copyright, the resulting output wouldn't be.  (If the
> purpose of the algorithm is to make a pretty picture, then it probably
> would be.)

It sounds like you're saying copyright depends on the intention of the
creator - I'm not sure that's true. If the output is the same, it
shouldn't matter if it was intended to be an accurate representation
or intended to look pretty. It's the same piece of work, created the
same way, so it has the same copyright.

> > Would you say
> > a painting made using a rubber stamp wasn't creative because anyone
> > can cover stamps in paint and put them on a piece of paper? The
> > creativity comes in making the stamp, and so, what you make with that
> > stamp is copyrightable.
>
> A painting made using a rubber stamp is a copy of the stamp.  Not all
> output from computer algorithms are copies of that algorithm.
>
> Would you say a photograph made using a camera was copyrighted by the
> person who wrote the firmware on the camera (the image stabilization
> algorithm, the sharpening algorithm, etc.)?  Of course not.  The
> algorithm is likely copyrighted by the programmer (the standard for
> creativity in computer software is unfortunately very low), but that
> doesn't mean the output of the software is copyrighted by the
> programmer.

Yeah, it's a bad analogy. Sorry.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
I'll play with it, if you don't mind.

On 11/25/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Speaking of translation, I have a semi-active effort to translate the
> French
> article on the Phalanx formation into English, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Messedrocker/Phalanx-fr2en
>
> On 11/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 11/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Come to this thread and be not stupid!
> > >
> > > So ... written any good articles lately?
> >
> > I translated most of [[Phare de la Vieille]]. It's a very long article
> > (especially the French original version) about an insignificant
> > lighthouse off the coast of Brittany.
> >
> > And lots of stubs. Also, probably the only stub I've started which has
> > since been significantly expanded, [[Todd Skinner]].
> >
> > Thanks for asking! :)
> >
> > Steve
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and
>>probably very un-wiki..  There would be no more effective way of
>>creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they
>>want the project to look.  We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
>>
>>
>Don't be so foolish to deny that there are already people being paid
>to edit...
>
It would be generally unsound for me to try to prove that something like
that doesn't happen, but I am probably safe to say that it doesn't
happen on any kind of large public scale.  Nevertheless whether
something is happening, and the implications of it happening are two
separate issues.

>The question in my mind is: Will more people be paid to advance the
>public good in cooperation with the larger community of contributors,
>or will more people be paid to advance private interests in opposition
>and through subverison of the communities interests.
>
Private payments in support of private interests are less dangerous than
direct subsidies from Wikimedia.  We know they are outsiders.  Direct
payment can too easily suggest that the payee has the WMF stamp of
approval, or somehow states the "official" POV for his selected topics.

>Done right, I think such an adventure could do a lot to strengthen our
>community and leave us better prepared to cope with the results of
>people paid to edit for less noble goals.
>
More than likely it will strenghthen the community in opposition to the
mercenaries.

>At least were we to embark on that particular journey we would do with
>sensitivity and understanding of the risks. In no way should any such
>measure be itself used as a mechanism for control. The purpose of paid
>writers would be .. to write. And any such arrangement should be
>structured to avoid the creation of such interests. For example, it
>would be reasonable that you get paid just as equally if the community
>goes and removes your work.
>
These would all be important considerations.  Preventing the rise of
vested and controlling interests would require great insight.
Time-limited (perhaps three months), non-renewable contracts could be a
factor.

>You didn't elaborate much on your position, but I  don't buy yet your
>claim of vested interests.  Who cares more about controlling
>Wikipedia?  Some nationalist who spends his every free moment working
>without pay to shape Wikipedias coverage, or some working person
>punching a time clock and writing a bunch of material selected by
>someone else?
>
Those nationalists are out there where you can watch them.  Vested
interests are a kind of dependancy relationship.  Maintaining the status
quo allows them to collect dividends in whatever form may be relevant.
A regular paycheque is one form of such dividend.  Volunteers can also
become dependent on paid staff to carry out certain tasks to the point
that some tasks are set-aside because there is paid staff to do them.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
Sadly, this phrase is not used anywhere else but Wiki and articles mirroring
Wiki...

"p?riode post-g?om?trique"

On 11/26/06, Jim Schuler <jim62sch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'll play with it, if you don't mind.
>
> On 11/25/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of translation, I have a semi-active effort to translate the
> > French
> > article on the Phalanx formation into English, see
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Messedrocker/Phalanx-fr2en
> >
> > On 11/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com > wrote:
> > >
> > > On 11/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Come to this thread and be not stupid!
> > > >
> > > > So ... written any good articles lately?
> > >
> > > I translated most of [[Phare de la Vieille]]. It's a very long article
> > > (especially the French original version) about an insignificant
> > > lighthouse off the coast of Brittany.
> > >
> > > And lots of stubs. Also, probably the only stub I've started which has
> >
> > > since been significantly expanded, [[Todd Skinner]].
> > >
> > > Thanks for asking! :)
> > >
> > > Steve
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jim
> http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fiction and Wikia

body:
Kirill Lokshin schrieb:
> On 11/13/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think there's an important line to be drawn between an external
>> link and those boxes, though. The external link clearly demarcates
>> its contents as something that isn't in Wikipedia. Something like a
>> Wikiquote link, on the other hand, serves as a sort of extension of
>> the article.
>
> Well, the Wikiquote link is to a Wikimedia project, while the Wikia
> links would obviously not be; giving links to sister projects more
> prominent placement is uncontroversial at least partially *because*
> they're sister projects.
>

?hm sisters an brothers. but wikia is the projekt of our benevolent
godlike father jimbo ?

HeinzJ


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fiction and Wikia

body:
On 11/26/06, HeinzJ <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:

>
> ?hm sisters an brothers. but wikia is the projekt of our benevolent
> godlike father jimbo ?
>
so what? I think the distinction between Wikimedia Foundation projects
and Wikia Inc. projects cannot be overemphasized. This are two
completely separate entities.
Michael

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
Huh?

On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Jim Schuler wrote:
>
> >Drawing an odd inference there -- if anything was implied it was that
> >silence is tolerance of misogyny, not misogyny itself.
> >
> Bullshit.  That inference is too odd to be taken seriously.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
Could you message this list in the future to tell us what has been
decided in terms of this kind of thing? It was the right decision,
IMO, but it would be good to have the transparency and community
involvement.

On 26/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> To be a little more exact, the ad agency contacted us about using the  logo
> for the ad. We all discussed it in the office, and agreed that there should  be
> some compensation. I asked, and they agreed. Nothing too spectacular.
>
> Danny
>
>
>
> In a message dated 11/25/2006 9:48:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> messedrocker at gmail.com writes:
>
> Yup,  Danny Wool negotiated with Cisco to use Wikipedia in the commercial.
>
> If  I remember Danny correctly, he said he got the Foundation a nice sum  of
> moolah for it.
>
> On 11/25/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey  <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I jsut  saw a television commercial on the SciFi where CISCO shows a 3
> > second  spot with a laptop computer using Wikipedia.
> > The commercial aired at  7:33 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.   There were
> > no screen  shots of Windows or any other computer
> > software on the commercial  apart from Wikipedia's logo.  The laptop
> > appeared to be a MAC but  I am not certain.
> >
> > Jeff
> >  _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing  list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >  http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l  mailing  list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
On 11/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Come to this thread and be not stupid!
>
> So ... written any good articles lately?

I translated most of [[Phare de la Vieille]]. It's a very long article
(especially the French original version) about an insignificant
lighthouse off the coast of Brittany.

And lots of stubs. Also, probably the only stub I've started which has
since been significantly expanded, [[Todd Skinner]].

Thanks for asking! :)

Steve


body:
Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the
2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.

Steve

On 11/16/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying
> to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our
> lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be
> misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
>
> I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids.
> Nobody Cares (tm).
>
> Your suggestions are welcomed ...
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not
	old	enough	encyclopedias?

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>
>>Inspired by this thread, I just bought myself a legitimate copy of the
>>2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD. For $1 AUD. Woot.
>>
>>
>I bought one of those a while back. The most fun part has been comparing
>articles to their 1911 versions, and seeing how little of the text has
>changed - a few word/syntax modernizations, plus most articles have had
>their sources and references entirely deleted(!) . So it's been useful
>to me mostly as a cross-check against our 1911-based text. But I tell
>you, if that CD is the best they can do, EB is doomed.
>
I can understand why they would delete the references.  Showing nothing
but pre-1911 references could reduce their credibility. ;-)

Ec


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
James Hare wrote:
> On 11/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 26/11/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Oh hells yes. Where can I buy a series of specialist
>>> encyclopedias?
>>
>> I think we're writing it.
>>
>
> Oh pfft, I mean a series of specialist encyclopedias THAT IS NOT
> WIKIPEDIA! :)
>

The first step would be finding a list of titles (this one is pulled
from my library's search results):

* The Encyclopedia Americana
* Encyclopedia and dictionary of medicine and nursing
* Encyclopedia Canadiana
* Gakugei hyakka jiten = Encyclopedia epoca
* Encyclopedia for snare drum
* Encyclopaedia Judaica year book
* Encyclopedia Mensuelle d'Outre-Mer
* Encyclopedia mythica
* Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture
* Encyclopedia of 20th-century journalists
* Encyclopedia of 20th century photography
* Encyclopedia of 20th century warfare
* Encyclopedia of acoustics
* Encyclopedia of actuarial science
* Encyclopedia of advertising
* MacDonald's encyclopedia of Africa
* Encyclopedia of African history and culture
* Encyclopedia of agricultural science
* Encyclopedia of American associations
* Encyclopedia of American biography

... then go to Amazon, eBay, etc. and see if you can get a copy.
Alternatively, borrow one from a library...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Anti-communism = McCarthyism is like

saying  Communism = Stalinism.

I'm sure you'd get an arguement there.

Nobs01

On 11/26/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 11:24:55 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Hence Wikipedia is used as a soapbox to defame Prof. John Earl Haynes
> >of the Library of Congress as an appologist for McCarthyism by
> >equating McCarthyism with "opposition to communism in any form".
>
> Doesn't read like that to me.  I'd say that was a pretty fair
> statement, sourced in both cases.  But then, I'm a notorious pinko
> commie subversive :-)
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --


body:
On 11/26/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you message this list in the future to tell us what has been
> decided in terms of this kind of thing? It was the right decision,
> IMO, but it would be good to have the transparency and community
> involvement.
>

Decisions would been needed at a reasonable rate and trademarks and
foundation held copyrights really are board issues.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
On 11/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Come to this thread and be not stupid!
>
> So ... written any good articles lately?
>
>
> - d.

Not really. Uploaded a few old maps of parts of london but running
into problems that I don't know the areas well enough to tell where
the boarders are.

--
geni


from_name: Luna

subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is
believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or
compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between
one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both
can be evaded with socks.

Ultimately, though, I think that if somebody returns under a new alias and
*avoids* the same sorts of disruptive behavior that led to their initial
block, then nobody will even have a reason to check if they might be the
same person, and they won't get "caught." If the person is truly reformed,
they'll be able to get away with block evasion, because no one will even
realize they're a problem user evading a block. Or something like that,
anyway. You get the idea.

Just my thoughts on the matter.
-Luna

On 11/26/06, M Roget <mroget at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should
> not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the
> ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
>
> Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without
> parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to
> rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
>
> Michel
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images of living people

references:
<98dd099a0611151216n11602f22paeff1d73b1f91c72@mail.gmail.com>
	<2504.63.151.8.141.1163706349.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<9cppl2df2at3g7q386iortgepocug69fmb@4ax.com>
	<455CE767.4000503@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<8bspl2l3vf5s37l7kumhse3612aomspbra@4ax.com>
	<f80608430611161523l29b60433ife5c7cbddada974c@mail.gmail.com>
	<38a7bf7c0611161541r4a7cc02aye8f9a18604b9217f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4567919D.3080704@telus.net>
	<38a7bf7c0611241700r36cef57cn74e7f9b5ca37c3bc@mail.gmail.com>
	<4567CA21.9020407@telus.net>

body:
On 11/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
>
> >On 11/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>George Herbert wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Rancom vaguely related topic question - What is the right thing to do about
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>some obvious copyvios which I haven't figured out where the copying was from
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>yet?  [[Ship construction]] has a bunch of images which claim to have been
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>done as original Autocad work for Wikipedia, and yet are clearly scans out
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>of ship design textbooks, some of which I recognize, but I haven't figured
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>out which books yet.  The same person contributed them all, and some other
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>suspicious stuff.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>There is nothing obvious about a copyvio when you can't identify its
> >>source.  You may have very strong suspicions about the matter, but that
> >>does not establish the fact.  I don't know what the standards are for
> >>drawings in ship construction, but I'm sure that there are bound to be
> >>some aspects that will be constant.  Are these even copyrightable?
> >>
> >>(re-sent) Ec
> >>
> >>
> >Well, we know for a fact that the credit (Autocad-self) is wrong, since you
> >can see the book's spine in the scans in several of the images, and the page
> >number in some as well.
> >
> That certainly works against him.  Even if it's a valid picture it's
> sloppy editing and use of Autocad to leave artifacts like the book's spine.
>
> >These drawings, as engineering drawings, are as copyrightable as any other
> >technical document or drawing... completely, in the US.
> >
> I was thinking in terms of age.  Perhaps that's because I recently
> acquired a copy of Basil Lubbock's 1914 book "The China Clippers" which
> includes some interesting drawings of the construction of these ships.
>
> >In terms of the information within them, that's generally not copyrightable
> >or patentable or trademarkable - it might be a trade secret, but not after
> >being put in a published book.
> >
> Are there no generic drawings for this kind of thing?  I don't even want
> to touch the trade secrets issue, which we really can't address unless
> we have inside knowledge.
>
> >If he *had* gone and redrawn them in Autocad or something, it would be
> >fine.  I've redrawn a number of illustrations in other technical articles to
> >do that.  But these particular images clearly are scans, and not redrawn.
> >
> So it would seem, with no bonus credits for being truthful.
>
> >It's remotely possible that they're scanned with permission, but they aren't
> >listed properly.  Given that you can clearly and obviously see the book in
> >the scans, and the claimed source clearly isn't, I was assuming that the
> >obvious conclusion was reasonably and necessarily that they're copyvios.
> >
> I think it's a reasonable but not necessary conclusion.  A reasonable
> suspicion can certainly strenghthen the need for him to justify his
> claim.  Giving him a week to respond should be enough.  All but his
> first two edits to anything were done within a period of one hour two
> months ago, so he's unlikely to respond to questions.  Once you have
> provided someone a generous opportunity to respond to a genuine concern,
> I see nothing wrong with getting rid of this material.
>
> >If WP policy is that I have to produce what they're violating for anyone to
> >take action, that's fine, but anyone who looks at them should be able to
> >tell that the claimed origin isn't, and that they came out of a bound book
> >via a scanner.  I find it hard to believe that anyone who actually looks at
> >the images could think they were autocad drawings.
> >
> I feel more concerned about people who jump to conclusions on this sort
> of thing.  I think that identifying the source should be needed for
> immediate deletion.  For most other situations that lack urgency, having
> the patience to wait for answers doesn't really hurt anything.  ... and
> it keeps the temperature of events down.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I did post a comment to his talk page about a week ago stating that
the images were obviously scanned copyright violations and that I had
started reviewing the situation.

I think that the niceties have been observed...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

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

Rob Church wrote:
> That's a stabbing offence...

Can't you just edit the revision summary?
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references:
<98dd099a0611151216n11602f22paeff1d73b1f91c72@mail.gmail.com>
	<2504.63.151.8.141.1163706349.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<9cppl2df2at3g7q386iortgepocug69fmb@4ax.com>
	<455CE767.4000503@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<8bspl2l3vf5s37l7kumhse3612aomspbra@4ax.com>
	<f80608430611161523l29b60433ife5c7cbddada974c@mail.gmail.com>
	<38a7bf7c0611161541r4a7cc02aye8f9a18604b9217f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4567919D.3080704@telus.net>
	<42f90dc00611241852v283b928bgcffbed70a2ef7ba7@mail.gmail.com>
	<f30e42de0611250555l1f46dffai1098240cde1ded6@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/25/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/25/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The very fact that someone is claiming scans from a book were
> > self-produced CAD drawings says they should be deleted.  No matter
> > what, the claim of self-authorship is bogus.
>
> We have CSD I7, the first part of which is for images tagged with what
> is clearly an incorrect fair use tag. Really there should be something
> like this that applies to obviously copyrighted images which the
> uploader claims are PD or some copyleft licence.
>
> And unless it can be shown that the person did not realise that they
> were passing off copyrighted work as their own and purportedly
> licencing it as such, I would think that this would be grounds for an
> immediate ban. Policing the stuff that people claim as fair use and
> tag as such is a large enough task on its own without this sort of
> problem.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Does someone with the appropriate admin bit set want to deal with
this, then?  I can't do deletions...

Danke.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On 11/26/06, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is
> believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or
> compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between
> one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both
> can be evaded with socks.
>
> Ultimately, though, I think that if somebody returns under a new alias and
> *avoids* the same sorts of disruptive behavior that led to their initial
> block, then nobody will even have a reason to check if they might be the
> same person, and they won't get "caught." If the person is truly reformed,
> they'll be able to get away with block evasion, because no one will even
> realize they're a problem user evading a block. Or something like that,
> anyway. You get the idea.
>
> Just my thoughts on the matter.
> -Luna
>
> On 11/26/06, M Roget <mroget at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should
> > not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the
> > ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
> >
> > Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without
> > parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to
> > rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
> >
> > Michel

I think that part of the concern is that it's gone from "beyond
carefully thought out and argued Arbcom judgement of hope of
rehabilitation or compliance" to "beyond the opinions of the next 4-10
AN / ANI readers who bother to engage and respond's hope of
rehabilitation or compliance".

I agree that the threshold has gone down; the question of whether that
was a bad thing or not is a valid and open one, but so far nobody
seems to worried about it.

It would help if the "how many admin(s) does it take to overturn a
community indef block" question was more clearly answered.  We have
seen instances were admins were felt to be wheel-warring over a
block/unblock, and the unblocking admin was blocked themselves.

So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
but it's going to happen eventually.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:12 PM, M Roget wrote:

> If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban
> should
> not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to
> make the
> ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
>
> Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment
> without
> parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does
> nothing to
> rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
>
> Michel

The Arbitration Committee limits bans to one year.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:

> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
> but it's going to happen eventually.

Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
controversial.

Fred


from_name: Mohamed Ibrahim

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ne fonctionne plus en Tunisie

body:
Someone posted in Arabic Village pump confirming the blockage of Wikipedia
in Tunisia
he said he's posting from Tunisia using a proxy.
can anything be done to see what's the reason behind that?
I'm so sorry for this indeed

--
Mido


subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-stupid wikien-l thread

body:
On 11/26/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking of translation, I have a semi-active effort to translate the French
> article on the Phalanx formation into English, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Messedrocker/Phalanx-fr2en

Out of curiosity, how come you're translating the whole article, then
merging? Won't you end up with redundant sections?

Anyway, the method I've been using (for new articles) that I quite
like is to start by copying the entire French article into an HTML
comment in the corresponding en article, then to slowly work through
it, deleting bits from the comments as I translate them. It has the
advantage that I can pause work anytime I like, leaving someone else
to continue, and also there's no danger of anyone duplicating my work
inadvertently.  [[Ar Men]] is another example - I've only really
translated the first sentence or so, but anyone else (if they really
felt like it), could just dive in and keep going...

Steve


from_name: M Roget

subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should
not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the
ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.

Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without
parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to
rehabilitate or encourage compliance.

Michel


from_name: Angela

body:
On 11/26/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you look for "the human network" at youtube, you will find a
> low-res version of that ad.

It's also playing on the home page of Cisco's Human Network Wiki at
http://humannetwork.wikia.com/

Angela.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 11:24:55 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Hence Wikipedia is used as a soapbox to defame Prof. John Earl Haynes
>of the Library of Congress as an appologist for McCarthyism by
>equating McCarthyism with "opposition to communism in any form".

Doesn't read like that to me.  I'd say that was a pretty fair
statement, sourced in both cases.  But then, I'm a notorious pinko
commie subversive :-)

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


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 26/11/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you message this list in the future to tell us what has been
> decided in terms of this kind of thing? It was the right decision,
> IMO, but it would be good to have the transparency and community
> involvement.

FWIW, I heard some time back. The problem isn't that we don't have
transparency and community involvement, it's just that it seems we
have three thousand ways of going about it...

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


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fiction and Wikia

body:
I'd rather keep all the forums out of external links, unless they're
for a forum we have an article about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided (#10)

On 11/26/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I like this idea a lot.  Just an external link to a more relevant wiki
> > isn't really as attention-getting as it should be if people really
> > want to know more.
>
> In general, we should be more selective with what external links we
> provide, and how we present them. We should distinguish between:
>
> - Sources of the information in the article
> - Sites that are more informative than the article (particularly where
> the article is very short)
> - Sites that represent some example of what is described in the
> article (eg, a ski resort, for an article about ski resorts...)
> - Community/portal/forum sites, where people may want to go if they're
> really interested in the topic..
>
> I have no objection to us providing a link to Johnny's Sk8boarding
> Forumz, but it shouldn't be mixed in with other, more "encyclopaedic"
> links...
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

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

Rob Church wrote:
> svn co svn+ssh://robchurch at svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/s-o-h

::puzzled::
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=f2er
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?

--Ryan

On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
>
> > So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
> > but it's going to happen eventually.
>
> Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
> controversial.
>
> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


references:
<8149f35b0611211115p6c2fc770p9de319baaa88eb34@mail.gmail.com>
	<ekajdq$osc$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<fab0ecb70611260421y6d411de7rafa6c7c6570ef4c3@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 26/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 11/26/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> > I recommend;
> > - try to get the recordings online between 15 and 60 minutes after every
> > event online. That is really not difficult.
> > - give priority on the audio recording above the video recording
> > - providing a stable distribution channel for the media. Consider bittorrent
>
> I watched a few recordings of the 2006 Wikimania, and the problem for
> me was mostly that you' either see the speaker OK but not the slide,
> or (almost) read the slide but only when the speaker was out of the
> camera's range.
>
> I'd suggest recording the speaker in both audio and video, while also
> grabbing and recording the VGA signal of the presentation. Both videos
> should then be merged into one (maybe side-by-side, making it
> wide-screen;-)
>
> While this should not be hard to do, it could prove difficult to do it
> on the Wikimania itself. I'f I can't visit in 2007, I'd much prefer
> such good quality recording a few days after the event than crappy
> live-streams.

Fermilab do weekly colloquia for their staff, which are videoed and
archived on the web; some of these are quite interesting and I've sat
through a couple. Their web presentation is interesting and effective;
the video is put in a sidebar in the browser, so you can see the
speaker talking and gesturing, whilst the main "real estate" is taken
up by an HTMLed version of the presentation slides, which are
progressed along roughly in sync with the talk.

http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_02/Lectures/Colloquium/Lesk/vf001.htm
is Michael Lesk's talk on digitising everything, to pick an
appropriate example. Unfortunately, their implementation requires
RealPlayer, but there's no cast-iron requirement for that...

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

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

Rob Church wrote:
> Let me put it in simple terms. It was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke].

Yes, I understand that, but if you have the appropriate
pre-revprop-change hook created (add access control if you're worried
about random developers changing summaries), you can easily edit the log
message. I always like to keep tidy Subversion logs, and the volume of
commits you guys get every day shouldn't deter the occasional clarification.
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from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

body:
On 26/11/06, Raimond Spekking <raimond.spekking at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's bug 6925.

That's a stabbing offence...

Rob Church


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 11/26/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/27/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of
> > Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be
> > spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia
> > rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen
> > the respect Britannica is due.
>
> It's a great encyclopaedia*, that's why I bought it. I just don't
> think it's a viable product anymore - costs too much to produce, and
> isn't worth enough money to enough people. Think of the paper version:
> apart from the cuteness of a wall of encyclopaedia, what's it actually
> worth to you? Would you ever use it? Could you really be bothered
> opening it up and manually finding an article without a search
> function? How about the electronic version: Wikipedia and the rest of
> the web being free, how much would you spend for one more source?
>
> Steve
>
> * Or so I've heard.

A couple years ago I bought an encyclopedia from the thrift store.  It
cost 25 cents a book, I believe.  Anyway, going through it in a random
fashion I found that there was quite a lot of information in the book
that wasn't in Wikipedia.  Wikipedia has grown a lot since then, so
I'm not sure how much this has changed.

That said, I fully agree that the general encyclopedia, at least as a
non-free-as-in-beer resource, is on its way to obsolescence.  Not so
much due to Wikipedia, though that's a factor, but really due to the
Internet.

Books are still the king when it comes to *most* specialized
information.  For now...

Anthony


from_name: Raimond Spekking

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN:  [17935] trunk/phase3

body:
werdna at svn.wikimedia.org schrieb:
> Revision: 17935
> Author:   werdna
> Date:     2006-11-26 02:54:01 -0800 (Sun, 26 Nov 2006)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * (bug 6295) Add a 'revision patching' functionality, where an edit can be undone (with a functionality similar to diff rev1 rev2 | patch -R rev3 -o rev3). This is triggered by including &undo=revid in an edit URL. A link to a URL that will undo a given edit is shown on NEW NON-CURRENT revision headers on diff pages.

It's bug 6925.

Raymond.

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subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

body:
On 26/11/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > That's a stabbing offence...
>
> Can't you just edit the revision summary?

svn co svn+ssh://robchurch at svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/s-o-h

Rob Church


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I can understand why they would delete the references.  Showing nothing
> but pre-1911 references could reduce their credibility. ;-)
>
> Ec

For someone who died in say 1890 I doubt that would be a problem.

--
geni


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-27

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Passed 449 of 469 tests (95.74%)... FAILED!


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 26/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I assume you're going to go through and see what our coverage is
> > *really* like ;-)

> I had in mind something more like offloading cargo from a sinking ship...

Now, now! EB is a fantastic book, one of the great nonfiction works of
Anglophone culture. Their current marketing operation may seem to be
spending far too much of its time working on running down Wikipedia
rather than e.g. selling a good encyclopedia, but that doesn't lessen
the respect Britannica is due.

- d.


from_name: Laurence Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Fiction and Wikia

body:
> > A set of templates with a different look-and-feel
> > and perhaps an appropriate disclaimer, on the other hand,
> > might be better. We often already have plain old external links
> > anyway, though, so I'm not sure it's needed.
>
> I think there's an important line to be drawn between an external
> link and those boxes, though. The external link clearly demarcates
> its contents as something that isn't in Wikipedia. Something like a
> Wikiquote link, on the other hand, serves as a sort of extension of
> the article.
>
> I want to treat the fan-centric links as extensions, because it's
> clear that many editors and many readers expect that material to be
> in Wikipedia. And so we shouldn't just say "Go away." Or even "Go
> somewhere else." We should say "Look, here's where we've found that
> gives you this sort of information." And we should make that easy and
> well-integrated into our overall organization and navigation, because
> there's clearly demand for it.
>
> I don't see the issue of those sites not having NPOV or V - neither
> Wikiquote nor Wikinews have similar verification standards in
> practical place to Wikipedia, for instance. I think we shouldn't link
> to articles that suck or don't add anything. That seems to me to be a
> case-by-case decision, though.

Sorry to get in on this discussion a bit late. For those who don't know me,
I'm the founder of WikiFur.com, the furry fandom encyclopedia. I've been
dealing with for the last year or so, and I thought I'd share what I've done
in a particular instance.

Of late, we've had a lot of people shouting "furcruft" over at Wikipedia's
AfD over some articles about topics that are of interest to the furry
fandom, but which are not seen to be in the general interest by most users.
It's often hard to defend against that kind of thing, because there's
nothing you can really do to improve an article on a topic that people just
don't think is worthy of recording, even if there is no doubt about the
truth of it.

In this particular case, articles about several furry conventions were up
for deletion. It was suggested that a central article about the general
topic of furry conventions, with links to more information for each
convention, would be more suitable. The trouble is, where should we point to
for that information? WikiFur was suggested as the appropriate place for
this information to reside (Actual words: "Best kept to the somewaht scary
environment of the furry wiki"). But WikiFur is not Wikipedia, and allows
both original work and unverifiable material.

What I ended up doing was having about half of the article be a general,
referenced Wikipedia article about the topic. I then included a list of
conventions that had very short summaries of information, with links to the
websites, and with interwiki links to each WikiFur article. The list was
prefaced by a note explaining that target of the links could contain
unverified and original material. All the names of the conventions were
redirected to this page.

You can see the result here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_convention

I think this method works. It lets people use Wikipedia to look up
information on a topic, in the case that Wikipedia doesn't actually want to
cover that topic but "knows" a good place to go for coverage. It ensures
that users get to the relevant information rather than a blank page, and
that they are given appropriate notification of it being on a different
site. It's probably not what a regular encyclopedia would do, but then
Wikipedia is trying to be more useful than a regular encyclopedia.

The method above is not ideal for single links, and it would be good to have
a better way of doing those than bare interwiki links (which I have used on
occasion, for topics covered by WikiFur which are - in my best judgment -
definitely out of Wikipedia's "notability scope"). In cases where there is a
short article on Wikipedia covered in more depth on Wikipedia, I have tended
to put interwiki links into See also/External links/Further reading, but
only when our articles actually have something relevant to add.

Going forward, it would be cool to get some kind of wiki linking via search
to topics that don't have matches on Wikipedia (with appropriate "you're
going off Wikipedia" warnings). This would be useful for topics which may be
featured articles elsewhere but deleted on Wikipedia for a lack of general
relevance or verifiability, as I doubt Wikipedia wishes to implement
automatic wiki redirects for such things! I don't know how practical that
is, though.

--
Laurence "GreenReaper" Parry
http://greenreaper.co.uk - http://wikfur.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On 27/11/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> It would help if the "how many admin(s) does it take to overturn a
> community indef block" question was more clearly answered.  We have
> seen instances were admins were felt to be wheel-warring over a
> block/unblock, and the unblocking admin was blocked themselves.

That's incredibly fucked up and the blocking admin could do with being
taken out and shot.

> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
> but it's going to happen eventually.

Good thing the RFA process protects against such blithering idiocy.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

body:
On 27/11/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > svn co svn+ssh://robchurch at svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/s-o-h
>
> ::puzzled::

Let me put it in simple terms. It was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke].

Rob Church


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN: [17935] trunk/phase3

body:
On 27/11/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> Yes, I understand that, but if you have the appropriate
> pre-revprop-change hook created (add access control if you're worried
> about random developers changing summaries), you can easily edit the log
> message. I always like to keep tidy Subversion logs, and the volume of
> commits you guys get every day shouldn't deter the occasional clarification.

I understood your point, too, but I don't think anybody cares enough
to go postal in downtown California...

...the "stabbing offence" comment was a joke, of course.

Rob Church


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] SVG chessboard transparency

body:
On 11/27/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The servers appear to be configured to render transparency in SVG
> using a chessboard pattern:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LithuanianHistory.svg
>
> Is that actually desired by anyone? It seems more useful for debugging
> purposes than for actually using images.

AFAIK it's only on the image page... it can be very useful there: for
example, the large amount transparency in the file you linked is
probably a bad idea, but without the checkerboard you couldn't see it.

I think we need to have a function to display transparency. I have no
opinion on if that the image page should be overloaded to perform that
function.


subject: [Commons-l] SVG chessboard transparency

body:
On 11/27/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/27/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > The servers appear to be configured to render transparency in SVG
> > using a chessboard pattern:
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LithuanianHistory.svg
> >
> > Is that actually desired by anyone? It seems more useful for debugging
> > purposes than for actually using images.
>
> AFAIK it's only on the image page... it can be very useful there: for
> example, the large amount transparency in the file you linked is
> probably a bad idea, but without the checkerboard you couldn't see it.
>
> I think we need to have a function to display transparency. I have no
> opinion on if that the image page should be overloaded to perform that
> function.

I hit send before giving you this link:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css

I gave up trying to find the diff that added the section that begins
with /* Put a checker background at the image description page only
visible if the image has transparent background */.  Now I need to
have a little chat with bastique about edit summaries.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's
what you're saying.  Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser
before the case against Konstable began.  As far as I can tell,
Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.

--Ryan

On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
>
> > Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
> >
> > --Ryan
> >
>
> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/Proposed_decision#AltUser
>
> Fred
>
> > On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> >>
> >>> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
> >>> but it's going to happen eventually.
> >>
> >> Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
> >> controversial.
> >>
> >> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:

> Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
>
> --Ryan
>

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/Proposed_decision#AltUser

Fred

> On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>
>> On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
>>
>>> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial,
>>> but it's going to happen eventually.
>>
>> Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
>> controversial.
>>
>> Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
No, but as the controller of two abusive sockpuppets (and somebody who
abused his admin privileges to unblock one), he should be.

--Ryan

On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> On Nov 27, 2006, at 8:04 AM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
>
> > I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's
> > what you're saying.  Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser
> > before the case against Konstable began.  As far as I can tell,
> > Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.
> >
> > --Ryan
> >
>
> Is Konstable indefinitely banned?
>
> Fred
>
> > On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
> >>
> >>> Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
> >>>
> >>> --Ryan
> >>>
> >>
> >> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/
> >> Proposed_decision#AltUser
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >>> On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that
> >>>>> controversial,
> >>>>> but it's going to happen eventually.
> >>>>
> >>>> Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
> >>>> controversial.
> >>>>
> >>>> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community Sanction

body:
On Nov 27, 2006, at 8:04 AM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:

> I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's
> what you're saying.  Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser
> before the case against Konstable began.  As far as I can tell,
> Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.
>
> --Ryan
>

Is Konstable indefinitely banned?

Fred

> On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>
>> On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
>>
>>> Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
>>>
>>> --Ryan
>>>
>>
>> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/
>> Proposed_decision#AltUser
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>> On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> So far the proposed community bans haven't been that
>>>>> controversial,
>>>>> but it's going to happen eventually.
>>>>
>>>> Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is
>>>> controversial.
>>>>
>>>> Fred


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

body:
Anthony wrote:
>> On 11/26/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>>> Anthony wrote:
>>>> One interesting thing to look at is just how much Google Earth
>>>> screeshots differ from 1) World Wind screenshots;
>>>
>>> We could start with the five images which Bogdan Giusca cited
>>> to start this thread:
>>
>> http://www.mcfly.org/coord/{latitude}/{longitude} will give you links
>> to many of the raw tiles that are used by World Wind...
>> The quality in areas of the US is sometimes quite good.

>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RanchoSatView.jpg
>>>
>>> This one's already tagged as a copyvio, and will be deleted in
>>> a few days.  It's centered on lat/long 33.663065, -117.806551.
>>
>> http://www.mcfly.org/coord/33.663065/-117.806551
>> (http://ims.cr.usgs.gov/wmsconnector/com.esri.wms.Esrimap/USGS_EDC_Ortho_Urban?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GETMAP&LAYERS=Dec_2003-Feb_2004_0.3m_Color_LosAngeles&Format=JPEG&SRS=EPSG:4326&WIDTH=512&HEIGHT=512&BBOX=-117.808504125,33.661111875,-117.804597875,33.665018125)
>> Now, this is ZoomIt data.  Is it declared to be public domain, or is
>> someone claiming copyright?  It's off the USGS website, FWIW.
>
> Looking at the vehicles on the highway, it's obviously derived from
> the exact same photograph.  I believe this is a USGS photo...

Wow.  That's very interesting.  I knew there was a lot of USGS
data out there, but I didn't know there was *that* much.  That
little mcfly site, incomplete though it is, is doing a great job
of indexing it.  Thanks.  I stand corrected.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] SVG chessboard transparency

body:
The servers appear to be configured to render transparency in SVG
using a chessboard pattern:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LithuanianHistory.svg

Is that actually desired by anyone? It seems more useful for debugging
purposes than for actually using images.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.