body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
>
>> Yes, but that's because they have money rolling in to fund the physical and
>> legal move. And I'm sure there's different things involved with a charity
>> and what essentially is a small business.
>>
>> It wouldn't be smart to burn money like that, right after the world hears
>> "Wikipedia to close in three months".
>>
>> Nick
>>
>
> Maybe we could argue the slip of tongue....
>
> "oh, but I was not talking of closing the website, but only of closing
> the office !"
>
> ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
The office is closing???
Who was to inform the people who run the office.......and the
servers......and the banks???????????????
This is VERY disconcerting as everyone is about to walk out in
frustration anyway. Where shall the phones be forwarded to?


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Carolyn Doran

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Job: Volunteer Coordinator


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

body:
stvrtg wrote:

> 4. If Essjay misrepresented himself in any substantial way in arguments
> related to his claimed expertise, how is it that noone qualified in that
> area suspected he wasnt a Phd/Thd?  I suspect the reason is because his
> ventures into misrepresentation were quite limited to the cantankerous. I
> suspect also that this fact might bother people who might have thought they
> could tell just by looking at someones pixels.

Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their academic
credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if he were
making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the word is
now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the charade up
enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.  That's a
problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.

>
> 5. We edit for different reasons (some of us even while naked), and I
> suspect that the real reason people are upset is because they have a feeling
> of being deceived, finding that theyve somehow based their respect on a
> claimed credential, not on Essjays actual work. Disappointing, perhaps, but
> disappointment carries some elevated expectation. What was the expectation?

You suspect incorrectly.  We're upset because he lied about having a
high degree of education, used that high degree of education as
leverage, and quite possibly lied regarding why he created the
trumped-up persona as well.  Not that he ever had to trump up his creds
to achieve the same goal, of course, which is the other problem.

-Jeff


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] On Experts (Was Correction to New Yorker Article)

body:
On Mar 2, 2007, at 7:35 AM, stvrtg wrote:

>
> 4. If Essjay misrepresented himself in any substantial way in
> arguments
> related to his claimed expertise, how is it that noone qualified in
> that
> area suspected he wasnt a Phd/Thd?  I suspect the reason is because
> his
> ventures into misrepresentation were quite limited to the
> cantankerous. I
> suspect also that this fact might bother people who might have
> thought they
> could tell just by looking at someones pixels.

This is an interesting point. Many seem to be taking this as why we
can't engage in credentialism. But it seems to me to be an example of
the worst case scenario in credentialism working out OK.

Some observations on how this worked.

1) It was never blind argument - it used its credentialism as a
supporting detail, not as the whole argument.
2) It was never totally wrong. He may not have a PhD in theology, but
he demonstrated that he knows his stuff.

This is an interesting situation. It suggests to me that, in fact, we
probably can [[WP:AGF]] when people cite credentials, take them
seriously as credible, smart, dedicated users, pay heed to their
arguments, etc. We have to resist letting them just dictate the
content of our articles. We have to also listen to people who go
"Look, I'm sure you do know your stuff here, but you did just make
this error: [cites source]." (Which I've had happen in a debate
regarding webcomics - I was making a point about the comparative
notability of two sites, and just completely forgot that one site, in
addition to all the random "anyone can host their comic here" stuff,
hosted Tom Hart's work. Whoops.) But those are safeguards we'd put
into place even if we knew absolutely that Stephen Hawking were
editing [[Black hole]].

This ties in with another interesting point. It may be my limited
experience, but it seems like most times experts have intervened as
experts have been something like this.

Expert: This article/policy/whatever is complete crap.
Other editor: What? No it's not!
Expert: Look. I have a PhD in field X and have published articles
about Y. This is complete crap.

That is to say, it's not that we tend to have experts slipping
information in with no justification other than "I'm an expert. I
know stuff." Their contributions as experts are more subtle, and, I
would wager, less dangerous.

What Essjay's case suggests, which is striking, is that the
safeguards of not letting expertise be the sole reason for something
and of still taking seriously arguments against experts, particularly
when they cite source are actually all we need in order to be able to
deal with being respectful towards claimed experts and take seriously
their critiques of articles.

-Phil


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/1/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are some ranges estimated, but nobody knows for sure.
> Catastrophic events such as relatively sudden loss of the Greenland
> Ice Sheet, or West Antarctic Sheet, would cause a relatively swift
> rise.
>
Are there any reasonable predictions that a significant sea rise could
occur in a matter of days or weeks?  If so, I'd certainly like to hear
about this.  I always thought "incredibly swift" in terms of this
situation meant a couple feet a year.

> Where is the data duplicated?  Where are the servers duplicated?  What
> will the impact be to users of a cutover to the disaster recovery
> site(s), in terms of performance and lag and downtime?

Are the servers in a hurricane evacuation zone?  I thought it was only
the office (and staff) that had to be *really* worried about.


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:UBX

body:
Jeremy Cushman <mets501wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> migrating basically all
> userboxes which cannot directly help the project, and
> keeping ones such as
> languages, education level and expertise, WikiProject
> affiliations, time
> zones, locations, and a few others?  Should a userbox
> like "This user was a
> boy scout" really not be migrated?

I was going to let this go, but then the Essjay New Yorker
situation popped up.  So, as a good wikipedia article
should do, summarize at the top:

1. All user boxes that can't be verified internally should
be migrated.
2. Add a clear, very visible, and short disclaimer at the
top of every user page that summarizes:  nothing on the
page has been verified to be true or have anything to do
with the encyclopedia - it can not be trusted.  Users,
including admins, can and do claim anything.

Analysis & review:

This user was a girl scout
This user was a black belt
This user was a highschool basketball starter
This user was a little league player
And this little user was a Ms. America contestant

If it were up to me, I'd only include those that can be
verified AND do directly have some impact.  Then the next
question is what are you actually willing and have the
resources to verify?  Can you really follow-up on everyone
who decides to claim they're a PHD?  Maybe.  A college
grad?  Good luck.

You can quickly confirm what people have done and
contributed to internally and award them the boxes
accordingly.

If they want to claim a time zone, who cares.  Live in
whatever time you like.  A location?  You can test language
online, but that won't help you verify if someone is
actually living anywhere and what are you going to do, send
out the Wikipedia census crew?

The problem with userboxes in general is that they add a
sense of authority simply by standing out and having
formatting that is hard to achieve otherwise, like a seal
on a paper document.  This goes to the weight part of the
policy in NPOV.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love
(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.
http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 3/2/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>> This is effectively banning fair use from all but the absolutely most
>> active projects and mandating that there is no fair use.
>
> I don't agree that the project has to be among "the most active". A
> similar policy has been in place on Wikinews for a while (new editions
> were not permitted to enable local uploads unless they had a fair use
> policy in place). Wikinews is orders of magnitude smaller than
> Wikipedia, yet editions like the Polish Wikinews managed to come up
> with a reasonable fair use policy. Necessity is the mother of
> invention.

I'm a fan of letting individual projects set their own guidelines, and not
of efforts that make things harder for non-English or small projects; but
this policy doesn't seem to do that -- it just provides a clarification of
a rule that has already caused confusion.

> use uploads can be permitted. I don't see this as a major issue at all
> -- it's not like the survival of any of our projects depends on fair
> use -- nor do I agree with your characterization of this decision as
> "micromanagement". To the contrary, this is pure "macro"management:
> setting a standard which all projects must follow.

Right.

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry Sanger weighs in on the Essjay incident

body:
I just want Essjay to know that, regardless of what other
people say about him (or her or them), he/she/them can
claim whatever he/she/them wants on wikiality.com.  Unless
Wikipedia is wikiality, in which case don't forget to add
your Rhodes Scholarship and service in an NSA committee on
religious terrorism.

Seriously, Essjay, you can. As geni points out in her
messages, this would be, as Jimmy called it, pseudonym
play, if you hadn't actually used it and referred to it
elsewhere on wikipedia to justify content decisions.

Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> Larry Sanger has weighed in on this on the Citizendium
> blog.
>
http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/01/wikipedia-firmly-supports-your-right-to-identity-fraud/
>
> As Slashdot reports
> <http://slashdot.org/articles/07/03/01/1313251.shtml>,
> fact.  It turns out that, far from being an overeducated
> religious
> thinker, he is (if we believe his latest story?skepticism
> is obviously
> warranted) 24 years old and degreeless, a kid named Ryan

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss an email again!
Yahoo! Toolbar alerts you the instant new Mail arrives.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
Umm... we've been over this a thousand times, Liviu. You have hashed
and rehashed the same arguments. People see through your lies and
distortion every time, so trying again isn't going to do anything for
you.

Mark

On 02/03/07, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Verbosity is a prerequisite for my arguments to be understood. Otherwise
> these are simply skipped.
>
> If, at a given moment, the Board wishes to reconsider its position on the
> Moldovan Wikipedia, please regard the following points:
>
> 1. In its current form, mo.wiki is promoting an ideology. There is a slight
> difference between "not being of a neutral point of view" and promoting an
> ideology.
>
> 2. According to the recently adopted Language proposal
> policy<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP>- that I suppose can be
> applied to existing wikipedias to determine their
> "validity" - there are three "essential" requisites that can be verified: a
> valid ISO-639 code, language singularity and a viable community and
> audience.
>
> The Moldovan Wikipedia fails on all three. The valid ISO code and the code
> used for its domain are a coincidence, simply because ISO requires a
> separate linguistic entity while the domain doesn't host such content. There
> is no uniqueness since it is standard Romanian written in a different
> script. There is no viable community and audience.
>
> 3. A basic objective of providing high-quality content to writers of the
> "Moldovan language" will be hardly achieved, if you expect contributions
> written in the Moldovan alphabet to "flow in" (when an un-freeze happens).
> The script is mainly a reality of the past, while this objective could be
> easier achieved if the two relevant projects were merged.
>
> You may consider some of these arguments as personal POVs. I believe that
> these are backed up by different sources that are supposed to be
> western-neutral and academic (the links in my messages are not for making it
> prettier), while others on logical reasoning.
>
> Regards,
> Liviu
>
> On 2/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > According to what Erik wrote the other day, the pillars are, at this
> > moment, not part of a "must have" doctrine for Wikipedia projects. Given
> > that the WMF it self is not on firm grounds, how can you expect that the
> > language committee is more firm. Having said that, you will fully
> > misunderstand B?rto's position. Your verbiage  is just to cover that you
> > do not want to address what is in front of you.
> >
> > Your whole argument is yet another political inspired tirade why things
> > are as you see them. Again, political arguments do not wash.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] shared db for images?

body:
Hi,

I'm pretty sure nothing like this exists, but I thought I'd confirm
before running off to setup a shared wiki for uploads, but is there a
similar feature to wgSharedDB for images that allows a user to upload
an image without leaving the wiki and share it with other wikis in the
same group?

Thanks,
Travis


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Translators-l] Wikimania 2007:
	CallforParticipation

body:
Hi,

According to China Youth Activity Center, they are rewriting the information page for CTOYAC so the page is been temporary removed. The organization team has prepared the venue information of CTOYAC in the following link:

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Venue

You can refer that link for information on CTOYAC.

Regards,
H.T.

---------------------------------
  From:   translators-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org   [mailto:translators-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of   habj
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 5:31 AM
To:   Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; Wikimedia Translators
Subject:   Re: [Translators-l] [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007: Call   forParticipation

  2007/3/1, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de>:   This     year's conference will be held from August 3-5, 2007 in
Taipei, Taiwan at     Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center
<http://www.cyh.org.tw/center/center_bu.php?loginno=&buid=B     >.

Is that url correct? I can reach http://www.cyh.org.tw/ but not the url   above.

/habj

___________________________________________________
??????? ? ????????????????
http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/

 ___________________________________________________
 ??????? ? ????????????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


from_name: George Herbert

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a democarcy

body:
On 3/1/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 27, 2007, at 11:17 PM, Rich Holton wrote:
>
> > I assume that these others were
> > watching recent changes, or had the page on their watchlist and their
> > attention was drawn by my edit (as Adam recounts, above).
>
> That happens to me quite often as well. An article in my watchlist
> that did not showed up there for months, suddenly lights up, I check
> the edit, add a new tidbit, a new source perhaps. Tthat attracts a
> few edits from other editors, only to disappear for a few months and
> so on...

This brings up an interesting statistical analysis problem - Do the
database exports include any user info, such as userid/name and user
watchlists?  Is it possible to look at this factor in a public
database export, or would someone have to do statistics analysis on
one of the WMF MySQL mirrors?

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


body:
On 3/2/07, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> I seem to recall that the primary purpose of this
> thread was to hire a volunteer coordinator.
>
> Volunteer coordinator, anyone?
>
I presume other avenues are also being followed on this one.  Looking
at the responsibilities it seems this position is going to require a
very uniquely skilled person.  And there no mention of what the pay
range is going to be.  Are we talking $30K/year, $100K/year, more?
For that matter, it's not even determined if the position is going to
be full time or part time, and if it is going to require showing up at
the office or telecommuting.

Prior experience is an advantage, but not required?  My wife once
worked as a secretary for a non-profit, should I see if she's
interested?  Actually, I suppose she doesn't really have any
familiarity with the WMF or Wikipedia or anything.  Of the people I
know around here, she's the only one I think could handle the job (who
isn't already happily employed somewhere else).

Anthony


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Hidden tragedy: requests in limbo (dezas sekrè: demand nan okenn kote)

body:
Hello,

Perhaps some of you are aware of the formation of the Langcom.

Also, you may be aware of the recent reform of the language proposal process.

However, what you may not be aware of is that the Language Committee
is taking a while to actually get underway and to the point where they
can excersise control over the creation of new Wikis.

Despite that, it seems that they are already looked to as an authority
in this area, while they do not act as such.

There are several new Wikipedia requests which were uncontroversial
when first posed. Many of dozens of voices of support, and have
thriving tests on the Incubator.

However, their requests were deleted by PathosChild who said that they
would have to remake them, which they have. So far, no proposals for
Wikipedias in new languages have been _approved_ under the new
proposal process, despite its having been around for several months
now. They just sit there. And sit there. And sit there some more.

I think it's about time something happened. I think it's about time we
welcomed these people -- the Kabyles, the Latgalians, the Lower
Sorbians, the Crimeans, and all the others -- into our Wikipedia
family. They have waited long enough. Why can't somebody do something?
Why do they have to wait for the langcom to get underway? For all we
know, that could take years.

Mark

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


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

body:
Tariqabjotu just brought this up on Essjay's talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Essjay&diff=prev&oldid=45607167

I sure hope Robbie is real, otherwise...

On 02/03/07, Pilotguy <pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And what about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robbie31? Essjay claimed
> he
> was gay and he was "in a long-term relationship with his partner,
> Robbie..."
> How are we to know if this guy is for real too? His few contributions
> don't
> add up.
>
> On 3/1/07, Christopher G. Parham <cparham at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/1/2007 5:12 PM, geni wrote:
> > >
> > >> At the very least, he owes the Wikipedia community an apology for
> this
> > >> misrepresentation.
> > >> --
> > >> Peace & Love,
> > >> Erik
> > >>
> > > Got one:
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Essjay&diff=prev&oldid=111847534
> > >
> > While it is good of him to apologize for any hurt caused, it would be
> > better to acknowledge that this hurt was not incidental but the result
> > of a wrongful and inappropriate action on his part. The stance he is
> > taking at the moment is that his actions were appropriate, and that any
> > damage done was unforeseeable or otherwise excusable. In my view, this
> > stance is not justified by the facts and is indicative of continuing
> > poor judgment. I would be very much comforted if Essjay amended it.
> >
> > --Chris
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Pilotguy
> pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilotguy
>
> http://pilotguy.wordpress.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
FWIW, please see [[Wikipedia:Community noticeboard/Essjay]], where all
messages to him have been moved.


body:
... and promptly
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Essjay&curid=5068191&diff=111992253&oldid=111992011reverted.
Sigh, edit war coming?

On 02/03/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW, please see [[Wikipedia:Community noticeboard/Essjay]], where all
> messages to him have been moved.
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Tariqabjotu just brought this up on Essjay's talk page:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Essjay&diff=prev&oldid=45607167
>
> I sure hope Robbie is real, otherwise...

This is the most concerning development yet. If he was lying about the
rest of his real life, why would he tell the truth about his love
life? Before I saw that link, I was sure the Robbie account was a
sockpuppet (and had no great problem with it). Now, I just don't
know... The vote would never have affected the result, but it's still
unforgivable if it was a sockpuppet.


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:ATT

body:
On 3/2/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Rob Smith wrote:
>
> >>I always understood it to mean give equal weight to the lie if ( a )
> were
> >>
> >>
> >deliberately engaged in intellectual dishonesty, or ( b ) too lazy to
> >investigate or just in the habit of sloppy research methods.
> >
> One begins with good faith, and most policies should work in a good
> faith environment first, before starting to set things up to cope with
> lies.
>
> Ec

Too often we've seen "balancing material" with unbalanced material, i.e.
deliberate and dishonest distortions.  WP:V allowed for this, provided you
could prove somebody said it somewhere sometime.  Didn't matter if it was
obsolete or deprecated.  Under WP:V newer scholarship was cited to displace
old ideas, yet the obsolete citations *still* could be used for "balance".
Now we have a policy or definition.  To what extent does an editor, acting
in good faith, have to prove newer scholarship (for example based upon
recent declassified documents), have to prove obsolete and deprecated
material does not serve the purpose of NPOV?


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
On 3/2/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> True. It could've been discovered as far back as 7 January, if I
> may recount the timeline of events. It was 7 February that Essjay
> posted this:
[...]

That's some solid wiki-research! Very informative, thank you. I feel
like we're all taking part in an Oliver Stone movie, but with geeks
instead of good looking people...

--Oskar


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] daily-image-l (commons POTD) is all systems go

body:
The daily-image-l mailing is now fully functional. :)
To join and receive one daily mail with information about the
Wikimedia Commons' Picture of the day, please visit
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-image-l .

It now has 100 subscribers. Of these 100 subscribers, their language
settings are:
ca: 1
cs: 1
de: 3
en: 82
es: 3
fr: 2
nl: 2
pl: 1
ru: 1
sv: 2
zh-cn: 1
zh-tw: 1

(the subscriber list is only available to the list administrator, myself)

To find out more about how pictures become Picture of the day, or how
to provide caption/mailman translations in your language, please see
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Daily-image-l .

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


subject: [Foundation-l] daily-image-l (commons POTD) is all systems go


from_name: William Pietri

body:
So I'm a little troubled at the chaos surrounding the current Essjay
issue. I was hoping that Essjay would return, answer the many questions
that have arisen, and make this problem go away. That hasn't happened,
though. There seems to be a lot of discussion in a lot of places, much
of it heated, and none of it apparently moving to resolution.

Several people, including those advocating deletion of
[[Wikipedia:Community noticeboard/Essjay]], suggest that the right thing
to do is to start up a RFC or an RFAr. That seems like a good step
forward to me, or at least the least bad option on the table. I was
hoping somebody else would do it, but that's not happening either.

Do people have other suggestions? And of the two, which do people see as
better?

Thanks,

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


body:
This was emphasised in both his RFA and RFB, too...

And someone pointed out that warning signs were easy to spot - just no-one
did. Some who studied canon law with la-1 babel box?

On 02/03/07, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> William Pietri wrote:
> > Josh Gordon wrote:
> >
> >> That's a good way of framing it. I'm sure some obsessive or extremely
> >> curious person will go and pick through all of Essjay's interactions
> >> on talk pages on Catholic-related articles, and edits there, looking
> >> for evidence of negative effect.
> >>
> >
> > That's definitely happening...
> >
> > ...
> >
> > William
> "Should you run across a theology contribution from me, it is important
> to remember that I am a Catholic scholar, not a Catholic."
>
> With a statement like that on his user page, he's practically asking for
> it.
>
> -- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Goodman

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Nonfictional, factual,
	objective perspectives must apply to both stories and religions

body:
I think readers will understand  that an article about a particular
religion will be primarily about the religion as seen in its own
lights. If I am reading an article about a religion, and it says what
the fate of the righteous will be, I know perfectly well that I am
talking about what that religion thinks it will be.  The description
is factual: we are saying what actually are the beliefs held on the
subject, not whether the beliefs are correct. The requirement for NPOV
is a requirement that the beliefs be accurately described.

The attitude that others take towards these beliefs needs discussion,
but this should be separate from a coherent presentation of what the
beliefs are. This too is factual.

There is obviously a ned for a general statement at the beginning for
orientation: just whose beliefs they are, and the  source they are
taken from.  I do not think it was intended to suggest that every
sentence be qualified--that might reasonably  be taken as
offensive--and I suggest would seem excessive in any article, no
matter how objectionable the view being presented.

A reminder every section would seem reasonable.

DGG
--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Florence Devouard

body:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
> Yes, but that's because they have money rolling in to fund the physical and
> legal move. And I'm sure there's different things involved with a charity
> and what essentially is a small business.
>
> It wouldn't be smart to burn money like that, right after the world hears
> "Wikipedia to close in three months".
>
> Nick

Maybe we could argue the slip of tongue....

"oh, but I was not talking of closing the website, but only of closing
the office !"

ant


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/2/07, Carolyn Doran <cdoran at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The office is closing???

Florence was joking.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


body:
Robert Horning wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> --- Carolyn Doran <cdoran at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> What reason would we have to be near a consulate?
>>> ~ C
>>>
>> Any organization that claims to be international in scope, would ideally be based in close
>> proximity to representatives from many national governments. Of course, that is not the only thing
>> to consider.
>>
>> -- mav
>>
> I hardly consider that to be a major issue for an organization that is
> founded upon and relies upon electronic communication for most of its
> activity.  In America (assuming that this means the WMF must stay in the
> USA) that really leaves just a very limited number of cities you could
> put it in:  New York City and Washington, DC.  In California, while
> there are many consulates there, they tend to be split up between Los
> Angeles and San Francisco in roughly equal proportions depending on the
> country involved.  And for smaller countries they will only have an
> embassy or consulate in DC or NYC.
>
> For those particular situations where face to face meetings are
> absolutely required, you can easily fly from St. Pete to one of those
> two cities anyway at a modest cost, or even to the country who you are
> trying to deal with directly.  I would presume that any such meeting
> would be a very rare exception anyway and would not be at all necessary
> in terms of day to day operations of the foundation.  Certainly the cost
> of an airline flight would be trivial compared to the increased cost of
> daily living in either of these two cities for what would realistically
> be of marginal improved value for the foundation.
>
> -- Robert Horning

Note that currently, the majority of board members live in Europe. Going
  to the east coast is already a bit of a pain. Going to the west coast
is  not really going to help. Longer flights.

Another point is time difference. The meeting window is already tough to
assume (most of my phone calls with the USA take place mid afternoon, or
after 22 pm my time) due to the 6 hours difference. Time difference with
the west coast is 9 hours. Which means the mid afternoon time slot is
not practical.

Amongst the "costs" of moving the west coast, I would add tiredness for
having to still wake up at 6 am everyday for the family, but work very
late within the night to keep in touch with the office. Tough.

So, east coast would be preferable certainly. A big city would also make
travelling easier. But as mentionned previously, it would cost much more
(higher salaries, higher hosting costs)

I presume it could be an option in the future to move the office (or to
have several offices). I do not think it is reasonable now to consider that.

ant


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Important notice -- please confirm
 your	unblock-en-l subscription

body:
Discussion of the issues regarding Essjay are not appropriate here.
Wikipedia allows user their privacy.
Please take personal attacks of Essjay somewhere else. Essjay has been
one of the pillars and backbones of
Wikipedia.

Jeff

Christoper Russel wrote:

> I have to suspect strongly:
> Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's
> sockpuppet's accounts
> = inappropriate admin's accounts group abusing sockpuppets and amin's
> power
> = Chinese and/or Korean group with anti-Japanese racism and facism
>
> Why can't they allow IP address contributers to read "Unblock-en-l"?
>
> Can "Luna"'s personal email below be actually valid?
>
>> From: Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l
>> subscription
>> Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:37 -0800
>>
>> Dear unblock-en-l subscriber,
>>
>> We've recently decided to establish some membership criteria for this
>> mailing list,
>
>
> When?
> Where?
> what kind of "membership criteria"?
>
>> and are in the process of removing subscriptions which do not meet
>> those criteria.
>
>
> Why is there necessity to remove subscriptions of Unblock-en-l?
> Admins already admitted too many unfair blockings enforced by crazy
> admins?
>
> If so. you only have to unblock all the victims of the crazy admins
> and stop all the crazy persons' adminship.
>
>> In particular, we need to associate your email address with a
>> particular Wikipedia account or identity.
>
>
> I had not a Wikipedia account and Wikipedia's admins apparently have
> blocked
> too many IP address users with no understandable reason.
>
> This means, admins themselves have been forcing many IP address
> contributors
> to have to subscribe "Unblock-en-l".
>
> Of course, anyone have freedom not to log in Wikipedia
> and all Wikipedias have allowed IP address contributors to edit
> Wikipedias' articles
> since the beginning.
>
> I myself don't want to talk with crazy facism(and racism) admins of
> Wikipedia.
> Apparently Chinese, Koreans, etc. have occupied and controlled
> Wikipedia very unfairly.
>
> I have to think:
> Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's
> sockpuppet's accounts
> are Chinese, Koreans, Mexican, etc.
> who have never understood the value to respect democratic procedures
> and human rights.
>
>
> ?In order to do that, please click on this link:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/Prodego
>
>
> "Prodego"?
> Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins have never
> explained
> the necessity to click on this link.
> They have been only showing their stupid contradiction and their being
> evil sockpuppeters.
>
>> PLEASE use "unblock-en-l identification" as your subject heading, to
>> allow faster processing of your email.
>
>
> "Identification"?
> If you want people to reveal their identification, you should do it
> first. but,
> even "Essjay"("Ryan Jordan"?), the admin of "unblock-en-l", have been
> only lying
> about his identity and apparently abusing sockpuppets.
>
> It is Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins of
> Wikipedia
> to make public their real "identification" and only them.
>
>
>> Do not email the user directly
>
>
> Why?
> Because "Luna" is just the sockpuppet of "Essjay"?
>
>> -- you MUST use the Special:Emailuser feature, or your identity will
>> not be confirmed.
>
>
> Why does "Luna" say "MUST"?
> I don't know "Predego" at all. And "Predego" is not the list
> administrator of "Unvlock-en-l".
> And Luna" is one of the crazy (anti-Japanese-racism-)facism admins.
> Like this:
>
>> If you have not replied to this message within one week, your
>> subscription
>> will be cancelled. You can request to re-join the list at any time.
>
>
> "You can request to re-join the list at any time"?
> Now, I request it.
>
> I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
> So, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.
>
>> We apologize for this inconvenience, but hope that you understand the
>> need for privacy and security, given the sensitive personal
>> information that is sometimes discussed on this mailing list.
>
>
> "the need for privacy and security"?
> If you say such a decent thing, never send such a crazy emai to people
> and never compel them to do such dangerous things for their "privacy
> and security".
>
> All admins should do is to make all admins reveal their real identity,
> esp. Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego.
>
>
>> Thank you,
>> -Luna
>
>
> Why "Luna"?
> Why "Prodego"?
> Why not "Essjay"?
> Why not "Mindspillage"?
>
> I couldn't believe my eyes.
>
> The admin's term should be expired every year or every six months.
>
> Sincerly,
> "Mileshand"(Christopher A. J. Russel)
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Find what you need at prices you?ll love. Compare products and save at
> MSN? Shopping.
> http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Important notice -- please confirm
 your	unblock-en-l subscription


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
On 3/2/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> This is effectively banning fair use from all but the absolutely most
> active projects and mandating that there is no fair use.

I don't agree that the project has to be among "the most active". A
similar policy has been in place on Wikinews for a while (new editions
were not permitted to enable local uploads unless they had a fair use
policy in place). Wikinews is orders of magnitude smaller than
Wikipedia, yet editions like the Polish Wikinews managed to come up
with a reasonable fair use policy. Necessity is the mother of
invention.

We don't expect these policies to be perfect from the start - they can
be improved over time. However, they have to be in place before fair
use uploads can be permitted. I don't see this as a major issue at all
-- it's not like the survival of any of our projects depends on fair
use -- nor do I agree with your characterization of this decision as
"micromanagement". To the contrary, this is pure "macro"management:
setting a standard which all projects must follow.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!


references:
<45E5E4BB.40003@scissor.com> <45E88A7A.9080201@scissor.com>
	<0f5hu21dg50dj1m8pc6idsp0ughpapdk3n@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:35:06 -0800, William Pietri
> <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>> I was hoping that Essjay would return, answer the many questions
>> that have arisen, and make this problem go away. That hasn't happened,
>> though.
>>
>
> The story only broke yesterday.  Give him a break.
>

I regret that the question is moot. Someone has already opened an RFC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay

My apologies for not noticing this before posting my question.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


body:
On 3/1/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>        <C2F697EE-9AF5-4917-A376-51E9C43F8DFA at prwatch.org>
>        <45E765B8.5050601 at earthlink.net>
>        <99c65f730703011756x711c74b5hf6835868850fd482 at mail.gmail.com>
>        <38a7bf7c0703011828r2452ff82xf20143d55ef9520b at mail.gmail.com>
>        <c52819d30703011830x4c0782d8i2aed75ac219fed6e at mail.gmail.com>
>        <38a7bf7c0703011834x28ee9bc6pfb914a3c444b94a7 at mail.gmail.com>
>        <52a8cf060703011842s2dca0df1qa405e56dda90650 at mail.gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:33:28 -0500
> In-Reply-To: <52a8cf060703011842s2dca0df1qa405e56dda90650 at mail.gmail.com>
> (Rob
>        Smith's message of "Thu, 1 Mar 2007 19:42:58 -0700")
> Message-ID: <86y7mgm9xj.fsf at elan.rh.rit.edu>
> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.0.94 (gnu/linux)
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
> --text follows this line--
> "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On 3/1/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 3/1/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad at gmail.com>
>   wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > anything you do related to Wikipedia may now
> >> > > get viewed by a potentially hostile press and outside
>       community.
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > it's dinged us somewhat in the
> >> press, based on the blogosphere at least.
> >
> > Actually this matter has been brewing for some time. Amazing it
> took this
> > long to bring attention to it.
>
> True. It could've been discovered as far back as 7 January, if I
> may recount the timeline of events. It was 7 February that Essjay
> posted this:
> <http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Essjay&oldid=66549>
>
> On an interesting side note, it apparently wasn't until 21 January
> that anyone noticed - that was when an anon user brought it up on
> [[User talk:Essjay]]
> <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Essjay&oldid=102161036
> >.
> Given the anonymity, the name provided as a sig, and the linked
> website, I think we can conclude it was in fact Daniel Brandt who
> first noticed it
> <http://www.whois-search.com/whois/216.60.71.100%20>.
>
> It is also interesting to note that Essjay never replied as
> [[User:Shanel]] quite quickly reverted it. (A lapse of judgement?
> I suppose so, in the same way Yanksox had a lapse of judgement
> deleting [[Daniel Brandt]]).

I'm not so certain of that; Yanksox registered an account with WR 23 Feb
2007 9:08am
<http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=1014>

where he presumably read the series "Navigating flame wars of the Daniel
Brandt controversy" (two hours is ample time) and promptly deleted the
Brandt page on 23 Feb 2007 12:53pm.  Ken Myers, author of *Wikimmunity:
Fitting the Communications Decency Act to Wikipedia* registered an account a
day earlier 22 Feb 2007 and was active on that board for several hours at
the same time prior as well.

21st Feb 2007, 11:10pm

Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt

Wed 21st Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:ATT

body:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I don't see why they should get so confused about that.  "Verified" and
> "verifiable" are clearly distinct concepts.  The latter only means
> "capable of being verified".  It does not imply that anyone has in fact
> gone there to make that verification.

But strangely enough, "verifiable" wasn't actually a policy at the day
to day level. For something to be "verifiable", it would have to be
referenced. But we didn't have a firm requirement that everything had
to be referenced.

Take an (unreferenced) statement like "W?nsu?t?ngti?n was emperor of
China from 696 to 697 AD." Is it verifable? No - there is no immediate
way of determining its veracity, short of researching from scratch. Is
it attributable? Yes - we could certainly find someone else who had
said that.

So it sounds like we are making clearer the distinction between:
* the absolute necessity that everything we say be already said by
someone else first
* the preference (and in libel situations, necessity) that we cite
those someone elses.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:ATT

body:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> It looks like some kind of semantic game.  Capable of being attributed?
> It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that
> it is possible.  Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are
> then verifiable.

This has been current practice for a long time. Anyone claiming (as
Jimbo periodically does) that every statement actually has to be
directly or indirectly referenced is not being realistic.

Steve


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Rob Smith wrote:

[blah blah blah blah]

<groan> Do we *have* to rehash this for the hundredth time??

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Presentation to readers

body:
On 2/27/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Total lack of references should be noted on the article itself. It's
> useful to the reader to know.

It is?

> "Notability" warnings are part of the ongoing AFD conflict. I predict
> that putting them on talk will be seen as an attempt to encourage
> deletion by stealth.

Notability "warnings" are quite different to other warnings. They
don't warn the reader (does the reader of an article about a trivial
pub in Bumsville need to be warned that the topic is trivial?) - they
warn editors.

Steve


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translating the Five pillars

body:
Hoi!

> There are languages in which their Wikipedia is the first encyclopedia
> *ever* written in the language.  I can hypothetically imagine such a
> Wikipedia allowing original research or even signed articles,
> Britannica-style.

This is our case and many other small communities'. Anyway, allowing
original content is a *very* risky move. Small cultures are often (at least
in some of their dwellers) close to political radicalism and such
politically oriented minorities MAY perceive that they need to rewrite
history from scratch...

I can name a number of such examples in post-soviet wikies, but my own is
pretty close to the same situation. The history of Italian unity is usually
told according to official proto-fascist (Italian unionist) opinions and
only a few historians move away from those grounds to quote (for example)
the number of southern Italians slain by means of the Pica Law (I believe
Del Boca says it could have been up to a million) or the number of loyalist
Neapolitan officers killed by our piedmontese army in the Fenestrelle
Fortress and whose bodies have been destroyed Auschwitz style, the bombing
of the civilian population in Genoa, the massacre of the Turinese population
when the capital was moved to Florence, etc etc.

Dealing with such events is in itself VERY dangerous. Italian schools keep
growing up kids telling them only the fascist version, so chances are that
just even mentioning these subjects would be intended as separatism by many
Italian wikeers (does such an expression exist?). How do you cope with this?

Opening wikipedia to planet-wide participation means that our "consensus
about what truth is" will often be conflicting with local visions/versions.
What happens with small European and post-soviet wikies is but the pale dawn
of a big upcoming tide. When I say that small cultures need to speak to each
other is because history is written by the winners, so chances are that most
of such problems originate in our small villages. It's no point in going
delirious, but maybe we can associate and produce a way to deliver "verified
content" and at that point impose the presence of our version at trans-wiki
level (not as a monopolistic way, obviously).

We can decide that we simply "don't give a damn" or we can ask ourselves
questions. I ask myself whether having such an incredibly wide access to
sources cannot be used to confront versions and at least start to catalog
these very conflicts. What about an international template marking that
"conflicting versions exist"?

We cannot simply repress. Many times people get nervous because when they
speak in a normal tone they only get laughed at. If we don't want people to
get mad we must give them a channel for them to speak plainly and be heard
(if and when they have real things to say).

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Christoper Russel

subject:
[Foundation-l] Important notice -- please confirm your
	unblock-en-l subscription

body:
I have to suspect strongly:
Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
accounts
= inappropriate admin's accounts group abusing sockpuppets and amin's power
= Chinese and/or Korean group with anti-Japanese racism and facism

Why can't they allow IP address contributers to read "Unblock-en-l"?

Can "Luna"'s personal email below be actually valid?

>From: Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com>
>Subject: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l subscription
>Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:37 -0800
>
>Dear unblock-en-l subscriber,
>
>We've recently decided to establish some membership criteria for this
>mailing list,

When?
Where?
what kind of "membership criteria"?

>and are in the process of removing subscriptions which do not meet those
>criteria.

Why is there necessity to remove subscriptions of Unblock-en-l?
Admins already admitted too many unfair blockings enforced by crazy admins?

If so. you only have to unblock all the victims of the crazy admins
and stop all the crazy persons' adminship.

>In particular, we need to associate your email address with a particular
>Wikipedia account or identity.

I had not a Wikipedia account and Wikipedia's admins apparently have blocked
too many IP address users with no understandable reason.

This means, admins themselves have been forcing many IP address contributors
to have to subscribe "Unblock-en-l".

Of course, anyone have freedom not to log in Wikipedia
and all Wikipedias have allowed IP address contributors to edit Wikipedias'
articles
since the beginning.

I myself don't want to talk with crazy facism(and racism) admins of
Wikipedia.
Apparently Chinese, Koreans, etc. have occupied and controlled Wikipedia
very unfairly.

I have to think:
Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
accounts
are Chinese, Koreans, Mexican, etc.
who have never understood the value to respect democratic procedures and
human rights.

?In order to do that, please click on this link:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/Prodego

"Prodego"?
Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins have never
explained
the necessity to click on this link.
They have been only showing their stupid contradiction and their being evil
sockpuppeters.

>PLEASE use "unblock-en-l identification" as your subject heading, to allow
>faster processing of your email.

"Identification"?
If you want people to reveal their identification, you should do it first.
but,
even "Essjay"("Ryan Jordan"?), the admin of "unblock-en-l", have been only
lying
about his identity and apparently abusing sockpuppets.

It is Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins of Wikipedia
to make public their real "identification" and only them.

>Do not email the user directly

Why?
Because "Luna" is just the sockpuppet of "Essjay"?

>-- you MUST use the Special:Emailuser feature, or your identity will not be
>confirmed.

Why does "Luna" say "MUST"?
I don't know "Predego" at all. And "Predego" is not the list administrator
of "Unvlock-en-l".
And Luna" is one of the crazy (anti-Japanese-racism-)facism admins.
Like this:
>If you have not replied to this message within one week, your subscription
>will be cancelled. You can request to re-join the list at any time.

"You can request to re-join the list at any time"?
Now, I request it.

I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
So, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.

>We apologize for this inconvenience, but hope that you understand the need
>for privacy and security, given the sensitive personal information that is
>sometimes discussed on this mailing list.

"the need for privacy and security"?
If you say such a decent thing, never send such a crazy emai to people
and never compel them to do such dangerous things for their "privacy and
security".

All admins should do is to make all admins reveal their real identity,
esp. Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego.

>Thank you,
>-Luna

Why "Luna"?
Why "Prodego"?
Why not "Essjay"?
Why not "Mindspillage"?

I couldn't believe my eyes.

The admin's term should be expired every year or every six months.

Sincerly,
"Mileshand"(Christopher A. J. Russel)

_________________________________________________________________
Find what you need at prices you?ll love. Compare products and save at MSN?
Shopping.
http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l
	subscription


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Important notice -- please confirm your
	unblock-en-l subscription


references:
<45E5E4BB.40003@scissor.com> <45E88A7A.9080201@scissor.com>
	<0f5hu21dg50dj1m8pc6idsp0ughpapdk3n@4ax.com>
	<45E89E18.3090805@scissor.com>

body:
On 3/2/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:35:06 -0800, William Pietri
> > <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I was hoping that Essjay would return, answer the many questions
> >> that have arisen, and make this problem go away. That hasn't happened,
> >> though.
> >>
> >
> > The story only broke yesterday.  Give him a break.
> >
>
>
> I regret that the question is moot. Someone has already opened an RFC:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay
>
> My apologies for not noticing this before posting my question.
>
> William

None of this would have happened
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite

if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel Brandt bio had
been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which preceeded it..


from_name: andrew.cady at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 05:53:22PM -0800, Luna wrote:
> On 1/31/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> > One point which for me makes "Be civil" preferable to "Don't be
> > a dick" is that it advocates something that people should be in
> > preference to what they should not be.  It has a more positive
> > outlook.
>
> Besides that, I can't remember a *single* occassion where linking
> [[m:DICK]] has ever done anything to calm a situation down. Of
> *course* the other person is going to be offended, and anyone
> linking this in a heated dispute is a fool to expect otherwise --
> at the very least, get somebody neutral to do the linking. When the
> directly involved (and most biased) parties start giving each other
> dick/civility scoldings, it rarely ever calms anything down.
>
> If we want the level of discourse to be more civil, we must first
> ourselves behave in a civil manner. Nine times out of ten, that
> precludes linking [[m:DICK]] in my opinion.

Besides their relative rudeness as rebukes, there is a substantial
difference between the *meaning* of the two phrases.  "Don't be a dick"
is a far more broad concept, and makes greater reference to motives
and meaning; "civility" is more about style and form.  For example, a
dismissive, one-line response to a carefully considered five paragraph
argument is a "dick move" even if perfectly civil.  An exasperated
ejaculation of emotion may be incivil but is not a dick move--a dick
does not act out of desperation or express vulnerability.


body:
On 3/2/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > None of this would have happened
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite
> >
> > if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel Brandt bio
> had
> > been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which preceeded it..
>
>
> Nyet false persona predates Daniel Brandt article first appearing on
> wikipedia.
>
> --
> geni

The point is, the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel
Brandt article were not based upon Notability, or BLP; it was created with a
specific intent to cast Brandt as a non-reputable source who could not be
cited as a critic for other articles.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Well, it seems like we've heard from you before. I seem to remember
someone criticizing all the admins of ja-wp for being "not pure
Japanese" ethnically. You seem like that kind of person.

Being against anti-Japanese is one thing, but most people who take
that up as their cause are also the type who are Japanese
ultranationalists, the sort who go around shouting about how the
Nanking Massacre was just racist whinging by Chinese about events that
never happened, talking about how Japanese are superior to the rest of
the world, etc. etc. etc. get over yourself please Sir.

If you don't want to subscribe to the new list and follow the rules
which have been set out before you, don't, but don't spam this list
with your personal ideological insanities.

Mark

On 02/03/07, Christoper Russel <criticize_antijapanese_racism at msn.com> wrote:
> I can't help thinking morerover that
> the lisrt administrator of "unvlock-en-l", Essjay and Mindspillage have
> had many sockpuppets beyond "Luna" and "Predego"
> and abused admin's power.
>
> What can you do for people(Wikipedians) besides listen to them?
>
> On 02 Mar 2007, unblock-en-l-owner wrote:
> >You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has
> >been automatically rejected.  If you think that your messages are
> >being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at
> >unblock-en-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org.
>
> By what reasons?
>
>
> "Luna", who is suspected strongly the sockpuppet of the list administrator
> of "Unblock-en-l",
> said, "You can request to re-join the list at any time".
>
> So, I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
> Therefore, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.
>
> Please don't reject my message "automatically", Essjay and Mindspillage.
>
>
>
> >From: "Christoper Russel" <criticize_antijapanese_racism at msn.com>
> >To: lunasantin at gmail.com, foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org,
> >wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org, unblock-en-l at lists.wikimedia.org,
> >wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org, unblock-en-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org
> >CC: info at wikimedia.org, board at wikimedia.org
> >Subject: RE: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l
> >subscription
> >Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:08:31 -0500
>
> >I have to suspect strongly:
>
> >Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
> >accounts
>
> >= inappropriate admin's accounts group abusing sockpuppets and amin's power
>
> >= Chinese and/or Korean group with anti-Japanese racism and facism.
> >
> >Why can't they allow IP address contributers to read "Unblock-en-l"?
> (It is very useful!)
>
> >Can "Luna"'s personal email below be actually valid?
> >
> >>From: Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com>
> >>Subject: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l subscription
> >>Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:37 -0800
> >>
> >>Dear unblock-en-l subscriber,
> >>
> >>We've recently decided to establish some membership criteria for this
> >>mailing list,
> >
> >When?
> >Where?
> >what kind of "membership criteria"?
> >
> >>and are in the process of removing subscriptions which do not meet those
> >>criteria.
> >
> >Why is there necessity to remove subscriptions of Unblock-en-l?
> >Admins already admitted too many unfair blockings enforced by crazy admins?
> >
> >If so. you only have to unblock all the victims of the crazy admins
> >and stop all the crazy persons' adminship.
> >
> >>In particular, we need to associate your email address with a particular
> >>Wikipedia account or identity.
> >
> >I had not a Wikipedia account and Wikipedia's admins apparently have
> >blocked
> >too many IP address users with no understandable reason.
> >
> >This means, admins themselves have been forcing many IP address
> >contributors
> >to have to subscribe "Unblock-en-l".
> >
> >Of course, anyone have freedom not to log in Wikipedia
> >and all Wikipedias have allowed IP address contributors to edit Wikipedias'
> >articles
> >since the beginning.
> >
> >I myself don't want to talk with crazy facism(and racism) admins of
> >Wikipedia.
> >Apparently Chinese, Koreans, etc. have occupied and controlled Wikipedia
> >very unfairly.
> >
> >I have to think:
> >Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
> >accounts
> >are Chinese, Koreans, Mexican, etc.
> >who have never understood the value to respect democratic procedures and
> >human rights.
> >
> >
> >?In order to do that, please click on this link:
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/Prodego
> >
> >"Prodego"?
> >Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins have never
> >explained
> >the necessity to click on this link.
> >They have been only showing their stupid contradiction and their being evil
> >sockpuppeters.
> >
> >>PLEASE use "unblock-en-l identification" as your subject heading, to allow
> >>faster processing of your email.
> >
> >"Identification"?
> >If you want people to reveal their identification, you should do it first.
> >but,
> >even "Essjay"("Ryan Jordan"?), the admin of "unblock-en-l", have been only
> >lying
> >about his identity and apparently abusing sockpuppets.
> >
> >It is Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins of
> >Wikipedia
> >to make public their real "identification" and only them.
> >
> >
> >>Do not email the user directly
> >
> >Why?
> >Because "Luna" is just the sockpuppet of "Essjay"?
> >
> >>-- you MUST use the Special:Emailuser feature, or your identity will not
> >>be confirmed.
> >
> >Why does "Luna" say "MUST"?
> >I don't know "Predego" at all. And "Predego" is not the list administrator
> >of "Unvlock-en-l".
> >And Luna" is one of the crazy (anti-Japanese-racism-)facism admins.
> >Like this:
> >>If you have not replied to this message within one week, your subscription
> >>will be cancelled. You can request to re-join the list at any time.
> >
> >"You can request to re-join the list at any time"?
> >Now, I request it.
> >
> >I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
> >So, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.
> >
> >>We apologize for this inconvenience, but hope that you understand the need
> >>for privacy and security, given the sensitive personal information that is
> >>sometimes discussed on this mailing list.
> >
> >"the need for privacy and security"?
> >If you say such a decent thing, never send such a crazy emai to people
> >and never compel them to do such dangerous things for their "privacy and
> >security".
> >
> >All admins should do is to make all admins reveal their real identity,
> >esp. Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego.
> >
> >
> >>Thank you,
> >>-Luna
> >
> >Why "Luna"?
> >Why "Prodego"?
> >Why not "Essjay"?
> >Why not "Mindspillage"?
> >
> >I couldn't believe my eyes.
> >
> >The admin's term should be expired every year or every six months.
> >
> >Sincerly,
> >"Mileshand"(Christopher A. J. Russel)
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Find what you need at prices you'll love. Compare products and save at MSN(r)
> >Shopping.
> >http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701
> >
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> With tax season right around the corner, make sure to follow these few
> simple tips.
> http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/PreparationTips.aspx?icid=HMFebtagline
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

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


from_name: Virgil Ierubino

body:
I have two major points in the following:
 - As religions are disputed as fact, articles about them should conform to
the same style guidelines as articles about fiction.
 - These style guidelines can be cumbersome and suffocating for articles,
and disclaimers might be a better way to preserve NPOV.

As a (once) active participant in WikiProject Stargate, which tries to
improve Wikipedia's coverage of articles related to the science-fiction
media franchise Stargate, I am all too aware of the importance of contextual
tone when writing about what is non-factual. It's not correct in an
encyclopedia to have an article about a fictional character, e.g. "Sokar",
and then state that "Sokar took over the universe in 2003." The article
should come from the perspective of "Sokar is a character from the
science-fiction series Stargate..... .....and during a major story arc
written by Martin Gero spanning 3 episodes, the character took over the
universe."

It is clear why this kind of clarification is needed. Sokar has not taken
over the universe. If the claims were about "Jack Bauer" "defeating
terrorists" it would sound more plausible of course: it is imperative to
clearly mark what is fact and fiction! It is a fact that "24", the fiction,
depicts certain fictional events.

Most articles do this to a fair extent already. However, I am concerned that
the focus for the Writing About Fiction guidelines is only on things like
Stargate. Religions apply to. Seen as these are disputed as fact, statements
cannot read "If the pilgrim dies before entering Mecca, their soul is sent
into limbo, where Allah will judge them by the purity of their soul and
their lifetime devotion to Islam and the words of Muhammad" (from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj). It is not encyclopedic fact that people
who've never been to the Hajj will have their souls sent to limbo for
Islamic judgment. This needs to be clarified as "Muslims believe that..."

It's either all or none: either fiction and religion articles must both
contain these clarifications, or none. And I think none might actually be
easier:

There are some types of articles (or just sections in articles) that by
their very nature are going to be 95% a documentation of non-factual things.
These include articles (or sections) about plots or religions, etc., etc.
Seen as there are so many articles/sections of this type, and prepending
every line with "It is believed..." or "It was depicted..." can suffocate
content, I was wondering if it might not be better to just have a disclaimer
template? Something to place at the top of a section, reading "The following
section discusses fictional events as depicted in [Stargate]" or "The
following section discusses the beliefs and opinions held by [Muslims]." The
template can be taken as temporary until someone rewords the section purely
factually.


body:
On 3/2/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > None of this would have happened
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite
> >
> > if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel Brandt bio
> had
> > been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which preceeded it..
>
> Wow, stop right there, Nobs. You're not bringing your SlimVirgin
> Review conspiracy theories onto this list.
>
> There were no "circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel
> Brandt bio" that are relevant to this incident, or of any interest. I
> created the stub on Brandt because his name was showing up as a red
> link in the article about, as I recall, Chip Berlet. Rather than
> remove the red link, I created a stub so it turned blue. End of story.
>
> Sarah

( A ) you said yourself, you did not regard Brandt as a credible source;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chip_Berlet&diff=prev&oldid=9161554

( B ) the subject of the Berlet entry was the first to identify Brandt by
name with these words:

QUOTE
This complaint was written by Daniel Brandt, who I criticized because he was
urging people on the left to read the anti-Semitic Spotlight newspaper (at
the time published by Holocaust denier Willis Carto.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cberlet/Archive_2005-06_2005-08#Red-baiting_Lie_Article.21

( C ) the self published citation in the Public Information Research entry *
still* violates WP policy.


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> Rob Smith wrote:
>
> [blah blah blah blah]
>
> <groan> Do we *have* to rehash this for the hundredth time??
>

I second that emotion. I know it's hard for all parties involved, but
could we please leave ancient history out of this?

I will eagerly read pretty much anything that's a forward-looking
suggestion or discussion about what we will do. But barring the
contribution of a time machine, there's nothing anybody can do about the
past. Please let it go. Please.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


body:
I can't help thinking morerover that
the lisrt administrator of "unvlock-en-l", Essjay and Mindspillage have
had many sockpuppets beyond "Luna" and "Predego"
and abused admin's power.

What can you do for people(Wikipedians) besides listen to them?

On 02 Mar 2007, unblock-en-l-owner wrote:
>You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has
>been automatically rejected.  If you think that your messages are
>being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at
>unblock-en-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org.

By what reasons?

"Luna", who is suspected strongly the sockpuppet of the list administrator
of "Unblock-en-l",
said, "You can request to re-join the list at any time".

So, I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
Therefore, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.

Please don't reject my message "automatically", Essjay and Mindspillage.

>From: "Christoper Russel" <criticize_antijapanese_racism at msn.com>
>To: lunasantin at gmail.com, foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org,
>wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org, unblock-en-l at lists.wikimedia.org,
>wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org, unblock-en-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org
>CC: info at wikimedia.org, board at wikimedia.org
>Subject: RE: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l
>subscription
>Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:08:31 -0500

>I have to suspect strongly:

>Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
>accounts

>= inappropriate admin's accounts group abusing sockpuppets and amin's power

>= Chinese and/or Korean group with anti-Japanese racism and facism.
>
>Why can't they allow IP address contributers to read "Unblock-en-l"?
(It is very useful!)

>Can "Luna"'s personal email below be actually valid?
>
>>From: Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com>
>>Subject: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l subscription
>>Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:37 -0800
>>
>>Dear unblock-en-l subscriber,
>>
>>We've recently decided to establish some membership criteria for this
>>mailing list,
>
>When?
>Where?
>what kind of "membership criteria"?
>
>>and are in the process of removing subscriptions which do not meet those
>>criteria.
>
>Why is there necessity to remove subscriptions of Unblock-en-l?
>Admins already admitted too many unfair blockings enforced by crazy admins?
>
>If so. you only have to unblock all the victims of the crazy admins
>and stop all the crazy persons' adminship.
>
>>In particular, we need to associate your email address with a particular
>>Wikipedia account or identity.
>
>I had not a Wikipedia account and Wikipedia's admins apparently have
>blocked
>too many IP address users with no understandable reason.
>
>This means, admins themselves have been forcing many IP address
>contributors
>to have to subscribe "Unblock-en-l".
>
>Of course, anyone have freedom not to log in Wikipedia
>and all Wikipedias have allowed IP address contributors to edit Wikipedias'
>articles
>since the beginning.
>
>I myself don't want to talk with crazy facism(and racism) admins of
>Wikipedia.
>Apparently Chinese, Koreans, etc. have occupied and controlled Wikipedia
>very unfairly.
>
>I have to think:
>Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
>accounts
>are Chinese, Koreans, Mexican, etc.
>who have never understood the value to respect democratic procedures and
>human rights.
>
>
>?In order to do that, please click on this link:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/Prodego
>
>"Prodego"?
>Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins have never
>explained
>the necessity to click on this link.
>They have been only showing their stupid contradiction and their being evil
>sockpuppeters.
>
>>PLEASE use "unblock-en-l identification" as your subject heading, to allow
>>faster processing of your email.
>
>"Identification"?
>If you want people to reveal their identification, you should do it first.
>but,
>even "Essjay"("Ryan Jordan"?), the admin of "unblock-en-l", have been only
>lying
>about his identity and apparently abusing sockpuppets.
>
>It is Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego, and any other admins of
>Wikipedia
>to make public their real "identification" and only them.
>
>
>>Do not email the user directly
>
>Why?
>Because "Luna" is just the sockpuppet of "Essjay"?
>
>>-- you MUST use the Special:Emailuser feature, or your identity will not
>>be confirmed.
>
>Why does "Luna" say "MUST"?
>I don't know "Predego" at all. And "Predego" is not the list administrator
>of "Unvlock-en-l".
>And Luna" is one of the crazy (anti-Japanese-racism-)facism admins.
>Like this:
>>If you have not replied to this message within one week, your subscription
>>will be cancelled. You can request to re-join the list at any time.
>
>"You can request to re-join the list at any time"?
>Now, I request it.
>
>I have already requested it to the list administrators and the trustees.
>So, I have no need to be ordered by Lunacy-like persons.
>
>>We apologize for this inconvenience, but hope that you understand the need
>>for privacy and security, given the sensitive personal information that is
>>sometimes discussed on this mailing list.
>
>"the need for privacy and security"?
>If you say such a decent thing, never send such a crazy emai to people
>and never compel them to do such dangerous things for their "privacy and
>security".
>
>All admins should do is to make all admins reveal their real identity,
>esp. Essjay, Mindspillage, Luna, Prodego.
>
>
>>Thank you,
>>-Luna
>
>Why "Luna"?
>Why "Prodego"?
>Why not "Essjay"?
>Why not "Mindspillage"?
>
>I couldn't believe my eyes.
>
>The admin's term should be expired every year or every six months.
>
>Sincerly,
>"Mileshand"(Christopher A. J. Russel)
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Find what you need at prices you?ll love. Compare products and save at MSN?
>Shopping.
>http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
With tax season right around the corner, make sure to follow these few
simple tips.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/PreparationTips.aspx?icid=HMFebtagline


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

body:
On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 10:00:05PM -0500, Omegatron wrote:

> These arguments that free content is our primary goal is like an
> argument that our primary goal is to be a wiki, because hey, it's
> right there in the title of the project, right?  This is, of course,
> demonstrably false.  The wiki/"anyone can edit" aspect of the project,
> while highly important, is regularly ignored when it doesn't serve the
> primary purpose of writing a high-quality encyclopedia and making it
> available to as many people as possible.

Every contributor has his own motives for contribution.  I imagine the
general function of wikipedia to most contributors--its place in their
lives--is an outlet for creativity or constructive impulses.  Users
may also be motivated by the desire to have some record of particular
viewpoints or topics, or may have a purely destructive purpose (though,
of course, effort is made to keep those users away).  The passing
on of knowledge--teaching--seems to be valuable to those who have
been devoted to their own education.  Reciprocity no doubt inspires
some contribution--readers aware of the free nature of the content
will feel some indebtedness and be encouraged by the ease of adding
whatever corrections or additions might present themselves.  Others
value community and the sense of *autonomous* collaboration which is so
often lacking in centrally-managed creative endeavors (such as work).

Many other motives could be ascribed to various groups or individuals.
No "primary purpose" is going to give any *accurate* description of
everyone or, probably, anyone--even those who would identify with some
particular purpose.  However, it is fairly certain--to me, anyway--that
on the whole, the purpose of wikipedia is not in the product, but the
process.

> Unfortunately, there is a lot of encyclopedic content that will never
> be released under a free license, and limiting ourselves to *only*
> free content would also limit the breadth, usefulness, and neutrality
> of our encyclopedia.  So we allow non-free content whenever it is
> encyclopedic, legal and doesn't displace equivalent free content.

I certainly agree with this (as much as I would prefer that free content
replace non-free).

> > It seems fruitless to argue about the details of any particular
> > policy if we disagree on the purpose of the project.
>
> I think you mean "It's fruitless to try to reach a consensus about
> the details of any particular policy when a small group of users have
> modified it to suit their ideals and are unwilling to compromise".

I say, there's plenty of fruit for everyone.


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

references:
<86wt20m9xj.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>
	<52a8cf060703021302l332e5da3v9fa311a6c9f9191f@mail.gmail.com>
	<86fy8nmhnu.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>

body:
On 3/2/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:
>
> <snip>
> >> Given the anonymity, the name provided as a sig, and the linked
> >> website, I think we can conclude it was in fact Daniel Brandt
>    who
> >> first noticed it
> >> <http://www.whois-search.com/whois/216.60.71.100%20>.>
> >> It is also interesting to note that Essjay never replied as
> >> [[User:Shanel]] quite quickly reverted it. (A lapse of
>    judgement?
> >> I suppose so, in the same way Yanksox had a lapse of judgement
> >> deleting [[Daniel Brandt]]).
> >
> > I'm not so certain of that; Yanksox registered an account with
> WR 23 Feb
> > 2007 9:08am
> > <http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=1014>
> >
> > where he presumably read the series "Navigating flame wars of
> the Daniel
> > Brandt controversy" (two hours is ample time) and promptly
>   deleted the
> > Brandt page on 23 Feb 2007 12:53pm.  Ken Myers, author of
> *Wikimmunity:
> > Fitting the Communications Decency Act to Wikipedia* registered
> an account a
> > day earlier 22 Feb 2007 and was active on that board for several
> hours at
> > the same time prior as well.
> >
> > 21st Feb 2007, 11:10pm
> >
> > Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt
> >
> > Wed 21st Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account
>
> That is interesting. I had only meant to express the sentiment
> that both removed something which could be defended and would be
> defended by a part of the community but which both should've known
> would in the long run be generally deprecated. I had no idea that
> Yanksox had deleted the article *after* joining WR, and not after
> (which is what I had thought).  This certainly shines a different
> light on the matter, for me at least - wasn't Everyking punished
> for less?
>
> I'm afraid I don't see the Myers connection, though. I skimmed his
> paper, but I didn't really understand it.
>
> --
> Gwern

A note: Ken Myers is a lawyer who has written about the Communications
Decency Act and its relationship to Wikipedia, and who delivered a paper
(and organized a panel) about that topic at last year's Wikimania. He's a
bright guy with some good ideas. It's unsurprising to me that he's
interested in controversies surrounding Wikipedia, but it does seem
completely irrelevant to this discussion.
-- phoebe


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia Search on Mobile] Technical Contact
	Window for Nokia Taiwan

body:
Hi,

On behave of Wikimania organization team seeking for sponsorship, we have got an request from Nokia Taiwan to seek for a technical contact window for Wikipedia Search on Mobile Devices. Is there anyone know whom we could provide to Nokia Taiwan for this request? And what's the opinion on this from the Foundation?

Thanks and best regards,
--
Hsiang-Tai Chien (H.T.)

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia!
My Wikipedia User Page
My blog: Hsiang-Tai @ Taiwan
My Flickr Photo Album

Think Different, Do Smarter, Work for Joy!!

 ___________________________________________________
 ??????? ? ????????????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


body:
Hoi!

I group two answers into one, to make it quicker.

> We would not expect it being taken over by a more
> specific group pushing a point

What worries me is the number of "We would not expect..." structures implied
in "Free encyclopedia" from a western POV. Many of them are not going to be
that obvious for those who are not western users.

I speak from personal experience, as westerner who relocated to an eastern
country. The number of "implicit concepts" that simply do NOT hold when
moving to another culture is pretty big. It's nobody's fault/will, it simply
happens.

> there is the danger that some people might assume that everything
> _not_ written on that page is explicitly allowed...
Yes, if you do not state that what counts is the "spirit of the law" and not
the letter. But as soon as you quote the "spirit of the law" you're back to
trans-cultural fuzziness. It's not an easily solved problem and it will
probably have to be confronted by means of a series of approximated moves.

I'm afraid that the further from an "implicit western POV" you get the
longer your explanation shall be. Translating words is easy; broadcasting a
complex relation system in a few words may be simply impossible when words
do not carry along similar semantic networks.

Too bad that any time we fail to explain what we mean we later have to
assert our western POV by means of brute force; since our real motivation
remains unknown the only image we're going to project to the outside world
is absolutely colonial in its nature.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Job: Volunteer Coordinator

body:
Carolyn Doran wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, but that's because they have money rolling in to fund the physical and
>>> legal move. And I'm sure there's different things involved with a charity
>>> and what essentially is a small business.
>>>
>>> It wouldn't be smart to burn money like that, right after the world hears
>>> "Wikipedia to close in three months".
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>> Maybe we could argue the slip of tongue....
>>
>> "oh, but I was not talking of closing the website, but only of closing
>> the office !"
>>
>> ant
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> The office is closing???
> Who was to inform the people who run the office.......and the
> servers......and the banks???????????????
> This is VERY disconcerting as everyone is about to walk out in
> frustration anyway. Where shall the phones be forwarded to?

I.....

/me tears her hair apart, cover head with ash, dip her fingers in holy
water and add a pinch of ketchup sauce


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry Sanger weighs in on the Essjay incident

body:
Folks,

Larry Sanger has weighed in on this on the Citizendium blog.

http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/01/wikipedia-firmly-supports-your-right-to-identity-fraud/

"Now this is very sad.

As Slashdot reports <http://slashdot.org/articles/07/03/01/1313251.shtml>,
someone calling himself "Essjay" was interviewed for last year's *New Yorker
* article about Wikipedia.  At the time, he gave *The New Yorker* the same
story he gave to the Wikipedia community: he was a tenured professor of
theology with some very impressive degrees.  Recently he revealed that he
had been using a fake identity, and *The New Yorker* apologized to its
readers <http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060731fa_fact> (see the
bottom of the article, "Editors' Note") for having reporting his lies as
fact.  It turns out that, far from being an overeducated religious
thinker, he is (if we believe his latest story?skepticism is obviously
warranted) 24 years old and degreeless, a kid named Ryan Jordan.  He also
apparently thinks his lie was pretty clever, as well as quite morally
justified, as edits on his user page show.  Now, this is pathetic, and yet
more evidence of the broad moral decline of Western civilization and all
that is holy, but in itself is no big deal.  No doubt Wikipedia's ranks are
chock full of people who have misrepresented themselves.  That's not big
news, if you know much about Wikipedia.

No, the fascinating and tragic thing is Jimmy Wales' reaction.  *The New
Yorker* reported that he said: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't
really have a problem with it.""

There is much more where that came from. Sanger probably sees it as a fillip
for Citizendium which was starting to look like the encyclopedia equivalent
of *Chinese Democracy.*

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Democracy*

Regards to all,

*Keith Old*

**

**

Jimmy, say it ain't so.


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Works cited in Wikipedia

body:
On 3/2/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/02/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> > I added a couple of books to this site in December 2005 just to get the
> > hang of it, but never got back to it.  With others now interested I can
> > now take a second look
>
> It's a lovely idea to play with, isn't it? If nothing else it cuts
> down on my duplicate-buying...

LibraryThing is a terrible site.

Because whenever I remember it exists again, I spend way too much time
playing with it.

-Kat

--
Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
* *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
On 3/2/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Rob Smith wrote:
>
> [blah blah blah blah]
>
> <groan> Do we *have* to rehash this for the hundredth time??
>
> Stan

Brandt was the victim of a drive by smear aimed at editors who inserted
properly sourced criticism to Brandt in another article.  I kept silent for
1 year, but the situation never resolved itself. It only got worse.
Numerous innocents now have been caught in the crossfire in this dispute
between Brandt & Berlet that goes back to 1991.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 3/2/07, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> But that is a longer term strategy. Right now, I think we should try to make best use of our
> current location. Thus the need I expressed to sell St Pete's / Tampa's good points and take full
> advantage of that.

Yes, you are right.

> However, I don't think it would be a good idea, in the long term, to keep the
> main office there (an office could continue to be there, just not the main one).

Frankly, although I am not St Pete's best friend (Florida? Come on,
it's like...HOT!), as long as we find good people there  - and believe
me, we have -- or good people who are willing to go there --that we
have too--, I think we should focus on the real things that this
organisation needs. I seem to recall that the primary purpose of this
thread was to hire a volunteer coordinator.

Volunteer coordinator, anyone?

Cheers,

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia Search on Mobile] Technical Contact Window
	for Nokia Taiwan


from_name: Slim Virgin

body:
On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> None of this would have happened
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite
>
> if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel Brandt bio had
> been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which preceeded it..

Wow, stop right there, Nobs. You're not bringing your SlimVirgin
Review conspiracy theories onto this list.

There were no "circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel
Brandt bio" that are relevant to this incident, or of any interest. I
created the stub on Brandt because his name was showing up as a red
link in the article about, as I recall, Chip Berlet. Rather than
remove the red link, I created a stub so it turned blue. End of story.

Sarah


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

body:
According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine)[1]:

"The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized *graphical
notation* for drawing business processes in a workflow. "

Thus it would seem that BPMN is already an image file of some kind.  Making
an image thumbnail should be the same as with any image[2].

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPMN
[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files#Embedding_internal_images

On 3/2/07, Paul van Erk <p.vanerk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> I was wondering if there is a BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation)
> to
> Image convertor. So a user can upload an BPMN file, which is translated to
> a
> thumnail image which can be shown on the page (as can be done with normal
> images). I looked on the extension page, but I could find any.
>
> Could someone help me out?
>
> Thanks,
>
> With regards,
>
> Paul van Erk
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Simetrical

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia Search on Mobile] Technical Contact
	Window for Nokia Taiwan

body:
On 3/2/07, Hsiang-Tai Chien <htchien1225 at yahoo.com.tw> wrote:
> On behave of Wikimania organization team seeking for sponsorship, we have got an request from Nokia Taiwan to seek for a technical contact window for Wikipedia Search on Mobile Devices. Is there anyone know whom we could provide to Nokia Taiwan for this request? And what's the opinion on this from the Foundation?

Brion is currently the CTO, so you should probably ask him.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] On Experts (Was Correction to New Yorker Article)

body:
On Fri, 2 Mar 2007 07:56:00 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>What Essjay's case suggests, which is striking, is that the
>safeguards of not letting expertise be the sole reason for something
>and of still taking seriously arguments against experts, particularly
>when they cite source are actually all we need in order to be able to
>deal with being respectful towards claimed experts and take seriously
>their critiques of articles.

Yes, exactly that.  But we have a residual issue, external to the
matter of edits, which is that Essjay has a number of trusted
positions and seems to have lost the trust of a significant proportion
of the Wikipedia community.  That is primarily Essjay's problem, not
ours, of course.

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/2/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Prior experience is an advantage, but not required?  My wife once
> worked as a secretary for a non-profit, should I see if she's
> interested?

Sure, why not? We'll be happy to look over her CV. At the moment,
we're open to exploring different possibilities for this position, so
I'd encourage anyone (including those not willing to work in FL - but
please make that clear) to apply.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Luna

body:
On 3/2/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/07, gjzilla at gmail.com <gjzilla at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On a more sane note, why are we restricting acess all of a sudden?
>
> Choose one
>
> [  ] Sensitive/private information might be being discussed on this
> list such as checkuser results and what have you.
>
> [  ] Because all the rogue admins (tanra) and elitist assholes (tanea)
> need a s00p3r s3kr1t list to discuss their plans to suppress wikitruth
> (tinwt), block editors they don't like and cover each other's asses.

Don't forget the third option (and the most compelling one, for me): we had
complaints of trolls subscribing, and sending some rather questionable
replies to people in need of assistance, both on- and off-list.. Given that
people contacting unblock-en-l are frequently new, confused, and upset, we
need to avoid that sort of thing.

My personal opinion is that I'd like to have the criteria for joining the
list rather low-ish. As we've discovered in this little housecleaning
effort, however, there are more trolls on the list than we'd previously
realized.

-Luna


from_name: Gwern Branwen

body:
"Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/1/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:33:28 -0500
>> In-Reply-To:
<52a8cf060703011842s2dca0df1qa405e56dda90650 at mail.gmail.com>
>> (Rob
>>        Smith's message of "Thu, 1 Mar 2007 19:42:58 -0700")
>> Message-ID: <86y7mgm9xj.fsf at elan.rh.rit.edu>
>> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.0.94
   (gnu/linux)
>> MIME-Version: 1.0
>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>> --text follows this line--
>> "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > On 3/1/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On 3/1/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad at gmail.com>
>>   wrote:
>> >> > >
>> >> > > anything you do related to Wikipedia may now
>> >> > > get viewed by a potentially hostile press and outside
>>       community.
>> >> > >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > it's dinged us somewhat in the
>> >> press, based on the blogosphere at least.
>> >
>> > Actually this matter has been brewing for some time. Amazing
     it
>> took this
>> > long to bring attention to it.
>>
>> True. It could've been discovered as far back as 7 January, if
   I
>> may recount the timeline of events. It was 7 February that
   Essjay
>> posted this:
>> <http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Essjay&oldid=66549>>
>> On an interesting side note, it apparently wasn't until 21
   January
>> that anyone noticed - that was when an anon user brought it up
   on
>> [[User talk:Essjay]]
>> <
>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Essjay&oldid=102161036>
>.
>> Given the anonymity, the name provided as a sig, and the linked
>> website, I think we can conclude it was in fact Daniel Brandt
   who
>> first noticed it
>> <http://www.whois-search.com/whois/216.60.71.100%20>.>
>> It is also interesting to note that Essjay never replied as
>> [[User:Shanel]] quite quickly reverted it. (A lapse of
   judgement?
>> I suppose so, in the same way Yanksox had a lapse of judgement
>> deleting [[Daniel Brandt]]).
>
> I'm not so certain of that; Yanksox registered an account with
WR 23 Feb
> 2007 9:08am
> <http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=1014>
>
> where he presumably read the series "Navigating flame wars of
the Daniel
> Brandt controversy" (two hours is ample time) and promptly
  deleted the
> Brandt page on 23 Feb 2007 12:53pm.  Ken Myers, author of
*Wikimmunity:
> Fitting the Communications Decency Act to Wikipedia* registered
an account a
> day earlier 22 Feb 2007 and was active on that board for several
hours at
> the same time prior as well.
>
> 21st Feb 2007, 11:10pm
>
> Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt
>
> Wed 21st Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account

That is interesting. I had only meant to express the sentiment
that both removed something which could be defended and would be
defended by a part of the community but which both should've known
would in the long run be generally deprecated. I had no idea that
Yanksox had deleted the article *after* joining WR, and not after
(which is what I had thought).  This certainly shines a different
light on the matter, for me at least - wasn't Everyking punished
for less?

I'm afraid I don't see the Myers connection, though. I skimmed his
paper, but I didn't really understand it.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.