from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The idea of having a bunch of volunteers working away in public view at
> Wikimania to put something of the size of EB12 on line has great
> publicity appeal, especially if these volunteers are at it round the
> clock.  Whether the EB should be the only work treated that way at
> Wikimania should remain an open question.  Perhaps the scanned works
> should be in several languages. :-)

I think this is a wonderful idea. But to work we would need some software
features that currently do not exist (scanned image side-by-side with wiki
page; each in its own HTML frame).

-- mav

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] E-mail address change at MediaZilla?

body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:31:13 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Richard Holton wrote:
> > Aside from creating a new account, is there any way of changing your
> > e-mail address at MediaZilla?
>
> Doesn't seem to be available from user preferences, but I think I can do
> it from the admin panel. You want your account moved from the yahoo to
> the gmail one?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

Thanks, Brion! That would be great.

-Rich


list: wikien-l

from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

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

> Puddl Duk wrote:
>
> > Well, the point I was attempting to make was that
> when the community
> > exercises it's judgment not to use an image, its
> not censorship.
>
> I know.
>
> > Again, if you insist on such a narrow definition
> of censorship then
> > admit that you too censor, every time you have
> ever reverted. Or are
> > you going to keep side stepping this?
>
> I'm not insisting on a narrow definition. I don't
> deny that censorship
> can be of a type imposed by authority.
>
> I've already responded to you directly on this:
>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019892.html
> You might like to read my last response to Jimbo
> also:
>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019933.html
>
> Christiaan
>

You are right, I missed your post to Jimbo, sorry.

I looked up censorship in three disctionaries, all
definitions operated under power of authority to
decide what 'others' may or may not say.

In this case, voting on whether or not to include an
image, it is the 'others' who have the say. Thats why
its not censorship.

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Distributed proofreading (was "The God-King drives a
	Hyundai")

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> I think this is a wonderful idea. But to work we would need some software
> features that currently do not exist (scanned image side-by-side with wiki
> page; each in its own HTML frame).

Doesn't the Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders project already do this
sort of thing?

http://www.pgdp.net/c/default.php

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

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

> Try looking up "self-censorship".
>
> Christiaan
>

Yes, this word has a different definition than the one
we were previously debating.

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from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

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

body:
Thak you,
I'll fix.

Aoineko

Brion Vibber a ?crit :

> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
>
>> - Look at the source [3] and give me a list of needed
>> security/performance fix.
>
> I fixed a couple of the most obvious security problems:
>
> * The Special:Newthread edit form provided a very nice cross-site
> scripting injection point. Once a user is tricked into visiting a
> certain URL (can be via a redirection or frame) their authentication
> cookies can be stolen, or nearly any authenticated action on the wiki
> can be performed as that user via JavaScript manipulation from the
> hacked form.
>
> * The Special:Newthread form submission didn't use the edit token,
> allowing for cross-site request forgery to submit new threads under a
> victim's user account if they visit an offsite page containing a form
> and a little JavaScript.
>
>
> Before anyone should consider deploying this in the field, there are
> other very significant problems with how it accepts edits:
>
> * It doesn't check for read-only mode
>
> * It doesn't check if the user is blocked
>
> * It doesn't check whitelist-edit mode
>
> * It doesn't check content against the spam blacklist or filter callback
>
>
> And some general functional issues:
>
> * The localized text doesn't fit with MediaWiki as a whole; the user's
> selected language is ignored, and the messages aren't customizable
> through the MediaWiki: interface.
>
> * Edit comments aren't formatted in the Special:Forum list the way they
> are elsewhere
>
> * Edit comments are cut off manually at a byte offset, which could break
> UTF-8 characters. Instead, use $wgContLang->truncate() or show the
> complete comment.
>
> * The code that outputs the table on Special:Forum is very fragile. Many
> pieces are done with wikitext which can break when some characters are
> used (try for instance making a thread titled "''Spiffy''"; the link
> becomes broken in the list).
>
> * The use of the unlabeled magnification icon to show/hide a chunk of
> in-place text is very nonintuitive. Consider using the arrows from the
> enhanced recent changes display.
>
> * Obviously these don't work at all if the client has JavaScript
> disabled; consider not displaying the unmanipulable bits in this case.
>
> * Whatever it looks like, a tiny icon is a tough target to click on; I
> constantly have the urge to click on the _title_ and assume it will
> expand the text, but this links to the separate page.
>
> More generally it seems a bit confusing; at the demo site at
> http://test-wikipedia.saewyc.net/index.php/Special:Forum there are two
> entire tables of threads one after the other without an obvious reason
> or explanation. One has expando-bits, the other doesn't.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Nicholas Knight

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

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Nicholas Knight (nknight at runawaynet.com) [050219 10:30]:
>
>>Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>
>
>>>These are done purely on editorial grounds. When we make a decision to
>>>hide or remove an image based on some people's moral objections that it
>>>is "pornographic", "disgusting", "sexually explicit", etc. we are not
>>>making a purely editorial decision.
>
>
>
>>For me, this has about as much to do with morality as my dislike of carrots.
>
>
>
> Your objection, as I understood it, was that it was disgusting. Correct me
> if I'm wrong, but primarily you seemed to be disgusted.

Which has what to do with morality?


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
Anthere,

I won't discuss this further with you as long as any email discussion
with you turns into a tirade of accusations and insults.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:55:12 -0600, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:31:13 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Richard Holton wrote:
> > > Aside from creating a new account, is there any way of changing your
> > > e-mail address at MediaZilla?
> >
> > Doesn't seem to be available from user preferences, but I think I can do
> > it from the admin panel. You want your account moved from the yahoo to
> > the gmail one?
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> Thanks, Brion! That would be great.
>
> -Rich
>

By the way, Brion. If this is not fairly simple, don't kill yourself
trying to get it done. It would be nice,  but it is not a necessity.

-Rich Holton


from_name: Ginu George

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews

body:
Anthere,

I am doing a news wire for the last 3 years. I know the real pain
behind that. We need a full desk to do news. Not like encyclopedia. If
one person who is not taking the responsibility will destroy the
aunthenticity of wikinews. If the people is ready then i am ready to
contribute well with my desk.

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

george

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 05:11:45 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >As news considered let it be 24X7 always. So need more than 5 people
> >in the team i think
>
> >And if you all prefer mark one specific domains, as they have
> >expertise, like politics, business, technology etc etc..
>
> >So more than a number the team needs good journalists rather than just
> >information providers..
>
> >--
> >Regards
> >Ginu George
> >Journalist and Media Researcher
> >Dubai, United Arab Emirates
>
> I strongly agree with you Ginu.
>
> There is a huge difference with the encyclopedia.
> With wikipedia, we do not need all expertises at the same time, one area can be greatly improved for a couple of months, while another goes unnoticed for months.
>
> Wikinews on the other hand, requires much more that people makes team, if only to try to cover a couple of areas.
> Even if there are few editors and cannot cover all news, a team of 4-5 in scientific covering could make it very successful in a small areas.
>
> This is doubly interesting in Wikinews as news are interesting only for a couple of days, not weeks, months or years as in the encyclopedia.
>
> As long as a wikinews will be unable to cover all news topics, I think it should focus on providing good news in *one* area and get famous thanks to it.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The all-new My Yahoo! ? What will yours do?
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews


from_name: Frank Wales

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

body:
Ryan,

Thanks for replying.

On Fri, 2005-02-18 at 08:29 -0600, Lane, Ryan wrote:
> This sounds like a good thing to possibly integrate with my LDAP patch
> (http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814).
> Many organizations are going to smart cards, and use LDAP for
> authentication. Thomas and I are working on integrating his email
> notification with my LDAP patch, maybe I'll be able to integrate this as
> well.

Sure, why not?  How should I proceed?  Shall I e-mail you a patch
and some notes on what I've done, and you can quickly give me your
opinion on the approach, or shall I go ahead and add them as
a comment to bug 814, which might seem somewhat tangential to
anyone reading it who doesn't see this exchange?  I note that
the bug includes patches for a version I'm not currently
using (my patch is against 1.3.9) -- I'm happy to move to
the latest CVS version on a dev box and redo it, if User.php
is a lot different since 1.3.9.  Let me know, so I don't
clutter up the bug commentary; thanks.

[I presume just posting stuff on this list would be overly
noisy for others, so I won't follow up more here.  Anyone
else interested in the details of what I've done should just
ping me directly.]
--
Frank Wales [frank at limov.com]


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

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

> Then you might like to try following the discussion:
>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019893.html
>
> On 19 Feb 2005, at 1:09 am, Puddl Duk wrote:
>
> > --- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Try looking up "self-censorship".
> >>
> >> Christiaan
> >
> > Yes, this word has a different definition than the
> one we were
> > previously debating.
>

The fact remains, wikipedia is not censored. If you
start losing the debate don't go and change the word
we were debating, and then apply the previous debate
to it. Start a new thread.

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body:
If you found other security/performance problems, please add them at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiforum

For other problems (like what this extension may be), use the talk page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiforum

Aoineko

Guillaume Blanchard a ?crit :

> Thak you,
> I'll fix.
>
> Aoineko
>
> Brion Vibber a ?crit :
>
>> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
>>
>>> - Look at the source [3] and give me a list of needed
>>> security/performance fix.
>>
>>
>> I fixed a couple of the most obvious security problems:
>>
>> * The Special:Newthread edit form provided a very nice cross-site
>> scripting injection point. Once a user is tricked into visiting a
>> certain URL (can be via a redirection or frame) their authentication
>> cookies can be stolen, or nearly any authenticated action on the wiki
>> can be performed as that user via JavaScript manipulation from the
>> hacked form.
>>
>> * The Special:Newthread form submission didn't use the edit token,
>> allowing for cross-site request forgery to submit new threads under a
>> victim's user account if they visit an offsite page containing a form
>> and a little JavaScript.
>>
>>
>> Before anyone should consider deploying this in the field, there are
>> other very significant problems with how it accepts edits:
>>
>> * It doesn't check for read-only mode
>>
>> * It doesn't check if the user is blocked
>>
>> * It doesn't check whitelist-edit mode
>>
>> * It doesn't check content against the spam blacklist or filter callback
>>
>>
>> And some general functional issues:
>>
>> * The localized text doesn't fit with MediaWiki as a whole; the user's
>> selected language is ignored, and the messages aren't customizable
>> through the MediaWiki: interface.
>>
>> * Edit comments aren't formatted in the Special:Forum list the way they
>> are elsewhere
>>
>> * Edit comments are cut off manually at a byte offset, which could break
>> UTF-8 characters. Instead, use $wgContLang->truncate() or show the
>> complete comment.
>>
>> * The code that outputs the table on Special:Forum is very fragile. Many
>> pieces are done with wikitext which can break when some characters are
>> used (try for instance making a thread titled "''Spiffy''"; the link
>> becomes broken in the list).
>>
>> * The use of the unlabeled magnification icon to show/hide a chunk of
>> in-place text is very nonintuitive. Consider using the arrows from the
>> enhanced recent changes display.
>>
>> * Obviously these don't work at all if the client has JavaScript
>> disabled; consider not displaying the unmanipulable bits in this case.
>>
>> * Whatever it looks like, a tiny icon is a tough target to click on; I
>> constantly have the urge to click on the _title_ and assume it will
>> expand the text, but this links to the separate page.
>>
>> More generally it seems a bit confusing; at the demo site at
>> http://test-wikipedia.saewyc.net/index.php/Special:Forum there are two
>> entire tables of threads one after the other without an obvious reason
>> or explanation. One has expando-bits, the other doesn't.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews

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

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

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

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

Regards

George

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 05:42:25 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Anthere,
>
> >I am doing a news wire for the last 3 years.
>
> I am glad to know we have journalists among us, they will help avoid the worse directions.
>
> >I know the real pain
> >behind that. We need a full desk to do news. Not like encyclopedia.
>
> Agreed
> I can perfectly well see the absolutely amazing force which could be behind a wikinews.
> With a full desk, a united team, the impact of a wikinews will be huge.
>
> But this could happen right now in english, possibly german. Possibly another language.
> But it just do not make sense that we have a wikinews site with only 2 editors.
> Even though they really try their best, they just can't manage.
> And as Britty mentionned, it is important that each wikinews has a couple of people interested in building the committee, not taking care of news, just drafting policies, strengthening the project. Unfortunately, not every one likes doing this.
> In the end, building a wikinews on 5 people... just makes little sense to me.
>
> >If one person who is not taking the responsibility will destroy the
> >aunthenticity of wikinews. If the people is ready then i am ready to
> >contribute well with my desk.
>
> I would be glad that you do so in arab.
> But this community is probably not ready at all.
>
> >Let us think from the top ......
>
> What do you mean here George ?
>
> >george
>
> Ant
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: eG

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] The Japanese Wiktionary have been locked
	temporarily

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
 > This is a regretable situation. Still I find it hard to believe that a
 > project with only 2,000 articles would have such a problem with
vandalism.
 >
 > Effective policies are built up while people edit, and will often change
 > over time. New people will want to have an opportunity to participate in
 > the development of policies. Setting policies before people can edit may
 > just make things more difficult.
 >
 > I don't know what special problems you have with Japanese copyright law,
 > but my experience has been that wiktionaries would have fewer problems
 > with copyrights than wikipedias.

cookfire wrote:
 > When reading the eG's message, I was also wondering what is so special
 > about Japanese copyright law that it makes building up a free dictionary
 > harder than in other languages. I must say that I do understand the
 > problem with vandalism. Since the summer the English Wiktionary gets a
 > lot of vandalism and spamvertising too. The months before that the
 > problem was far less. The French, Dutch and Spanish Wiktionaries are
 > relatively calm as far as vandalism is concerned, but maybe the Japanese
 > Wiktionary attracts Chinese spammers as well. What I see as a solution
 > is to create a broad base of sysops, so obvious vandalism and
 > spamvertising can be killed on the spot (and thus only wastes the time
 > of one person). Of course the trick is to find dependable people who are
 > able and want to consacrate a lot of time to the project. It takes a bit
 > of time for them to show up, but they do exist.

I can understand your wonders or doubts. But I can say it again, that is
our consensus. We need time for reconstruction. Now I have tried to
recruit contributors and arouse their interest. Please wait for a while.

Thanks for your comments, Ec and Polyglot.

--eG

P.S. I'm not a specialist of law, so I can't explain precisely, but
Japanese community have considerd that GFDL under Japanese law is
stricter than under American one.
__________________________________
Let's Celebrate Together!
Yahoo! JAPAN
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/so2005/


from_name: Arne Heizmann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: rel="nofollow"

body:
Ben Brockert wrote:
> nofollow only affects the rank Google gives to the site that is linked
> to; it  does not have the same function as a bots.txt or <meta
> name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow, noarchive" />. The spider
> will still spider the links.

Can someone explain to me why they called it 'nofollow' and not 'norank'?

> Another reason to not use it on active wikis.

I don't understand this. This is all the more reason to use rel="nofollow".

Timwi


from_name: Andrew Lih

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

body:
Haven't read the article yet, but I thought "benevolent dictator" was
the term of choice. Not that I think Jimbo isn't God-like.

Google:
site:mail.wikipedia.org benevolent dictator - 16 hits
site:mail.wikipedia.org god-king - 1 hit

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

--

Andrew Lih, Assistant Professor
Journalism and Media Studies Centre
University of Hong Kong
Email: alih at hku.hk | Web: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih
AOL IM: fuzheado | ICQ: 231894253
Yahoo Messenger: andrew_lih | MSN Messenger: andrew_lih at msn.com


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


from_name: Sj

subject:
[Foundation-l] Proposal for the application for a grant that has
	to be applied for before the 20th]

body:
I think this is a fabulous project, and am certain it will get funding
from some source as it becomes better fleshed out.  However, *please*
make sure that you are addressing the needs of the organization you
are applying to.  As stated below, the proposal does not address the
immediate IFAP priorities.

If you could explain how you think the proposal could be changed to
meet those priorities, I would be glad to help.  As it is, I'm not
sure how to make the existing proposal into a feasible application.

+sj+

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:51:48 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>
> I have posted http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IFAP it is an outline for a
> proposal for a $45.000,- grant. We need to apply before the 20th of this
> month. Please, do understand that if we apply for this grant, we have to
> spend money the way we describe. It does not help if you think we should
> not spend the money. We either do or we do not apply and, that way we do
> not benefit and neither do the people who benefit most who are
> incidentally not the people who get paid.
>
> This proposal aims to achieve three things:
> * cooperation with the Open Office org by creating a dictionary
> integrated into wiktionary for languages they work on. This is a win win
> situation
> *a dictionary and translations dictionary that helps translators and
> students of languages; wiktionary is a many to many dictionary
> *better functionality for wiktionary that will prevent a lot of double
> work and removes the need for running bots to share our work.
>
> I hope we agree that this is a feasible project and that we can move
> forward with this proposal.
>
> Thanks.
>    GerardM


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Proposal for the application for
	a grant that has to be applied for before the 20th]


from_name: Sheng Jiong

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

body:
Guys, I do admire your passion and your enthusiasm (although I have no
idea how long will that last). I am not against you having a try on
writing serious things in Cantonese (which you have not yet quite
started, as far as I know, since till now all you have written are
just stubs less than even 200 characters). I still hold my opinion
that there is not a necissity for a Cantonese Wikipedia(or any other
Chinese dialect Wikipedias) to exist, but I encourage helpful
discussions and even a vote if necessary should you decide to formally
propose setting up one. What I do not want to see is the set up of a
Cantonese Wikipedia without the consent of the entire Wikipedia
community, especially the Chinese Wikipedia community (as in the case
of Ming-nan Wikipedia).

(Someone mentioned about Bible translated into Algerian Arabic. I just
wonder: is there any Cantonese translations of Bible, and if there is,
is anybody still uses this version?)

[[User:Formulax]]


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] FWIW: definition of "censorship"

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote

<snip>

> On Wikipedia, "self-censorship" could reasonably include choosing not to
> speak frankly because one fears "social sanction" such as having one's
> work deleted; as well as "retaliation" in the form of flaming or hostile
> criticism, others' withdrawal of cooperation or support, or simply
> unpleasant association of an editor's name with a particular icky
> subject or controversy.

Well, if you try hard enough you might define 'self-censorship' by the old
phrase 'man is a social animal'.  I doubt that proves anything, in general.
And from the WP point of view, getting newbies and not-very-reconstructed
edit warriors to see themselves as 'social animals' is half the battle.

Charles


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

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>>>Your objection, as I understood it, was that it was disgusting. Correct me
>>>if I'm wrong, but primarily you seemed to be disgusted.
>
>
>
>>Which has what to do with morality?
>
>
>
> That you seemed to be giving it similar weight as a reason not to have such
> an image on that article.

The day I bring my moral values into a discussion on what should or
shouldn't appear in Wikipedia and/or how it should appear is the day you
have my permission to lock me up in an insane asylum.

My objections to the image being on Wikipedia and my referring to it as
disgusting and crap had nothing at all to do with my morals


from_name: MilchFlasche瑋平

body:
Unnecessary and irrelevant.

As for the length and number of the testing articles, since it has
just begun, I suggest that we try not to express our outstraight doubt
so early.
If Mr. Sheng Jiong should continue assuming that Chinese vernacular
versions lack necessity, I also suggest that he put more argument to
discuss with. Yes, we do need more helpful discussion, especially
after that people who are pros have said so much.
As for the vote, I haven't heard that Wikimedia foundation has held
any vote to decide whether a version should be built. Did we asked for
all the community's consent when so many other languages were built?
So who care most whether Cantonese or other vernaculars should have
their own? Probably only the Chinese Wikipedia community. And why
would they block? Because some people still confuse "Chinese" with
"China", and forget that what we call "Chinese language" is actually
only Mandarin, the common vernacular but not the only language spoken
in China. And why should people from Chinese Wikipedia have a say to
influence the establishment of Cantonese or Min-nan? I don't know! If
you ask a Castilian or a German whether Catalan, Asturianu, or
Plattduutsch version should exist, I wouldn't know how he would
respond, but the fact is that they are there now, without much
dispute! So I just need to be taught that why Chinese users should
think otherwise.

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

--
2005, make signs happen!


from_name: Felix Wan

body:
On Thu, February 17, 2005 9:11 pm, Cathy Ma said:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a native HK-Cantonese speaker - as I have been intrigued by your
> intense discussion I have been asking my friends around - 'have you ever
> seen/written an article in full Cantonese?'
>
Yes, I have.  I invite you to follow the links I posted in my last email.
This article is written in full Cantonese:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm

> The answers vary but in sum, none of us have ever written anything in
> full Cantonese in the context of article-writing.  Contrary to what you
> may believe, it is actually hard to write in full-Cantonese without
> mixing in formal Chinese in a passage.  But on an interpersonal level -
> that is much easier and we do write short memos an notes to one another
> in Cantonese.
>
I am a native HK Cantonese speaker too.  I have tried to write in full
Cantonese, and it becomes easy after some practice.  I will try to write
longer and longer articles in the test site.  Are you interested to take
just a look?

> On the other hand, in Hong Kong, most subtitles we have on TV or
> movies are in formal Chinese, which can be another example showing how
> accustomed we are to converging from Cantonese to formal Chinese and vice
> versa.
>
We are accustomed only because we are educated that way.  I had the
advantage of having Mandarin as the medium of instruction when I was in
primary school.  I speak fluent Mandarin and fluent Cantonese when I was
in secondary school, which uses Cantonese in Chinese and Chinese History
lessons.

The teacher still needed to correct written Chinese by the students to
conform with the vocabulary and grammar of Mandarin, but both the teacher
and most of the students were unaware of the fact that they are actually
writing in a variety of Chinese different from Cantonese.  I was aware of
the fact, so when I wrote Chinese, I always thought in Mandarin, so my
written Chinese was always "correct".

Actually, I prefer subtitles written in standard Chinese (Mandarin)
because other Chinese who do not speak Cantonese may understand what is
going on.  That is the whole purpose of subtitles.  Have you ever seen
English subtitles on an English movie?

Standard written Chinese will always be more important than written
Cantonese.  I strongly support standard written Chinese and Putonghua,
but I do not understand why some people are so emotional against writing
in Cantonese.

> Of course my perspective can be skewed - but from the perspective of a
> native speaker, it is hard to write in full Cantonese.
>
You need to try.  Please also see our test sites and see if those articles
are written in full Cantonese:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-WP/zh-yue

> And btw, mainland Cantonese is not the same as HK Cantonese.  We have
> extra terms that mainland Cantonese wouldn't understand and vice versa.
> So my belief is that unless we are talking about a cultural jamming hub,
> it will not be too hard to foresee that the Cantonese page will have a
> hard time in retaining the critical mass in sustaining a viable Cantonese
> page.
>
Mainland Cantonese and HK Cantonese are close enough if we write articles
in Wikipedia.  The difference is smaller than that between British and
American English.

> Finally, we were taught Classical and formal Chinese in Cantonese -
> and actually some of the famous ancient poems which still recited by most
> of us were written by Cantonese.  I am proud of my mother-tongue and at
> the same time I do not see that having to write in formal-chinese is an
> insult to us.  Simply because there are some terms in Cantonese we don't
> even know how to write -  Cantonese is a verbal language and we base on
> the tone to communication.  But of course, I love to see more Cantonese
> speakers voice out their opinions on this.
>
Do you know that recently many scholars are finding out how to write those
terms?  You have to visit the links I posted last time and may be this
whole site:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/

Felix Wan


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Felix Wan (felixwiki at earthsphere.org) [050218 12:40]:

> They have even compiled a list of Cantonese specific words, with
> references, and they stated on the web site to release the following
> two pages to the public domain:
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm
> http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm
> Those can be a good starting point for the orthography of the potential
> Cantonese Wikipedia.

Or, indeed, the Cantonese Wiktionary!

- d.


from_name: Philippe Elie

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

body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 at 10:56 +0000, Lane, Ryan wrote:

> I personally don't understand the reasoning to want to edit other people's
> posts. Can you give an example of a good reason to edit someone's post?

It's usefull to add line feed inside a mail to answer a specific
question. In wiki this can be used to obfuscate thread but it's
more often correctly used.

> Truthfully, I think its more of a detriment than a benefit to be able to
> edit someone's posts. I can think of a ton of bad reasons to edit another
> persons post, but very very few good reasons.
>
> It would be MUCH better to have a system where the user making the post
> allowed/disallowed people to edit their posts. If I'm signing my posts, I
> don't want someone to edit it to change my opinion to side with theirs. For
> instance, if this email were a part of a thread in a forum, you could change
> it to make it look like I side with your argument, and most people wouldn't
> notice.

We have history to catch such behavior, w/o history I'll agree with
you. Also what about vandalism, spam etc. A feature to disable edit
of comments means than some sort of user (sysop ?) must be able to
edit/remove other comments, not a good idea to give more work to
sysops. It'll also raise the problem of giving more power to sysops,
seeing some flame war about sysops power I doubt allowing only them
to edit comments will be welcome.

Philippe Elie


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
Erik,

If you consider this a tirade of accusations and insults, you should
go and think about whether perhaps it is your own fault. Apparently
rules have been decided, which both Anthere and you agreed on. Then
singlehandedly you change those rules, and apply a whole new version.
Now you decide that Anthere is not worth discussing those rules with.

As far as I know, the only one in our group that deserves the name
'benevolent dictator' is Jimbo. Not you.

Andre Engels

> I won't discuss this further with you as long as any email discussion
> with you turns into a tirade of accusations and insults.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews

body:
The news we can integrate via a single platform. So any one from any
location can submit a news. But that wil go only through the
moderators. So once two people submit one news automatically the
second will go down.

Here we can create users, trusted journalists, moderators and admins.
So What we going to do

Answering the rest....

First of all the editors have to think about that. Thats what i mean by top

I dint mean english and german is top

There is nothing elctric in my statement!!

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:04:49 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>Let us think from the top ......
>
> >> What do you mean here George ?
>
> >hi, am not well versed in arabic, really am Indian, so dont expect any
> >arabic version from me.
>
> Oh well...
>
> >First of all we have to make the english edition running well,
> >meantime think about the languiage versions. So if people will
> >translate the english to german and vice versa thats more good and
> >regional news will become global.
>
> >As a global village make all the news for the global community. So i
> >prefer english first and i will think other languages...
>
> I agree we should focus on having german and english run well before focusing on other languages.
> I disagree with considering these two languages the "top" while others are the "bottom".
>
> >My Specialisation is Media, Health and Business.....And Global Cinema
> >(Parallel Cinema)
>
> quite eclectic... :-)
>
> >Regards
>
> >George
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews


from_name: Alex Y. Kwan

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

body:
Hello,

Cathy Ma wrote:
> intense discussion I have been asking my friends around - 'have you
> ever seen/written an article in full Cantonese?'
>
> The answers vary but in sum, none of us have ever written anything in
> full Cantonese in the context of article-writing.  Contrary to what
> you may believe, it is actually hard to write in full-Cantonese
> without mixing in formal Chinese in a passage.

I do agree with Mark that writing an article in Cantonese feels
difficult is because we've rarely done so. The closest I've seen is, of
course, in entertainment news. I think a certain author in the late
80s/early 90s used to mix in a lot of Cantonese in his novels (But Wah
Lau). I think it'll come easier with practice.

> On the other hand, in Hong Kong, most subtitles we have on TV or
> movies are in formal Chinese, which can be another example showing how
> accustomed we are to converging from Cantonese to formal Chinese and
> vice versa.

Grown-up movies, very true. Kids movies are almost always dubbed into
Cantonese and have Cantonese subtitles. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes
it's funnier than the original version. I heard that the "Shrek 2" dub
was pretty good (I hate it when Miyazaki is dubbed, though: totally
wrong tone).

> And btw, mainland Cantonese is not the same as HK Cantonese.  We have
> extra terms that mainland Cantonese wouldn't understand and vice
> versa.

I've been to Guangzhou a lot the last few months and I'd say the
difference is a lot less than you think. The slang is of course much
different, but if we keep to article-writing, it should be all right.

What I do notice is that we HKers use a lot more English terms and
phrases than the mainlanders. So much so that in one instance, where a
salesman is trying to sell an online English learning programme, the
words he used were 80% English and 20% Cantonese, but the sentence
structure and grammar were purely Cantonese. It was very odd.

>  So my belief is that unless we are talking about a cultural
> jamming hub, it will not be too hard to foresee that the Cantonese
> page will have a hard time in retaining the critical mass in
> sustaining a viable Cantonese page.

We'd never know until we try. ;)

> most of us were written by Cantonese.  I am proud of my mother-tongue
> and at the same time I do not see that having to write in
> formal-chinese is an insult to us.

I don't see it as an insult; I just think it's "unfair". I probably
wouldn't even be joining this discussion if all Chinese people are still
writing in wenyanwen, but we aren't. The point of baihuawen was that we
should write as how we speak. For us Cantonese, we *aren't* writing as
how we speak; we're writing as how the Mandarin speaker would speak.
'Tis all.

>  Simply because there are some
> terms in Cantonese we don't even know how to write -  Cantonese is a
> verbal language and we base on the tone to communication.

Hm, I think a lot of Cantonese words can be written if we look up the
older dictionaries, since we've kept a lot of the older words (just like
we've kept a lot of the older pronunciations) when modern Mandarin has
lost a lot of those words.

I mean, many Cantonese scholars have been saying how some of the older
poems don't rhyme if you read them in modern Mandarin but still rhyme if
you read them in Cantonese because Cantonese has kept a lot of the
ancient pronunciations, etc.

little Alex


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
Anthere-

>Erik,
>
>If you consider this a tirade of accusations and insults, you should
>go and think about whether perhaps it is your own fault. Apparently
>rules have been decided, which both Anthere and you agreed on. Then
>singlehandedly you change those rules, and apply a whole new version.
>Now you decide that Anthere is not worth discussing those rules with.
>
You shouldn't believe everything Anthere says. No rules have been
changed, nor applied.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikinews requirement

body:
Ah ?

Well

Please accept my apologies if you felt insulted.

Ant

Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Anthere,
>
> I won't discuss this further with you as long as any email discussion
> with you turns into a tirade of accusations and insults.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikinews requirement


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikinews requirement

body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Anthere-
>
>> Erik,
>>
>> If you consider this a tirade of accusations and insults, you should
>> go and think about whether perhaps it is your own fault. Apparently
>> rules have been decided, which both Anthere and you agreed on. Then
>> singlehandedly you change those rules, and apply a whole new version.
>> Now you decide that Anthere is not worth discussing those rules with.
>>
> You shouldn't believe everything Anthere says. No rules have been
> changed, nor applied.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Sorry here, but...

I made a proposal to have at least a certain number of these 5 required
editors be "regulars".

No one opposed.
You did not oppose it.

We also discussed it privately on irc, and it seems to me we agreed upon
this solution.

Later, you wrote
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-February/002120.html

For me, this counted like an agreement from you.

Not ??? You did not agree with this ??? What have we been discussing
upon during days then ???

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikinews requirement


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia is not presently classroom-safe

body:
The article in question is a description of a bit of sexual jargon or
folklore; the kind of stuff you get on Howard Stern.  As it seems to me
that it falls within the remit of the deletion policy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary)
I listed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Donkey_punch

Although the article has only been listed for only two days, so far there
is a 2:1 majority vote for keep.
In my opinion this kind of article would render Wikipedia difficult to
describe as "safe for classroom use"; also teachers recommending it to
younger children for homework research would be put at risk of censure
because of articles like this.  Whatever those who voted think Wikipedia
is, a classroom-safe reference work is clearly not number one on the list.
This doesn't render Wikipedia content forever inaccessible to classrooms,
however.  This and other articles of its type are in the category "Sex
moves".  These could be filtered out easily during production of a
classroom-safe copy of Wikipedia.


from_name: Aphaia

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

body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:34:18 +0100, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Translating/creating policies seems to be a much better test of actual
> interest in doing work. Once you do that, that shows a commitment to the
> project.

Agreed. A project need to have some principal policies at its start -
or would be better:
after seeing the current situation of Japanese Wiktionary, I strongly
recommend everyone
to expect creating a new project.

Without principal policy some prudent editors hesitate to submit
articles. Vandals don't
care such things ... and specially continuous labor by active sysops
sometimes a disastrous situation could arise - like Ja wiktionary.

Though I can't summarize the whole history of Ja wiktionary since its
creating, one major reason of its administrative weakness is its fail
to establish ground principals in its early days in my opinion: an
active user insisted to licence articles not under GFDL but other
conditions. I don't remember the details, but it was enough to
hesitate contributors to submit if I recall correctly,. I admit it was
a very extreme case, but I convince if we can provide a newly created
project  with basic policies, even if they are rough and need
improvement, it is much better than lack of them.

> Future projects don't necessarily match our current userbase. To tie the
> process for creating new language editions directly to that userbase
> seems needlessly restrictive. Building a small community on Meta and
> writing key pages before launching the project is also simply good
> planning

Preparing somewhere, on meta or existing Wikinews (at subpages of user page)
seems good to me. If preferable, Wikinews proposed can have platform
to prepare and
draft their policies on meta (like TR). It would make them to give a
look on other projects' policy and give a good occasion to consider
their own in comparison with others: a diversity of projects give us a
good chance to elaborate our policies.   For suspicion a project would
be created by newbies or trolls who understand not our policy, such
platform on meta could give the transparency of their policy to
interesting observers.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] autofellatio image : back to square 2

body:
Arno M wrote:
> Oh dear!
>
> The new sketch is now on that autofellatio page - but not as a link,
> even though the community vote favoured a link.

Was there ever a vote on linking anything other than the original image?


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia is not presently
	classroom-safe

body:
Parents and school administrators and especially in the United States, local
school boards. A teacher who allows their students free access to Wikipedia
is a fool.

Fred

> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 04:12:04 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia is not presently
> classroom-safe
>
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not
> _a_dictionary)
>> I listed it.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Donkey_punch
>>
>> Although the article has only been listed for only two days, so far there
>> is a 2:1 majority vote for keep.
>> In my opinion this kind of article would render Wikipedia difficult to
>> describe as "safe for classroom use"; also teachers recommending it to
>
> Why? What is "safe for classroom"?
>
>> younger children for homework research would be put at risk of censure
>> because of articles like this.  Whatever those who voted think Wikipedia
>
> Who would put them at risk?
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Tomer Chachamu

body:
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 20:29:01 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> The article in question is a description of a bit of sexual jargon or
> folklore; the kind of stuff you get on Howard Stern.  As it seems to me
> that it falls within the remit of the deletion policy
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary)
> I listed it.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Donkey_punch
>
> Although the article has only been listed for only two days, so far there
> is a 2:1 majority vote for keep.
> In my opinion this kind of article would render Wikipedia difficult to
> describe as "safe for classroom use"; also teachers recommending it to
> younger children for homework research would be put at risk of censure
> because of articles like this.  Whatever those who voted think Wikipedia
> is, a classroom-safe reference work is clearly not number one on the list.
> This doesn't render Wikipedia content forever inaccessible to classrooms,
> however.  This and other articles of its type are in the category "Sex
> moves".  These could be filtered out easily during production of a
> classroom-safe copy of Wikipedia.

I do like the idea of images and articles being put into categories
such as "sexually explicit", "violent", "offensive language". A
(official?) mirror could be made which blocks those particular images
and articles, and it would be left to the school (or the school's
special school filtering service provided by their ISP) to block the
main site (and any mirrors and forks).

This is not censorship as we are not the ones restricting access. We
are just providing an alternative for schools etc. that *will* block
Wikipedia on the grounds of its content.


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as a learning community

body:
I'm writing this mail to make public my project, which is studying
Wikipedia as a learning community. This is for an M.Ed. I am
undertaking in the UK. I've already had some contact with a limited
few people who have filled out a questionnaire, some of whom are on
this mailing list, but I am now mainly looking at interpersonal
dynamics and sociological aspects of the project at large which will
serve as research for my dissertation, which I hope to eventually make
available to Wikipedia.

I'm already aware of a number of people who are either engaged or
interested in studying similar aspects, for example a recent post to
the wikiEN mailing list:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019136.html
I will be pursuing a similar methodology in the sense that it will be
low-key 'monitoring' of various exchanges/discussions within the
Wikimedia network. But how my approach differs is that I would also
like to include Wikimedia mailing lists such as this one, as part of
my inquiry. This means that I'd like to (with permission) use
discussions that arise here as part of my research. The key issue here
is permission/consent - I wouldn't assume consent unless someone
explicitly gave me theirs. This then raises the issue of whether I
would have to write individually to each person whose opinion/mail I
would like to use, or whether I could use these opinions and assure
confidentiality as a basic given to all. That is my main question to
the list - whether this latter approach or the former seem reasonable,
or what you would suggest I do instead? I'm also interested in
comparing languages, which is why I'm posting this message to the
foundation list among others. In addition to this I'll be contacting
particular individuals for their individual experiences and of course
consent, but details of that are outside the purpose of this list.

I expect that there will be several comments and possibly some
objections arising from this message. If you would prefer to contact
me directly with any questions as opposed to posting to the list, that
is fine. But this email is not a request to participate, rather an
announcement of my project and a query as to the feasability and
ethics of reproducing material from this list.

Further details can be found at my en:WP user page [[User:Cormaggio]],
which also has details of my previous small scale pilot study. I have
also set up a page in Meta, which I hope will serve as a discussion
for those interested, at this address:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research/Wikipedia_as_a_learning_community
There are a number of questions there to which I would be interested
in hearing the answers from as wide a range of people as possible.
However, I am not putting out these questions as a questionnaire per
se, rather a prompt for further research.

Thank you for your attention.

Best regards,
Cormac Lawler
cormaggio at gmail.com, cormaggio at yahoo.co.uk


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as a learning community


body:
Someone has also mentioned that Teabagging survived VfD.  Lucky 6.9
nominated it as a dicdef in July last year.  During the VfD week, the
article was expanded from a brief sentence to a largers article, although
it could probably still be fairly described as a dicdef with annotations
on etymology, usage and most notable uses of the term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Teabagging


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: xml wiki representation

references:
<cuq5bq$5ps$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4210C423.3060904@web.de>	<cuqj47$rag$1@sea.gmane.org>	<cv1qq7$5s2$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4214F1B2.9020501@pobox.com>	<cv4les$sqf$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cv4ltd$ui3$1@sea.gmane.org> <cv4oh8$73c$1@sea.gmane.org>

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

Jim Higson schrieb:
> I'd used : as a bauble[1] since that's how wiki2xml and (I think)
> flexbisonparse handle them.

That is entirely my fault :-)

I used to dislike the ":"-";" notation and ignored the ";" part in favor
of getting the parser ahead. Actually, I was about to suggest to get rid
of the ";" from the wiki syntax altogether, but then I found it useful
for my wikimaps implementation...

Magnus
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from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Hi Formulax,

I enjoy your tactic of "act conciliatory buay conciliatory" as they
say in s'pore.

In one e-mail you act so nice, like "I don't want to discourage", then
after a response you say a different sort of tone, more like "You are
wrong, I fight you this to the death".

It has testimony from native speakers such as Felix Wan and Alex Kwan,
and quotes from experts by myself, that there is more differences than
these "non-standard characters", it has the difference of grammar too.

You confuse "Chinese" and "Baihuawen". "Baihuawen", based on Mandarin
grammar, vocabulary, and suches. Is not like Wen Yan, which is more
similar to Cantonese or Hakka's grammar and vocabulary, it takes many
new characters and discards the widely accepted ones for example your
Mandarin loving character ? which replaces perfectly good already used
character with even less strokes by far, still used often in writing
Minnan in Hanzi.

There IS SCHOOL TEACHING in WRITTEN CANTONESE. It is not primary
school, no, but there is course at a Hong Kongs university about how
to write in "colloquial cantonese", and expectation that when it
finishes the courses series it can write long articles even books in
colloquial cantonese and have some small experts knowledge about it.

There IS NEWSPAPERS writing in Cantonese (wait - you says that
"Standard Chinese" is can be read as Cantonese? What are we talking
here!!?). I do'nt know about these dailys, but it is for sure tabloid
newspaper and some teenager and womens magazine which writes
completely or largely in the Cantonese colloquial writing.

The Minnan Wikipedia has support on Livejournal from Taiwanese user
who says they don't read Peh-oe-ji from school instead from readiong
Wikipedia just, if ask you get a link to its post.

Mark

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 10:22:00 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If I recall correctly there was never a consensus in zh.wikipedia that
> > a Minnan Wikipedia should be created.
>
> That is why it has made Minnan Wikipedia a big joke. Extremely few
> Minnan speakers (even in Taiwan) can understand what the hack these
> guys are writing about in their Minnan Wikipedia. Because Minnan
> simply do not yet have a standardised writing system (despite
> Taiwanese government's effort to establish one, most grown-ups in
> Taiwan sitll cannot comprehend written Minnan, and there is no Minnan
> newspaper, only one TV channel)
>
> > Its original creation was as an entirely separate project "Holopedia"
> > due to extreme community opposition from zh.wikipedia and the
> > probability that people like Jimbo would at the time have been
> > unwilling to consider it if his anonymous Chinese advisors said
> > "????????????".
>
> And Holopedia does not grow too.
>
> > As it was eventually turned into a small Wikipedia with a small number
> > of articles (rather than 0), the general Wikipedia community accepted
> > it somewhat hesitatingly although on zh.wikipedia it was widely
> > disputed as to whether it should exist.
>
> Because people choose to igonore it, and because it is just so small
> and it is almost non-existent. But I am not prepared to accept another
> Cantonese Wikipedia, and then Shanghainese, and then whatsoever trash.
>
> > Especially different in this case is use of Cantonese characters
> > instead of Whites' languages' characters.
>
> There are not standard. No one has formalised these "characters", not
> the Hong Kong government (both before and after 1997), not the
> Guangdong government, not any governments in the world. There is also
> not a standard developed by any influential non-government
> organizations.
>
> > Some people will ask "What
> > is the difference?" but many of these people are the same people who
> > would "correct" vernacular content posted to zh.wikipedia itself,
> > showing that there really is a difference (I tried it once - it kept
> > being reverted to the "correct" grammar ie baihuawen).
>
> Your edit is reverted because you used these non-standard characters.
> But put characters aside, the grammar is the same for Cantonese and
> Chinese.
>
> > This is the issue of self-determination of this community of people
> > writing colloquial Cantonese, it is not fair to let others decide to
> > make them choose between writing Baihuawen or not write at all.
>
> We are now seeing a small portion of Cantonese speakers who believe
> that there should be something as a Cantonese Wikipedia. But for most
> Cantonese speakers (even if you just limit that to Hong Kongers), most
> people object such proposals because most people know that Cantonese
> is NOT a written language. Again I want you to show me evidence that
> Cantonese IS a written language (do not tell me X books are written in
> Cantonese, because these are just 1 or 2 exceptions. What I want to
> see is 1) has any school began teaching WRITTEN CANTONESE; 2) has any
> newspapers/magazines started writing in Cantonese)
>
> [[User:Formualx]]
>
> > As for the bible in Cantonese, yes there are, and they are still used.
> >
> > There are also versions in Hakka (kejiahua), Wu, Minnan, and all other
> > Chinese vernaculars. Most of them use hanzi, but some use Whites'
> > languages' characters, and some use a mixture (representing only some
> > functions words with the roman letters).
> >
> > I daresay that most of these aren't widely used but this is for the
> > alternative reason that Christianity is, for various reasons, not well
> > tolerated in China (except in ethnic minorities), and outside the
> > mainland most Chinese speak Cantonese, Minnan, and Hakka besides
> > Mandarin. Thusly Minnan and Hakka bibles are used by some peoples in
> > Taiwan, and Cantonese and Hakka bibles is used by some people in
> > Hongkong and maybe Macao.
> >
> > This delves into the debate on whether the Bible should be written in
> > an extra formal literary language that is difficult to imagine
> > happening (in most of the widely-used English translations, it's
> > difficult to imagine real people in real situations speaking that
> > way), or to use a colloquial style that is easier for people to
> > understand and relate to.
> >
> > I, not being religious (and what religion I do have is an amalgamy of
> > Judaism and Christianity but with more Atheism than either), don't
> > have a preference, but in Bible translation it is always a
> > consideration.
> >
> > Some Arabic churches prefer to read the Bible with God's speech in a
> > formal manner, while others use local colloquial forms because it is
> > easy to imagine people saying the words, in real life, although I
> > think most Arab churches use vernacular versions (the exception would
> > be churches where there is populations from many different dialects -
> > it would be difficult to read vernacular Bibles in a church which is
> > 25% Algerian, 25% Yemeni, 25% Lebanese, and 25% Bahraini, you would
> > need 4 different bibles)
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:18:47 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Guys, I do admire your passion and your enthusiasm (although I have no
> > > idea how long will that last). I am not against you having a try on
> > > writing serious things in Cantonese (which you have not yet quite
> > > started, as far as I know, since till now all you have written are
> > > just stubs less than even 200 characters). I still hold my opinion
> > > that there is not a necissity for a Cantonese Wikipedia(or any other
> > > Chinese dialect Wikipedias) to exist, but I encourage helpful
> > > discussions and even a vote if necessary should you decide to formally
> > > propose setting up one. What I do not want to see is the set up of a
> > > Cantonese Wikipedia without the consent of the entire Wikipedia
> > > community, especially the Chinese Wikipedia community (as in the case
> > > of Ming-nan Wikipedia).
> > >
> > > (Someone mentioned about Bible translated into Algerian Arabic. I just
> > > wonder: is there any Cantonese translations of Bible, and if there is,
> > > is anybody still uses this version?)
> > >
> > > [[User:Formulax]]
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] mailing list floods --> can't we have a wiki with
 E-mail notification ?

body:
Brion, help.
There are too many mails around - I cannot track them any longer.

May I propose to you: can't you set up wikis for mediawiki-l and
wikitech-l ***with e-mail notification*** ?

Newcomers could post their questions onto the wiki, developers could
answer, and whole message threads including solutions and patches would
stay together and would be better to maintain.

Of course, an installation with a working e-mail notification would
support the communication with much lower mail transfer (remember, only
_one_ e-mail is sent out for a watched page, until the watching user
re-visits the watched page - can be weeks later).

Perhaps: the both wikis only writeable for users who have registered
with one of the mailing lists

I propose my current en201+mw1.3.10 from
http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif to be installed on something like
wikitech.wikipedia.org or even

Or be courageous and start trying it on meta.wikimedia.org .

Good or bad idea ?
Tom


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk wrote:

> The main point (in my mind) is that censorship is imposed on a
> community by power of authority, and the community has no say.

'In your mind' is exactly the point I was attempting to make. Who is
the authority when self-censorship takes place?

Christiaan


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

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> If you use the word "censorship" so broadly, you rob it of genuine
> meaning.

One does not rob "censorship" of its meaning by using one of its
definitions; to remove or suppress information on moral or political
grounds. In fact the very denial of this definition is to rob it of
genuine meaning. What is being proposed is self-censorship. Indeed,
institutionalised self-censorship. How one can deny this I find a
little hard to grasp. I would in fact be hard pressed to think of a
better example.

> When we correct a grammatical error, are we censoring the error? When
> we decide that a picture of George Washington goes on the George
> Washington page, rather than the Thomas Jefferson page, are we
> censoring?

These are done purely on editorial grounds. When we make a decision to
hide or remove an image based on some people's moral objections that it
is "pornographic", "disgusting", "sexually explicit", etc. we are not
making a purely editorial decision.

> We make editorial judgments all the time, on all kinds of things.
> Should we put a scandal about a politician high in the article or
> further down?  Should we show a picture at the top of the page, or the
> bottom?  Should we show a picture directly or via a link?

Yes we do make editorial judgments all the time. What brings them into
the realm of self-censorship is the reasons for those edits. Some have
grasped this point early on and attempted to frame their argument in
terms of "aesthetics", which I find a little disingenuous.

> If all of those things are censorship, then censorship doesn't sound
> so bad after all.

Yes but this is a straw man argument.

> I don't care for this argument for another reason.  Many of us who
> propose putting the image on a link are literally prepared to risk our
> lives to fight censorship, should be become necessary.  We are
> extremely opposed to censorship.  Calling us censors is a "low blow"
> then, because it causes us to fear that we have done something
> terribly out of line with our own principles.

Yes but you are using but one definition of the word to mean that of
censorship imposed by authority. I agree, that's not the kind of
censorship we are faced with.

> This is why I think it is important to move this debate away from
> questions of "censorship" -- which is manifestly is not -- and towards
> "quality of presentation of information".

I think we should face up to what is actually being proposed and get on
with deciding a very important question: is self-censorship a course we
want to take or not?

Christiaan


body:
<dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

> I think the use of the term "self-censorship" muddies the waters. It's
> NOT the same thing.

Well it would be convenient for some in this argument if that word
didn't exist. I don't find "self-censorship" very muddy at all, in fact
I see it as the cornerstone of the propaganda/PR industry of the modern
world of democracy.

Christiaan


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Mediawiki-l] Where is the "are they logged in"
	code located?

body:
ATTN: David Cameron, Marcus Kazmierczak, Ryan Lane, Frank Wales, John
Straffin:

I can't exactly deal with the plenty of mails referring to Auto-Login /
Auto-Account-Creation and similar, but different ideas... so I decided
quickly to post, what I have and what works for me.

The whole story in on http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360
Auto-login / Auto-account-creation by hostname for intranet MediaWikis

Basically, every

RETURN NEW USER()  in every return path in loadFromSession()

is now changed to not return immediately, but to call my new function
loadfromLUT(), which either gets some info via gethostbyaddr() in
Setup.php and the lookup table or actually returns the new user() object
(if a user comes to wiki, who is not listed in the file lookup table, he
stays "anonymous" without a login chance, because I disabled the manual
login and logout paths).

Please check http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360 . I just
uploaded the code according to the flowchart, the code is for User.php
of mediawiki 1.3.7 and only modifies the existings loadfromSession() as
explained.

Sorry for cross-posting !
Tom


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

body:
May I propose to _close_ this thread here now ?

The interested ones could open a page on
http://meta.wikipedia.org/Wikiforum for exchanging their views, the pros
and cons.

I was happy once to get to know the wiki-principle, which was _the_
solution for getting rid of forums where you have to browse all the
postings of a thread. Nothing for unpatient readers like me
T.


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

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

Ray Saintonge schrieb:
> I've long felt that the 1911EB should be carried in its entirety on
> Wikisource, as should the 1921 12th edition.  (The 12th was just a
> repeat of the 11th edition with 3 supplementary volumes, which probably
> explains why it is so seldom mentioned.)  That would be an enormous
> task.

Maybe we can get a "real" copy of the 1921 edition to WikiMania, and
have scanners/digital cameras manned with volunteers. Once we have
everything as images, we can OCR/type/proofread online in a distributed
fashion. We're kinda good at that :-)

Magnus
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from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikitech-l] Creating broken wikis

body:
Hi Brion,

Le Friday 18 February 2005 23:37, Brion Vibber a ?crit :
> Someone or something has been making new wikis with the 1.3 schema.
> These appear to work on 1.4 until someone tries to create a login
> account, at which point changes to the user tables cause a failure.
>
> One recent example is bm.wiktionary.org.
>
> If some person is setting these up manually on the server, I need to
> know what procedure you're following so it can be fixed. If there is
> still some sort of automated wiki creation script running, I need to
> know about it so it can be tracked down and fixed.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Just to help tracking the problem, there was a button "create the wiki" on the
"Main Page" of bm.wiktionary.org a few days ago, so someone may have created
it that way.

Thanks for fixing it.
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Kate Turner

subject:
[Wikitech-l] RE: French wikipedians requesting to install Wikifor
	um extension on French Wikipedia

body:
Lane, Ryan wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:

> Another good reason for a good security system for talk pages is because
> this software is used by a lot of other people than just the wikipedia
> sites, and I've heard from quite a bit of them that they wish the software
> had this type of feature.

if they need these kinds of features, MediaWiki is probably not the most
suitable software for them to use.  the software was written by and mostly
for the WMF's sites, and its general direction is toward openness and being
a wiki.  the existence of page protection should not be taken as a sign
that supporting strict access control everywhere is desired as a feature.

if/when the WMF sites require new features in this direction (article
validation, for example) the software will adapt to offer them; as we don't
yet know what will be needed, there's not much gain from writing it--see
Magnus's article validation implementation, for example.

> Ryan Lane
> Naval Oceanographic Office

kate.


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

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

> I'm sorry I didn't realise we were having a debating
> competition.
> You'll have to forgive me for appearing a little
> bemused, I've been
> using the word 'self-censorship' for our last
> half-dozen or so
> exchanges.
>
> Christiaan
>
> Puddl Duk wrote:
>
> > The fact remains, wikipedia is not censored. If
> you start losing the
> > debate don't go and change the word we were
> debating, and then apply
> > the previous debate to it. Start a new thread.
>

Ok, I accept your acknowledgment that the community
exercising it's judgment on image use is not
censorship.

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


from_name: OneGuy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship, really?

body:
Someone wrote:

<something about censorship>

Every newspaper/encyclopedia/media has some kind of editorial policy.
This is not the same thing as "censorship."  A newspaper puts all the
sports stories in one section, all the local news in another, and
keeps the classified ads separately from the news and editorials.
Censorship means trying to disallow expression of certain views in all
media, but we are not trying to remove the picture from everywhere on
the internet. You are free to post that picture on your web site if
you want. We won't campaign to get it deleted from your web site.
Having an editorial policy on graphic pictures is not "censorship."
That has to be the most absurd claim posted yet. Should we have no
editorial policy and no limits? Should we allow trolls to upload child
porn as an excuse to "illustrates" the child porn article? How about
allowing trolls to upload bestiality, anal sex, coprophilia,
urolagnia, necrophilia, and rape porn to illustrate those articles?
That's clearly absurd. There should be clear editorial policy on
graphic pictures. If not, and if every troll is allowed to upload all
kinds of graphic pictures as an excuse to "illustrate" articles,
Wikipedia would get blocked by all child protection software, some
ISPs, and all countries where porn is illegal. That's clearly harmful
to Wikipedia, and it opens the door to trolls to disrupt Wikipedia by
uploading even more extreme and graphic porn,  and then cry
"censorship" when it is removed.

OneGuy
(Sorry, couldn't resist responding when I read some preposterous claim
about "censorship" on the archive).


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews China vote closed

body:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China

This vote is now closed. It was meant to help decide whether we need to
hold a poll before launching the Chinese Wikinews, or whether it can be
treated like all other Wikinews editions, considering the censorship risk.

The vote is inconclusive. The two sides are almost evenly split, with
strong opinions expressed by people on both sides. If you count all
votes, the "hold a vote among Chinese language speakers" option wins by
one vote. If you count only votes of users with user pages on Meta, as
the rules require, the "Treat it like al other Wikinews editions" option
wins by one vote. Given the sharp split of opinion, I think the decision
should be deferred to the Board at this point.

So, to the Board: Please put this issue on your agenda at your nearest
convenience and inform us about the outcome. Until then, I will not do
anything about the Chinese Wikinews.

Peace,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk wrote:

> Well, the point I was attempting to make was that when the community
> exercises it's judgment not to use an image, its not censorship.

I know.

> Again, if you insist on such a narrow definition of censorship then
> admit that you too censor, every time you have ever reverted. Or are
> you going to keep side stepping this?

I'm not insisting on a narrow definition. I don't deny that censorship
can be of a type imposed by authority.

I've already responded to you directly on this:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019892.html
You might like to read my last response to Jimbo also:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019933.html

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Try looking up "self-censorship".

Christiaan

On 19 Feb 2005, at 12:55 am, Puddl Duk wrote:

>
> --- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Puddl Duk wrote:
>>
>>> Well, the point I was attempting to make was that
>> when the community
>>> exercises it's judgment not to use an image, its
>> not censorship.
>>
>> I know.
>>
>>> Again, if you insist on such a narrow definition
>> of censorship then
>>> admit that you too censor, every time you have
>> ever reverted. Or are
>>> you going to keep side stepping this?
>>
>> I'm not insisting on a narrow definition. I don't
>> deny that censorship
>> can be of a type imposed by authority.
>>
>> I've already responded to you directly on this:
>>
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019892.html
>> You might like to read my last response to Jimbo
>> also:
>>
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019933.html
>>
>> Christiaan
>>
>
> You are right, I missed your post to Jimbo, sorry.
>
> I looked up censorship in three disctionaries, all
> definitions operated under power of authority to
> decide what 'others' may or may not say.
>
> In this case, voting on whether or not to include an
> image, it is the 'others' who have the say. Thats why
> its not censorship.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] proxy blocked

body:
Jake Waskett (jake at waskett.org) [050219 01:03]:

> The NTL proxy server 62.252.192.12 is blocked again. Could someone unblock?
>  It says clearly on that IP's user page that it is a known proxy - why do
> admins persist in blocking anyway?

Because what gets blocked is the username - the IP is then blocked next
time he tries logging in. This is effective against violators on fixed or
dialup IP numbers, but is not so good when the IP is a large ISP proxy. An
exceptions list may be useful for the blocking code ...

cc'd to wikitech-l - is this reasonably easy to implement? Anyone got any
time to do so?

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] proxy blocked


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Then you might like to try following the discussion:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019893.html

On 19 Feb 2005, at 1:09 am, Puddl Duk wrote:

> --- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
>
>> Try looking up "self-censorship".
>>
>> Christiaan
>
> Yes, this word has a different definition than the one we were
> previously debating.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 1 Fund Drive Report

body:
On Day 1 (Friday eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in
UTC) we made $9,939.47 (USD equivalent) through a combination of PayPal and
MoneyBookers.

PayPal breakdown:
AUD   314.03 (247.27 USD)
CAD   334.40 (271.58 USD)
EUR  3413.75 (4464.75 USD)
GBP   475.17 (899.77 USD)
JPY  28340   (269 USD)
USD   3424.63
Total 9576.78 (USD equivalent)

Moneybookers:
$362.69 (USD equivalent)

For the most recent grand total and other details visit
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 1:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_1

"Knowledge isn't a possession - it cannot be monopolized." by Robert K Bell

"You guys rock!!" by Anonymous

"Fantastic system - best of luck from a Random Page addict" " by Steve Agland

"Wikipedia is Hope" by Anonymous

"Ignorance breeds fear, use information to gain knowledge and empower yourself
with Peace" by Anonymous

"Wikipedia is a splendid way of sharing information. Lets do this!" by
Anonymous

"You guys do a fantastic job!!!" by Guoming Sun

"You have helped me in college and in life. I don't have much money, and I've
never given a donation. But if any cause is worthy, it is your own. Thank you"
by Ryan Lewis

"Wikipedia, is there anything it can't do?" by Anonymous

"If you read this note, donate!" by Anonymous

"It's Not Much But Every Individual's Contribution Counts! What The Wiki Is All
About!" by Anonymous

And my personal favorites:

"For not deleting at least some articles" by Vladimir Mozhenkov

"Wikipedia: Destroyer of productivity; love of my life." by Anonymous

"bonk" by Anonymous

Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO

PS - Still plenty of translating to do at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF/Fundraising_pages

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subject: [Foundation-l] Day 1 Fund Drive Report


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 1 Fund Drive Report


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
I'm sorry I didn't realise we were having a debating competition.
You'll have to forgive me for appearing a little bemused, I've been
using the word 'self-censorship' for our last half-dozen or so
exchanges.

Christiaan

Puddl Duk wrote:

> The fact remains, wikipedia is not censored. If you start losing the
> debate don't go and change the word we were debating, and then apply
> the previous debate to it. Start a new thread.


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Desysoping

body:
On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 03:41:41 -0600, Jack Lutz <jack-lutz at comcast.net> wrote:
> How is one to call for a sysop have their privileges removed for blocking? RfC, the first step, states that "at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed." I'm not sure my complaint applies. It is that sysop Ta bu shi da yu blocked user NSM88 in violation of the blocking policy. This may be called "resolved" (I'm not sure) because NSM88 has been subsequently unblocked(?). But regardless, I consider TBSDY's actions to be an abuse of the blocking policy and would like to move for his administrator privileges to be removed.
>
> I see ArbCom has rejected a number of cases for not going through RfC. How am I to do this under RfC's terms?
>
> Dispute resolution against sysops is currently very, very slim. It should be easier to lose administrator privileges--and these are privileges--than to gain them. I cannot find any information on the consequences of out-of-policy blocks, and Blocking_policy's coverage of ethics consists only of "users should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in conflict." Does that cover personal attacks or threats? Is a sysop permitted to declare text of a user with whom they are in conflict a threat and summarily block them? Yes, I'm talking about TBSDY and User:SS-88 in that case.
>
> Originally posted to Wikipedia-l, repost here after suitability complaint.
>
> [[w:User:119]]

If you and another user have a dispute over an administrator's
actions, file it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Use_of_administrator_privileges.

--Slowking Man


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] watch out out for a vandal whit the name "External
	Linkz"

body:
"External Linkz" is bot changing external links and put them in a
template whitout authorization of WikipediaNL. And this very fast whit
many pages.

 From his userpage;
"I will not ANSWER Questions or DISCUSS. So please do NOT give reactions
here. They will be DELETED"

after blocking he use a other ipadress and keeps doing it.

Look out for this imbecile on your wiki
--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: notafish

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

I am kind of torn between several things here.
I do agree with Erik, new people coming to a new project can be pretty
good, it gives different insight, and wikinews is definitely not like
wikipedia. Also I agree that some people, not active on Wikip?dia,
might be interested in Wikinews and strengthen the community. I also
agree that translating the project rules or creating original ones is
very important (I have started translating policies in fr, and it is
quite a challenge).
I also agree with Anthere  though, a basic knowledge of how "life on a
wiki" works is important, very important. We need people who are
likely to become admins very quickly, if only to change system
messages...
And Ryo makes a good point, what if the policies drawn on meta are
just rubbish and we can't check because we don't speak the language?

To me the existing policy addresses only one of the issues, 3 users
that know the wikimedia projects. I would actually *add* Erik's
proposal to the launching of a new Wikinews, for I believe people on
the fr wikinews have been quickly overcome by the enormous task of
putting together policies. Basically, the French Wikinews was started
with people who had a rough idea of what it is all about, but don't
have the first clue of how to address it. Asking people to actually
look at the other wikinews and try to understand the project is a very
good way to measure interest.

Of course, if one of the interested users has been participating in
any other language wikinews, (s)he should count for both requirements
(see Carlosar for exemple)

So I would say 5 signatures, among which 2 people knowing how to work
a wikimedia project, 2 people willing to work in advance in setting up
rules. Those can be the same of course. This said, I think for the
launching of the wikinews for which people have already signed up, I
would not change the rules.

My two cents (of a euro).

Delphine


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
wrote:

> Puddl Duk said:
> >
> >
> > The fact remains, wikipedia is not censored.
>
> I don't think that's correct.  The most obvious form
> of censorship
> practised is the avoidance of descriptive terms that
> carry an emotive
> payload.  This is a good thing.  If I encounter an
> article saying that a
> prisoner at Abu Ghraib was sodomized by a US
> Military Police guard, I am
> informed.  If I encounter the same article but it
> says that the man was
> sodomized by a thug in American uniform, the
> informational content is
> roughly the same but there is an emotional overtone
> that would make me
> question the piece. Censorship is a necessary
> activity at all levels of
> production of an encyclopedia.  No describing people
> as thugs in the
> articles, even if they act like thugs.  That's
> censorship.  I don't think
> there's anything wrong with censorship.  We're
> censors.
>

The definition of censorship has a componant of
authority applying the censoring on a community. The
community doesn't have a say.

Not the case in your example. Instead, the community
exercises judgment for themselves. Thats why it isn't
censorship.

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from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Desysoping

body:
How is one to call for a sysop have their privileges removed for blocking? RfC, the first step, states that "at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed." I'm not sure my complaint applies. It is that sysop Ta bu shi da yu blocked user NSM88 in violation of the blocking policy. This may be called "resolved" (I'm not sure) because NSM88 has been subsequently unblocked(?). But regardless, I consider TBSDY's actions to be an abuse of the blocking policy and would like to move for his administrator privileges to be removed.

I see ArbCom has rejected a number of cases for not going through RfC. How am I to do this under RfC's terms?

Dispute resolution against sysops is currently very, very slim. It should be easier to lose administrator privileges--and these are privileges--than to gain them. I cannot find any information on the consequences of out-of-policy blocks, and Blocking_policy's coverage of ethics consists only of "users should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in conflict." Does that cover personal attacks or threats? Is a sysop permitted to declare text of a user with whom they are in conflict a threat and summarily block them? Yes, I'm talking about TBSDY and User:SS-88 in that case.

[[w:User:119]]


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement

body:
My other email was written before I read this thread, sorry about
that. However, my point remains the same, and I agree with many other
things added on the subject, such as starting a wikinews with *only*
five people, but I will leave it at that for now.

cheers,

Delphine


subject: [Foundation-l] wikinews requirement


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Desysoping

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> I've been watching this guy's edits, but my lack of knowledge of the
> complexities of Turkish and Kurdish history make it difficult for me to
> judge them without further research.  He does seem to have a bit of a bee
> in his bonnet about Kurdish nationalism.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Coolcat
>
> He says he will be "policing" the following articles:
[...]
> StarCraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft

Good grief. Just out of curiousity I took a look at this one. He's been
reverting out perfectly reasonable edits and calling them vandalism.

Also, have a look at his user page, especially his "Things NOT to do" speil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Coolcat#Things_NOT_to_do:

Somebody needs to sit this guy down.

I'm going to jump into the Starcraft article tomorrow after I get some
sleep and maybe straighten this guy out, but I ain't looking forward to it.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Desysoping

body:
How is one to call for a sysop have their privileges removed for blocking? RfC, the first step, states that "at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed." I'm not sure my complaint applies. It is that sysop Ta bu shi da yu blocked user NSM88 in violation of the blocking policy. This may be called "resolved" (I'm not sure) because NSM88 has been subsequently unblocked(?). But regardless, I consider TBSDY's actions to be an abuse of the blocking policy and would like to move for his administrator privileges to be removed.

I see ArbCom has rejected a number of cases for not going through RfC. How am I to do this under RfC's terms?

Dispute resolution against sysops is currently very, very slim. It should be easier to lose administrator privileges--and these are privileges--than to gain them. I cannot find any information on the consequences of out-of-policy blocks, and Blocking_policy's coverage of ethics consists only of "users should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in conflict." Does that cover personal attacks or threats? Is a sysop permitted to declare text of a user with whom they are in conflict a threat and summarily block them? Yes, I'm talking about TBSDY and User:SS-88 in that case.

Originally posted to Wikipedia-l, repost here after suitability complaint.

[[w:User:119]]


subject: [Foundation-l] Polish, Portuguese, Romanian Wikinews set up

body:
As announced and in accordance with the existing language policy, three
new Wikinews editions have been set up:

http://pl.wikinews.org/ - Polish
http://pt.wikinews.org/ - Portuguese
http://ro.wikinews.org/ - Romanian

I left messages for the users who have pledged to participate (and who
could be located), and on the respective Wikipedia Village Pumps.

Good luck to the new editions!

Peace,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Desysoping

body: Alright, I posted it on WikiEN-l, if responses can go there...


subject: [WikiEN-l] proxy blocked

body:
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050219 02:04]:

> Apart from the technical fixes which are being addressed in other replies,
> I'd like to ask people with experience of this whether the IP autoblock is
> visible to the admin when he blocks a user.  If so then it's a good idea
> to check [[User:<the autoblocked ip number>]] and [[User talk:<the
> autoblocked ip number>]] to see if it's noted as a shared proxy, and then
> lift the IP block if it is.  Not being an admin I'm not sure if is
> feasible with current software and configuration on "wikien".

No - admins can't see a logged-in user's IP or even ISP. This is considered
a good thing, to avoid harassment for unpopular opinions and so forth.

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] http content-type for action=raw

body:
Jim Higson wrote:
> I've just noticed that with 1.4 raw text isn't sent compressed.

A quick test confirms that it *is* sent compressed when requested by the
user agent, just as other page views are. For it to behave otherwise
would be surprising, since the default LocalSettings.php engages
compression buffering before the check for the 'action' parameter is made.

You can test this by doing for instance 'telnet en.wikipedia.org 80' and
pasting in this request:

GET /w/index.php?title=Cornell_Box&action=raw HTTP/1.1
Host: en.wikipedia.org
Accept-Encoding: gzip

You'll get back some lovely binary garbage. Try it again without the
Accept-Encoding header, and you see lovely plain text.

If you've got a problem on your own site, check that your PHP
installation is configured with zlib support and that you haven't
removed the compression line from your LocalSettings.php.

> Since wikitext is already stored gzipped, would it make sense to offer
> content-type gzip instead of decompressing on the server?

Wikitext in old revisions may be stored gzipped sometimes, if so
configured, but not always. Wikitext in current revisions is never
stored gzipped (up through 1.4, anyway). Wikitext in old revisions may
be part of a combined chunk of multiple revisions all compressed together.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Delirium

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

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>As our policy is currently written, running off neo-nazis or Stalinist (or
>Trotskyist or Maoist) revolutionaries is not permitted. Nor is exclusion of
>open advocates of Islamic (or Zionist) terrorism. In my opinion we should
>change that policy and permit exclusion of open advocates of totalitarian
>ideologies and terrorism.
>
>
I wouldn't want Wikipedia to be in a position of declaring certain
ideologies "unwelcome".  Whether the proper way of governing a
nation-state is along fascist lines, monarchist lines, liberal lines, or
no lines at all is an interesting political-science debate, but not one
we need to have an "official Wikipedia position" on.  Similarly, I don't
think we need to answer the question of "when, if ever, is terrorism
justified?" in order to write an encyclopedia.

In fact, I don't see how these are qualitatively different than any of
the other content disputes on Wikipedia.

-Mark


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary)
> I listed it.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Donkey_punch
>
> Although the article has only been listed for only two days, so far there
> is a 2:1 majority vote for keep.
> In my opinion this kind of article would render Wikipedia difficult to
> describe as "safe for classroom use"; also teachers recommending it to

Why? What is "safe for classroom"?

> younger children for homework research would be put at risk of censure
> because of articles like this.  Whatever those who voted think Wikipedia

Who would put them at risk?

--
mvh Bj?rn