subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change language name... interwiki for roa-rup.wikipedia.org: Arm�neashce not Arm�neashti! HELP

body:
ISO 639-3 for Aromanian is also rup.

Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> ha scritto:

Wouldn't ISO 639-3 be more appropriate since it is expected that in due
time it will replace 639-2?

Ec

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
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Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:

> On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an
>>allegory?
>
>
> No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
>
> Guy (JzG)

We deny the allegations and are working to identify the alligators.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Power will get you through times of no
 sean at epoptic.com | brains much better than brains will
                  | get you through times of no power.
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On Sat, Sep 16, 2006 at 07:05:59PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> have a "slot" for endorsements. That way, Board members and others
> could easily make their opinions known.

I am opposed to endorsements because ...

> For those who do not wish to vote for me, I support the candidacies of
> Arnomane, Mindspillage, AaronSw, and UninvitedCompany.

... while the idea seems innocent to begin with ...

>I do not support Oscar at this point in time;

... you quickly end up with disendorsements.

I'm assuming that that was a good faith oops. I hope you
take the time to amend your statement, Erik!

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

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list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: Change language name... interwiki for roa-rup.wikipedia.org: Arm�neashce not Arm�neashti! HELP

body:
Pleae someone (a developer) change the interwiki language name for Aromanian ( http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org ) from Arm?neashti to "Arm?neashce". The name "Arm?neashce" is in the Crushuva dialect, wich was accepted at a meeting as the official dialect of Aromanian, and this meeting was held in Sofia, in the organization of the SEEMO (South Eastern European Media Organization) on the Aromanian language media conference. Secretary Oliver Vujovic, clearly pointed this out in his report after the conference. Also the form "Arm?neashce" is written with the correct spelling rules (see http://www.armanami.org/lectsia1.php ).

  Also please someone (a developer) move http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org to http://rup.wikipedia.org (with the correct ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 code).

---------------------------------
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hallmark of bad process: guideline vs didacticism

body:
I've added this to my process essay (which I should declare "done"
some time soon really). It's too long and too bitter. Your help is
most welcomed.

* Prescriptive when it should be a guideline

    ** A lot of people think making things hard policy means people
will actually follow them. This means editorial guidelines get phrased
as didactic policy. This results in stupidity such as WP:RS (a
guideline) being used by apparently insane robots as a reason to gut
articles of content.
    ** Policy is harsh stuff, and there's a limit to how much people
will hold in their heads. Everything that can be a guideline should
be, because clueless editors won't understand it and bad faith editors
won't care.

to expand:

There is no point being didactic on editorial guidance pages even if
you REALLY REALLY think people REALLY REALLY need to do this. Because
it doesn't work. It doesn't stop clueless editors, because they won't
understand it. It doesn't stop malicious editors, because they don't
care. It provides a new way for apparently insane robots to
inappropriately misapply process without understanding why it's there.
And it pisses off the good clueful editors who go "what, MORE policy?"

Now. The above bullet points are from the perspective of me, who hates
this stuff. What's a phrasing that would get through to someone who
thinks being didactic on editorial guideline pages is a necessary
idea? This is the school of thought that removes all blog or Usenet
references because they don't like them, then the apparently insane
robots move in.

- d.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 9/20/06, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:

> I am opposed to endorsements because ...
..
> ... you quickly end up with disendorsements.

That's certainly true. I did not mean to explicitly _disendorse_
Oscar, merely to explain why I did not add him to my list of
"alternative vote endorsements", in response to Jimmy's comments. But
as I've already said, I think this sort of public mailing list
exchange of comments about the candidates is probably more harmful
than helpful, and in retrospect, I should not have contributed to it.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Last two days of the election

body:
On 9/20/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since tommorow the voting ends, I wanted to remind everyone to cast
> your vote, if you still haven't done so. I hope we'll be able to
> announce the final results next week.

Thanks for the update, and my final best wishes to all other candidates.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


list: commons-l

from_name: Florian Straub

subject:
[Commons-l] Cleaning up dodgy license categories: Magnus'
	imagereview tool

body:
 "Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote on Wednesday, September
20, 2006 2:47 PM

>  However, informally, we have also accepted copies
> of emails on talk pages or user subpages. I think it's OK if we accept
> these that already exist, but all future permissions should be very
> strongly encouraged to be sent to OTRS.

So should the ones be, that already exist ...

> Anyway what to do with these images, is clearer at least: mark as
> subst:nsd. (Please also write somewhere WHY this applies, otherwise
> you will mystify the uploader.) Maybe it would be nice to have a
> template {{OTRS required}} to go with NSD, which could say something
> like:

Maybe we can add that to {{subst:nld}}, in order to have one template for
all. Maybe as an optional parameter ...

> Yours in the fight against the tsunami of copyvios,
[...]
> (PS. Magnus rocks)

You, too!

Best regards,

Flo


from_name: Carl Peterson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> >Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an
> >allegory?
>
> No, it's *ape*, not alligator.

Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of the
stories generally represent something else in real life. The question was if
the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators" were
intended instead of apes.

Carl


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?

body:
Peter Jacobi wrote:
> "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> FYI, German Wikipedia is more in line with the idea that "not every
>> news event deserves an article." They are much more selective and are
>> not shy in telling you so. :)
>>
>
> Yeah. I've recently managed to get an "Wikipedia is not a News Portal"
> into the German equivalent of [[WP:WWIN]]. But this POV seems to collide
> with the consensus at enwiki.
>

I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!

-Mark


body:
On 9/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Peter Jacobi wrote:
> > "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> FYI, German Wikipedia is more in line with the idea that "not every
> >> news event deserves an article." They are much more selective and are
> >> not shy in telling you so. :)
> >>
> >
> > Yeah. I've recently managed to get an "Wikipedia is not a News Portal"
> > into the German equivalent of [[WP:WWIN]]. But this POV seems to collide
> > with the consensus at enwiki.
> >
>
> I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
> everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
> news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
> solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
> events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
> periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
> events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
> kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
> minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
> cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!
>
> -Mark
>
> My personal opinion is that Wikinews is for stuff that is too recent to
have reliable and verifiable sourcing. Wikipedia is for when the smoke has
cleared and there is verifiable information. I think about how many times
something has been reported by every single news outlet and then later
retracted by every single news outlet because of misinformation. I'm
thinking specifically of the mining accident a few months ago where the
newspapers ran the story about finding nearly all the miners alive, when
that morning, as people were reading their papers, the TV news stations were
reporting the exact opposite.

Carl


from_name: oscar

body:
On 9/20/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But
> as I've already said, I think this sort of public mailing list
> exchange of comments about the candidates is probably more harmful
> than helpful, and in retrospect, I should not have contributed to it.

i dunno, maybe it all depends on one's "talent for diplomacy", because
apologizing is generally not considered to be an art form ;-)

oscar


subject: [WikiEN-l] aaaand a blog entry on Citizendium

body:
The title is from this afternoon's call from the press.

http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/356377.html

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] I've Kicked the Process Habit

body:
On 19/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > What load of stuff was this? With full references, you're making an
> > accusation here that you consider serious enough to warrant
> > desysopping - don't just say "I alluded to it in passing somewhere up
> > there."

> The stuff he deleted on the 14th
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Phil_Sandifer
> I assume that is was the content of [[CAT:CSD]] (must have been
> unusaly empty). But from the logs that is rather hard to tell.

Indeed. Think the ArbCom will go for it? They've been happy to desysop
people this year as they see fit.

- d.


in_reply_to:
<450EC5D6.7010102@wikia.com>;
	from jwales@wikia.com on Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 12:14:14PM -0400

body:
On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 12:14:14PM -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> it is a too common reaction of people in the community to
> think of "the Foundation" as a distant entity to be blamed or yelled at
> when something goes wrong.

Heh, that's actually pretty much the best-to-hope-for ideal as far as
service management organisations go.

If the foundation can act in the background and ensure the wikis
keep working, I'd say that that's a fairly important task in
itself.

As usual for such a role, people only notice when
things go wrong. Not a word of praise, but when things
break down, it's moan moan moan ;-) [1]

So I'd say that if that's how people view the foundation mostly,
- well sure that's not exactly great - but at least it's a good sign.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning
[1] And hey, paradoxally, at least it stimulates people to donate more money for our servers.

--
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from_name: geni

body:
On 9/20/06, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> ... you quickly end up with disendorsements.
>

with aproval voteing it's only disendorsements that matter.

--
geni


body:
On 9/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Indeed. Think the ArbCom will go for it?

Only if they have gone completely nuts which strikes me as somewhat unlikely.

I said "Then I must request that you resign your adminship." I did not
say "I demand Arbcom/stewards/devs/whatever imediatly de-admin this
person"
--
geni


body:
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Phil Sandifer stated for the record:
>
> On Sep 20, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Peter Ansell wrote:
>
>
>>Out of control would, in my mind, only be a constructive notion if one
>>actually made actions which were significantly distinguishable from
>>those which they made when they were thought to be "in control". Do
>>you have significant evidence? (and just the fact that he is using the
>>delete button doesn't count, the action has to be different from
>>normal under that defintion)
>
>
> I DELETE J00!11!!!!1!!
>
> -Philz0rz

ORLY?  I ArbK0mmZ Jo00!11!  PWND!

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Dear Santa, for Christmas I would like
 sean at epoptic.com | a copy of your list of naughty girls.
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body:
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 05:04:34PM +0100, geni wrote:
> On 9/20/06, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> > ... you quickly end up with disendorsements.
> >
>
> with aproval voteing it's only disendorsements that matter.

When used properly, you probably have a point there.

There's some problems with disendorsements though, especially
the situation where you say the other person is an
[[Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet]]

...and then they win.

Ut oh.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 19/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What load of stuff was this? With full references, you're making an
> > accusation here that you consider serious enough to warrant
> > desysopping - don't just say "I alluded to it in passing somewhere up
> > there."
>
> The stuff he deleted on the 14th
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Phil_Sandifer
>
> I assume that is was the content of [[CAT:CSD]] (must have been
> unusaly empty). But from the logs that is rather hard to tell.

You know, you *are* an admin. Rather than making wild claims and
saying "oh noes, can't tell from the logs", you're more than welcome
to look at the deleted articles and see which ones had some form of
deletion marker on them.

In the case of the few I sampled from that log, it was - try not to be
shocked here - all of them.

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


body:
On 9/20/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know, you *are* an admin.

Not everyone one is.

>Rather than making wild claims and
> saying "oh noes, can't tell from the logs", you're more than welcome
> to look at the deleted articles and see which ones had some form of
> deletion marker on them.
>

I can most people can't

> In the case of the few I sampled from that log, it was - try not to be
> shocked here - all of them.

I knew this was likely to be the case because I know the context under
which the deletions were carried out. That is irelivant. Deletion logs
are for more than admins. Non admins also need to be kept informed as
much as posible.

--
geni


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l]Methods of electing an arbitration committée

body:
habj wrote:

> 2006/9/19, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
>> They didn't. The last election was an open and publicly visible vote,
>> and possibly the most acrimonious possible method of running it.
>
> English Wikipedia has used a more or less modified version of the
> BoardVote
> software at least once
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_July_2004
>
> and as it looks to me actually twice
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2004
>
> Maybe someone who knows the whereabouts of elections to enwikis arb
> com can
> tell us the story of how enwiki, as it seems, decided to have secret
> ballots
> in elections to arb com, used it a couple of times and then abandoned it?
>
> What are the conclusions after the last round of elections at enwiki,
> regarding the method?

The use of the Boardvote software was dropped for the last election
because a significant concern about the Arbitration Committee was the
lack of majority support from voters. That is to say, since voters could
vote for as many or as few candidates as they wished, only one candidate
received more than 50% of the vote. In order to fill seven open seats,
you had to go down to candidates who received only 31% of the vote. The
publicly conducted vote more closely resembled requests for adminship
and ensured that quite a large number of candidates received majority
support, because those who did not explicitly vote on a candidate were
not counted in that person's totals.

Regarding the acrimony involved, David's characterization is not
unreasonable, although I would point out that the previous election was
also acrimonious. However, that manifested itself during the campaign
via endorsements and "disendorsements", instead of directly during the
voting process.

I still think the secret ballot has considerable merit to it. However, I
also appreciate the importance of the winning candidates enjoying
majority support. This can be accomplished without completely
overhauling how we conduct elections.

Personally, I would support changing the interface to allow for people
to vote Yes or No on each individual candidate, and to only count their
ballot as to that candidate if they choose one of these. In other words,
in the current board election, I'd have the ability to vote for AaronSw,
against Alex756, and not vote at all regarding Arno Lagrange (example
unrelated to how I actually voted). Candidates would be chosen on the
basis of percentages rather than raw vote totals. A minimum vote total
might be set to prevent surprise victories by obscure candidates,
although I suspect that enough people would vote against unknowns that
this isn't really necessary.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Akash Mehta

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
	Wikipedia?

body:
I believe they only have a problem for commercial purposes or for a
representative of a business. Why would you want to take a picture of
a train station anyway? I'm sure there's some other random
jurisdiction covering a photo/video of a relative at a train station,
when the subject is the relative and not the location.

On 9/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> > On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > > There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the
> > > property and filming.  If the real issue was whether you could
> > > enter the
> > > property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film
> > > would be
> > > moot.
>
> > Anyone can enter the property every time they go
> > by train. The issue was whether they could take any
> > video and publish it - this request was denied.
>
>
> So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train?
> They can sue and be damned, then.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an
>allegory?

No, it's *ape*, not alligator.

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


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Sep 20, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Peter Ansell wrote:

>
> Out of control would, in my mind, only be a constructive notion if one
> actually made actions which were significantly distinguishable from
> those which they made when they were thought to be "in control". Do
> you have significant evidence? (and just the fact that he is using the
> delete button doesn't count, the action has to be different from
> normal under that defintion)

I DELETE J00!11!!!!1!!

-Philz0rz


body:
On 9/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
> everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
> news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
> solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
> events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
> periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
> events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
> kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
> minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
> cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!
>
> -Mark

Problem is that a lot of the data that would be useful in answering
your question is stored on microfilm and there isn't really a quick
way to scan that.

--
geni


body:
On 20/09/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Peter Jacobi wrote:

> > Yeah. I've recently managed to get an "Wikipedia is not a News Portal"
> > into the German equivalent of [[WP:WWIN]]. But this POV seems to collide
> > with the consensus at enwiki.

> I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
> everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
> news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
> solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
> events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
> periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
> events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
> kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
> minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
> cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!

I concur. Good well-written and well-referenced articles can be
written about these things, are being written and *should* be written.
I would go so far as to say that de: is wrong to arbitrarily keep
these things out considering how well they can be done.

- d.


from_name: Peter Jacobi

body:
"Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> FYI, German Wikipedia is more in line with the idea that "not every
> news event deserves an article." They are much more selective and are
> not shy in telling you so. :)

Yeah. I've recently managed to get an "Wikipedia is not a News Portal"
into the German equivalent of [[WP:WWIN]]. But this POV seems to collide
with the consensus at enwiki.

[[User:Pjacobi]]

--
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Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one
	of	your	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
Stephen Streater wrote:

>On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Stephen Streater wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If you are
>>>right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
>>>
>>>
>>Yes.   It's not a copyright issue.  Filming and uploading are two
>>different acts.  Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow
>>worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes
>>even when the logical consequences of such a reading  are ridiculous.
>>One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is
>>actually said.
>>
>>
>It looks like a loophole to me, but maybe it is
>a deliberate one. Perhaps it is the disruption
>of a professional shoot they are trying to avoid,
>rather than use of the footage itself.
>
Loopholes are a normal part of the legal game, but I don't think that
that is the case here.  Professional shoots do bring in a lot more
equipent and staff than one tourist and his family can ever imsagine.
Disruption could be even more significant at Trafalgar Square.  Smetimes
it helps to look at the reasoning behind a law, and in this case it
copyright is not a factor.  Pictures of Trafalgar Square probably
already exist from every conceivable angle.

Ec


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 20:28, Carl Peterson wrote:

> On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
>> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended
>>> to be an
>>> allegory?
>>
>> No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
>
>
> Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of
> the
> stories generally represent something else in real life. The
> question was if
> the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators"
> were
> intended instead of apes.

It's hard to tell where the humour ends sometimes.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Clarification on licences (was No derivatives)

body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 15:23, dmehkeri at swi.com wrote:

>
>>> Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's
>>> probably no
>>> point adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case.
> [...]
>> You are the first person to point out that it isn't obvious that we
>> don't accept ND.
>>
>> There has, in the past, been a person or two who has asked for us to
>> allow ND content
> [...]
>
> I see. Well, good enough. I feel a bit silly. My apologies.

I think this is pretty clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=76805338


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/19/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Start with a cage containing five apes.
>
> In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before
> long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the
> banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
> cold water.
[snip]

No no no.. You've got it wrong.

It really works like this (on Wikipedia for sure, and other places soon)...

There are five apes.  Ape 1 really hates ape 2... perhaps ape 2 took
his girlfriend, or whatever.. the cause isn't important.

The social structure of the apes discourages hostility, .. so the rest
of the apes may be unaware of the dislike.

One day Ape 2 decides to climb the stairs...  Ape 1 then, either due
to a failure to assume good faith due to his dislike or from outright
malevolent intent, yells "LOOK! APE 2 is trying to *STEAL THE BANANA*"
 The rest of the apes step in to stop ape2, either out of support for
their friend ape1 or just because they didn't think it through and
thats what the other apes were doing..

The end result, with the behavior being conserved, remains..

The behavior that gets conserved never actually made any sense.. but a
'reasoning' for it can still be provided.

I can't say that I've seen too many examples on wikipedia where the
situation has changed enough to completely remove a just cause for
strong action... The project just isn't that old... Far more often
there was just no really strong justification in the first place.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject:
[Commons-l] Cleaning up dodgy license categories: Magnus' image
	review tool

body:
Hello,

We now have a new mechanism for starting to clean up some of the
categories that are regularly abused by newbies, such as {{copyrighted
free use provided that}} (CFUPT) , {{copyrighted free use}} and
{{PD-because}}.

I have only started with CFUPT so I will just describe how it works.
If other people would like to, they can extend the system to the other
licenses/categories mentioned.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Copyrighted_free_use_provided_that
Template:Copyrighted free use provided that

The template now has an optional parameter, reviewed. So if you look
at an image and you check the reason given, and if the reason is OK,
you can add reviewed=yes and then the image will be put in a
subcategory, [[Category:Reviewed copyrighted free use provided that]].

To make this review process much easier, I asked Magnus to put
together something for it and he came up with this excellent tool -
Image Review Tool:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/imagereview.php

Try it out and you will see it is very easy to work with. The "PfC"
links to Magnus' version of that user's "gallery". The PushforCommons
gallery gives you a nice overview to quickly see if that user has
uploaded lots of problem files.

At the moment each image has five options which I suggested:

* Mark as reviewed
* Mark as no source
* Mark for deletion
* Change to {{attribution}}
* Skip

It would be preferred to change this license to a better one, if one
existed. I went through about 20 photos and I noticed a good many
should actually have been {{attribution}}, so that's why that option
is there.

There are two common problems with images in this category:

1. the extent of 'free use' is not clear. In particular:
* conditions equivalent to {{notify}} are not acceptable [that is,
images must NOT require that the copyright holder be contacted before
any use of the image]
* Wikipedia-only, non-commercial, educational, non-profit etc
permissions are not acceptable

Commercial use and derivative works tend to be the killer
requirements. So... I am not really sure what to do with such images
(and there are a LOT). Possibly we could mark as subst:nld - as the
extent of the license is not clear. Thoughts???

2. The permission is not clearly available.
Permission tends to take the form of a website general release
statement, which should be linked to, or personal contact with a
webmaster, usually through email. This permission should ideally be
forwarded to OTRS. However, informally, we have also accepted copies
of emails on talk pages or user subpages. I think it's OK if we accept
these that already exist, but all future permissions should be very
strongly encouraged to be sent to OTRS.

Anyway what to do with these images, is clearer at least: mark as
subst:nsd. (Please also write somewhere WHY this applies, otherwise
you will mystify the uploader.) Maybe it would be nice to have a
template {{OTRS required}} to go with NSD, which could say something
like:

"The license information of this file asserts a permission release,
but does not provide a verifiable source. Please follow the procedure
described at [[Commons:OTRS]] and when the permission has been
approved, replace this template with {{PermissionOTRS-ID|ticketid}}."

LASTLY......
Please don't mention the reviewed=yes thing on the template page, the
template talk page, the category page or the category talk page. We
don't want newbies 'reviewing' their own images. You can't exactly
keep secrets on a wiki... but how many newbies do you really think
read COM:AN or the mailing list? :)

So!
Try out the tool!
Any comments, suggestions, please make them.
If you want to extend the other templates mentioned, or create {{OTRS
required}}, go ahead and then reply here.

Yours in the fight against the tsunami of copyvios,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

(PS. Magnus rocks)


body:
BTW: you will notice a lot of bug photos that have a part-French
reason. Please either skip past them or change them to {{Attribution
Entomart}}.

( see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Entomart )


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[Commons-l] Cleaning up dodgy license categories: Magnus' image
 review tool

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> BTW: you will notice a lot of bug photos that have a part-French
> reason. Please either skip past them or change them to {{Attribution
> Entomart}}.

It's now available as an option :) Thanks Magnus!

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

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body:
> > Anyway what to do with these images, is clearer at least: mark as
> > subst:nsd. (Please also write somewhere WHY this applies, otherwise
> > you will mystify the uploader.) Maybe it would be nice to have a
> > template {{OTRS required}} to go with NSD, which could say something
> > like:
>
> Maybe we can add that to {{subst:nld}}, in order to have one template for
> all. Maybe as an optional parameter ...

Nyeh...I think it would be better separate. For one thing, the exsting
NSD & NLD templates have already amassed some translations. If we
drastically change them, then the translations become out of date. And
I think it would be a very similar amount of typing, and similar
complexity (or maybe slightly more, for the optional parameter).

Plus, conceptually to me, they are separate enough to warrant their
own messages. NLD/NSD are quite generic. {{OTRS required}} would be
rather more specific. And, I envisage, a different colour. :)

> > (PS. Magnus rocks)
>
> You, too!

:)

Brianna


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Commons-l] [[Commons:Administrator permission for statistics]]

body:
I guess it stopped because the next page [[User talk:Ilyanep]] was a
redirect.
/me adds it to the Orgullo's bugzilla...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/20/06, Gallagher Mark George <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au>
wrote:
>
>
> G'day Carl,
>
> > On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> > > <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > >Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended
> > to be an
> > > >allegory?
> > >
> > > No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
> >
> > Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements
> > of the
> > stories generally represent something else in real life. The
> > question was if
> > the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators"
> > wereintended instead of apes.
>
> That joke is either a wonderful example of deadpan humour so subtle and
> profound that a poor pleb like me can't hope to understand it, or you missed
> Guy's point completely.  Apparently AGF compels me[0] to believe the best of
> the situation, so one must assume you're just taking Guy's joke to another,
> more beautiful, level.
>
> In which case: well played, sir.  Well played.
>
>
> [0] One day I'm going to post a long list of the CW-like
>      misunderstandings of policy I've seen put forth by CVU
>     types[1].  I suspect there isn't a single policy that hasn't
>     seen someone bitten by an officious Enforcer who
>    doesn't actually know what the policy really means.
>
> [1] Actually, "AGF means you can't say someone is wrong"
>      is quite common, and even one or two admins have
>     been known to spout it.  I've tried to bring this silliness to
>     the admins' attention, but they just think I'm assuming
>     bad faith on their behalf.[2]
>
> [2] But this post isn't about AGF.  I'm actually being
>      humorous and not at all political.  So you can stop
>      looking at me like that and start assuming GF.
>
> Full disclosure: though I would very much like to tell you that I was just
continuing the joke, I did miss the point of the joke until I saw someone
else's response. I assumed that he assumed it was a typo. Shame on me. I
will now go and castigate myself.

Carl


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-21

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Full disclosure: though I would very much like to tell you that I was just
>>continuing the joke, I did miss the point of the joke until I saw someone
>>else's response. I assumed that he assumed it was a typo. Shame on me. I
>>will now go and castigate myself.
>>
>>
>Wait, wait....is this still part of the joke? Wow, you guys are blowing my mind!
>
I, for one, will not insist that the misunderstanding was so severe as
to require Carl to proceed with his plan to castrate himself.  We can do
without humour that is tuned to such a high pitch.

Ec


body:
On 9/21/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> So if he follows policy he will go insane and be nervous and have to
> ignore all rules anyway, and if he says he doesn't want to follow
> policy he is no longer sane enough to be an admin, as some are
> claiming in this thread.
>
> Yossarian lives...

It certainly could be argued that if being an admin is bringing
someone that close to burnout they might be better relinquishing the
position
--
geni


body:
On 9/21/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> Out of control would, in my mind, only be a constructive notion if one
> actually made actions which were significantly distinguishable from
> those which they made when they were thought to be "in control". Do
> you have significant evidence?

I've delt with admins in the past who had steped outside process. I'm
sure you can find the resulting arbcom cases.

>(and just the fact that he is using the
> delete button doesn't count, the action has to be different from
> normal under that defintion)
>

here is a normal deletion log:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete

notice the difference?

--
geni


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Full disclosure: though I would very much like to tell you that I was just
> continuing the joke, I did miss the point of the joke until I saw someone
> else's response. I assumed that he assumed it was a typo. Shame on me. I
> will now go and castigate myself.
>
> Carl

Wait, wait....is this still part of the joke? Wow, you guys are blowing my mind!

--Oskar


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> > Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> >
> > >On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>Full disclosure: though I would very much like to tell you that I was
> > just
> > >>continuing the joke, I did miss the point of the joke until I saw
> > someone
> > >>else's response. I assumed that he assumed it was a typo. Shame on me.
> I
> > >>will now go and castigate myself.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >Wait, wait....is this still part of the joke? Wow, you guys are blowing
> > my mind!
> > >
> > I, for one, will not insist that the misunderstanding was so severe as
> > to require Carl to proceed with his plan to castrate himself.  We can do
> > without humour that is tuned to such a high pitch.
> >
> > Just so long as I get to keep my castinets.
> Carl

It takes castinets to admit you were wrong...

-Rich

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in English and
	another language?

body:
Let's call a spade a spade.  Raul654 calls himself whatever he calls
himself whilst running FA in en:wp.  Great - I'm glad some"one" does
it.  But the project requires much much more than just one person's
work.  That is the whole point.  One person isn't going to manage 100K
top-notch articles.  We are pushing the quality up across the board
and fulfilling Jimbo's challenge at WM06 this year - less about new
articles - more about better articles.

/me would love a Special:RandomFA button as well....with 100K entries
to wheel around.

On 9/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd like to second this - don't relax requirements whatsoever.
>
>
> Of course, it would make the goal silly to do so. I'm putting
> [[WP:100K]] as working to the Featured Article criteria ...
>
>
> > But don't be afraid to reform the process. The meaning of FA should
> > not be to be one of 365 produced each year to show up on the front
> > page.
>
>
> ... but am explicitly not assuming the current FA process.
>
> [[WP:100K]] seems to have a nascent process outlined:
>
> 1. Check various sources for better-than-average articles. (FA, GA,
> A-rated by a project, collaboration-of-the-week, etc.)
> 2. Rate these per the FAC. I expect FAs and probably GAs will get an
> automatic pass to save effort.
>
> An idea I have for step 2 is: no self-nominations. I am *suspecting*
> self-nominations are why FA has to explicitly say "don't take it
> personally" - they've set up an environment almost designed to make it
> personal.
>
>
> Now then, for the bilinguals ... does translating FAs from one project
> to another sound like something that would arouse your interest at
> all?
>
>
> [cc: back to wikien-l]
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Carl Peterson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
> >On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Full disclosure: though I would very much like to tell you that I was
> just
> >>continuing the joke, I did miss the point of the joke until I saw
> someone
> >>else's response. I assumed that he assumed it was a typo. Shame on me. I
> >>will now go and castigate myself.
> >>
> >>
> >Wait, wait....is this still part of the joke? Wow, you guys are blowing
> my mind!
> >
> I, for one, will not insist that the misunderstanding was so severe as
> to require Carl to proceed with his plan to castrate himself.  We can do
> without humour that is tuned to such a high pitch.
>
> Just so long as I get to keep my castinets.
Carl


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in English and
	another l...

body:
I think that this is the precisely the point. At Wikipedia, we aim to be  the
biggest and the best. Well, we already are the biggest--now let's be the
best as well.

There are so many ideas out there as to how we can do it. Let's share them.

Some of the things that are happening (I realize this refers only to  en:wp)

1. "Requested articles" on the Recent changes page has been changed to
"Stubs." Lets see some turnaround there.
2. My contest, which I hope will be the first of many more.
3. [[Polar exploration]], an article we did not have, which was written
jointly by a group of people on IRC. It's still not up to par, but this is a
really good example of collaborative writing. Get together with a few friends,
pick an article, and fix it.
4. Good articles, which are being improved.

Other, easy steps--
1. Take a look at articles that did not quite make feature and fix  them.
2. Take a look at any of the lists that exist for vital articles, pick one
and fix it.
3. Look through the projects and portals and see what needs to be done.
4. Take an EB:1911 article and make it a uniquely Wikipedia article.
5. Look through the categories of articles needing citations and find the
citations.
6. Pick a topic you know little about, go to the library and learn about  it,
then write about what you learned. It can be very rewarding.
7. If you speak another language, translate. (It would be interesting to  see
what the ratio of FAs per total articles is on other languages as compared
to English).

For those who are intimidated by all the work this entails, remember--there
are a lot of low hanging fruit out there. And it's much easier to do it than
to  talk about it. And it's much more rewarding than to complain about this or
that  (person or process).

Danny
Who would love to see [[Amethyst]] and [[Foreign policy]] vastly  improved.


from_name: Bradypus

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aphaia" <aphaia at gmail.com>
> and that I object (except "no guarantee" part). As I stated before, it
> means "if you can read language A, you are provided more materials
> than language non-A speakers". On local projects, I found some signs
> some people thought such additional materials would be just a sign of
> those candidates are anglo-centric.
>
> Since the Election is not yet closed, I stop my wording here at this
> moment. But frustration of non-English communities will follow a
> conclusion which may be a nightmare for English people, I predict, and
> perhaps for other language speaking people too.
>
> Considering such reactions and frustrations on non-English speaking
> communities, regarding equal-oppotunity of electrates, I strongly
> oppose this idea.

Mmmmmh, I cannot speak for non english speaking communities as a whole, but
I don't agree with that. If a <strike>moron</strike> voter feels frustrated
by that, well let him not vote for the wathever-language-centric candidate.

Bradipus


from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:RS and WP:ASR question

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

Can a Wikipedia article cite Wikinews as a source? I know we already
have those 'Wikinews has an article related to...' infoboxes, but can a
Wikinews article actually be cited as a reference in a Wikipedia article?

Cynical
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3rc2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFEkKKg8fvtQYQevcRAl5RAJwMs/fhMaJuxRIyPUroDBz2+d9iCACggDz6
HYOwKzcHMQ5mGqgpJGMHeQA=
=Y4nK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No derivatives (was: Would you like one of your
 videos posted on Wikipedia?)

body:
dmehkeri at swi.com wrote:

> digging, it does seem to be disallowed. For rationale, I get pointed back to
> either Jimbo's posts on disallowing non-commercial-use media licenses, fair use,
> or discussion of downstream use.
>
> None of these reasons seem to apply here. For the free encyclopedia, a CC-BY-ND
> media license, for example, is perfectly redistributable, allows for possible
> commercial use, and poses no issues for forks or other downstream use, right?

When we talk about Wikipedia being free, we refer to the 4 freedoms of
free software, as defined by Richard Stallman many years ago:

0. The freedom to copy
1. The freedom to redistribute
2. The freedom to modify
3. The freedom to redistribute modified versions

CC-BY-NC violates at least the last of these.

Why do we care?  Because we want people to be able to adapt our work for
their own purposes.  It is difficult for us to foresee what those
purposes might be.

Perhaps an artist wants to create a Digital Dream Booth... you walk into
it, and say some concept like "Iraq" and dozens of images drawn from
Wikipedia, interspersed with snippets of text, cascade down around you
dissolving and forming in unusual ways.  The images are digitally
morphed, one into the next.

This is clearly going to involve making derivative works of our images.

--Jimbo


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] GFDL conflicting with transfer of content?

body:
--- Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/20/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch
> <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
> >
> > In Wikipedia we have sometimes the transfer of
> content among
> > different projects Wikipedia <--> Wikisource,
> Wikipedia <-->
> > Wikinews, Wikipedia <--> Wiktionary for example.
> >
> > I don't know very well the status of all wikipedia
> but I am
> > following my personal experience.
> >
> > But this usage is in in conflict with GFDL?
> >
> > I could read here http://en.wikisource.
> > org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License some
> points which are not
> > respected like:
> >
> > 1.Preserve the section Entitled "History"....
> > 2.Preserve the network location...
> >
> > and so on.
> >
> > IMHO it's possible to transfer but the original
> version must remain
> > in its original place (in this case it's a simple
> copy) or the
> > transfer is possible respecting some rules for
> example the transfer
> > of all history, of list of all author and maybe
> with agreement of
> > them.
> >
> > If an article is transfered without taking care of
> all point listed
> > in the GFDL could an author request the
> reintegration of the article
> > in the original place? IMHO it is in its own
> rights!
>
>
> In Wikipedia > Wikisource transactions, not
> necessarily. If a text is in
> public domain, no reason to keep original credits
> for a cut-and-paste action
> (IMHO).
>
> Also the transfer of an article from a project in
> another is not
> > valid if the original place has got a place card
> who redirect at new
> > place where there is a modified version (adding
> also the lost of
> > history due to the transfer)!
> >
> > What is your suggestion?
>
>
> Stop manual transwikis and use only Special:Import
> method.

Does this take care of point number 2 as well as
address the history issue?  I don't really understand
what is meant by point 2.

I agree that this is not a problem with purely PD
works.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 9/21/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> > Peter Jacobi wrote:
> > > "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> FYI, German Wikipedia is more in line with the idea that "not every
> > >> news event deserves an article." They are much more selective and are
> > >> not shy in telling you so. :)
> > >>
> > >
> > > Yeah. I've recently managed to get an "Wikipedia is not a News Portal"
> > > into the German equivalent of [[WP:WWIN]]. But this POV seems to collide
> > > with the consensus at enwiki.
> > >
> >
> > I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
> > everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
> > news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
> > solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
> > events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
> > periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
> > events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
> > kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
> > minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
> > cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!
> >
> > -Mark
> >
> > My personal opinion is that Wikinews is for stuff that is too recent to
> have reliable and verifiable sourcing. Wikipedia is for when the smoke has
> cleared and there is verifiable information. I think about how many times
> something has been reported by every single news outlet and then later
> retracted by every single news outlet because of misinformation. I'm
> thinking specifically of the mining accident a few months ago where the
> newspapers ran the story about finding nearly all the miners alive, when
> that morning, as people were reading their papers, the TV news stations were
> reporting the exact opposite.

At Wikimania 2006, I described this phenomenon - Wikipedia uniquely
fills the gap between "the news" and the history books. It's an
instantaneous cumulative view of the state of the world, given the
best information at that point in time. Rather than shedding this
function, we should be embracing and celebrating it.

Back in 1995, when I was teaching journalism, I pondered when a
"rolling memory" system might be realized given the development of the
Internet. That's why I was captivated by Wikipedia back in 2003.
Wikipedia has accomplished this, whether by design or fluke. And it's
been revolutionary.

I'm curious if there is a reasonable reason against Wikipedia serving
this function, other than "encyclopedias are not news", which I would
argue is old-style thinking (and something I've heard from more than
one so-called "academic" committee.)

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:RS and WP:ASR question

body:
--- David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
> Can a Wikipedia article cite Wikinews as a source? I know we already
> have those 'Wikinews has an article related to...' infoboxes, but can a
> Wikinews article actually be cited as a reference in a Wikipedia article?

If the Wikinews piece is a "synthesis article", that is, it draws from other
news reports, then we should use those directly and bypass Wikinews.

Wikinews also does original reporting. Can we use those articles? The Wikipedia
article on Wikinews says that, "In mainstream media, Wikinews has yet to
establish itself as a credible or reliable source of information." (although
that has a "citation needed" tag after it). If so, then it's probably best to
look for a more reliable (by reputation) source at present.

If we just can't find one, however, then I dunno! Use the guidelines in
[[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]], I guess. It would likely depend on the specific
topic, the nature of the claim, and the evidence presented at Wikinews itself:
in some circumstances, it might be acceptable to cite it directly, in others,
to preface it with "according to the free-content news source wiki
[[Wikinews]]...", and in others to refuse to use it.

Sorry, that's all a bit "never ask an elf a question, for they will answer both
yes and no"-ish. I'm not normally an elf.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

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from_name: Peter Ansell

body:
On 20/09/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Is Phil getting smeared now?  I can't say I'm surprised.  To the
> process wonk, process is the most important thing there is, way
> more important than the goals of the project it's supposed to
> support.  Denying or disavowing the sacred process is the most
> cardinal of sins.
>
> I don't deny that Phil's declaration was provocative.  It calls
> to mind Colonel Cathcart's objection to Yossarian's attitude:
> "What if everyone felt that way?"  But Yossarian's retort is
> equally apt: "Then I'd certainly be a fool not to."
>

So if he follows policy he will go insane and be nervous and have to
ignore all rules anyway, and if he says he doesn't want to follow
policy he is no longer sane enough to be an admin, as some are
claiming in this thread.

Yossarian lives...

Peter Ansell


body:
On 20/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > See, this is the bit you've noticeably failed to convince anyone else
> > of the need for.
> >
> > Let's try asking a different question:
> >
> > What is the imminent danger to the encyclopedia or its core policies
> > of Phil keeping his ops?
>
> If he continues to use them we have an admin acting not as a janitor
> but as part of the executive. Users have can have no real idea how he
> well use those powers. Thus he will be disruptive. He's already
> deleted a load of stuff without giving a reason we could probably do
> without that happening again.
>
> Process has a tendency to exist for a reason. If an admin is not
> prepared to find out what that reason is then they should not be
> ignoring the process because they are very likely to make mistakes.
> Wikipedia is not anarchy. and admin who isn't going to bother with
> process is out of control of pretty much everyone. An admin who is out
> of control is a problem.

Out of control would, in my mind, only be a constructive notion if one
actually made actions which were significantly distinguishable from
those which they made when they were thought to be "in control". Do
you have significant evidence? (and just the fact that he is using the
delete button doesn't count, the action has to be different from
normal under that defintion)

Peter Ansell


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
"Andrew Lih" wrote

> I'm curious if there is a reasonable reason against Wikipedia serving
> this function, other than "encyclopedias are not news", which I would
> argue is old-style thinking (and something I've heard from more than
> one so-called "academic" committee.)

It's a reasonable argument, re current affairs and 'first draft of history', that two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back is less convincing. It is not one I support - I'm with Andrew on this. After all, in science, this is the norm, and we have no problem with saying that when the science changes, we change the articles.

The second-order point on that is, well, WP shouldn't _anticipate_ the scientific revision, so the same should apply to history. But I think the policy on original research then enters: it can correctly be said of WP that its current affairs coverage should _not_ be doing the job of historical synthesis, ahead of the historians.

Charles

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from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [Foundation-l] Global Text Project

body:
The Global Text project has been getting some press lately:

Story from the New Scientist:
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9906-wikistyle-textbooks-to-aid-poorer-nations.html
Nature:
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060911/full/060911-13.html (which talks
about Wikibooks)
Ars Technica (which mentions Wikiversity)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060905-7662.html

Apparently, the project's innovation is editorial control -- the Nature
story quotes the project manager, who is from the Universty of Georgia, as
saying "Anyone will be able to contribute to the new textbooks, true ? but
unlike wikipedia, the online, user-made encyclopedia, only an editor will be
able to approve contributions. "

They don't seem to have gotten very far yet; their biggest example text
(about XML) is actually hosted on en.wikibooks.

--
phoebe ayers | brassratgirl /at/ gmail.com

On 9/5/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FYI - we need to talk to these people.
>
> http://globaltext.org/
>
> Global Text Project
>
>     * The goal is to create a free library of 1,000 electronic
> textbooks for students in the developing world
>     * The library will cover the range of topics typically encountered
> in the first two years of a university's undergraduate programs
>     * The global academic community and global corporations will be
> engaged in creating and sponsoring this library
>
> The project will create open content electronic textbooks that will be
> freely available from a Web site. Distribution will also be possible
> via paper, CD, or DVD. Our goal initially is to focus on content
> development and Web distribution, and we will work with relevant
> authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth
> is unavailable or inadequate. Thus, while the goal, educating the
> disadvantaged, is the same as that of the $100 laptop project, we are
> not tied to a particular device or medium.
>
> We have experience with developing a free textbook, XML: Managing Data
> Exchange. This project started in January 2004 when a graduate class
> at the University of Georgia wrote the first version of the book.
> Subsequent graduate and undergraduate classes at the University of
> Georgia and elsewhere have improved and extended the book. It has been
> used as the XML text in a variety of classes, and in each case the
> class has been required to leave the book in better shape that they
> received it at the beginning of the term.
>
> Experience with this project and the success of WikiBooks has
> convinced us that we can further develop the idea of free and open
> content books to increase the value of these books to students,
> particularly those who cannot afford paper-based textbooks. We want to
> add several innovations to improve the quality of the books.
>
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
> ______________________________________________
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Global Text Project


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in
	English and another language?

body:
On 9/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, it's certainly an interesting idea, but it's usually a lot of hard
> work
> > to get a decent translation going. The article subject would have to be
> > interesting to keep me motivated.
>
>
> If you could pick an FA in another language and port it to the best
> English-language article you can, and let us know what sort of numbers
> of hours this takes, that would be most useful to know.
>
> (and, as Danny says, it beats arguing about people, process or policy)

While I know using online translators is discouraged, if a person is
familiar enough with a subject to be able to root out mistranslations and to
rewrite it as coherent English (good prose in one language doesn't
necessarily make good prose in another, hence the "it looses something in
the translation" cliche), then I don't see why familiarity with another
language is necessarily a requirement. I've found with the couple of
articles I've looked at through Google's translation service that it does a
passable job, especially if one is familiar with the the subject matter. The
nice thing about Google's translator is that if you click a link on the
translated page, the linked page will be translated for you as well.

Carl


from_name: Abigail Brady

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?

body:
On 9/19/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
> [[September 2006 Thailand coup attempt]]
>
> Sorry to ask the obvious rhetorical questions here:
> * Wasn't WikiNews designed to be for news?
> * Why is [[Wikipedia:Recentism]] only an essay?
> * Is at a good idea to write an encyclopedia article based a news tickers and CNN?

So, if we weren't to take the approach of having everything up to
date, what should we have?  How many days should we wait until we
change the "Prime Minister" field in the infobox on Thailand?  When
should our article about New Orleans have started mentioning the fact
it had drowned?  Should we attempt to be an encyclopedia for today
minus a month, or what?

--
Abi


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Angela wrote:

>On 9/21/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of votes
>>cast over the languages in the various projects so far
>>
>>
>
>I think this partly reflects the number of candidates per language. I
>remember checking this for the earlier elections and seeing that a
>candidate in a language increased the number of voters above what
>you'd expect if the number of votes had any relation to the number of
>editors. It's to be expected that people be more interested in voting
>if they know at least one candidate, even if they don't want to vote
>for that candidate.
>
>The top 6 are the 6 with candidates who speak that language:
>
>english - 1003 (10 candidates)
>german - 320  (2 candidates)
>french - 124 (1 candidate)
>dutch - 101 (1 candidate)
>spanish - 89 (1 candidate)
>finnish - 52 (1 candidate)
>
>

No Native American voters are represented. Very sad.

Jeff

>
>Angela
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: oscar

body:
yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of votes
cast over the languages in the various projects so far:
(this is no final result, one can count this oneself from
[[Special:Boardvote/list]])

english - 1003
german - 320
french - 124
dutch - 101
spanish - 89
finnish - 52
italian - 48
japanese - 38
portuguese - 37
norwegian - 30
turkish - 28
commonswiki - 26
(rest less than 25)

for example, the few amount of voters on ja: is striking, in view of the
size of the project.
in general, the 4 biggest voting languages are all west-european (over a
hundred votes each).
i think can we draw from this the conclusion that various projects are
concerned with "international affairs" rather differently each in its own
way, the size of a language project or community not being a yardstick for
its international engagement and involvement.
it also means that just having access to the english voters is quite enough
to win, they are by far the largest contingent.

it is my conviction that for the future, more than "just" translations for
elections (i take them as an example of a bigger thing to consider here) are
mandatory to evercome this *gap in culture*. (a point of attention for the
board retreat imho)

oscar

On 9/20/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/17/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > I completely disagree with this; I would much, much rather know *more*
> > about
> > > the people I'm voting for, rather than less
> > [snip]
> >
> > So are you honestly saying that you'd spend 14 hours reading candidate
> > statements?
> >
> > If thats true I suspect that you would be alone.
>
>
> Sorry, are we talking about the same projects? 'Cause I'm talking about
> the
> projects where people spend days (years) arguing about process and whether
> Pokemon is notable (among other time-consuming activities). I suspect that
> there will certainly be people in this environment who will happily spend
> 14
> hours reading candidate statements; I for one would welcome the
> opportunity
> to do so. What other people choose to read or not read is irrelevant to my
> own decision-making processes.
>
> As for translation, which is of course very important, I think the best
> solution is probably more or less what's been done for this election --
> make
> sure that every candidate provides a short statement of approximately
> equal
> length; make sure that this statement is assiduously translated into as
> many
> languages as possible; but then allow (and encourage) candidates to post
> as
> much additional material as they wish, in whatever language(s) they are
> comfortable in, with no guarantee it will get translated. The fact that
> some
> candidates will have more materials than others is no more unfair than the
> fact that some candidates are more voluble on the mailing lists, or that
> some have global rights and are thus perhaps better known across projects
> than those who don't, or that some candidates come from en: and have thus
> perhaps interacted with more potential voters, etc. etc.
>
> -- phoebe
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:RS and WP:ASR question

body:
On 21/09/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> If we just can't find one, however, then I dunno! Use the guidelines in
> [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]], I guess. It would likely depend on the specific
> topic, the nature of the claim, and the evidence presented at Wikinews itself:
> in some circumstances, it might be acceptable to cite it directly, in others,
> to preface it with "according to the free-content news source wiki
> [[Wikinews]]...", and in others to refuse to use it.

Yeah, it's an editorial judgement call.

I'd be reluctant to myself, for what it's worth. If I didn't have
*any* other source for something, I'd be quite unsure about putting it
into a Wikipedia article.

This is not to say that Wikinews is particularly *bad* or that e.g.
the New York Times is particularly *good*. Hmm.

OTOH, it's just the place to get original photos and so forth.

- d.


body:
On 21/09/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sep 20, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Peter Ansell wrote:
>
> >
> > Out of control would, in my mind, only be a constructive notion if one
> > actually made actions which were significantly distinguishable from
> > those which they made when they were thought to be "in control". Do
> > you have significant evidence? (and just the fact that he is using the
> > delete button doesn't count, the action has to be different from
> > normal under that defintion)
>
> I DELETE J00!11!!!!1!!
>
> -Philz0rz

Sigh... And I had such a good point going too!

Peter Ansell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Free data – a valuable commodity

body:
>From the Open Rights Group list:

"Gervase Markham in the Times continues to point out
why most government data should be free for the public
to use. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20411-2363602.html "

- d.


body:
On 21/09/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
> "Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The articles on last year's London bombings are also good examples.
> > [[2006 transatlantic aircraft plot]], within a few hours after the
> > story broke, was just about the best source available.

> If a Wikipedia article is "the best source available", it has
> become original research.

Or just the best-researched. Your assertion appears trivially false.

- d.


body:
On 9/21/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> >
> > I've tried this. It's somewhat better than nothing. But mostly I've
> > only used it for expanding a bare stub and only in an area I'm already
> > familiar with, and even that's too painful to do much.
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> The other problem is that unless you're really on the ball there will be
> mistranslations that you will miss. Something that seems to make
> perfect, coherent sense in English might be entirely different from what
> the original text meant, but all machine translators (and Google's is
> comparatively good, to give them credit) simply have a list of rules as
> to which Spanish/French/German/[insert as required] phrases translate
> into which English phrases.
>
> Cynical

I don't really know what articles you all typically work on, but I've been
concentrating on Mathematics articles, which I've noticed have fewer
problems than a usual translation. Fortunately, the Pythagorean Theorem,
which I'm working on right now, is available as an FA in two languages (de
and fr), one of which I know well enough to make a translation, especially
since a lot of the mathematics terms are spelling variations on the English
(or vice versa, depending on how one chooses to look at it).

Carl


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 21/09/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> "Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The articles on last year's London bombings are also good examples.
> > [[2006 transatlantic aircraft plot]], within a few hours after the
> > story broke, was just about the best source available.
>
> If a Wikipedia article is "the best source available", it has
> become original research.

Not automatically. The problem is, you have a big and fast-breaking
story, you have everyone covering it. Everyone brings n points of
information to the table, but there are 2n points out there in total -
whilst there's a lot of overlap they don't all quote the same people,
they don't all have a reporter in this place or that. Because we're
stripmining the news sources rather than relying on our own primary
work, we can quote all 2n.

As long as we avoid drawing inferences or making synthesis by
juxtaposition, we're okay at keeping away from original research.

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


body:
 "David Gerard" wrote
> Date: 2006/09/21 Thu AM 10:40:52 BST
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?
>
> Peter Jacobi wrote

> > If a Wikipedia article is "the best source available", it has
> > become original research.

> Or just the best-researched. Your assertion appears trivially false.

No, you are both right, with slightly different senses of the word 'research'. This is where it gets to be an interesting discussion. Wikipedians are para-academic para-journalists with the completely wild idea that 'policy' can adequately constrain and define a 'generic' research method, to the point that it produces material of actual value. Our idea of 'value' is not however a _market_ value or a _career_ value or a personal _prestige_ value  (well, qualify that perhaps). It is not perhaps surprising that the outside world has fairly systematically misunderstood all this.

Charles

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in English and
	another language?

body:
[[:en:WP:100K]] is a page about Danny's wild idea to have 100,000
featured-quality articles on en: in a year or so.

Featured articles from other language Wikipedias may be a marvellous
source for quality material.

If you write well in both English and the other language, you may be
able to do very well for en: by going through the other language's
featured articles and bringing the en: article up to scratch.

(And for the other Wikipedia by doing it the other way.)

How do those of you who write well in two languages feel about this idea?

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in
	English and	another language?

body:
[[:en:WP:100K]] is a page about Danny's wild idea to have 100,000
featured-quality articles on en: in a year or so.

Featured articles from other language Wikipedias may be a marvellous
source for quality material.

If you write well in both English and the other language, you may be
able to do very well for en: by going through the other language's
featured articles and bringing the en: article up to scratch.

(And for the other Wikipedia by doing it the other way.)

How do those of you who write well in two languages feel about this idea?

- d.
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Anthere

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 9/21/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of votes
>>cast over the languages in the various projects so far
>
>
> I think this partly reflects the number of candidates per language. I
> remember checking this for the earlier elections and seeing that a
> candidate in a language increased the number of voters above what
> you'd expect if the number of votes had any relation to the number of
> editors. It's to be expected that people be more interested in voting
> if they know at least one candidate, even if they don't want to vote
> for that candidate.
>
> The top 6 are the 6 with candidates who speak that language:
>
> english - 1003 (10 candidates)
> german - 320  (2 candidates)
> french - 124 (1 candidate)
> dutch - 101 (1 candidate)
> spanish - 89 (1 candidate)
> finnish - 52 (1 candidate)
>
>
> Angela

For reference for the (relatively) new comers

Here is a graph for participation in 2004:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Election_participation2.png

Note, there was a chinese candidate): 11 votes

Same in 2005 :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_results_2005/statistics

Note, there were 89 votes from french speaking project in 2004 (compare
to figures this year. The community increased greatly in two years, but
votes are hardly more numerous. Hmmm, well, actually, I believe most
french editors do not know the french candidate :-)

fr: ~89 (2004) - 106 (2005) - 124 (2006)
en: ~238 (2004) - 726 (2005) - 1003 (2006)
ja: ~18 (2004) - 19 (2005) - 38 (2006)

Japanese lack of participation was also noted last year and we got some
explanation from Aphaia. Apparently, it is not only lack of knowledge of
candidate, lack of ja candidate, but also a cultural issue.

Kuddos for the turkish !!!

ant


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tech demo: "Can We Link It?" - Link Suggesting tool

body:
On 9/21/06, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a link suggesting tool I'm temporarily putting out there for you all to have a play with and to give feedback and comments
> on.
[snip]

I dread the misuse this tool will have... simply because there will be
some who use it to link everything that has a matching article.. which
is clearly a bad idea..

In any case, a suggestion:  Don't use pipe links for [[plural word]]s.


body:
On 20/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> > I guess as a reader I don't see the benefit in *not* covering
> > everything.  I agree there is a slant towards more coverage of recent
> > news events, but that's simply because they're easier to cover.  The
> > solution, IMO, is not to cover recent events less, but to cover older
> > events more.  I want to know the equivalent of this stuff for other time
> > periods!  Were there short-lived but at the time massively-covered
> > events in the 1890s, equivalent to today's frenzies over child
> > kidnappings?  What about the thousands of political scandals, major and
> > minor, that have at various times shortened governments' tenures, forced
> > cabinet reshuffles, etc., etc.?  It's all good info we're missing!

> Problem is that a lot of the data that would be useful in answering
> your question is stored on microfilm and there isn't really a quick
> way to scan that.

It'll come, it'll come. Dumping everything onto disk scans in the
first instance. Just under two years doubling time. You won't be
*able* to buy a disk smaller than a petabyte in twenty years.

(Googling "hard disk" "moore's law" leads me to [[Moore's Law]], which
points me to [[Kryder's Law]], which is a useful study in hideous
self-reference and Wikipedia editorial decisions forming neologisms.
I'm so glad [[analogue disc record]] was moved before achieving any
currency anywhere else.)

- d.


from_name: Peter Jacobi

body:
"Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> The articles on last year's London bombings are also good examples.
> [[2006 transatlantic aircraft plot]], within a few hours after the
> story broke, was just about the best source available.

If a Wikipedia article is "the best source available", it has
become original research.

[[User:Pjacobi]]
--
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Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


subject: [WikiEN-l] those wacky marketers

body:
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/09/wikipedia_adver.html

I've removed almost all external links from the article in question
(see talk page) and suggest a few people keep an eye on the article.
And for any other interesting Google search results.

- d.


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> It'll come, it'll come. Dumping everything onto disk scans in the
> first instance. Just under two years doubling time. You won't be
> *able* to buy a disk smaller than a petabyte in twenty years.

Who is going to do the physical scanning?

Another issues is OS maps over 50 years old. All public domain but a
pain to scan. It would be nice if the UK branch of wikimedia could do
something but I doubt we could get hold of the equipment.

--
geni


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
For a fork to really *take over* it would have to be multilingual and
I doubt we'll see any fork in the nearest future that will start with
even all of the major Wikipedia languages.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Luiz Augusto

body:
On 9/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/09/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Trying to make the Board literally representative of all languages or
> > cultures is trying the impossible. However, making the ability to
> > speak English no longer a requirement to participate in Foundation
> > matters, _is_ possible. And perhaps, as part of that process, it will
> > even become possible for a person who does not speak English to be
> > elected to the Board.
>
>
> ... I'm not sure this objective as stated makes sense for the moment.
> The Board is of a US-based nonprofit and must deal with matters of
> legal consequence in English, the language of local jurisprudence.

Non-english users need to have access for at least read decisions made by
that "US-based nonprofit". This is very simple.


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Global Text Project

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>The real purpose, for example, that the OLPC folks don't want to deal
>>>with EU or American states is because the laptop component
>>>manufacturer's that are offering price breaks for the OLPC don't want a
>>>competing computer product that would undercut their own sales in the
>>>USA and EU.  If that isn't a political agenda, I don't know what one is.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Hmmm.... so, if a manufacturer is willing offer a donation in the form
>>of a price break, so long as the product is sent somewhere else, then
>>the OLPC should just give up and walk away?  I don't really understand
>>this perspective.
>>
>
> We do this all of the time with Wikimedia projects, where good and
> worthy contributions are turned away due to licensing conflicts.  We
> just turned a substantial body of work away from Wikibooks because we
> couldn't get copyright clearance due to a non-commercial use only
> license, to use an example.  I could cite other significant examples,
> but sometimes you need to identify what the goal could be and make sure
> you havn't made too many compromises early on that would limit your true
> potential.  BTW, I think selecting the GFDL as the target license for
> Wikipedia was an incredibly fortunate accident by you Jimbo, and
> something that has ultimately set the tone of all Wikimedia projects.
>
> In the case of the OLPC folks, I think they are limiting themselves and
> their vision of what could be accomplished, and limiting the potential
> market of those who might both need and be able to pay for these
> laptops.  They are also significantly restricting their development
> community, as even software developers who would create content specific
> for the OLPC won't have access to the equipment unless they obtain them
> somehow from 3rd world governments directly.  I could cite numerous
> issues that would come up trying to develop software for the OLPC, but
> having actual working hardware makes the job of a software developer
> significantly easier.  That people are willing to put in effort in spite
> of these problems is more a testament to the volunteers than the OLPC
> organizers.
>
> The proposed distribution system for these laptops is something that
> seems so prone to typical 3rd world graft and corruption that I don't
> know how realistically these computers can get into the hands of
> ordinary people of these countries except accidentally.  You can't even
> move a shipping container of wheat or rice to these countries without
> substantial quantities being diverted away from litterally starving
> people and into the hands of multi-billionaires who stash all of their
> money in Switzerland.  Why would electronic components be any different?
>
> At least with Wikipedia, Donald Trump has just as much utility to the
> content that I do.
>

Their proposed system is to address themselves directly to governments.
They will apparently not follow any other distribution mean.

This implies that negociation only occurs between olpc team (well,
Negroponte I presume) and national government. Once the deal is cut, the
entire country is considered. Not specifically poor children, but all
children (again, this is what I understood). So, Walmart distribution is
unlikely... I would not imagine the US government getting involved in this.

I am actually quite confident all kids will get the computer at some
point (quite confident as well as the deal involves some nice financial
opportunities - otherwise, sponsors of the project would not be sponsors
otherwise - Google, ebay, AMD, Newscap, Brightstarn IADB, Marwell,
Nortel, RedHat, 3M, Chi Mei, Quanta, UN, SatelliteTBA... are not only
being doing that for the heart...).

However, given the exchanges between borders over there, I just wonder
how long it will take for the kid to exchange his own laptop with
another kid in the bordering country.

When I was in Algeria, I was always amazed to see what was happening
when you gave a pen to a little kid. Within minutes, a group of older
children was jumping on him and picking up the pen. And the crying baby
was back to us asking for another pen. Which would be stolen a few
minutes later. Older kids can then set up a business with kids from the
next country.

Best to give the pen to the schoolteacher. Her job to ensure little ones
have pens somehow.

This is not only about Africa, this is true in all schools. How many
times did my own kids come back telling me someone stole their rubber ?
You drop the issue till what is missing is the leather jacket :-)

All the kids in Nigeria will maybe get a laptop, but it is to be
expected that kids in nearby countries will find themselves with one
very quickly :-)

ant


from_name: Carl Peterson

body:
On 9/21/06, adam <underthechair at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > If you could pick an FA in another language and port it to the best
> > English-language article you can, and let us know what sort of numbers
> > of hours this takes, that would be most useful to know.
> >
> > (and, as Danny says, it beats arguing about people, process or policy)
> I translated an Italian featured article ([[Carlo Airoldi]]) earlier
> this year. It was short (only about 600 words) and it took probably
> about two or three hours. I have very little experience as a translator,
> though, and i think it could be done much quicker by a better Italian
> speaker with more experience of translation. The article in question
> would never have been featured on en, since it had no inline references
> and I wouldn't have even called it NPOV, which illustrated the problems
> with this sort of approach.

That thought occurred to me as well. As each language is allowed to set its
own standards, an FA in one language may not be an FA in another. Assuming
that the development of the criteria in each language is roughly equivalent
to that of en (and from what I've seen, that's the case, given the
proportion of articles to featured articles), the strictness of each
language's FA criteria is proportional to the number of articles it has.
Thus, it is logical to assume that en has the strictest FA requirements,
having more articles than any other language. That said, the French criteria
appear to be essentially a translation of the English criteria. The German
FA process doesn't seem to have a set criteria in the concise sense of en,
but instead seems to be based on a general article about considerations
while writing an article.

Furthermore, as "brilliant prose" tends to be one of the main sticking
points on an FAC in my experience (next to the use of in-line refs), what
may be "brilliant prose" in one language may not be so in another language,
either because of writing convention (cultural or otherwise), assumption of
technical expertise, or the fact that an article in language X just doesn't
read well when translated to language Y.

Carl


body:
i wasn't so much interested in how is this possible, of course there are
many ways explaining this.

i am primarirly intereseted in raising the question as to how to overcome
this "cultural issue", as anthere rightly called it. with my final sentence
"it is my conviction that for the future, more than "just" translations for
elections (i take them as an example of a bigger thing to consider here) are
mandatory to evercome this *gap in culture*. (a point of attention for the
board retreat imho)" i addressed this very issue.

this is not only about the elections, but a larger issue!

not: how can this be explained?
but: what can we do about it lest the gap grows larger?

oscar

On 9/21/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Angela wrote:
> > On 9/21/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>yesterday a friend of mine gave me this (script-generated) counting of
> votes
> >>cast over the languages in the various projects so far
> >
> >
> > I think this partly reflects the number of candidates per language. I
> > remember checking this for the earlier elections and seeing that a
> > candidate in a language increased the number of voters above what
> > you'd expect if the number of votes had any relation to the number of
> > editors. It's to be expected that people be more interested in voting
> > if they know at least one candidate, even if they don't want to vote
> > for that candidate.
> >
> > The top 6 are the 6 with candidates who speak that language:
> >
> > english - 1003 (10 candidates)
> > german - 320  (2 candidates)
> > french - 124 (1 candidate)
> > dutch - 101 (1 candidate)
> > spanish - 89 (1 candidate)
> > finnish - 52 (1 candidate)
> >
> >
> > Angela
>
> For reference for the (relatively) new comers
>
> Here is a graph for participation in 2004:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Election_participation2.png
>
> Note, there was a chinese candidate): 11 votes
>
> Same in 2005 :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_results_2005/statistics
>
> Note, there were 89 votes from french speaking project in 2004 (compare
> to figures this year. The community increased greatly in two years, but
> votes are hardly more numerous. Hmmm, well, actually, I believe most
> french editors do not know the french candidate :-)
>
> fr: ~89 (2004) - 106 (2005) - 124 (2006)
> en: ~238 (2004) - 726 (2005) - 1003 (2006)
> ja: ~18 (2004) - 19 (2005) - 38 (2006)
>
> Japanese lack of participation was also noted last year and we got some
> explanation from Aphaia. Apparently, it is not only lack of knowledge of
> candidate, lack of ja candidate, but also a cultural issue.
>
> Kuddos for the turkish !!!
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Last two days of the election

body:
On 9/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/20/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Since tommorow the voting ends, I wanted to remind everyone to cast
> > your vote, if you still haven't done so. I hope we'll be able to
> > announce the final results next week.
> If you have accounts on multiple wikis, consider to make it clear on
> your user page on the project you are most active, where you may have
> voted. Also if your user name are different from project to project,
> please inform the community on your user page. It will help both you
> and us to avoid being worried with unnecessare doubt if you are
> someone's sockpuppet or not.

question: will there also be any checking of ip's of the voters to see if
users sockpuppeted under varying names in different projects?
(shouldn't be too difficult, or?)

oscar


body:
On 21/09/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Above all: Do not ease the requirements of the featured articles, just to
> have more of them.

There's a question of the FAC process on en:, though - it's
deliberately raised its requirements with time because the regulars
want to keep it special, for the very best of the best. e.g. articles
are seriously nominated for defeaturing for reasons such as not
fitting current FAC referencing fashions. Which is fine for them, but
less than useful for any comparison of how we're doing.

The listed feature article criteria haven't changed.

- d.


body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> Wikipedians are para-academic para-journalists with the
> completely wild idea that 'policy' can adequately constrain
> and define a 'generic' research method, to the point that
> it produces material of actual value.

Perhaps we are in agreement in this point. I'd consider the
idea, that giving sources for every single sentence fragment
is a cure-all, to be overly optimistic. It can result in
featured articles and it can result in something like [[List
of groups referred to as cults]].

But maybe my idea of an encyclopedia is rather restricted --
at least it is on the safe side: our articles should be
concise versions of results found elsewhere (and by "found"
I don't mean "scraped together"). Does there really exist a
scholarly treatment of "Mormonism and Judaism", or is our
article the only one?

Regards,
Peter
[[User:Pjacobi]]

--
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body:
On 9/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/09/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Non-english users need to have access for at least read decisions made
> by
> > that "US-based nonprofit". This is very simple.
>
>
> I'm not questioning that; I'm questioning that the goal of having a
> board member not need to speak English at all makes any sense at
> present. Please reread what I responded to.

My inbox was hidded the previous quoted text and I didn't observed it
(feature running as bug...). Sorry.