subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Delirium wrote:
> So, I don't see what can really be done about
> that.  I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and
> other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone,
> sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them.
> Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how
> that's likely to change.

That is a very strange interpretation of recent events, to be honest
with you.  The committees did not spring "from nowhere" but are, as you
may want to notice, creations of, by, and for the community.  The
lawyers are not robots, they are community members.  When I turn to
someone like Michael Snow or Brad Patrick or Jean-Baptiste Souffron for
help with legal issues, I frankly think it is a deep insult to them for
you to suggest that they are not members of the community.

> In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization.  I don't
> require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations

Do you have any idea how the FSF is run?  It is not a community
organization at all.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


list: wikien-l

from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia

body:
On Mon, 29 May 2006 00:21:04 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>The main problem I can see is the unbalance between
>the user rights and admin privileges.

And the main problem as I see it is people who come along with an
agenda and act like spoiled children when their attempts to push that
agenda are thwarted, often driving away excellent editors in the
process.  YMMV.

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


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy
> that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations.

And Erik wonders why I felt that he misrepresented my views in that meeting.

The main beef that I had with Erik in that log was that he represented
to the people there, that I felt that we should not recruit for the
executive director position from within the community.  That was
shocking to me, because I am strongly committed to our deep community
roots and deep community focus.

I think a lot of people feel that the foundation is opaque because they
choose to not get involve, choose not to attend meetings, choose not to
create or get involved in the delegation of responsibilities from the
board into the community and chapters.  I understand why people don't
want to get involved, but it is really an insult to the dozens of people
who are getting involved, from the community, as volunteers, to suggest
that somehow they are not really the community.

If there are specific areas where you think the foundation could be more
transparent, tell me.  Seriously.  Tell me, and I will act, because I
think that transparency and community are absolutely the very philosophy
that made Wikipedia a success, and I will say to anyone who is opposed
to those things that they will not succeed in changing my mind.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Birgitte SB wrote:
> Without knowing the full history, or many details at
> all, I can understand both sides of this.

Well, please know that at least some people may have a different
understanding than others what the direction of the foundation is.  If
there is an idea that the foundation is pushing to become less community
oriented, while the volunteers are resisting this, then I totally and
completely reject this in every possible way.

The Foundation is committed, and I speak here confidently based on the
statements of ALL board members and virtually everyone who is seriously
involved in "organizational" work, including committees and chapters...
there is overwhelming support from all these quarters for Wikimedia
remaining community based and extending our community model in
innovative ways.

Recently I heard about a big argument in the German Wikipedia about the
Verein... and honestly it sounded to me like the same story all over
again.  People who are very good volunteers but who prefer, for good
reasons, to spend their time editing, may not always properly appreciate
the work of other volunteers who become more involved in organizational
work.

> That said it is much easier to get things done when
> they are kept closed.

Usually not, actually.  There are a very few cases where this is true,
and of course there are cases where some information has to be handled
discreetly as a matter of professionalism.

But for the most part, we have found that amazing things happen when
there is openness, transparency, accountability, and a love and passion
for our mission.

If anyone is afraid that the Foundation is going to become a
bureaucratic and inefficient organization which is unresponsive to
volunteers, let me say: over my dead body.  (And remember: the areas in
which the foundation has been inefficient and unresponsive it has been
precisely because we have not had enough people involved, which is
precisely why we have decided as a board to follow a strategy of
delegation into the community, rather than closing up.)

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/3/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:

> People could fax their diploma or some such. It doesn't seem like a
> huge deal to me. Personally I'd just like to see some '''informed'''
> party with the final say (i.e. not a random, non-expert admin or
> arbiter).

And if there's a technical area where the experts have a disagreement, and
the one who shows up first happens to be strongly biased in one direction or
the other?

What about fields where the number of experts are either tiny, or they are
for various reasons grossly unlikely to ever contribute to Wikipedia?

What does it say to people who are jacks-of-many-trades if you institute a
policy which says that only a degree is valid qualification, and that it
doesn't matter how many fields you may publish in, work professionally in,
have patents in, only the ones on your degree matter for WP?

This suggestion seems likely to seriously curb a lot of otherwise qualified
involvement.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthere wrote:
> It is nice to see how quickly you would like to get rid of the community
> representatives :-) Don't worry, there is a chance that happen.

I am not sure what Anthere was trying to say, but I would say "Don't
worry, there is NO chance that will happen."

> Perhaps... I must clarify something here. I think that legally speaking,
> the decision to expand the board is not in the sole hands of Jimbo. It
> is a decision which should be made by the board. In short, if 4 members
> vote expanding the board and Jimbo votes against, expansion will occur.

But of course, I have been a long and loud advocate for board expansion.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Preferably as an additional member, but if
> Jimbo's control issues won't allow the board to expand then maybe Ant
> or Angela would be willing to step down (we could give her some sort
> of new title like "Volunteer advocate" and an advisory position).

Anthony, please stop trolling.  I am at the forefront of advocating
board expansion, so you have a hell of a nerve accusing me of "control
issues".

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Austin Hair wrote:
> What's important is that the system, which is still very new and
> working itself out, is an improvement over relying on the overtaxed
> Board to micromanage WMF operations.

And, it should be strongly pointed out: the committee system is a
*community* system, driven by volunteers, staffed by volunteers, and the
committees and the chapters make up the heart and soul of Wikimedia.

People who are claiming an increased opaqueness need to take another
look, because the true trend is in exactly the opposite direction:
radical decentralization into the community.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/3/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > Is there an archive somewhere of all the historical board votes?  I'd
> > be interested in seeing it.
> >
> > Overall, it's really hard to find information about what it is the
> > board and its members have been doing.
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions
>
> Watching that wiki, and reading Wikizine ( http://cur.wikizine.org/ )
> are two good ways of keeping up with the Board's actions. Suggestions
> on how to improve communications are very welcome.
>
> Angela

I'm trying to think of a major thing that I can suggest, rather than
nitpicking minor details.  Overall, wikimediafoundation.org is very
outdated.  Even just looking at the front page the quarterly reports
contain nothing from the current year (5 months into it), the projects
section starts with a red link, the second feature talks about the
Quarto which is a project which was abandoned over a year ago.

One of the higher pageranked pages is
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings, which contains no
information about meetings in 2006.  One of the meetings I stubled
across, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/October_22%2C_2004,
talks about changing membership from opt-out to opt-in.  This doesn't
seem to have been implemented, and I'm not actually sure whether or
not I'm even a member.  http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws
points to http://wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf, which seems to be
the original bylaws from 2003 (which have apparently changed).
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws is
another version, which seems to have been updated, but it doesn't seem
to have taken all resolutions into account (besides the opt-in/opt-out
one, I remember reading from you or Ant that the notion of "Member
Representative to the Board of Trustees" had been dropped).
(Interestingly, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia
points to *both* versions.)

Anyway, thanks for the links.  I guess my "suggestions" were somewhat
nitpicky.  But I do think it's pretty important that people know a)
whether or not they're actually a member of Wikimedia and b) what the
bylaws of the foundation are.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML normalization, transclusions, nesting

body:
On 6/3/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> It is very convient to be able to create templates that start tables with
> a lot of predefiened markup, so users can just say:
>
> {{start-table-for-specific-purpose-foo}}
>
> instead of creatig manually bordersizes etc. It also makes mass-changing
> tables easier.

Is it possible to use templates that instead have the form {{table for
specific purpose|all the HTML code for the guts of the table}}?

ie:

{{cool table|
first cell	second cell
}}

Having templates that "open" some HTML code and then others that
"close" it is inherently contradictory to the goal of always producing
well formed HTML.

Another case to look at is {{col-begin}} {{col-break}} etc...

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Geo meta tags on wiki pages

body:
On 6/3/06, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org> wrote:
> And the {{city infoboxes}} aren't a usability improvement at all. Their
> syntax is even worse. And of course we could put all the information
> into city infoboxes, but then we could stop writing articles and just
> create tables. There is more information about a city then the infobox.
> [[discovered by::Columbus]], [[founded by::Caesar]], [[conquered
> by::William II.]], ...

Can you explain the goals of "semantic markup" a bit further, so I can
give a meaningful reply?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFC needs your help!

body:
On 6/3/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> > The few people who work at "Articles For Creation" are getting
> > overworked.
>
> Isn't that a clear hint that AfC shouldn't exist, and that unregistered
> users should be able to create articles again?

No. As the others have pointed out, the dross rate is very high, and
"not creating" crappy articles is much less work than deleting crappy
articles. However, massaging newbie egos and creating the few
salvageable articles does take a bit of work, and isn't that
rewarding, as most newbies never seem to come back again... (which
begs the question...)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

body:
On 6/3/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> However, four different viewpoints of the Wikipedia have emerged recently:
>
>   - It is an encyclopedia with a community
>   - It is a community with an encyclopedia
>   - It is an encyclopedia
>   - It is a community

Interesting. The dichotomy I most often see, that people have trouble
deciding on, is :

- Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia
- Wikipedia is a project to create an encyclopaedia

It's probably more of a naming thing than anything else, but it does
imply a point of view on whether the encyclopaedia has actually been
created yet. Is the online version of Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, or
is it a peek into a work in progress?

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
On 6/3/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> You're wrong. Most (United States of) Americans on Wikipedia aren't
> Christians.

The majority of Americans are fundamentalist christians. The greater
majority are christians of any denomination. It would be interesting
to know why christians are underrepresented at Wikipedia, if indeed
that is the case.

Steve


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I'm trying to think of a major thing that I can suggest, rather than
> nitpicking minor details.  Overall, wikimediafoundation.org is very
> outdated.  Even just looking at the front page the quarterly reports
> contain nothing from the current year (5 months into it), the projects
> section starts with a red link, the second feature talks about the
> Quarto which is a project which was abandoned over a year ago.

I just removed some older links.  New reports are definitely overdue.
It is true the content of the wmf wiki needs tending and updating; and
description pages should be rewritten so that the datable content is
easier to catch and update as numbers and statistics change.  Perhaps the
communications committee can help keep the site better updated now that it
has been tasked with keeping up with requests for accounts to edit the
site.

> One of the higher pageranked pages is
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings, which contains no
> information about meetings in 2006.  One of the meetings I stubled
> across, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/October_22%2C_2004,
> talks about changing membership from opt-out to opt-in.  This doesn't

Tracking the current status of various foundation initiatives, including
bylaws and membership updates, is a good idea and not a nitpick.  There
are some significant projects that get very little mention on the wmf
site.

[[Our projects]] focuses on statistics and links, and does not include
much of the well-written text in the Wikipedia articles about the
projects; each project is perhaps central enough to the foundation's
work to have its own page on the foundation site.  Ditto for major
subprojects such as Wikijunior.

The effort to produce a board manual (on meta) was a good start at
organizing other useful content that could be on the foundation site.

> (Interestingly, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia
> points to *both* versions.)

The [[w:Wikimedia]], [[meta:Wikimedia]] and [[foundation:About
Wikimedia]] pages should share much more content than they currently do.

> nitpicky.  But I do think it's pretty important that people know a)
> whether or not they're actually a member of Wikimedia and b) what the
> bylaws of the foundation are.

Right.  The former requires some definition of terms that I'm not sure yet
exists.  Setting up opt-in membership would be a fine idea, and could be
done without requiring payment for same..

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Brock Batsell

subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 7:16 PM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I agree that the Wikimedia Foundation can have no position on such an
>> issue.  We are neutral, politically.
>
> Well, the more recent of the bills, H.R.5417, is a bi-partisan bill.
> So it's not 'really' that huge of a "political" issue. It's probably
> more of a business (or government intervention into thereof) issue.
> And I wasn't really looking for a "support" or "oppose" statement,
> rather a statement that WMF was aware or discussed this and of any
> possible impact, etc.  But if what Delirium and Kelly say is correct
> (that it won't have any effect), I guess it's understandable. Thanks.
> --LV

It's a political issue, just not a partisan one.

bbatsell
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subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 7:16 PM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I agree that the Wikimedia Foundation can have no position on such an
>> issue.  We are neutral, politically.
>
> Well, the more recent of the bills, H.R.5417, is a bi-partisan bill.
> So it's not 'really' that huge of a "political" issue. It's probably
> more of a business (or government intervention into thereof) issue.
> And I wasn't really looking for a "support" or "oppose" statement,
> rather a statement that WMF was aware or discussed this and of any
> possible impact, etc.  But if what Delirium and Kelly say is correct
> (that it won't have any effect), I guess it's understandable. Thanks.
> --LV

It's a political issue, just not a partisan one.

bbatsell
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subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 7:16 PM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I agree that the Wikimedia Foundation can have no position on such an
>> issue.  We are neutral, politically.
>
> Well, the more recent of the bills, H.R.5417, is a bi-partisan bill.
> So it's not 'really' that huge of a "political" issue. It's probably
> more of a business (or government intervention into thereof) issue.
> And I wasn't really looking for a "support" or "oppose" statement,
> rather a statement that WMF was aware or discussed this and of any
> possible impact, etc.  But if what Delirium and Kelly say is correct
> (that it won't have any effect), I guess it's understandable. Thanks.
> --LV

It's a political issue, just not a partisan one.

bbatsell
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subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 7:16 PM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I agree that the Wikimedia Foundation can have no position on such an
>> issue.  We are neutral, politically.
>
> Well, the more recent of the bills, H.R.5417, is a bi-partisan bill.
> So it's not 'really' that huge of a "political" issue. It's probably
> more of a business (or government intervention into thereof) issue.
> And I wasn't really looking for a "support" or "oppose" statement,
> rather a statement that WMF was aware or discussed this and of any
> possible impact, etc.  But if what Delirium and Kelly say is correct
> (that it won't have any effect), I guess it's understandable. Thanks.
> --LV

It's a political issue, just not a partisan one.

bbatsell
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] squeaky wheels (was:To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven
	death of Wikipedia)

body:
On 6/3/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> I suggest that we should also keep in mind the effects of combatitive users on
> mainspace-only editors and newbies.
>
>          Jkelly

Do mainspace-only editors and newbies even *know* about combatitive
users?  I guess they know about the ones that leave the (usually
generic and often inapplicable) messages on their talk page, but other
than that, I don't think they know or care.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Types of categories

body:
I'm probably not the only one who envisages all the wonderful things
that could be done with this massive collection of information that is
Wikipedia, *if only* we could do something clever with the categories.
And then you realise that you can't really do anything clever because
"category" has all sorts of different meanings to different people.

So far I have identified four rough types of categories. I'll invent
the notion a(X) to mean that article X is in category a. a(b(X)) means
that a is a subcategory of b, and X is in b.

Taxonomies: Tend to end in "s" and satisfy the rule that "If a(X) then
X is an a") is a logical sentence. Tend to form strict hierarchies,
where if a(X) and b(a), then it's perfectly natural and normal that
b(a(X)). Eg, Bridges in France is a subcat of Bridges, and every entry
in "bridges in France" is definitely a Bridge.  It's rare for an
article to be in more than two taxonomic categories at once.

Themes: Tend not to be plurals, and tend not to form strict
hierarchies. Often it is the case that b looks like it belongs in a,
but then a(b(X)) is nonsense for certain X. Eg, Paris might be in
European cities, and the film Amelie might be in Paris, but it's silly
to say that Amelie is in European cities. (or many worse examples)

Attributes: The category exists to denote some very specific small
detail of a subject, such that it would be conceivable to have dozens
or more such categories on an article. Examples: 1943 deaths, Living
persons, Winners of Nobel Peace Prize, etc. These tend to hierarchies
that start strict then end up fuzzy. Eg, 1943 deaths is only in 1943
and "1940s deaths", and these have parent categories of
"1940s","Years" and so forth, eventually ending up in "History",
whereupon things become chaos.

Meta-attributes: These are categories about *articles* rather than
article subjects. The most common examples are stubs ("France
geography stubs"), sources ("1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica") and
disputes of various kinds ("Articles lacking sources").

To me, these types of categories are all fairly incompatible, and
really get in the way of using categories to do anything useful. It's
pointless trying to draw tree structures when you have attributes and
meta-attributes involved, for example.

So my questions are these:
*Can anyone think of other types of categories I might have missed?
*How could Wikipedia be better if this general problem was addressed?
*How could this problem be addressed?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

body:
On 6/3/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > It's probably more of a naming thing than anything else, but it does
> > imply a point of view on whether the encyclopaedia has actually been
> > created yet. Is the online version of Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, or
> > is it a peek into a work in progress?
> >
>
> The principle of the Wikipedia is that it's a work in progress, surely?

A perpetual work in progress? Do we never want to deliver a "complete"
first version?

Steve


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Anthony wrote:
>On 6/3/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>> I suggest that we should also keep in mind the effects of combatitive
>> users on mainspace-only editors and newbies.
>
> Do mainspace-only editors and newbies even *know* about combatitive
> users?

If they're trying to edit the same article as a combative user,
they do.


from_name: Ian Woollard

body:
On 03/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> The majority of Americans are fundamentalist christians. The greater
> majority are christians of any denomination. It would be interesting
> to know why christians are underrepresented at Wikipedia, if indeed
> that is the case.

I don't find that interesting, either way. If it mattered, there would
be a violation of NPOV somewhere, guaranteed. The Wikipedia is
actually neither religious nor American.

> Steve

--
-Ian Woollard

"Gravity is just a theory. We shouldn't be teaching it to children as
if were fact."


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/3/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The proposed arbitration remedy is very limited, reflecting the fact
> that the vast majority of your work on Wikipedia is both useful and
> welcome. Probation permits an administrator to ban you from an
> article which you disrupt by tendentious editing. It may only be
> applied in cases where that is what you are doing. Clearly, in a few
> articles you have done so.
>
> If you had been elected to the arbitration committee you would no
> doubt have found probation useful yourself. It permits action in only
> the articles which the user has disrupted without interfering with
> their other activity. I know it is hard to accept, but a case like
> yours is why it was created, to give some middle ground between a
> total ban and having to endlessly put up with disruption and edit
> warring.
>
> Fred

It is not a middle ground, it is an unacceptable insult to my character.

A middle ground would have been to talk to me. A middle ground would
have been to acknowledge that I have already agreed to stop edit
warring, and that a good faith effort at compromise was never made by
my complaintents, Bishonen in particular (who refused to talk to me,
deleting a thread on her talk page prior to the arbitration).

Have you seen this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Sam_Spade#Sam_Spade_gives_it_a_try

Read the last statement in the thread, made by myself. Is permanant
probation (or even arbitration) acceptable in such a case? What is the
purpose of it, if not to drive me off? How are you doing what is best
for the project?

SS


body:
On 6/3/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> >On 6/3/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >> I suggest that we should also keep in mind the effects of combatitive
> >> users on mainspace-only editors and newbies.
> >
> > Do mainspace-only editors and newbies even *know* about combatitive
> > users?
>
> If they're trying to edit the same article as a combative user,
> they do.

Only if they check back regularly to see whether or not their change
has stuck, and happen to check back one of the times it hasn't (I
suppose some "mainspace-only editors" might do that).

Anthony


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I agree that the Wikimedia Foundation can have no position on such an
> issue.  We are neutral, politically.

Well, the more recent of the bills, H.R.5417, is a bi-partisan bill.
So it's not 'really' that huge of a "political" issue. It's probably
more of a business (or government intervention into thereof) issue.
And I wasn't really looking for a "support" or "oppose" statement,
rather a statement that WMF was aware or discussed this and of any
possible impact, etc.  But if what Delirium and Kelly say is correct
(that it won't have any effect), I guess it's understandable. Thanks.
--LV


subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Delirium

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] GFDL compliance is hard [was Re:
 blatant	state-sponsored copyright violations (by Baide Baiku of the PRC)]

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> In any case, the letter probably shouldn't state
>> "you're OK if you do *this*" but rather "you're not OK if you don't do
>> *this*".
>>
>>
> Actually, I sort of misspoke.  It'd be *better* if the Wikimedia
> Foundation came up with a set of simple, concrete steps which would
> allow for GFDL compliance.
>
> But this is unlikely to happen for two reasons - the GFDL is not easy
> to comply with, and Wikipedia is set up in a way which makes GFDL
> compliance even more difficult.
>

Well, we do have some working guidelines here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Users.27_rights_and_obligations

Those are the ones usually used when determining the category in which
to list Wikipedia mirrors and forks under
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/GFDL_Compliance
(and similarly to whom to send letters requesting compliance).

Whether these steps are precisely equivalent to following the GFDL is
another matter, but they're something of a consensus opinion on what
we'd like our downstream users to do.  That is, if people follow those
criteria, the vast majority of Wikimedians/Wikipedians will be
satisfied, and the downstream user will get listed in the nice
green-colored category.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
OK, done.

SS

On 6/3/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> On Jun 3, 2006, at 12:03 PM, Sam Spade wrote:
>
> > On 6/3/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> >
> >> The proposed arbitration remedy is very limited, reflecting the fact
> >> that the vast majority of your work on Wikipedia is both useful and
> >> welcome. Probation permits an administrator to ban you from an
> >> article which you disrupt by tendentious editing. It may only be
> >> applied in cases where that is what you are doing. Clearly, in a few
> >> articles you have done so.
> >>
> >> If you had been elected to the arbitration committee you would no
> >> doubt have found probation useful yourself. It permits action in only
> >> the articles which the user has disrupted without interfering with
> >> their other activity. I know it is hard to accept, but a case like
> >> yours is why it was created, to give some middle ground between a
> >> total ban and having to endlessly put up with disruption and edit
> >> warring.
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >
> > It is not a middle ground, it is an unacceptable insult to my
> > character.
> >
> > A middle ground would have been to talk to me. A middle ground would
> > have been to acknowledge that I have already agreed to stop edit
> > warring, and that a good faith effort at compromise was never made by
> > my complaintents, Bishonen in particular (who refused to talk to me,
> > deleting a thread on her talk page prior to the arbitration).
> >
> > Have you seen this:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/
> > Sam_Spade#Sam_Spade_gives_it_a_try
> >
> > Read the last statement in the thread, made by myself. Is permanant
> > probation (or even arbitration) acceptable in such a case? What is the
> > purpose of it, if not to drive me off? How are you doing what is best
> > for the project?
> >
> > SS
> >
>
> My main plan is to avoid conflict, as it seems less than worthwhile
> for me. What else would you like me to do?
>
> That should do it.
>
> Fred
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Preferably as an additional member, but if
> > Jimbo's control issues won't allow the board to expand then maybe Ant
> > or Angela would be willing to step down (we could give her some sort
> > of new title like "Volunteer advocate" and an advisory position).
>
> Anthony, please stop trolling.  I am at the forefront of advocating
> board expansion, so you have a hell of a nerve accusing me of "control
> issues".
>
> --Jimbo
>
You're the one who set up the board such that you and your Bomis
partners permanently control 3/5 of the votes.  If you're at the
forefront of advocating board expansion, you certainly haven't been
doing so very loudly.  And I wonder who it is that's against it.

Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
"failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?

Since this is such a "transparent organization", I suppose I won't
wonder these things too long.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
> My main plan is to avoid conflict, as it seems less than worthwhile
> for me. What else would you like me to do?
>
> That should do it.
>
> Fred

On 6/3/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> OK, done.
>
> SS

Now that we've got that out of the way, how about that process of
competant peer review I was asking for? I'd like to help create an
encyclopedia, not a netfriends community where I can be a second class
member due to historical personality conflict.

SS


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request - Critique on administrators is no
	personal attack

body:
On Sat, 27 May 2006 13:29:58 -0600, you wrote:

>If you raise enough hell you can get in a mess even when you are
>right. Next time just express your opinion and let it go if folks
>don't agree.

I thought that was what we said last time?

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Recently I heard about a big argument in the German Wikipedia about the
> Verein... and honestly it sounded to me like the same story all over
> again.  People who are very good volunteers but who prefer, for good
> reasons, to spend their time editing, may not always properly appreciate
> the work of other volunteers who become more involved in organizational
> work.
>

Part of the problem from my perspective is that it feels like you need
to make the transition to meta-level time committment to have any say in
how things are run.  But even keeping up with the public mailing lists
is a significant time commitment---I'm the most "meta-involved" by far
of the Wikipedians I know in real life, and I'm only moderately involved
compared to many folks.  I don't think that people who prefer to spend
most of their time editing the encyclopedia, developing its policies,
resolving article, disputes, etc.---the people intimately familiar with
the workings of our main reason for being here---should be cut off from
knowledge of and a say in what's going on at "higher levels".  Important
issues should be announced ahead of time to the community at large;
comments should be solicited and taken into account before final
decisions are made; and in very important cases even referendum-type
votes (or at least straw polls) should be taken.

At the very least things should be routinely discussed on the
publicly-accessible mailing lists, and ideally important things should
be announced on the relevant wikis (i.e. Village-Pump type places) early
enough to give non-mailing-list folk a chance to weigh in.

In short: Most people have neither the time nor inclination to get
involved in meta-level activities that require a time committment.  This
is particularly true of some of the types of people I think we'd like to
have more of, like professors.  So if the Foundation is to represent a
movement that includes those people, they need to continually be kept in
the loop and repeatedly brought back into the debate.  A professor who
edits Wikipedia in his spare time is probably not going to also read a
dozen mailing lists, show up to IRC meetings, and volunteer to serve on
committees, but could still be kept in the loop.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Types of categories

body:
On 6/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> What you're saying makes sense, but does not currently have consensus.
> Implementing it therefore sounds like a bad idea bound to cause upset.

I suspect that simply no real discussion of this has taken place yet.

-Matt


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oddball question

body:
Found a few more.

Fred

On Jun 3, 2006, at 8:38 PM, John Lyden wrote:

> I recently indef-banned another sock of ENorcross (See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> 27_noticeboard/Incidents#Indef_ban_of_Almost_Famous
> at AN/I) and requested a checkuser. Eric has decided (in addition to
> posting personal information to my talk page in a...somewhat
> threatening manner, see its deletion log) to correspond with me
> through myspace. In addition to a message he sent me at 4:16AM EDT
> saying that "wikipedia has you whipped, boy", he sent the following
> via myspace:
>
> "Subject: User: Investigation Request
> Body:     In a last ditch effort to make peace I've decided to give
> you
> all of my alias's.
>
> ericnorcross
> almostfamous
> sevenlinefeatures
> katherinejohnson
> nicole lyn
> finding a solution (heh, I noticed all history of the contributions
> have disappeared... interesting.)
> econrad
> and of course that IP you posted on the request for check user pages.
>
> I'm prepared to make a peace offering, that is of course, unless
> you're willing to accept it. "
>
> With the exception that econrad is the user he previously threatened
> and started the most recent conflict with.
>
> Would it be a waste of time to throw this up at Arb as well?
>
> -Ras
>
> --
> John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
> "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
> live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
> time..." -Kerouac
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

body:
On 6/3/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> In my mind it should always be possible to take everything from the
> article namespace (substituting in all the images and templates),
> throw away everything from all the other namespaces, and be left with
> what could legitimately be called "an encyclopedia".  I think that's a
> good compromise between immediatism and eventualism, though I suppose
> it leans fairly heavily toward immediatism (I favor immediately
> removing unsourced assertions from the article namespace).

Ah, that's interesting. The dichotomy "enyclopaedia"/"project to
create encyclopaedia" is actually very similar to the
immediatist/eventualist political split. If we are merely a project to
produce an encyclopedia one day, then there's no real harm in having
inaccurate information now. If we are an encyclopedia now, then every
page must always be in a form we can stand by (to the extent that's
possible to enforce).

Very interesting, thanks.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> Without an over-arching editor who stamps
> "DONE" on it, it will never stop. Since all users get to be that editor, it
> seems unlikely that it will ever truly stabilize. Even relatively obscure
> topics draw new people and editing to them after awhile, and it is usually
> for the better, I think.
>

I agree, but I think we can make things easier for the person who *does*
want something relatively stable, either to read or to print up in
books, without compromising the in-progress nature of the work.

There are already people who can, for certain classes of articles, tell
you what's good and what isn't.  I even know who to ask in some subject
areas.  If I really wanted to make a narrow, say, "Math articles of
Wikipedia" book, I could probably hire 3-4 active Wikipedians to sort
things out for me.

I don't think it would be impossible to have some of that information
maintained in a more organized way.  Basically the questions that needs
to be answered are: 1) Is this article reasonably decent?  2) If no, is
it because it's being rewritten or in flux, and if so is there a
previous version that's decent?

For many articles, the answers are obvious to anyone who is vaguely
familiar with the subject matter, reads the talk page, and skims the
history.  So we somehow need to collect that obvious information and
make it available to readers and downstream reusers.  The specifics are
fairly tricky, though, and I think some software would be required.  I'd
be willing to help out on that, but I don't have the free time or
expertise to design and implement such a system myself (or I would've
done it by now).  Any ideas on how to get something like that jumpstarted?

-Mark


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

body:
On 6/3/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I agree, but I think we can make things easier for the person who *does*
> want something relatively stable, either to read or to print up in
> books, without compromising the in-progress nature of the work.

I agree with this, and think the way it was phrased by Anthony was
good. To say that something is perpetually revisable does not mean it
should always need perpetual revision in order to be useful.

> I don't think it would be impossible to have some of that information
> maintained in a more organized way.  Basically the questions that needs
> to be answered are: 1) Is this article reasonably decent?  2) If no, is
> it because it's being rewritten or in flux, and if so is there a
> previous version that's decent?

We do that already with the FA and the GA and things of that nature. I
think having some sort of semi-formal way to tell when things are
"done enough" to be considered worthwhile without serious further
editing is a great approach to this. I also think the V0.5/CD
templates are good too -- someone put one on [[Albert Einstein]]
awhile ago and it was removed on account of one section being marked
with a cleanup (on account of one ridiculous editor, but I won't get
into that). Though it hasn't yet generated a lot of action, I'm
certainly inspired to use this as reason to iron out that section into
something respectable, because there's no reason that an article with
Featured status should have a section cleanup tag on it for a month on
account of one editor who can't get with the program.

FF


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Angela wrote:
>> Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
>> you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
>> "failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
>> resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?
>
> This hasn't yet been voted on. It doesn't even have a Motion to Vote
> yet. I've no idea why it would be regarded as rejected.

It was just a scratch pad sort of thing, and after some discussion we
realized it was not needed.

It was proposed originally because in the TRON case in Germany, it was
thought that the foundation might need to directly intervene in the
case.  This was ultimately not needed.

In order to intervene in the case, our German lawyer indicated that we
would need to have a very clean set of documents showing that the lawyer
was authorized to act on our behalf, including a clear resolution from
the board about the responsibilities of the President.  So we started
drafting a resolution to help with that, and then it ended up that we
did not need it after all.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Part of the problem from my perspective is that it feels like you need
> to make the transition to meta-level time commitment to have any say in
> how things are run.

Why do you say that?  You have a major say in how things are run,
despite not choosing to get directly involved with most of it.

> I don't think that people who prefer to spend
> most of their time editing the encyclopedia, developing its policies,
> resolving article, disputes, etc.---the people intimately familiar with
> the workings of our main reason for being here---should be cut off from
> knowledge of and a say in what's going on at "higher levels".

I agree completely.  But when we post everything we can publicly, have
open meetings, have community committees, and then people don't read it,
well, I don't agree that this is "being cut off".

In order to be involved you have to, you know, be involved.

>  Important
> issues should be announced ahead of time to the community at large;
> comments should be solicited and taken into account before final
> decisions are made; and in very important cases even referendum-type
> votes (or at least straw polls) should be taken.

This is exactly what we do.

> At the very least things should be routinely discussed on the
> publicly-accessible mailing lists, and ideally important things should
> be announced on the relevant wikis (i.e. Village-Pump type places) early
> enough to give non-mailing-list folk a chance to weigh in.

This is exactly what we do.

Could we do better?  Of course.  But the best thing is that people who
feel as you and I do should get more involved in communicating and
summarizing for others, I suppose.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
>>> you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
>>> "failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
>>> resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?
>> This hasn't yet been voted on. It doesn't even have a Motion to Vote
>> yet. I've no idea why it would be regarded as rejected.
>>
>> Angela.
>
> It's cute calling an organization "transparent" when even the board
> members don't even know whether a resolution has been rejected.

I rest my case.  Anthony is not being serious here, he is trolling.

There is a legitimate question as to what to call a resolution which was
never voted upon, because no one ever made a motion that it be voted on,
because it was in preliminary drafting stages.  Was it rejected?  Was it
never really proposed?  That is what Angela is talking about.

Spinning this into some kind of lack of transparency is just... well, it
is Anthony.  Nonsense.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/3/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
> > you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
> > "failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
> > resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?
>
> This hasn't yet been voted on. It doesn't even have a Motion to Vote
> yet. I've no idea why it would be regarded as rejected.
>
> Angela.

It's cute calling an organization "transparent" when even the board
members don't even know whether a resolution has been rejected.

Jimbo, stop trolling.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
On 6/2/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/06, Nurdan Isik <brightlightning at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >    Hi all,
> >    I would like to report a 'misunderstanding' and ask someone please
> > correct it:
>
> As Freakofnurture said on WP:ANI, Occam's razor would seem to apply here.
>

I also received that message and didn't want to forward as it does
look as you say, however, I think that a concerned post written in
non-hostile language should deserve a respectable reply. ie, a
non-involved party so far running a checkuser on it. Are we really
that dismissive of requests?

Peter Ansell


from_name: John Lyden

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oddball question

body:
I recently indef-banned another sock of ENorcross (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Indef_ban_of_Almost_Famous
at AN/I) and requested a checkuser. Eric has decided (in addition to
posting personal information to my talk page in a...somewhat
threatening manner, see its deletion log) to correspond with me
through myspace. In addition to a message he sent me at 4:16AM EDT
saying that "wikipedia has you whipped, boy", he sent the following
via myspace:

"Subject: User: Investigation Request
Body: 	In a last ditch effort to make peace I've decided to give you
all of my alias's.

ericnorcross
almostfamous
sevenlinefeatures
katherinejohnson
nicole lyn
finding a solution (heh, I noticed all history of the contributions
have disappeared... interesting.)
econrad
and of course that IP you posted on the request for check user pages.

I'm prepared to make a peace offering, that is of course, unless
you're willing to accept it. "

With the exception that econrad is the user he previously threatened
and started the most recent conflict with.

Would it be a waste of time to throw this up at Arb as well?

-Ras

--
John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time..." -Kerouac


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Gavin Chait wrote:
> In response to Anthony and other related posts:
>
>
>>Someone is needed to bootstrap the
>>organization ... I think it's important to make it
>>clear that this isn't a permanent position, though.  In part, because
>>it's dangerous to assign such a position when you really have no clue
>>what the position is
>
>
>>One thing I think is important though is the interim CEO should be
>>made aware that a big part of eir job is going to be explaining eir
>>actions to the entire membership
>
>
> So far the CEO / COO / Director *interim* position can be summarised as
> follows:
>
> "We need help real fast.  We don't know what help we need and would like you
> to tell us.  Please don't ruffle any feathers.  Don't do anything without
> telling everyone in the community.  We'll get back to you about what we
> decide."
>
> So, appointing an *interim* CEO / COO / Director will have a result
> equivalent to not appointing an *interim* CEO / COO / Director.  The core
> problem: "We don't know what to do next and we need help deciding what to
> do," won't have been solved and can't be solved until the board and
> community decide.

Gavin, I really love to read you. I find a lot of insight in what you
say. I appreciate you share your experience with us.
At the same time, I must tell you that if some of what you suggest is
very much "to the point" and will certainly suggest some changes to
bring, in other cases, you are just aside the point.
You are sometimes holding some ideas which are so far from our daily
reality that it is actually funny ;-) The "core" problem you are citing
above is not the core problem.

>>You've given your own suggestions above, but what is the board going
>>to do, say "hey, Gavin Chait said this is how we should do it, so lets
>>go with it"?  I don't think it's going to happen.

No :-)

> Why not?  I have 15 years experience in South Africa developing and running
> non-profit organisations in fields as diverse as HIV / AIDS, education and
> small business development.  I've worked with student-run, university-based
> organisations, corporate funded ones, and institutional versions.  I have
> fund-raised, written proposals, developed ideas and implemented them.  Some
> of my ideas even work.

I am quite certain of that, but before us doing what you suggest doing,
you will need to discover more about the internal life of the
Foundation. Don't get me wrong : I am sure you have a lot to bring. But
you may need to accept that what you are thinking as factual... is maybe
not so factual.

> I'm probably not the only person with this sort of experience on this list
> but I do have some idea of what it takes to run a self-sustaining non-profit
> social benefit organisation.
>
> So why not listen to my suggestions?  They are my opinions, based on my
> experiences.  They are freely and honestly given.  I don't have all the
> answers but I may be able to save you some bother.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/3/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> On Jun 3, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Sam Spade wrote:
>
> > process of
> > competant peer review
>
> Do you have a link to that?
>
> Fred

If your asking where I asked for one, you'd have to scroll up in this
thread. If your asking for  a link about one, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

If your trying to understand what I'm talking about, I'm asking for a
competent process of peer review to resolve the myriad disputes that
brought me before you. That way we could have quality, peer reviewed
articles instead of personality driven conflicts.

If you haven't noticed, I care about article quality, and am in no way
"rogue". The idea that I should be put on "probation" due to having
had annoyed a popular wiki-personality, rather than that the article
disputes in question could use a thorough review astounds me.

Bottom line, is the wikipedia a web-community or an encyclopedia?

If it is an encyclopedia, can we please stop with all these games, and
find a way to resolve content disputes?

If it is a web-community, I have no interest in it, and intend to leave.

Your no judge, I'm no criminal, and the only thing on "probation"
around here is the wikipedia, which I will abstain from editing until
this is resolved to my satisfaction. Either way I sternly recommend
you find a better way to encourage your contributors.

SS


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

body:
Hi Brion,

Thanks for your help, most portal pages are been restored. However, there
are still subpages in some portals on Chinese Wikipedia are missing (for
example, [[Portal:??????????????/????????]]), can you help to check again?

Thanks and best regards,
H.T.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.
org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 3:16 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Portal:Taiwan is missing on Chinese Wikipedia

Hsiang-Tai Chien wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Can someone check what is going wrong on Chinese Wikipedia? "Portal:????"
> now is missing and all the content and the histories for this portal
> is gone.

It appears that someone half-configured a Portal namespace on
zh.wikipedia.org but didn't finish the job, leaving the 48 Portal pages and
one Portal talk page stranded and inaccessible. I've run the fixup script to
mark them correctly in the database, so they are accessible again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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


from_name: Roger Luethi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Types of categories

body:
On Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:54:27 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> I'm probably not the only one who envisages all the wonderful things
> that could be done with this massive collection of information that is
> Wikipedia, *if only* we could do something clever with the categories.
> And then you realise that you can't really do anything clever because
> "category" has all sorts of different meanings to different people.

Agreed. Still: can you give some specific examples of wonderful things that
could be done but are not possible now? That would tell us what problem you
are trying to solve.

> So far I have identified four rough types of categories. I'll invent
> the notion a(X) to mean that article X is in category a. a(b(X)) means
> that a is a subcategory of b, and X is in b.

ITYM "b is a subcategory of a".

> Taxonomies: Tend to end in "s" and satisfy the rule that "If a(X) then
> X is an a") is a logical sentence. Tend to form strict hierarchies,
> where if a(X) and b(a), then it's perfectly natural and normal that
> b(a(X)). Eg, Bridges in France is a subcat of Bridges, and every entry
> in "bridges in France" is definitely a Bridge.  It's rare for an
> article to be in more than two taxonomic categories at once.

"Bridges in France" may not be the best example. "Bridges in France" is
just an intersection of two attributes ("in France", "Bridges"), and their
relative position in a hierarchy is undefined. Hence more than one
hierarchy: You can drill down "France" ... "Buildings and structurces in
France" or "Bridges" ...  "Bridges by country".

Compare with taxons in the classification of species: an actual hierarchy,
and only one path from the top down to any species -- there you are
dividing into subsets (and intersections make no sense).

Categories based on such intersections of attributes are conceptually bad.
Look at the categories for an article like [[Marie Curie]]: She's French
three times, female four times, Polish four times (not counting "Natives of
Warsaw"), etc. Why not create [[Category:Polish women who were born in
1867 and died in 1934 and won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and in Physics]]?

If we don't have a term for (or an article about) it, there probably
shouldn't be a category for it, either (I'm sure a determined mind could
come up with an exception).

> Themes: Tend not to be plurals, and tend not to form strict
> hierarchies. Often it is the case that b looks like it belongs in a,
> but then a(b(X)) is nonsense for certain X. Eg, Paris might be in
> European cities, and the film Amelie might be in Paris, but it's silly
> to say that Amelie is in European cities. (or many worse examples)

Well yes, Amelie _is_ related to European cities. It is relevant for a list
of movies that are set in European cities. The real problem is that the
initial relation is entirely unqualified: Amelie is neither a part nor a
member of Paris.

You could conceivably create a category "set in Paris" for the film and
have that be a subcategory of "set in European cities". Problem is, you
need to propagate that modifier backwards all the way to the top or you
will have the same situation you described.

The best solution I've seen is qualifying relations (something like the
[[Semantic MediaWiki]]). For instance: Amelie is set in [[set in::Paris]].

> Attributes: The category exists to denote some very specific small
> detail of a subject, such that it would be conceivable to have dozens
> or more such categories on an article. Examples: 1943 deaths, Living
> persons, Winners of Nobel Peace Prize, etc. These tend to hierarchies
> that start strict then end up fuzzy. Eg, 1943 deaths is only in 1943
> and "1940s deaths", and these have parent categories of
> "1940s","Years" and so forth, eventually ending up in "History",
> whereupon things become chaos.

There is no way to make hierarchies not suck, especially if you have to
maintain them manually (as we do now). Don't try to impose hierarchies
unless they emerge quite naturally from the subject.

> Meta-attributes: These are categories about *articles* rather than
> article subjects. The most common examples are stubs ("France
> geography stubs"), sources ("1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica") and
> disputes of various kinds ("Articles lacking sources").

Actually, "France geography stubs" contains two attributes (France,
geography). Only the "stub" part is not about the subject. But yeah,
it's a problem.

Another one that you didn't mention is articles that merge several concepts
into one: This happens for instance if a biography is merged with the thing
that made the person notable. You get articles that are in people and
object categories at the same time (e.g. programmers, software).

> To me, these types of categories are all fairly incompatible, and
> really get in the way of using categories to do anything useful. It's
> pointless trying to draw tree structures when you have attributes and
> meta-attributes involved, for example.

So the problem you are trying to solve is drawing tree structures? I'm
afraid your problem may not be shortcomings in WP, but the real world.

> So my questions are these:
> *Can anyone think of other types of categories I might have missed?

Basically, you have identified:
1) is an intersection of [Bridges in France / in France & Bridges]
2) is a subset of [Bridges in France / Bridges]
3) is a member of [Paris / European Cities] and all your attribute examples
4) is related to (or more specifically: is set in) [Amelie (movie) / Paris]
5) information about the article

1) can be computed and shouldn't exist as categories. I'm not sure whether
we care about the difference between 2) and 3). 5) you can quite easily
deal with using namespaces (depending on the problem, of course). The meat
is in 4): You can add any number of named relations there, and most of
the current ugliness is there.

> *How could Wikipedia be better if this general problem was addressed?

What was the problem again?

Anyhow, I guess my main point is that hierarchies are overrated. They are
most useful when you don't have a computer to sort things out for you.

Roger


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>>You've given your own suggestions above, but what is the board going
>>>to do, say "hey, Gavin Chait said this is how we should do it, so lets
>>>go with it"?  I don't think it's going to happen.
>>
>>Why not?  I have 15 years experience in South Africa developing and running
>>non-profit organisations in fields as diverse as HIV / AIDS, education and
>>small business development.  I've worked with student-run, university-based
>>organisations, corporate funded ones, and institutional versions.  I have
>>fund-raised, written proposals, developed ideas and implemented them.  Some
>>of my ideas even work.
>>
>>I'm probably not the only person with this sort of experience on this list
>>but I do have some idea of what it takes to run a self-sustaining non-profit
>>social benefit organisation.
>>
>>So why not listen to my suggestions?  They are my opinions, based on my
>>experiences.  They are freely and honestly given.  I don't have all the
>>answers but I may be able to save you some bother.
>
>
> Well, I'm personally a big believer that there needs to be a competent
> central figure during this process.  Maybe you agree with me, and
> maybe you don't.  I'm also a big believer that Jimbo, the only current
> candidate, is *not* competent at such a task.
>
> So hey, if you could convince the board that you have what it takes,
> I'd say hire *you* as interim CEO.  Unlike some others I don't think
> the interim CEO has to have a tremendous resume as a top leader of
> huge organizations - someone with the experience you describe would
> probably be good enough, and probably a *lot* cheaper.

I'd say that right now, we need a CEO who understands plainly what our
troubles are. It is not the case of Gavin right at the moment. I can't
speak of the future :-)

> Maybe you'd even be willing to take on such a role for free.  If so,
> even better.
>
> As an alternative it'd be nice to get someone with your type of
> experience on the board.  Preferably as an additional member, but if
> Jimbo's control issues won't allow the board to expand then maybe Ant
> or Angela would be willing to step down (we could give her some sort
> of new title like "Volunteer advocate" and an advisory position).

It is nice to see how quickly you would like to get rid of the community
representatives :-) Don't worry, there is a chance that happen.

Perhaps... I must clarify something here. I think that legally speaking,
the decision to expand the board is not in the sole hands of Jimbo. It
is a decision which should be made by the board. In short, if 4 members
vote expanding the board and Jimbo votes against, expansion will occur.

Current problem is to define whether board members should be appointed
and/or elected, as well as the proportionality of community members
versus external members. External should be appointed, but the question
was whether community members should be appointed only, elected only or
a mix of the two. Note that in case of election only, Gavin probably has
no chance to be on the board as a community representative. We could
possibly imagine a solution such as 2 community members elected every
year for 2 years. Plus 5 appointed.

> Of course, all of this is dependent on you being 1) willing, and 2)
> able to demonstrate your ability to handle the task.  And it goes
> equally well for anyone on this list who can convince Jimbo that ey
> can do it.

If Jimbo is the only one to decide who to appoint, yes.

> Anthony

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/3/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I'm not too sure what this has to do with Wikipedia, but no, the
> majority of Americans are not fundamentlist Christians.  While 77% of
> Americans do identify as Christian, most are not particularly ardent
> Christians.  When asked whether they would consider themselves
> "religious", "somewhat religious", "somewhat secular", or "secular",
> only 37% of Americans said "religious".  Had there been a further
> category of "extremely religious", presumably even fewer would've chosen it.
>
> Source: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, Columbia
> University
> [http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm]

Hmm, I seem to recall having read at least twice that more than 50% of
the US population believes that the world was literally created in
seven days, around 6000 years ago. But I don't have a source.

I'm happy to let that one go.

Steve


from_name: Resid Gulerdem

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time to start discussing solutions?

body:
Regarding the [[WP:OURS]] proposal; there are some
good suggestions in it, I believe:

1. [[WP:OURS]] is aiming to start a discussion about
the '''solution''' to the main problem: admin-user
relations. Isn't it time to start talking about
solutions? How far are we going to discuss diffent
versions of the same problem?

2. It is not complete but just a quick suggestion from
my point of view. Can be and need to be modified.

3. Existence of some rejected proposals cannot imply
that this one will follow the same path, can it? It is
early to make a decision at this stage before
discussing the proposal.

3. The good thing about the proposal is, it does not
devaluate Wikigods and Wikigoddess and does not
attempt to take their eternal status back. It does not
propose radical changes but maybe a different look and
acceptable variations of the current
infrastructure. It just provides a windshield for
ordinary users against strong, irresistible blows of
Wikigod(des)s.

4. It provides a dynamic measure for popularity of
admins.

5. It aims to educate new or old users, rather than
irritate them.

6. It diagnose and tries to prevent the system from
possible problems before they arise (by constructing
study groups, etc., for example).

7. As discussed by some users, both community and
encyclopedia are crucial components for Wikipedia. The
problems are caused by the fact that '''the bridges
between these two components are not efficient'''.
[[WP:OURS]] is a simple but sincere attempt to
strengthen, enhance and improve the efficiency of
these bridges. I hope it gets enough attention.

Regarding Wikiethics discussion:

If you participated in Wikiethics discussion and now
referring to that approval poll you are,
unfortunately, distorting the facts. If you are new to
that discussion, I would recommend you to review the
comments carefully.

Let me summarize what has happened quickly: A user,
who dislike the proposal, unilaterally started the
approval poll at a very early stage of the proposal. I
then started another poll right after that to ask the
community if an approval poll is needed at that stage.
I, myself as the main proposer, haven't thought that
the proposal is ready for putting to a vote. Then the
poll I started to ask what people think about the
timing of an approval poll vandalized many times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics&diff=next&oldid=44384387
or its place suddenly became a problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics&diff=44819924&oldid=44818149
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics&diff=45015662&oldid=45014949
Nevertheless, the editors could have a chance to vote
on the poll I started: 13 out of 17 said that it is
not needed. So, the approval poll itself was not valid
by the community consensus. Moveover if you can check
the votes on the approval poll itself, some people are
saying that the approval poll is not reasonable at
that stage. These editors did not vote on the poll I
started,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics/Archive/Do_we_need_a_poll_at_this_stage_Poll_31_April_2006
simply because it was not available to them. So the
numbers you reported does not reflect the case as is.

Best,

Resid

>From: "Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:33:48 +1000
>
>On 6/3/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> >
> >    I think one should not expect any action, in
> > general, from the people who are well fed by the
> > current structure which makes them feel superior,
make
> > any attempt towards a bit of change...
>
>There must be an awfully large number of people who
are content with
>the current structure, given that the general
approval poll on your
>Wikiethics proposal failed 3 to 38 [1]. Polls are
evil, of course, and
>not binding, but that level of rejection is fairly
comprehensive, and
>came from all sectors of the community. I would
imagine that "OURS",
>if it were ever formulated into a proposal, would
receive a similar
>amount of opposition for similar reasons.
>
>There are dozens of similar proposals put up every
year. If any of
>them actually received support from the community,
they would be
>successful. Admins are a miniscule 0.06% of
registered users - even if
>we always voted as a bloc, there is no way we could
overrule a true
>community movement.
>
>[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics/Archive/Approval_Poll_31_April_2006
>
>--
>Stephen Bain
>stephen.bain at gmail.com

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:
> * Increasingly decison are taken by the board without too much prior
> discussion in the open, at least on places where I would expect it, like on
> this mailing list.

I don't think so.  I don't know of any examples.  But if there are some
things that you would like to bring up as specifics, I would love to
consider them.

In particular, the "increasingly" perception is the one I want to
combat, by trying to make it more clear how things are done, and how
things have transitioned and continue to transition to having a lot more
people involved.

> (#) I might add 'and created and/or sanctioned by the board'. The board
> reigns supremely. This does not make the board evil in any way, or its
> members less respectable, it does not discredit the committees or their
> members, far from it, all names of committee members that I recognize are of
> highly valued community members  (I'm not even against any of the committees
> or their missions, heck I'm going to apply for a committee on invitation and
> of course undergo normal co-optation procedure) it is simply a control
> monopoly that I would like to see amended, to strenghten Wikimedia as an
> organisation.

In what way would you amend it?  Keep in mind that we are an actual
organization in the real world, and there are real legal
responsibilities, very serious ones, that have to be met by the
organization, and board members have a very heavy burden to be sure that
these responsibilities are met.  It would not be legal, for example, for
the board to completely give up decision making authority over a lot of
different things... but what we can do is involve more people (instead
of me doing everything, which was the very old way, and then the board
doing everything, which was the old way, to now an *increasingly*
community oriented approach of committees and chapters).

> I'm not sure I would favour to vote on everything, elections can be
> manipulated. Perhaps the tried system of discussing major choices until a
> consensus is reached would still work, this list is not flooded by hundreds
> of trolls, there is still a limited community interested in these issues.

I think we try really hard to do this, whenever possible.  I am unaware
of any major changes of direction which were not openly discussed until
something approaching consensus is reached.  Of course, this list does
have some trolls, but almost everyone contributing here has a strong
voice in the future course of the foundation in every way.

> Also on major issues I'd rather sacrifice speed than quality of decision
> making, again on major issues only, and of course judicial emergencies taken
> aside.

I agree, and that is precisely why it takes us a very very long time to
decide a lot of important things, because as a community we are slow and
thoughtful and open about it.

> * Several board members recently stated their weariness about discussing
> things with the larger community (for quotes eee
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-May/007321.html ),
> although I have to say Anthere still does speak up a lot on this list, so
> maybe I make too much out of her remarks. Everyone is entitled to an
> occasional slip of the tongue.

I think it was not a slip of the tongue, but that you have misunderstood
her meaning.  Her point is that it is very very hard emotionally on
those of us on the board, when we work very very hard every day trying
to involve people in the foundation in every way that we can, trying to
do everything we can in a manner of consensus and openness and loving
care for the opinions of everyone who has a desire to have rational
input into the process.... only to be told that we are closed or
secretive or running roughshod over people in some vague and hard to
define way.

Surely you can see that this is exhausting for us.  It is not the
working with community which is exhausting... that part is the most
rewarding.  It is the unfair criticism when people who have not bothered
to take part, not bothered to learn what is going on, suddenly pop up
and scream bloody murder because they were not consulted.

> * Board expansion is not an issue you say, it just will happen. But there
> has been talk, albeit not by you, of appointing board members instead of
> holding an election. If that would ever happen, how could anyone not see
> that the board would be heading towards splendid isolation?

Why would anyone assume that the board would be headed towards slendid
isolation?  You have a strong commitment from all existing board members
to preserve the essential community spirit of Wikipedia while at the
same time recognizing that service on the board requires input and
expertise from a variety of different kinds of people.  What seems
obvious to me is that we need a variety of different routes to board
membership, including election in some cases, but also including
recruitment based on expertise that we need.

The method of selection of board members is important, but the most
important thing is that we get the right people, who understand our
mission deeply and can contribute to it in ways that we need.

> * The idea that a contractor, possibly an outsider (?), is charged with
> paving the way for a true CEO, is yet another example of top down
> management.

Why do you suppose that an outsider would be chosen for this?

> Why should an appointed individual, let alone a possible
> outsider, lead this debate, or manage it in any way? Incidentally, I would
> be less concerned if the final CEO would only supervise administrative
> tasks, like paying the bills and refreshing domain subscriptions, but then I
> find the term CEO odd, I call that an office manager.

I think you have completely failed to comprehend the seriousness of the
issues facing the business side of the foundation.  It is *not* just
about paying the bills and refreshing domain subscriptions.  We are
growing inevitably into a major enterprise with a multi-million dollar
annual budget.  There is no way around that, other than simply refusing
to grow and letting the site run slow because we don't have the servers.

But if we want the website to be fast, and we want it to be high
quality, and if we are reallllllly serious about our mission statement:
A free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet, then we have
to recognize that we can not operate like a college club, with a
secretary to pay the bills, and we hope everything else turns out right
somehow.

> All of this gives me the feeling the board knows best what is good for the
> community,

But this feeling is coming from where?  That is what I am finding
puzzling.  We are here, the board, before you, among you, as always...
and to be accused of paternalism is... well, it is sad, given all that
we have done and all that we value.

You may want to consider that you have jumped to some conclusions
incorrectly...


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-04

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 338 of 349 tests (96.85%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/4/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam, I find it especially rich (but, alas, wholly typical) that you
> are trying to turn this into your being the injured party.
>
> It is this behaviour, among others, that has you brought before arbitration.
>
> -Matt

The wikipedia is the injured party, I am meerly insulted.

The question is, are you able to move beyond the soap opera of
personalities to address the substantive issues?

SS


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Angela wrote:
>
>>> Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
>>> you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
>>> "failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
>>> resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?
>>>
>> This hasn't yet been voted on. It doesn't even have a Motion to Vote
>> yet. I've no idea why it would be regarded as rejected.
>>
>
> It was just a scratch pad sort of thing, and after some discussion we
> realized it was not needed.
>
It's not a huge deal, but could this be somehow indicated on the
Resolutions page?  It'd be useful as a reader to be able to distinguish
between resolutions that failed at a vote versus resolutions that
"failed" due to never being voted on.

-mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Is there an archive somewhere of all the historical board votes?  I'd
>>be interested in seeing it.
>>
>>Overall, it's really hard to find information about what it is the
>>board and its members have been doing.
>
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions
>
> Watching that wiki, and reading Wikizine ( http://cur.wikizine.org/ )
> are two good ways of keeping up with the Board's actions. Suggestions
> on how to improve communications are very welcome.
>
> Angela

For those who wonder if we did nothing at all before january, I'll
clarify that the resolution system was adopted in january 2006,
precisely because the previous system did not always allowed to clearly
track decisions taken.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
 userbox

body:
Peter Ansell wrote:
<snip>
> As I said above, the providing of a template does not have any greater
> effect over text based statements of belief. It is still wikipedia
> allowing a statement of belief. I did not mean to say that wikipedia
> should necessarily provide a premade template for ever aspect,
> however, I did mean to say that deleting just because editors or
> viewers of a certain background will be inflamed by the statement does
> not have precedent on wikipedia. We allow the most inflammatory thing
> possible, ie, the danish cartoons depicting Allah and Mohammed. If the
> encylopedia can detail such an inflammatory thing why can't user pages
> have simple statements of belief in long established religions.
>

One of the biggest problems is that userboxes are written in the third
person; some party external to the user (ie. Wikipedia/WMF) seems to be
making the statement, "this user does XYZ (and we certify/endorse
this)". Allowing what appear to be "official statements" with such
strong POVs to appear on userpages looks like a violation of NPOV, which
is a Bad Thing.

> It reeks of American Christian bias to me.

You're wrong. Most (United States of) Americans on Wikipedia aren't
Christians.

> (And for those who discount the cartoons just because they have been
> discussed previously, Don't!, they are for the time being the single
> most inflammatory thing available)

How about [[Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] (not safe for work)?

--
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:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On Jun 3, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>>> I kicked up the ANI not because I object to T2; I object to a point
>>>> of view,
>>>> selective application of T2.  If it were applied globally to the
>>>> religious
>>>> userboxes, I wouldn't have objected at all.
>>> "Point of view" is not an adjective.
>> How do you explain the term "POV fork"?
>
> A cultural inability to use the word "biased". Also, the ability of
> acronyms to disguise what they stand for, allowing for bizarre usage
> that wouldn't exist in the spelled-out version (e.g. "PIN number",
> "ATM machine").
>

The latter two are cases of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome>.

--
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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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Psychology of problem Wikipedians: excessive "need
 for cognition"

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Discussion on the LJ of a psychologist friend.
>
> http://sushidog.livejournal.com/541492.html?thread=9649716
>
> Discuss.
>

For some values of "need for cognition" and "problem Wikipedian", this
may be true. But looking at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_cognition>,

> Need for cognition
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
> Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please
> search for Need for cognition in Wikipedia to check for alternative
> titles or spellings.

it's hard to tell what's going on...

--
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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subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Where and how are we going to find anonymous experts?
>
> Fred

Isn't that a large part of our demographic? Heck, we could simply
consider anyone who shows an interest in agiven topic an "expert", but
if thats not good enough somebody higher up could check their
credentials.

People could fax their diploma or some such. It doesn't seem like a
huge deal to me. Personally I'd just like to see some '''informed'''
party with the final say (i.e. not a random, non-expert admin or
arbiter).

Why do you think I was edit warring? To make articles better. There is
a power vacuum, and I was trying to do what worked. I was able to get
the taxobox at the top of the human page by edit warring. Of course I
discuss throughout as well. Each and every one of the pages in
question has a talk page, to which I contributed extensively.
Unfortunately, edit warring doesn't work when your outnumbered by
determined POV pushers working as a voting bloc.

That, combined with the fact that I was asked politely to make some
changes in my RfC convinced me to stop. Thats all it takes, just a
polite request. Just like a prison sentance doesn't stop crime, your
ARBCOM doesn't prevent abuses of your system.  People who are abusive
will do what they can, when they can, and thats alot.

I am not an abuser however, I am an offended contributer. The fact
that you can't tell the difference is a big problem.

You need an organic solution to the differences of opinion (editing
disputes) that crop up on each and every controversial page. You can't
ban and punish your way out of it. Contributers don't deserve it, and
the abusers just ignore you and create a new account on a new
computer. Punishment makes people worse, trust me.

SS


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 10

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
<snip/>
>
> In any case, given your involvement with the J-P Muhammed cartoons
> article, I'm sure you can recall what prompted Jyllands-Posten to
> solicit those cartoons in the first place.
>

They've stated, that they couldn't find an illustrator who was prepared
to work on a children's book called "The Qur'an and the life of the
Prophet Muhammad". IMHO this is very questionable. In fact I've bought
a beautifully illustrated childrens book called "Introducing Muhammad"
in Cairo. On page 6 my book states:
WARNING!
Islamic tradition forbids the portrayal
of Prophet Muhammad or any of his Companions.
DECLARATION!
"We agree and comply" - the authors.

--
Raphael


from_name: Gavin Chait

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Now I'm the one that's amused.

Before anyone goes jumping to conclusions: I am not throwing my hat in the
COO ring, interim or not.  Believe it or not, I hadn't thought about it.
But thanks for the vote of confidence ;)

As with any other submission made here, my suggestions are to take as you
choose.  I mention my background simply to give a context to where my ideas
come from.  I don't know anyone here directly, any more than any of you know
me.

The discussion is familiar from the development sector here.  Ours is large,
diverse and vibrant (estimated at 8% of the economy and the largest
employer).  And in a state of major confusion at present because of the way
that donors have changed and the old supply-side system of development is in
the process of being shoved aside.  Many organisations here are trying to
figure out how to adapt, while keeping hosts of volunteers happy and
involved.  Sometimes that sort of thing can go terribly wrong.

Non-profit organisations can be divided loosely into two major areas:
reaction and proaction.  Reactionary stuff is relatively straightforward -
floods, wars, famines, medical emergencies and so on.  Pro-action is more
difficult.  It relies on predicting the future and what we think may be
best.  It's a guess, and hopefully an educated one.  I've never worked on
the reactionary side and so spend my time "guessing" at the best way to
achieve what has already been achieved in more developed nations.  It isn't
easy and everyone has a different idea, not only of the future, but also of
the path to get there.

Anthony you have interpreted me well:  "... that the Wikimedia board has no
clue how best to organize itself so as to accomplish that mission ..."  That
is what I understand and it seems an awfully large responsibility to dump
onto the shoulders of your new COO.

Surely you should agree on some basics first and declare them unequivocally?
Then give your COO time and space to figure it out without having to answer
"are we there yet?" questions every few minutes.  It would be best to agree
on these things before you even start recruiting so that anyone applying
knows what they're letting themselves in for.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> On 3 Jun 2006 at 16:13, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
>>> Even if the cartoonist would draw Mohammed a third time,
>>> he wouldn't need be afraid as long as his drawings wouldn't
>>> have been published before.
>> Cartoonists generally do draw things with the expectation that they will
>> be published.
>
> And those with some sort of fanatical need to suppress offensive
> cartoons won't necessarily limit themselves to opposing ones that are
> published; look at the case of [[Mike Diana]], the only American to
> be convicted of obscenity for drawing a cartoon (this happened in
> Florida in the 1990s).  As part of the court order following his
> conviction, he was ordered not to draw any more obscene cartoons
> whether published or not, with the authorities having the right to do
> inspections of his home to make sure he hadn't drawn anything
> illegal.
>

He was charged for publishing, distributing and advertising his
material, not for drawing it. The prohibtion to draw any of his
obscene cartoons was part of his sentence.

--
Raphael


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 6/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Is there an archive somewhere of all the historical board votes?  I'd
>>>be interested in seeing it.
>>>
>>>Overall, it's really hard to find information about what it is the
>>>board and its members have been doing.
>>
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions
>>
>>Watching that wiki, and reading Wikizine ( http://cur.wikizine.org/ )
>>are two good ways of keeping up with the Board's actions. Suggestions
>>on how to improve communications are very welcome.
>>
>>Angela
>
>
> I'm trying to think of a major thing that I can suggest, rather than
> nitpicking minor details.  Overall, wikimediafoundation.org is very
> outdated.  Even just looking at the front page the quarterly reports
> contain nothing from the current year (5 months into it), the projects
> section starts with a red link, the second feature talks about the
> Quarto which is a project which was abandoned over a year ago.
>
> One of the higher pageranked pages is
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings, which contains no
> information about meetings in 2006.  One of the meetings I stubled
> across, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/October_22%2C_2004,
> talks about changing membership from opt-out to opt-in.  This doesn't
> seem to have been implemented, and I'm not actually sure whether or
> not I'm even a member.  http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws
> points to http://wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf, which seems to be
> the original bylaws from 2003 (which have apparently changed).
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws is
> another version, which seems to have been updated, but it doesn't seem
> to have taken all resolutions into account (besides the opt-in/opt-out
> one, I remember reading from you or Ant that the notion of "Member
> Representative to the Board of Trustees" had been dropped).
> (Interestingly, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia
> points to *both* versions.)
>
> Anyway, thanks for the links.  I guess my "suggestions" were somewhat
> nitpicky.  But I do think it's pretty important that people know a)
> whether or not they're actually a member of Wikimedia and b) what the
> bylaws of the foundation are.
>
> Anthony

Vaccum.

A new version of the bylaws were written about 2 months ago. This new
version entirely remove the notion of membership (so the notions of
opt-in and opt-out disappear). However, the new text recognises the
input and importance of the community (it was not the case before).

 From a "board election" point of view, the existence of members or not,
does not have impact. There are still community representatives on the
board. However, there is an-ongoing discussion on the
election/appointement modes.

As of today, I am unable to answer to your question (am I a member or
not ?). If the new bylaws were to be adopted, the answer would be "no".

As for whether the bylaws will be adopted or not, I posted a resolution
regarding the first three parts of the bylaws (including the membership
part) on the board wiki 5 weeks ago.
As of today, none of the board members have voted on the resolution, nor
really made any comment (so I have no idea if the lack of voting is due
to opposition, lack of interest, lack of time or whatever).

ant

PS : note that it is not possible to oblige people to vote.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
I've done a little analysis of the templates in the last en.wikipedia data dump
to look for these Evil Templates with Incomplete Tables.

The entire enwiki data set contained 55,921 template pages as of May 18.

13,310 templates appear to contain complete wiki tables.
   493 appear to have a wiki table start "{|" but no end
   883 have an end "|}" but no start
  1717 contain table rows "|-" but neither start nor finish

2,218 templates appear to contain complete HTML tables.
   34 have a <table> but no </table>
   39 have a </table> but no <table>
  274 have a <tr> but neither <table> nor </table>

I haven't looked up usage to see whether these are under- or over-represented in
use.

The lists of templates matching the above criteria, the Jython script I used to
run the counts, and a pre-extracted set of templates for those of you who don't
want to download a 2-gigabyte file just to get 9 megs of compressed templates
are at http://leuksman.com/misc/templates/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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