from_name: tpryor at media.mit.edu

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Team:
	Getting started

body:
Hello,

I'd like to know more about specifics of the Wikimedia Research "exclusion
procedure" as that doesn't seem to have the characteristic open definitiveness
I would expect from this group.

I haven't contributed anything to the wikipedia code base, but I am working on
alternative dynamic interfaces for wikipedia. I think it would be sensible to
coordinate with the formative research team. I created a brand new wikipedia
user account 'Dppl' (yes, indeed, I have no editor identity) and tried to join
but seem to be in exclusion land.

Here are some of the wikipedia research topics I'm interested in and
have done a
little R&D on already:

    1. Hallways
          1. Integrate dynamic menuing system, called Hallways, as a skin.
          2. Inferential menu tree options using centroid clustering of choices
across users.
CHEAPO MOCKUP (in development):
http://www.bostoncoop.net/~tpryor/wiki/hallways_related_files/hllwys.php
    2. Wikipedia Suggest
          1. Similar UI to Google Suggest using the power of memcache.
CHEAPO MOCKUP (in development):
http://www.bostoncoop.net/~tpryor/wikisug/wikisug.html
    3. "StoryMap"
          1. Nodal person and real time placecoding for nodal storytelling.
                1. Orthomap, street address photos, navigation, phone,
audiotagging, (multi-interface; content delivery over http)
                2. Examples, compelling web interface, fun to use on
the street.
MOCKUP REQUIRES MODIFICATION.
    4. Wikiself
          1. Autobiographical mind mapping (similar/related to blogging using
mediawiki - I simply think this could be an interesting research area
and would
like to discuss possibilities, existing examples, etc.)

    5. "Wikipictionary" -- Icons-for-word-meanings inline transclusion
          1. Collaborative creation of icon/image/animation for every
meaning of
every word.
          2. The ability to hover over any word in a body of text and see the
representative permutation of definition's representative image flip up for
translanguage conceptual recognition... which I believe would/will also
helpful
in learning a language.
SORRY, NO MOCKUP.

I spoke about a couple of these potential projects (Storymap and
Wikipictionary)
  when Jimmy Wales spoke at Harvard some weeks ago. There seemed to be some
interest. I hope to be able to work the Wikimedia Research Team... otherwise I
suppose I will be a renegade by default. Regardless, I'd appreciate a
response.

Thanks,
Tony Pryor

> Someone asked on Meta whether we have a mailing list. I suggest using
> wikitech-l for now, perhaps with "Research:" in the subject line. If
> that turns out to cause too much traffic, we'll create our own list.
>
> Again, anyone who is interested in joining this effort or who wants to
> know more about it should take a look at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Team
>
> We're also trying to sort out the date for the first meeting, so if you
> haven't already, please make an X in the date matrix for your preferred
> meeting times. (I'll send out direct emails to all members about this as
> well.)
>
> Best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Having listened to the radio show I heard
	something else ..

body:
On 5/28/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I disagree (to both).  Traditional encyclopaedias may have covered only
> the "basics" of the subject because they have constraints inherent in
> print publication.  Wikipedia is not paper, and we can cover any subject
> in any depth we want -- all we need is the volunteers to write it.
>
> I believe that if there is to learn more, then it belongs in Wikipedia too.

Hogwash. When you go into a library it's highly likely that you could
go directly to a detailed book on whatever subject you are interested
in, but libraries still have encyclopedias.

Readers have finite time, and very many have a literacy level much
lower than the typical Wikipedia editor.  By making our articles too
detailed we run the risk of making the basic information inaccessible
to the vast majority of the users who are only interested in the
basics.

Furthermore, while Wikipedia is not paper there are many other
resources limitations that we face, for example: editors.  How can we
ensure the accuracy, quality, and NPOVness of a great many very long
and detailed articles?  Also we are source limited, as an article on a
subject becomes increasingly long it becomes increasingly difficult to
add to it without engaging in original research. So do have scaling
limits of our own.

There is a place in the world for large amounts of detailed material,
but this shouldn't be the goal of an encyclopedia.  The methods used
to create, edit, and maintain very highly detailed works differ from
the best methods for a higher level work and the community of editors
most likely differs as well.

There is great value in being concise and today we mostly look to an
encyclopedia for a concise source.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>> he _is_ a world-reknowned expert
>
> I highly doubt that.  Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert.
> Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred
> articles with that spelling mistake in them.
>
> And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think
> that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly
> have a k in it.  It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or
> "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly
> teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a
> prefix before them.

With a little luck someone may reknounce the error of his ways. :-)

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] broken e-mail notification on testwiki - who knows,
	why ?

body:
Hi,
does anyone know about the (non-working) e-mail notification and the
missing "updated" markers (for watched pages which have new contents
since your last visit).
The functionality is totally broken on http://test.leuksman.com which is
a pity.

If you want me to assist in fixing this problem, please let me know.
For those who want to use a working MediaWiki with e-mail notification
for changed and new pages, it can be downloaded from
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enotif .

It could be easily extended to send notification to Sysops, when new
users register. Pls. contact me, if you need this.
Wikinaut Tom


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Search

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I turned on the Lucene search for all our wikis a few hours ago.
> Thanks.
>
> The last time you announced this, I asked a question which I think has
> not received a reply.  How regularly is this search engine updated with
> newest edits?

Read the second paragraph of my previous message and you will find the
answer.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Sergey Samoylov

subject: [Wikitech-l] <math> tags

body:
Hi, there...

I've installed wikipedia on my site. But <math> tags on pages isn't handled.
What do you think about it?

Thanks
     Sergey


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Jimbo interview on NPR Friday?

body:
David Monniaux wrote:
> Come on. All official sites, all political debates, all major news etc.
> are in English. Can a latino legislator do a speech in Spanish in the
> Capitol US? I doubt so; at least, I doubt it could happen in practice.
>
> Compare to multilingual European countries like Belgium or Switzerland.

You're absolutely right about this.

However,

> I mean, radios, newspapers etc. for immigrant communities also exist in
> Europe. Go to Paris, you'll see Chinese and Arabic newspapers, Arabic
> radios.

This is the same in all US cities of a size similar to Paris.  There are
radio stations in English and Spanish everywhere I have lived in the
last 20 years, and newspapers in Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Spanish,
etc., depending on the local population.  (Chicago, San Diego, Tampa)

Bay News 9 is the local 24 hour news channel in the area where Chad
Perrin and I live (Tampa bay area, Florida), and it broadcasts 2
stations of news 24 hours a day -- one in Spanish, one in English.

I have no actual opinion to offer about how intelligent or stupid the
American public is, nor whether European stereotypes of America are
generally valid.  I'm just here to give some NPOV information. :-)

--Jimbo


body:
Anthere wrote:
> Finally, I will keep that big knot in my stomach. It was an error to
> just even mention the issue. All is well. I will not mention the topic
> any more. There is no issue. Issue closed.

I think it is a very very important issue.  I think that _in this case_,
the problem was not so bad, probably because I made a huge deal out of
it when they contacted me with a list of all-English speakers.  I
insisted that they contact Anthere, which they did, and I think I
influenced the show to broaden to more languages, which they did.

However, in general, Anthere's criticism of the press coverage in
English was absolutely right.  The Wired article is the best example I
know of, since the reporter (who did a generally fabulous job) actually
met Anthere in New York, and nearly came to Berlin for the developers
conference.  It was a disappointment that he focussed on English, but it
was the story he wanted to tell.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 5/28/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I highly doubt that.  Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert.
>>Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred
>>articles with that spelling mistake in them.
>>
>>And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that
>>a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k
>>in it.  It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge".
>>Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters
>>do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
>>
>>
>172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid
>spelling of something. :)
>Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
>
That sounds like an internet equivalent of a badly arranged sound system
in an auditorium.  With this message there will be 172,001 google hits.

Ec


list: wikien-l

from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

body:
I don't actually think he should allow this abusive tirade to continue.
Snord is boring me now.
----- Original Message -----
From: <ultrablue at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Completely unwarranted block by Slimvirgin

David Gerard is one of the most trusted members of the Wikipedia
community, and I am personally glad he has been entrusted with the
power he has been. He is also one of the administrators of this
mailing list, so if he really was "drunk with power" as you seem to
imply, then why would he allow this abusive tirade from you to
continue? He is open and accountable, and continues to enjoy my full
confidence.

~Mark Ryan

On 5/28/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Given what I have seen of your behavior toward other users, coupled with
> David Gerard's outburst, I get the feeling that nothing I say or do will
> convince you to stop this.
>
> It is a shame upon Wikipedia that people like you and David Gerard have
been
> given power.
>
> -Enviroknot
>
> >From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com,English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Completely unwarranted block by Slimvirgin
> >Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 03:21:59 -0600
> >
> >On 5/28/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Slimvirgin has blocked me claiming that I am 129.7.35.1.
> > >
> > > She is also lying and claiming that I am ElKabong; this appears to be
> > > connected to her personal crusade along with Mel Etitis, Yuber, etc.
to
> > > harass said user.
> > >
> > > I request this be removed immediately, I have not violated 3RR and am
> >not
> > > ElKabong.
> > >
> > > -Enviroknot
> > >
> >Enviroknot and 129.7.35.1 were blocked for 24 hours after being
> >reported on WP:AN/3RR by User:FeloniousMonk for violating 3RR at
> >[[Neofascism and religion]].
> >
> >Based on the editing pattern, writing style, e-mails, and IP-address
> >comparisons of KaintheScion, ElKabong, and Enviroknot, they are
> >operated by the same person. IP address 129.7.35.1 lies within an IP
> >address range (resolving to the University of Houston) previously used
> >by that person, and Enviroknot very conveniently turned up to take
> >over the anon IP's reverts, reverting to the same version.
> >
> >Sarah
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: bambara

body:
Because Guaka (head of the Wikipedia-Mali effort AFAIK) doesn't know
Bambara; he's been replacing words and phrases as they become
available to him.

I'm still not sure it's the best approach: I think he should leave
something in French until he can find a translation of the whole
sentence, rather than replacing words.

Mark

On 28/05/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> >
> > The association Geekcorps recently (it started possibly 2 months ago)
> > made a lot of efforts to try to stimulate a minor wikipedia in an
> > african language. Along with work in translation of the interface,
> > addition of major rules and principles of Wikipedia, Geekcorps also
> > decided to motivate editors speaking bambara in Mali to participate
> > to the bambara wikipedia (http://bm.wikipedia.org) in a *financial*
> > way.
>
> How come that the Main Page is still largely in French?  I am
> particularly surprised that it seems to switch between Bamanankan and
> French in the middle of sentences.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: ultrablue at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: A survey about Wikipedia

references:
<a4a707705052507105a629b53@mail.gmail.com>
	<KMEIIIOFMCLGAOOMADDLEEKOCBAA.ihayat@com.haifa.ac.il>
	<a4a7077050526182472939460@mail.gmail.com>
	<3693.62.252.0.4.1117159486.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk>
	<d76dm2$hsd$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<50133.62.252.0.4.1117180583.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk>

body:
On 5/27/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> You miss my point, I think.  This is come chap using the name of a
> prestigious university to perform a "survey", even successfully exploiting
> the goodwill of Wikipedia editors to have information about this survey
> published on our mailing list. All we're told is that this is part of a
> "non-commercial cross-cultural research project" and we're supposed to go
> to a non-secure http site registered in Michigan (not, aas far as I'm
> aware, part of Israel) to fill it in.
> I wouldn't respond to a chap with a clipboard in the street who told me
> this.  I'd laugh in his face.
> Who is he?  Why won't Haifa university's servers do?

If you are insinuating that somehow my goodwill (didn't know I had
any) has been exploited by someone in order to forward the survey
request to the mailing list, you are mistaken. The invitation to take
part in the survey has been on the Village Pump for at least 10 days,
and nobody has made any objection there about the presence of the
invitation. The invitation to the survey can be found at the following
URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VP#Wikipedians_On-line_Questionnaire

Furthermore, the request to forward the information to the mailing
list was sent to me (I presume) as a result of my role as mailing list
administrator. In that situation, it is not my place to decide if the
email should go to the mailing list, so long as the email is not spam
and actually relates to Wikipedia. Whether people choose to
participate in the survey is their own personal choice.

Personally, I feel that fresh data about Wikipedia users will be a good thing

~Mark Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 95

body:
geni wrote:

>On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>--- Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You are lying, David, and you are violating
>>>Wikipedia policy in doing so.
>>>
>>>
>>Somebody block this guy from the mailing list, please.
>>
>>RickK
>>
>>
>Don't you enjoy shooting yourself in the foot being raised to an artform?
>
His feet heal quickly.

Ec


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Search

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I turned on the Lucene search for all our wikis a few hours ago.

Thanks.

The last time you announced this, I asked a question which I think has
not received a reply.  How regularly is this search engine updated with
newest edits?

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: <math> tags

body:
Sergey Samoylov wrote:
>
> I've installed wikipedia on my site. But <math> tags on pages isn't handled..
> What do you think about it?

Read math/README.

In particular, make sure you have the following lines in your
LocalSettings.php:

$wgUseTeX           = true;
$wgMathPath         = "{$wgUploadPath}/math";
$wgMathDirectory    = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/math";
$wgTmpDirectory     = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/tmp";


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] <math> tags

body:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 03:33:53PM +0400, Sergey Samoylov wrote:
> Hi, there...
>
> I've installed wikipedia on my site. But <math> tags on pages isn't handled.
> What do you think about it?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problems_with_texvc

We should link that page from README :-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Lists of computer science educators?

body:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 11:22:56AM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> >
> >So, my question is, are any of you aware of lists of professors and
> >teachers in the field of computer science, particularly software?
>
> When you say "professor", I assume that you're referring to university
> professors.  At university level, computer science courses tend to
> contain very little about programming, and in particular, the only
> programming exercises students get will be at a very basic level.  For
> example, I had to write a program to solve Towers of Hanoi...

It depends where. "Programowanie" at Computer Science department of Wroc?aw University
requires all students to write a toy compiler for something Pascal-ish.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: history compression

body:
elwp at gmx.de wrote:
>
> The complete history blob must be decompressed of course. But no previous
> revisions need to be reconstructed. At the beginning of the uncompressed
> history blob there is a section index for each revision followed by a list
> of (position, length)-pairs for each section. So when a revision text is
> to be extracted, this is what happens: [...]

Okay, thank you very much for this detailed explanation.  I wasn't aware
exactly how the "history blobs" work, so I didn't know there are "only"
20 revisions within each blob.  I am relieved to learn that these
history blobs are completely independent of each other, and so you
always need to retrieve only one of them in order to reconstruct a
particular revision of a particular article.

Of course, if an article has 100 consecutive revisions with a common
section, you would still be storing that same section 5 times, but I
guess that's not too bad.

Thanks again,
Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Edit & move rate limiter

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>> I've whipped up a fairly basic rate limiter which can be used to provide
>>> a brake to mass-floods of edits or page moves.
>>
>> That is great news.  However, I have one little concern.  Please could
>> you try to make sure that, if a human editor hits the rate limit, they
>> can just press "reload" to resubmit the same edit or move?  You see, I
>> will often move or edit several pages in several tabs at the same time,
>> and this way I can very easily hit the rate limit.
>
> That's exactly what I aimed for, and at least with Firefox that's just
> the way you can do it. I haven't tested IE etc but I _think_ it's got
> the same form resubmission behavior.

Thanks, that's good to know.

As for IE, I know that you can use "refresh" to reload a POST request.
You will get a confirmation message pretty similar to the one in
Firefox.  However, IE doesn't allow you to use the "back" button to go
back to the result page of a POST request.  You will get an error
message telling you that the data is no longer available, and if you try
to reload it, it will resubmit the request as a GET request.  (I know.
I don't know why anyone uses this crap either.  :-))

Timwi


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Timwi (timwi at gmx.net) [050528 08:23]:
>
>>Now imagine this Navajo speaker happens upon this English-only news
>>flash about the English Wikipedia, which doesn't even mention with a
>>single word that Wikipedias in any other languages exist, must less
>>Navajo. What are they going to think? You bet, they will assume it is
>>English-only.
>
> As has already been pointed out, the multilingual nature of Wikipedia was
> literally the VERY FIRST THING mentioned in the show.

In that one show, maybe.  In other shows, maybe not.

> Did you listen to the show before saying the above?

No, and I wasn't referring to it in particular.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
> We all here are an expert in at least one area. And I guess most of us
> could show diplomas. The other ones could show their expertise in fields
> which are not sanctified by diplomas. It make little sense to me to
> highlight some of us and not the others.

Most of the people I know here at university who occasionally edit
Wikipedia (admittedly, there are not many) tend to edit articles
unrelated to the diplomas anyway.  For example, one computer science
student who is a friend of mine is most interested in philosophy,
culture and arts related articles.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and detail

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>> There is a place in the world for large amounts of detailed material,
>> but this shouldn't be the goal of an encyclopedia.
>
>
> Funny, and somehow I thought that the goal of Wikipedia is to "collect
> the sum of human knowledge".

An oft-used definition of encyclopedia is "compendium of human
knowledge", where "compendium" means a summarized collection.
On the other hand, my OED defines "encyclopedia" as a "literary
work containing extensive information on all branches of
knowledge", with no reference to abbreviation or summarization.

So we have a situation where reasonable people can differ as to
whether summarization is desirable. Empirically, however,
I think if one were to take a recent scientific paper and make
a WP article embodying every last bit of its content, including
charts, tables, statistical methods, experimental technique, etc,
most editors would find the result "too detailed". But perhaps
when all the summary-type articles are done, this will be the new
frontier of development. (anything but endless recategorization,
please... :-) )

Stan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> he _is_ a world-reknowned expert

I highly doubt that.  Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert.
Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred
articles with that spelling mistake in them.

And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that
a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k
in it.  It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge".
Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters
do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: How to change namespaces in Friulian Wiki?

body:
Hm, can't you do that with the MediaWiki: namespace? And if not, is
that scheduled for a future version? And if not, is there a reason
(somebody changing namespaces would probably be worse than somebody
changing other interface text).

Mark

On 28/05/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> A. Decorte wrote:
> > Hi, how can I change the namespace (for example Wikipedia to Vichipedie) in the
> > Friulian Wiki?
>
> Post to wikitech-l about this. Alternatively, file a bugreport about
> this on MediaZilla (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org).
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> I dunno about icons in article history, but encouraging people more to list
> that sort of thing on user pages would be really good. There's a template
> for languages spoken and to what degree; that system could be extended.
> Put the templates in appropriate Wikipedia subcategories and you have
> instant handy directories of expertise in particular matters.

Right, so I'll put a template on my user page saying that I have studied
computer science.  Then someone comes along and changes something in an
article about a politician.  Am I then disallowed from fixing their
mistake because I am not an "expert" in the relevant field?

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in
"information"  as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the
"know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know"
(more like "gnaw"  - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know"
in "knowledge"  the same as "know" when it's by itself...

Often, a morpheme (whether it's a morpheme any longer or a
sub-morpheme is debatable) is spelt identically but pronounced
differently in different words....... so "reknowned" does not seem at
all illogical to me.

Mark

On 28/05/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> >
> > if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
>
> Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced
> like "known".
>
> I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it
> seem.  I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar
> and spelling.  My previous message was not meant to belittle those who
> do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart.  I certainly don't.
>
> It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition
> and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that
> would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word.  Once
> someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow
> it, thinking it might be the correct spelling.  But the thoughts of that
> first person are beyond me.
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial block

body:
Arn't I supposed to be unblocked by now?

# 13:38, 27 May 2005 Mel Etitis blocked "User:Sam Spade" with an
expiry time of 24 hours (3RR violation, replaced until reason for
unblocking is given)
# 13:21, 27 May 2005 David Gerard unblocked User:Sam Spade (unblocked
after discussion on wikien-l)
# 13:21, 27 May 2005 David Gerard unblocked User:#23606 (unblocked
after discussion on wikien-l)
# 12:42, 27 May 2005 Mel Etitis blocked "User:Sam Spade" with an
expiry time of 24 hours (3RR violation)

Jack (User:Sam Spade)


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
User:Sam Spade has created an attack page in his User
space at [[User:Sam Spade/Report rogue admin]].  Which
is fine.  If he wants to make his silly allegations
there instead of in the official pages, he's more than
welcome to do so.  But now every one of his discussion
page edits consists of an enormous signature with a
link to the page and the signature of "Click here to
report admin abuse".  The signature doesn't even
include his real name OR his User name.  This is a
clear case of a personal campaign against the admins
listed on his page, and should not be allowed.  Let
him keep his page if he wants, but he should be
required to remove the disruptive link in his
signature.  I've listed the page for VfD, but I'll
withdraw that if he'll remove the signature, which he
has no inclination to do.

RickK

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > --- Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > You are lying, David, and you are violating
> > > Wikipedia policy in doing so.
> >
> > Somebody block this guy from the mailing list,
> please.
> >
> > RickK

> Don't you enjoy shooting yourself in the foot being
> raised to an artform?

> --
> geni

Is this addressed to me?

RickK

__________________________________
Discover Yahoo!
Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Having said that, I would like to state for the wreck herd that I am
knot the first person to use that spelling, nor am I trying to explain
away their usage.

And although I hate prescriptivism, I also dislike improper usage... a
sort of paradox. So while I acgnawledge that language changes, and
that I personally don't think "This is she" is any more grammatical
than "This is her", "This be her yo", "This one her", "This her what",
or even "In herlike fashion bes this here one", my brain cries every
time somebody says "Me and her went to the store".

If, however, somebody is speaking a different variety of English, an
English pidgin or creole, or they are speaking English non-natively,
it for some reason doesn't sound bad. In fact when talking to people I
tend to adapt and switch relatively quickly to the variety (even if
they're trying to speak the same variety of English, but non-natively)
they're using, which can be quite interesting from a sociolinguistic
point of view (my communications with Singaporeans, for example, tend
to be in a very basilectal form of Singlish, because it "feels right")

Mark

On 28/05/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in
> "information"  as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the
> "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know"
> (more like "gnaw"  - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know"
> in "knowledge"  the same as "know" when it's by itself...
>
> Often, a morpheme (whether it's a morpheme any longer or a
> sub-morpheme is debatable) is spelt identically but pronounced
> differently in different words....... so "reknowned" does not seem at
> all illogical to me.
>
> Mark
>
> On 28/05/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Mark Williamson wrote:
> > >
> > > if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
> >
> > Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced
> > like "known".
> >
> > I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it
> > seem.  I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar
> > and spelling.  My previous message was not meant to belittle those who
> > do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart.  I certainly don't.
> >
> > It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition
> > and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that
> > would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word.  Once
> > someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow
> > it, thinking it might be the correct spelling.  But the thoughts of that
> > first person are beyond me.
> >
> > Timwi
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Robert Brockway

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: GFDL Clarification

body:
On Sat, 28 May 2005, Timwi wrote:

> Quite to the contrary, you only asked if the image could be used on
> Wikipedia, not whether they would license it under the GFDL or anything
> else. Therefore, they only agreed to using it on Wikipedia, and
> therefore it should not be used on Wikipedia because it isn't free.

I figured some (even most) people here may have this position.  I'm a
Sysadmin who has been working almost exclusively with F/OSS for more than
11 years so have a good background in the licencing issues.  It is from
this basis that I make these comments:

I think it is important to remember that most of the people in the world
have not even considered or heard of the issues related to licencing that
the people here (and in the OSS community) are familiar with.

If I had asked Mercedes Corby if I could licence the images under the GFDL
I'm sure she would not have had the slightest clue what I was talking
about.  I'm certain her focus, then as now, is on her sister who has now
been convicted of a serious offence and sentenced to 20 years jail, not
licencing issues.  I was not about to expect her to absorb alot of
information on licencing when she had more important things to worry
about.  As far as I'm concerned I asked for images that were copyright
free and that is what I got.

Here we have images that (as far as I know) no one has objected to and yet
they may be deleted.  IMHO we need to stop and consider the intent of a
grant to use an image, not just the specific wording of the grant because
most people in the world will not use the exact wording which seems to be
expected.  If we do not then Wikipedia will ultimately be the loser.

I spent time and effort getting those image and I'm disappointed that they
may be deleted for a subtlety of licencing which is probably of absolutely
no concern to the person who took the image or most of the people viewing
the images.  Although understanding of licencing is growing in the general
community most people will never care as much as a typical Wikipedia
contributor.  We have to learn to live with this.

Also, to Anthere's comment that this should go to Wikien, after
considering I think this is the right list as the image could be use on
any in articles of any language.

Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: +1-416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway at opentrend.net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> Jimbo dit put it very well on the show that the intention of an
> encyclopedia is to cover the basics of a subject. [...] To me it is
> much more important that we encourage people to learn more.

I disagree (to both).  Traditional encyclopaedias may have covered only
the "basics" of the subject because they have constraints inherent in
print publication.  Wikipedia is not paper, and we can cover any subject
in any depth we want -- all we need is the volunteers to write it.

I believe that if there is to learn more, then it belongs in Wikipedia too.

Timwi


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Paid-for-articles WPs in smaller languages
	(was: bambara)

body:
Hi...

Regarding manuscripts,

it's often a possibility that the person has seen a webpage but that
writing the manuscript out in longhand is more convenient for them.

For example, a middle-aged Toareg man who lived in the city for a few
years and used e-mail, but now doesn't have easy access to a computer
because he has moved back with his village to take care of his ailing
mother.

This man could probably find the time to make the long trek to a city
and use an internet cafe to dash off an e-mail to me with the text of
an article for the Toareg (or perhaps Berber) Wikipedia, but it would
be very inconvenient and it would be much easier for him to use
traditional Toareg writing implements to make the articles out in
manuscript form while in the village (perhaps even with input from
other villagers!), and then use the postal system to mail it
("snail-mail") to a computer science professor in Algiers, who would
then e-mail it to me and I would post it.

This would obviously be much easier for the Touareg man than to
actually make the long trek from Southeastern Algeria to the capital,
Algiers, just to visit the journalist and make use of a computer.

Just because you don't have access to a computer doesn't mean you
never HAVE had access. And you might have access to a computer, but it
might be inconvenient compared to writing on paper and using
conventional post.

Mark

On 28/05/05, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Anthere,
>
> > As for the articles coming from the South Ossetian teachers, I get
> > them by e-mail and put them to WP (after wikifying; they come as a
> > simple text file or a Word file).
>
> <<Just a side comment. Perhaps you should mention in the comment box the
> name of the original author.
> I would see two benefits
> First it is more honest toward the author, who is credite is work.
> Second, it is good image to show several people are contributing.>>
>
> Sure, you are right!
> Thank you for the idea: I've been thinking about creating a Category
> or a Template for the purpose, but finally considered mixing content
> with authorship a not so good idea. But putting a name into the
> comment line is both easy and really useful.
> Or should I register a special account to post all the articles
> created in the project? That will make searching them very easy, etc.
> What do you think?
>
> > The journalist informed the locals about the "first encyclopedia in
> > Ossetian"; some of them got interested. Neither computers, nor
> > Internet are widely available in S.Ossetia -- so the interest could
> > rest just the interest, but then the bright idea appeared... :)
>
> <<Nod. Both arguments are fair. I would like to know whether these
> teachers have themselves good internet access ? Presumably quite limited ?>>
>
> As for the only teacher, who is working already on her 3rd article
> now, she has some limited but free access to a Win98-computer at her
> school. There she types her text in MS Word format and brings it on a
> diskette to the South Ossetian journalist, who sends the text to me
> via e-mail.
> The same journalist also shows her the result of her work at the
> Wikipedia. Her first article (about the writer Nafi Jusoity) is now
> the elected one, its part is on the first page, and as far as I know
> the teacher is very proud about the fact.
>
> I don't think it's a good idea to involve manuscripts: if a person
> can't use a computer at all, this person probably can't imagine
> electronic text (moreover hypertext) and its specialities. That's why
> we are most of all interested in younger teachers and students of
> Ossetian-related specialities (future journalists and teachers).
> Besides the texts for WP we achieve another purpose: raise the
> prestege of the language, showing that quality texts in it are needed
> and can be paid.
>
> > Among our further plans is looking for such people in the villages of
> > North Ossetia, where exists at least one highly literate group: the
> > teachers of the Ossetian language. But most of them are not at all
> > good computer users... So we have many interesting challenges.
>
> <<Perhaps a collaboration with computer offer ?>>
>
> Can you tell more about your idea? I didn't get it.
>
> > We are also planning to meet authorities of the North Ossetian State
> > University in order to organize presentations of Wikipedia at several
> > faculties. The future Ossetian philologists and journalists might get
> > much experience from writing texts in WP. Still such a presentation
> > does not seem possible in the nearest future, for it's not easy for me
> > to go to Vladikavkaz now. Born there, I live in St.Petersburg at the
> > Baltic Sea at the moment.
>
> << Can you tell me more about the reasons why this does not seem possible
> in the nearest future ? I think your experience sounds very.. >>
>
> Well, at least because the study year is over by the end of May. The
> best time for such presentations at the local universities is
> October-November or February-March, when the students are not
> frightened by the nearing exams and have time to participate in
> projects like WP.
>
> Slavik/Amikeco
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and detail

body:
On 5/28/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Funny, and somehow I thought that the goal of Wikipedia is to "collect
> the sum of human knowledge".

So how do wikibooks, wiktionary, and wikiquotes fit into this?

:)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:Problème de copyright dans l'usage de vos sources Wikipedia

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
> Toutefois, nous aimerions signaler que lorsque vous
> utilisez du mat?riel provenant de Wikipedia, il est
> n?cessaire de citer d'une part la source et d'autre
> part la licence.

Il n'est pas n?cessaire de citer la source. Il est pourtant n?cessaire
de citer l'histoire de chaque article inclus les auteurs, et normalement
nous recommandons aux utilisateurs de notre contenu de faire cela en
liant ? l'article original sur Wikip?dia.

Au moins, c'?tait toujours mon impression. :-)

Timwi


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Video thumbnailer feature

body:
On Sat, 28 May 2005 03:56:41 -0700
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

>
> Well, the usual concerns:
> * security

That's a big question. Has to be asked to wikimedia sysadmins. To my
opinion, it is a political discussion.

> * performance

kelson at camber:/tmp$ ls -la test.mpg
-rw-r--r--  1 kelson kelson 2561895 2005-05-28 17:36 test.mpg
kelson at camber:/tmp$ totem-video-thumbnailer test.mpg test.jpg
kelson at camber:/tmp$ ls -la test.mpg
-rw-r--r--  1 kelson kelson 2561895 2005-05-28 17:36 test.mpg
kelson at camber:/tmp$ time totem-video-thumbnailer test.mpg test.jpg

real    0m0.915s
user    0m0.782s
sys     0m0.069s
kelson at camber:/tmp$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz
stepping        : 7
cpu MHz         : 2400.478
cache size      : 128 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid xtpr
bogomips        : 4751.36

> * compatibility

What to you mean exactly ? Gstreamer is the official multimedia
framework for gnome, and should be in the future the one choosed by
KDE.

> * compartmentalizability

Used by gnome, should be ok... (please don't troll)
But that's just my opinion.
It works fine with my videos.

> It'd be great to be able to run all this image stuff and other external
> bits in an isolated chroot environment, preferably not on the main web
> servers. Totem is a dependency hog, pulling in GNOME, GStreamer etc.

Why not, should be more secure. But that has to be a software
architect decision.

I propose to code the little patch to provide this feature.  After
that, A discussion might be started about how to make the feature more
secure, faster, etc.

Emmanuel

--


subject:
[Wikitech-l] 	Re: broken e-mail notification on testwiki - who
	knows, why ?

body:
The functionality is totally broken on http://test.leuksman.com which is
a pity.

Tim answered:

> It's disabled, not broken.

Tim,
thank you for your answers.

When Enotif is disabled by sysops as you are telling me, then my original patch suppresses usually showing the options in user preferences!
However, currently in testwiki, the options _are_shown_ and users can check or unchkeck the options ( in MISC ) w/o having influence on the feature.

This is, what has puzzled me. It looks as if you have removed other code parts of Enotif patch in SpecialPreferences.php. Can you let me see the current LocalSettings.php and current DefaultSettings.php for testwiki please ?

I suggest, that the functionaliy is please be restored:

when sysops have disabled Enotif options (for any page changes, for user-talk page changes), then the correspoinding options should not be visible to the users in their user preferences. Cf. my EnotifWiki http://www.wikinaut.de/mw/rel15alpha1+enec326_CVS.tgz code. This does work as described.

> Since it works much better in HEAD than it did in any of your patches,

What you are saying, is.... ridiculous and I must cleary insist on
revoking this statement because your are disseminating a misleading
information. My patches work since August 2004 and the most recent one,
based on MediaWiki1.5alpha1 CVS HEAD 06.05.2005 is perfect. It uses
Brion's EConfirm and works very smoothly.It makes apparent, that you
never have tested the version
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Enotif#Download. The Enotif
implementation in CVS HEAD was broken when Dammit introduced partially
wrong wfTimestamp() function calls - when he tried to make it database
independent, which was a good idea of course. This is now repaired in
the following bugzilla 2014, which also removed an admittedly weird
abuse of this field for the purpose of a delayed action. To summarise:
the bugziall 2014 supplies you developers with the basic instructions,
who to repair all things with enotif.

I strongly recommend to apply this patch to the CVS HEAD version.

It also finally drops the ugly UserTalkUpdate.php module (yes, this will
become fully obsolete.  It also reintroduces the memchache efficient
method to store newtalk flag - we talk about this about six months ago.
Please have a look to the code - I also fully removed Enotif calls in
Article.php and shifted them all to RecentChange.php, where they better
fit it (all hooks together now).

The bugzilla has a concise description what is patched and why.
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2014 (patchlet #1)

Another patchlet #2 adds e-mail notification for new pages
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2066 and can be applied
optionally because it is short. The newpage-notifs can be
sysop-configured, so that only powerusers (developers, sysops,
bureaucrats) get notifs when a new page is created. (Any user sees a
personal option "enotif for new pages" so that he can opt-in or opt-out
at his discretion and noone should feel bothered by it.

Kindest regards,
Tom

P.S.

Users, who want to test a complete MediaWiki with all email functions
working

- notification on any page change
- notification on user and user-talk page changes
- notification on new pages

are invited to download
http://www.wikinaut.de/mw/rel15alpha1+enec326_CVS.tgz (from EnotifWiki
from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Enotif#Download with the
documentation) and to compare this version with the official
http://prdownloads.sf.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5alpha1.tar.gz?download .


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Team: Getting started

body:
Cormac:
> Hi,
> I think the focus (or focii) of the group is yet to be decided. As it
> says on the page, there will probably be various focus groups working
> on their points of interest and then coming together at some point in
> time.

That's right. Research is too large and diverse a field to be united in
a single focus group. On the other hand, all members of the Team should
have at least a rough idea of the ongoing activities, and it should be
possible to focus as many interested people as possible on a single high
priority project that we choose. ("Let's get that single login
specification ready by July.")

In the first meeting, we can try to meet both goals by
1. having a general discussion about focus, priorities, etc.
2. splitting into breakaway groups for different topics (could be just
two broad ones for now, e.g. "tech" and "sociology")
3. rejoining for synthesis and definition of deliverables.

It goes without saying that nobody will have to sit through all three
stages if they're not interested in a particular one.

If this works, we can adopt it as a general principle. I'd like this
effort to be as large and as open as possible: a massive, collaborative
and well-coordinated research community. The very positive reaction to
my initial invitations is a good sign that this could work.

The topics for which we can form groups will depend on the interests of
the people participating in any given meeting, so if you want a specific
topic to be on the agenda, I suggest you take it upon yourself to make
sure that the right people will be present. Invite them to the team. :-)

Someone asked on Meta whether we have a mailing list. I suggest using
wikitech-l for now, perhaps with "Research:" in the subject line. If
that turns out to cause too much traffic, we'll create our own list.

Again, anyone who is interested in joining this effort or who wants to
know more about it should take a look at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Team

We're also trying to sort out the date for the first meeting, so if you
haven't already, please make an X in the date matrix for your preferred
meeting times. (I'll send out direct emails to all members about this as
well.)

Best,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Team: Getting
	started


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Chinese,
	Traditional vs Simplified: In Extra-zh: contexts

body:
Hi all, I have noticed a bit of a problem.

People (especially Simplified Chinese users) seem to assume that _all_
Chinese text on _all_ Wikimedia websites will be automatically
converted. For example, the Traditional mainpage at meta was deleted a
while ago, and all translations to Chinese use simplified yet are
labelled as "zh"  rather than "zh-cn" or "zh-hans".

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all that conversion
ONLY works at zh.wikipedia, zh.wiktionary, zh.wikibooks, etc... but
NOT at meta, wikisource (yet), commons, and foundation-wiki.

All Chinese content outside of zh. wikis needs to be labelled as to
variety. It _should_ be available in two versions, but that's not the
problem of the person who creates the content.

This means that translations of foundation press releases, Meta sites,
commons pages, and anything else into Chinese _need_ to be labelled as
to whether they are zh-tw (or zh-hant) or zh-cn (or zh-hans).

Mark

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Paid-for-articles WPs in smaller languages

body:
V. Ivanov wrote:

>2005/5/28, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>:
>
>
>>Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
>>should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give money to
>>poor people in return for an article in a language that has an inactive
>>Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions,
>>
>>
>Say, offer a preferable topic or even a certain article (or article set).
>
I would be wary of any scheme to pay people for articles.  We have
prided ourselves on an all volunteer production in all languages.

The one thing that is not mentioned in the discussion is who would fund
this proposal.  Is there a rich Ossetian benefactor willing to pay for
this idea?  There are many other languages that could benefit from this
approach, but it should not be the responsibility of the general
community to pay for such things in other languages either.

>>Of course, for that to work, there needs to be a way of getting the
>>message (and later, the money) to the people.  Maybe someone has a few
>>ideas?
>>
>>
>The very large problem here is the validation.
>Someone must check:
>- if the article is really in the language in question. :)
>- if the article is about what its title is.
>- if the style is sufficiently encyclopedical.
>- if the money go to the author (and not fully or partly to the "mediator").
>The easiest way here is maybe launching such projects only when an
>active Wikipedian(or a few of them) in the WP already exists (e. g. as
>in the [[:os:]] and [[:cv:]] now).
>
Auditing would be problematic.

>Mind that for such sources the copyright is no longer in effect (books
>published in the USSR before 1971 are no longer copyright-defended if
>the server is in the US). That means that for the languages of Russia
>we could start another project along with the "Paid-for-Articles" -- a
>project of scanning older sources and creative reusing them in WP
>articles, thus preserving the once very active written traditions.
>
Whose law are you getting this from?  Russia has recently adopted the
life + 70 rule, and though there is some confusion about how the
transition from life + 50 would function none of that would support your
speculation about the law.  A statement by the government to the effect
that all works of a certain age would not be "copyright-defended" does
not diminish the copyright.  The individual author or his descendants
would still have the right to sue for copyright infringement.  As much
as I believe that we should take a more aggressive stand in copyright
issues, I think that there is more to that than just a
what-can-we-get-away-with  attitude.

Ec


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and detail

body:
On 5/28/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> The more ardent deleters have indeed put articles up for deletion for being
> "too detailed".

Hm. I haven't seen that one yet, ... That's grounds for pruning text
or splitting an article and not grounds for deletion.

I suppose there might be a case where there is so much inappropriate
material that it would be better to restart.... but that would be a
very special case.

I'd really like to see an example so I could lart the culprit myself.

> > People who are only interested in the basics can still look up only the
> > basics.  It's a question of organisation, not a question of inclusion.
> Yep. There's nothing wrong with subarticles of subarticles.

Eh, there are some subarticles that are out of date because people
find the main one and edit it while the sub article doesn't get any
love and attention. Also, when you start splitting articles you end up
with a lot of duplicated material that can make reading all of them
(when you are really interested) tedious. For example, consider
articles about characters in works of fiction vs the text on the
characters all gathered up under the work in question, or  an article
'Characters used in soandsos writings' + redirects.

> > >There is a place in the world for large amounts of detailed material,
> > >but this shouldn't be the goal of an encyclopedia.
> > Funny, and somehow I thought that the goal of Wikipedia is to "collect
> > the sum of human knowledge".
> Haven't you heard? Our new slogan is "Wikipedia is full. Go away." Now only
> *deserving* articles are kept (whatever that means); all others apparently
> have to make their case or be deleted in a consensus vote of three versus
> one.

Wikipedia isn't the only place in the world to store knowledge. It's
clear that we already are aware of that, which is why we have
wikibooks, wikiquotes, and wiktionary.

If I gave you an algorithm that generated an infinite amount of text
without ever repeating itself I could rightly tell you that the answer
to any question you might ask is in the output. But you find this very
useful.

There is value in being concise, there is value to partitioning, and
there is value to excluding.

*Wikipedia is not paper*. I see this often cited, but I think it is
often cited by people who fail to grasp all of the implications, for
example: We have a search engine, redirects, and hyperlinks, so every
subject doesn't need an article of its own; people can be expected to
find material inside other articles.  We can provide instanious links
to detailed information in millions of places all over the Internet as
well as information contained in other wikimedia projects, so it is
not optimum to provide all possible details in every article.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. This implies a relationship between the
reader and the material (he is searching a lot and looking for more
basic information on average), and it implies things  about the
creation of material (citations, avoiding original research, NPOV,
trying to include a more general audience).  Some content is best
created and presented under a different set of criteria.  By excluding
this content, and perhaps giving it a home of its own, we improve
useablity for everyone.


from_name: El C

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking edit war

body:
As an unpleasent epilogue (hopefuly), I wish to inform readers of the
list of the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Sam_Spade

El_C


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: image dumps

body:
On Thu, 26 May 2005, Kate Turner wrote:

> Andy Rabagliati wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
>
> > On Wed, 25 May 2005, Kate Turner wrote:
> >
> >> i've started running an image dump for en.wp using a version of
> >> trickle with large-file support (the last one died after 2GB). if
> >> this works i'll set up regular image dumps again along with the db
> >> backups.
> >
> > Can you set it up so it can be rsync'ed ?
>
> do you want to rsync the tar file of all images, or the image directory as
> its stored on disk?

The latter.

> i don't see any benefit from the latter, and the former is not something
> that's feasible right now, although it may be doable in future...

I keep an identical tree this side, and rsync does the rest.

Even if you change the tree arrangement, I can write a script to
re-arrange this end. But .. dont :-)

If the archive has only changed by 5%, I only download 5%. I can ignore
archive trees and rescaled thumbnails.

> > It will greatly save your bandwidth and mine, at the expense of some CPU.
>
> we currently have a lot more problems in terms of CPU(/disk) use than
> bandwidth, particularly in the area of images & the dumps service.

Bandwidth is the priority in Africa. However, the magnitude of
information means that even an out-of-date copy of wikipedia is very
useable. My worry sometimes is that a newer SQL dump refers to newer
pictures, where I have some perfectly appropriate ones here :-)

So perhaps I should use an SQL dump of the same vintage as the picture
archive for 'least astonishment'.

And, one day, there could be a trickle-back of edits, maybe moderated at
the remote end.

Eric has offered access to other (SQL ?) update methods, but I am busy
on other things and have not had time to investigate.

However, rsync to me is understandable and optimal for my needs, and
takes little of my time. And I'll just download SQL dumps.

Cheers,   Andy!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
As I said before, even dirty perscriptivists (viz Perrin, C.) always
come to accept language change _eventually_.

Otherwise, the text of your message would have read like something
more along the lines of "Spec ?? fore ?in sylf!" (Stephen Forrest may
correct me here in the case that ic may've spake me here in a
wrong-like manner yar)

Mark

On 28/05/05, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 12:25:17PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> >
> > 172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid
> > spelling of something. :)
> > Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
>
> Speak for yourself.
>
> --
> Chad Perrin
> [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking edit war

body:
On 5/28/05, El C <el.ceeh at gmail.com> wrote:
> As an unpleasent epilogue (hopefuly), I wish to inform readers of the
> list of the following:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Sam_Spade

A good example of what happens when we fail to handle complaints like
professionals, minimize escalation, and assume good faith.


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web bugs on bg.wikipedia.org

body:
On 5/28/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> I've made my position on this perfectly clear on
> http://tinyurl.com/dr844 -- I consider this to be an unacceptable risk
> to user privacy and I'll do whatever is necessary on a technical level
> to prevent it.

Thanks for your comments on this Tim.

I've removed the JavaScript from the five Bulgarian wikis. If anyone
knows of any similar scripts on any other Wikimedia wikis, please ask
the admins there to remove them, or contact a steward, if necessary,
via <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions>, who
will be able to deal with the problem.

Angela.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and detail

body:
On 5/28/05, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> An oft-used definition of encyclopedia is "compendium of human
> knowledge", where "compendium" means a summarized collection.
> On the other hand, my OED defines "encyclopedia" as a "literary
> work containing extensive information on all branches of
> knowledge", with no reference to abbreviation or summarization.

I'm aware of this, although it's clear that summarization is implied
simply because it is necessary. :)

> So we have a situation where reasonable people can differ as to
> whether summarization is desirable. Empirically, however,
> I think if one were to take a recent scientific paper and make
> a WP article embodying every last bit of its content, including
> charts, tables, statistical methods, experimental technique, etc,
> most editors would find the result "too detailed". But perhaps
> when all the summary-type articles are done, this will be the new
> frontier of development. (anything but endless recategorization,
> please... :-) )

Right, I don't argue that we don't want to eventually have
everything... But rather that it's useful to have a concise resource
as well as comprehensive ones, that we should call the concise
resource an encyclopedia (since that meshes well with the common use),
and that our rules and abilities make us better suited to producing
the concise resource first. This doesn't mean I think people should
write detailed information, bur rather that they should do whatever
they want, but the details stuff probably belongs some place else,
such as wikibooks.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Team:   Getting started

body:
tpryor at media.mit.edu a ?crit:
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to know more about specifics of the Wikimedia Research "exclusion
> procedure" as that doesn't seem to have the characteristic open
> definitiveness
> I would expect from this group.
>
> I haven't contributed anything to the wikipedia code base, but I am
> working on
> alternative dynamic interfaces for wikipedia. I think it would be
> sensible to
> coordinate with the formative research team. I created a brand new wikipedia
> user account 'Dppl' (yes, indeed, I have no editor identity) and tried
> to join
> but seem to be in exclusion land.
>
> Here are some of the wikipedia research topics I'm interested in and
> have done a
> little R&D on already:
>
>    1. Hallways
>          1. Integrate dynamic menuing system, called Hallways, as a skin.
>          2. Inferential menu tree options using centroid clustering of
> choices
> across users.
> CHEAPO MOCKUP (in development):
> http://www.bostoncoop.net/~tpryor/wiki/hallways_related_files/hllwys.php
>    2. Wikipedia Suggest
>          1. Similar UI to Google Suggest using the power of memcache.
> CHEAPO MOCKUP (in development):
> http://www.bostoncoop.net/~tpryor/wikisug/wikisug.html
>    3. "StoryMap"
>          1. Nodal person and real time placecoding for nodal storytelling.
>                1. Orthomap, street address photos, navigation, phone,
> audiotagging, (multi-interface; content delivery over http)
>                2. Examples, compelling web interface, fun to use on the
> street.
> MOCKUP REQUIRES MODIFICATION.
>    4. Wikiself
>          1. Autobiographical mind mapping (similar/related to blogging using
> mediawiki - I simply think this could be an interesting research area
> and would
> like to discuss possibilities, existing examples, etc.)
>
>    5. "Wikipictionary" -- Icons-for-word-meanings inline transclusion
>          1. Collaborative creation of icon/image/animation for every
> meaning of
> every word.
>          2. The ability to hover over any word in a body of text and see the
> representative permutation of definition's representative image flip up for
> translanguage conceptual recognition... which I believe would/will also
> helpful
> in learning a language.
> SORRY, NO MOCKUP.
>
> I spoke about a couple of these potential projects (Storymap and
> Wikipictionary)
>  when Jimmy Wales spoke at Harvard some weeks ago. There seemed to be some
> interest. I hope to be able to work the Wikimedia Research Team...
> otherwise I
> suppose I will be a renegade by default. Regardless, I'd appreciate a
> response.
>
> Thanks,
> Tony Pryor

Hello

I do not consider someone participating to our projects, and not
belonging to the Research Team, should ever feel or made him felt he is
a renegade. You are free and welcome to help, within or outside the
Research Team.

This is very essential point.

Anthere


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Izynews and template "For wikipedia use only"

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
> Putting images under a "for wikipedia use only" has a name. It is
> called a "copyright". So, in creating a tag "for wikipedia use only"
> to tag your pictures, you are specifically putting copyrighted
> content in Wikipedia. This is not alright as our goal is to provide
> "free" content.

Stephen Forrest has already outlined to you that "copyrighted" is not
what you mean.  I would like to emphasise further, that absolutely
everything -- and in particular the text of all articles -- is
"copyrighted" unless it is public domain.  You need to realise that this
is important because without it, it would not be possible for us to use
legal means to enforce the freeness of the content.  If the text was not
copyrighted, it would be legal for anyone to claim the content as their
own and never mention the authors or the GFDL.

By contrast, Wikinews has chosen to allow only public-domain material,
thereby requiring contributors to forgo their copyrights.

Timwi


body:
You're wrong about Navajo. Hundreds of thousands of speakers, yes.
(180k is about right iirc?) Millions? Unfortunately, no.

There are few Native American languages with over 1 million speakers,
those include:

Guarani (3 million iirc, official language of Peru)
Nahuatl (if you consider it to be a single language; about 15 million I think??)
Quechua (about 8 million)
Aymara (about 6 million)

And I *think* that's all. No, Navajo, Ojibwe, Cree, Cherokee, blah,
blah etc. do *not* have over 1 million speakers.

Some of the native languages of Arizona:
Navajo: 150.000 (about 80.000 in Arizona,) - iirc
O'odham: 35.000 (??... also spoken in Mexico in the state of Sonora)
Yaqui: 16.450 (of the divergent Arizona Yaqui there are 450, the rest
are of the Mexican dialect and only in Mexico)
W. Apache aka Coyotero Apache: 13.000
Zuni: 10.000 (mostly in New Mexico - perhaps only a few hundred in Arizona)
Hopi: 5.500
Ute & S. Paiute: 2.000 (largely in Nevada, Colorado, Utah)
Tewa: 1.300 (mostly in New Mexico)
Walapai: 1.000
Havasupai: 550
Chiricahua Apache: 300 (almost all in New Mexico and Oklahoma)
Maricopa & Xalychidom: 200
Yavapai: 200
Quechan: 150
Cocopah: 150
Mojave: 75 (on the Arizona-California border)
Chemehuevi: 10 (on the Arizona-California border) - iirc
Kickapoo: (don't think there are any in Arizona, most Kickapoo
speakers live in Oklahoma or Mexico)

The numbers however are often wildly inaccurate, most are higher, some
are off by just a little but others are off by a _lot_. For some of
the languages, you could be misled to believe that not many of the
ethnic group speak it anymore, yet the ethnic group is small as well
(Havasupai is spoken by 99% of living Havasupai people, yet there are
only 550 speakers; Walapai on the other hand has 1.000 speakers but
there at least twice as many Walapai people)

Mark

On 28/05/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> V. Ivanov wrote:
> >
> > The idea is not absolutely new. We use the absolutely similar
> > approach at the Ossetic Wikipedia (we call it "Project <<Tskhinval
> > Teachers>>". The essence of the project is paying teachers from South
> > Ossetia a 2,5-USD equivalent for every article (up from 2500
> > characters).
>
> Aw man! I would gladly pay that sum to anyone who can write articles in
> some of my favourite exotic languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Navajo, Nahuatl,
> Hmong -- all of these are million-speaker languages).
>
> Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
> should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give money to
> poor people in return for an article in a language that has an inactive
> Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions, but
> once their conditions are fulfilled, they should be legally obliged to
> pay out the money they offered.
>
> Of course, for that to work, there needs to be a way of getting the
> message (and later, the money) to the people.  Maybe someone has a few
> ideas?
>
> > http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8
> > http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B7%D1%83%D1%86%D1%86%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B7%D1%8B-%D0%9C%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82
>
> Maybe someone should add interwiki links to these.  :-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: bambara

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
> The association Geekcorps recently (it started possibly 2 months ago)
> made a lot of efforts to try to stimulate a minor wikipedia in an
> african language. Along with work in translation of the interface,
> addition of major rules and principles of Wikipedia, Geekcorps also
> decided to motivate editors speaking bambara in Mali to participate
> to the bambara wikipedia (http://bm.wikipedia.org) in a *financial*
> way.

How come that the Main Page is still largely in French?  I am
particularly surprised that it seems to switch between Bamanankan and
French in the middle of sentences.


body:
V. Ivanov wrote:
>
> The idea is not absolutely new. We use the absolutely similar
> approach at the Ossetic Wikipedia (we call it "Project <<Tskhinval
> Teachers>>". The essence of the project is paying teachers from South
> Ossetia a 2,5-USD equivalent for every article (up from 2500
> characters).

Aw man! I would gladly pay that sum to anyone who can write articles in
some of my favourite exotic languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Navajo, Nahuatl,
Hmong -- all of these are million-speaker languages).

Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give money to
poor people in return for an article in a language that has an inactive
Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions, but
once their conditions are fulfilled, they should be legally obliged to
pay out the money they offered.

Of course, for that to work, there needs to be a way of getting the
message (and later, the money) to the people.  Maybe someone has a few
ideas?

> http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8
> http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B7%D1%83%D1%86%D1%86%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B7%D1%8B-%D0%9C%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82

Maybe someone should add interwiki links to these.  :-)


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
Sam has changed his signature back. Please let's all try and forget this.
Thanks.

Danny


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 12:25:17PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> 172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid
> spelling of something. :)
> Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".

Speak for yourself.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> User:Sam Spade has created an attack page in his User
> space at [[User:Sam Spade/Report rogue admin]].  Which
> is fine.  If he wants to make his silly allegations
> there instead of in the official pages, he's more than
> welcome to do so.  But now every one of his discussion
> page edits consists of an enormous signature with a
> link to the page and the signature of "Click here to
> report admin abuse".  The signature doesn't even
> include his real name OR his User name.  This is a
> clear case of a personal campaign against the admins
> listed on his page, and should not be allowed.  Let
> him keep his page if he wants, but he should be
> required to remove the disruptive link in his
> signature.  I've listed the page for VfD, but I'll
> withdraw that if he'll remove the signature, which he
> has no inclination to do.

What?
This is insane.
I suggest you withdraw the VFD right away, signature removal or not.


from_name: geni

body:
On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > You are lying, David, and you are violating
> > Wikipedia policy in doing so.
>
> Somebody block this guy from the mailing list, please.
>
> RickK

Don't you enjoy shooting yourself in the foot being raised to an artform?

--
geni


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: GFDL Clarification

body:
Robert Brockway wrote:
>
> After reviewing the wording of my request and Mercedes' response it is my
> contention the pictures are licenced under the GFDL.

The GFDL was never mentioned, so it is hard to justify claiming they
licensed it to you under the GFDL.

Quite to the contrary, you only asked if the image could be used on
Wikipedia, not whether they would license it under the GFDL or anything
else. Therefore, they only agreed to using it on Wikipedia, and
therefore it should not be used on Wikipedia because it isn't free.

Timwi


body:
A. Decorte wrote:
> Hi, how can I change the namespace (for example Wikipedia to Vichipedie) in the
> Friulian Wiki?

Post to wikitech-l about this. Alternatively, file a bugreport about
this on MediaZilla (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org).


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Team:	Getting
	started

body:
Dppl-
 > I created a brand new
> wikipedia
> user account 'Dppl' (yes, indeed, I have no editor identity) and tried
> to join
> but seem to be in exclusion land.

There seems to be some confusion here - anyone can add themselves
directly to the members list. I'll explain in private.

Anthere: Yes, joining the WRT is of course not a condition for anything.

Best,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense

Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced
like "known".

I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it
seem.  I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar
and spelling.  My previous message was not meant to belittle those who
do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart.  I certainly don't.

It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition
and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that
would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word.  Once
someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow
it, thinking it might be the correct spelling.  But the thoughts of that
first person are beyond me.

Timwi


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 5/28/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Anthere: Yes, joining the WRT is of course not a condition for anything.
>

Nor is it an exclusive club of developers, 'old-timers', academics etc...

Cormac


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Completely unwarranted block by Slimvirgin

body:
Cranston Snord (enviroknot at hotmail.com) [050528 16:35]:

> Slimvirgin has blocked me claiming that I am 129.7.35.1.

That's because you are, you lying fuck. ElKabong = KaintheScion and
KaintheScion = Enviroknot.

I mean, it's good that you've stopped the personal abuse using this
account.

> She is also lying and claiming that I am ElKabong; this appears to be
> connected to her personal crusade along with Mel Etitis, Yuber, etc. to
> harass said user.
> I request this be removed immediately, I have not violated 3RR and am not
> ElKabong.

No, you just have remarkably similar interests.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > User:Sam Spade has created an attack page in his
> User
> > space at [[User:Sam Spade/Report rogue admin]].
> Which
> > is fine.  If he wants to make his silly
> allegations
> > there instead of in the official pages, he's more
> than
> > welcome to do so.  But now every one of his
> discussion
> > page edits consists of an enormous signature with
> a
> > link to the page and the signature of "Click here
> to
> > report admin abuse".  The signature doesn't even
> > include his real name OR his User name.  This is a
> > clear case of a personal campaign against the
> admins
> > listed on his page, and should not be allowed.
> Let
> > him keep his page if he wants, but he should be
> > required to remove the disruptive link in his
> > signature.  I've listed the page for VfD, but I'll
> > withdraw that if he'll remove the signature, which
> he
> > has no inclination to do.
>
> What?
> This is insane.
> I suggest you withdraw the VFD right away, signature
> removal or not.

Thanks for the reasoned discussion.  Care to explain
''why'' you think I should remove it, or do you just
go around making demands all the time?

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
With all respect, Danny, I have one more comment for the record.

Yes, Sam Spade removed the signature and his false accusations against
myself. It is ironic that he would use the exact same evidence
(copy&paste) that he posted on my RFA (i.e. before I was an admin), to
accuse me of abusing admin powers -- yes, with the same evidence which
predated me becoming an admin.

1. I explain this bellow the accusations (Note how I am the ==first==
one to be singled out):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ASam_Spade
2FReport_rogue_admin&diff=14376526&oldid=14376341

==> "Talk to talk." Sam Spade moves comment to talk, leaves false
accusations on the page.

2. --Then-- I post on AN/I:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=14375958&oldid=14375921

==> Sam Spade acts offensively (see bellow), before removing the 'evidence.'

3. Also, my response to his evidence is important to note:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AViajero&diff=14379533&oldid=14379529

The removal of the signature and false accusations follow this
conversation on AN/I:
----------
Perhaps I should leave the project, and leave Wikipedia to his
devices. I can't waste anymore energy on his constant harrasment. El_C
23:10, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

If you do I promise to send in a $50 donation. Click here to report
admin abuse 23:12, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to Sam Spade for more contempt and snide innuendo. El_C 23:15,
28 May 2005 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:Sam_Spade.2FReport_rogue_admin.
Click here to report admin abuse 23:21, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Bravo, Jack. See also: WP:POINT El_C 23:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Exposing admin abuse is disruptive, eh? Well I'm not the one who
brought it here for comment, i agree that was a bit disruptive...
Click here to report admin abuse 23:28, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Eh. I have not abused my admin powers, ever. As mentioned, all the
evidence depicted by Jack, entirely predates my adminship. El_C 23:31,
28 May 2005 (UTC)

That may be true, until I can show otherwise, I have removed you from
the list. Click here to report admin abuse 23:40, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Whatever, Jack. El_C 23:48, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
---------

I have no further comments at this time, but I wish to have reference
to these here too. I hope no one will flame me for this.

El_C


subject: [WikiEN-l] what to do with religious POV?

body:
Peta Holmes (holmespeta at yahoo.com) [050528 22:03]:

> I recently blocked an account for what looked like
> link spamming. All the edits were adding a link to an
> external  website that has something to do with Branch
> Davidians vs. Koreshians and to a bunch of unrealted
> articles like poverty and sex. I now have an 32kb
> email in my inbox suggesting changes to the articles
> they're concerned with so that they are more ''NPOV''.
> I'm really not familar with anything to do with Waco
> and the mess that followed, would anyone be willing to
> take a look at the changes and get back to
> the-branch.org, or should I just unblock the account
> and let them edit in good faith and hope that the two
> groups will sort it out between themselves.

After Waco, the remaining Branch Davidians split into *two* tiny factions
who really don't like each other and fight over whatever it is that remains
of the Church. (Academics and student politicians will recognise the sort
of politics involved.) the-branch.org is one of the branches.

([[Branch Davidian]] is an article amazingly deserving of an NPOV tag. The
current version may be worth linking as an example of a lengthy article of
substance in severe need of NPOVing.)

- d.


body:
Peta Holmes (holmespeta at yahoo.com) [050528 22:03]:

> I recently blocked an account for what looked like
> link spamming. All the edits were adding a link to an
> external  website that has something to do with Branch
> Davidians vs. Koreshians and to a bunch of unrealted
> articles like poverty and sex. I now have an 32kb
> email in my inbox suggesting changes to the articles
> they're concerned with so that they are more ''NPOV''.
> I'm really not familar with anything to do with Waco
> and the mess that followed, would anyone be willing to
> take a look at the changes and get back to
> the-branch.org, or should I just unblock the account
> and let them edit in good faith and hope that the two
> groups will sort it out between themselves.

As for the actual dispute - email them and point them at the NPOV page,
particularly the "writing for the enemy" bit. Get them to use talk pages.
Get them to write as individuals, 'cos we really don't do role accounts.
That sort of thing :-)

- d.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and detail

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 5/28/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> I disagree (to both).  Traditional encyclopaedias may have covered
>> only the "basics" of the subject because they have constraints
>> inherent in print publication.  Wikipedia is not paper, and we can
>> cover any subject in any depth we want -- all we need is the
>> volunteers to write it.
>>
>> I believe that if there is to learn more, then it belongs in
>> Wikipedia too.
>
> Hogwash. When you go into a library it's highly likely that you could
> go directly to a detailed book on whatever subject you are
> interested in, but libraries still have encyclopedias.

If you're going to the library anyway, then yes, you might as well go
for a specialised book rather than a paper(!) encyclopaedia.

> By making our articles too detailed

I said "I think the detail belongs in Wikipedia", not "I think the
detail belongs in a Wikipedia article on a more general topic". If I
want to write about the Time Hierarchy Theorem, then I will write about
it at [[Time Hierarchy Theorem]] and not at [[Computer Science]].
Incidentally, noone has yet suggested to delete [[Time Hierarchy
Theorem]], or indeed any other article, for making Wikipedia "too detailed".

> we run the risk of making the basic information inaccessible to the
> vast majority of the users who are only interested in the basics.

People who are only interested in the basics can still look up only the
basics.  It's a question of organisation, not a question of inclusion.

> Furthermore, while Wikipedia is not paper there are many other
> resources limitations that we face, for example: editors.  How can we
> ensure the accuracy, quality, and NPOVness

We are already facing the problem of ensuring accuracy, quality and
NPOVness.  Deleting content that makes Wikipedia "too detailed" is not
going to help that problem.

> There is a place in the world for large amounts of detailed material,
> but this shouldn't be the goal of an encyclopedia.

Funny, and somehow I thought that the goal of Wikipedia is to "collect
the sum of human knowledge".

Timwi


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
You may have cited the policy, but I have yet to see any evidence the
people you are accusing actually broke this policy.

--Mgm

On 5/28/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I find the whole thing hilarious.
> >
> > Not only are you not interested in the truth, you're
> > actively attacking me
> > for following Wikipedia guidelines and for bringing
> > my case.
>
> Yawn.  Bored now.  Typical troll behavior.  Move on,
> nothing more to be seen here.
>
> RickK
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
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>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Notice to an Admin

body:
Actually, I was asking enviroknot to back up his statements.

--Mgm

On 5/28/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050528 10:33]:
>
> > Would you mind backing up that statement with evidence from the
> > history tabs of articles and other pages?
>
>
> Nope, but I have the matching IPs.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: ultrablue at gmail.com

body:
David Gerard is one of the most trusted members of the Wikipedia
community, and I am personally glad he has been entrusted with the
power he has been. He is also one of the administrators of this
mailing list, so if he really was "drunk with power" as you seem to
imply, then why would he allow this abusive tirade from you to
continue? He is open and accountable, and continues to enjoy my full
confidence.

~Mark Ryan

On 5/28/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Given what I have seen of your behavior toward other users, coupled with
> David Gerard's outburst, I get the feeling that nothing I say or do will
> convince you to stop this.
>
> It is a shame upon Wikipedia that people like you and David Gerard have been
> given power.
>
> -Enviroknot
>
> >From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com,English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Completely unwarranted block by Slimvirgin
> >Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 03:21:59 -0600
> >
> >On 5/28/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Slimvirgin has blocked me claiming that I am 129.7.35.1.
> > >
> > > She is also lying and claiming that I am ElKabong; this appears to be
> > > connected to her personal crusade along with Mel Etitis, Yuber, etc. to
> > > harass said user.
> > >
> > > I request this be removed immediately, I have not violated 3RR and am
> >not
> > > ElKabong.
> > >
> > > -Enviroknot
> > >
> >Enviroknot and 129.7.35.1 were blocked for 24 hours after being
> >reported on WP:AN/3RR by User:FeloniousMonk for violating 3RR at
> >[[Neofascism and religion]].
> >
> >Based on the editing pattern, writing style, e-mails, and IP-address
> >comparisons of KaintheScion, ElKabong, and Enviroknot, they are
> >operated by the same person. IP address 129.7.35.1 lies within an IP
> >address range (resolving to the University of Houston) previously used
> >by that person, and Enviroknot very conveniently turned up to take
> >over the anon IP's reverts, reverting to the same version.
> >
> >Sarah
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: GFDL Clarification

body:
On Sun, 29 May 2005, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Hello Robert,

Hi Erik.  Thanks for your reply.

> Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia, built by thousands of
> individuals in every language and written from a neutral point of
> view. All our content is available to anyone for any purpose, free of
> charge and free of advertising.
>
> Would you be willing to donate an image to the general public for
> royalty-free use, so it can be used on Wikipedia? The photo would
> always have to be attributed to you, and modifications could only
> be made if they are made available under the same conditions --
> see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ for details.
>
>   I would much appreciate it if you could contribute to this effort.

In future I'll certainly use an approach like this.

Cheers,
	Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: +1-416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway at opentrend.net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Wikipedia Check-Usage for Commons media

body:
Ohhhh, my !

I was dreaming of this ...
Good job Tim. Really thank you.

Anthere

--- Tim 'avatar' Bartel <wikipedia at computerkultur.org>
wrote:
> Hi wikipedians,
>
> at the moment there is no (easy) possibility to
> check if media on
> commons is used throughout the wikipedia projects
> included into
> mediawiki.
>
> Wikipedia Check-Usage [1] is a web based tool which
> can be used to
> check where commons media is used throughout the
> wikimedia universe.
> Also it is able to find "local" duplicates to
> commons media.
>
> Check-Usage is strongly inspired by Arnomane's
> check-usage.sh [2] - a
> unix shell script doing mostly the same job. Because
> this script has
> several preconditions to run, like shell access to a
> unix/linux system
> and several programs installed on this machine, I
> though of writing a
> small web based interface. After short consideration
> I decided not to
> write only an interface calling Arnomane's script,
> but to re-code it
> completly. Check-Usage is written in PHP using
> libcurl.
>
> So if you are interested where 'your' pictures are
> used - give it a try.
>
> And commons sysops can use it before deleting files
> which are more than
> a few days old. In the past it was often problematic
> deleting/moving a
> file on commons, because doing this the included
> pictures in other
> wikimedia-projects were broken.
>
> Bye, Tim.
>
> PS: Regarding the traffic load: only the text of the
> chosen image-page
> gets transfered.
>
> [1] http://www.juelich.de/avatar/check-usage/
> [2]
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Arnomane/Image_usage
>
> --
> "I worry about my child and the Internet all the
> time, even though she's
> too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry
> about. I worry that
> 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say
> 'Daddy, where were
> you when they took freedom of the press away from
> the Internet?'"
> --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] [Ticket#: 126217-FW] Emily Dickinson poems

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Very good letter, but please Ray, don't end it the way you do :)
>
> It is kind of provocative, don't you think so ?
>
> Don't you folks feel like we're getting more and more stuff like this
> these days ?

Thanks for the compliment.  I admit that I was a little sarcastic.  I
have received further correspondence from the individual, and now that I
know that she is more than some random idiot who doesn't know what he is
talking about I can respond with a different tone.

In my previous comments there was a point to be made about take down
orders.  Under US law there are a number of elements that must be
included in a take down order.  I think that one of the most important
ones is the statement of legal standing.  This protects people from wild
claims and demands from those really have no connection with the
copyrighted work.  If a negotiated agreement were available it would not
be with them.

As things stand there are some peculiar problems with this situation.
Although Emily Dickinson died in 1886, it seems that 41 of her poems
were published posthumously for the first time by Harvard University in
1955.  This would make the copyright still valid in the United States on
those poems until 2050.

The same material also appears at http://www.emilydickinson.it/ but it
appears that this is quite acceptable under Italian law.

Dr. Tanter also raised the question of the 1847 photograph of Emily
Dickinson in the Wikipedia article, feeling that permission to include
the photograph should be had from Amherst College

I haven't noticed a lot of claims of potential copyright violation

Ec