from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] scn.wiki

body:
Hi to one and all and everyone else in between
Before I ask my very important question - I thought I would mention that  after only 10 months of operation, scn.wiki recently reached 2,000 articles!

Please keep that in mind the next time you want to slag off at Mr Williamson for supporting minority languages.

Now to my question.  We recently noted that some wikis have set themselves up so that their internal hypertext links are not underlined (I think ca.wiki is one off the top of my head).  Is that something easy to do?  We in scn.wiki land think that it looks better not being underlined.  Anyone got any ideas for us?

Thank you in anticipation - and as the Wiggles say - toot toot chugga chugga!
Salutamu
pippu d'a

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi, antispam, antivirus, POP3


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ben E.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speaking of insecure egos...

body:
That would be the cased with blocked users, except that you have not been
merely blocked, but banned. From the ArbCom archives:

User:Skyring <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skyring> is banned from
> Wikipedia for one year for wiki-stalking and acting in bad faith towards
> other contributors, as demonstrated in evidence. Any attempt at sockpuppetry
> shall, as per policy, result in this ban being reset.

According to [[Wikipedia:Banning policy]], an official policy of Wikipedia,
banning is defined.

A Wikipedia *ban <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban>* is a formal revocation
> of editing privileges on Wikipedia. Such a ban may be temporary and of fixed
> duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. The standard invitations
> Wikipedia extends to over six billion people worldwide to "edit this page"
> do not apply to banned users. Banned users are simply not authorized to edit
> Wikipedia.

So, no, you are not allowed to edit your talk page, your user page, or any
other page in Wikipedia. The user page, again according to [[WP:BAN]],

may be replaced by a notice of the ban and links to any applicable
> discussion or decisionmaking pages. The purpose of this notice is to
> announce the ban to editors encountering the banned user's edits.

You are not authorized to edit on Wikipedia. All of your edits, or your
sockpuppet edits, shall be reverted, and any pages that you create shall be
speedily deleted. You may return on August 29, 2006, or later if you edit
again. The admin who cleared your page and added the ban notices was clearly
allowed to do so.

[[User:Bratsche|Ben]]

On 8/28/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/29/05, Ben E. <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What do you mean by this? Would you like an admin to clean up your
> user/user
> > talk pages? Or do you have another request?
>
> I'd like the policy explained and appropriate action taken. My
> understanding is that I'm allowed to edit my own talk page, even when
> blocked, but it seems that one particular admin is unaware of this,
> and when I cleared it, leaving a message of thanks, he went off
> half-cocked.
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Bratsche-It means "viola!"


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from mailing list

body:
On 8/29/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> like "plz read!!!!!!!!!"?

 *snicker*
 I've seen this on every mailing list I've ever been on. Several times a
year there is a despairing wail from someone posted to the general list,
asking to be unsubscribed. In every case this is something they can do for
themselves, but they've lost the instructions or they can't understand them
or they've forgotten a password or some other equally silly thing.
 If there's more than a handful, then maybe it's a problem, but otherwise
the moderators spot the message and quietly unsubscribe the member, leaving
the list clear for more important traffic.

> --
> Peter in Canberra


from_name: Nick Boalch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Test

body:
As requested by Mark on #wikipedia.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3420
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


list: foundation-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] Languages and Communities

body:
I think there are still many questions open and that's why I write this
mail also to the lists and do not only add it to the page on meta:

****************
Languages and Communities

Now I read a consideration about languages and communities in Ultimate
Wiktionary that states that people who cannot speak English can't be
part of the community.

My answer to that is: no, that's not true and I will explain why below.

Then there is that other statement that it is better to have separate
language communities so that they can speak in their own language and
everyone can participate. And of course that the aim is to have a lot of
international co-operation in cross-languages and being more practical
this is normally English.

Well: this would be desirable, but it is not happening within the
Wiktionary projects ? most wiktionaries really don't know what the
others do and besides very few ones there's not even much information
coming through the wiktionary-l.

Well, let's se how communication and communities work within UW.

There will be beer parlours for every language people want to have one
in. There will be people who care about communication issues (mainly
Sysops I suppose, but also other people). Now there are those local
communities talking about everyday issues and then a very important
theme comes along and it is really important to have it in all the other
beer parlours as well. So writing for example only in Italian what does
this person do? He/she writes a message and below the title there's the
message "please distribute to the other beer parlours". Normally people
caring about communications read all in "their beer parlour" and so the
one who knows both languages takes the message and transfers it for
example to the English beer parlour and adds a link to the English
message (really this can be done with the help of a template) and this
way also all the others will know about this. Now what is different to
the actual projects: these communications simply do not exist (or hardly
do exist) ? it is not an automatic procedure that can involve all the
Wiktionary communities, but only for those who by chance read this/that
post. Like in all huge networks also in Wiktionary we will have local
groups and I suppose that there will be also groups that for example
focus on certain themes (like etymology, pronunciation and soundfiles,
pictures or whatever). And there will very likely the "translator-beer
parlours" since they use UW for work, they have other requirements than
most users ? there will be discussions on terminology, on which term
suits best in which context etc. just like it now happens in so many
mailing lists. Many of these people are not too computer literate and so
they will come over step by step and they will need quite a lot of more
technical information. Of course anyone can contribute to any community
in whatever language he/she likes.

So it cannot be said that people who do not speak English cannot have
their community ? they will have it for sure, as it is the only way to
go. English will like so often be a kind of a interface language as I
suppose it is hard to find someone who can translate from Italian to
Chinese directly or the other way round. So the Chinese beer parlour
will receive its news very likely from the English one.
For many minor languages where it actually does not make sense to open a
whole wiktionary since the language speakers are just a few ? maybe only
500 or even less can have their place as well. This is not even an
option now ? but within UW even this will be possible.
Think about all that African languages where probably universities will
be the first to co-operate. Well also considering the Logos contents: we
can have material in very seldom languages from the very first beginning
and so in particular this very small groups of native speakers will have
something where they can start to work on, about which they can
communicate and discuss ? hopefully in their own language. It is much
easier to integrate people for new languages if there is already
something there where they can work on than having to start from scratch.

So that about communities: no fear is needed that there aren't going to
be local communities ? they will surely be there, because people need it
and interlanguage communication will be for sure better.

I would even love to see local offline meetings where people that do not
actually contribute to the Wikimedia projects are invited.
************

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


list: wikimedia-l


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Languages and Communities


from_name: El C

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speaking of insecure egos...

body:
>?????
 [Well before that] "You didn't feel the faintest tinge or twinge of
hypocrisyas you wrote the above," when you uttered that same sentence
*after* having modified my comment space, knowing already then that I was
weary of it here?
 -->
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AEl_C&diff=15157892&oldid=15157579<--
  Preceded by: "you '*must* cease from editing my comments' space by
inserting your own (esp. without signing). Do you not know that I intend to
bring evidence in your arbitration proceeding which outline my protest of
this pratice on your part (and that you continued to do so, at least once,
despite such explicit protests?) "

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AEl_C&diff=15156770&oldid=15156575
  And long before then... modifying my comment on Talk:Government of
Australia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGovernment_of_Australia&diff=11120476&oldid=11120185
  My protest: "Skyring, your direct modification of my original comments
here is unacceptable and borders on
vandalism."<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGovernment_of_Australia&diff=11120476&oldid=11120185>

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGovernment_of_Australia&diff=11121998&oldid=11121571
  Following another modification: "Skyring, do not modify talk page comments
-Once again, Skyring breaks my comments without attribution (signing). And
he inserts a lengthy, diversionary, and totally untopical comment.
Goodfaith?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGovernment_of_Australia&diff=11128875&oldid=11128643
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You seem to have had great difficulties staying away from my own comments
and comment space for some reason. Instead of responding normally, entering
a comment bellow my own, you felt *compelled* to modify my comment in a way
that drowned my own narrative with textual redundancy -- and then when I
protest, you do it again. And again. And again. And again. And now you
respond to the obvious and already well-documented with "??????" Uhuh.
 El_C


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Legal paranoia

body:
Michael Turley wrote:

>Their choice of what articles to include is a very significant part of their
>content.
>
How do you  measure "significant"?  If their articles average 1,000
words each we're talking about less than 1/10 of 1 percent.

>The full list is a unique expression of editorial choice of what
>parts of human knowledge to include, and as such is protected by copyright
>law. Our list is an edited copy of theirs. Our use of significant portions
>of their copyright work in order to create and improve direct competition
>for them, the copyright holders, is certainly not protected under fair use.
>
I realize that the corporatist agenda is often a matter of talking in
favour of competition while acting against it.  Restricting competition
is not one of the purposes of copyright law.  If that were the case I
could see Coke starting a legal action every time that Pepsi referred to
them in one of their ads.

I wouldn't want us to be in breech of anti-trust legislation. :-)

>I don't think I can make it any simpler than that.
>
Simple and simplistic are two different concepts.

>In the end, it's up to a judge somewhere. The judge may not agree, but in
>this world of capitalist corporatism, I'd be willing to wager a lot of money
>that you're wrong.
>
How much?  Who will hold the bets? How will it be settled without
without the need to go to court?

Ec


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
On 8/29/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
> From memory, these lists, some shorter and some longer, have included
> alleged:
> -- Communists (and communists apologists)
> -- Zionists
> -- Anti-Semites
> -- Terrorist apologists
> -- Proponents of "alternative medicine"
> -- Proponents of Creationism
> -- Members of the Church of Scientology
> etc.
>

The difference here is not the content of the list, it's the medium in which
it was posted. That Jay is Jewish is not some secret, he wasn't "outed" in
the Stormfront post. But posting a list of Jewish Wikipedians on a neo-Nazi
list by someone who was called Jews a "disease" which needs to be
"eradicated" is comparable to posting the names of doctors performing
abortion to lists calling for their assassination. In one case you are
talking about informative lists, in the other you are talking about a hit
list. I am baffled that anyone who has followed this discussion, either here
or on Wikipedia, is still making these sorts of comparisons. If nothing
else, please go back and read what Jimbo posted.

Ian


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Evan Martin

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Improvement request: redirect, synonyms,
	fuzzy system (ENG/ITA)

body:
On 8/30/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> "In most languages" is not true.
>
> The majority of the world's languages do not have gender.
[...]
>
> So creating redirects for different forms of a word is not a concern
> for "most" languages.

Quibbles aside, synonymous terms like "car" and "automobile" occur in
all languages.  (Except maybe conlangs, I suppose.)

I think another way to word the proposal is:
"Upon article submit, extract all of the by-hand-specially-marked
synonyms and create redirect articles for the synonyms that don't
already have articles."


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Michael Holzt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Probably faked article in 57(!) languages

body:
> Unfortunately, many of those languages don't have sysops who can
> delete the page.

Might be. Hoewever i took the list of the different versions and visited
all of the language versions yesterday. In 38 language versions i made
Deletion-Requests (where i could find the template, it might be a good idea
to make {{delete}} available [as a redirect] in _every_ wikipedia) or left a
notice on the feedback/forum/cafe/whatever. It seems that many have already
acted upon it.

In 11 more language version the article was already deleted or someone else
took care. Only in 5 languages i could not find any way to notice the
admins: br, io, iu, th and yi.

In the meanwhile some anonymous user from Estonia showed up in the VfD for
[[:en:Tony Blackplait]], the alledged frontman of the band which articles
contains lists of movies and books who can't be found in catalogues. He/She
claims that there would be truth in the article and argues that
mistranslations had occured. I still don't believe that, but there might be
some more truth in this entries than we first thought. However it seems that
the criteria for relevance won't be reached anyway so it does not make a
difference.

Regards
Michael

--
      It's an insane world, but i'm proud to be a part of it. -- Bill Hicks


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: a crazy idea...

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> The Wikimedia Foundation website was created a few months ago because we
> wanted something clean and clear to present to outside visitors. People
> shouldn't have to dive in the mess on meta-wiki for getting information
> about Wikimedia.

If they want to have information about Wikimedia they should look up in
an encylopaedia. I recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia ;-)

Additionally at the Wikimedia main page there is:

* A header with actual information (for instance fundraising drive)
* Latest news

Most information seems to be doubled at meta (for instance "Chapters"
and "Our projects" but *some* pages may be special).

> Before some of you call now "impossible", I'd like you to think about
> it. We've managed to build an encyclopedia which is visited by thousands
> of people daily in a wiki. Of course, sometimes you find goatze on the
> main page - that's wikipedia. If an open wiki is acceptable for the most
> famous encyclopedia on the internet, it isn't for the little
> organization behind? Do we really need a classical website, with all its
> failures? Can't we just be proud of what we do and say: Yes, we build an
> encyclopedia in a wiki - and our organisation website is a wiki, too.

Well, we should at least make it clear that the page is a wiki. It's
familiar to *us* but not to everybody. Beside that building an
encyclopaedia is not the same. Meta is a mess so Wikimedia website will
be a mess too. It's not wiki or not-wiki bute volunteering-as-you-like
or having-a-job-you-are-responsible for. If "we" are all responsible for
the Foundation homepage then nobody will be.

> and as wikipedia proves, you can organize a wiki in a way that visitors
> are able to find the stuff they want to know - professional looking
> mainpage etc. It just has to be done, and I think the community of
> wikimedians which is populating meta-wiki is now big enough to do this.
> Important and official pages can be protected, inofficial opinion pages
> can be marked with templates...

*lol* I always find a lot of things a meta. Especially new pages that
people created about topics that already had existing pages they did not
find. Not to think about all Wiki* project namespaces. When I search for
pages about Wiki research the last time I found more than 6 different
places where people started something on their own instead of collaborating.

> Test wikipedias would be moved from meta to somewhere else, as well as
> the mediawiki documentation (there is now a dedicated mediawiki wiki) to
> not clutter up recentchanges anymore.

What is "test wikipedias?" I doubt you will be able to force people not
to use meta for any idea related to Wikimeda. If you do so then they use
their local Wikipedia what's even worse.

> Unifying meta and wmf would also help to bridge the slowly growing gap
> between the community and the organisation Wikimedia. Since Wikimedia
> depends on the work of volunteers, I see this as a rather dangerous
> thing. It more and more becomes "they and us" while it should be "we".

ack.

> Last but not least I have to admin, that I feel that there are simply
> too many wikis and websites to keep track. On my list (incomplete):
> * german wikipedia, english wikipedia, commons, mediawiki wiki,
> developer wiki, meta-wiki, german board wiki, german wikimedia website,
> wikimedia foundation website, chapter wiki, grants wiki (as good as
> closed), otrs

How about finally implementing single login and merged watchlists but
not creating new wikis ;-) ?

I've never heard of mediawiki wiki before! May we move pages from meta
to it (but version history will get lost)?

> So, I propose this for consideration and for discussing the idea to
> death, as usual ;-)

A merge will probably be better but don't expect too.

Greetings,
Jakob


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: a crazy idea...


from_name: Angela

body:
>  In 38 language versions i made
> Deletion-Requests (where i could find the template, it might be a good idea
> to make {{delete}} available [as a redirect] in _every_ wikipedia)

There is a list of {{delete}} templates at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_speedy_deletions

Angela.


body:
> There is a list of {{delete}} templates at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_speedy_deletions

Thanks for the hint, which i humbled across already. However this list is
far from completeness and had helped me only in a few cases. So if anyone
affiliated with a wikipedia not on that list reads this, please add your
wikipedia to that list.

Regards
Michael

--
      It's an insane world, but i'm proud to be a part of it. -- Bill Hicks


from_name: Spamschutz

subject: [Wikitech-l] To much pages in Statistics (Counter reset possible?)

body:
Hi,
look at this:
----------------------
There are 1163 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages,
pages about BMF-Wiki, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that
probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are
18446744073709551584 pages that are probably legitimate content pages.
-----------------------

What is :) 18446744073709551584 ?? Little bit to much for us ;).
How can i correct this counter?
We use Mediawiki 1.4.8

Regards


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright situation

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
>
>> Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Alphax wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Skyring wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Pete, awarding fifteen minutes of eternal fame to whoever coined that
>>>>> word "Nazipedia"
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *checks archive*
>>>>
>>>> On 20/08/2005 16:27, Alphax wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> "Stormfront Wikipedia" is unnacceptable on the simple grounds of
>>>>> trademark infringement. "Stormfrontpedia" would be acceptable.
>>>>> "Nazipedia" might get them into trouble in whatever juridstiction
>>>>> their
>>>>> servers are located in :)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *wins*
>>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry, Robert Klein used the term a couple years ago, in one
>>> of his periodic announcements of departure from WP, the complaint
>>> being that WP was allowing in too much anti-Jewish bias.
>>>
> I beg your pardon, but who is Robert Klein? I'm not aware of any
> Wikipedia contributors by that name, although we do have an article
> about [[Robert Klein]], the comedian.
>
> Oh, and RK has had his fifteen minutes already.

I meant User:RK - don't remember how I got it stuck in my head that
it's short for Robert Klein. I did just what I was warning others
to be cautious of, mistakenly thinking I was certain of a real-life
identity!

Stan


from_name: Fruggo

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation in 5 years - Giant
	brainstorming - a game with rules

body:
Some thoughts:

* Board and management
Board consists of a president (Jimmy Wales, hard to imagine otherwise), a
representative of the chapters, and 2 or 3 representatives for the
volunteers. All non-paid.
The board is supported by two (paid) secretaries (handling correspondence,
phone, communication of board meetings etc to the community)

* Staff
The board members co?rdinate the chief officers. The chief officers are the
head of their department (mostly local officers, for development and
financial there is no need for locals). All non-paid (except for the members
of the financial department - not the chief). Local members can be chapter
representatives, but that is not necessary.
Press: Contact for the press, co?rdination of press releases
Grants: Co?rdination of grants and fundraising
Legal: Go into action agains people who don't respect our license, taking
care of legal claims against us, advising chapters and projects
PR: Co?rdination of promotion of WMF in general (for example newsletters),
and specific activities (for example the reaching of certain milestones,
Wikimania, local congresses). Maybe also the organisation of Wikimania (with
an ad hoc committee).
Development: Taking care of software development
Financial: Bookkeeping, budgetting
Other departments???

*Fundraising scheme:
More structural grants from (for example) United Nations and the European
Union.

* Chapters:
The chapters in Europe have evolved into departments of the European
Chapter.

-Fruggo


from_name: Filzstift

body:
> Well, I'm the admin at nv.wikipedia, and you never contacted me even
> though the article existed there.
Do you expect that everybody knows that you're the admin at nv ???

[me is setting spamfilter: each message of Mister Williamson will be
marked as spam]


from_name: epzachte at chello.nl

body:
Anthere wrote: I am repeating myself
"but no-one is allowed to criticize/comment on other people's 5-year
plan on this list."

I think I play by the rules by commenting on my own mail:
Rereading it the next day I still can't find a deeper meaning. Honestly.
Come to think of it, it is not really a plan anyway, so feel free to comment. ;-)

Erik Zachte


from_name: Michael Monaghan

subject: [Wiktionary-l] A major drawback of Wiktionary?

body:
Hi,

[This may have been asked before, but I couldn't find it in the archives].
I'm looking at trying to use Wiktionary, and other appplications of the
MediaWiki sw, at the enterprise level.

I'd like to be able to use Wiktionary to handle our multilingual glossaries,
help us with multilingual documentation creation [WikiBook] etc.

However a major drawback I see is that, for example, in Wiktionary [and
probably all the other mediawiki apps], the entire body contents of a page
are stored in one database field.

So, if I've got the word "internet" defined and translated into 10
languages, there's no way that I can programatically extract the
translations from the database.
In terms of translation portabilty to other apps etc that poses a big
problem. Has anyone solved it?

Similarly, in say WikiBooks, the main body of the page is all stored in one
database field. Users can enter HTML, wiki shorthand, regular text etc -
there's no enforced structure - an XML DTD etc - to the content. This again
causes portability problems to other apps etc.

Has anyone got any thoughts/solutions for this?

thanks,

-mm


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] scn.wiki

body:
> Now to my question.  We recently noted that some wikis have set
> themselves up so that their internal hypertext links are not
> underlined (I think ca.wiki is one off the top of my head).  Is that
> something easy to do?  We in scn.wiki land think that it looks
> better not being underlined.  Anyone got any ideas for us?

Well, I prefer underlined links because when two links are next to
each other you can distinguish between them more easily. Anyway,
anyone can set it in their user preferences.

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Raul's 6th law of Wikipedia confirmed

body:
On 8/30/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm more than a little suprised that no one is angry about the fact that
> companies admit to subtle PR-pushing on Wikipedia. ("planting of viral
> information in entries, modification of entries to point to new
> promotional sites or 'leaks' embedded in entries to test diffusion of
> information.")  Where's the outrage? Why aren't people upset about this?

Becuase it wont work?

--
geni


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Filzstift wrote:

>>Well, I'm the admin at nv.wikipedia, and you never contacted me even
>>though the article existed there.
>>
>>
>Do you expect that everybody knows that you're the admin at nv ???
>
>[me is setting spamfilter: each message of Mister Williamson will be
>marked as spam]
>
Hoi,
Obviously it is up to you to set your spam filter in any which way you
deem necessary. Mark does provide most often good information and as I
mentioned before the amount of endless e-mails he is involved in is
decreasing. So my conclusion is that you typically deprive yourself of
relevant information.

As to your re mark, one problem with small dormant projects is that they
/are /dormant. So if you want to get something done with some urgency,
it makes sense to inform an admin of such a project. In this case you
would have done well to inform Mark.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Dan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Dump

body:
Is it possible to get a Database Dump? Can I receive it in XML?

Thanks

Dan


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wikitech-l] grammar gender in most languages

body:
I'd just like to clear up a few points:

On 8/30/05, Valentina Faussone <valentina_faussone at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Answering to:
> " "In most languages" is not true. The majority of the
> world's languages do not have gender.
> This includes:
> Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, ..."
>
> Most languages have grammar genders or similar.
> You can find more in:
> http://www.ielanguages.com/eurolang.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

By "or similar" you obviosly mean the noun classes used in
many African and Australian languages and perhaps the counters
used in East Asian and Southeast Asian languages. These
are really quite distinct from gender as you can also read on
Wikipedia. They can probably be handled to a certain extent in a
similar fashion in a dictionary though.

> The most part of Indo-European languages have genders.
> Af far as for what i've found those languages have
> numbers and (2 or 3) genders:
> Italian (2)
> French (2)
> German (3)
> Spanish (2)
> Greek (3)
> Portguese (2 in Portugal, 3 in Brazil)

Both have only 2 genders.

> Dutch (less used)

Not true. Greatly used is the 2-gender system "de" vs "het", less
used is the 3-gender system surviving only in pronouns and only
in certain parts of the Netherlands not including Amsterdam.

> Belgian

There is no such language. Belgium has a French-speaking part
and a Flemish-speaking part. Flemish is a dialect of Dutch which
I'm told preserves the 3-gender system to a greater degree and
also has a small number of nouns with genders different than in
Netherlands Dutch.

> Danish (2)
> Norwegian (3)

It seems that sometimes one of the Norwegian varieties can be
used with only 2 genders but this has never been totally clear
to me.

> Bulgarian (3)
> Polish (3)
> Czech (4)

Czech has 3 genders.

> Russian (3)
> Yiddish (2)

I was fairly sure Yiddish had the same 3 genders as German but
I'd like to be corrected if I'm wrong.

>
> Plus
> Australian Aborigenal and many african language.

These are not genders, it is a different linguistic
phenomenon.

> I don't know enough for others not indo-european
> languages.
>
> All Romance language have genders. All germanic
> languages have genders, but english. All slavich
> languages have ganders.

Some people might count Esperanto and Interlingua
as Romance languages without gender. The obvious
Germanic language without gender besides English
is Afrikaans.

> The 10 most spoken language in the wolrd are
> Chinese* (937,132,000)
> Spanish (332,000,000)
> English (322,000,000)
> Bengali (189,000,000)
> Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
> Arabic* (174,950,000)
> Portuguese (170,000,000)
> Russian (170,000,000)
> Japanese (125,000,000)
> German (98,000,000)
> French* (79,572,000)
>
> Spanish, Bengali, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian,
> French, German have genders. Italian too.
> I think it's enough to consider this could be a
> problem for many wikipedians. Creating redirects for
> different forms of a word is a concern for most
> languages.

Also there are a very large number of instances where one
gender of a word has an extra sense that does not apply to
the other genders, at least when taking all of these languages
into account.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Regards,
> Valentina Faussone
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
> http://mail.yahoo.it
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


body:
I think some way of "compiling" redirects from some kind of
directive in the main article is a very good and important idea.
Especially for Wiktionary where most words have one or many
inflected forms.

Some way to handle conflicts would obviously be necessary.
Perhaps a way to warn that those need to be handled the old
way, perhaps automatically generated disambiguation pages.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

On 8/30/05, Evan Martin <evanm at google.com> wrote:
> On 8/30/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "In most languages" is not true.
> >
> > The majority of the world's languages do not have gender.
> [...]
> >
> > So creating redirects for different forms of a word is not a concern
> > for "most" languages.
>
> Quibbles aside, synonymous terms like "car" and "automobile" occur in
> all languages.  (Except maybe conlangs, I suppose.)
>
> I think another way to word the proposal is:
> "Upon article submit, extract all of the by-hand-specially-marked
> synonyms and create redirect articles for the synonyms that don't
> already have articles."
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 30/08/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm more than a little suprised that no one is angry about the fact that
> companies admit to subtle PR-pushing on Wikipedia. ("planting of viral
> information in entries, modification of entries to point to new
> promotional sites or 'leaks' embedded in entries to test diffusion of
> information.")  Where's the outrage? Why aren't people upset about this?

Because we had the outrage, ooh, about three weeks ago. You remember,
a week before we all got outraged either for or against
[[Wikipedia:WikiProject For Getting Everyone Wound Up]]? ;-)

I believe the general opinion was "of course it happens"; there's not
much we can do about it, *beyond what we already do*, with the caveat
that if someone finds a particularly impressive set they'd probably
have a good reason to kick up a fuss.

But, as Daniel pointed out, being able to do this is a far cry from
being able to do this on a systematic scale... or successfully.

>"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
>
>"Why, so can I, or so can any man;
>But will they come when you do call for them?"
>
>"I can plan viral marketing in the vasty Wikipedia..."
>"Why, so can I, or so can anyone..."

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


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
It is possible to change the footer text within Mailman. What should I
change it to? Just make the last line say "To subscribe visit
http..."? Because mine shows links, but I think it's just Gmail
automatically linking the text.

As for subject filtering, it is possible. In fact, I'm sure it used to
forward emails that look like unsubscribe requests to the list admins.
I don't know why it stopped.

~Mark Ryan

On 8/29/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> like "plz read!!!!!!!!!"?
>
> On 8/29/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: RIPEMD160
> >
> > Christopher Larberg wrote:
> > > Should we maybe consider making the e-mail footer more explicit?
> > > Perhaps, "go to the site linked above to unsubscribe" or something like
> > > that? A number of other mailing lists have a "To unsubscribe" section in
> > > their footers, and it seems the current one used for Wikimedia mailing
> > > lists isn't informative enough, as I've seen numerous "please
> > > unsubscribe me" mails sent directly to the lists. Just a thought.
> >
> > I'm fairly certain that mailman can be set to moderate anyone who posts
> >  a message with subjects that match certain things...
> >
> > - --
> > Alphax                      |   /"\
> > Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> > OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
> > http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFDEwaH/RxM5Ph0xhMRA6DDAJ0XOk3pExbQOwIeOWK6PSU4QfmCkgCeLA1Z
> > /N1aWOvUYQ1y21zDShNSdHU=
> > =7Tjz
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> signature
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Hey shithead

body:
Fine. We'll call it something else. I'm still not sugar coating it just to
save someone's overly inflated ego.

A. Nony Mouse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
 - Hide quoted text -
From: A. Nony Mouse <mousyme at gmail.com>
Date: Aug 27, 2005 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Hey shithead
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>

I send in a good-faith question to the list and you attack me?
Jtkiefer, you're a real work.

Oh, and I have sent emails to the owners of the accounts that were
falsely blocked in Gerard's Spanish Inquisition, apologizing for the messup.
Hopefully some of them will come back.

A. Nony Mouse

On 8/25/05, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> One must wonder how this post got through to the mailing list especially
> considering that we've been told that A. Nony Mouse's posts are screened
> before being let through.
>
> -Jtkiefer
>
> A. Nony Mouse wrote:
>
> >I believe this should be added to Yuber's RFAR...
> >
> >A. Nony Mouse
> >
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >From: Yuber <yuber07 at gmail.com>
> >Date: Aug 19, 2005 5:20 PM
> >Subject: Hey shithead
> >To: mousyme at gmail.com
> >
> >
> >How goes it?
> >_______________________________________________


from_name: Valentina Faussone

body:
Dear WikiTech ML,

I'd like to ask wiki programmers a wiki-software
improvment. Since now if we have two words that means
the same we have to write the article for one of them
and redirect to that article the other:
ex. States or US or USA redirect to United States of
America

That force wiki writers to create tons of boring
redirects (one by one) both for:
1) real redirects (diffrent way to say the same thing)
ex. Soia cheese redirect to Tofu
2) synonyms (different word to means the same thing)
ex. Gauffres and Waffles
3) most likely errors (wrong words whose meaning is
guessable)
ex. State for States.
That means that "equivalent expressions", synonyms,
errors  have to be handled in the same way.

I suggest it would be easy and more effective to have:
A) REDIRECT tag
B) SYNONYMS list to be writed at the very end of the
article
C) a (I suppose it's the right name) Fuzzy System that
grab the correct meaning from your typing errors -
like Google "Maybe you're looking for..."

That will help those who write, those who search and
those who write again using correct synonyms. The
lasts can link to an existing article the most easy
way
ex. If I write an article "Waffle" with an active
Synonyms list with "Gauffre", you can write your
article using [[Gauffre]] insted of
? writing [[Gauffre]] in your article
? Opening it
? writing #REDIRECT [[Waffle]]
and doing the same for plural form.

Plus, in most language you have to handle singular and
plural form of feminin, neutrum or masculin genus of
words...
ex. I'm writing an Italian article for Beignets. I
have to write redirect for:
? Bign?
? Bign?
? Bignole
? Choux (al correct forms for the same thing).
Plus singular forms
? Beignet
? Bignola
That is to say 7 redirect... that can be a simple
active list at the end of the main article.
A fuzzy system wiil help to work out  bigne e bigne'
for those who shearch and don't know what accented e
is to be used or if the wiki system will accept
accents.

Hoping it will be possible,

Best regards,

Valentina Faussone

--------------------------

Gent. WikiTech ML,

Vorrei chiedere ai programmatori del software wiki una
miglioria. Ora come ora se abbiamo due parole che
significano la stessa cosa dobbiamo scrivere il nostro
articolo per una delle due e fare un redirect dalla
seconda verso la prima:
ex. States o US o USA reindirizzano verso Stati Uniti
d'America

Questo obbliga a creare tonnellate di noiosissimi
redirect (uno per uno) per:
1) reindirizzamenti reali, cio? espressioni
lignuistiche diverse che significano la medesima cosa
ex. Formaggio di Soia reindirizza su Tofu
2) Sinonimi, cio? parole diverse, ugualmente corrette,
che indicano lo stesso oggetto
ex. Gauffres e Waffles
3) Errori comuni, cio? parole errate il cui
significato ? comunque intuibile
ex. State al posto di States per indicare gli USA
Ci? significa che espressioni equivalenti, sinonimi e
errori comuni di battitura vanno trattati nello stesso
modo.

Suggerisco che sarebbe pi? facile e produttivo avere:
A) il tag REDIRECT
B) i SINONIMI gestiti come lista da inserire alla fine
di ogni articolo
C) un sistema Fuzzy (spero che il nome sia giusto) che
intuisca il significato inteso anche dagli errori, sul
tipo di quello di Google "Forse stavi cercando..."

Questo aiuterebbe chi scrive, chi effettua una ricerca
e chi scrive dopo il "primo" articolo di un dato
argomento a scrivere e linkare con maggior facilit?
sinonimi corretti.
ex. se scrivo un articolo "Waffle" (? un tipo di
dolce) e posso inserire un sinonimo attivo alla fine
dell'articolo come "Gauffres", tu puoi scrivere il tuo
articolo linkando tanto [[Waffle]] quanto [[Gauffre]]
ed arrivare all'articolo principale, invece di:
? scrivere [[Gauffre]] nel tuo articolo
? Aprirlo
? Scrivere #REDIRECT [[Waffle]]
? Fare lo stesso per eventuali altri sinonimi e per
tutti i plurali

Inoltre in molte lingue si deve tenere conto non solo
delle forme singolari e plurali, ma anche dei generi
femminile, maschile e neutro...
ex. Sto scrivendo un articolo sui Beignets. Dovrei
scrivere un redirect per:
? Bign?
? Bign?
? Bignole
? Choux (tutte forme ugualmente accreditate della
medesima cosa)
Inoltre dovrei inserire anche le forme singolari,
ovvero
? Beignet
? Bignola

7 redirect che potrebbero benissimo essere una lista
alla fine dello stesso articolo principale. Un sistema
Fuzzy aiuterebbe a gestire le voci bigne e bigne' per
quelli che, cercando, non sapessero se il sistema
accetta gli accenti, o quale e accentata usare.

Sperando che questo sia possibile,
I migliori saluti,

Valentina Faussone

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Jeremy J. Shapiro

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Request for information/suggestions about software for
	project

body:
I am going to engage in a project that needs to have certain features
of a Wiki, e.g. ability of people to start new articles and
cross-reference each other's articles, but NOT edit each other's
contributions.  Can someone suggest to me either what software might
be appropriate or whom I might contact for further information and
suggestions about this?  I don't want to take up wikitech-l time and
space with this, so if you can help with this please write to me
individually at jshapiro at fielding.edu.

Thanks.

	Jeremy Shapiro


body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>> From: Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net>
>>
>> I'm more than a little suprised that no one is angry about the fact
>> that
>> companies admit to subtle PR-pushing on Wikipedia. ("planting of viral
>> information in entries, modification of entries to point to new
>> promotional sites or 'leaks' embedded in entries to test diffusion of
>> information.")  Where's the outrage? Why aren't people upset about
>> this?
>
>
> I personally think that the co-opting of Wikipedia for commercial and
> promotional purposes is a real danger to Wikipedia.
>
> I am especially concerned about the articles we get about movies,
> software, games, concert tours, reality TV shows, etc. that are
> _about to_ be released within the next couple of months, always with
> the assertion that they are certain to be very notable.

I guess I don't see the where the danger part comes in. It seems
more like a self-correcting phenomenon - if the thing becomes
real, then cool, we have a writeup in progress already; if it
fizzles, people will lose interest in writing about it very
quickly. If it fizzles spectacularly, that itself is notable,
and worth an article that goes into all the embarassing details.

If you really wanted to monitor and be able to VfD things after
they've proven to be obscure duds, just make a new category of
"to be released" things, perhaps subcatted by year, then review
the following year.

Stan


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikinews-l] Licensure straw poll

body:
On 8/30/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm forwarding this to Wikipedia and Foundation-l since the poll could
> potentially make Wikinews incompatible with Wikipedia or any of our
> other projects. Currently, content from Wikinews can be used in
> Wikipedia (though not the other way around). CC-BY-SA is not
> compatible with the GNU FDL, so this would not longer be the case.

For what it's worth, it makes little sense for Wikipedia to use
Wikinews content beyond what's considered fair use. Wikinews is not an
encyclopedia and tries to not have any encyclopedic articles, and the
Wikipedia "current events" section is really short enough of a mention
that it's fair use at worst and wholly original at best.

-ilya haykinson
 en.wikinews


from_name: Jean-Denis Vauguet

subject: [Wikipedia-l] scn.wiki

body:
Pawe? Dembowski a ?crit :

>>Now to my question.  We recently noted that some wikis have set
>>themselves up so that their internal hypertext links are not
>>underlined (I think ca.wiki is one off the top of my head).  Is that
>>something easy to do?  We in scn.wiki land think that it looks
>>better not being underlined.  Anyone got any ideas for us?
>>
>>
>
>Well, I prefer underlined links because when two links are next to
>each other you can distinguish between them more easily. Anyway,
>anyone can set it in their user preferences.
>
>
>
Well, if you want to force that behavior on your whole wiki, you can
edit MediaWiki:monobook.css (assuming your running a wiki with monobook
style) and add a rule on this model :

a { text-decoration: none; }

But, any user can do such thing with one's monobook.css (in
User:name/monobook.css). Forcing the behavior or the style at a general
level may be a bad idea because it creates a constraint the user is not
aware of. One could prefer another way to organize things than yours.


body:
I have changed the footers of messages, as you can see. If people
think it's not right as it is now, I will change it again/back.

~Mark Ryan

On 8/29/05, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> Christopher Larberg wrote:
> > Should we maybe consider making the e-mail footer more explicit?
> > Perhaps, "go to the site linked above to unsubscribe" or something like
> > that? A number of other mailing lists have a "To unsubscribe" section in
> > their footers, and it seems the current one used for Wikimedia mailing
> > lists isn't informative enough, as I've seen numerous "please
> > unsubscribe me" mails sent directly to the lists. Just a thought.
>
> The list does set List-Unsubscribe:, but it's reasonably clear that not
> every reader knows about it (or has a helpful MUA).
>
> Cheers,
>
> N.
>
> --
> Nicholas Boalch
> School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3420
> University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
> New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Macedonian name on English Wikipedia

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> "Nation" is often an ambiguous term.  The tendency in English is to
> equate it with a particular state or country,  but it can sometimes
> represent other groups that see themselves as distinct cultural
> entities without political independence.

Yes, I agree with that; in this case, *both* meanings are actually
used---Even if we take the context to specifically be "Republic of
Macedonia" and keep the Greeks out of the picture for the moment,
"Macedonian" may mean either *any* citizen of the Republic of Macedonia,
or a specific ethnic group within that country (primarily excluding the
ethnic-Albanian RoM citizens).  For example, "Macedonian Foreign
Minister [x]" refers to whoever the foreign minister of the country is,
regardless of his or her ethnicity.

The problem with [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] though, is that northern
Greeks /also/ consider themselves to be ethnically Macedonian, which
they consider one of the Greek ethnic groups (much like "Pontian",
"Cypriot" [although Turkish Cypriots claim this one too], or "Cretan").
Which is of course the whole crux of the RoM vs. FYROM international
dispute.

So, if [[Macedonian Slavs]] is offensive, [[Macedonian (nationality)]]
is ambiguous, and [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] is both ambiguous and POV,
then what /do/ we use?

-Mark


from_name: Thomas Koll

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Dump

body:
Am 30.08.2005 um 16:05 schrieb Dan:

> Is it possible to get a Database Dump? Can I receive it in XML?

download.wikimedia.org
--
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
http://www.tomk32.de


from_name: Marco Chiesa

subject: [Wikipedia-l] scn.wiki

body:
Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:

>Hi to one and all and everyone else in between
>Before I ask my very important question - I thought I would mention that  after only 10 months of operation, scn.wiki recently reached 2,000 articles!
>
>
>
Congratulations, Pippu (and all the scn.wiki community). Also, the
quality of your 2,000+ articles is really good. So, keep going!

Marco/Cruccone


from_name: Tels

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Tuesday 30 August 2005 16:51, Mark Williamson wrote:
> "In most languages" is not true.
>
> The majority of the world's languages do not have gender.
>
> This includes:
>
> Chinese
> Japanese
> Korean
> English
> ...
>
> all major languages in the world, and relatively major on Wikipedia as
> well. Of these 4, only one of them has number, English.
>
> So creating redirects for different forms of a word is not a concern
> for "most" languages.

It is, however, a concern for many languages.

Anyway, I think the proposal that the current redirects are backwards,
e.g.

	write article A
	write redirect B pointing to A

is an interesting one. Changing the system so that you keep the list of
redirects inside (at end) article A would have the benefit that you see
them at once and can maintain them better. Currently someone reading A
doesn't (easily) see all the redirects to it.

Maybe one could write an extension:

	<aka>
	B
	C
	D
	</aka>

and upon edit of the article the list of terms would be used to
create/check redirects to the article, creating B => A, C => A and D => A
if nec.

If two articles have the same article name in their synonym list, an
disambigition (sp?) page could be automatically created (with a warning
issued to the editor that the current saved article asks for a redirect
which an already existing article also has).

That would allow us to keep the current database scheme/redirect	storage,
but offer editing the redirect list in one place instead of editing
dozends of small redirect stubs.

In the future one could even do away with each redirect to be it's own
article (which always seemed a bit awkward to me, you end up having to
not count these in a lot of places (redirects arent articles in the sense
of a real article, so they are no short articles, no real articles etc).
However, this would be a quite a change.

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Tue Aug 30 17:11:11 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Den wahren Wert dieser Software werden vermutlich nur Fach L?ute und
 Firmen erkennen." -- "So isst es. Ein gewi?er Standart muss schon gewart
 beiben!" --  Kabe (http://tinyurl.com/3kucx)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>The difference here is not the content of the list, it's the medium in which
>it was posted. That Jay is Jewish is not some secret, he wasn't "outed" in
>the Stormfront post. But posting a list of Jewish Wikipedians on a neo-Nazi
>list by someone who was called Jews a "disease" which needs to be
>"eradicated" is comparable to posting the names of doctors performing
>abortion to lists calling for their assassination. In one case you are
>talking about informative lists, in the other you are talking about a hit
>list. I am baffled that anyone who has followed this discussion, either here
>or on Wikipedia, is still making these sorts of comparisons. If nothing
>else, please go back and read what Jimbo posted.
>
>
It is not entirely analogous, but the situation with Scientologists is
not exactly innocuous either---some of the people posting lists "outing"
Church of Scientology members are people who are outright hostile
towards the CoS, calling it a "dangerous cult" and advocating the arrest
of its advocates.

-Mark


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
On 30/08/05, Valentina Faussone <valentina_faussone at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Answering to:
> " "In most languages" is not true. The majority of the
> world's languages do not have gender.
> This includes:
> Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, ..."
>
> Most languages have grammar genders or similar.
> You can find more in:
> http://www.ielanguages.com/eurolang.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

Yes, the first one talks about Indo-European languages. Not all
Indo-European languages have gender.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the Indo-European languages of
India don't have gender -- that would include such widely-spoken
languages as Hindustani (ie, Hindi + Urdu), Bengali, Marathi...

> The most part of Indo-European languages have genders.
> Af far as for what i've found those languages have
> numbers and (2 or 3) genders:
>
> Italian (2)
> French (2)
> German (3)
> Spanish (2)
> Greek (3)
> Portguese (2 in Portugal, 3 in Brazil)
> Dutch (less used)
> Belgian
> Danish (2)
> Norwegian (3)
> Bulgarian (3)
> Polish (3)
> Czech (4)
> Russian (3)
> Yiddish (2)

Do you realise that the vast majority of the examples you give are
Romance, Germanic, or Slavic? (besides the fact that there is no
Belgian language, and that Yiddish has 3 genders, masculine, feminine,
and neuter)

The majority of the Indo-European languages are in fact Indo-Iranian.
And, as far as I know, Indo-Iranian languages are genderless.

> Plus
> Australian Aborigenal and many african language. I
> don't know enough for others not indo-european
> languages.

Australian Aboriginal languages do not have gender. I don't know what
African languages you're talking about.

But grammatical gender is a phenomenon that is limited mostly to
Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages.

This excludes the huge and widely-spoken language families of
Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan, none of which have grammatical gender,
and only very few of which have regular grammatical number.

> All Romance language have genders. All germanic
> languages have genders, but english. All slavich
> languages have ganders.

Pidgin and creole romance languages do not have gender: Haitian,
Papiamento, Saotomense... these may seem insignificant, but Haitian
Creole alone is spoken by millions of people around the world.

Not all Germanic languages have genders besides English. Afrikaans
doesn't have gender either, IIRC, and all pidgin and creoles don't
either, including Tok Pisin, Sranang Tongo, Berbice Creole Dutch...

> The 10 most spoken language in the wolrd are
> Chinese* (937,132,000)
> Spanish (332,000,000)
> English (322,000,000)
> Bengali (189,000,000)
> Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
> Arabic* (174,950,000)
> Portuguese (170,000,000)
> Russian (170,000,000)
> Japanese (125,000,000)
> German (98,000,000)
> French* (79,572,000)
>
> Spanish, Bengali, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian,
> French, German have genders. Italian too.
> I think it's enough to consider this could be a
> problem for many wikipedians. Creating redirects for
> different forms of a word is a concern for most
> languages.

I wasn't aware that Bengali and Hindi/Urdu have genders. And surely
you realise that being a widely-spoken language doesn't make it a
major language of Wikipedia? The Bengali, Hindi, and Arabic Wikipedias
are all relatively small.

Greutens
Mark


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Images dump

body:
Sergey Samoylov wrote:
> Hi everybody!
> I decided to install pictures for my wiki site. But dump of images which I
> saw approximately a month ago, was disappeared now. I would like to know can
> I still download it from somewhere? And why was it removed from
> http://download.wikimedia.org/?
> Thanks
> Sergey

I forgot the link when updating the download portal page. Fixed now :o)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exercises in social engineering

body:
Well how about that.
 Come into wikipedia IRC chat, get ambushed by NicholasT who's on his usual
rampage, get sworn at and called names and challenged to "prove" this, then
kickbanned before I can respond by jerks who scream "troll"?
 Aren't you people real nice pieces of work, huh?
 A. Nony Mouse
 who's in the right even if the overinflated egos won't admit it.

 On 8/10/05, A. Nony Mouse <mousyme at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, I'll admit now. I'll own up. I violated [[WP:POINT]] in an amazing
> way.
>
> Amazing for one reason, that is.
>
> You see, my little social experiment, which was originally created
> just to see how Wikipedia's elites actually behaved, bore more fruit
> than I can count.
>
> A few months back, I created two accounts. One was named KaintheScion,
> a reference to a video game. Remember it?
>
> The other was named ElKabong. Named after the alternate identity of
> "Quick-Draw" McGraw, and a pun on how hot-tempered the Wikipedia high
> cabal muckymucks are.
>
> The experiment worked brilliantly. Unfortunately, it also created a
> bit of a monster named David Gerard and a whole lot of sub-Monsters
> who saw an opportunity.
>
> You see, ElKabong and KaintheScion were designed to break rules.
> Quickly. Painfully. They got everyone's attention. So much so that the
> actual procedures for dispute resolution were ignored. Nobody
> attempted to contact them. They went straight from a backwards, tilted
> RFC into a quick RFAR.
>
> And then of course there were no less than SIX innocent users who got
> drawn in. Yep, that's right. I didn't even DO anything with the
> situation, save for calling for leniency when it was obvious another
> user was caught up in it.
>
> Count 'em out.
> 1. Enviroknot
> 2. Kurita77
> 3. Existentializer
> 4. Ni-ju-Ichi
> 5. Devilbat
> 6. Pukachu
>
> SIX users caught up in the David Gerard witch hunt. And that doesn't
> even count his decision to Mod-by-default this user list while
> screaming "Enviroknot" as his excuse.
>
> And you all just went along with it. Now the name "Enviroknot" is like
> screaming "witch" in Salem while standing next to the Cotton Mather.
> And what's REALLY funny is that Enviroknot wasn't even one I created,
> he or she was just an innocent user that certain individuals decided
> to throw into the RFAR on a lark in order to get rid of an opponent on
> Islam-based pages.
>
> So yeah. I violated WP:POINT because this point needed making. And as
> luck would have it, Gerard was nice enough to abuse the hell out of
> his authority and make my point FOR me.
>
> Congratulations.
>
> P.S. I know damn well this message won't get through to the en-l list,
> because Gerard would never admit to being played like a sucker. So
> I've BCC'ed it to plenty of individuals as well. No point in it going
> to waste.
>


body:
Why not [[Macedonians]]?

That page can discuss the whole issue, and link to [[Macedonians
(FYROM)]], [[Macedonians (Greece)]], and perhaps [[Macedonians
(ancient)]].

Mark

On 30/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > "Nation" is often an ambiguous term.  The tendency in English is to
> > equate it with a particular state or country,  but it can sometimes
> > represent other groups that see themselves as distinct cultural
> > entities without political independence.
>
> Yes, I agree with that; in this case, *both* meanings are actually
> used---Even if we take the context to specifically be "Republic of
> Macedonia" and keep the Greeks out of the picture for the moment,
> "Macedonian" may mean either *any* citizen of the Republic of Macedonia,
> or a specific ethnic group within that country (primarily excluding the
> ethnic-Albanian RoM citizens).  For example, "Macedonian Foreign
> Minister [x]" refers to whoever the foreign minister of the country is,
> regardless of his or her ethnicity.
>
> The problem with [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] though, is that northern
> Greeks /also/ consider themselves to be ethnically Macedonian, which
> they consider one of the Greek ethnic groups (much like "Pontian",
> "Cypriot" [although Turkish Cypriots claim this one too], or "Cretan").
> Which is of course the whole crux of the RoM vs. FYROM international
> dispute.
>
> So, if [[Macedonian Slavs]] is offensive, [[Macedonian (nationality)]]
> is ambiguous, and [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] is both ambiguous and POV,
> then what /do/ we use?
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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


body:
Answering to:
" "In most languages" is not true. The majority of the
world's languages do not have gender.
This includes:
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, ..."

Most languages have grammar genders or similar.
You can find more in:
http://www.ielanguages.com/eurolang.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

The most part of Indo-European languages have genders.
Af far as for what i've found those languages have
numbers and (2 or 3) genders:
Italian (2)
French (2)
German (3)
Spanish (2)
Greek (3)
Portguese (2 in Portugal, 3 in Brazil)
Dutch (less used)
Belgian
Danish (2)
Norwegian (3)
Bulgarian (3)
Polish (3)
Czech (4)
Russian (3)
Yiddish (2)

Plus
Australian Aborigenal and many african language. I
don't know enough for others not indo-european
languages.

All Romance language have genders. All germanic
languages have genders, but english. All slavich
languages have ganders.

The 10 most spoken language in the wolrd are
Chinese* (937,132,000)
Spanish (332,000,000)
English (322,000,000)
Bengali (189,000,000)
Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
Arabic* (174,950,000)
Portuguese (170,000,000)
Russian (170,000,000)
Japanese (125,000,000)
German (98,000,000)
French* (79,572,000)

Spanish, Bengali, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian,
French, German have genders. Italian too.
I think it's enough to consider this could be a
problem for many wikipedians. Creating redirects for
different forms of a word is a concern for most
languages.

Regards,
Valentina Faussone

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: scn.wiki

body:
Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:
> Before I ask my very important question - I thought I would mention
> that  after only 10 months of operation, scn.wiki recently reached
> 2,000 articles!

Well done ! :o)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


subject: [Wikipedia-l] scn.wiki

body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit :

>Yes, but if the user isn't aware of that constraint, would they be
>aware of the reverse?
>
>Pippu didn't say that it was just him, he said "we", so it seems that
>his sentiment is shared by all scn.wikipedians.
>
>What about some Wikipedias making corners round? Obviously, not all
>users like that.
>
>What if a Wikipedia decides to change default font, or make all text
>pink and bold-italic by default?
>
>Certainly, it's their choice, and stylistic changes have in the past been made.
>
>Mark
>
>On 30/08/05, Jean-Denis Vauguet <jd at apinc.org> wrote:
>
You are right! My answer just contains a kind of "disclaimer" : you want
to make a global change, ok, let's do that but be sure you have a global
agreement to do so". And, I think one may make such a change (link
behavior) anyway, if he also take the time to explain why he did it and
how you can actually reverse the change if you do not like it (I gave
the solution too).

Long life to all links, wether they're underlined or not :)


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
> From: Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net>
>
> I'm more than a little suprised that no one is angry about the fact
> that
> companies admit to subtle PR-pushing on Wikipedia. ("planting of viral
> information in entries, modification of entries to point to new
> promotional sites or 'leaks' embedded in entries to test diffusion of
> information.")  Where's the outrage? Why aren't people upset about
> this?

I personally think that the co-opting of Wikipedia for commercial and
promotional purposes is a real danger to Wikipedia.

I am especially concerned about the articles we get about movies,
software, games, concert tours, reality TV shows, etc. that are
_about to_ be released within the next couple of months, always with
the assertion that they are certain to be very notable.

I have tried to get acceptance of a firm statement of policy about
this into WP:NOT under the rubric of "Wikipedia is not a crystal
ball," but it is one of those areas where there is, I fear, no
consensus. The articles are in most cases seem to be written not
directly by promoters, but by fans who identify with and buy into
everything the promoters say or promise. I recognize that the
existence of tens of thousands of excited fans in the present is a
fact, but it is a generic one; hundreds of movies will come and go
and each of them will be preceded by a wave of publicity that will
carry enthusiasts along with it, always insisting that the particular
wave they happen to be riding is a tsunami.

I think articles of this kind damage Wikipedia in a way that articles
about generic elementary schools, streets, minor characters in Harry
Potter, etc. do not.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Michael Monaghan wrote:

>Hi,
>
>[This may have been asked before, but I couldn't find it in the archives].
>I'm looking at trying to use Wiktionary, and other appplications of the
>MediaWiki sw, at the enterprise level.
>
>I'd like to be able to use Wiktionary to handle our multilingual glossaries,
>help us with multilingual documentation creation [WikiBook] etc.
>
>However a major drawback I see is that, for example, in Wiktionary [and
>probably all the other mediawiki apps], the entire body contents of a page
>are stored in one database field.
>
>So, if I've got the word "internet" defined and translated into 10
>languages, there's no way that I can programatically extract the
>translations from the database.
>In terms of translation portabilty to other apps etc that poses a big
>problem. Has anyone solved it?
>
>Similarly, in say WikiBooks, the main body of the page is all stored in one
>database field. Users can enter HTML, wiki shorthand, regular text etc -
>there's no enforced structure - an XML DTD etc - to the content. This again
>causes portability problems to other apps etc.
>
>Has anyone got any thoughts/solutions for this?
>
>thanks,
>
>-mm
>
>
Hoi,
Well actually yes, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary is
the proposal that is being worked on.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation in 5 years -
	Giant	brainstorming - a game with rules.

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Delphine M?nard wrote:

[Snip]

> You will find below a grid of what we think needs to be included in a
> five year plan for the Wikimedia Foundation. You may fill all parts,
> or just some, as suits you. You may also give details on how to get
> there, or not. You're free to say anything that goes through your
> head. Your ideas should go on this list.

[Snip]

> *Board and management

I imagine that by this time we will probably have a steering committee
of some sorts as well as an executive committee, splitting the functions
of the Board somewhat - the former is more what normally constitutes a
"board", whereas the latter is normally accomplished by the executive
officers who we now have begun to (ever-so-slightly) separate from the
Board.

The role of President is a semi-steering, semi-executive figure-head
one, one which I feel Jimbo would like to fill, and would be involved in
both the Board and the Executive Committee (for want of better terms),
but would not be the lead in either. The Chair should be a separate,
neutral figure (along the lines of European Chairs who are there almost
as secretaries, guiding the discussions along and being in charge of
their votes). As for membership, as well as the Chair and President
(neither of whom would normally 'vote' per se), the Board should have
three members directly elected by the general editor population, and a
further three appointed there by the chapters collectively. It would
have (at least) one paid secretary.

> *Staff (the positions, the roles, whether they're paid or not)

The top level of staff would form the Executive Committee - as well as
the President, there would be:

* Executive Officer,

    The EO would work on general management and co-ordination, as well
    as major partnerships and co-operation (e.g. with the UN). Under the
    EO would be a few secretaries to just keep up with all the work they
    will have.

* Finance Officer,

    The FO would be responsible for managing all aspects of the
    finances, both raising and expending. Under the FO would be the
    Grants Officer, the Fundraising Officer, and one (or more)
    professional accountants.

* Internal Communications Officer,

    The ICO would be responsible for internal communications, making
    sure that the top and bottom of organisation all knew what the
    others were doing, including a massive continuous translation
    service.

* External Communications Officer,

    The ECO would be responsible for external communications - press
    relations as well as public relations generally.

* Legal Counsel

    The LC would deal with legal problems (which we will no doubt have
    lots of, opportunistic suits, etc. :-(), and would advise the ExCom
    and the Board. The LC would no doubt have a legal team working under
    them, possibly an externally contracted-in company like Delphine has
    suggested.

* Operations Officer,

    The OO would be responsible for operations, including development.
    Under the OO would work the Development Officer and the Hardware
    Officer.

* Chapter Officer

    The CO would co-ordinate with the local chapters. Not sure what this
    will involve just yet, so I don't know what more to say.

* Research Co-ordination Officer

    The RCO would be responsible for helping research, by both internal
    and external parties, and would work in close partnership with the
    Operations Officer to effect this (for matters of development
    research, for example). Possibly would work under the OO instead of
    along-side, indeed.

* Lobbying Officer

    The LO would help the Foundation lobby for freedom of information
    and press (e.g. against still-further extended copyright laws, or in
    favour of press freedom, etc.)

> *Budget

No idea. Quite possibly vast; a few million Euros a year, certainly.

> *Fundraising scheme

Twice-annually there would be a fundraising effort for personal
donations, but a large amount of the funding would come from large
philanthropic and governmental organisations.

> *Philantropic activity and outreach to get our content widely
redistributed

The EO would work with outside agencies (printers, etc.) and
distribution organisations to help accomplish our goals with giving the
world all the information we can.

> *Projects

Hopefully Wikipedia will be recognised as a sub-project of Wikibooks.  ;-)

More seriously: maturing of the projects, especially Wikibooks if helped
along by environmental improvements, into a much more "natural" project.
I don't really see that there would be much scope for further front-end
projects.

On the back-end, however, I can foresee a great effort in data-driven
projects - a Wikidata-based repository of direct facts that can be then
woven into each of the front-end projects in a "live" way - as well as
consolidation of our two rather disparate media efforts into one.

> *Content objectives

Not sure. We should see where the community takes us, really, and
support that, rather than trying to push people towards something
specific. Having said that, of course, a Wikipedia 1.0 would be very
nice ("sifter"-based, naturally - leverage the power of the community,
which is what makes us great, into the venture).

> *Software objectives

Broadening of MediaWiki into being not "merely" the best possible
article wiki we could have, but also a data- and media- repository and
sharing facility.

> *Relationship between chapters and parent organisation

The chapters would be involved in purely local matters, of course, but
most of their efforts would be devoted to working on international
projects organised and led by the Foundation. My view is of quite a
centralised system, like the ICRCRC has.

> *Relationships with the outside world (PR, partnerships, etc.)

I imagine UNESCO will want to work slowly with us. Certainly, funding
would be nice (absolute editorial independence would of course be a
cast-iron requirement before any relations were entered into). Others
include the EU and the Commonwealth, and I'm sure there are many more
international and internationalist pro-education groups out there which
would love to give us money, if only we could get to them.

- ----

This is all probably both horribly na?ve and unreachable goals, and
tremendously unpopular with the rest of you. Ah well.  :-)

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: grammar gender in most languages

body:
On 8/30/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30/08/05, Valentina Faussone <valentina_faussone at yahoo.it> wrote:
> > Answering to:
> > " "In most languages" is not true. The majority of the
> > world's languages do not have gender.
> > This includes:
> > Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, ..."
> >
> > Most languages have grammar genders or similar.
> > You can find more in:
> > http://www.ielanguages.com/eurolang.html
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender
>
> Yes, the first one talks about Indo-European languages. Not all
> Indo-European languages have gender.
>
> I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the Indo-European languages of
> India don't have gender -- that would include such widely-spoken
> languages as Hindustani (ie, Hindi + Urdu), Bengali, Marathi...

Hindi / Urdu has a 2-gender system, Gujarati has 3 genders.
I imagine the other Indic languages also have gender since Sanskrit
had 3 genders, Telugu has 2, Tamil has 3, Sanskrit has 3.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> > The most part of Indo-European languages have genders.
> > Af far as for what i've found those languages have
> > numbers and (2 or 3) genders:
> >
> > Italian (2)
> > French (2)
> > German (3)
> > Spanish (2)
> > Greek (3)
> > Portguese (2 in Portugal, 3 in Brazil)
> > Dutch (less used)
> > Belgian
> > Danish (2)
> > Norwegian (3)
> > Bulgarian (3)
> > Polish (3)
> > Czech (4)
> > Russian (3)
> > Yiddish (2)
>
> Do you realise that the vast majority of the examples you give are
> Romance, Germanic, or Slavic? (besides the fact that there is no
> Belgian language, and that Yiddish has 3 genders, masculine, feminine,
> and neuter)
>
> The majority of the Indo-European languages are in fact Indo-Iranian.
> And, as far as I know, Indo-Iranian languages are genderless.
>
> > Plus
> > Australian Aborigenal and many african language. I
> > don't know enough for others not indo-european
> > languages.
>
> Australian Aboriginal languages do not have gender. I don't know what
> African languages you're talking about.
>
> But grammatical gender is a phenomenon that is limited mostly to
> Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages.
>
> This excludes the huge and widely-spoken language families of
> Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan, none of which have grammatical gender,
> and only very few of which have regular grammatical number.
>
> > All Romance language have genders. All germanic
> > languages have genders, but english. All slavich
> > languages have ganders.
>
> Pidgin and creole romance languages do not have gender: Haitian,
> Papiamento, Saotomense... these may seem insignificant, but Haitian
> Creole alone is spoken by millions of people around the world.
>
> Not all Germanic languages have genders besides English. Afrikaans
> doesn't have gender either, IIRC, and all pidgin and creoles don't
> either, including Tok Pisin, Sranang Tongo, Berbice Creole Dutch...
>
> > The 10 most spoken language in the wolrd are
> > Chinese* (937,132,000)
> > Spanish (332,000,000)
> > English (322,000,000)
> > Bengali (189,000,000)
> > Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
> > Arabic* (174,950,000)
> > Portuguese (170,000,000)
> > Russian (170,000,000)
> > Japanese (125,000,000)
> > German (98,000,000)
> > French* (79,572,000)
> >
> > Spanish, Bengali, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian,
> > French, German have genders. Italian too.
> > I think it's enough to consider this could be a
> > problem for many wikipedians. Creating redirects for
> > different forms of a word is a concern for most
> > languages.
>
> I wasn't aware that Bengali and Hindi/Urdu have genders. And surely
> you realise that being a widely-spoken language doesn't make it a
> major language of Wikipedia? The Bengali, Hindi, and Arabic Wikipedias
> are all relatively small.
>
> Greutens
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: James R. Johnson

body:
Yes - simply say "Macedonians" and have a section saying "there are those
who debate the exact naming of Macedonians - be they Macedonian Slavs,
Macedonian Greeks,..."

Something like that.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 8:43 PM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Macedonian name on English Wikipedia

Why not [[Macedonians]]?

That page can discuss the whole issue, and link to [[Macedonians
(FYROM)]], [[Macedonians (Greece)]], and perhaps [[Macedonians
(ancient)]].

Mark

On 30/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > "Nation" is often an ambiguous term.  The tendency in English is to
> > equate it with a particular state or country,  but it can sometimes
> > represent other groups that see themselves as distinct cultural
> > entities without political independence.
>
> Yes, I agree with that; in this case, *both* meanings are actually
> used---Even if we take the context to specifically be "Republic of
> Macedonia" and keep the Greeks out of the picture for the moment,
> "Macedonian" may mean either *any* citizen of the Republic of Macedonia,
> or a specific ethnic group within that country (primarily excluding the
> ethnic-Albanian RoM citizens).  For example, "Macedonian Foreign
> Minister [x]" refers to whoever the foreign minister of the country is,
> regardless of his or her ethnicity.
>
> The problem with [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] though, is that northern
> Greeks /also/ consider themselves to be ethnically Macedonian, which
> they consider one of the Greek ethnic groups (much like "Pontian",
> "Cypriot" [although Turkish Cypriots claim this one too], or "Cretan").
> Which is of course the whole crux of the RoM vs. FYROM international
> dispute.
>
> So, if [[Macedonian Slavs]] is offensive, [[Macedonian (nationality)]]
> is ambiguous, and [[Macedonian (ethnicity)]] is both ambiguous and POV,
> then what /do/ we use?
>
> -Mark
>
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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
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body:
Hi,
look at this:
----------------------
There are 1163 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages,
pages about BMF-Wiki, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that
probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are
18446744073709551584 pages that are probably legitimate content pages.
-----------------------

What is :) 18446744073709551584 ?? Little bit to much for us ;).
How can i correct this counter?
We use Mediawiki 1.4.8

Regards


from_name: steve v

subject: [WikiEN-l] situational process - laws in pencil

body:
--- El C <el.ceeh at gmail.com> wrote:

> Everyone has ideals, only the most narrow-minded,
> agenda-driven of
> minds consider the basis for these to be limited
> to... shal we say,
> situational isolationism.

Above rhetoric translated: "Everyone has an agenda,
and [epithet] [epithet] view agendas to be limited to
situational ethics in isolated cases."

I didnt say one agenda was limited to one particular
modality -- I said switching selectively between a
principled modality and a selectively principled
modality is, by definition, situational ethics.
Particularly when a couple of us are clear about other
cases of "hate lists" -- all of which were handled
through normal process --when there finally was one
instituted. Again, the issue is whether the process
works or not.

> The issue isn't with the ideals (abstract or
> otherwise), but rather,
> to whenever there is a risk for these to serve
> merely as a pretext for
> a highly a *selective* approach, one wherein these
> ideals are
> juxtaposed, transposed, and superimposed to any
> concrete case in an
> un-balanced, inaccurate, and un-objective way.

Above rhetoric translated: "Due process carries the
risk of having bad results, and thus there ought to be
limits on it." Ben Franklin might say something about
"deserving of neither."

> Rationality goes hand in hand with relationality.
> Unfortunately,
> empathy often isn't enough to bring a sympathy which
> is balanced, be
> it for those absorbed in abstract ideals, petty
> proceduralism, or
> both. The forest *and* the tress, in other words.
> Either one, in
> itself, is obviously insufficient and
> self-defeating.

Above rhetoric translated, transliterated:
"Rationality has the unfortunate problem of being
applied in a manner which may be disagreeable to me.
Feely-feelings sometimes lead to bias, [epithet],
[eptithet], etc. In a balanced approach can lead to
imbalance."

I like your confusing style, but I have to take it in
the context of your less rational appeals. The above
translations simple reflect my "petty" abstraction of
terms for terms. Mutatis mutandis.

SV

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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] what is a board meeting ?

body:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_agenda#Organisation_of_meetings

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
As one who's name was once attached to a long list of
Wikipedians claimed by certain right-wing extremists
(and their apologists) as "anti-Semites," I can only
contrast and comment on how this case is being handled
versus how that one was. Just to pick a random
example. Mark's point, and mine as well (while
respecting the monarch's opinion on the matter) is
simply that special treatment may be excessive in
reacting to a so-called threat--when equivalent things
have occurred, and when a determination of personal
threat seems to be no more  valid than in past cases.

Just as its highly irrational to think that some
wannabe-Mossad crank is going to blow up anyone for
writing something nice about ("that rabid
anti-Semite") Noam Chomsky, its equally irrational to
regard Nazi windbags as a direct and imminent threat.
Lets keep things in perspective --the group in
question are just another bunch of right-wing
assholes, who like to get together and shit on stuff.
Just like other cranks weve dealt with. Should we
pre-ban them all? Overreacting to 1-D
dreams-of-swatting-flies-with-a-sledgehammer types is
just plain dumb. The language of "eradication" and
"disease" is par for the course for any right-wing
asshole alliances. There's some "pot and kettle" there
Im sure: "four legged beasts" etc. I personally dont
read any right-wing nutjob sites because theyre all
the same, and they all contain the same thing:
assholes expressing a deep and self-centered fondness
for themselves.

IAC, disinclusion of anyone must be done with a clear
determination that such persons would continue to be
reprehensible, have no possibility for positive
contribution, and have no future prospect for positive
contribution. Thats something thats difficult for me
to accept from a mere on-the-fly decision, considering
we do have a process (called the Arbcom) which can (if
people let it) make a more rational and deliberated
decision. The Arbcom has proven to be adequate, fair,
and responsive in dealing with problematic
personalities, without even much dealing with their
extremist affiliations and peculiarities, which are
beside the point --the behaviour is the issue, and the
behaviour is often plainly evident and can be held to
account. If things would have been thus anyway, why
the need to overreact? Why do overreactors like
yourself take offense to the questions?

SV

--- Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/29/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From memory, these lists, some shorter and some
> longer, have included
> > alleged:
> > -- Communists (and communists apologists)
> > -- Zionists
> > -- Anti-Semites
> > -- Terrorist apologists
> > -- Proponents of "alternative medicine"
> > -- Proponents of Creationism
> > -- Members of the Church of Scientology
> > etc.
> >
>
> The difference here is not the content of the list,
> it's the medium in which
> it was posted. That Jay is Jewish is not some
> secret, he wasn't "outed" in
> the Stormfront post. But posting a list of Jewish
> Wikipedians on a neo-Nazi
> list by someone who was called Jews a "disease"
> which needs to be
> "eradicated" is comparable to posting the names of
> doctors performing
> abortion to lists calling for their assassination.
> In one case you are
> talking about informative lists, in the other you
> are talking about a hit
> list. I am baffled that anyone who has followed this
> discussion, either here
> or on Wikipedia, is still making these sorts of
> comparisons. If nothing
> else, please go back and read what Jimbo posted.
>
> Ian
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Character usage

body:
Hello all,

            We?ve been discussing switching the accented characters in the
Old English wikipedia to macrons, and I was wondering, why does the accented
?sc character look so odd and out of place in the titles of articles?  Two
examples:

http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C5%AB%C3%BE_betw%C4%93onan_%C3%BE%C7%A3m_R%C
4%ABcum

versus:
http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BA%C3%BE_betw%C3%A9onan_%C3%BE%C7%BDm_R%C
3%ADcum

And the two Halloween articles:

http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ealra_H%C3%A1lgena_%C7%BCfen

versus: http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ealra_H%C4%81lgena_%C7%A2fen

Typically, Old English is written nowadays with macrons, but they look a bit
odd on the aesc character.  If anyone knows why, please let us know.

James


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
> There's some "pot and kettle"
> there Im sure: "four legged beasts" etc.

Should be "two-legged beasts," IIRC.

SV

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from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
steve v vertigosteve at yahoo.com:

> its equally irrational to
> regard Nazi windbags as a direct and imminent
threat.

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

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from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: scn.wiki and also li.wiki

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:

>Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:
>
>
>>Before I ask my very important question - I thought I would mention
>>that  after only 10 months of operation, scn.wiki recently reached
>>2,000 articles!
>>
>>
>
>Well done ! :o)
>
>
>
Congrats Guiseppe ...... also a third language spoken in the Netherlands
has now passed a thousand articles ... Limburgs (li.wikipedia.org)!
Congrats to them also

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Matlock

body:
James, perhaps this was intended for enwiki-l or matlock-l, rather
than Wikipedia-l?

I lolled.

Mark

On 30/08/05, James R. Johnson <modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>             I just wanted to let you all know, that I've added a partial
> [[List of Matlock Episodes]] to en:
>
>
>
> James
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: [Wikinews-l] Licensure straw poll

body:
Good job.
Let me know when you decide to steal credit for my writing in
wikipedia down the road for compatibility sake.

And would someone *please* take me off this fucking list? I've been
trying to unsub for ages.

On 8/30/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm forwarding this to Wikipedia and Foundation-l since the poll could
> potentially make Wikinews incompatible with Wikipedia or any of our
> other projects. Currently, content from Wikinews can be used in
> Wikipedia (though not the other way around). CC-BY-SA is not
> compatible with the GNU FDL, so this would not longer be the case.
>
> Earlier polls and discussion are at
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll
> and
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License
>
> Angela.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net>
> Date: Aug 30, 2005 11:57 PM
> Subject: [Wikinews-l] Licensure straw poll
> To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
> A poll is being held at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll on whether or not
> to adopt the CC-by-sa 2.5 licensure for the Wikinews project.
>
> This licensure allows any use of the articles so long as attribution
> credit is given to the Wikinews project and any derivations or further
> developments are released under an identical licensure.
>
> The poll was suggested by jwales, and is short so the board may have an
> idea of how the community feels in time for their next meeting. Please
> visit the poll and vote; comment on the discussion page
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikinews/Licensure_Poll).
>
> Amgine
> ___________
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>


from_name: Angela

body:
I'm forwarding this to Wikipedia and Foundation-l since the poll could
potentially make Wikinews incompatible with Wikipedia or any of our
other projects. Currently, content from Wikinews can be used in
Wikipedia (though not the other way around). CC-BY-SA is not
compatible with the GNU FDL, so this would not longer be the case.

Earlier polls and discussion are at

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll
and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License

Angela.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net>
Date: Aug 30, 2005 11:57 PM
Subject: [Wikinews-l] Licensure straw poll
To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l at wikimedia.org>

A poll is being held at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll on whether or not
to adopt the CC-by-sa 2.5 licensure for the Wikinews project.

This licensure allows any use of the articles so long as attribution
credit is given to the Wikinews project and any derivations or further
developments are released under an identical licensure.

The poll was suggested by jwales, and is short so the board may have an
idea of how the community feels in time for their next meeting. Please
visit the poll and vote; comment on the discussion page
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikinews/Licensure_Poll).

Amgine
___________