subject: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> The only way to give Wikipedia a "quality assurance" (limited to human
> errors, of course:-) would IMHO be a method where someone takes
> *professional* (not financial or legal:-) responsibility for the quality
> of an article. Also, this can't just be any user - user accounts are
> created far too easily for this. It needs to be someone who has the
> trust of the communtiy, someone with the "power" to say "this article
> version is good as it is", without having to defent this against trolls
> or revert-warring against vandals.
>
> That directly leads to a (relatively) small, elite (!=cabal) group of
> peer reviewers. The cathedral filtering the bazaar, as I said before.
> This could be done externally (software's in the making), or within
> wikipedia. The latter would be nicer, however, it might lead to more
> conflict between those who can peer review and those who can not.
>
> (It goes without saying that none of the above would alter the wiki in
> any way; it would be an additional feature with no technical impact on
> the normal Wikipedia editing).
>
> I hope to have a demo site up shortly.

?The cathedral filtering the bazaar?

This sounds wonderful. Make it so! :) I don?t edit in the area I majored in (biology), but would
love to help filter in that area.

At a recent library conference I spoke at, I openly admitted that Wikipedia?s biggest problem is
that there is no stable/reference version; the whole thing is a draft. I think we now have enough
articles that are good enough in at least the larger wikis that we can start creating a stable
version that consists of snapshots of our good articles (featured articles are a different beast;
those are our best articles).

Editing would go on as it does now and there would be no forks in development; periodically a new
snapshot of the development version will be taken to serve as the new stable version. A prominent
link to the stable version would be placed on top of the article and cur diffs between it and the
current development version would be added. People would need to log in and change their
preferences to see stable versions by default (the other way around would hide vandalism in the
development version; besides, the most recent/up-to-date version should be on top anyway).

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Two Comments on the Siegenthaler Situation

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> Snowspinner wrote:
>
>> 1: If we are going to begin protecting pages because of news
>> coverage  (Which is not unreasonable at all), we should have a
>> protected  template that makes that clear. After all, the first page
>> people hit  is also a place where they are going to want to try to
>> edit - it's  important to take those people and invite them to look
>> at other  pages. I've created [[Template:P-protected]] for this.
>>
>> 2: I understand the need to remove the Siegenthaler libel from the
>> page history. On the other hand, I think A) It is a matter of
>> important historical record at this point, and B) It sets an
>> unseemly  precedent. Can we move the deleted history out of that
>> article and  into an archive page, perhaps with a permanant front
>> page that notes  what it is, and that it is a collection of vandalism?
>
>
> I would disagree.  If we archive libellous statements, we are open to
> libel suits.
>
I don't believe that's true.  When newspapers have been sued for libel,
typically they are required only to stop *re*publishing the statement,
i.e. in new editions of the paper; they are not required to excise the
offending article from their archives, which for historical archival
purposes ought to be an unabridged record.

-Mark


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo/Seigenthaler CNN interview transcript

body:
I think this is a clear case of fair use. It serves a public purpose.
There is a problem and we all need to hear about it.

Fred

On Dec 5, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:

> I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
> Seigenthaler debate on CNN:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/
> Wales_interview_transcript
>
> Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a
> copyvio because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are
> copyrighted material...
>
> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://
> search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia

body:
I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
Seigenthaler debate on CNN:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/Wales_interview_transcript

Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a copyvio
because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are copyrighted material...

Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
zzyzx11 at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion debate on the Icelandic & English Wikipedia

body:
Those links aren't working for me...

On 12/6/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a deletion debate on the Icelandic & English Wikipedia that
> I'd like to bring your attention to, it concerns an article on an
> Icelandic individual which has been getting front page coverage in
> Icelandic newspapers recently and is for those reasons as well as
> others, in my opinion, clearly notable enough to have an encyclopedia
> article about.
>
> The articles in question are
> http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stef%C3%A1n_H._%C3%93feigsson and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stef%C3%A1n_H._%C3%93feigsson and the
> deltion listing (both by the same user) are at
> http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spjall:Stef%C3%A1n_H._%C3%93feigsson#Atkv.C3.A6.C3.B0agrei.C3.B0sla
> and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Stef%C3%A1n_H._%C3%93feigsson
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > If we diagnose what went wrong in the Seigenthaler case, this seems like
> > > a very opportune place to try a small change of policy.
> > >
> > > 1. First, the Seigenthaler article was created by an anon.
> >
> > What does that have to do with anything? Please assume good faith. The
> > person who wrote the text might have gotten Seigenthaler mixed up with
> > another person who might actually have been suspected of being a
> > Soviet spy etc. A registered user could aswell have made the same
> > mistake.
>
> I think not allowing unreferenced articles would be a great help too.
> I bet the anon didn't provide any source (or they would've discovered
> their own mistake if it was one).
>
> Mgm

Did the article even say he was suspected as being a Soviet spy?  Is
everyone here sure that that isn't true?  I'm sure someone somewhere
sometime suspected the guy of doing something.  I don't see anything
remotely approaching libel in the USA Today article.  That's probably
one of the reasons Seigenthaler hasn't yet proceeded with the John Doe
lawsuit.

And by the way, if that user *was* logged in when she created the
article, then Seigenthaler would have to get two subpoenas instead of
one.  First he'd have to get one to obtain the IP address from
Wikipedia (hopefully the foundation wouldn't give away private
personal information without a court order).  Then he'd have to get
another one from BellSouth.  By not logging in, the author is *less*
anonymous, not more.

So it really doesn't make much sense to say "the Seigenthaler article
was created by an anon."  Might as well say "the Seigenthaler article
was created by a BellSouth customer", or "the Seigenthaler article was
created by someone using a computer in the United States", or "the
Seigenthaler article was created by someone using ADSL".

Anyway, whatever, it's just an experiment, and not really that big of
a deal anyway.

Anthony


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
> And by the way, if that user *was* logged in when she created the
> article, then Seigenthaler would have to get two subpoenas instead of
> one.  First he'd have to get one to obtain the IP address from
> Wikipedia (hopefully the foundation wouldn't give away private
> personal information without a court order).  Then he'd have to get
> another one from BellSouth.  By not logging in, the author is *less*
> anonymous, not more.

That's a really good point, especially since, iirc, Wikipedia does not
maintain a record of IP addresses used for more than a couple months.  Edit
once, discard the name - and you're probably out of reach of a John Doe
subpoena.

Ian (Guettarda)


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] Jihad in Defense of Objectivity (Was: Enforcing
	WP:CITE)

body:
On 12/6/05, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Introducing detailed citation features would require
> either abanoning
> > that simplicity or abandoning the concept of writing
> the wikitext
> > directly.  Both of these would be significantly
> detrimental to the
> > Wikipedia project in the short term.
>
> The mark-up would look something like:
>
> [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 10|"cited
> text"|"paraphrase/article text"]]
>
> To me that doesn't seem more complicated than most
> other basic wiki mark-up.
>
Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But consider the
following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it by hand:

'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's middle name is
Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison''' ([[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.9|"He was born
in Foo, Bar on April 23 of 1936"|"[[April 23]], [[1936]]"]] –
[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.11|"He died that same year, on the 6th of
December"|"[[December 6]], [[1988]]"]]),
[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.13|"They called him "The Big O""|"nicknamed
"The Big O""]], was ...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how these cites would be used, because that
was hell; it was even worse than I had thought before going through
the actual exercise.

I don't think wiki markup is the proper solution for this.  And that
means significant redesign.  Feel free to prove me wrong here, though,
and show us a working model which is just as easy to edit as
Wikipedia.

I think it's a great idea, I just think it's years ahead of its time
(and that assumes it's designed independently of Wikimedia, cramming
it through Wikimedia development processes would only hinder it).

Anthony


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...

body:
And while we're at it, turn of Articles for Deletion every day
*except* that day every month.

On 12/6/05, Frieda Brioschi <ubifrieda at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd love to do it one day per month.
>
> But I'd prefer turning off new articles creation (for users and anonyms) too.
>
> Ciao,
> Frieda
>
> 2005/12/6, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com>:
> > Jimbo recently confessed his fantasy on #wikimedia:  to set aside January
> > 15th as Wikipedia Day. This would at least involve turning off all new
> > account creation and anonymous editing, and just spending the day "cleaning
> > up" in all senses of the phrase. Others suggested setting aside an entire
> > month for this, or doing it one day out of every month.
> >
> > So, can we make some form of this fantasy come true?
> >
> >
> > brian0918
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> ___________________________________________
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Frieda
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...


body:
On 12/6/05, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia <zzyzx11 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
> Seigenthaler debate on CNN:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/Wales_interview_transcript
>
> Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a copyvio
> because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are copyrighted material...
>
> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com

But they included a copy of the Wikipedia disclaimer, so the broadcast
was automatically released under the GFDL, right?</sarcasm>


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 12/6/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Those links aren't working for me...

Compact urls:
* Icelandic article: http://ln-s.net/9Qx
* English article: http://ln-s.net/9Qy
* Icelandic deletion vote: http://ln-s.net/9Qz
* English deletion vote: http://ln-s.net/9R0

There's currently overwhelming support to keep the article on the
English Wikipedia but not on the Icelandic Wikipedia.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact that almost all, not just
> >most, new pages created by anons on the English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
> >
> That is simply incorrect.  I do (or did, until this policy change)
> new-pages patrol on a regular basis, and I'd estimate no more than ~30%
> of new pages created by anons are "complete crap".  Certainly no more
> than 10-20% ever warranted speedy deletion.

Your crap tolerance must be higher than mine. :) You also misquoted me; I included a range
modifier.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Snowspinner wrote:
> 2: I understand the need to remove the Siegenthaler libel from the  page
> history. On the other hand, I think A) It is a matter of  important
> historical record at this point, and B) It sets an unseemly  precedent.
> Can we move the deleted history out of that article and  into an archive
> page, perhaps with a permanant front page that notes  what it is, and
> that it is a collection of vandalism?

It is still stored in the database, just not publicly available.  This
strikes me as sufficient to deal with concerns about the historical record.

If someone wants to make a publicly available cache somewhere, I would
advise extreme caution about it, but I don't think it is appropriate for us.

-Jimbo


body:
Does Wikipedia allow fair use text?  Does it allow fair use outside
the article space?  How is it clear case?  Simply serving a public
purpose is not enough.

On another note, I'm interested in seeing the next interview after
Seigenthaler sees what is written about him on Jimbo's other site:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr

"Seigenthaler was promptly fired in 1963 for his role in planning,
carrying out, and covering up the JFK Assassination, and is even
thought by some madmen to have supplied Oswald and Castro with silver
bullets to kill the werewolf-president."

Anthony

On 12/6/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think this is a clear case of fair use. It serves a public purpose.
> There is a problem and we all need to hear about it.
>
> Fred
>
> On Dec 5, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
>
> > I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
> > Seigenthaler debate on CNN:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/
> > Wales_interview_transcript
> >
> > Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a
> > copyvio because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are
> > copyrighted material...
> >
> > Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> > zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://
> > search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

body:
On 12/5/05, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> http://news.com.com/Growing+pains+for+Wikipedia/2100-1025_3-5981119.html?tag=cd.top
>
>
> Why were Wikipedians the last to know about this? I only saw some
> discussion on the mailing list about this, but nothing final. Why do we
> have to learn of this from the media instead of straight from Jimbo?
> This is really disturbing.
>
Not only disturbing, but disappointing.

I guess the only silver lining is that it helps confirm yet another
cynical prediction I and others have made in the past.

Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]

I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
he meant "restricted".

It's much easier to take away openness than it is to restore it.

I dare Jimbo to reverse his decision.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_How_to_Destroy_Wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> I certainly had no idea who this Seigenthaler dude was and
> wouldn't have been able to spot the errors in the article. Now I know
> - he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge.

This is absolutely false and you should be ashamed of yourself for
saying it.

John Seigenthaler, Sr. is a hero.  He founded an organization devoted to
the defense of the First Amendment.  In all my interactions with him, he
has been kind and thoughtful.

He is very much *not* litigious.  (He never threatened to sue Wikipedia,
and he specifically chose not to pursue legal action to force the ISP to
cough up the name of the person who libelled him.)

--Jimbo


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] One question

body:
On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Before John Siegenthaler had his conniption, how many people viewed
> his article in the five months that the evil, terrible rumor that he
> (like everyone else) may have killed Kennedy was up?

I'd be pretty sure almost nobody.  Was it even linked from other articles?

(and wasn't the Kennedy thing even more minor than you state - I seem
to recall that it said he 'had been suspected, but was cleared' or
something along those lines).

Still not good that we had such incorrect info in an article, of
course, but I'm sure it's far from the worst error in the current
Wikipedia.  I doubt it even makes the top 1,000.

-Matt


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Writing to CVS

body:
Thanks to all who replied to my previous message:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-December/032856.html
In the end I used TortoiseCVS, which recommended WinMerge for diffs.

Apologies in advance for another newbie question, this is the first
time I've worked with CVS. I've finished my patch, and posted it at
MediaZilla:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=04028

How do I add this to the CVS, and more importantly, in which package
do I add my changes? Since the feture request is for a Special: page,
almost all the code is self-contained, and so it should be fairly safe
to upload.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] About our disclaimer and what I wish...

body:
"Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
on CNN

I wish my response could have been:

"Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."

But I didn't have that handy.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] One question

body:
Before John Siegenthaler had his conniption, how many people viewed
his article in the five months that the evil, terrible rumor that he
(like everyone else) may have killed Kennedy was up?

Yes, I have limited sympathy for him, so I apologize in advance for the sarcasm.

I really would like to know the page views on the article.


list: commons-l

from_name: Jacques

subject: [Commons-l] [fr] Modification de page impossible

body:
Bonjour,

J'ai modifi? ces jours derniers l'article anglais sur Luigi Boccherini :

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

Je voulais faire la m?me chose pour l'article fran?ais :

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Boccherini

mais je n'obtiens pas la fen?tre de modification. (Je me suis d'abord connect? puis ai cliqu? sur "modifier")

Que faire?

Cordialement
Jacques


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
> anonymous users in the English Wikipedia.
>
> It seems to me that the first thing we can do is try to reduce the
> workload on the people doing new pages patrol.  A fairly extensive
> monitoring and survey of new pages conducted by me over the past few
> days, coupled with discussions with several people who keep an eye on
> such things, suggests that we can have a substantial improvement here by
> eliminating the ability for anons to make new pages.

Who are these people?

> There are some potentially negative side-effects, which is why I call
> this an experiment:
>
> 1. Annoying anons may simply decide to create accounts and make annoying
> nonsense pages anyway.  This will certainly be true in some cases, but
> it is an empirical question as to how many.
>
> 2.  We will lose good new pages created by anons of good will.  This may
> cause the growth of English Wikipedia (in terms of the number of
> articles) to slow a little bit.  With 800,000+ articles, and
> ever-increasing traffic to the website, this seems to be a worthwhile cost.

3. We continue to move farther from openness and freedom, increasing a
culture of controls and limits and access.

4. We discourage people of good will from participating in Wikipedia.

5. The other consequences of increased barriers to access (forcing
participants to spend more time and energy, more of an us-vs-them
mentality, increased suspicion of strangers, the creation of a
"challenge" to be "defeated").

And so on.

>
> Notice that anons can still edit.  I am a firm believer in the validity
> of allowing anons to edit.  Most anon edits are good, and done "on
> impulse".  We would most of the good edits from anons if we did not
> allow anon edits, but we would probably not lose most of the vandalistic
> anon edits.  So the net effect of forbidding anon edits would likely be
> negative.
>
> But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
> it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.

Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
change and move on.

Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
start collecting good data on the effects of the change.

I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
> If we diagnose what went wrong in the Seigenthaler case, this seems like
> a very opportune place to try a small change of policy.
>
> 1. First, the Seigenthaler article was created by an anon.

What does that have to do with anything? Please assume good faith. The
person who wrote the text might have gotten Seigenthaler mixed up with
another person who might actually have been suspected of being a
Soviet spy etc. A registered user could aswell have made the same
mistake. I certainly had no idea who this Seigenthaler dude was and
wouldn't have been able to spot the errors in the article. Now I know
- he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge. What was written about
him on Wikipedia is peanuts compared to how the printed press
regularily treats famous persons. He should consider himself lucky if
involvement in the Kennedy assassination is the worst be has been
accused for.

Don't get me wrong, I like experiments. Experiments are good because
you learn something even if you fail. But the arguments for initiating
this experiment is totally bullshit. That there is (and will be) false
statements in Wikipedia is a direct consequence of it being open. If
you want to remove the possibility of cry-babies like Johnny boy
coming and whining, the only thing to do is to close down the site for
editing for good.

If you want to deal with the spam and random vandalism, there are
adequate and unobtrusive technical measures you can use. For example,
let a bayesian filter tag each edit. But no. Instead all this
panicking and draconian measures that undoubtedly *WILL* make honest
contributors life harder.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Martin Osterman

body:
First of all, I don't think that Jimbo ever expected that Wikipedia would
become this popular and widespread.  The quote you use was made FOUR YEARS
ago.  A lot has changed in four years' time.

Now, I don't profess to know why we were the last to find out... that could
be for any number of reasons.  However, I think that this experiment is
going to yield interesting results, and for that reason I endorse it.  (Not
as if anything needs my endorsing since I'm just one editor among hundreds)

Let's see what happens and see what comes next.

--Martin Osterman

On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/5/05, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> http://news.com.com/Growing+pains+for+Wikipedia/2100-1025_3-5981119.html?tag=cd.top
> >
> >
> > Why were Wikipedians the last to know about this? I only saw some
> > discussion on the mailing list about this, but nothing final. Why do we
> > have to learn of this from the media instead of straight from Jimbo?
> > This is really disturbing.
> >
> Not only disturbing, but disappointing.
>
> I guess the only silver lining is that it helps confirm yet another
> cynical prediction I and others have made in the past.
>
> Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
> to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]
>
> I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
> he meant "restricted".
>
> It's much easier to take away openness than it is to restore it.
>
> I dare Jimbo to reverse his decision.
>
> [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_How_to_Destroy_Wikipedia
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
*Martin Osterman*

Student Manager, Ball State Weather Station (http://www.bsu.edu/weather)
Contributor, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)
Amateur Photographer (http://martino84.deviantart.com)


from_name: Carbonite

body:
On 12/6/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > On 12/5/05, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> http://news.com.com/Growing+pains+for+Wikipedia/2100-1025_3-5981119.html?tag=cd.top
> >>
> >>
> >>Why were Wikipedians the last to know about this? I only saw some
> >>discussion on the mailing list about this, but nothing final. Why do we
> >>have to learn of this from the media instead of straight from Jimbo?
> >>This is really disturbing.
> >>
> >
> > Not only disturbing, but disappointing.
> >
> > I guess the only silver lining is that it helps confirm yet another
> > cynical prediction I and others have made in the past.
> >
> > Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
> > to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]
> >
> > I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
> > he meant "restricted".
>
> Could you clarify how anyone is prevented from making a contribution by
> this experiment.  An anon editor simply creates an account and creates
> the page.

Exactly. As an added bonus, a registered user actually has *more* privacy
than an anonymous user since everyone can't see their IP address.

Carbonite


body:
On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
> First of all, I don't think that Jimbo ever expected that Wikipedia would
> become this popular and widespread.  The quote you use was made FOUR YEARS
> ago.  A lot has changed in four years' time.

I know. But human nature hasn't changed much in that time.

And both Jimbo and I expected Wikipedia would become this popular and
widespread.

> Now, I don't profess to know why we were the last to find out... that could
> be for any number of reasons.  However, I think that this experiment is
> going to yield interesting results, and for that reason I endorse it.  (Not
> as if anything needs my endorsing since I'm just one editor among hundreds)

What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
It's not. It's a permanent policy change.

Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?


body:
Perhaps my newness to the encyclopedia (member as of March, 2005) has left
me feeling naieve.  However, I'm inclined to give Jimbo the benefit of the
doubt.  He says it's an experiment, so I'm inclined to go with that.

On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy change" in
the guise of an experiment?

--Martin

On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
> > First of all, I don't think that Jimbo ever expected that Wikipedia
> would
> > become this popular and widespread.  The quote you use was made FOUR
> YEARS
> > ago.  A lot has changed in four years' time.
>
> I know. But human nature hasn't changed much in that time.
>
> And both Jimbo and I expected Wikipedia would become this popular and
> widespread.
>
> > Now, I don't profess to know why we were the last to find out... that
> could
> > be for any number of reasons.  However, I think that this experiment is
> > going to yield interesting results, and for that reason I endorse
> it.  (Not
> > as if anything needs my endorsing since I'm just one editor among
> hundreds)
>
> What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
>
> Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
*Martin Osterman*

Student Manager, Ball State Weather Station (http://www.bsu.edu/weather)
Contributor, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)
Amateur Photographer (http://martino84.deviantart.com)


from_name: Ryan W. (Merovingian)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: About our disclaimer and what I wish...

body:
I guess that means they're no better/worse than us.

--Ryan

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] About our disclaimer and what I wish...
> To: wikien-l at wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <43959FD4.3030400 at wikia.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> on CNN
>
> I wish my response could have been:
>
> "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>
> But I didn't have that handy.
>
> --Jimbo

"I've been hung by my heels, set on fire, handcuffed... that part was okay."

--
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> on CNN
>
> I wish my response could have been:
>
> "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>
> But I didn't have that handy.

Then make sure you do for all the other news outlets you will be talking with from the time being.
:)

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Delirium

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact that almost all, not just
>most, new pages created by anons on the English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
>
That is simply incorrect.  I do (or did, until this policy change)
new-pages patrol on a regular basis, and I'd estimate no more than ~30%
of new pages created by anons are "complete crap".  Certainly no more
than 10-20% ever warranted speedy deletion.

-Mark


from_name: Frieda Brioschi

subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...

body:
I'd love to do it one day per month.

But I'd prefer turning off new articles creation (for users and anonyms) too.

Ciao,
Frieda

2005/12/6, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com>:
> Jimbo recently confessed his fantasy on #wikimedia:  to set aside January
> 15th as Wikipedia Day. This would at least involve turning off all new
> account creation and anonymous editing, and just spending the day "cleaning
> up" in all senses of the phrase. Others suggested setting aside an entire
> month for this, or doing it one day out of every month.
>
> So, can we make some form of this fantasy come true?
>
>
> brian0918
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
___________________________________________
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Frieda


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Well at least so far, it seems that there have been two effects:
>
>1. fewer crappy pages created
>2. the ones that are create are as easy to identify as ever, since some
>of the anons are converting into 'anonymous redshirts' (i.e. users with
>no userpage).
>
>
You forgot:
3. more crappy edits to existing articles (anecdotally).

I agree we should collect more data, but we can't forget collecting data
on #3, or else it will be pretty useless.

-Mark


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

body:
Retente...
Je n'ai aucun probl?me ici

Guillom

Le 06/12/05, Jacques <maurice7 at cegetel.net> a ?crit :
>
> Bonjour,
>
> J'ai modifi? ces jours derniers l'article anglais sur Luigi Boccherini :
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Boccherini
>
>
> Je voulais faire la m?me chose pour l'article fran?ais :
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Boccherini
>
> mais je n'obtiens pas la fen?tre de modification. (Je me suis d'abord
> connect? puis ai cliqu? sur "modifier")
>
> Que faire?
>
> Cordialement
> Jacques
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>

--
Guillom
"Je sers la science et c'est ma joie" - Basile le Disciple
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
> > it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
>
> Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
> there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
> methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
> change and move on.
>
> Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
> start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
>
> I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.

I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
inappropriate.

You should also consider that maybe there *are* clear conditions for
the start and finish of this experiment, and maybe there *are* clear
methods for taking measurements from it.  Maybe this information just
wasn't made public yet, as to do so would seriously skew the
experiment (there are a lot of factors skewing it already, though, I'm
reminded of the company that found out that productivity was increased
by any experiment, regardless of what it was, simply because the
process of performing experiments was causing the increased
productivity).

Anyway, I think it's great that Wikipedia is finally getting some real
leadership.  I don't really have high hopes for this particular
decision, but the fact that someone is finally standing up and making
decisions is enough to outweigh that.

Anthony


from_name: Steve Block

body:
Snowspinner wrote:
> 1: If we are going to begin protecting pages because of news coverage
> (Which is not unreasonable at all), we should have a protected  template
> that makes that clear. After all, the first page people hit  is also a
> place where they are going to want to try to edit - it's  important to
> take those people and invite them to look at other  pages. I've created
> [[Template:P-protected]] for this.
>
> 2: I understand the need to remove the Siegenthaler libel from the  page
> history. On the other hand, I think A) It is a matter of  important
> historical record at this point, and B) It sets an unseemly  precedent.
> Can we move the deleted history out of that article and  into an archive
> page, perhaps with a permanant front page that notes  what it is, and
> that it is a collection of vandalism?

I would disagree.  If we archive libellous statements, we are open to
libel suits.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/192 - Release Date: 05/12/05


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...

body:
Poltergeist!
Exit from my dreams!

:-D

2005/12/6, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com>:
> Yay, fantasies!
> > But I'd prefer turning off new articles creation (for users and
> > anonyms) too.
>
> We can turn off editing forever! Then we'd have no scaling issues! :)
>
> Cheers,
> Domas
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
___________________________________________
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Frieda


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>My guess is that it's an experiment that will turn into a permanent
>policy change if it turns out to be useful.
>
>
But there does not appear to be any actual criteria under which it can
be judged to fail.  The only way it will be rescinded, basically, is if
Jimbo changes his mind about it being a good idea, because there's no
way he can be proven wrong about it being a good idea.  No one has even
informally defined what it would mean for it to be "successful", much
less suggested how to measure that.

One possible criterion: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia
(counting new page creation and edits to existing pages) decreases.

Another one: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia not caught
within [x] hours (again counting both) decreases.

Is anyone prepared to measure either of these, or some other useful
statistic?

-Mark


from_name: SJ

body:
The fair use debate is something of a moot point; CNN produces its own
transcripts quite punctually:
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/05/lol.02.html

--SJ, uncyclopedia fan

On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Does Wikipedia allow fair use text?  Does it allow fair use outside
> the article space?  How is it clear case?  Simply serving a public
> purpose is not enough.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/6/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Gerrit Holl wrote:
> >Magnus Manske wrote:
> >
> >
> >>* this can be gamed (mark it as a minor edit, or write "google" under
> >>sources, or give some non-existing or out-of print book, or a book in an
> >>obscure language, or set up your own fake page and then give it as
> >>source, or...)
> >>
> >>
> >
> >What's wrong with using an out-of-print book as a source?
> >It might be the only source for this 18-people remote saami village in
> >the Kiruna municipality of Lapland?
> >
> >
> Nothing's wrong with that.
> But if I were a subtle vandal and had to cite my sources, I might cite
> some out-of-print book, hoping noone will get a hold of a copy soon.
> Thus, using "cite your sources" to prevent subtle vandalism doesn't work.
>
I'd raise the standard for anonymous contributors even higher, though,
especially for potentially controversial facts.  Just citing an
out-of-print book that no one can get a hold of isn't enough (of
course, the number of these books is decreasing thanks to projects
like Google Print).

Wikipedia can do without the really obscure facts for a few months.
Put 'em in the talk page and/or list them on [[Wikipedia:alleged facts
that need to be researched]].

Anthony


from_name: Marco Chiesa

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan,
	are written in cyrillic ?

body:
So, if Moldovan is nothing else than Rumanian, and it happens that some
people write it in Cyrillic alphabet, you don't do one wikipedia only
that can be written in both alphabets (I guess that's the way zh.wiki or
sh.wiki work). Maybe I'm missing out something or I'm being too naive,
and I beg my pardon for it, but this seems quite an easy and obvious
solution to me.

Cruccone

Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

>>How about having two DB tables, splitting the domain, like Chinese
>>Wikipedia does (Simplified and Traditional)?
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>
>
>
>I think that's unnecessary. The Moldovan language case is a unique one
>throughout the world in that Moldovan is a politically-renamed Romanian
>spoken in Moldovan. It would be just like the Austrian government declares
>today that the language spoken officially in Austria is called "Austrian".
>Therefore, we don't need a separate Wikipedia for Moldovan in Latin script
>- Romanian can already cater for that. In fact, we have users from Moldova
>reading and contributing to our content at ro.wiki.
>
>For that reason, I think mo.wiki could be abolished entirely. If people
>really
>want a Cyrillic version, then it should be moved to mo-cyr, and mo should
>act
>as a portal, with one link to ro.wiki, one link to mo-cyr. But currently,
>the demand
>for Cyrillic is almost inexistent, and the quality of the articles there is
>very
>questionable.
>
>Ronline
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


from_name: Kai Kumpf

body:
Thanks to Brion, who pointed out the matter of readabilty to me.
Accordingly, please allow me another, nicely formatted and more to the
point, posting:

It has been said that Wikipedia is ?work in progress? and will probably
continue to do so. On the other hand it ails from the fact that at no
given point in time you can be certain to have a simultaneously

   1.

      consistent (with respect to various articles on a similar topic)

   2.

      unvandalized and

   3.

      correct (with respect to a single article) throughout Wikipedia

 From my point of view, compared to those three points the shortcoming
of the non-completeness of WP dwindles to almost nothing.

Let me draw your attention to the fact that the construction plans for
roads to stability ? or at least local optima ? have long been laid out
by physics. Heat a dynamic system quickly then let it cool down in a
slower and controlled fashion, allowing less and less dramatic changes
to take place as time passes. Simulated annealing
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing) is the magic spell
that might work for wikixyzs in a way similar to that in the real world.

The rationale behind my suggestion is of course that articles that have
matured over time are - statistically speaking - less likely to improve
when large modifications are made than relatively new ones. Some of the
articles have reached a stage where well-meant editing effectively mucks
up the inner structure and logic.

What I think reasonable is to lift the threshold for substantial edits,
maybe not by limiting access but by asking for more substantial
background information from the authors (references, printed,
electronic,...) than the simple comment line. There is too much unproven
and partially unprovable information in the WP. That could have been
prevented long ago by obliging the authors to give references for their
information. Besides, this task would make it successively harder to
simply put established statements upside down. Whereas scientific
journals have peer review to prevent superfluous or erroneous
contributions, WP only offers the weak weapons of discussion pages (for
everyone) and reverts (mostly by admins, who can't always claim
erudition in all the domains they are watching, I guess).

So why not confer a little bit more of responsibility to the authors!?
He/she could be aided by predefined lists, checkboxes, comboboxes (for
ref.type, etc.). Asking a little more information from authors could be
a substantial part of the rising editing threshold necessary for
"cooling down" WP a bit.

I find myself increasingly involved in hunting down vandals and their
work ? partly due to the ease of use WP offers for non-serious edits,
too, and I can?t help feeling that a larger and larger part of WP keeps
a larger and larger part of the community busy with just keeping up the
existing standard. We mustn't be sure of still finding enthusiatic
acclaim in the years to come when WP becomes a battlefield in a fight
against distracting, redundant or plain wrong infobits.

Comments from both the user/admin and developer side welcome.

Best,

kai (kku)


subject: [Wikitech-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Well, I take what I said back, although I am still not sure that it
is not fair use due to its undoubted usefulness to the Wikipedia
community. I would call it an educational use.

Fred

On Dec 6, 2005, at 9:41 AM, Fastfission wrote:

> Sure, we use "fair use text" but that means "quotations" and not
> wholesale copying. We're allowed to write an article about the
> interview, describing and even quoting from it when relevant but we're
> not allowed to just copy and re-print the entire interview.
>
> FF
>
> On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> Does Wikipedia allow fair use text?  Does it allow fair use outside
>> the article space?  How is it clear case?  Simply serving a public
>> purpose is not enough.
>>
>> On another note, I'm interested in seeing the next interview after
>> Seigenthaler sees what is written about him on Jimbo's other site:
>> http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr
>>
>> "Seigenthaler was promptly fired in 1963 for his role in planning,
>> carrying out, and covering up the JFK Assassination, and is even
>> thought by some madmen to have supplied Oswald and Castro with silver
>> bullets to kill the werewolf-president."
>>
>> Anthony
>>
>> On 12/6/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I think this is a clear case of fair use. It serves a public
>>> purpose.
>>> There is a problem and we all need to hear about it.
>>>
>>> Fred
>>>
>>> On Dec 5, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
>>>> Seigenthaler debate on CNN:
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/
>>>> Wales_interview_transcript
>>>>
>>>> Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a
>>>> copyvio because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are
>>>> copyrighted material...
>>>>
>>>> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
>>>> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
>>>>
>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://
>>>> search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But consider the
>following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it by hand:
>
>'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's middle name is
>Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison''' ([[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.9|"He was born
>in Foo, Bar on April 23 of 1936"|"[[April 23]], [[1936]]"]] –
>[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.11|"He died that same year, on the 6th of
>December"|"[[December 6]], [[1988]]"]]),
>[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.13|"They called him "The Big O""|"nicknamed
>"The Big O""]], was ...
>
Interesting example!  Correct bibliography should not override reality
checks.  Saying that someone born in 1936 died in "that same year",
which also happens to be 1988 leads me to the conclusion that
1936=1988.  :-)   This may not have been Anthony's intention, but if
what we are trying to say becomes so obscured by citations this is an
omen of our future problems.

>Maybe I'm misunderstanding how these cites would be used, because that
>was hell; it was even worse than I had thought before going through
>the actual exercise.
>
>I don't think wiki markup is the proper solution for this.  And that
>means significant redesign.  Feel free to prove me wrong here, though,
>and show us a working model which is just as easy to edit as
>Wikipedia.
>
>I think it's a great idea, I just think it's years ahead of its time
>(and that assumes it's designed independently of Wikimedia, cramming
>it through Wikimedia development processes would only hinder it).
>
>
Perhaps.  When I asked my own question about what the rest of us can do
I was not interested in a lot of theoretical material about what library
scientists put into card catalogues.  I was considering the point of
view of a normal Wikipedian (assuming such an animal exists) who is
about to write an article and who already has adequate references that
he is ready, willing and able to use.  His problem is to find a
practical way to enter the citations in a way that will scale with the
proposed theoretical framework.

The ultimate database seems more and more like the computer geek's
response the the unified field theory of physicists.  There are still
many agnostics among us who would like to see proof of 42's existence.

Ec


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Script conversion for Vlax Romany Wikipedia

body:
> The conversion is very consistent in that each Devangari
> symbol represents the one and the same letter or diphthong in the Latin
> Romany alphabet.
> Thanks,
> Ronline

If there is 1-to-1 correspondence for converting in both directions
then yes, it's possible.

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>
>It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
>coverage of this incident.  [...]
>

As they say, never start a fight with someone who buys ink by the
barrel (servers by the truckload?). The positive framing is to
start from "everybody makes mistakes", and point out WP's generally
good performance at error correcting. For instance, by aggregating
small amounts of available volunteer time, articles tend to get
more proofreading than news organizations can typically afford to
pay for. But it doesn't happen on a deadline, and so WP is slower
than news organizations at getting to the same level of quality.
Another way to phrase - "wiki is not magic, it's just different".

Stan


body:
On 12/6/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> >My guess is that it's an experiment that will turn into a permanent
> >policy change if it turns out to be useful.
> >
> >
> But there does not appear to be any actual criteria under which it can
> be judged to fail.  The only way it will be rescinded, basically, is if
> Jimbo changes his mind about it being a good idea, because there's no
> way he can be proven wrong about it being a good idea.  No one has even
> informally defined what it would mean for it to be "successful", much
> less suggested how to measure that.
>
I'd say wait a week or two, and then let Jimbo present us with the
evidence showing that it was successful.  If you'd like, you can
present us with some evidence showing that it wasn't successful.

> One possible criterion: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia
> (counting new page creation and edits to existing pages) decreases.
>
> Another one: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia not caught
> within [x] hours (again counting both) decreases.
>
It would be far too easy for people to game the system if these
criteria were presented ahead of time.  Maybe you should talk to Jimmy
privately and agree upon some metrics.  Don't tell us what they are
until the experiment is over, though.

> Is anyone prepared to measure either of these, or some other useful
> statistic?
>
> -Mark

I'm not, because I don't think the decision as to whether or not users
that aren't logged in can create new articles is that big of a deal
(and to the extent it is it's a culture change whose effect won't
become obvious for years).  But you and Jimmy might be.

Anthony


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Sure, we use "fair use text" but that means "quotations" and not
wholesale copying. We're allowed to write an article about the
interview, describing and even quoting from it when relevant but we're
not allowed to just copy and re-print the entire interview.

FF

On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Does Wikipedia allow fair use text?  Does it allow fair use outside
> the article space?  How is it clear case?  Simply serving a public
> purpose is not enough.
>
> On another note, I'm interested in seeing the next interview after
> Seigenthaler sees what is written about him on Jimbo's other site:
> http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr
>
> "Seigenthaler was promptly fired in 1963 for his role in planning,
> carrying out, and covering up the JFK Assassination, and is even
> thought by some madmen to have supplied Oswald and Castro with silver
> bullets to kill the werewolf-president."
>
> Anthony
>
> On 12/6/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > I think this is a clear case of fair use. It serves a public purpose.
> > There is a problem and we all need to hear about it.
> >
> > Fred
> >
> > On Dec 5, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
> >
> > > I just noticed that WikiFanatic posted a transcript on the Jimbo v.
> > > Seigenthaler debate on CNN:
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiFanatic/
> > > Wales_interview_transcript
> > >
> > > Although I was fascinated about it, I feel like that page is a
> > > copyvio because I know that all CNN broadcasts and video are
> > > copyrighted material...
> > >
> > > Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> > > zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://
> > > search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>A monthly clean-up holiday (at least for the English Wikipedia)? I think that is an absolutely
>wonderful idea! We could kick it off with a whole week in, heck, the whole month of January. After
>that it could be the 15th of each month.
>
>At the very least it will give us a chance to catch a breath; keeping up with all the vandalistic
>and dodgy edits to articles on en.wikipedia?s recent changes was like trying to take a sip from a
>fire hose. I thus stopped even looking at RC some time ago.
>
>I hope some good will come from this whole embarrassing episode.
>
Let's not blow the incident out of proportion. Similar incidents will
happen in the future because "Shit happens." This is not a perfect
world. We need to act in response without overacting.

>Our entire history thus far has
>emphasized quantity over quality. It is high time that some balance is put into that equation. We
>could also use these clean-up holidays to reflect on how better to keep a good balance. Team
>editing works pretty well, but team patrol is very hard to do so far. We need better tools to
>enable that.
>
Personally I like to reflect on things as they arise, and not wait for a
high holiday to do it. Do we need to hire a good muezzin to announce the
holiday?

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...


body:
Well, sure. In certain situations, for certain uses. But I don't
suspect this really qualifies as one of them, and in any event it is
not necessary to find out, since copies of the transcript are
apparently not hard to find elsewhere.

In any event, *Wikipedia* does not include whole copies of *any*
documents. That's what Wikisource is for, yes?

(I apologize for my tending towards blanket statements at times, and I
apologize for often blending legal and policy issues into them without
properly demarcating between the two.)

FF

On 12/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> FF wrote:
>
> >Sure, we use "fair use text" but that means "quotations" and not
> >wholesale copying. We're allowed to write an article about the
> >interview, describing and even quoting from it when relevant but we're
> >not allowed to just copy and re-print the entire interview.
>
>
> *Probably* not. Fair use can include and has included up to the entire
> work in question.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] FW: Whitelisting 'members'

body:
Gerrit Holl wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Gerrit Holl wrote:
>>> This question belongs here, I believe. Would such a patch be possible?
>> Is there some context? I have no idea what's being requested.
>
> I want to patch Wikipedia's mailman to help moderation of the helpdesk-l
> mailinglist. I want to automatically approve messages from senders whose
> e-mail address is registered with a user account in the enwiki user
> database. This would not completely solve the problem of the moderation
> workload for helpdesk-l, but I think it would greatly reduce the
> moderation workload. And many people respond to the 'held'-message,
> which says helpdesk-l is moderated for non-members: "I am a member!"
>
> The technical question is:
>
> Is the user table from the enwiki database accessible from the server
> running the helpdesk-l mailing list?

At the moment, but this could change at any time.

> Would such a patch be accepted (after local testing, of course)?

Mmmmmmaybe. Currently the user database does not have an index on user_email,
making this very inefficient, but it could be added.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If we diagnose what went wrong in the Seigenthaler case, this seems like
> > a very opportune place to try a small change of policy.
> >
> > 1. First, the Seigenthaler article was created by an anon.
>
> What does that have to do with anything? Please assume good faith. The
> person who wrote the text might have gotten Seigenthaler mixed up with
> another person who might actually have been suspected of being a
> Soviet spy etc. A registered user could aswell have made the same
> mistake.

I think not allowing unreferenced articles would be a great help too.
I bet the anon didn't provide any source (or they would've discovered
their own mistake if it was one).

Mgm


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

body:
On 6 Dec 2005, at 03:12, Fastfission wrote:

> On 12/4/05, Puddl Duk <puddlduk at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think we have almost 600 fair use images in the pokeman category
>
> That's true, and may or may not be a problem. The sheer number isn't
> necessarily the problem, though -- images which are individually "fair
> use" are still "fair use" whether there are two of them or 600 of
> them. There is a case on this relating to Beanie Babies, I believe:
> Ty, Inc., vs. Publications International, Ltd. (discussed at
> http://www.ivanhoffman.com/beanie.html)

Not having 600 can be more significant than having one: it is the use
as a whole which will be taken into account; the extent of the copying
includes collections in many cases. The Beanie Babe case is not
necessarily
applicable (although it might be) as it relied on 2D photos not being
substitutes for 3D dolls; we normally rely on being able to take
pictures
of 3D objects anyway without infringement. The problem with the Pokemon
is that the actual images are also straight copies (not artistic photos
off a screen say), and to some extent images on a screen of pokemon do
substitute for the originals, certainly more than Beanie babes do.
There is also the trademark infringement issue (which was not used in
Beanie Babes, but I would not be surprised if Pokemon fell into this.
But its unclear.

> How the Twin Peaks and Seinfeld rulings apply to Wikipedia and
> Wikiquote is unclear to me. Personally I'd be very, very suspicious of
> having detailed pages about copyrighted material which is purely
> descriptive (and not analysis, parody, etc.) or, at worse, relies upon
> heavy use of copyrighted content (images, quotes), even if we are
> non-profit. But I'm no lawyer, and this seems to be ground which is
> not very clearly spelled out legally.

I hope we are unlikely to get to the stage of Twin Peaks, ie almost
copying in scripts.

This is nice and cheerful:
http://www.ivanhoffman.com/screen.html


subject: [Wikitech-l] Squid configuration problem

body:
Travis Derouin wrote:
> Hey Brion,
>
> Doh! It does look like the UTM code that Google Analytics uses does
> cookie anonymous users, will this prevent us from configuring Squid
> properly?

Probably...

The cache-control headers *should* keep private pages (logged-in versions) from
getting displayed to anonymous visitors, but I'm not convinced that it can
guarantee the opposite (cached anonymous pages might get shown to logged-in
users) if you remove the 'Vary: Accept-Encoding, Cookie'.

> The cookies won't affect the display of the pages loaded, is
> there a way to ignore a set of cookies that start with __utm in the
> context of the cache?

Sorry, I have no idea. :(

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...

body:
Yay, fantasies!
> But I'd prefer turning off new articles creation (for users and
> anonyms) too.

We can turn off editing forever! Then we'd have no scaling issues! :)

Cheers,
Domas


subject: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's fantasy...


subject: [Wikitech-l] Article->insertNewArticle and category links

body:
Travis Derouin wrote:
> Is there any reason why when inserting a new article from outside
> EditPage.php doesn't update the category links?

Shitty coding practices. ;) This stuff needs more refactoring still.

> $title = Title::newFromText("Hellos");
> $article = new Article($title);
> $ret = $article->insertNewArticle("hi there![[Category:Greetings]]",
> "", false, false, false)
>
> The article is successfully created and links to the Greetings
> category. However, the "Greetings" category does not show the new
> article in the list of articles in that category.

At the moment you'll have to manually run the post-save updates; you should find
several examples of this in the code.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
> There's currently overwhelming support to keep the article on the
> English Wikipedia but not on the Icelandic Wikipedia.
That's odd to say the least. What reasons are those Icelanders using
to delete it?
My Icelandic is seriously rusty, so I can't really read the debate there.

Mgm


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 12/6/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
>>Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
>>none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
>>Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
>>any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
>>on CNN
>>
>>I wish my response could have been:
>>
>>"Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
>>NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
>>AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
>>INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
>>WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
>>INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
>>INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>>
>>But I didn't have that handy.
>>
>>
>
>Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that she was out to get
>you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need to work on your
>preinterview briefings, though....
>
>It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
>coverage of this incident.  One radio report in Chicagoland reported
>that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.  At least one blog report
>demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling Seigenthaler's name
>consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and electronic media
>articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as www.wikipedia.com
>(instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is that the media is
>no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a really good idea
>to take the media coverage of this incident and identify all the
>errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches the level of libel
>itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored Seigenthaler's
>entreaties for four months before bothering to act).  Their house is
>no cleaner than ours.
>
That would be a great article on the nature of media accuracy; it could
be widely circulated.  I don't know if they coould handle having all
these bubbles burst.

Ec


from_name: Puzzlet Chung

body:
> > I'll suggest to remove the mo. subdomain at all, moving it to
> > mo-cyr.wikipedia.org would look like you'll save that actually-bad
> > joke with the hosting at the biggest free encyclopedia.
>
> I am also from Moldova, but unlike the poster I am replying to, I did
> get to write in Cyrillic in school, being a bit older. :)
>
> I perfectly agree that the Cyrillic version needs to be moved to
> mo-cyr.wikipedia.org or something similar. It is not right that the mo
> domain which is meant to stand for Moldova is used as a gateway to the
> Cyrillic version which is not used in the country, and which is
> associated with the abuses Moldova undertook as part of Soviet Union
> after World War II.
>

How about having two DB tables, splitting the domain, like Chinese
Wikipedia does (Simplified and Traditional)?


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/6/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> My questions are, has the wikipedia foundation received advice on how it
> is affected by libel law in England and Wales?

The Wikimedia Foundation is not subject to the law of England or Wales
(since it lacks a legal presence there), and a judgment found against
the Foundation in that jurisdiction would be subject to a First
Amendment analysis under United States law before enforcement might be
had in the United States.  Such analysis would defeat most libel
judgments based on English or Welsh law, rendering them unenforceable.
 Furthermore, there are defenses in United States law that render the
Foundation immune to defamations actions for the actions of its
volunteer editors; those defenses would also be available in a hearing
to determine whether to enforce a foreign judgment.

It would be advisable for the Wikimedia Foundation to avoid
establishing a legal presence within the jurisdiction of countries
which lack adequate protections for free speech, however.

Kelly


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Editing would go on as it does now and there would be no forks in development; periodically a new
> snapshot of the development version will be taken to serve as the new stable version. A prominent
> link to the stable version would be placed on top of the article and cur diffs between it and the
> current development version would be added.

*nods vigorously*

> People would need to log in and change their
> preferences to see stable versions by default (the other way around would hide vandalism in the
> development version; besides, the most recent/up-to-date version should be on top anyway).

IMHO the opposite needs to be true; reviewed, stable versions need to be right
on top, as what the public sees by default.

Sure, there'll be a big fat message showing that 78573 more edits have been made
to [[George W. Bush]] since this reviewed version, with a handy link to go right
to it and see the changes, but they're gonna see the stable copy first.

We've spent so much time hyping Wikipedia that it's become quite popular at its
present location; a separate or hidden click-through stable set will basically
never be seen and can't reasonably answer the (totally valid) criticisms that a
reference site needs to be a little bit conservative on its public face.

By all means, we should let the vandalism and the JOSH IS GAY and the GWB penis
pictures and the occasional bit of alleged libel -- and the genuine building up
and back-and-forth of new material development -- happen one level removed from
the millions-of-hits-per-day.

Most of those visitors *aren't* participating editors, and on a relatively
mature site like en.wikipedia we need to recognize this and act accordingly to
meet their requirements as well as those of visitors who start participating.
Will it be a speed bump? Yes, it will. But with an industrial firehose-sized
stream of visitors, a speed bump is NOT A BAD THING.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] One question

body:
On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Before John Siegenthaler had his conniption, how many people viewed
> his article in the five months that the evil, terrible rumor that he
> (like everyone else) may have killed Kennedy was up?
>
> Yes, I have limited sympathy for him, so I apologize in advance for the sarcasm.
>
> I really would like to know the page views on the article.

There is no way to know.  We don't retain access logs for that long an interval.

Kelly


body:
On 12/6/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 6 Dec 2005, at 13:42, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> > I think this is a clear case of fair use. It serves a public
> > purpose. There is a problem and we all need to hear about it.
> >
>
> fair use says nothing about public purpose. Now a few excerpts would
> be ok, but not the whole
> thing. You can hear about it from CNN.

Actually, a number of copyright law commentators have suggested that
"public purpose" may be a legitimate restriction on exclusive rights,
as a form of "fair use".  The claim was raised inartfully in RTC v.
Henson, but I don't believe the court ever ruled on the merits of that
claim (mainly because Henson is a freaking idiot).

Kelly

Kelly


body:
On 12/6/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> on CNN
>
> I wish my response could have been:
>
> "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>
> But I didn't have that handy.

Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that she was out to get
you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need to work on your
preinterview briefings, though....

It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
coverage of this incident.  One radio report in Chicagoland reported
that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.  At least one blog report
demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling Seigenthaler's name
consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and electronic media
articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as www.wikipedia.com
(instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is that the media is
no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a really good idea
to take the media coverage of this incident and identify all the
errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches the level of libel
itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored Seigenthaler's
entreaties for four months before bothering to act).  Their house is
no cleaner than ours.

Kelly


from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [Foundation-l] New variant on an old idea

body:
A new variant on an old idea follows.

I propose a new variant on protection of pages, a sort of "deferred
edits" solution, to be used on high-traffic vandalism targets a la
George W Bush and other presidential candidates.

Someone vandalizes GWB. Someone reverts the vandalism, say, sixty
seconds to three or four minutes later. (Hey, the wiki is danged slow
sometime.) The vandalism is gone. In those sixty seconds, however,
someone may have viewed the page.

My solution would be a feature that would defer any edits for a short
period of time, say, five minutes. If the revision remains unchanged
(unedited, unreverted, un-rolledback) for those five minutes, it
becomes the currently displayed 'article'. This should provide an
adequate window during which such vandalism can be reverted, without
it ever being displayed.

This differs from other schemes, which typically suggest some sort of
administrative approval method for new revisions (such schemes perform
poorly if an administrator is not available) or some sort of 'implicit
review' schemes where, if a sufficiently qualified user views a page,
it is marked as 'all right'.

The handling of the page 'future' (the opposite of its history) may be
a trifle tricky, but I imagine it would not be intractible. A notice
might be placed at the top of the article near the toolbar-tabs, "A
new version of this article is pending" and a new tab for "pending
version" or some equivalent label could be made available. General
page edits should be directed to the pending version, and when the
page is saved the user would be taken to the "pending version" tab (so
they can be assured that their changes go through, preventing multiple
submissions). The pending version may bear a timestamp indicating when
it will be made available. The 'future revisions' could be also be
displayed in the History tab above the current (boldly hilighted in
some manner) revision. Finally, we might even put a notice in the Edit
window: "Is this version of the page vandalized? You can start editing
from [page history link here|another revision]."

In the event that a 'bad' version makes it to the current article,
there ought to be a special administrator-type button or link to
immediately promote the future-revisions to the presently displayed
article (rather than being forced to wait for five or more minutes to
elapse with the article unchanged).

I think a good, simple, short "window" scheme of this sort, if applied
to selected high-profile high-traffic pages (such as featured articles
or pages linked to from Slashdot or the like) would be much more
readily understandable and provide a reasonable alternative to gross
page protection. It might also take a lot of the fun out of vandalism
if you know that your changes probably won't ever be seen by the
general article-viewing public.

I do not advocate deployment of such a scheme wiki-wide at this time.


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of JAY JG
> Sent: Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:32
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] David Hager is listed as convicted rapist
>
> >From: "Peter Mackay" <peter.mackay at bigpond.com>
> >
> >
> >If a person had admitted guilt, then there is no problem. We may
> >describe them as a criminal. But if they maintained their
> innocence and
> >were found guilty instead of pleading guilty, then we should use
> >conventional phrasing to indicate this, by describing someone as a
> >convicted rapist, rather than a rapist.
>
> People also falsely confess to crimes; there have been many
> famous cases of this which have actually been later
> overturned (and one must assume even more cases which have
> not been overturned).  If we start trying to second guess
> legal systems, then all we'll be left with is original
> research to determine if someone is a criminal.

Concur. Despite the evidence, Wikipedians are not private dicks.

I note that the media in general seems to have little trouble in using
whatever form of words best suits the case, and it should be no hardship for
us to follow suit. Perhaps we could call someone a "confessed criminal" if
they claim they did something but there was no official finding of guilt? If
the confession is a matter of public record, but we have some doubt that
they actually shot John Kennedy, then this phrasing should keep us out of
trouble.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: stevertigo

body:
Yes, but this BOLD argument has largely been dismissed
in favor of the CAUTIOUS argument which says 'we just
dont want to find out what "a court" (i.e. a U.S.
court) might say on the fair use issue, so we are
going to exercise extreme cautious in our application
of fair use, in any property-infringement claims.

Wikipedia's philosophy is like Debian's, which for
sake of purity will avoid loading Java, Flash player,
etc, and thereby will lose substantial end-user
'marketshare' to slick sub-distros like Ubuntu and
Mepis. Simply tagging fair use (should we going to
prune 'fair use' of text too?) would suffice, if such
would be integrated with the means to strip the
'non-free' matter from the 'free' version. The
non-free could even be a patch to the 'free' distro.

Stevertigo

--- Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> > fair use says nothing about public purpose. Now a
> few excerpts would
> > be ok, but not the whole
> > thing. You can hear about it from CNN.
>
> Actually, a number of copyright law commentators
have suggested that
> "public purpose" may be a legitimate restriction on
exclusive rights,
> as a form of "fair use".  The claim was raised
inartfully in RTC v.
> Henson, but I don't believe the court ever ruled on
the merits of that
> claim (mainly because Henson is a freaking idiot).

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


body:
The below is quite well stated, and sets a good
example for how deal with this in a meta article.

Would it make sense to have '[[Siegenthaler
incident]]?' article on en.wiki? As always, NPOV would
requires that we avoid unnecessarily diplomatic
language. Someone could write a K5 article...

Stevertigo

--- Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that
> she was out to get
> you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need
> to work on your
> preinterview briefings, though....
>
> It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and
> major, in the news
> coverage of this incident.  One radio report in
> Chicagoland reported
> that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.

At least
> one blog report
> demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling
> Seigenthaler's name
> consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and
> electronic media
> articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as
> www.wikipedia.com
> (instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is
> that the media is
> no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a
> really good idea
> to take the media coverage of this incident and
> identify all the
> errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches
> the level of libel
> itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored
> Seigenthaler's
> entreaties for four months before bothering to act).
>  Their house is
> no cleaner than ours.

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Travis Derouin

body:
Is there any reason why when inserting a new article from outside
EditPage.php doesn't update the category links?

$title = Title::newFromText("Hellos");
$article = new Article($title);
$ret = $article->insertNewArticle("hi there![[Category:Greetings]]",
"", false, false, false)

The article is successfully created and links to the Greetings
category. However, the "Greetings" category does not show the new
article in the list of articles in that category.

Travis


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
I would think that calling someone "a hero" is
'unncessarily diplomatic language,' and such a
designation would require citation. In this case, the
citation is his 'founding of a First Amendment
defending organization.'

Its important to remember how trust foundations in
general work in the U.S. They largely exist for the
purposes of 1) financial self-sustenance 2) lobbying,
and 3) public awareness. The last two have relatively
low overhead, and the first has no real ties to the
cause which it claims to represent. Hence we have
various organzations that represent various causes
which may or may not have some vague connection with
the goals they claim to support.

Bjorn's language was indeed unnecessarily undiplomiac
and needing of correction. But an examination of
Siegenthaler's language in reference to Wikipedia as a
whole likewise shows a lacking of the "kind and
thoughful" traits claimed to be in private discourse.
More to the point, Seigenthaler's transcripted
comments arent evokative of someone who has a deep
understanding of the U.S. First Amendment issues in
question:

SEIGENTHALER: "...can I just say, where I'm worried
about this leading. Next year we go into an election
year. Every politician is going to find himself or
herself subjected to the same sort of outrageous
commentary that hit me, and hits others.

"I'm afraid we're going to get regulated media as a
result of that. And I -- I tell you, I think if you
can't fix it, both fix the history as well as the
biography pages, I think it's going to be in real
trouble, and we're going to have to be fighting to
keep the government from regulating you."

People can decide for themselves if they think that
some "libel" (i.e. 'uncorrected cruft') in one article
will equate to a wider climate of presumably dire and
draconian "government" regulation. I think the claim
is beyond ridiculous, and throwing Kelly's little
laundry list of media errors into the equasion,
Siegenthaler's comments are almost indistinguishable
from an attack on *free media from the point of view
of *corporate media.

No doubt he is sincere, but his interests *seem to be
in protecting the institutional, and not the emergent.
In that context, being diplomatic to Siegenthaler for
sake of converting him to understand the free media
model is indeed a wise course of action.

Stevertigo

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> > I certainly had no idea who this Seigenthaler dude
> was and
> > wouldn't have been able to spot the errors in the
> article. Now I know
> > - he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge.
>
> This is absolutely false and you should be ashamed
> of yourself for
> saying it.
>
> John Seigenthaler, Sr. is a hero.  He founded an
> organization devoted to
> the defense of the First Amendment.  In all my
> interactions with him, he
> has been kind and thoughtful.
>

> He is very much *not* litigious.  (He never
> threatened to sue Wikipedia,
> and he specifically chose not to pursue legal action
> to force the ISP to
> cough up the name of the person who libelled him.)
>
> --Jimbo

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Brian

body:
>
> "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>
> But I didn't have that handy.

>Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that she was out to get
>you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need to work on your
>preinterview briefings, though....

>It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
>coverage of this incident.  One radio report in Chicagoland reported
>that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.  At least one blog report
>demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling Seigenthaler's name
>consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and electronic media
>articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as www.wikipedia.com
>(instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is that the media is
>no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a really good idea
>to take the media coverage of this incident and identify all the
>errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches the level of libel
>itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored Seigenthaler's
>entreaties for four months before bothering to act).  Their house is
>no cleaner than ours.

>Kelly
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I don't think it's really their house we should be worried about. Granted
they are no more infallible than we are but it's the message the
audience/public is getting that we care about. They know CNN makes mistakes,
but they consider it generally reliable. They know we make mistakes, the
message we have to get across is that we can be a reliable source of
information as well. The fact that there were non-critical errors in
covering this story doesn't really change their perception.

I guess it's sort of a hearts and minds thing.....


body:
And as a FYI, Wikipedia will be a subject on NPR's Talk of the Nation
between 19:00 and 20:00 UTC (2:00 and 3:00 est). They mentioned policy
changes and recent events in the teaser....

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]On Behalf Of Kelly Martin
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 12:27 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] About our disclaimer and what I wish...

On 12/6/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> on CNN
>
> I wish my response could have been:
>
> "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
>
> But I didn't have that handy.

Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that she was out to get
you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need to work on your
preinterview briefings, though....

It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
coverage of this incident.  One radio report in Chicagoland reported
that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.  At least one blog report
demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling Seigenthaler's name
consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and electronic media
articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as www.wikipedia.com
(instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is that the media is
no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a really good idea
to take the media coverage of this incident and identify all the
errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches the level of libel
itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored Seigenthaler's
entreaties for four months before bothering to act).  Their house is
no cleaner than ours.

Kelly
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
If the quality of the articles there is questionable, then so is the
quality of ro.wiki articles because 99% of ours are copied from you.

Mark

On 05/12/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > How about having two DB tables, splitting the domain, like Chinese
> > Wikipedia does (Simplified and Traditional)?
> > _______________________________________________
>
>
> I think that's unnecessary. The Moldovan language case is a unique one
> throughout the world in that Moldovan is a politically-renamed Romanian
> spoken in Moldovan. It would be just like the Austrian government declares
> today that the language spoken officially in Austria is called "Austrian".
> Therefore, we don't need a separate Wikipedia for Moldovan in Latin script
> - Romanian can already cater for that. In fact, we have users from Moldova
> reading and contributing to our content at ro.wiki.
>
> For that reason, I think mo.wiki could be abolished entirely. If people
> really
> want a Cyrillic version, then it should be moved to mo-cyr, and mo should
> act
> as a portal, with one link to ro.wiki, one link to mo-cyr. But currently,
> the demand
> for Cyrillic is almost inexistent, and the quality of the articles there is
> very
> questionable.
>
> Ronline
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] David Hager is listed as convicted rapist

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> JAY JG wrote:
>
>>I've been have a months-long debate with another editor on this topic.
>>I've been stating that we include people in "Criminals" categories if
>>they have been convicted of a crime by an independent judiciary.  The
>>other editor insists that we have to decide (by some means) whether or
>>not they have actually committed a crime, conviction is not enough a
>>good enough yardstick.  I'd be interested in other thoughts here.
>
>
> I have a simple thought.  My simple thought is that of course you are
> right. :-)

I agree with you, but community consensus doesn't.  I recently tried to
get the criminal categories renamed to include the words convicted but
was told that was unworkable since Butch Cassiday was never convicted,
or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_November_15#Criminals

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