from_name: Manuel de Sousa

body:
I understand you point of view, Mark.

I'll try to get this fixed and will come back again within a month, or so.
Does this seem fair to you?

Thanks & regards,
Manuel de Sousa

-----Mensagem original-----
De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:50
Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder

I know that Portuguese is th esecond official language of East Timor.

That's not what I asked.

It doesn't inspire confidence that most of the pages in the test wiki
are in Portuguese, when you are requesting a Wikipedia for Tetum.

Mark

On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
> Mark,
> Portuguese is the second official language of East Timor and is regarded
as
> a reference for Tetum. In the official Tetum, a huge amount of vocabulary
> comes directly from Portuguese.
>
> Another reason is that, as far as I know, several of the supporters of
this
> project are Timorese university students studying in Portugal. So, the
easy
> way, would be to go to the Portuguese Wikipedia and copy a few articles,
in
> order to translate them later.
>
> Anyway, in the case of a testpage certain experiences must be tolerated.
> Things will be different once the Tetum Wikipedia becomes real...
>
> Regards,
> Manuel de Sousa
>
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
> Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:30
> Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
>
> One thing I noticed is that most of the testpages are in Portuguese. Why?
>
> Mark
>
> On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
> > Last January 14 and 15 I sent two msg to this group
> >
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043424.html
> > and
> >
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043428.html),
> > asking for the creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum language, one of the two
> > official languages of Timor-Leste (or East Timor), the youngest
> independent
> > nation in the world (the other official language is Portuguese).
> >
> > In the meantime, this project got 15 supporters, 8 of them
native-speakers
> > of Tetum (see:
> >
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages#Tetum_.28
> > 15_support_.5B8_native_speakers.5D.29).
> >
> > Subsequently, I created a test page
> > (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/tet) that presently has a dozen
> > articles in Tetum and a few others in the process of being translated to
> > Tetum.
> >
> > Anyway, I find it difficult to attract Tetum-speaking people to work in
a
> > Wikipedia that is still in a test phase. So, I wonder if any developer
can
> > inform me if this new language version of Wikipedia is about to the set
up
> > or not.
> >
> > I'm absolutely convinced the Wikipedia in Tetum is viable, and that it
can
> > be an exceptional tool for East-Timorese to promote their national
> language
> > internally and abroad. And I'm not alone in this feeling. Giuseppe
> d'Angelo
> > said in a subsequent msg: "One can't understate what such a venture [the
> > creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum] would do to the self-esteem of a whole
> > people. It will take a while to get going, given their problems with
basic
> > infrastructure, but I am certain that it would eventually succeed. There
> is
> > also likely to be a thriving community of Tetum speakers in nearby
Darwin,
> > where they are likely to have better infrastructure - it's just a case
of
> > getting the message through to them."
> >
> > I will do my best to get the message to the East-Timorese in Australia,
in
> > Portugal, in Indonesia, etc. -- as well as in East Timor. But, first of
> all,
> > you [the developers] gotta set up this new Wikipedia.
> >
> > Plz let me know where are we standing of this.
> >
> > Thanks & regards,
> > Manuel de Sousa
--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>You created the username "Let's Get High And Edit Wikipedia" and
>>wondered why you are blocked as having an inappropriate username. The
>>reasons are the same as why we wouldn't allow any of the names I listed
>>above.
>
>
> (Note: I previously stated I thought this was an inappropriate username.)
>
> Part of the complaint, I think, is that the username was blocked
> without any comment other than "stoner..."
>
> But it's possible the complaints are facetious, since there sure seem
> to be a lot of  "Let's..." usernames associated with general
> silliness.
>
> I'll assume good faith, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to do so.
>

Don't bend over to pick up the soap, either.

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

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/8/06, ! Chris Sherlock <ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Short and sweet: we have too many of them, most of them aren't being used as
> "fair use" images, many don't have sources, almost none have fair use
> criteria, and more than a few are being used in articles that have no real
> need for them.
>
> May I suggest that we start taking action on this issue? IMO they are a
> ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Not only that, but they are diluting
> the "freeness" of the project and causing problems for those who want to use
> our material unaltered.
>
> TBSDY

Absolutely.  Fair use should be abandoned in favor of allowing
CC-BY-ND.  I just found out that CC-BY-ND allows "the right to make
such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights
in other media and formats", so use of such a license is much better
than relying on fair use.

The main advantages are 1) no more gray-areas; either the image is
CC-BY-ND, or it isn't; 2) full use by commercial entities, in print
versions, etc.; 3) use by anyone in the world, not just in the United
States.

Of course the major disadvantage is that people have to be convinced
to release their image under the license.  But right now it's not even
an option.

Anthony


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox of the Year

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/8/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>{{User:Sam Hocevar/burninhell}}
>>
>>I've certainly put it on *my* user page.
>>
>>(Under the, ahh, userboxes.)
>>
>>
>>- d.
>
>
> Hmm fails CSD T1
>
> And what about those people fighting over relgious userboxes.
>

Technically it's not a userbox; it's not the same size and shape as all
the others. Also, it doesn't have any categories.

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

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/9/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I agree with Ec entirely.  Image deletion is broken precisely because
> > it cannot be undone; please do not use it when deletion can be
> > avoided.
> >
> > It is also the duty of text uploaders to describe the text's source,
> > and justify its applicability to the article; nevertheless, we engage
> > in discussion with editors rather than deleting insufficiently sourced
> > work.  This mainly works because you can remove text from a page
> > without deleting it from the edit history.
> >
> > Consider creating a quarantine for images that appear to be improperly
> > tagged, or improperly used; removing images to that quarantine, and
> > leaving them there for a reasonable length of time (a month?) before
> > deleting them.  If anyone tries to remove a quarantined image, they
> > must give an explanation or proper tag.
>
> This is misleading and outright untrue in the case of older content. I
> maintain a temporary archive of media I tag for deletion, some other
> users do as well.. it's fairly easy to make your tagging bot go grab
> the actual image.  In the case of older content, it would have made
> its way into one or more image dumps (which are available for a
> limited time on download.wikimedia.org, and which I and several others
> maintain copies of forever).

How do you expect any user whose images have been removed to know this?
Can I send all users who are looking for old lost images to you?  Is a
list of users who keep copies of old image dumps?

See also the deletion discussion for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Lost_images
which was a page designed to allow users to recover unnecessarily
deleted images.

> It is true that undeletion is a little less convenient for images, but
> it is untrue that it is irreversible.

>From a wiki standpoint, where 'reversion' is normally as a <30-second
process, it's pretty irreversible.  One admin's moment of passion can
lead to days or weeks of searching for an old file.

> It is also true that we've had images tagged with things like "non commercial use
> only" and included in featured articles for over a year.... some of these with tags
> saying they would be deleted right away... and they remain completely
> ignored until someone deletes them.

Why don't we fix these extreme, unacceptable cases first?  No need to
fix a different problem using this as a reason.

Rather than having people fret about "waiting for people to comment on
the deletion tag" -- everyone, admins or not, should be free to remove
an infringing image IMMEDIATELY to quarantine.  We should be firm in
protecting the freeness of the project, while being polite to
contributors and assuming the best of them.

> Worse, perhaps, is that fact that images which [are fully orphaned]
> sometimes even caues you problems [where users treat you like
> crap because you're removing their favorite picture]

If someone notices when you remove the picture, it's not "orphaned" in
the sense that noone cares for it.  Someone certainly does care;
though s/he may not visit the site more than once a month.  I don't
know how you're checking for orphans, but I sometimes find images used
in someone's user space, however productively, called orphans and
listed for deletion...

> If the user is still on Wikipedia then a week
> is long enough to get them to confirm the source,

This is not true for the majority of Wikipedians, who do not visit the
site every week; and doesn't even apply for the myriad image deletions
which wait a week... but never notify the original uploader.

> For what it's worth, in the over 20,000 media objects I've caused the
> deletion of, I've only had to restore one, and I've restored 4 others
> for other people.  Thats it.

Most contributors have no idea how to track down a deleted image; are
upset and offended by its removal, and simply come to the project less
often, or complain to one or two friends on-wiki.

For what it's worth, of the few dozen media objects I have uploaded,
three that were pretty clearly images taken by me were put up for
deletion and could easily have slipped by a less active editor.  Two
images that did not merit deletion and which I had uploaded into my
own user space, for working with later, were deleted without any
comment to me (presumably under a draconian "orphaned" criterion).

++SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
SCZenz wrote:
> Amen.  If our April Fools' jokes are planned in advance and organized,
> we've defeated the purpose.
>
> SCZenz
>
>
Well, let it suffice to say that I doubt that an "official" hoax will
make sure that there will be no additional, unplanned ones. But warring
over the Main Page over which random joke is the funniest turned out not
to be so funny last year.

grm_wnr


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/9/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Absolutely.  Fair use should be abandoned in favor of allowing
> CC-BY-ND.  I just found out that CC-BY-ND allows "the right to make
> such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights
> in other media and formats", so use of such a license is much better
> than relying on fair use.

I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
content is not free.

We can broadly split media we would like to include in Wikipedia into
two classes: Illustrations and other media and used to explain or
decorate our articles, and excerpts of works which we have included in
order to discuss the works.

In the first case, barring certain silly corner cases, it is always
possible to have a free version because a Wikipedia contributor could
create one.

In the second case, a replacement is simply not possible because the
replacement wouldn't be the work we were discussing.  So, our ability
to obtain a free copy is entirely at the whim of the copyright holder,
and in some cases it may even be very difficult for us to contact the
copyright holder.

Fair use law (and similar constructs in some other countries) exists
specifically for the second case. The goal of fair use is to prevent
copyright from completely stifling criticism and intellectual
discussion.

It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
Wikipedia. Furthermore, the decision to include fair use is almost
always a choice between the fair use image and no image at all.   Our
choice with fair use content is to allow it, where it is easy for
downstream users to remove, or have nothing at all.  A downstream user
who can't accept unfree content is in the same position either way.
Nothing is lost by allowing clear and legitimate fair use, and our
goal of being an encyclopedia is enhanced in a way which is pretty
much not possible without fair use.

By allowing ND images we would be in a position of three
possibilities: no image, a free image, or an ND image which is 'free
enough' to post on our website but fails our goal of producing free
content. If we allow ND images it will specifically be at the expense
of free images. A downstream users who can't accept unfree content
will be in a worse position if we were to make that decision.

> Of course the major disadvantage is that people have to be convinced
> to release their image under the license.  But right now it's not even
> an option.

Who are you expecting to convince?   The impact on the real commercial
value of the work between GFDL and a ND license is minimal. ND
licenses primarily appeal to the vanity of artists who are not
sufficiently satisfied by mere attribution.

The lack of ND images has, no doubt, cost us some images on the short
term... but we could equally say that our failure to illegally copy
current edition Britannica articles has also cost us some level of
coverage.  Fundamentally if someone isn't interested in creating a
*free* encyclopedia then they aren't interested in helping us.   Yes,
we'll sometimes include the copyrighted works of others... but with
fair use we can do that whether they like it or not.

It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.

The loss of natural freedom in the embodiment of ideas has been a huge
burden on our civilization, at least since computing put publication
in the hands of almost every person. This burden will continue until
we unify to remove it; It will continue until we create enough free
content that the artificial social and economic imposition created by
copyright is longer an impediment to the flow of knowledge to the
people who want and need it most.

This isn't going to happen quickly, but it can't happen at all if we
compromise unnecessarily.

We can afford to wait:
  Wikipedia is forever.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/9/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> How do you expect any user whose images have been removed to know this?
> Can I send all users who are looking for old lost images to you?  Is a
> list of users who keep copies of old image dumps?

They should start by talking to the person who deleted it.
Obviously an obligation to help correct mistakes rests on the person
who took an action.

Why do we need a list? *We* provide access to the dumps. It's on our
servers. Anyone can access it.

> >From a wiki standpoint, where 'reversion' is normally as a <30-second
> process, it's pretty irreversible.  One admin's moment of passion can
> lead to days or weeks of searching for an old file.

Days or weeks? Due to a "moment of passion"? Cite?
To me this sounds like hyperbole.

If the images source was correctly stated it is generally trivial to
replace the image (unless it was clearly stated that the work was
created by the uploader, but if thats the case we should be talking
about deadminship not deletion policy).

> > It is also true that we've had images tagged with things like "non commercial use
> > only" and included in featured articles for over a year.... some of these with tags
> > saying they would be deleted right away... and they remain completely
> > ignored until someone deletes them.
>
> Why don't we fix these extreme, unacceptable cases first?  No need to
> fix a different problem using this as a reason.

I don't see where anyone is arguing that we change our behavior except
due to these cases. They might not be extreme but they aren't rare at
all.

> Rather than having people fret about "waiting for people to comment on
> the deletion tag" -- everyone, admins or not, should be free to remove
> an infringing image IMMEDIATELY to quarantine.  We should be firm in
> protecting the freeness of the project, while being polite to
> contributors and assuming the best of them.

And how do you propose we do this?

> > Worse, perhaps, is that fact that images which [are fully orphaned]
> > sometimes even caues you problems [where users treat you like
> > crap because you're removing their favorite picture]
>
> If someone notices when you remove the picture, it's not "orphaned" in
> the sense that noone cares for it.  Someone certainly does care;
> though s/he may not visit the site more than once a month.  I don't
> know how you're checking for orphans, but I sometimes find images used
> in someone's user space, however productively, called orphans and
> listed for deletion...

When I say fully orphaned I mean images which are not used inline, and
not called via any obvious external link in all the Wikitext. I don't
know how much more orphaned than you can get.

We also tag fair use images as "orphaned from the main namespace" (the
template is quite clear about it) because we do not permit, and
usually can not justify 'fair use' illustrations outside of our
articles. This is the only case that I'm aware of where an image used
on a userpage would be tagged as any kind of orphan. Can you cite an
example otherwise?

> > If the user is still on Wikipedia then a week
> > is long enough to get them to confirm the source,
>
> This is not true for the majority of Wikipedians, who do not visit the
> site every week; and doesn't even apply for the myriad image deletions
> which wait a week... but never notify the original uploader.

The vast majority of users who upload but don't edit weekly never edit again.

> > For what it's worth, in the over 20,000 media objects I've caused the
> > deletion of, I've only had to restore one, and I've restored 4 others
> > for other people.  Thats it.
>
> Most contributors have no idea how to track down a deleted image; are
> upset and offended by its removal, and simply come to the project less
> often, or complain to one or two friends on-wiki.

Most uploaders never notice when their upload is removed.
Some notice, but most of them are complete assholes about it.

> For what it's worth, of the few dozen media objects I have uploaded,
> three that were pretty clearly images taken by me were put up for
> deletion and could easily have slipped by a less active editor.  Two
> images that did not merit deletion and which I had uploaded into my
> own user space, for working with later, were deleted without any
> comment to me (presumably under a draconian "orphaned" criterion).

Sj, "Three that were pretty clearly images taken by me were put up for
deletion". I don't intend to claim you to be dishonest, but I just
looked at the histories of all the images you've uploaded to enwiki
with your account, both currently existing and deleted.... and no such
images exist.

You've did have one orphaned fair use image which also lacked source
information deleted, it wasn't in use in any articles for at least two
months at the time I tagged it, two weeks later it was deleted by
Petaholmes. I don't see that you ever contact him about it, so I guess
you didn't have an issue with it.

Of the two other images of yours which have been deleted, one was
deleted by you.. The other deleted by Angela when she moved it to the
commons.

None of the images (other than the fair use one I mentioned) have been
tagged for deletion.

Can you explain?


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on small
	Wikipedias

body:
On 3/9/06, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/3/4, Milos Rancic <millosh at mutualaid.org>:
> > 2) General translation: After that, we need translation/transcription
> > of the names of the countries, cities, languages etc.
>
> How can I pass the names to you? We have some ready lists by now:
> * Larger islands:
> * Countries:
> * Languages that use(d) Cyrillic script:
> * Lists of some countries' towns:

The main page for localization is
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Localization

You can see how did I start localization process for some NGA data
(for example: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Geographic_data/Using_NGA_data/Localization/Country_codes).

But, just use namespace like:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Localization/Geography/Countries
or whatever you think that it is the best. I opened this issue and I
am a participant, but I don't think that I should make explicit rules
there alone :) When enough people start to work in this project, we
will be able to make more strictly rules.

I am preparing some more infrastructure for the project and I'll write
to this list when I make something.


list: textbook-l

from_name: Kernigh

subject: [Textbook-l] Cooperation between Wikipedia and Wikibooks

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:

> I am not aware of the history of this cooperative venture, but I am
> somewhat disturbed by the fact that a group of people at Wikibooks are
> trying to have this feature removed without apparently letting anybody at
> Wikipedia know. ...

When I encounter a book at Wikibooks, such as
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Errata, I do not know if it is linked from
Wikipedia. The Special:Whatlinkshere pages do not show links from other
wikis. It is not easy to manually search Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote,
Wiktionary, ... for links to particular books at Wikibooks, so I normally
do not do this.

Further, most Wikibookians only put the deletion notice {{vfd}} on the front
page of the book. Thus if Wikipedia links to a subpage of Errata, visitors
can arrive at the subpage without knowing that we are considering whether
to delete the page. I am not aware of any good way to fix this problem.
-- [[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]]


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Requests for Arbitration was Re: Wikipedia: Admins
	abusing their authority

body:
I believe there is precedent for un-blocking someone for the duration
of an arbitration case so long as they undertook to not edit outside
of their arbitration case and their user space, and in general to
behave.  I would certainly support that in many cases. He

On 3/9/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> So if a person is blocked, can they request arbitration? Or not?
> _______________________________________________
> 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: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox of the Year

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>geni wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/8/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>{{User:Sam Hocevar/burninhell}}
>>>
>>>I've certainly put it on *my* user page.
>>>
>>>(Under the, ahh, userboxes.)
>>>
>>>
>>>- d.
>>>
>>>
>>Hmm fails CSD T1
>>
>>And what about those people fighting over relgious userboxes.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Technically it's not a userbox; it's not the same size and shape as all
>the others. Also, it doesn't have any categories.
>
>
T1 applied to templates, not userboxes, IIRC (although Jimbo and sannse
did craft it with intention to tackle boxen). I'm having a hard time
telling how seriously the creator or others are taking this "template"
(due to its large size I wonder if anyone is currently transcluding it).
I know I didn't find it all that funny. It sounds too much like what's
already been said before. True parody should twist things that have been
said to produce something entirely different and absurd.

John


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jordanhill railway station Commemoration

body:
SJ wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>
>>I fear that the plaque would be promptly vandalised...
>
> There could be instruction on the side, in small print, regarding how
> to deal with vandalism... and a little 'rollback' button

I rather like the suggestion someone made to install a blackboard
instead.  I suppose it could have a small permanent "footnote" stating
that "This blackboard was provided by the WikiMedia foundation in
commemoration of 'Jordanhill railway station' being the millionth
article on the English edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" or
something to that effect.

--
Ilmari Karonen


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Trying to purge the annoying cache without
	using'action=purge'

body:
Tim 'avatar' Bartel wrote:
> Perhaps I have missed something, but...
>
> action=purge is for purging the server-side (mediawiki) cache and has
> nothing to do with the client-side (browser cache / ctrl-reload)
>
> ...or am I totally confused?
>

action=purge updates the page_touched timestamp which both invalidates the server-side cache and
suppresses "301 Not Modified" responses, thereby invalidating client-side caches. Editing the page
will do this also, that's why it's normally not necessary to do it manually. I suspect the original
poster is using a MediaWiki extension which modifies the output without requiring an edit, and
without declaring pages to be uncacheable.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Silas Snider

body:
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Hash: RIPEMD160

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> For your information, formally Mark does not have authority. There are
> few people who are seen to be authorortive. He is however one of the
> people who knows a lot about what languages are. In this case the
> point he made was great. I was accepted as such.
>
> Now, when you complain about Mark, I want to point out two things;
> * What is your authority on this subject that you challenge him?

I was not trying to assert my own authority (of which I have none).
Rather, I was reading the thread and I saw Mark and Manuel having an
exchange, with Manuel ending up backing down, and Mark accepting his
proposal as though Mark was the final decision maker. Since I may at
some point be interested in starting a new language wikipedia (though
not for another year at least), I was troubled by the fact that no one
else on the list was at all active in the discussion.

> * You may have noticed that Mark has been really good in not going
> overboard lately.

Really? I would point you to the recent Moldovan wikipedia discussion as
disproof. While not 'overboard' for all meanings of the term, it would
have been nice to see a little more restraint in Mark's messages
(although definitely more restraint could have been showed by the other
participants)

>
> Most often I welcome the points that Mark makes. Certainly when he
> makes his point once they are the best that can be heard.
>
> As to the Moldovan fracas, it has definetly not been the worst project
> that we have seen. Some projects were / are much worse. They are just
> not that "in the public eye".
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
>
> On 3/9/06, Silas Snider <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
> Question:
>         What authority do you, Mark, have over the creation of a new wikipedia?
> Are you a developer? I don't seem to ever see you contributing patches,
> etc. on  wikitech-l. In fact, almost all the posts that I can see of
> yours involve some kind of discussion over orthography or languages in
> various wikipedias, especially when discussing closing one.
>
>         My point is: on what grounds do you consider it your job to be the
> arbiter of when a proposal for wikipedia creation is good enough?
>
> Sincerely,
> Silas Snider
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>>>> Yes, thanks.
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>> On 09/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
>>>>> I understand you point of view, Mark.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll try to get this fixed and will come back again within a month, or so.
>>>>> Does this seem fair to you?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks & regards,
>>>>> Manuel de Sousa
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Mensagem original-----
>>>>> De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
>>>>> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
>>>>> Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:50
>>>>> Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>>> Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
>>>>>
>>>>> I know that Portuguese is th esecond official language of East Timor.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's not what I asked.
>>>>>
>>>>> It doesn't inspire confidence that most of the pages in the test wiki
>>>>> are in Portuguese, when you are requesting a Wikipedia for Tetum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mark
>>>>>
>>>>> On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
>>>>>> Mark,
>>>>>> Portuguese is the second official language of East Timor and is regarded
>>>>> as
>>>>>> a reference for Tetum. In the official Tetum, a huge amount of vocabulary
>>>>>> comes directly from Portuguese.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another reason is that, as far as I know, several of the supporters of
>>>>> this
>>>>>> project are Timorese university students studying in Portugal. So, the
>>>>> easy
>>>>>> way, would be to go to the Portuguese Wikipedia and copy a few articles,
>>>>> in
>>>>>> order to translate them later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, in the case of a testpage certain experiences must be tolerated.
>>>>>> Things will be different once the Tetum Wikipedia becomes real...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Manuel de Sousa
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Mensagem original-----
>>>>>> De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
>>>>>> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
>>>>>> Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:30
>>>>>> Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>>>> Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One thing I noticed is that most of the testpages are in Portuguese. Why?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
>>>>>>> Last January 14 and 15 I sent two msg to this group
>>>>>>>
>>>>> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043424.html
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>
>>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043428.html),
>>>>>>> asking for the creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum language, one of the two
>>>>>>> official languages of Timor-Leste (or East Timor), the youngest
>>>>>> independent
>>>>>>> nation in the world (the other official language is Portuguese).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In the meantime, this project got 15 supporters, 8 of them
>>>>> native-speakers
>>>>>>> of Tetum (see:
>>>>>>>
>>>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages#Tetum_.28
>>>>>>> 15_support_.5B8_native_speakers.5D.29).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Subsequently, I created a test page
>>>>>>> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/tet) that presently has a dozen
>>>>>>> articles in Tetum and a few others in the process of being translated to
>>>>>>> Tetum.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Anyway, I find it difficult to attract Tetum-speaking people to work in
>>>>> a
>>>>>>> Wikipedia that is still in a test phase. So, I wonder if any developer
>>>>> can
>>>>>>> inform me if this new language version of Wikipedia is about to the set
>>>>> up
>>>>>>> or not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm absolutely convinced the Wikipedia in Tetum is viable, and that it
>>>>> can
>>>>>>> be an exceptional tool for East-Timorese to promote their national
>>>>>> language
>>>>>>> internally and abroad. And I'm not alone in this feeling. Giuseppe
>>>>>> d'Angelo
>>>>>>> said in a subsequent msg: "One can't understate what such a venture [the
>>>>>>> creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum] would do to the self-esteem of a whole
>>>>>>> people. It will take a while to get going, given their problems with
>>>>> basic
>>>>>>> infrastructure, but I am certain that it would eventually succeed. There
>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> also likely to be a thriving community of Tetum speakers in nearby
>>>>> Darwin,
>>>>>>> where they are likely to have better infrastructure - it's just a case
>>>>> of
>>>>>>> getting the message through to them."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I will do my best to get the message to the East-Timorese in Australia,
>>>>> in
>>>>>>> Portugal, in Indonesia, etc. -- as well as in East Timor. But, first of
>>>>>> all,
>>>>>>> you [the developers] gotta set up this new Wikipedia.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Plz let me know where are we standing of this.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks & regards,
>>>>>>> Manuel de Sousa
>>>>> --
>>>>> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> 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
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>>
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder

body:
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Mark Williamson wrote:
>> Question:
>>         What authority do you, Mark, have over the creation of a new wikipedia?
>> Are you a developer? I don't seem to ever see you contributing patches,
>
> Put simply, I don't. I have no real authority. However, I do know that
> I have some sway, because different people have varying degrees of
> respect for me in the matter of languages. There are certainly those
> who don't trust me at all or who think I don't know much of anything
> at all about languages, but I think most people believe that I know
> quite a bit about languages but at the same time have problems with
> other things about me so they take most of my opinions/advice under
> advisement.
>
> If some developer wants to create a Tetum WP immediately, I have no
> say in that. However, I'm pretty sure that the Wikimedia community as
> a whole will have much more enthusiasm for the creation of a Tetum
> Wikipedia if its test-wiki is more vibrant and is in 100% Tetum.
>
>> etc. on  wikitech-l. In fact, almost all the posts that I can see of
>> yours involve some kind of discussion over orthography or languages in
>> various wikipedias, especially when discussing closing one.
>
>>From what you say here, it seems to me that you're a relative
> newcomer. Before the Moldovan controversy, there was almost never any
> discussion about closing Wikis, given that the only 2 that have been
> closed so far are Toki Pona and Klingon.
>
> I'm not sure what's wrong, though, with the fact that almost all of my
> posts are about languages -- is that a bad thing? Certainly, if you
> look at other posters, many of them tend to have areas of particular
> interest as well.

No, its not a bad thing, I was just trying to establish why I thought
you were not a developer (in case it turned out that you were).

>
>>         My point is: on what grounds do you consider it your job to be the
>> arbiter of when a proposal for wikipedia creation is good enough?
>
> Who said I do consider it my job? Besides you, that is.

You appear to take an extremely keen interest in the closing / opening
of wikipedias, more so than the average poster on this list. I am just
worried about newcomers who are excited about creating a wikipedia
getting discouraged because someone, without the community's backing,
acted as though he had the power to approve or deny the request. This
came out extremely strongly in your last message to Manuel.

I am not saying that you should stop being interested in the creation
and destruction of wikipedias -- I am just worried about your style of
discussing them.

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

Sincerely,
Silas Snider
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from_name: Gay Muslim

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia: Admins abusing their authority

body:
As absolutely no response has appeared, and the message not appeared on
wikien-l, I must presume they are covering up their crimes here too.

-Queeran

"The beauty of wiki-justice is anyone can edit the evidence; so they can
convict on one issue, and then when its demonstrated that you aren't guilty,
they can turn around and say that you were banned for some other reason.
And, of course, you can't argue about it; because you are banned."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gay Muslim <queeran at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 7, 2006 7:58 PM
Subject: Wikipedia: Admins abusing their authority
To: jwales at wikia.com, wikien-l at wikipedia.org

The following admins have completely abused their authority:

Essjay
NSLE
DavidGerard

My username is Queeran, because I am a gay muslim. I came to wikipedia
trying to clean up ridiculous POV in our islamic-related articles that
supports racism and hatred.

I have been systematically harassed by these three admins and their cronies.
They attacked me and another user named I_AM, accused us of being
sockpuppets of each other falsely.

They then banned I_AM permanently, blocked me, and proceeded shortly
thereafter to ban me on the false claim that I am some other user, despite
the fact that I_AM and I are not each other and a checkuser proved this.

On IRC, DavidGerard was extremely rude and belligerent, and demanded money
from me, saying that unless I did so he would not publish the checkuser
result.

They have since followed me around, deleting all of my appeals and responses
to their lies. They have locked my user page so that I cannot even request
unblock via normal appeal means.

They even deleted my request to the arbitration committee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration&diff=42737248&oldid=42736341

This is ridiculous and complete abuse of their powers. I ask that you step
in and right this atrocity.

Queeran.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daily premier anonymity

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> geni wrote:
>>On 3/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
 >>>
>>>You raise an interesting question which has occurred to me before.
>>>There are topics I would consider editing on, but I don't really want
>>>them to come up in my list of contributions. Yet I feel like I should
>>>retain my copyright on those contributions...I can't think of any
>>>solution though.
>>
>>Sockpupet accounts. Unless you legaly have to assert your copyright
>>you don't have to admit haveing made them.
>
> Or just do what I did and make 50,000+ edits, most of them on articles
> found by clicking "random article." In amongst all that rubbish, who in
> their right mind is going to dig around enough to find out that I edited
> [[Human animal roleplay (BDSM)]] back on February 22 2004

Indeed.  NP patrol is also a good way to diversify your contributions
and/or watchlist.  I think [[Furtling]] is probably the strangest page
on my watchlist, though [[Teabagging]] and [[Bum darts]] come close.

Or, for plain oddness and obscurity, there are [[Pink Pippos of
Portland]] and [[Fleagle Beagle]].  Or the ever-popular vandalism
targets [[Anus language]] and [[Tate (god)]].

(I could also list [[Per?smies]], but it doesn't really belong with the
others -- I actually ''do'' know something about the subject myself.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Image tagging followup

body:
As a followup to my earlier check of image licensing, I wrote a script to
evaluate how accurately the license tags are being applied to images.  It
pops up an image, the description text, a list of templates, and a list of
pages using the image, and asks how the templates apply to the image.  It
gives options of "is correct", "is incorrect", "makes an incorrect fair-use
claim", and "is not a license template".  For templates other than
self-creation templates, I classified it as "incorrect" if the template
clearly did not apply to the image (ie. "no rights reserved" on something
where the source site says "all rights reserved", "logo" on something that
isn't a logo) or if there was not enough information to evaluate the
correctness (ie. unsourced images).  An image was considered "not fair use"
if a quick check showed that it violated anything in the "policy" section of
[[Wikipedia:Fair use]], or if it was similar to anything in the
"counterexamples" section.  Self-creation templates were considered
"incorrect" if the image didn't look self-created to me, and the description
text was not sufficient to convince me of self-creation (ie. sports figures
in action poses, landscape images with borders, thumbnail images in
general).

After wading through 500 of the 1866 images evaluated earlier, I've got some
results.

Brief summary: We are in *deep* shit.

Most misused tag: {{NoRightsReserved}}.  Only two of 31 images so tagged
seem to be correct.  CopyrightedFreeUse (0 for 2) and PD-ineligible (0 for
5) are also well up there, but the small sample size may be misleading.

Most misused fair-use claim: {{magazinecover}}, with 20 out of 21 images
being misused (Sports Illustrated covers being used to provide images of
sports figures), while the 21st image was incorrectly tagged.
{{Videotapecover}} (2 for 3, used to illustrate porn stars) and
{{film-screenshot}} (5 for 8, used to illustrate actors) are runners-up.
{{tv-screenshot}} is also a problem, with 11 of 16 images being used to
illustrate episode lists.

Untagged images: 67 of 500 images had no templates whatsoever on them.  Less
than half that number had been tagged as "no source" or "no license".  I get
the feeling that the image-tagging project is falling behind here.

Most accurately-used tag: {{logo}}, with 33 of 40 images correctly tagged
and used.  The rest consisted mostly of unused logo images.  Album covers
also did fairly well, with 10 out of 14 being used only to illustrate an
article on the album.  Less-common tags also did well for correctness:
{{PD-user}}, {{PD-because}}, and the Creative Commons tags were all
invariably used correctly, but in small numbers.

Self-creation tags are something of a problems: 11 of 64 GFDL-self tags were
clearly incorrect, as were 7 of 48 PD-self tags.

Overall, 239 tags were applied correctly, 90 were applied incorrectly, and
65 fair-use claims were clearly invalid.

Observations from this effort that may be applicable for attempts at getting
the image situation under control:
1) Uploaders are more interested in getting images into articles than they
are in doing the right thing.  Sometimes an incorrect tag is clearly the
result of good-faith ignorance, but more often it's the result of not giving
a damn.
2) Checking images is a very time-consuming process.  Even with software
assistance in finding images and highlighting the most important
information, and only doing the most cursory checks, I can only check around
150 images an hour.  I'd estimate that if I were to do a proper job of
checking, I could do around 80 images an hour.  The English Wikipedia has
somewhere over 250,000 images right now, and around 2000 are being uploaded
every day.
3) People don't understand "fair use".  The vast majority of uploaders think
"fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be
illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend
to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.
4) Tags that are not in the upload menu are almost always used correctly.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-10

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

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Basic section headings... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Handling of sections up to level 6 and beyond... FAILED!
Running test Resolving duplicate section names... FAILED!
Running test Template with sections, __NOTOC__... FAILED!
Running test Link inside a section heading... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 266 of 288 tests (92.36%) FAILED!


from_name: The Cunctator

body: So if a person is blocked, can they request arbitration? Or not?


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
For your information, formally Mark does not have authority. There are
few people who are seen to be authorortive. He is however one of the
people who knows a lot about what languages are. In this case the
point he made was great. I was accepted as such.

Now, when you complain about Mark, I want to point out two things;
* What is your authority on this subject that you challenge him?
* You may have noticed that Mark has been really good in not going
overboard lately.

Most often I welcome the points that Mark makes. Certainly when he
makes his point once they are the best that can be heard.

As to the Moldovan fracas, it has definetly not been the worst project
that we have seen. Some projects were / are much worse. They are just
not that "in the public eye".

Thanks,
   GerardM

On 3/9/06, Silas Snider <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
>
> Question:
>         What authority do you, Mark, have over the creation of a new wikipedia?
> Are you a developer? I don't seem to ever see you contributing patches,
> etc. on  wikitech-l. In fact, almost all the posts that I can see of
> yours involve some kind of discussion over orthography or languages in
> various wikipedias, especially when discussing closing one.
>
>         My point is: on what grounds do you consider it your job to be the
> arbiter of when a proposal for wikipedia creation is good enough?
>
> Sincerely,
> Silas Snider
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Yes, thanks.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 09/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
> >> I understand you point of view, Mark.
> >>
> >> I'll try to get this fixed and will come back again within a month, or so.
> >> Does this seem fair to you?
> >>
> >> Thanks & regards,
> >> Manuel de Sousa
> >>
> >> -----Mensagem original-----
> >> De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
> >> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
> >> Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:50
> >> Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >> Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
> >>
> >> I know that Portuguese is th esecond official language of East Timor.
> >>
> >> That's not what I asked.
> >>
> >> It doesn't inspire confidence that most of the pages in the test wiki
> >> are in Portuguese, when you are requesting a Wikipedia for Tetum.
> >>
> >> Mark
> >>
> >> On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
> >>> Mark,
> >>> Portuguese is the second official language of East Timor and is regarded
> >> as
> >>> a reference for Tetum. In the official Tetum, a huge amount of vocabulary
> >>> comes directly from Portuguese.
> >>>
> >>> Another reason is that, as far as I know, several of the supporters of
> >> this
> >>> project are Timorese university students studying in Portugal. So, the
> >> easy
> >>> way, would be to go to the Portuguese Wikipedia and copy a few articles,
> >> in
> >>> order to translate them later.
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, in the case of a testpage certain experiences must be tolerated.
> >>> Things will be different once the Tetum Wikipedia becomes real...
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Manuel de Sousa
> >>>
> >>> -----Mensagem original-----
> >>> De: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
> >>> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson
> >>> Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Mar?o de 2006 3:30
> >>> Para: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >>> Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
> >>>
> >>> One thing I noticed is that most of the testpages are in Portuguese. Why?
> >>>
> >>> Mark
> >>>
> >>> On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa <manuel.sousa at tvtel.pt> wrote:
> >>>> Last January 14 and 15 I sent two msg to this group
> >>>>
> >> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043424.html
> >>>> and
> >>>>
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043428.html),
> >>>> asking for the creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum language, one of the two
> >>>> official languages of Timor-Leste (or East Timor), the youngest
> >>> independent
> >>>> nation in the world (the other official language is Portuguese).
> >>>>
> >>>> In the meantime, this project got 15 supporters, 8 of them
> >> native-speakers
> >>>> of Tetum (see:
> >>>>
> >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages#Tetum_.28
> >>>> 15_support_.5B8_native_speakers.5D.29).
> >>>>
> >>>> Subsequently, I created a test page
> >>>> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/tet) that presently has a dozen
> >>>> articles in Tetum and a few others in the process of being translated to
> >>>> Tetum.
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyway, I find it difficult to attract Tetum-speaking people to work in
> >> a
> >>>> Wikipedia that is still in a test phase. So, I wonder if any developer
> >> can
> >>>> inform me if this new language version of Wikipedia is about to the set
> >> up
> >>>> or not.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm absolutely convinced the Wikipedia in Tetum is viable, and that it
> >> can
> >>>> be an exceptional tool for East-Timorese to promote their national
> >>> language
> >>>> internally and abroad. And I'm not alone in this feeling. Giuseppe
> >>> d'Angelo
> >>>> said in a subsequent msg: "One can't understate what such a venture [the
> >>>> creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum] would do to the self-esteem of a whole
> >>>> people. It will take a while to get going, given their problems with
> >> basic
> >>>> infrastructure, but I am certain that it would eventually succeed. There
> >>> is
> >>>> also likely to be a thriving community of Tetum speakers in nearby
> >> Darwin,
> >>>> where they are likely to have better infrastructure - it's just a case
> >> of
> >>>> getting the message through to them."
> >>>>
> >>>> I will do my best to get the message to the East-Timorese in Australia,
> >> in
> >>>> Portugal, in Indonesia, etc. -- as well as in East Timor. But, first of
> >>> all,
> >>>> you [the developers] gotta set up this new Wikipedia.
> >>>>
> >>>> Plz let me know where are we standing of this.
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks & regards,
> >>>> Manuel de Sousa
> >> --
> >> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFEEK/SLeGN0GHdxM0RA3xDAKCCIr9+0WaIk0psJAWGsOb6IJxrtgCeM45E
> 1piVsdGh+p2SNy8dxcKTGho=
> =sqpU
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jonathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Download history tool?

body:
Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=IE+greasemonkey

There are a few.

Phil Boswell wrote:

>"Jonathan" <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote in
>message news:4410C729.8040705 at dzonux.net...
>
>
>Is there anything like this which will run on IE?
>
>


from_name: JUDITH HANEY

subject:
[WikiEN-l] User Golbez has established his own admin policies that
	do not agree with Wikipedia's

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Golbez

Admin policies

Let me put these right out here:

1.	No mercy for vandals. If you vandalize a page, you will probably be
warned. If you vandalize again with fluffy stuff, you will be warned again.
On the other hand, if you vandalize maliciously, you will be blocked. I will
consider a clean slate after a month, removing old warnings from anyone, in
case the IP has changed hands.
2.	Personally, I think Speedy Delete should be expanded. Too much stuff
clogs up AfD. But until this happens, I will remain within the strict lines
of Speedy.
3.	You can always contest any action with me. Please do.
4.	I will not typically protect for vandalism; I figure, if I can do
that, I can also block the vandal, which does more good than protection. I
will, however, protect, without warning, any high traffic page that has been
doubled. Sorry, but if it's so high traffic, it would double the time to fix
if I inserted a notice. Please understand. I will as quickly as I can fix
the doubling, and unprotect it.

NOTE: If you send me an email about being blocked, please put in all
information needed to unblock you like, I dunno, your IP address? because I
will likely not respond to your email directly.


subject:
[WikiEN-l]
	http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28news%29&oldid=43104773#USNewsLink

body:
A user named Golbez has vandalized the content of Village Pump by removing
an entire entry on the list of topics and range blocked the IP 08:04, 10
March 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28news%29
&oldid=43104773>  151.213.243.207
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=151.
213.243.207>

When he was reverted, he had a friend revert the change and then proceeded
to contact the user who reverted his vandalism by stating that the IP he had
blocked was persona non grata at Wikipedia.org


from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL5 uprade

body:
Hmmm...

Now we have crashing tables again.

=====
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in
the software. The last attempted database query was:

    SELECT page_id, page_namespace, page_title FROM
`yw_page`,`yw_searchindex` WHERE page_id=si_page AND MATCH(si_title)
AGAINST('+test' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AND page_is_redirect=0 AND
page_namespace IN (0) LIMIT 0,20

from within function "". MySQL returned error "145: Table
'./payo/yw_searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be repaired
(brane-int)".

====

I'll try a re-install/upgrade - maybe that will fix it.

Paul

On 3/9/06, admin Yellowikis <yellowikis at gmail.com> wrote:
> The upgraded to MySQL 5.0 has caused some problems. When we save an
> article we get this error - though the changes do get saved:
>
> ===
> A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in
> the software. The last attempted database query was:
>
>     REPLACE INTO `yw_searchindex` (si_page,si_title,si_text) VALUES
> ('5329','fish',' fish and fishing ')
>
> from within function "SearchMySQL4::update". MySQL returned error
> "1062: Duplicate entry ' ' for key 3 (brane-int)".
> ===
>
> Previously we had a corruped table:
> ===
> A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in
> the software. The last attempted database query was:
> (SQL query hidden)
> from within function "SearchMySQL4::update". MySQL returned error
> "145: Table './payo/yw_searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be
> repaired (brane-int)".
> ===
> which was repaired and hasn't given any further problems.
>
> We've also run myisamchk against all the tables in the database.
>
> A couple of Wikimedias running 1.4.x are working without any problems
> on the upgraded system.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Paul
>
>
> On 2/27/06, admin Yellowikis <yellowikis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > We are running:
> >     *  MediaWiki: 1.5.5
> >     * PHP: 4.4.2-0.dotdeb.1 (apache)
> >     * MySQL: 4.1.11-Debian_4sarge2-log
> >
> > Planning to upgrade to MySQL 5.0.
> >
> > Any issues/problems that we should be aware of?
> >
> > (yes, we plan to do a full back up first)
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > --
> > Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica
> >
>
>
> --
> Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Did anyone else get something like this?

body:
On 3/9/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Obviously it's not from Jimbo, but I wonder who's behind this...
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: A Compassionate, Yet Ferocious, Christian Rebuke from Jimbo Wales
> Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:34:06 -0500
> From: jwales at wikia.com
> To: alphasigmax at gmail.com

<long and rambling bullcrap>

_______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>
The mention of Landover Baptist Church makes me believe it's... from those
guys, whoever's behind that site.

--
Jay Converse
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/9/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Absolutely.  Fair use should be abandoned in favor of allowing
> > CC-BY-ND.  I just found out that CC-BY-ND allows "the right to make
> > such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights
> > in other media and formats", so use of such a license is much better
> > than relying on fair use.
>
> I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
> encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
> content is not free.
>
Neither is "fair use content", of course.

> By allowing ND images we would be in a position of three
> possibilities: no image, a free image, or an ND image which is 'free
> enough' to post on our website but fails our goal of producing free
> content. If we allow ND images it will specifically be at the expense
> of free images. A downstream users who can't accept unfree content
> will be in a worse position if we were to make that decision.
>
No, you misunderstand.  ND images would only be allowed in situations
where fair use images are currently allowed.

> > Of course the major disadvantage is that people have to be convinced
> > to release their image under the license.  But right now it's not even
> > an option.
>
> Who are you expecting to convince?   The impact on the real commercial
> value of the work between GFDL and a ND license is minimal. ND
> licenses primarily appeal to the vanity of artists who are not
> sufficiently satisfied by mere attribution.
>
Well, we disagree here.  I think there's a huge difference between ND
and GFDL.  There's only one way to find out for sure, though, and
that's to give it a try.  Allow ND in places where fair use is already
allowed, and see if you get any takers.

> The lack of ND images has, no doubt, cost us some images on the short
> term... but we could equally say that our failure to illegally copy
> current edition Britannica articles has also cost us some level of
> coverage.  Fundamentally if someone isn't interested in creating a
> *free* encyclopedia then they aren't interested in helping us.   Yes,
> we'll sometimes include the copyrighted works of others... but with
> fair use we can do that whether they like it or not.
>
> It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.
>
I just don't see what freedom is being given up.  An image which *is*
licensed under CC-ND is more free than an image which is not.

> The loss of natural freedom in the embodiment of ideas has been a huge
> burden on our civilization, at least since computing put publication
> in the hands of almost every person. This burden will continue until
> we unify to remove it; It will continue until we create enough free
> content that the artificial social and economic imposition created by
> copyright is longer an impediment to the flow of knowledge to the
> people who want and need it most.
>
> This isn't going to happen quickly, but it can't happen at all if we
> compromise unnecessarily.
>
> We can afford to wait:
>   Wikipedia is forever.

Hey, if your answer is to remove all non-free images completely from
Wikipedia, you have no objection from me.  My suggestion was merely to
replace one set of non-free images with another set of non-free images
which were more free.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/10/06, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> > It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
> > fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
> > Wikipedia.
>
> Actually, most of the content is "fair use" only to United States
> users.
>
It's worse than that, it's only "fair use" for use within the United
States.  Which means if an American wants to distribute a copy of
Wikipedia to someone in Africa, they have to break the law.

And I'd dispute that fair use by Wikipedia means fair use by a large
majority of the downstream users.  Wikipedia can and will get away
with a lot of things that others can't and won't.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
Hoi,
I understand the need that ordinary pictures need to be "free". What I
fail to understand is the dogmatic view that ALL pictures cannot be ND
or no deriviates. There are whole categories of pictures that are
extremely relevant, where we cannot and will not get these images when
we insist on this mantra of "everything must be Free .. everything
must be Free .. everyone who thinks otherwise does not understand". It
is dogmatic, and it is my POV that it is utterly wrong.

When we make an exception for the logos in Commons for our projects we
do this with a reason. The reason is obvious. The use of the logo is
explicitly limited. Logos of other companies, organisations are not
available in Commons because they are not "Free". Organisations CANNOT
make them available to us for the same reason why our logos CANNOT be
Free.

It is a disservice to our users not to have logos in Commons. People
often know the logos of companies or products better then they do the
name. An article like IBM, Shell, Greenpeace should have the company
logo to illustrate the article.

The English Wikipedia does have these logos. They are there as they
are considered "fair use". Many people are satisfied with this
solution as it is considered a "neat" solution. Well, it is not. There
are MANY more projects that have the same requirement, and I fail to
see why we are not servicing this need. I fail to see why the
pragmatic exception for the WMF logos cannot be extended to other
logos. I fail to see why categories similar to logos cannot be served
from Commons.

The only reason I see is dogma. It is a dogma I fail to recognise as
valid. It is a dogma that does us a disservice.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Absolutely.  Fair use should be abandoned in favor of allowing
> > CC-BY-ND.  I just found out that CC-BY-ND allows "the right to make
> > such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights
> > in other media and formats", so use of such a license is much better
> > than relying on fair use.
>
> I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
> encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
> content is not free.
>
> We can broadly split media we would like to include in Wikipedia into
> two classes: Illustrations and other media and used to explain or
> decorate our articles, and excerpts of works which we have included in
> order to discuss the works.
>
> In the first case, barring certain silly corner cases, it is always
> possible to have a free version because a Wikipedia contributor could
> create one.
>
> In the second case, a replacement is simply not possible because the
> replacement wouldn't be the work we were discussing.  So, our ability
> to obtain a free copy is entirely at the whim of the copyright holder,
> and in some cases it may even be very difficult for us to contact the
> copyright holder.
>
> Fair use law (and similar constructs in some other countries) exists
> specifically for the second case. The goal of fair use is to prevent
> copyright from completely stifling criticism and intellectual
> discussion.
>
> It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
> fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
> Wikipedia. Furthermore, the decision to include fair use is almost
> always a choice between the fair use image and no image at all.   Our
> choice with fair use content is to allow it, where it is easy for
> downstream users to remove, or have nothing at all.  A downstream user
> who can't accept unfree content is in the same position either way.
> Nothing is lost by allowing clear and legitimate fair use, and our
> goal of being an encyclopedia is enhanced in a way which is pretty
> much not possible without fair use.
>
> By allowing ND images we would be in a position of three
> possibilities: no image, a free image, or an ND image which is 'free
> enough' to post on our website but fails our goal of producing free
> content. If we allow ND images it will specifically be at the expense
> of free images. A downstream users who can't accept unfree content
> will be in a worse position if we were to make that decision.
>
> > Of course the major disadvantage is that people have to be convinced
> > to release their image under the license.  But right now it's not even
> > an option.
>
> Who are you expecting to convince?   The impact on the real commercial
> value of the work between GFDL and a ND license is minimal. ND
> licenses primarily appeal to the vanity of artists who are not
> sufficiently satisfied by mere attribution.
>
> The lack of ND images has, no doubt, cost us some images on the short
> term... but we could equally say that our failure to illegally copy
> current edition Britannica articles has also cost us some level of
> coverage.  Fundamentally if someone isn't interested in creating a
> *free* encyclopedia then they aren't interested in helping us.   Yes,
> we'll sometimes include the copyrighted works of others... but with
> fair use we can do that whether they like it or not.
>
> It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.
>
> The loss of natural freedom in the embodiment of ideas has been a huge
> burden on our civilization, at least since computing put publication
> in the hands of almost every person. This burden will continue until
> we unify to remove it; It will continue until we create enough free
> content that the artificial social and economic imposition created by
> copyright is longer an impediment to the flow of knowledge to the
> people who want and need it most.
>
> This isn't going to happen quickly, but it can't happen at all if we
> compromise unnecessarily.
>
> We can afford to wait:
>   Wikipedia is forever.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
> fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
> Wikipedia.

Actually, most of the content is "fair use" only to United States
users.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 3/10/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hoi,
>>Commons does not have articles. Commons has its own functionality. Its
>>purpose is to serve digital content to the WMF projects first and as a
>>repository of content second.
>>
>>
>
>Frankly, I wasn't aware of that.
>
>Maybe there's a need for an Uncommons, where WMF projects can share
>digital content that isn't free.
>
>Anthony
>
>
There is a bunch of content that is technically free but only available
under a non-commercial use only license.  A repository of that sort
would be a contrast to Wikimedia Commons, where non-commercial only
licenses are not acceptable.  As for content that isn't free, try Corbis
or one of the commercial stock photo libraries.  Those have been around
for the better part of a century and have a huge image library that will
take some time for Commons to catch up to being equal to.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/10/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is a disservice to our users not to have logos in Commons. People
> often know the logos of companies or products better then they do the
> name. An article like IBM, Shell, Greenpeace should have the company
> logo to illustrate the article.
>
I really don't see how one necessitates the other.  Commons doesn't
have articles, after all.  If you put logos into Commons, then you
make it much harder for anyone who wants to legally distribute dumps
of Commons.

Of course, by that rationale, the WMF logo shouldn't be on Commons
either.  Either that, or it should be released under a free license.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
[snip]
> > I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
> > encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
> > content is not free.
> >
> Neither is "fair use content", of course.

And I went into an extensive explination of why fair use is a
reasonable exception, but you ignored it.

> > By allowing ND images we would be in a position of three
> > possibilities: no image, a free image, or an ND image which is 'free
> > enough' to post on our website but fails our goal of producing free
> > content. If we allow ND images it will specifically be at the expense
> > of free images. A downstream users who can't accept unfree content
> > will be in a worse position if we were to make that decision.
> >
> No, you misunderstand.  ND images would only be allowed in situations
> where fair use images are currently allowed.

Explain how this would work?
So would we only allow images while, while being ND, we could also
claim fair use?
Guess what: We already permit that on enwiki.

If that isn't what you mean, how can you claim that they would only be
allowed where where fair use images are allowed?

[snip]
> > Who are you expecting to convince?   The impact on the real commercial
> > value of the work between GFDL and a ND license is minimal. ND
> > licenses primarily appeal to the vanity of artists who are not
> > sufficiently satisfied by mere attribution.
> >
> Well, we disagree here.  I think there's a huge difference between ND
> and GFDL.  There's only one way to find out for sure, though, and
> that's to give it a try.  Allow ND in places where fair use is already
> allowed, and see if you get any takers.

I never argued that there isn't a huge difference, in fact I argued
that ND is intolerable.
There is a difference, and it's not a good difference.  We already
allow ND content to be used as fair use.

> > It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.
> >
> I just don't see what freedom is being given up.  An image which *is*
> licensed under CC-ND is more free than an image which is not.

Of all the outragious bullshit...  Sure, an image under CC-ND is more
free than a random unlicensed work.  It would not be more free than
the free images they would replace if we permitted them.

The only people I've ever encountered that had interest in by-nd were
photographers I found on forums and nagged to come submit works to
wikipedia. By being only willing to release their work under an unfree
license it is clear that they are not interested in helping us.

> Hey, if your answer is to remove all non-free images completely from
> Wikipedia, you have no objection from me.  My suggestion was merely to
> replace one set of non-free images with another set of non-free images
> which were more free.

You are either misrepresenting your position (that it really is to
only perform a 1:1 replacement), or your argument is pointless because
we already permit it  (If a work is fair use we don't care about its
license terms, you can upload BY-NC-ND stuff all day as fair use on
enwiki).


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Download history tool?

body:
"Jonathan" <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote in
message news:4410C729.8040705 at dzonux.net...
> Nathaniel Sheetz wrote:
>>On 3/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com>
>>wrote:
[snip]
>I started to fix the script:
> http://dzonux.net/wikipedia-animate-hack.user.js
> It shows the basic layout, but it stops right before it animates.
> Steve, are there are any other features you would like?

Is there anything like this which will run on IE?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
A: It totally buggers up the flow of a conversation!
Q: What is *so* wrong with top-posting?


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> > > I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
> > > encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
> > > content is not free.
> > >
> > Neither is "fair use content", of course.
>
> And I went into an extensive explination of why fair use is a
> reasonable exception, but you ignored it.
>
Because your explanation of the reasonable exception applied equally
to ND content, moreso even.

> > No, you misunderstand.  ND images would only be allowed in situations
> > where fair use images are currently allowed.
>
> Explain how this would work?
> So would we only allow images while, while being ND, we could also
> claim fair use?
> Guess what: We already permit that on enwiki.
>
> If that isn't what you mean, how can you claim that they would only be
> allowed where where fair use images are allowed?
>
I'm suggesting that this be the policy, of course.  That ND images
only be used in situations where there is no free alternative, i.e.
the situations where fair use is supposed to be limited to right now.

> > > It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.
> > >
> > I just don't see what freedom is being given up.  An image which *is*
> > licensed under CC-ND is more free than an image which is not.
>
> Of all the outragious bullshit...  Sure, an image under CC-ND is more
> free than a random unlicensed work.  It would not be more free than
> the free images they would replace if we permitted them.
>
I never suggested replacing free images with non-free ones.

> The only people I've ever encountered that had interest in by-nd were
> photographers I found on forums and nagged to come submit works to
> wikipedia.

Count me as a first, then.

> > Hey, if your answer is to remove all non-free images completely from
> > Wikipedia, you have no objection from me.  My suggestion was merely to
> > replace one set of non-free images with another set of non-free images
> > which were more free.
>
> You are either misrepresenting your position (that it really is to
> only perform a 1:1 replacement), or your argument is pointless because
> we already permit it  (If a work is fair use we don't care about its
> license terms, you can upload BY-NC-ND stuff all day as fair use on
> enwiki).

And you can also upload so called "fair use images" which aren't
BY-NC-ND (by the way, my suggestion was BY-ND, not BY-NC-ND).

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/10/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Commons does not have articles. Commons has its own functionality. Its
> purpose is to serve digital content to the WMF projects first and as a
> repository of content second.

Frankly, I wasn't aware of that.

Maybe there's a need for an Uncommons, where WMF projects can share
digital content that isn't free.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:

>
>Untagged images: 67 of 500 images had no templates whatsoever on them.  Less
>than half that number had been tagged as "no source" or "no license".  I get
>the feeling that the image-tagging project is falling behind here.
>
We're still catching up! People are crunching lists going back to
last summer, not what was uploaded yesterday. 67 untagged per day
is easily dealt with in an hour, if those are the only images needing
tagging. Another proposal is to autoschedule new untagged uploads
for deletion.

>3) People don't understand "fair use".  The vast majority of uploaders think
>"fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be
>illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend
>to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.
>
Here's a thought - "fair use" images need to go through a review process
*before* uploading, sort of like featured articles. If the "fair use image
candidate" gets through the process, then it can be recorded and we don't
have to fight about it anymore.

>4) Tags that are not in the upload menu are almost always used correctly.
>
Certainly an argument for dropping the menu...

Stan


body:
On 3/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 3) People don't understand "fair use".  The vast majority of uploaders think
> > "fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be
> > illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend
> > to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.
>
> I agree. Is there a way to provide a very quick summary to anyone
> using this tag?

See my point #1: the average uploader doesn't care.  A summary such as
"If the owner of this image doesn't agree that it's fair use, I agree
to be sued for copyright infringement" might work.  I don't think
anything less blunt would get the message across.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/10/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 3) People don't understand "fair use".  The vast majority of uploaders think
> "fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be
> illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend
> to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.

I agree. Is there a way to provide a very quick summary to anyone
using this tag?

Also, a possible technical solution: force the uploader of a fair-use
image to specify which article it's to be used for, and prevent it
being used in other articles. Can a fair use image often be
legitimately used in different articles?

Steve


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 3/10/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>3) People don't understand "fair use".  The vast majority of uploaders think
>>"fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be
>>illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend
>>to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.
>>
>
>I agree. Is there a way to provide a very quick summary to anyone
>using this tag?
>
I think all the tags link to the relevant policy pages. But being a
wiki that allows anybody to upload, I don't think it's plausible to
operate under the assumption that every uploader understands all about
fair use (much of which is murky even to lawyers) even after reading
those pages, any more than we assume that there are no vandals,
everybody knows how to spell, etc - not that I would mind prospective
editors having to pass a spelling test before being allowed to touch
articles. :-)

As long as this is a wiki, we are going to have bad uploads. The
problem is that our image review process needs more time from
more volunteers, and/or needs to be made more efficient somehow.

>
>Also, a possible technical solution: force the uploader of a fair-use
>image to specify which article it's to be used for, and prevent it
>being used in other articles. Can a fair use image often be
>legitimately used in different articles?
>
That's the idea behind "fairusein" and its multi-argument friends.
It doesn't however ensure the addition of a meaningful rationale.

Stan


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] What variant to use for Irish,
	Scottish and Welsh localities?

body:
"Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)"
<rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:648f108b0603100121k2d9e159fw19f370215b94b095 at mail.gmail.com...
> I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish
> and
> Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as
> to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have
> realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so
> that
> place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used.
> For
> the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly
> smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian,
> German, French, etc.
[snip]

Your best bet in the first instance is to start your articles using the
English name. If there is a good article in :en: then link to that.

Also link as appropriate to corresponding articles on :ga:
(http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/  Gaeilge/Irish) :gd:
(http://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/ G?idhlig/Scots Gaelic) and :cy:
(http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cymraeg/Welsh). You would hopefully find
these links in the English article.

It might be helpful if you create REDIRECTs for the "Celtic variant" to the
English version; if you discover that you want to use the Celtic variant
later, you can move the article on top of the REDIRECT.

The priority is to get the information into an article somehow: the name can
be changed later if necessary.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Download history tool?

body:
On 3/10/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
> I started to fix the script:
> http://dzonux.net/wikipedia-animate-hack.user.js
>
> It shows the basic layout, but it stops right before it animates.
>
> Steve, are there are any other features you would like?
>
> Jonathan

Ooh, interesting question :) I can now get that script to activate,
but yeah, doesn't do much useful yet.

Hard to ask for *more* features when I haven't seen what it does yet.
But things that would be useful would be grouping all subsequent edits
by a single editor (would be useful in general in Wikipedia), and,
yeah like my original quest, somehow being able to download a list of
all changes into Excel or something (with dates and URLs would be
brilliant...)

Steve


body:
Guettarda wrote:

>On 3/10/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>Mark Wagner wrote:
>>
>>
>>Here's a thought - "fair use" images need to go through a review process
>>*before* uploading, sort of like featured articles. If the "fair use image
>>candidate" gets through the process, then it can be recorded and we don't
>>have to fight about it anymore.
>>
>
>
>I have reservations about this.  Fair use is a grey area legally - it's a
>permissible violation of copyright.  If we had a formal review process,
>might that not make the project more liable if we get it wrong?  In
>addition, if we make fair use more difficult, then we are likely to get
>people tagging images with free tags.  If they are tagged as fair use, a lot
>of obvious violations show up.  On the other hand, if it's mis-tagged as
>{{GFDL}}, we'd really have to go to the source.
>
I'm not sure that review changes liability, it can be pointed to as a
good-faith effort to do things correctly. All the empirical evidence
so far is that we're much more picky about fair use than just about
everybody else online, after all nobody seems to be shutting down the
giant celebrity galleries from which many of our images are copied.
WP's angst about fair use is internally generated.

On mistagging, that's a good point. We see that on commons daily, where
people upload a movie poster and tag it GFDL, as if it wasn't going to
be a blindingly obvious copyvio. I suppose the disincentive would be
the certain knowledge of severe sanctions if one is caught,

>
>I would rather make it a requirement that the uploader list a source or the
>name of the copyright holder.  Lots of images don't have a source clearly
>marked, and don't have information about the copyright holder.  How can we
>even hope to verify licensing if we don't know who holds the copyright (or
>at worst, where it came from)
>
But then what's to keep someone from lying about the source any less than
about license?

Stan


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 3/10/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and
> Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as
> to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have
> realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that
> place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For
> the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly
> smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian,
> German, French, etc.
>
> So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the
> Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in
> Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and
> national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as
> "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc.
> However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they
> are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them
> so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as
> the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say
> "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for
> example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for
> Dublin, etc.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ronline

I'm impressed you know so much about Irish placenames - I don't think
that many people even in Ireland would know where "An Uaimh" is.

And that, I think is the point - in Ireland (as in Scotland and
Wales), the undisputedly *main* language is English, whatever about
the *official* situation. I regret to say this, but it's true - this
is coming from an Irishman who feels daily guilt about not speaking
Irish properly. These languages are in various states, with "revival"
as the key word, and Wales being the most successful in this regard.

But this doesn't really answer your question, and I think that it
comes down to the local community's decision. On the Romanian
Wikipedia in general, do you use local names of all places? What about
placenames of a country that has more than one local, or even official
language? Phil's solution seems pragmatic enough. What do other
Wikipedias do?

Cormac

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


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox of the Year

body:
G'day Sam,

> Quite so.  I shall be far more careful in future before applying my
> (far too) dry British humour.

Damn straight.  From now on, I insist that any jokes on this list be
made American-style: loud, crude, unfunny, and accompanied by a laugh track.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/278 - Release Date: 9/03/2006


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 3/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, assume some *do* care, can't we come up with some summary like
> "for fair use, you have to be actually talking about the image itself
> - not just the subject depicted in the image" or something?

Even that is not exactly true.  Fair use is a very grey area.  There
are fair use uses outside criticism and commentary; it's just that
those are some of the more clear-cut ones, and some of the ones that a
commercial re-user of our content have more chance of also being able
to use in defense.

-Matt


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 3/10/06, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
>>>fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
>>>Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>
>>Actually, most of the content is "fair use" only to United States
>>users.
>>
>>
>>
>It's worse than that, it's only "fair use" for use within the United
>States.  Which means if an American wants to distribute a copy of
>Wikipedia to someone in Africa, they have to break the law.
>
>And I'd dispute that fair use by Wikipedia means fair use by a large
>majority of the downstream users.  Wikipedia can and will get away
>with a lot of things that others can't and won't.
>
>
This seems like a needlessly anti-fair-use position.  It may be accurate
that *some* cases of fair use are fair use only in the United States, or
only for Wikipedia, but that's hardly true of all of them, or even the
majority of them.  Every time we quote an exact sentence or paragraph
from a published work that's still in copyright, we're doing so under
fair use (or fair dealing, or whatever the equivalent in various
countries is), and this seems both unproblematic and something that the
encyclopedia would be much worse off without.  Perhaps fair use of
images is less widely respected internationally than fair use of textual
excerpts, but being more careful with some types of fair use is
different than abolishing fair-use content on Wikipedia entirely.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Please enable bot filtering on en.wp watchlists

body:
Brian wrote:
> One of the groups of pages on my watchlist is a large number of year
> articles. My watchlist has been constantly flooded with bots adding
> interwiki links to these pages. Out of the 122 items on the first page
> of my watchlist, 77 are Chobot year edits.
>
> According to "Wegge", da.wp has run fine for 8 months with
> $wgFilterRobotsWL = true;
>
> Can someone please enable this on en.wp?

I've chatted a bit with various people demanding my blood if I don't turn this
on; one wee problem is that the feature is currently a bit broken.

If the option is enabled, the watchlist changes from showing the last edit for
each page to showing *every* edit in the watching time period for each page. If
you're watching a page that's edited 500 times a day, this is going to flood
your watchlist something fierce.

(I'd bet this doesn't happen so much in sleepy, picturesque Denmark as it will
on bustlin', head-slammin' en.wikipedia.)

With 'enhanced recent changes' on it doesn't look as bad, since multiple edits
to a page fold up, but on default settings it seems maybe not so cool.

I vaguely remember talking to Wegge about this some time ago but I guess neither
of us got around to patching it up. I still think it's a silly option, but I'm
willing to go ahead and turn it on if somebody's willing to fix it to work
right... :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Using unicode in URLs

body:
????????? ??????? wrote:
> For non-latin languages it's problem to use URL of MediaWiki pages.
> For example, article with name "?????? ?????? ? ?????????? ?? ??????
> ?????????" (List of languages using Cyrillic alphabet) has ugly URL:

We use IRIs (Internationalized Resource Identifiers) in the URI encoding, per spec.

Unencoded URLs aren't reliable, as various browsers treat things in various
exciting ways.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Andreas Vilén

body:
Yes, but I guess the same does not apply to 20000 substubs about towns
in Poland and France, in a Wikipedia in a language spoken by some
thousand people in Africa...

/Andreas

On 3/9/06, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/3/8, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se>:
> > Creating a stub entry for every little town in the
> > country where the language is spoken, or for every semi-famous
> > person that speaks the language, can fill gaps that other websites
> > in the same language didn't cover.  The importance of this effect
> > depends heavily on how many other websites already exist in the
> > language.
>
> That's a very important point!
> Stubs are underestimated by speakers of larger languages, but for
> those who speak a smaller language even a stub information is often a
> good piece of knowledge.
> For some it can be useful enough as it is, for others it can be a
> challenge to write in *their mother tongue* a larger article.
>
> That's why I am interested in the project, Milos is talking about.
>
> Slavik IVANOV
>
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>