from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
"A page dedicated to a girlfriend, a family pet, or a social group at a
high school can also be a vanity page." - [[Wikipedia:Vanity page]]

I'd take that as pretty good evidence that vanity pages aren't just
biography, actually.

Did you have any other policy you want to make up, or are you done for
this debate?

-Snowspinner

On Oct 30, 2004, at 4:33 PM, Mark Richards wrote:

> The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> only to biography. I don't see the connection at all.
> I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> artwork, or other things.
>
> Mark
>
> --- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>> Then I believe both of you have just admitted that
>> "notability" is a
>> valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After all,
>> just try reading the
>> definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
>> linked to.
>>
>> John Lee
>> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> I see nothing wrong with his position.  There are
>> multiple deletion
>>> criteria available.  Each has its own definition.
>> We can define a
>>> vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
>> self-glorification.
>>> Verifiability is a different and independent
>> criterion.  Using the
>>> description of one criterion to determine the
>> applicability of a
>>> different one is illogical.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>> John Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
>> pages be eligible for
>>>> deletion if the information therein was 100%
>> verifiable and factual?
>>>> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman because
>> *we get 100%
>>>> verifiable articles such as vanity pages which
>> are deleted*. You
>>>> argue in favour of their deletion, because they
>> are vanity pages -
>>>> what constitutes a vanity page? A page written by
>> someone seeking
>>>> glorification? But, why, the information's
>> verifiable! Isn't
>>>> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human
>> knowledge? I honestly
>>>> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I say,
>> hypocritical - stance
>>>> on this.
>>>>
>>>> John Lee
>>>> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>>>
>>>> Mark Richards wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> It's a straw man because you are taking the case
>> in
>>>>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
>>>>> schools, we will have to keep an article on each
>>>>> school band member.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
>> articles,
>>>>> and to the extent that we have a problem with
>> them,
>>>>> they have been deleted as vanity.
>>>>>
>>>>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
>> some
>>>>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
>> cheerleaders or
>>>>> dead cats.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I have presented my case as an extreme one,
>> then I
>>>>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
>>>>> support an article on each high school band
>> member. I
>>>>> doubt that you could really write a verifiable
>> and
>>>>> factual article on them that was not a vanity
>> page
>>>>> anyway.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's not that these people are not notable, they
>>>>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
>> that
>>>>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
>> proposing to
>>>>> remove this criteria for deletion.
>>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Solving the US-centrism problem

body:
NSK a ?crit:
> On Saturday 30 October 2004 11:33, Anthere wrote:
>
>>Note that I tried to reach north africa, largely french speaking, during
>
>
> I have extreme interesting in national development of countries in Africa,
> South America and Asia: I am always thinking how I could help the people
> living there. How have you tried to reach north Africa, what is WMF's
> position on bringing free knowledge in the Third World and what do you think
> that residents of Europe, North America and Oceania can do via the Internet
> for the rest of the planet?

Charles gave you a very good answer, so I have little to add :-)

Two additional points :

''Did I try to reach Africa ?''

I'd like to mention that "trying" to reach Africa is not a one person
effort, but a collective effort. So, the point is not "me".

Very personally, I think I sent possibly 70 press releases in september.
I could track some, mostly through french google news.
But google news do not exist in north african countries, and it just
would take too much time, so I have no idea of some of my mails went
through or not, or just made some journalists begin to refer to
Wikipedia or not.

I went to seek for the maroccan media I contacted in september. Here is
the list below of media I tried to contact. A couple of mails went back.
  Marroco is a french speaking country.
Some of those media are french speaking, and others arab speaking. For
the latter, I gave the link to the arab wikipedia as well as the french one.

 > > ACH-CHARK AL-AWSAT
 > Quotidien arabophone saoudien, ?dition marocaine
 > imprim?e ? Casablanca depuis 1985.
 > M?l : asharqm at mtds.com   Web : www.aawsat.com

 > > AL-AYAM
 > Cr?? en 2001, hebdomadaire arabophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : mediaayam at menara.com

 > > AL-AHDATH AL MAGHRIBIA
 > Cr?? en 1998, quotidien arabophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : ahdath at ahdath.info
 > www.ahdath.info

 > > AL-ALAM
 > Cr?? en 1946, quotidien arabophone du parti de
 > l'Istiqlal (P.I.).
 > M?l : al-alam at iam.net.ma   Web : www.Alalam.ma

 > > AL-ASR
 > Cr?? en 1997, hebdomadaire arabophone du Parti de la
 > Justice et du D?veloppement (PJD).
 > M?l : alassr-96 at iam.net.ma

 > > AL-BAYANE
 > Cr?? en 1972, quotidien francophone du Parti du
 > Progr?s et du Socialisme (PPS).
 > M?l : albayane at casanet.net.ma    Web :
 > www.albayane.ma

 > > AL-ITTIHAD AL ICHTIRAKI
 > Cr?? en 1983, quotidien arabophone du parti de
 > l'Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP).
 > M?l : ail at menara.ma

 > > AL-OUSBOU
 > Cr?? en 1985, hebdomadaire arabophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : alousboue at menara.ma

 > > AS-SABAH
 > Cr?? en 2000, quotidien arabophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : assabah at wanadoo.net-ma
 > Web : www.assabah.press.ma

 > > AT-TAJDID
 > Cr?? en 1999, hebdomadaire arabophone du Mouvement
 > de l'Unification et de la R?forme (MUR).
 > M?l : attajdid at attajdid.ma   Web : www.attajdid.ma

 > > AUJOURD'HUI LE MAROC
 > Cr?? en 2001, quotidien francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : alm at aujourdhui.ma ou  kidrissi at aujourdhui.ma
 > Web : www.aujourdhui.ma

 > > BAYANE AL-YOUM
 > Cr?? en 1971, quotidien arabophone du parti du
 > Progr?s et du Socialisme (PPS) .
 > M?l : bayanealyaoume at casanet.net.ma    Web :
 > www.bayanealyaoume.ma

 > > BAYANE AL-YOUM ASSABII
 > Cr?? en 2002, hebdomadaire arabophone du parti du
 > Progr?s et du Socialisme (PPS).
 > M?l : bayanealyaoume at casanet.net.ma   Web :
 > www.bayanealyaoume.ma

 > > ECONOMISTE (L')
 > Cr?? en 1991, quotidien francophone ind?pendant, ?
 > dominante ?conomique.
 > M?l : info at leconomiste.com   Web :
 > www.leconomiste.com

 > > GAZETTE DU MAROC (LA)
 > Cr?? en 1997, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : redaction at lagazettedumaroc.com   Web :
 > www.lagazettedumaroc.com

 > > INDEPENDANT (L')
 > Cr?? en 1996, quotidien francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : lindependant at iam.net.ma

 > > JOURNAL HEBDOMADAIRE (LE)
 > Cr?? en novembre 1997, hebdomadaire francophone
 > ind?pendant.
 > M?l : lejournal at lejournalhebdo.com
 > Web : http://www.lejournal-hebdo.com/

 > > LIBERATION
 > Cr?? en 1964, quotidien francophone du parti de
 > l'Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP).
 > M?l : Liberation at mis.net.ma   Web :
 > www.liberation.press.ma

 > > MAROC HEBDO INTERNATIONAL
 > Cr?? en 1991, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : mhi at maroc-hebdo.press.ma   Web :
 > www.maroc-hebdo.com www.maroc-hebdo.press.ma

 > > MATIN DU SAHARA ET DU MAGHREB (LE)
 > Cr?? en 1972, quotidien francophone.
 > Web : www.lematin.ma

 > > NOUVELLE TRIBUNE (LA)
 > Cr?? en 1996, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : courrier at lanouvelletribune.com M?l :
 > redaction at lanouvelletribune.com Web :
 > www.lanouvelletribune.com

 > > OPINION (L')
 > Cr?? en 1965, quotidien francophone du parti de
 > l'Istiqlal (P.I.).
 > M?l : opinion at iam.net.ma Web : www.lopinion.ma

 > > REPORTER (LE)
 > Cr?? en 1998, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : lereporter at iam.net.ma

 > > RISSALAT AL-OUMMA
 > Cr?? en 1983, quotidien arabophone du parti de
 > l'Union Constitutionnelle (U.C.).
 > M?l : rissalataloumma at yahoo.fr

 > > TEL QUEL
 > Cr?? en 2001, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : courrier at telquel.info Web :
 > www.telquel-online.com

 > > VERITE (LA)
 > Cr?? en 2000, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant.
 > M?l : laverite at wanadoo.net.ma

 > > VIE ECO (LA)
 > Cr?? en 1978, hebdomadaire francophone ind?pendant,
 > ? dominante ?conomique.
 > M?l : vieeco at marocnet.net.ma   Web : www.vieeco.ma

Additionaly, I left some comments to two maroccan journalists bloggers
also known in the french speaking blogging community.

I may indicate that in Marocco, the website Menara published two
articles in which Wikipedia was mentionned. At least one came through
Jean-Michel Cornu from la FING, a french reference (www.fing.com I believe)

http://www.menara.ma/infos/includes/detail.asp?lmodule=Technologie&article_id=9644

http://www.menara.ma/Infos/includes/detail.asp?article_id=9613&lmodule=Technologie

---------

 >what is WMF's position on bringing free knowledge in the Third World

Was a question essentially answered by Charles.

 >and what do you think that residents of Europe, North America and
Oceania can do via the Internet for the rest of the planet?

If you ask to an agronom engineer (right, this is me :-)),
what *I* could bring would be better information on agricultural techniques,
food transformation and preservation and waste and water treatment.
Far away from any political fight, this is what many in these countries
need. This is basic, but some lack this.

Possibly, this might not be through the internet, but even a brochure
(booklet) explaining farmers how to better fertilise their fields to
increase their yield hence reaching food sustainability, or helping moms
to manage their kids diarrhea, or increase awareness of AIDS disaster
and how to fight it, might be amazingly helpful.

French agronomists have a tradition to do that in many African
countries, and associations such as M?decins sans Fronti?res are not
american :-)

Help us get the content, the tools, the network and the money, and we
will do it :-) It will take time, but we will, I am confident :-)

Other people might have other opinions on how to help Africa. These are
mine.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Delirium

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: First attempt at concatenation-based history
	compression gives 82% compression

references:
<cm0cqf$r8r$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4183D4FE.3050609@hackish.org>	<cm1brq$jln$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cm1fnn$p8a$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Sorry I misunderstood what you meant. Article text is stored in the
> database, not in files. We can't compress articles with "bzip2
> /database/revisions/*.txt". Any compression of multiple revisions in
> the same instance of bzip2 has to managed by MediaWiki.

And I had misunderstood what you meant. =]

Perhaps misremembering an old thread on the subject, I thought you were
discussing how to cut down on the size of offline database dumps, rather
than the database used in the running wiki.

-Mark


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons support enabled on all wikis

body:
On 30 Oct 2004 15:43:00 +0200, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> You can edit Commons image pages, but this should only be done for the
> purpose of describing the content. For licensing information, you can use
> MediaWiki:Sharedupload to insert an automatic backlink to the Commons. See
> the version on en: as an example:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sharedupload

As I already said on IRC: Why not include this in the standard
Sharedupload? Now if it happens to be that no sysop in a certain
language reads your message, or if they read it but do not realize the
type of action they are to take, a backlink will not exist on that
language.

Andre Engels


list: wikimedia-l


body:
I think you misunderstood Erik here. When he said "Commons image
page", he meant the image page on a 'local' wiki for an image on
Commons. He is saying that the licensing information should be on
Commons.

Erik, please watch your words. It's only because I knew what you meant
that I did not make the same misreading that Delirium made.

Andre

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:41:10 -0400, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >You can edit Commons image pages, but this should only be done for the
> >purpose of describing the content. For licensing information, you can use
> >MediaWiki:Sharedupload to insert an automatic backlink to the Commons. See
> >the version on en: as an example:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sharedupload
> >
> >
> Does this mean that there *shouldn't* be licensing information on the
> Commons pages?  I thought it would make sense to have that at a
> centralized location, rather than on each individual wiki.
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] First attempt at concatenation-based history
 compression gives 82% compression

body:
I just downloaded the old table for ca.wikipedia.org, and compressed it
with my new concatenated gzip history compression feature. The idea is
that by concatenating the text from adjacent revisions before
compressing with gzip, the gzip algorithm can take advantage of
similarities between revisions and thereby acheive a better compression
ratio than it would by compressing individual revisions.

The old table in question had 38,697 rows. 36,536 were already
compressed with gzip, 2,159 were uncompressed and 2 had an invalid
old_flags field. The SQL dump was 46.3 MB.

I compressed it with a maximum chunk size of 10. I wrote an algorithm to
change the chunk size depending on compressibility, but it was disabled
for this test for performance reasons. With these parameters, the SQL
dump after compression was 22.1 MB, 0.48 times the size of the original.

If you take out the headers (edit comments, attribution, etc.) and SQL
detritus, the decompressed text is 99.0 MB and the compressed text is
17.6 MB, so that's a compression ratio of 82%.

CRC32 checksums of the decompressed text were recorded before and after
the test to check data integrity. There were no errors.

Hopefully we will be able to improve the compression ratio still
further, but after this test I would consider the feature to be good
enough for a beta release. The obvious direction for future development
  is to try some sort of diff algorithm.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Enotif 1.33 for MediaWiki 1.3.7 (email notification
 for page changes and user_talk page changes)

body:
To whom it may concern:

Anyone of you being interested in the latest

   email notification patch "Enotif 1.33 for MediaWiki 1.3.7"

can send me a personal mail to
mailto:mail at tgries.de?Subject=Please%20send%20me%20the%20mw137+en133%20URL .
The documentation is already published and available as usual on
http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif .

Tom Gries
Berlin


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews

body:
Since voting for the new project wikinews is well
under way... I would like to mention 2 things.

When Erik set the vote, he set the voting bar at 50%.
That means that if the number of approval is just over
the number of disapproval, the project will be
accepted (and obviously, it will be, since much more
than 50% of people are supportive).

I would like to first remind that *I* asked Erik to
set a vote, to avoid any further accusation of
unilateral decision from the board. So, I *support*
this vote. However, it was my mistake that I did not
check in time the voting bar for the project to go
live.

Launching a new projet is something extremely
important. A voting bar set at 50% is something I find
plain wrong.
Though it is too late for this time, I would be very
glad if next time a project is proposed, a more
consensual procedure is adopted. And at least
possibility to agree on some points, and refuse
others.

I know that in any decision the global community will
adopt, there will be some happy and some unhappy
people, and this is also why, though we must sometimes
rely on voting procedure because of community size, I
see voting as a bad choice. In such a vote, with a 50%
barrier, that mean a project may be lauched with as
much as 49 people very unhappy among 100. I do not see
that as a positive move *at all*.
And this in particular as some of those opposing the
creation believe this project, as is, could hurt the
project overall.

So, it does not matter for this one project (I'll try
to give time so that policies are developped which can
fit with more expressed opinions) but just as some
users were not happy with the way wikispecies was
launched, let me just state officially once for all,
that I am not happy with such an important decision
taken at simple majority.

Anthere

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews II

body:
The second point is this one.

A lot of the opposition on the wikinews project is
related to

* dividing community forces (stretching human
resources)

* reduced number of editors will mean less chance for
npov

* breaking news-pressure will push editors to publish
quickly, while nearly 4 years of experience show us
only time and number of editors allow us to approach
npov. As best said by Maha_ts ''Establishing NPOV
within the short time span required for news reporting
will almost be impossible, to any degree of fairness
and accuracy''

* fear of legal issues (consider setting up a legal
team at the same time than wikinews)

* and mostly, concerns on original reporting.

So, overall, though I think the idea of wikinews is
great, and should become a major hit, I think that we
need

- that rules be collectively worked on, so that
concerns voiced by non-supporters are taken into
account. For this, I hope that many editors join the
future project so that we all work on it.

- possibly to get some journalists involved in the
project, so that we get more (or different)
perspective. There are some journalists interested in
wikipedia, and who would feel ready to discuss the
project with us. Or even to join it.

For this reason, and after several discussions here
and there, given the controversial nature of the
project and its likelyhood to get in the sunlights of
media immediately upon its creation (contrarywise to
wikipedia, which had time to polish before it become
known), I would suggest that we try to contact some
interested journalists and possibly have them join a
sort of advisory board. What do you think ?

Anthere

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now.
http://messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews II


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews II


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Andre-
> I think you misunderstood Erik here. When he said "Commons image
> page", he meant the image page on a 'local' wiki for an image on
> Commons. He is saying that the licensing information should be on
> Commons.

Andre is right. Sorry for being unclear.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

body:
On Sunday 31 October 2004 03:36, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> find lots of free Web hosting services that you can run it at. Here's a

My website www.wikinerds.org can also accept to host some small wikis for free
depending on their content and how many server resources they use. You can
send proposals at info at wikinerds.org

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Significant flaws have been pointed out. Legal exposure; and to raise one
which I suppose others have: On controversial issues Wikipedia itself is
often unable to realize in NPOV in practice. In the news context it is dead
certain we will not; experienced news organizations employing trained
journalists don't and there is no rational basis for supposing we will.

Fred

> From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: 31 Oct 2004 11:59:00 +0100
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews
>
> In general, however, as an innovative organization, I believe we should be
> willing to try out new things if a majority is enthusiastic about them,
> and if no significant flaws in the proposal have been pointed out.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews

body:
The first time you appear in Federal Court and begin gaining experience, you
will encounter some phenomena which are new to you. You will be amazed at
the hourly rate people charge for engaging these interesting phenomena and
at the years it takes to decide even the simplest matter, if a Court chooses
to hear it.

You will discover that what you reasonably thought was the law, may when
considered by a Federal Judge, become subject to serious doubt and sometimes
adverse decisions, which, while they could be appealed successfully, require
posting of bond guaranteeing payment of the judgement.

It isn't "controversial issues" that will sink you. It's the odd mention of
someone, perhaps mistaken identity, a image on the wrong story, etc.

Fred

> From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: 31 Oct 2004 13:58:00 +0100
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews
>
> You fail to recognize all efforts that have been made to address this very
> problem. The issue has been discussed in much detail, both on this mailing
> list and on the wiki. A legal vetting process is part of the basic
> requirements of the Wikinews proposal. Legal counsel will be sought on
> controversial issues.
>
> What is and isn't a flaw is often a matter of opinion. I simply disagree
> with you on the level of risk and the potential remedies.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] spreading firefox

body:
> Wikipedia exists to write an encyclopedia, not to distribute and/or
> advocate open source software.

This isn't the Wikipedia mailing list, though.


subject: [Foundation-l] spreading firefox


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
> Launching a new projet is something extremely
> important. A voting bar set at 50% is something I find
> plain wrong.

I agree.  I'd rather see the bar at around 20% (with at least 10 people
voting in favor).  I do see the argument for majority, though, and in this
particular case it didn't really matter.

> I know that in any decision the global community will
> adopt, there will be some happy and some unhappy
> people, and this is also why, though we must sometimes
> rely on voting procedure because of community size, I
> see voting as a bad choice.

I agree with this, too.  I think having a survey is acceptable, in order to
gauge opinion on the matter, but ultimately the decision of whether or not
to go into a new project should be a board decision.

> And this in particular as some of those opposing the
> creation believe this project, as is, could hurt the
> project overall.

That's really why I see it as a Board issue.  I think it's pretty much
impossible that Wikinews is going to hurt the foundation, but that's an
argument that should be considered on its merits.  If it comes down to a
vote, that's why we've elected a Board of Directors, to make the final
decision on broad and important issues like the creation of a new project
(and when I say a new project I don't consider languages to fall under this
unless they seriously duplicate another language, such as simple English).

In some ways this whole issue is an example of Wikipedia being a victim of
its own success.  I say "Wikipedia" intentionally, because were there no
foundation there would be about zero reason not to start a project like
this.  But we do have a foundation, and just like we're not requiring a vote
and consensus every time the foundation spends money on a new server, we
shouldn't require a vote and consensus every time the foundation starts a
new project.

The foundation doesn't run on consensus.  The bylaws don't require the Board
to make decisions by consensus, and the Board isn't elected by consensus.
In fact, 4/5 of the Board (all but Angela) was installed without even a
*majority* support, though it is nearly certain that Jimmy Wales would have
received a consensus support.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Cree -  cr

body:
Hoi,
I added a code to my list of languages "Cree" a native American people
and its language ISO-639 cr or cre. For Wiktionary I will use cr.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Neapolitan - nap

body:
Please note that I added "nap" for Neapolitan to the list of languages.
I'll start adding the Neapolitan terms to the Italian witkionary first -
even if I'd love to see the Neapolitan wiktionary "itself" running as well.

Ciao, Sabine

--
Sabine Cretella
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
Phone: +39-340-18098278
Skype: callto://sabinecretella

Meetingplace for translators
www.wesolveitnet.com


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Rapanui - rap

body:
Hoi,
I just added a new code to my list of languages Rapanui, a language
spoken on Easter Island - ISO 639 rap
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: First attempt at concatenation-based history
 compression gives 82% compression

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Out of curiosity, have you tried testing bzip2?  It's usually much
> better than gzip with multi-megabyte text data; for example, source for
> Linux kernel 2.6.9 is ~44 MB with gzip, and ~35 MB with bzip2.  I
> believe it also uses similarities across files, so concatenation may not
> be necessary.  It does use much more RAM and execute more slowly than
> gzip, however.

Yes, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/History_compression . Bzip2 had
a much better compression ratio, but it was 3.3 times slower to
decompress and 13 times slower to compress. No block size could give it
anything like the performance of gzip.

Concatenation is still necessary. In the previous test, bzip2 gave 97%
compression for heavily edited articles, which far exceeds anything
recorded for individual revisions.

Preliminary testing of a diff method suggests that diffs can give a
similar compression ratio to bzip2, but with a speed even faster than gzip.

We've generally assumed that performance is the most important thing.
I'm willing to admit the possibility that extra DB hardware for poorly
compressed data may turn out to be more expensive than extra apache
hardware for better compression. But a diff method may allow us to avoid
that tradeoff altogether.

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Whatever the bad moments,
	don't forget to have fun on Wikipedia

body:
Two years ago, the french wikipedia celebrated its
upgrading on phase III software.
We spent the day hunting bugs, fixing user accounts
and generally making everything work again.

Two years later, we celebrate a rather happy time.

Little vandalism, no conflict, nearly 60 000 articles,
new local associations, as well as pumpkins and
cooking art on

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettes_du_mois#Octobre_2004

(for all those complaining, we also celebrate
Christmas, end of Ramadan, Carnaval and any other nice
special days you can think of)

Happy Halloween to Kira as well ;-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
> Being elected without *majority* support even happen to the greatest
> presidents...

Were all Presidents elected by approval voting that probably wouldn't be the
case (almost certainly not in the US), but the point is that Wikimedia
doesn't run by consensus.

Being started without consensus support happens to the greatest websites,
after all.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


from_name: Henry H. Tan-Tenn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

body:
Mark Williamson ti 2004/10/30 ChS 03:11 sia-kong:

 >>Angela wrote:
>>I propose we adopt Wikitravel's policy of requiring at least five
>>potential contributors before starting a new language. See
>>http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy
>
> Hmm, how many of the Wikipedias with currently over 100 articles
> started out with more than 5 contributors? From personal experience
> alone, I can guarantee you that lb: (with currently over 1000
> articles) and kw: (with currently over 200 articles) did not, and I'm
> sure many or even most other Wikipedias are in the same situation.

Hi,

If I may give a quote on the Cymru/Welsh WP, Arwel noted that
"cy.wikipedia has about 5 active users now, after nearly a year, but it
worked quite successfully in the early months with only 2 regular
users." [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Artificial_languages_equal_rights]

Minnan/Southern Min started out with only 3.  Now there are 6 registered
users who have contributed articles, and a couple more with token edits.
  (Anon edits not counted.)  Interestingly the editors did not all know
each other beforehand, so it seems that a wikipedia may well serve as a
channel for bringing together potential editors.


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
Websites with little traffic?  Every blog in the world?

RickK

Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
What about garage bands? Vanity conlangs and programming languages? Etc, etc.

-- ambi

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:33:04 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards
wrote:
> The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> only to biography. I don't see the connection at all.
> I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> artwork, or other things.
>
>
>
> Mark
>
> --- John Lee wrote:
>
> > Then I believe both of you have just admitted that
> > "notability" is a
> > valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After all,
> > just try reading the
> > definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
> > linked to.
> >
> > John Lee
> > ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> >
> > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> > > I see nothing wrong with his position. There are
> > multiple deletion
> > > criteria available. Each has its own definition.
> > We can define a
> > > vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
> > self-glorification.
> > > Verifiability is a different and independent
> > criterion. Using the
> > > description of one criterion to determine the
> > applicability of a
> > > different one is illogical.
> > >
> > > Ec
> > >
> > > John Lee wrote:
> > >
> > >> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
> > pages be eligible for
> > >> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> > verifiable and factual?
> > >> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman because
> > *we get 100%
> > >> verifiable articles such as vanity pages which
> > are deleted*. You
> > >> argue in favour of their deletion, because they
> > are vanity pages -
> > >> what constitutes a vanity page? A page written by
> > someone seeking
> > >> glorification? But, why, the information's
> > verifiable! Isn't
> > >> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human
> > knowledge? I honestly
> > >> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I say,
> > hypocritical - stance
> > >> on this.
> > >>
> > >> John Lee
> > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >>
> > >> Mark Richards wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> It's a straw man because you are taking the case
> > in
> > >>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
> > >>> schools, we will have to keep an article on each
> > >>> school band member.
> > >>>
> > >>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> > articles,
> > >>> and to the extent that we have a problem with
> > them,
> > >>> they have been deleted as vanity.
> > >>>
> > >>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
> > some
> > >>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
> > cheerleaders or
> > >>> dead cats.
> > >>>
> > >>> If I have presented my case as an extreme one,
> > then I
> > >>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
> > >>> support an article on each high school band
> > member. I
> > >>> doubt that you could really write a verifiable
> > and
> > >>> factual article on them that was not a vanity
> > page
> > >>> anyway.
> > >>>
> > >>> It's not that these people are not notable, they
> > >>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
> > that
> > >>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
> > proposing to
> > >>> remove this criteria for deletion.
> > >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
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---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Wikinews?  Where is this vote?  Where was it publicized?

RickK

Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Since voting for the new project wikinews is well
under way... I would like to mention 2 things.

When Erik set the vote, he set the voting bar at 50%.
That means that if the number of approval is just over
the number of disapproval, the project will be
accepted (and obviously, it will be, since much more
than 50% of people are supportive).

I would like to first remind that *I* asked Erik to
set a vote, to avoid any further accusation of
unilateral decision from the board. So, I *support*
this vote. However, it was my mistake that I did not
check in time the voting bar for the project to go
live.

Launching a new projet is something extremely
important. A voting bar set at 50% is something I find
plain wrong.
Though it is too late for this time, I would be very
glad if next time a project is proposed, a more
consensual procedure is adopted. And at least
possibility to agree on some points, and refuse
others.

I know that in any decision the global community will
adopt, there will be some happy and some unhappy
people, and this is also why, though we must sometimes
rely on voting procedure because of community size, I
see voting as a bad choice. In such a vote, with a 50%
barrier, that mean a project may be lauched with as
much as 49 people very unhappy among 100. I do not see
that as a positive move *at all*.
And this in particular as some of those opposing the
creation believe this project, as is, could hurt the
project overall.

So, it does not matter for this one project (I'll try
to give time so that policies are developped which can
fit with more expressed opinions) but just as some
users were not happy with the way wikispecies was
launched, let me just state officially once for all,
that I am not happy with such an important decision
taken at simple majority.

Anthere

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
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_______________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Anthere-
> Since voting for the new project wikinews is well
> under way... I would like to mention 2 things.

> When Erik set the vote, he set the voting bar at 50%.
> That means that if the number of approval is just over
> the number of disapproval, the project will be
> accepted (and obviously, it will be, since much more
> than 50% of people are supportive).

What matters is not just whether people support or oppose, but also to
which degree. As you say, in a simple majority vote, 51% of people could
say "Uh yeah, let's give this a try", and 49% "IF WE DO THIS, WE'RE ALL
DOOMED! THE SKY WILL FALL DOWN ON US! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Obviously, this
is not a very good basis to start a project on. So I think we should
experiment with voting systems which account for the degree of preference.

In general, however, as an innovative organization, I believe we should be
willing to try out new things if a majority is enthusiastic about them,
and if no significant flaws in the proposal have been pointed out. Those
who do not try new things do not learn new things. I fully accept the
possibility that Wikinews may be a failure. Even if it will be, it will
provide us with many valuable lessons - for the peer review process in
Wikipedia, for new projects which operate in a time-critical fashion, for
neutrality on current issues, and so forth. And if it succeeds, it will be
tremendous.

I also hold the notion that we can find consensus on any project
substantially different from the existing ones to be very noble, but very
unrealistic. On a project like the Wikimedia Commons, where its usefulness
is not in dispute by anyone - yes. But something like Wikiversity or
Wikifiction - no.

The consensus principle is great for reasonably small groups of
contributors working on an article. It can even scale to some extent when
certain objections can be ruled out on the grounds of not being
"actionable", as they can be on [[en:Wikipedia:Featured article
candidates]].

As one example of consensus going awry, take my
[[en:Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] proposal. In this case, I refined the proposal
as best as I could to make everyone happy. The result was a lowest common
denominator idea which didn't have some of the safeguards in place that I
originally wanted. A consensus process with a large group of people, even
if it ever arrives at a conclusion, will *not* magically result in the
best possible solution. In some cases, it will result in the worst.

While it is important to listen, it is also important to maintain the
integrity and the consistency of an idea. Therefore, even if future
project decisions should not use a simple majority rule, I strongly advise
against using a consensus rule.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews II

body:
Anthere-
> - that rules be collectively worked on, so that
> concerns voiced by non-supporters are taken into
> account. For this, I hope that many editors join the
> future project so that we all work on it.

Obviously; however, many of the objections were not "actionable", that is,
they did not refer to any specific policy, but to the project as a whole
as being undesirable. Any actionable objections shall be discussed in the
usual wiki manner.

> I would suggest that we try to contact some
> interested journalists and possibly have them join a
> sort of advisory board. What do you think ?

Advisory as in giving advice - absolutely. But not in setting the policy
or being called upon to arbitrate matters of user conduct.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews II


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
> >Sardinian is admittedly a dud. Sicilian is still growing steadily, and
> >I'm sure they'd not appreciate the not-so-nice things you seem to
> >think of them.
> >
> >[..]
>
> I checked Sicilian's recent changes: in the last 7 days there are
> contributions from 1 registered user and two IP addresses. The first is
> someone from Australia, the other two are from USA providers. It seems
> that no one from Sicily is editing those pages, and I'm betting that it
> will continue that way.
>
> PS my name is typically sicilian, since my family comes from there. This
> doesn't mean that I know even how to write a word of Sicilian... read
> aloud maybe, but not write.
>
> Alfio

Caru Alfiu,

Giuseppe d'Angelo is a Sicilian expat in Australia, Audralina is a
Sicilian girl born in New York, and I'm not sure about Antonino Russo.
Among other recently-inactive editors there are Alessio Patti, who is
actually in Sicily I believe, and a couple of others.

I have invited a couple of Sicilians from it.wikipedia to contribute
to the Sicilian Wikipedia but so far I have produced no results.

Currently, the Sicilian Wikipedia is being discussed extensively at
the forum "linguasiciliana", and although it has attracted the
interest of many, so far only a few have actually contributed.

mw


body:
It's also worth noting that Wikipedia Gymru has over 1000 articles.

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:42:07 -0500, Henry H. Tan-Tenn
<share2002nov at lomaji.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson ti 2004/10/30 ChS 03:11 sia-kong:
>
>
>
>  >>Angela wrote:
> >>I propose we adopt Wikitravel's policy of requiring at least five
> >>potential contributors before starting a new language. See
> >>http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy
> >
> > Hmm, how many of the Wikipedias with currently over 100 articles
> > started out with more than 5 contributors? From personal experience
> > alone, I can guarantee you that lb: (with currently over 1000
> > articles) and kw: (with currently over 200 articles) did not, and I'm
> > sure many or even most other Wikipedias are in the same situation.
>
> Hi,
>
> If I may give a quote on the Cymru/Welsh WP, Arwel noted that
> "cy.wikipedia has about 5 active users now, after nearly a year, but it
> worked quite successfully in the early months with only 2 regular
> users." [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Artificial_languages_equal_rights]
>
> Minnan/Southern Min started out with only 3.  Now there are 6 registered
> users who have contributed articles, and a couple more with token edits.
>   (Anon edits not counted.)  Interestingly the editors did not all know
> each other beforehand, so it seems that a wikipedia may well serve as a
> channel for bringing together potential editors.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
The difference is is that there is to my knowledge no such thing as a
flying polar bear, yet there are real Friulian people with internet
access.

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:06:11 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>  It's highly unlikely you'll be able to get even half of the educated
> Friulian-speaking population editing Wikipedia. Are they potential? Yes, in
> much the same way that I could potentially be killed by a falling polar bear
> from the sky as I type this.
>
>  John Lee
>  ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
>
>
>  Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>  Also, my definition of "potential contributors" means all the people who
> speak the language and have Internet access, which in the case of Friulian
> is well over 5. What fraction of the world's English speaking population is
> currently involved in the en:Wikipedia or any other English language sister
> project? How is that relevant? We are talking about "potential
> contributors".
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews II

body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Anthere-
>
>>- that rules be collectively worked on, so that
>>concerns voiced by non-supporters are taken into
>>account. For this, I hope that many editors join the
>>future project so that we all work on it.
>
>
> Obviously; however, many of the objections were not "actionable", that is,
> they did not refer to any specific policy, but to the project as a whole
> as being undesirable. Any actionable objections shall be discussed in the
> usual wiki manner.
>
>
>>I would suggest that we try to contact some
>>interested journalists and possibly have them join a
>>sort of advisory board. What do you think ?
>
>
> Advisory as in giving advice - absolutely. But not in setting the policy
> or being called upon to arbitrate matters of user conduct.

Absolutely. As I wrote "advisory".
Deciding policies is community matter and arbitrating is something
totally uncalled for anyone but a collective knowing community life and
rules very well.

That would be a bit like when Jimbo discuss with those defining
licences. They know licenses issues very well, and can both teach us
relevant things, as well as be influenced on how to work on free
licenses issues.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews II


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Anthere-
>
>>Since voting for the new project wikinews is well
>>under way... I would like to mention 2 things.
>
>
>>When Erik set the vote, he set the voting bar at 50%.
>>That means that if the number of approval is just over
>>the number of disapproval, the project will be
>>accepted (and obviously, it will be, since much more
>>than 50% of people are supportive).
>
>
> What matters is not just whether people support or oppose, but also to
> which degree. As you say, in a simple majority vote, 51% of people could
> say "Uh yeah, let's give this a try", and 49% "IF WE DO THIS, WE'RE ALL
> DOOMED! THE SKY WILL FALL DOWN ON US! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Obviously, this
> is not a very good basis to start a project on. So I think we should
> experiment with voting systems which account for the degree of preference.

Agreed.

Currently it is not possible to express a degree of acceptance, and it
is not either possible to agree with part of the proposal and oppose to
another part.

Overall, either we shut down our objections and pronounce a contracted
yes, or we pronounce an unsatisfying opposition.

This is frustrating.

> In general, however, as an innovative organization, I believe we should be
> willing to try out new things if a majority is enthusiastic about them,
> and if no significant flaws in the proposal have been pointed out. Those
> who do not try new things do not learn new things. I fully accept the
> possibility that Wikinews may be a failure. Even if it will be, it will
> provide us with many valuable lessons - for the peer review process in
> Wikipedia, for new projects which operate in a time-critical fashion, for
> neutrality on current issues, and so forth. And if it succeeds, it will be
> tremendous.

I think there are some risks we are not allowed to take, because their
consequences will backfire on all projects.
We are not just making experiments.

> I also hold the notion that we can find consensus on any project
> substantially different from the existing ones to be very noble, but very
> unrealistic. On a project like the Wikimedia Commons, where its usefulness
> is not in dispute by anyone - yes. But something like Wikiversity or
> Wikifiction - no

Full consensus being an impossibility is NOT an argument for just
proposing one way to do a project.

> The consensus principle is great for reasonably small groups of
> contributors working on an article. It can even scale to some extent when
> certain objections can be ruled out on the grounds of not being
> "actionable", as they can be on [[en:Wikipedia:Featured article
> candidates]].
>
> As one example of consensus going awry, take my
> [[en:Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] proposal. In this case, I refined the proposal
> as best as I could to make everyone happy. The result was a lowest common
> denominator idea which didn't have some of the safeguards in place that I
> originally wanted. A consensus process with a large group of people, even
> if it ever arrives at a conclusion, will *not* magically result in the
> best possible solution. In some cases, it will result in the worst.

The failure of one solution worked along consensus making should not
orient us in making further decisions without at least trying to seek
consensus.

> While it is important to listen, it is also important to maintain the
> integrity and the consistency of an idea. Therefore, even if future
> project decisions should not use a simple majority rule, I strongly advise
> against using a consensus rule.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

I am glad to hear that any further projects or rules you will propose
will not be voted on simple majority rule. I was not asking for more.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


references:
<cm0cqf$r8r$1@sea.gmane.org> <4183D4FE.3050609@hackish.org>
	<cm1brq$jln$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
> Delirium wrote:
>
>> Out of curiosity, have you tried testing bzip2?  It's usually much
>> better than gzip with multi-megabyte text data; for example, source
>> for Linux kernel 2.6.9 is ~44 MB with gzip, and ~35 MB with bzip2.  I
>> believe it also uses similarities across files, so concatenation may
>> not be necessary.  It does use much more RAM and execute more slowly
>> than gzip, however.

I replied:

> Concatenation is still necessary. In the previous test, bzip2 gave 97%
> compression for heavily edited articles, which far exceeds anything
> recorded for individual revisions.

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant. Article text is stored in the
database, not in files. We can't compress articles with "bzip2
/database/revisions/*.txt". Any compression of multiple revisions in the
same instance of bzip2 has to managed by MediaWiki.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Mark Williamson wrote:

>Sardinian is admittedly a dud. Sicilian is still growing steadily, and
>I'm sure they'd not appreciate the not-so-nice things you seem to
>think of them.
>
>[..]

I checked Sicilian's recent changes: in the last 7 days there are
contributions from 1 registered user and two IP addresses. The first is
someone from Australia, the other two are from USA providers. It seems
that no one from Sicily is editing those pages, and I'm betting that it
will continue that way.

PS my name is typically sicilian, since my family comes from there. This
doesn't mean that I know even how to write a word of Sicilian... read
aloud maybe, but not write.

Alfio


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>The difference is is that there is to my knowledge no such thing as a
>flying polar bear, yet there are real Friulian people with internet
>access.
>
>
>On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:06:11 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>> It's highly unlikely you'll be able to get even half of the educated
>>Friulian-speaking population editing Wikipedia. Are they potential? Yes, in
>>much the same way that I could potentially be killed by a falling polar bear
>>from the sky as I type this.
>>
>>
Actually, when polar bears encroach on human settlements it is a common
practice to airlift them back to more appropriate habitat. It seems
quite possible that in the history of the world, the number of flying
polar bears is larger than the number of websites written in (rather
than about) the Friulian language.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikitech-l] What a crook

body:
Bush's financial greed:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,752706,00.html


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Anthere-
> I think there are some risks we are not allowed to take, because their
> consequences will backfire on all projects.

True. But the least of all possible negative consequences is a temporary
loss of reputation. On the other hand, it is also one of the most
frequently cited reasons against something like Wikinews.

> The failure of one solution worked along consensus making should not
> orient us in making further decisions without at least trying to seek
> consensus.

I have tried to do this on Wikinews - the current proposal is very
different from what I originally suggested. Consensus seeking is good.
Forcing it, requiring it, as the only way forward, is not.

> I am glad to hear that any further projects or rules you will propose
> will not be voted on simple majority rule. I was not asking for more.

The rules for starting new projects have to be ultimately defined by the
board. This is one of the decisions which are clearly within the board's
authority and mission. Whatever rules the board agrees on - in consensus
or through a vote -, I will naturally respect. I hope that the Wikinews
proposal will serve as a lesson for defining these rules.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [Foundation-l] spreading firefox

body:
Okay, you're right. Make that Wikimedia, then. My message remains the
same. I just default to thinking about Wikipedia when I read the
mailing lists. =\
--Slowking Man

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 07:03:50 -0500, Anthony DiPierro
<anthonydipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikipedia exists to write an encyclopedia, not to distribute and/or
> > advocate open source software.
>
> This isn't the Wikipedia mailing list, though.


subject: [Foundation-l] spreading firefox


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
What about garage bands? Vanity conlangs and programming languages? Etc, etc.

-- ambi

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:33:04 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards
<marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> only to biography. I don't see the connection at all.
> I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> artwork, or other things.
>
>
>
> Mark
>
> --- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
> > Then I believe both of you have just admitted that
> > "notability" is a
> > valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After all,
> > just try reading the
> > definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
> > linked to.
> >
> > John Lee
> > ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> >
> > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> > > I see nothing wrong with his position.  There are
> > multiple deletion
> > > criteria available.  Each has its own definition.
> > We can define a
> > > vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
> > self-glorification.
> > > Verifiability is a different and independent
> > criterion.  Using the
> > > description of one criterion to determine the
> > applicability of a
> > > different one is illogical.
> > >
> > > Ec
> > >
> > > John Lee wrote:
> > >
> > >> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
> > pages be eligible for
> > >> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> > verifiable and factual?
> > >> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman because
> > *we get 100%
> > >> verifiable articles such as vanity pages which
> > are deleted*. You
> > >> argue in favour of their deletion, because they
> > are vanity pages -
> > >> what constitutes a vanity page? A page written by
> > someone seeking
> > >> glorification? But, why, the information's
> > verifiable! Isn't
> > >> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human
> > knowledge? I honestly
> > >> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I say,
> > hypocritical - stance
> > >> on this.
> > >>
> > >> John Lee
> > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >>
> > >> Mark Richards wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> It's a straw man because you are taking the case
> > in
> > >>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
> > >>> schools, we will have to keep an article on each
> > >>> school band member.
> > >>>
> > >>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> > articles,
> > >>> and to the extent that we have a problem with
> > them,
> > >>> they have been deleted as vanity.
> > >>>
> > >>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
> > some
> > >>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
> > cheerleaders or
> > >>> dead cats.
> > >>>
> > >>> If I have presented my case as an extreme one,
> > then I
> > >>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
> > >>> support an article on each high school band
> > member. I
> > >>> doubt that you could really write a verifiable
> > and
> > >>> factual article on them that was not a vanity
> > page
> > >>> anyway.
> > >>>
> > >>> It's not that these people are not notable, they
> > >>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
> > that
> > >>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
> > proposing to
> > >>> remove this criteria for deletion.
> > >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews

body:
Fred-
> Significant flaws have been pointed out. Legal exposure

You fail to recognize all efforts that have been made to address this very
problem. The issue has been discussed in much detail, both on this mailing
list and on the wiki. A legal vetting process is part of the basic
requirements of the Wikinews proposal. Legal counsel will be sought on
controversial issues.

What is and isn't a flaw is often a matter of opinion. I simply disagree
with you on the level of risk and the potential remedies.

> On controversial issues Wikipedia itself is
> often unable to realize in NPOV in practice. In the news context it is dead
> certain we will not; experienced news organizations employing trained
> journalists don't and there is no rational basis for supposing we will.

NPOV is an ideal, it is not a binary. Meeting certain formal requirements,
such as all opinions being attributed, is relatively easy. The issue of
balance is much trickier. It is not desirable for us to add off-topic
"fluff" to a story simply to make it appear more balanced. More so than
the internal factual balance of an article we will have to keep an eye on
the overall balance of the site, and the visibility of the stories.

"Experience" in the context of traditional news organizations increasingly
means "experience at concealing propaganda" as investigative journalism
becomes a rarity and many news organizations deliberately instruct their
employees to violate neutrality. The Iraq war was a good example for this
violation of neutrality as "embedded journalists" spread their verbal
ejaculate all over the papers and TV screens, repeating Pentagon
propaganda like the priests in the Middle Ages repeated the Church
position on the pulpit.

Wikinews is truly indepedent, the process is egalitarian, neutrality is
non-negotiable, and the contributors come from many more different
backgrounds than those to standard news media. Thus, there is very much a
"rational basis" for supposing we can do a better job than mainstream
media on this point.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews


from_name: Stephan Walter

subject: [Wikitech-l] wiki->XML - what's the current state?

body:
Hi,

I'd like to join the development of the wiki2xml parser, and especially
using the xml to generate LaTeX, PDF, etc. There seems to be a lot of
different projects about this, perhaps someone could give me a hint on
where to join or which projects have died?

Timwi's parser at http://timwi.dyndns.org/wiki/tmp.php (offline right
now). I suppose that is the same as in CVS/flexbisonparse, is this
correct? This project seems to be quite active, is it going to be
included in mediawiki any time soon?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_DTD - quite comprehensive draft
for a DTD, but is there some sort of implementation?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_lexer - ???

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/XML_export - ???

The background for my interest is that I'm the author of the wikipdf
script at http://wiki.auf-trag.de/ which is written in python. A lot of
people are asking me about new features or bugfixes, but re-inventing
the wheel for every feature in mediawiki is really a pain, and the code
is already a big mess. So I'd really like to help develop a wiki->xml
parser. I'm no expert in php, but I have some knowledge in lex and yacc.

Regards,
Stephan


from_name: phil hunt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compendium

body:
On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:04:13 -0700, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>> Another interesting exercise is to look at the 1911 encyclopedia
>> articles. Hundreds of obscure personages of ancient Rome each
>> have their own article, carefully documented and cited, but there
>> is no article for Standard Oil; it is briefly described in
>> Rockefeller's bio, and under Trusts, but there is no encyclopedic
>> description of the company itself, and ditto for the many other
>> companies of the time. Despite the evidence all around them that
>> corporations had come to be a significant part of their world,
>> it seems that the 1911EBers had the idea that corporations were
>> somehow "unencyclopedic", and to us today it looks like an odd
>> oversight in Britannica's coverage.
>
>In their British Empire-centric view, the EB editors of 1911 looked
>backward to empires of the past (especially Rome), and it's not
>surprising that they didn't recognize the empires of the future that
>would displace them. At the time, the concept of a commercial
>corporation in most cases was still strongly tied to the individuals who
>organized them, often as family firms, so it probably didn't seem
>worthwhile to create another article that would simply duplicate
>information already covered. Had they been using a wiki, they probably
>would have created [[Standard Oil]] as a redirect to [[John D.
>Rockefeller]].

They also probably thought commerce was below them.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews

body:
Fred-
> It isn't "controversial issues" that will sink you. It's the odd mention of
> someone, perhaps mistaken identity, a image on the wrong story, etc.

As I've already explained to you, Wikipedia is vulnerable to the same
thing. Legal defense is something we need for all of our projects due to
the very nature of wikis.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
Anthony DiPierro a ?crit:

> The foundation doesn't run on consensus.  The bylaws don't require the Board
> to make decisions by consensus, and the Board isn't elected by consensus.
> In fact, 4/5 of the Board (all but Angela) was installed without even a
> *majority* support, though it is nearly certain that Jimmy Wales would have
> received a consensus support.
>
> Anthony

Nod.

Being elected without *majority* support even happen to the greatest
presidents...

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


body:
He does? Well, either way he speaks Sicilian and is of full Sicilian ancestry.

I'm pretty sure Antonino Russo is actually in Sicily, and I know many
others from linguasiciliana that are interested definitely reside in
Sicily.

It's not that few people want to contribute, it's that Wikipedia is
apparently difficult for them to understand how to use, and about
twice as many people appear to want to help with it as actually edit
it, however Pippu is trying to fix that.

mw

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:30:44 +0100 (MET), Alfio Puglisi
<puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Caru Alfiu,
> >
> >Giuseppe d'Angelo is a Sicilian expat in Australia,
>
> Actually he says to be born in Australia
>
> >I have invited a couple of Sicilians from it.wikipedia to contribute
> >to the Sicilian Wikipedia but so far I have produced no results.
> >
> >Currently, the Sicilian Wikipedia is being discussed extensively at
> >the forum "linguasiciliana", and although it has attracted the
> >interest of many, so far only a few have actually contributed.
>
> I'm not surprised that few people want to contribute, but I wish the
> Sicilian wikipedia good luck anyway :-)
>
>
>
> Alfio
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
The two are not comparable as humans, polar bears, and human
airlifting of polar bears have all existed since long before the
Internet.

Plus, the original comparison was regarding polar bears falling on a
specific point.

The number of polar bears that have fallen from the sky in history is
surely much much much lower than the number of Friulian-language
online content.

mw

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 12:57:20 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>
> >The difference is is that there is to my knowledge no such thing as a
> >flying polar bear, yet there are real Friulian people with internet
> >access.
> >
> >
> >On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:06:11 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> It's highly unlikely you'll be able to get even half of the educated
> >>Friulian-speaking population editing Wikipedia. Are they potential? Yes, in
> >>much the same way that I could potentially be killed by a falling polar bear
> >>from the sky as I type this.
> >>
> >>
> Actually, when polar bears encroach on human settlements it is a common
> practice to airlift them back to more appropriate habitat. It seems
> quite possible that in the history of the world, the number of flying
> polar bears is larger than the number of websites written in (rather
> than about) the Friulian language.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
I have no problem with halloween decorations, but is it even
widespread in France, other than perhaps due to recent
internationalism?

I know that in the US, many people find halloween offensive because
they believe it's satanic (ha!), and for that reason I would not
advocate using a halloween theme on en.wikipedia; however this might
be different in the francophonie.

mw

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:34:38 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Two years ago, the french wikipedia celebrated its
> upgrading on phase III software.
> We spent the day hunting bugs, fixing user accounts
> and generally making everything work again.
>
> Two years later, we celebrate a rather happy time.
>
> Little vandalism, no conflict, nearly 60 000 articles,
> new local associations, as well as pumpkins and
> cooking art on
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettes_du_mois#Octobre_2004
>
> (for all those complaining, we also celebrate
> Christmas, end of Ramadan, Carnaval and any other nice
> special days you can think of)
>
> Happy Halloween to Kira as well ;-)
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
wait, what do you mean by "new local associations"? If you mean
regional Wikipedia groups in France and elsewhere in the
French-speaking world...

http://br.wikipedia.org/ http://oc.wikipedia.org/
http://wa.wikipedia.org/ http://ca.wikipedia.org/
http://als.wikipedia.org/ http://lu.wikipedia.org/
http://ht.wikipedia.org/ http://mg.wikipedia.org/ ...and other
languages spoken along with French in parts of the Francophonie (I'm
not sure what else I should add to the list)

Many smaller Wikipedias have a problem with awareness, and those
capable of editing them may be editing a different Wikipedia in
complete ignorance of their existance.

mark

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:39:12 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have no problem with halloween decorations, but is it even
> widespread in France, other than perhaps due to recent
> internationalism?
>
> I know that in the US, many people find halloween offensive because
> they believe it's satanic (ha!), and for that reason I would not
> advocate using a halloween theme on en.wikipedia; however this might
> be different in the francophonie.
>
> mw
>
>
>
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:34:38 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Two years ago, the french wikipedia celebrated its
> > upgrading on phase III software.
> > We spent the day hunting bugs, fixing user accounts
> > and generally making everything work again.
> >
> > Two years later, we celebrate a rather happy time.
> >
> > Little vandalism, no conflict, nearly 60 000 articles,
> > new local associations, as well as pumpkins and
> > cooking art on
> >
> > http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettes_du_mois#Octobre_2004
> >
> > (for all those complaining, we also celebrate
> > Christmas, end of Ramadan, Carnaval and any other nice
> > special days you can think of)
> >
> > Happy Halloween to Kira as well ;-)
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


from_name: John Lee

body:
It's highly unlikely you'll be able to get even half of the educated
Friulian-speaking population editing Wikipedia. Are they potential? Yes,
in much the same way that I could potentially be killed by a falling
polar bear from the sky as I type this.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Mark Williamson wrote:

>>>Also, my definition of "potential contributors" means all the people
>>>who speak the language and have Internet access, which in the case of
>>>Friulian is well over 5.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>What fraction of the world's English speaking population is currently
>>involved in the en:Wikipedia or any other English language sister project?
>>
>>
>
>How is that relevant? We are talking about "potential contributors".
>
>
>


from_name: Peter Danenberg

subject:
[Wikitech-l] amount of availible (LA)TEX commands in
	<math>-formulas

body:
> I'm pretty annoyed about the limited possibilities of typesetting
> mathematical formulas within the <math>-tag.

     Do  you  mind  testing our implementation of AMS-Latex,
Nick? We've employed the whole repertoire:

     http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Math

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:56:10 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wikinews?

*http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews

> Where is this vote?

*http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote

> Where was it publicized?

*http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Goings-on
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Goings-on
*http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E8%BF%9B%E5%B1%95
*http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_petit_rapporteur
*http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-October/001250.html
*Various blogs:
http://technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeta.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWikinews
*Probably other places too.

Angela.


body:
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004, Mark Williamson wrote:

>Caru Alfiu,
>
>Giuseppe d'Angelo is a Sicilian expat in Australia,

Actually he says to be born in Australia

>I have invited a couple of Sicilians from it.wikipedia to contribute
>to the Sicilian Wikipedia but so far I have produced no results.
>
>Currently, the Sicilian Wikipedia is being discussed extensively at
>the forum "linguasiciliana", and although it has attracted the
>interest of many, so far only a few have actually contributed.

I'm not surprised that few people want to contribute, but I wish the
Sicilian wikipedia good luck anyway :-)

Alfio


from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: Re: NerdyPC RSS

body:
----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Unfortunately, the NerdyPC RSS feed doesn't really fit the format of
TekNews; for one thing, there is no description in the RSS for news.

--------- Original Message --------

> Hello,
>
> Your website http://teknews.net is great and I love it!
>
> I maintain a wiki named NerdyPC at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org and it is
>
> a
>
> knowledge base and news site about Information Technology. A wiki is a
> website where almost anyone can edit. The articles are reviewed to ensure
> that the content is of high quality.
>
> Example article: http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/AMD_Opteron
>
> Example news: http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/News2004:Mozparty
>
> It would be great if you could put NerdyPC in your RSS aggregator.
>
> The NerdyPC RSS feed is located at:
>
>
http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=r
ss


body:
On Sunday 31 October 2004 21:15, Mark Williamson wrote:
> there are real Friulian people with internet access.
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:06:11 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >  It's highly unlikely you'll be able to get even half of the educated
> > Friulian-speaking population editing Wikipedia.

I think a Friulian Wikipedia should exist and I am sure you will find enough
Friulians to edit it. There are surely many people who know the language and
want it to survive and if they learn about Friulian Wikipedia they will
contribute.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: N Niedermowwe

subject: [Wikitech-l] amount of availible (LA)TEX commands in <math>-formulas

body:
Hi everyone,
I'm pretty annoyed about the limited possibilities of typesetting
mathematical formulas within the <math>-tag. It is not possible to
create any more complicated formulas which, I think, is essential for
further developing the maths section and not only giving definitions but
also proofs. How come so many commands are disabled? Also, where can I
find a list of all commands currently availibe? \setminus works but isn't
mentioned on any of the formula help-pages.
Ncik


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: amount of availible (LA)TEX commands in
	<math>-formulas

body:
> How and why are the commands limited anyway ?

     Different  security  models:  Texvc's "white list" sup-
ports only which commands as have explicitly  been  compiled
in;  WikiTeX' "black list", on the other hand, excludes dan-
gerous commands.

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Broken articles in the database of cs: Wikipedia

body:
Done.

	JeLuF

On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 09:15:02PM +0200, Petr Kadlec wrote:
> Hi!
>
> After downloading the cs: database dump and importing it to my local
> MediaWiki installation, I played a little with the database and I have
> found some problems. We have already known about some of them, some
> others were quite surprising. We would like to clean the database, but
> I don't know if this is the right place to ask.
>
> The problems are:
>
> Article named "kniha_nahr??vek" in Wikipedia namespace -- note the
> first lowercase letter, which makes the article inaccessible. This was
> a badly named entry in LanguageCs.php corresponding to the "Upload
> log". Because of that, there are many duplicate copies of the article,
> cur_ids: 237, 238, 365, 367, 457, 459, 461, 463, 487, 528, 529, 538,
> 643, 654, 656, 689, 691, 693, 698, 700, 702, 704, 708, 710, 712, 714.
> We would like to get them all deleted.
>
> Article named "kniha_nahr??vek_" in Wikipedia namespace -- in addition
> to the lowercase letter, there is a space at the end. cur_id = 836,
> the article should also be deleted.
>
> " Psan??_dat" in Wikipedia namespace -- beginning with a space, which
> makes it also inaccessible (automatic redirection to "Psan?? dat"),
> cur_id = 1265. The article should be also deleted.
>
> Duplicate "Sirot????_str??nky" in Wikipedia namespace, cur_ids 716, 733.
> One or both of them should be deleted.
>
> Duplicate "26._????jna" in the main namespace, cur_ids 3326, 3327. One
> of them should be deleted (or both, it is a simple redirect that could
> be simply recreated).
>
> "Wikipedie:Co_je_??l??nek" in the main namespace (cur_id = 49) -- note
> that the czech name of Wikipedia namespace is "Wikipedie". So that its
> name collides with the namespace name (it was probably created when
> the namespace name was not yet translated), and its name is invalid.
> The article has been deleted by a sysop, but without real success, it
> still appears in e.g. Special:Uncategorizedpages etc. The article
> should be deleted.
>
> "" (empty name) in Media namespace (cur_id = 3614) -- it should
> obviously be removed.
>
> Could someone with database access please fix those problems? Or, if
> there is a better place to ask these requests, just tell me.
>
> Thanks,
> [[cs:User:Mormegil|Petr Kadlec]] (sysop/bureaucrat on cs: Wikipedia)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Uploading MIDI files

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 09:54:28AM +0200, Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Oct 2004, Mikhail Abraham wrote:
>
> >I have been directed by User:IMSoP to contact this mailing list in regards
> >to uploading MIDI files for use on wikipedia. See:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Sound#Trying_to_upload_MIDIs
> >
> >At least two wikipedians (including myself) would like to be able to add and
> >use MIDI files on wikipedia, as was the capability in the past. We believe
> >they are a common format and allow for smaller file sizes. It has been
> >suggested by User:Raul654 that MIDI files are unsuitable because their
> >performance is unpredictable, and by User:Camembert that they are not
> >currently allowed for security issues.
>
> I strongly support the use of MIDI files. Is a very common standard that
> almost every computer out there can play, and can be easily converted into
> a staff. It's optimal to implement things like national anthems and song
> snippets.

Is there any easy way to verify that a file is a MIDI file?
We only allow uploads of files for which we can verify that the content
matches the file suffix.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
Make up? I'm not sure I understand you. I'm not going
to argue whether or not my usage of the word biography
was entirely correct, the vantiy page meaning is
clear, they cover details of people's personal lives.
I don't really understand you point.
Mark

--- Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> "A page dedicated to a girlfriend, a family pet, or
> a social group at a
> high school can also be a vanity page." -
> [[Wikipedia:Vanity page]]
>
> I'd take that as pretty good evidence that vanity
> pages aren't just
> biography, actually.
>
> Did you have any other policy you want to make up,
> or are you done for
> this debate?
>
> -Snowspinner
>
>
> On Oct 30, 2004, at 4:33 PM, Mark Richards wrote:
>
> > The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> > only to biography. I don't see the connection at
> all.
> > I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> > biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> > artwork, or other things.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Then I believe both of you have just admitted
> that
> >> "notability" is a
> >> valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After all,
> >> just try reading the
> >> definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
> >> linked to.
> >>
> >> John Lee
> >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> >>
> >> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>
> >>> I see nothing wrong with his position.  There
> are
> >> multiple deletion
> >>> criteria available.  Each has its own
> definition.
> >> We can define a
> >>> vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
> >> self-glorification.
> >>> Verifiability is a different and independent
> >> criterion.  Using the
> >>> description of one criterion to determine the
> >> applicability of a
> >>> different one is illogical.
> >>>
> >>> Ec
> >>>
> >>> John Lee wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
> >> pages be eligible for
> >>>> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> >> verifiable and factual?
> >>>> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman
> because
> >> *we get 100%
> >>>> verifiable articles such as vanity pages which
> >> are deleted*. You
> >>>> argue in favour of their deletion, because they
> >> are vanity pages -
> >>>> what constitutes a vanity page? A page written
> by
> >> someone seeking
> >>>> glorification? But, why, the information's
> >> verifiable! Isn't
> >>>> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human
> >> knowledge? I honestly
> >>>> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I say,
> >> hypocritical - stance
> >>>> on this.
> >>>>
> >>>> John Lee
> >>>> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> >>>>
> >>>> Mark Richards wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> It's a straw man because you are taking the
> case
> >> in
> >>>>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
> >>>>> schools, we will have to keep an article on
> each
> >>>>> school band member.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> >> articles,
> >>>>> and to the extent that we have a problem with
> >> them,
> >>>>> they have been deleted as vanity.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
> >> some
> >>>>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
> >> cheerleaders or
> >>>>> dead cats.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If I have presented my case as an extreme one,
> >> then I
> >>>>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do
> not
> >>>>> support an article on each high school band
> >> member. I
> >>>>> doubt that you could really write a verifiable
> >> and
> >>>>> factual article on them that was not a vanity
> >> page
> >>>>> anyway.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It's not that these people are not notable,
> they
> >>>>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
> >> that
> >>>>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
> >> proposing to
> >>>>> remove this criteria for deletion.
> >>>>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We
> finish.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
Garage bands would mostly seem to be covered by vanity
pages, I don't know what a vanity conlang is, and
programming languages? If they are real, I would
probably keep them.
Mark

--- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> What about garage bands? Vanity conlangs and
> programming languages? Etc, etc.
>
> -- ambi
>
>
> On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:33:04 -0700 (PDT), Mark
> Richards
> <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> > only to biography. I don't see the connection at
> all.
> > I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> > biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> > artwork, or other things.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Then I believe both of you have just admitted
> that
> > > "notability" is a
> > > valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After
> all,
> > > just try reading the
> > > definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
> > > linked to.
> > >
> > > John Lee
> > > ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >
> > > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > >
> > > > I see nothing wrong with his position.  There
> are
> > > multiple deletion
> > > > criteria available.  Each has its own
> definition.
> > > We can define a
> > > > vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
> > > self-glorification.
> > > > Verifiability is a different and independent
> > > criterion.  Using the
> > > > description of one criterion to determine the
> > > applicability of a
> > > > different one is illogical.
> > > >
> > > > Ec
> > > >
> > > > John Lee wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
> > > pages be eligible for
> > > >> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> > > verifiable and factual?
> > > >> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman
> because
> > > *we get 100%
> > > >> verifiable articles such as vanity pages
> which
> > > are deleted*. You
> > > >> argue in favour of their deletion, because
> they
> > > are vanity pages -
> > > >> what constitutes a vanity page? A page
> written by
> > > someone seeking
> > > >> glorification? But, why, the information's
> > > verifiable! Isn't
> > > >> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of
> human
> > > knowledge? I honestly
> > > >> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I
> say,
> > > hypocritical - stance
> > > >> on this.
> > > >>
> > > >> John Lee
> > > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > > >>
> > > >> Mark Richards wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>> It's a straw man because you are taking the
> case
> > > in
> > > >>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we
> keep
> > > >>> schools, we will have to keep an article on
> each
> > > >>> school band member.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> > > articles,
> > > >>> and to the extent that we have a problem
> with
> > > them,
> > > >>> they have been deleted as vanity.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
> > > some
> > > >>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
> > > cheerleaders or
> > > >>> dead cats.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> If I have presented my case as an extreme
> one,
> > > then I
> > > >>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do
> not
> > > >>> support an article on each high school band
> > > member. I
> > > >>> doubt that you could really write a
> verifiable
> > > and
> > > >>> factual article on them that was not a
> vanity
> > > page
> > > >>> anyway.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> It's not that these people are not notable,
> they
> > > >>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
> > > that
> > > >>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
> > > proposing to
> > > >>> remove this criteria for deletion.
> > > >>
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We
> finish.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
As usual, more strawmen. No one is suggesting listing
these things.

Let me say that again. No one is suggesting listing
these things.

Mark

--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Websites with little traffic?  Every blog in the
> world?
>
> RickK
>
> Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> What about garage bands? Vanity conlangs and
> programming languages? Etc, etc.
>
> -- ambi
>
>
> On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:33:04 -0700 (PDT), Mark
> Richards
> wrote:
> > The vanity criteria are well established and apply
> > only to biography. I don't see the connection at
> all.
> > I oppose taking criteria that were designed for
> > biography and applying them to places, buildings,
> > artwork, or other things.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --- John Lee wrote:
> >
> > > Then I believe both of you have just admitted
> that
> > > "notability" is a
> > > valid criteria for inclusion/deletion. After
> all,
> > > just try reading the
> > > definition of vanity according to Wikipedia Mark
> > > linked to.
> > >
> > > John Lee
> > > ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >
> > > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > >
> > > > I see nothing wrong with his position. There
> are
> > > multiple deletion
> > > > criteria available. Each has its own
> definition.
> > > We can define a
> > > > vanity page in terms of self-promotion or
> > > self-glorification.
> > > > Verifiability is a different and independent
> > > criterion. Using the
> > > > description of one criterion to determine the
> > > applicability of a
> > > > different one is illogical.
> > > >
> > > > Ec
> > > >
> > > > John Lee wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity
> > > pages be eligible for
> > > >> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> > > verifiable and factual?
> > > >> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman
> because
> > > *we get 100%
> > > >> verifiable articles such as vanity pages
> which
> > > are deleted*. You
> > > >> argue in favour of their deletion, because
> they
> > > are vanity pages -
> > > >> what constitutes a vanity page? A page
> written by
> > > someone seeking
> > > >> glorification? But, why, the information's
> > > verifiable! Isn't
> > > >> Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of
> human
> > > knowledge? I honestly
> > > >> don't understand your paradoxical - dare I
> say,
> > > hypocritical - stance
> > > >> on this.
> > > >>
> > > >> John Lee
> > > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > > >>
> > > >> Mark Richards wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>> It's a straw man because you are taking the
> case
> > > in
> > > >>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we
> keep
> > > >>> schools, we will have to keep an article on
> each
> > > >>> school band member.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> > > articles,
> > > >>> and to the extent that we have a problem
> with
> > > them,
> > > >>> they have been deleted as vanity.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with
> > > some
> > > >>> hypothetical deluge of articles about
> > > cheerleaders or
> > > >>> dead cats.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> If I have presented my case as an extreme
> one,
> > > then I
> > > >>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do
> not
> > > >>> support an article on each high school band
> > > member. I
> > > >>> doubt that you could really write a
> verifiable
> > > and
> > > >>> factual article on them that was not a
> vanity
> > > page
> > > >>> anyway.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> It's not that these people are not notable,
> they
> > > >>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact
> > > that
> > > >>> these would be vanity articles, I am not
> > > proposing to
> > > >>> remove this criteria for deletion.
> > > >>
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We
> finish.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We
> finish.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: Usability (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Compendium)

body:
Aha, perhaps something new in this debate - I like
this - is 'usability' something that we can agree on,
a perhaps move forward with?
Mark

--- "Eric B. and Rakim" <eric_b_and_rakim at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> >An ironic thing about schools vs species is that I
> could write an
> >article about a species that has only ever been
> observed by one
> >scientist, has only one paper about it in an
> obscure journal, and
> >only one specimen in a jar somewhere, and yet no
> one would dream of
> >deleting the article for non-notability (in fact we
> have a number
> >of such articles already), while an article about
> the largest high
> >school in Cleveland would probably cause a furious
> VfD debate. Is
> >the obscure species, which is of interest to maybe
> a few dozen
> >specialists, really more notable than the high
> school and its
> >thousands of students?
>
> This is very interesting. I think it proves that the
> notability criterium is
> out of whack. It seems like when "the deletionists"
> say "notability" of
> information, they instead mean "usability" of
> information. Because noone can
> claim that one specimen of one species documented in
> one academic journal is
> more notable than any high school in Cleveland.
> However, the information
> about the specimen might well be more useful than
> that about the school....
>
> .... to biologists!
>
> But not to anyone else. Is it so that the deletions
> is a symptom of the fact
> that many wikipedians see the target audience as
> something else than many
> other wikipedians see it? If we assume that
> Wikipedia HAS a limited number
> of target audiences, then I can understand that
> people want to delete
> factual, verifiable information. It doesn't make
> sense to have an article
> about a school in Cleveland if Wikipedia's target
> audience is not
> Clevelanders (or foreign exchange students..) It
> also makes sense to delete
> [[Melissa Doll]]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Doll if
> Wikipedia's
> target audience is not fans of Melissa Doll/people
> interested in porn
> actors.
>
> And so on. So maybe Wikipedia's *only* target
> audience is the target
> audience that Encyclopaedia Brittanica has. But I
> don't think so. I'm a
> member of the community and I has a say in what goes
> into Wikipedia too. So
> does everyone else that has ever written something
> in Wikipedia. We are all
> authors and contributors.
>
> For every article ever witten someone has thought "I
> know this and I think
> this is useful for someone else." Which means that
> everything ever written
> has passed someones test of usability. That doesn't
> mean that it has to be
> included in Wikipedia, but I think more thought
> should be spent on that fact
> than currently is.
>
> To summarize. Don't delete articles because they
> aren't "notable", delete
> articles because they aren't usable. Delete
> information about someones bank
> account number because, while it might be verifiable
> at an ATM machine, it
> isn't usable to a large enough audience. Keep
> information about Cleveland's
> high schools because that information is usable to
> thousands of students.
> Delete information about some random street because
> nothing interesting has
> ever happened there. Keep information about US
> President's dogs because
> thousands of people do find that information useful.
>
> -- Eric B. and Rakim
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
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> Search!
> http://search.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
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>

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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Uploading MIDI files

body:
Jens-
> Is there any easy way to verify that a file is a MIDI file?
> We only allow uploads of files for which we can verify that the content
> matches the file suffix.

The Unix file command supports many file formats, including MIDI files:

moeller at peace:~/projekte/wiki$ file Soundtrack.mid
Soundtrack.mid: Standard MIDI data (format 1) using 12 tracks at 1/120
moeller at peace:~/projekte/wiki$ mv Soundtrack.mid xyue3r923
moeller at peace:~/projekte/wiki$ file xyue3r923
xyue3r923: Standard MIDI data (format 1) using 12 tracks at 1/120

file uses header information ("magic numbers") to determine the file type.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Matthias Pospiech

body:
Peter Danenberg wrote:

>> I'm pretty annoyed about the limited possibilities of typesetting
>> mathematical formulas within the <math>-tag.
>
>
>      Do  you  mind  testing our implementation of AMS-Latex,
> Nick? We've employed the whole repertoire:

How and why are the commands limited anyway ?

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