subject: [WikiEN-l] What to do with $1.000.000

body:
Also, how would we determine who to give out the password to? I don't think
they'd let us put it on the Internet unless we're willing to pay for
database access to 6.5 billion people.

On 12/17/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/15/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I remember a post way back about what the Wikimedia Foundation should do
> > in
> > case it receives a large grant or donation.
> > For the past few days I've been collecting data for a number of new
> > articles, and I realized how lucky I am.
> > A lot of people don't have access to things like Pubmed and LexisNexis
> and
> > those are particularly useful in citing articles.
> > Buying a set of books and making their contents available is nice, but
> > still
> > growing databases of information are more useful, especially now we
> should
> > focus more on sources instead of new content as Jimbo said at the
> > Wikimania
> > conference. As soon as I finish my study, my access to those databases
> > will
> > cease to exist. I don't know the numbers, but perhaps a number of
> > Wikipedians, say those in a referencing taskforce, should get access to
> > such
> > services with the help of the foundation...
> >
> > Mgm
>
>
> One note -- for those who don't know, PubMed (in a slightly less fancy
> version) is free!
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
> it's pretty much *the* database to go to for medical research information,
> at least for English speakers. Agricola and Eric, for agriculture and
> education respectively, are also large U.S. government-produced databases
> and are also free:
> http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/
> and http://www.eric.ed.gov/
>
> Sadly, Lexis-Nexis and most other commercially-produced research databases
> are very very very unfree (and take up the bulk of your library's
> purchasing
> budget, generally).
>
> I think trying to provide source access is a great side project for the
> foundation. However, there's a bit of a problem. Most databases like this
> are priced based on the size of the potential user base -- e.g., a school
> with 50,000 students will pay more than a school with 3000 students; a
> large
> law firm pays more than a small one. Now someone just has to figure out a
> good formula for the size of the potential user base for WMF-sponsored
> databases... (or a way to restrict the user base to a reasonable number)
> :)  In the meantime, I and others with access will help when we can:
> [[Wikipedia:Newspapers and magazines request service]]
>
> -- phoebe
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> there is
> a legal issue about which there are two popular
> opinions, say A and B.
>
> so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
> something like: "The consensus amongst legal
> scholars is that opinion A is correct"  (or similar),

Question: what results, if any, were retruned for Opinion B?

Comment: "The consensus amongst legal scholars is that opinion A is most
current", would meet both NOR & NPOV.

nobs


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > From: zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com>
>
> > Now I log into a well-known depository of legal
> > journals and search for this issue.  I get about 20 hits.
> > Then I look at each of these hits (articles published
> > in peer-reviewed law journals) and in all cases the
> > writer gives opinion A.
> >
> > Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
> > something like: "The consensus amongst legal
> > scholars is that opinion A is correct"  (or similar),
> > with a footnote stating the evidence.
> >
> > Can I do that?
>
> The point is, _you probably don't need to_. If your opinion is firmly
> founded on facts, there's no need to state it at all. You don't need
> to spell it out for the reader. You can just say "All men are mortal.
> Socrates is a man," and leave it at that.
>
> Sidestep the issue by stating the facts _without_ explicitly stating
> my interpretation. Pick a couple of the best or most-respected
> journals, or the articles that state opinion A in the flattest and
> most succinct way. In the article, put "According to [bigshot author]
> in [leading journal] says 'A is absolutely correct because blah
> blah,' while [distinguished writer] in [respected journal] says
> 'Because of compelling reasons yada yada, A is correct.'"
>
> In the footnote, after citing the sources actually quoted, if you
> think it is important you could add "other sources with similar
> opinions are" and cite and quote a couple more of the best.

Yes, this is a better approach. If one has 20 good sources backing a
view, and in particular if one has no good sources opposing the view,
then it is actually *better* to state these things as simple fact,
with the sources in the footnote, avoiding the original research of
claiming there is a "legal consensus".

Jay.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Legacy non-free images (non-commercial,
	non-third-party use, etc)

body:
On 12/17/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> There are some old images (pre-2005) which were uploaded before we had
> some clear rules on free images and do not allow commercial use,
> third-party use, cannot be modified or have other restrictions.
>
> Some are replaceable, some are not. I propose that we should put a
> bot to replace those tags with "fairuse" and the images which
> are replaceable should be deleted, while the rest should be kept as
> fairuse.

People have already gone through the non-commercials and such
previously and changed all the ones they thought could be validly
claimed as fair use as fair use.

Of course it's possible that some were missed.. but I'd much rather
have some sitting around as non-commerical than have a bunch
incorectly switched to fair use.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jan-Bart de Vreede

subject: [Foundation-l] Pledge of personal commitment

body:
As required per the conflict of interest policy of the Wikimedia
Foundation, I am hereby posting the pledge of personal commitment to
foundation-l

WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC.

PLEDGE OF PERSONAL COMMITMENT

As a member of the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, I,
Jan-Bart de Vreede, am committed to Wikimedia Foundation's goal to establish
and maintain the highest level of public confidence in its
accountability. I have personally committed to follow the standards
set out below, which represent the Wikimedia Foundation's conflict of
interest policies:

I will conduct my activities with the board of trustees of Wikimedia
Foundation so that I do not advance or protect my own interests, or
the private interests of others with whom I have a relationship, in a
way that is detrimental to the interests of, or to the fundamental
mission of, Wikimedia Foundation.

In every instance in which I represent the Wikimedia Foundation, I
will conduct my activities in a manner to best promote the interests
of Wikimedia Foundation.

In all matters that come before the board of trustees for a vote that
may favorably impact my own financial interests, or the private
interests of others with whom I have a financial relationship, or any
organization of which I am a part, I will reveal that relationship and
abstain from a vote in the matter.

When a conflict of interest arises, or when a potential conflict of
interest emerges, I will promptly disclose that conflict, or potential
conflict, to the Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation and to the
Chairman of its board of trustees and seek a resolution of that issue.

Entered into on this the 17th day of December, 2006.

Jan-Bart de Vreede
Member, Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

--

I am actively involved in the Wikimedia Foundation.

You can give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia!
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising>


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
And for what it's worth now, the case has been closed.

Quoting below.

--NSLE

> This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link
> above.
>
> For misuse of his administrative tools and failure to relate appropriately
> with other administrators, MONGO is desysopped. For misuse of his
> administrative tools, as well as disruptive conduct in edit warring and
> incivility, Seabhcan is desysopped. Seabhcan is placed on standard personal
> attack parole for one year. He may be briefly blocked by any administrator
> for any edit which is deemed to be a personal attack or incivility for 24
> hours, or as much as a week for repeat offenses. Seabhcan is placed on
> standard personal attack parole for one year. He may be briefly blocked by
> any administrator for any edit which is deemed to be a personal attack or
> incivility for up to 24 hours. All blocks to be logged at
> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan#Log_of_blocks_and_bans<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan#Log_of_blocks_and_bans>
> .
>
> For the Arbitration Committee --Srikeit<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Srikeit>08:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
Just noting that one line has been removed as an error by Srikeit, in case
anyone is too lazy to check wiki.

On 17/12/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And for what it's worth now, the case has been closed.
>
> Quoting below.
>
> --NSLE
>
> > This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link
> > above.
> >
> > For misuse of his administrative tools and failure to relate
> > appropriately with other administrators, MONGO is desysopped. For misuse of
> > his administrative tools, as well as disruptive conduct in edit warring and
> > incivility, Seabhcan is desysopped. Seabhcan is placed on standard personal
> > attack parole for one year. He may be briefly blocked by any administrator
> > for any edit which is deemed to be a personal attack or incivility for up to
> > 24 hours. All blocks to be logged at
> > Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan#Log_of_blocks_and_bans<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan#Log_of_blocks_and_bans>.
> >
> >
> > For the Arbitration Committee --Srikeit<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Srikeit>08:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
> >
>
>


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
It'd be nice if we implemented something so that on each project, it would
check if the user is from the US or from a country where they have a branch
that can do tax deductability, and then put a link to tax deductability info
if they can get tax deducs.

On 12/17/06, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
> I'm happy to put the tax deductibility link back (otherwise it follows the
> original), but I found it misleading to Hungarian users, as its not clear
> if
> the tax-deductability applies in Hungary (from the help page it seems only
> in the USA, and countries with a local chapter registered as a charity is
> the case, and otherwise its not deductable).
> Bence Damokos
>
> On 12/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello
> > A comment came from a community:
> >
> >
> Talk:Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006&rcid=484233
> > ----
> > Hungarian is at hu:MediaWiki:Sitenotice, the Tax-deductibility link is
> > taken out, as it doesn't apply in Hungary.--Dami 21:12, 17 December
> > 2006 (UTC)
> > ----
> >
> > Brad, we will apprecite your comment about such localization.
> >
> > On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > Hello:
> > >
> > > Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
> > > was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> > > everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> > > exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> > > thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
> > > fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> > > http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
> > >
> > > We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> > > translation.  Please see
> > >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006
> > .
> > > We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
> > > translations put together.
> > >
> > > Stay tuned!
> > >
> > > -Brad
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > KIZU Naoko
> >   Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
> >   * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
bbatsell wrote

> If ArbCom really feels
> that the findings of fact are rock solid, then I think they need to
> explain why and respond publicly to the numerous complaints raised.

I have had some 'dscussion' of this on my Talk page. Since it instantly seemed to turn into talk about 'mitigation', I wasn't that impressed.

> As I've said numerous times, I'm aware of and fully appreciate the
> amount of private discussion that must have gone into this decision.

Well, Arbitrators are not really in a position to convince others that there is a way of working that does allow the bringing up of doubts and queries. We also cannot really make public the route leading from the facts of the case to the remedies; which is where the main burden of discussion seems actually to lie. If those not on the AC mailing list cannot or will not give us credit for knowing at least as much about the factors involved as anyone else, I doubt arguing about it will do much in that direction. What we are not going to agree to is having other 'trials' of Arbitration cases. Appeal lies to Jimbo - that's it.

As for effects on policy: Arbitration is not meant to affect settled policies at all. Decent arbitration requires the separation of doing what fits a given case, and the setting of precedents: there is therefore no default assumption that the AC operates by precedent.

> I don't know when I can
> protect or even unprotect an article anymore.

The position in general remains for admins as ever was: if you are too involved, get others to help. Page protection is a most sensitive area, because a wiki's charter is to be open.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
"Stephen Bain" wrote

> On 12/17/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
> > something like: "The consensus amongst legal
> > scholars is that opinion A is correct"  (or similar),
> > with a footnote stating the evidence.
> >
> > Can I do that?  My sources were the best that exist,
> > and everything I did can be verified easily by anyone
> > with a good library.  On the other hand, I have drawn
> > my own conclusions from these observations so
> > maybe I'm afoul of the No Original Research policy.
>
> Of course that's ok.

I think it's OK, too. We are suppoed to summarise existing knowledge: so NOR shouldn't take away the tool of giving an accurate precis. One can tweak the wording, so that 'most opinions follow that of X in [cite]' is perhaps better than 'consensus'. But I think many practical cases are like this, with a slight change of words helping out the look.

Charles

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from_name: cohesion

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/17/06, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> I know I brought up something like that once. It had almost slipped my
> mind though, but I finaly got around to submitting a "bug" request for it.
>
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8298
>
> Hope it is doable, there would be some caching issues to work out I guess.

Yes, it was you, oops! :D I'll go vote for the bug now.

Judson
[[:en:User:Cohesion]]


body:
Or we could make "man" a gender-neutral term.

On 12/17/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 17/12/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Chairwoman, grumble, grumble, grumble.
>
>
> I move that the WMF Chair henceforth be titled "The Jimbo", as befits
> non-profit royalty. Thus: your name is now Jimbo Anthere.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [18403] trunk/phase3

body:
On 12/17/06, vyznev at svn.wikimedia.org <vyznev at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Modified: trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES
> ===================================================================
> --- trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES  2006-12-17 15:53:50 UTC (rev 18402)
> +++ trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES  2006-12-17 16:51:01 UTC (rev 18403)
> @@ -336,6 +336,8 @@
>  * (bug 8274) Wrap edit tools in a <div> with a specified class
>  * Detect PHP 5.0.x 64-bit bug and abort in WebStart.php; too many things break
>    mysteriously otherwise (detection code copied from install-utils.inc)
> +* (bug 8295) Change handling of <center> tags in doBlockLevels() to match that
> +  of <div>
>
>  == Languages updated ==
>
>

In general, it's probably best if RELEASE-NOTES messages reflect
changes as visible to end users, since that's who they're there for.
The average end user isn't going to know or care what doBlockLevels()
does; they'll want a message like "Fixed handling of paragraph breaks
in <center>".  Or at least that's my view.


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] WMF mission

body:
Now the home page of its website says,
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."

Is it a final version we can call for translators (at least for website)?

Besides that, one day I found a question about that on feedback page.
An anonymous inquirer was worried if married people had no seat in the
world we've envisioned ;) It is always difficult to talk without
misunderstanding .....

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF mission


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
Original Research is also totally new ideas or concepts not published
anywhere else.

On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > OR is when you go out and test the evidence yourself. Finding sources to
> > corroborate a point is called research, not original research.
>
> No. In Wikipedia, OR is when you do the interpretation of evidence
> yourself. We should simplify the OR rule to make this clearer:
> "Wikipedians are dumb. We cannot interpret, only repeat."
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:46:53 -0800, theProject
<wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:

>How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject
>to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that
>would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic
>doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it.

Ah, well.  First up, the editor who posted the verifiable info was not
in the UK, so was, as you suggest, probably safe, but Lauder-Frost had
solicitors' letters sent to at least one editor threatening legal
action, and that's why Sussexman is indef-blocked.  It's a it like the
Scientologists - the threat of all that cost and aggravation can be
enough.

However... Brad's opinion (and that of several others who know the law
in the UK) was that the claim was bogus anyway.  Plus, of course, the
Foundation is not in the UK.  But these things can have degrees of
enforceability outside of their home territory, depending on the
involvement of other parties.  I think Lauder-Frost would first of all
have to take down the London Gazette, which contains official records
which corroborate the events, and that's not happening any time soon.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
> something like: "The consensus amongst legal
> scholars is that opinion A is correct"  (or similar),
> with a footnote stating the evidence.
>
> Can I do that?  My sources were the best that exist,
> and everything I did can be verified easily by anyone
> with a good library.  On the other hand, I have drawn
> my own conclusions from these observations so
> maybe I'm afoul of the No Original Research policy.

Of course that's ok. Original research in that scenario would be to
say "the consensus among legal scholars is A, but they haven't
considered C, and therefore D is the correct position."

Original research is about posing new theories, or making new
inferences, or drawing new conclusions that are your own opinions and
involve some element of analysis or synthesis. Fundamentally, original
research is introducing your own original thought into articles.

Here you're simply stating an obvious fact: all sources support A.
Drawing conclusions from this in a way that amounts to original
thought would be something like "all sources support A and as a result
E, F and G".

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
On 12/17/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 12/17/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Our donation history is available on
> > http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
>
> This is an excellent system. Can/do we have a top donor list?
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

We do have http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors , but that seems
to be more for major contributions in general, and something specifically
for this drive with a lower threshold would be a great idea, I think.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Please bear with me, as I am still learning where to respond to these
discussions so as to insert it into the proper position in the train of
conversation. Here, I want to respond to Steve & Timwi. Both of you seem to
support my original idea of placing a main Category & a subcategory into the
same article so that the article appears in both lists. Thank you for that.
Getting back to the basic argument & to stay grounded in this, what is the
argument some still have against, say, adding the Category: Cancer deaths &
the Sub-category: Lung cancer into the same Article? OR, somehow having the
software be able to gather all of the articles with the various cancer
subcats. into one master Cancer deaths list? Forgive me if I seem to be
repeating old material, but, I believe these basic issues need to be kept
out in front.

Thanks,

Marc

> From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:29:01 +1100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hello
>
>>> I don't think anyone can reasonably deny that this is strictly an
>>> improvement, no matter how little. Someone who *really wants* the entire
>>> list of X'es can now have it, and someone who doesn't can still browse
>>> the sub-categories as before. Nothing has been taken away.
>>>
>>> Timwi
>
> Yes, this would be good. But better navigation for categories with
> large numbers of items would be good. Thousands per page if
> necessary...
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

body:
There are some old images (pre-2005) which were uploaded before we had
some clear rules on free images and do not allow commercial use,
third-party use, cannot be modified or have other restrictions.

Some are replaceable, some are not. I propose that we should put a
bot to replace those tags with "fairuse" and the images which
are replaceable should be deleted, while the rest should be kept as
fairuse.

What do you think?


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Reminder: Open Access chat

body:
Today, 21:00 UTC:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Open_Access_chat

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


list: commons-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Recruit photographers with your blog

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
Date: 17-Dec-2006 19:34
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Commons-l] Recruit photographers with your blog
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Rob Church wrote:
> On 16/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ooh yes. Do we need to wait on single login for that to be a
>> reasonable thing to do? I understand a dev also has to explicitly
>> allow transwiki to move histories, though I'm not at all clear on the
>> details.
>
> As far as I know, Special:Import won't handle moving images in the
> correct manner. Mind you, I've not been keeping 100% up to date with
> what's developed lately, so I may well be wrong.

Special:Export and Special:Import do not handle images at this time.
There's some specs for it in the XML format but currently it's only used
by the OAI feed system.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFhZu/wRnhpk1wk44RAj+ZAKC4Iyf0T59xy7+vWyqJCBGURN7rdQCgx0aa
K1LKE6rt4wCfsGdtKRAFODo=
=BZPE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
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Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Commons-l] Recruit photographers with your blog

body:
On 17/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Special:Export and Special:Import do not handle images at this time.
> There's some specs for it in the XML format but currently it's only used
> by the OAI feed system.

What might be the best approach to making this work, then? Chucking
the filename in the XML somewhere and having Special:Import do a local
copy, if possible?

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Or making the edit box as fancy-shmancy as the article -- like being able to
collapse some features... or previewing images! or WYSIWYG editing box! or
telepathic article writing!

What about pressing a button and finding that 100,000 featured articles have
been written?

On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/14/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > One of the fundamental tenets of wikis is that they remain as close to
> > natural language and markup as possible -- the wiki format should remain
> > readable.
> >
> > This:
> >
> > Paris is a [[type:=city]] in
> > [[located in::France]], with a population of
> > [[population:=1,000,000,000]].
> >
> > is not.
>
> Agreed. I don't see a major benefit in attempting to write "semantics"
> *in* the text. This would be fine:
>
> Paris is a city in France with a population of 10,000,000.
> ...
> [[Category:...]]
> [[Type:=City]]
> [[Location::France]]
> [[Population:=10000000]]
>
> Perhaps rather than attempting to fuse that stuff with the text, try
> fusing it with an infobox, which is inherently a way of formatting raw
> data?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
I think the best approach is to keep the notice, and add individual
localized information on the Deductability of Donations page, see DE and
FR comments, for example. This will prevent any confusion that may arise
about the law that applies to WMF in other countries.  I'm sorry if it
is confusing, but the notice should be there.

I hope this helps!

-Brad

Aphaia wrote:
> Hello
> A comment came from a community:
> Talk:Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006&rcid=484233
>
> ----
> Hungarian is at hu:MediaWiki:Sitenotice, the Tax-deductibility link is
> taken out, as it doesn't apply in Hungary.--Dami 21:12, 17 December
> 2006 (UTC)
> ----
>
> Brad, we will apprecite your comment about such localization.
>
> On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> Hello:
>>
>> Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
>> was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
>> everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
>> exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
>> thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
>> fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
>> http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
>>
>> We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
>> translation.  Please see
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006.
>>
>> We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
>> translations put together.
>>
>> Stay tuned!
>>
>> -Brad
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
No one, of course! I just felt like going off on a tangent of features that
I (and hopefully others) would delightfully want to have, with the intent
that as I continued writing, the ideas would grow more and more
unlikely-to-happen-soon.

On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/18/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Or making the edit box as fancy-shmancy as the article -- like being
> able to
> > collapse some features... or previewing images! or WYSIWYG editing box!
> or
> > telepathic article writing!
> >
> > What about pressing a button and finding that 100,000 featured articles
> have
> > been written?
>
> Who are you mocking here?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject:
[Commons-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Recruit photographers with your
	blog

body:
On 12/17/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Special:Export and Special:Import do not handle images at this time.
> There's some specs for it in the XML format but currently it's only used
> by the OAI feed system.
>

I think Gmaxwell? is working on something for mass moves but that was
more to do with moveing across deleted histories.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] What to do with $1.000.000

body:
On 12/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, how would we determine who to give out the password to?

Find someone who knows what they are doing. These databases are little
use if you don't know how to use them.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Finding out what to take photos of

body:
On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests
>
> Kewl.
>
> For 30 points: Is there any point duplicating this page on en and
> commons? Should not all the en stuff be replaced by a gigantic
> redirect?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

As far as I know, WP:RI isn't used nearly as much as the category, and the
category is useful as it's connected to a template that one can add to the
article's talk page, so that everybody who looks at the talk page finds out
that it needs a picture, which is something that Commons can't do.


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Assume good faith" is no longer policy.

body:
On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
bbatsell wrote:
>  I really don't think
> communication is too much to ask for, and I don't understand why I'm
> being publicly derided by Jimmy Wales for asking for it.

You are not being publicly derided at all.  I am sorry if you took it
that way.

--Jimbo


from_name: audevivere

subject: [WikiEN-l] What to do with $1.000.000

body:
a library card for your local public library may allow you free access (from
home) to a variety of news article and other databases.

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Libraries/researchinfo/magazines.asp
http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Libraries/database.asp?lnsLinkID=976

On 12/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Also, how would we determine who to give out the password to?
>
> Find someone who knows what they are doing. These databases are little
> use if you don't know how to use them.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
And let me add that I really really really like MONGO a lot, and we have
been having a very nice chat about some totally unrelated matters of
some importance.

I think MONGO's supporters are rather missing the point that MONGO
himself seems mostly comfortable with the situation.

I reckon MONGO will take a rest for a few months and come back as an
admin.  When he does, I will almost certainly take the very very rare
step of actually voting yes to support his adminship.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> But...
>
> We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office
> action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not
> mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of
> Offenders Act.  That demands actual legal advice.  As it happens, the
> Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory
> way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral,
> independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by
> initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on
> appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that
> this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the
> citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled
> the office stunt.
>
> In these cases it is good to have feedback, even if the feedback is a
> weekly "sorry, no progress yet".  And it would be good to know if
> there is a particular issue which needs to be addressed.

Right, and that case WAS different, since we were (are?) unclear on
exactly what the legal situation is.

Most of these cases don't involve such bizarre complexities though.
They are about bios that have been wrecked by trolls who hate someone,
and all that is needed is for someone good to go through and carefully
write a sensible bio.

We do need to have a way of distinguishing these cases.


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
I've been closely following the thread about WP:Office actions and
appreciated what clarification has been provided as to the different types
of Office actions that can be taken.  If I am reading things
correctly, I gather there is a distinction between (1) a page that is fully
Office Protected (meaning that it basically shouldn't be edited at all
without express Office permission; this is a rare status, there are only 7
such pages as of now in the whole project); and (2) and a page that has been
Office Blanked/Stubbed (meaning the article needs to be redone but feel free
to edit as long as it's in accordance with policy including WP:Living).  In
due course, the WP:Office page might be clarified in this regard as there
does seem to be widespread uncertainty.

Another WP:Office related question on which clarification might be in order
is under what circumstances an administrator or editor should call
situations to the Office's attention.  A few weeks ago, I came across a
serious legal threats situation involving threats to sue the Foundation
unless changes were made in an article immediately.  I suggested on one of
the noticeboards that this seemed like the sort of thing that the Office
would want to know about right away.  I was e-mailed by two people who
indicated that the Office actually prefers that administrators deal with
these situations on their own without getting the Foundation involved.  Some
clarification on when the Office should be notified of the various types of
threats and other situations that arise could be helpful so that admins and
editors are able to do the best possible job of protecting the Foundation
and the contributors.  This is a concrete issue that comes up every week,
any insight would be helpful.

Newyorkbrad


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising Support

body:
On 17/12/06, Heimermann, Asher <resourcesofsheboygan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The Resources of Sheboygan Club has a donation link on it's website at http://www.roscfriends.tripod.com.

By the way, I've put a begging letter on my blog:

  http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/375133.html

You all probably should too.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising Support


body:
On 12/17/06, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
> >
> > So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...
> >
>
> Is there a functional difference between "guideline" and "policy"?

There's supposed to be.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
On 12/17/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
> was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
> fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
>
> We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> translation.  Please see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006.
> We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
> translations put together.
>
> Stay tuned!
>
> -Brad
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Es: is ready to go. Minor copyedited a few minutes ago:  (Tu
puedes...) -> (?T? puedes...)


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


body:
On 12/17/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
> >
> > So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...
>
> It was called a guideline for a year before someone called it policy a
> few months ago. I haven't seen much difference in its treatment.
>
> I would be more concerned if I thought it made any practical
> difference what sort of template got stuck on top of it; it's not as
> though it were an easily enforceable bright-line rule to begin with.
> It is simply necessary to avoid killing each other, sometimes, and so
> people tend to regard it as a Good Idea and try to hold others to it
> no matter what designation gets slapped atop it.
>
> (As a side note, there is discussion about its status on the talk page.)
>
> -Kat

I don't particularly feel driven to see it either one way or the
other; it's important, and it should be there.

What's disturbing is that it's gone through a series of status and
content gyrations leading to a borderline wheel-war, and I get to find
out about it via wikien-l..

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


body:
On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Incidentally, see the "Assume high intelligence" bit?

Yeah.  That should be a different guideline, at least, and probably
someone should do an essay attempting to put forth a coherent idea of
what exactly it means and how to interpret it.

If it's an attempt to say "please stop telling people that they're
dumb so often" then it belongs under NPA anyways.

I don't think our policies or guidelines should expand out to include
every fundamental aspect of human value or dignity.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: David Ashby

body:
On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
>
> So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...
>

Is there a functional difference between "guideline" and "policy"?

-david


body:
On 17/12/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Chairwoman, grumble, grumble, grumble.

I move that the WMF Chair henceforth be titled "The Jimbo", as befits
non-profit royalty. Thus: your name is now Jimbo Anthere.

- d.


from_name: Damian Finol

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
Greetings,

Spanish translation is done, about the tax-dedux I translated it as "it
might be tax deductable".

Damian


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Bence Damokos

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
Hi
I'm happy to put the tax deductibility link back (otherwise it follows the
original), but I found it misleading to Hungarian users, as its not clear if
the tax-deductability applies in Hungary (from the help page it seems only
in the USA, and countries with a local chapter registered as a charity is
the case, and otherwise its not deductable).
Bence Damokos

On 12/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello
> A comment came from a community:
>
> Talk:Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006&rcid=484233
> ----
> Hungarian is at hu:MediaWiki:Sitenotice, the Tax-deductibility link is
> taken out, as it doesn't apply in Hungary.--Dami 21:12, 17 December
> 2006 (UTC)
> ----
>
> Brad, we will apprecite your comment about such localization.
>
> On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Hello:
> >
> > Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
> > was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> > everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> > exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> > thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
> > fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> > http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
> >
> > We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> > translation.  Please see
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006
> .
> > We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
> > translations put together.
> >
> > Stay tuned!
> >
> > -Brad
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
>   Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
>   * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
On 12/17/06, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
> >
> > So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to
> implimentation...
> >
>
> Is there a functional difference between "guideline" and "policy"?
>
> -david
>

WOW.  I got rebuked by an Arbitrator for "wikilawyering"; jeez if she never
heard of "my word is my bond", how many times to do I have to repeat myself
to make the same point?

nobs


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
On 17/12/06, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think having the current status display display in local currency at least
> for currencies, in which you can donate might boost the donations coming
> from that local wiki (eg. Euros in de,it,fr, wiki, CZK in cswiki, HUF in
> huwiki...)

Difficult and finicky to do, though, and doesn't deal with things like
expatriates...

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
may be worth glancing at, incidentally; it's educational how many
edits to some projects come from outside the "obvious" national area.
It doesn't translate perfectly into readership, of course, but there
are some surprising implications there - half of all edits to rowiki
seem to come from outside Romania, for example.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


body:
On 17/12/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> In general, it's probably best if RELEASE-NOTES messages reflect
> changes as visible to end users, since that's who they're there for.
> The average end user isn't going to know or care what doBlockLevels()
> does; they'll want a message like "Fixed handling of paragraph breaks
> in <center>".  Or at least that's my view.

...though in cases where there was a significant rewrite of something
which produces no user visible effects, but still needs to be noted,
some technical detail is helpful, especially for people who have to
maintain a lot of third party extensions and so forth.

Rob Church


from_name: Anthere

body:
Jan-Bart de Vreede wrote:
> As required per the conflict of interest policy of the Wikimedia
> Foundation, I am hereby posting the pledge of personal commitment to
> foundation-l
>
> WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC.
>
> PLEDGE OF PERSONAL COMMITMENT
>
> As a member of the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, I,
> Jan-Bart de Vreede, am committed to Wikimedia Foundation's goal to establish
> and maintain the highest level of public confidence in its
> accountability. I have personally committed to follow the standards
> set out below, which represent the Wikimedia Foundation's conflict of
> interest policies:
>
> I will conduct my activities with the board of trustees of Wikimedia
> Foundation so that I do not advance or protect my own interests, or
> the private interests of others with whom I have a relationship, in a
> way that is detrimental to the interests of, or to the fundamental
> mission of, Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> In every instance in which I represent the Wikimedia Foundation, I
> will conduct my activities in a manner to best promote the interests
> of Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> In all matters that come before the board of trustees for a vote that
> may favorably impact my own financial interests, or the private
> interests of others with whom I have a financial relationship, or any
> organization of which I am a part, I will reveal that relationship and
> abstain from a vote in the matter.
>
> When a conflict of interest arises, or when a potential conflict of
> interest emerges, I will promptly disclose that conflict, or potential
> conflict, to the Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation and to the
> Chairman of its board of trustees and seek a resolution of that issue.

Chairwoman, grumble, grumble, grumble.

> Entered into on this the 17th day of December, 2006.
>
> Jan-Bart de Vreede
> Member, Board of Trustees
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:43:28 +0100, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org>
wrote:

> On 12/14/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> It would however, be spiffy if an image tagged as replaceable had all
>> its article uses marked visibly. Right now people are doing it manually.
>>
>
> Someone asked for this before, but more generally, geni maybe? I can't
> remember. Anyway, if we could somehow mark in the article which images
> were about to be deleted that would be super helpful. So, to make your
> idea even more useful, if we could somehow give images a class based
> on something in the image description page that would be great. We
> could tag fair use images, but also replaceable ones, as well as
> simple no source/no license type things. Ideally the visual would be
> controlled by css based on image classes.

I know I brought up something like that once. It had almost slipped my
mind though, but I finaly got around to submitting a "bug" request for it.

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8298

Hope it is doable, there would be some caching issues to work out I guess.

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
I think having the current status display display in local currency at least
for currencies, in which you can donate might boost the donations coming
from that local wiki (eg. Euros in de,it,fr, wiki, CZK in cswiki, HUF in
huwiki...)

Bence

On 12/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It'd be nice if we implemented something so that on each project, it would
> check if the user is from the US or from a country where they have a
> branch
> that can do tax deductability, and then put a link to tax deductability
> info
> if they can get tax deducs.
>
> On 12/17/06, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> > I'm happy to put the tax deductibility link back (otherwise it follows
> the
> > original), but I found it misleading to Hungarian users, as its not
> clear
> > if
> > the tax-deductability applies in Hungary (from the help page it seems
> only
> > in the USA, and countries with a local chapter registered as a charity
> is
> > the case, and otherwise its not deductable).
> > Bence Damokos
> >
> > On 12/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello
> > > A comment came from a community:
> > >
> > >
> >
> Talk:Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006&rcid=484233
> > > ----
> > > Hungarian is at hu:MediaWiki:Sitenotice, the Tax-deductibility link is
> > > taken out, as it doesn't apply in Hungary.--Dami 21:12, 17 December
> > > 2006 (UTC)
> > > ----
> > >
> > > Brad, we will apprecite your comment about such localization.
> > >
> > > On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > > Hello:
> > > >
> > > > Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and
> running!  There
> > > > was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> > > > everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> > > > exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> > > > thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of
> the
> > > > fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> > > > http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
> > > >
> > > > We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> > > > translation.  Please see
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006
> > > .
> > > > We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get
> some
> > > > translations put together.
> > > >
> > > > Stay tuned!
> > > >
> > > > -Brad
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > KIZU Naoko
> > >   Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
> > >   * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] What to do with $1.000.000

body:
On 12/17/06, audevivere <audevivere at gmail.com> wrote:
> a library card for your local public library may allow you free access (from
> home) to a variety of news article and other databases.
>
> http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Libraries/researchinfo/magazines.asp
> http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Libraries/database.asp?lnsLinkID=976

And if it doesn't.. a library card at your local university library *will*.


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 17/12/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Chairwoman, grumble, grumble, grumble.
>
>
>
> I move that the WMF Chair henceforth be titled "The Jimbo", as befits
> non-profit royalty. Thus: your name is now Jimbo Anthere.
>
>
> - d.

Quelle horreur !


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-18

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

   4 new PASSING test(s) :)
      * Double ISBN
      * ISBN length
      * ISBN with trailing year (bug 8110)
      * Bug 8293: Use of center tag ruins paragraph formatting
Passed 462 of 481 tests (96.05%)... FAILED!


from_name: theProject

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> And let me add that I really really really like MONGO a lot, and we have
> been having a very nice chat about some totally unrelated matters of
> some importance.
>
> I think MONGO's supporters are rather missing the point that MONGO
> himself seems mostly comfortable with the situation.
>
> I reckon MONGO will take a rest for a few months and come back as an
> admin.  When he does, I will almost certainly take the very very rare
> step of actually voting yes to support his adminship.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Don't want to pick hairs with Jimbo here, but isn't that !voting? ;-)

--
theProject


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
On 12/17/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Our donation history is available on
> http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.

This is an excellent system. Can/do we have a top donor list?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising Support

body:
Heimermann, Asher schreef:
[cut]
>   * http://www.roscfriends.tripod.com/connection

So you can put the site notice also on external websites.

It would be useful it the code to include that on external websites is
somewhere logical posted.

That way people who are willing to help can not only give money but also
put that notice on there website.

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising Support


from_name: Kat Walsh

body:
On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
>
> So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...

It was called a guideline for a year before someone called it policy a
few months ago. I haven't seen much difference in its treatment.

I would be more concerned if I thought it made any practical
difference what sort of template got stuck on top of it; it's not as
though it were an easily enforceable bright-line rule to begin with.
It is simply necessary to avoid killing each other, sometimes, and so
people tend to regard it as a Good Idea and try to hold others to it
no matter what designation gets slapped atop it.

(As a side note, there is discussion about its status on the talk page.)

-Kat

--
Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
* *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone


body:
On 12/18/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> It was called a guideline for a year before someone called it policy a
> few months ago. I haven't seen much difference in its treatment.
>
> I would be more concerned if I thought it made any practical
> difference what sort of template got stuck on top of it; it's not as
> though it were an easily enforceable bright-line rule to begin with.
> It is simply necessary to avoid killing each other, sometimes, and so
> people tend to regard it as a Good Idea and try to hold others to it
> no matter what designation gets slapped atop it.
> (As a side note, there is discussion about its status on the talk page.)

I think we should totally do away with the Guideline/Policy/Essay
notices.. Instead we should put a signature space below... so users
can see all the people who support the page.

The idea is that the only policy which really matters on a day to day
basis is the ephemeral policy which is implemented by each and every
one of us through our actions and decisions.

So the list below a such a page becomes a list of the people whom you
can expect to get on your case if you ignore the page.. and people
whom it might be useful to consult if you're thinking about doing
something which might be borderline.

This would avoid all the energy thats wasted on such discussions and
provide a more honest outlook on the complicated system which
underlies the operation of our project.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

references:
<lo0un252neiq4cchotk8qkd0ob78976qug@4ax.com>	<457F5066.7030507@gmail.com>	<picvn2htapil2hktq8a2qftpns7uk09g4m@4ax.com>	<38a7bf7c0612130123k34e5ad32l4aff73e249bc001f@mail.gmail.com>	<4580625E.4060203@telus.net>	<d9v0o25f6upqovmngpl6d7gh0upeirjloo@4ax.com>	<4580E5B4.9050001@telus.net>	<4u12o2dqm3bgajn58fu2jsgnqr3rou8c9g@4ax.com>	<458254F5.6070602@telus.net>	<bdm4o213vnejkjpntkp63vok73pjefu1fj@4ax.com>	<4582687F.3070909@telus.net>
	<so75o29r90e4nad80vf8v8j6oeiijv9a2q@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 01:18:55 -0800, Ray Saintonge
><saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Gee!  We almost agree!
>>
>>
>Damn!  Must re-read looking for points of disagreement... ;-)
>
>
>>Perhaps we don't even need to get into the "parts of the theory".  If
>>their primary theory makes no sense at all it follows that what is
>>derived from that also makes no sense.
>>
>>
>Oh yes, I'm all for that.
>
>So, now we come back to the controlled demolition hypothesis for the
>WTC.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center
>
>How should we handle that, do you think?  My strong preference here
>would be to keep it short and to the point: a theory advanced by Steve
>Jones, unsupported by any peer-reviewed evidence, not accepted by the
>mainstream, beloved of the conspiracy theorists.  We might justifiably
>link to the very detailed rebuttal of his hypothesis by Blanchard, and
>possibly even discuss it as having offered a prosaic explanation for
>the questions raised by Jones, if we can find a reliable source that
>identifies it as doing so.  I can't find any reliable sources
>attesting to the accuracy or validity of the controlled demolition
>hypothesis, and that is something which indicates that we should
>employ great care in documenting it.
>
>Seems to me that we should start by removing:
>* Multiple news reports of what Steve Jones said (it's not in dispute)
>* YouTube videos of the collapse (OR, not sources, copyright issues)
>* All links to 9/11 conspiracy websites masquerading as sources
>
>Right now what I see in that article is the two sides duking it out
>and in the process elevating the hypothesis far beyond any objectively
>provable merit it might have.  Again, this hypothesis has never, as
>far as I can tell, been published in a reputable peer-reviewed
>journal.
>
I just read through the article.  It's not easy going.  I understand
that such a prose style is typical in a much disputed article.

I agree with keeping it short.  The "Overview" seems particularly prone
to being unreadable.  It could probably be scrapped if everything said
there is included elsewhere in the article.  The "History" section
should probably be limited to describing where this theory cane from,
and probably does not need to be as long as it is.

The head part of the "Claims" section  seems to be relatively clear.
The sections about the fire theory and molten metal seem to be talking
about a completely different theory.  At least the other subsections of
Claims seem to have some relevance.

As for 7WTC my own theory would be to favour something like what
happened at the [[Hope Slide]] where the collapse of the mountain into a
valley rode up on the opposite side of the valley to bring down a
section of the mountain there.

If I wanted to take the time to work on it I'm sure that I could find
much more to trim.

Ec


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
On 12/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does the fundraising thermometer account offline donations as well as
> online? Also, the thermometer seems to follow some sort of scale; what is
> its "maximum capacity"?
>
> On 12/17/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hello:
> >
> > Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
> > was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> > everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> > exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> > thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
> > fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> > http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
> >
> > We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> > translation.  Please see
> >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006
> > .
> > We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
> > translations put together.
> >
> > Stay tuned!
> >
> > -Brad
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Judging from http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ , the
thermometer seems to go up to 1.5 million (20 What happens if we reach the
1.5 million before the end of the four-week period? What happens if we don't
reach it? Would the fundraiser be extended, or end early?). I also recall
Danny saying on IRC that checks are being added tomorrow, which would mean
that offline donations are included, but I could be making that up.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On 12/18/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The number who have been desysopped suggests otherwise.
>
> How many people have been forcibly desysopped? I don't think it's many...

About a dozen, last time I counted.

--Ryan


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
Hello
A comment came from a community:
Talk:Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006&rcid=484233
----
Hungarian is at hu:MediaWiki:Sitenotice, the Tax-deductibility link is
taken out, as it doesn't apply in Hungary.--Dami 21:12, 17 December
2006 (UTC)
----

Brad, we will apprecite your comment about such localization.

On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Well, after some bumps we have the fundraiser off and running!  There
> was a bug in currency conversion reporting when we got started, but
> everything has been tested and verified, and now the thermometer is
> exactly right.  The good news is that the currency issue caused the
> thermometer to *underreport* what was donated in the first day of the
> fundraiser.  Our donation history is available on
> http://fundraising.wikimedia.org.
>
> We also have our default site notice revised and in need of
> translation.  Please see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_request/WMF/Fundraising_Sitenotice%28default%29/2006.
> We will go live with the new and improved sitenotice after we get some
> translations put together.
>
> Stay tuned!
>
> -Brad
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] when uploading pictures to commons ....

body:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons
will just have to not be clicked. :)

In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't
click on the full-size version link.

Where is the image description page for this map, by the way?

On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> When people upload files to commons it would be nice if they would
> consider that not everyone out there has the latest PC hardware.
>
> My pc is a pentium IV, 2 ghz, with 1gb of RAM and a 64 mb graphics card.
> Not the worst system out there I would think. I found a new map added to
> the India article on the nl.wikipedia. Which looked quite nice so I
> wanted to see the original version of it. I clicked on it and crash
> there went firefox. Now I have managed to open the file but it
> completely eats all of my computer resources! It eats 100% of my CPU
> capacity and 500 mb of RAM for just this file (add to this the 250 mb of
> RAM that gets eaten by the usual programs on my pc and I get very close
> to my max). So when people upload files please see to it that people
> with lower configurations can use it! Most people simply do not work
> with the latest hardware available!
>
> It is this file btw:
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/India_roadway_map.svg
> Waerth
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Violating policy is supposed to get you blocked sooner.
So, ironically violations of a guideline requires people to have more
good faith before giving in to their trigger finger. This smells wrong
anyway, it should've been discussed.

Mgm

On 12/18/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/17/06, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
> > > >
> > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
> > >
> > > So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to
> implimentation...
> > >
> >
> > Is there a functional difference between "guideline" and "policy"?
>
> There's supposed to be.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Just an idea for dealing with problematic users

body:
Hello,

This is a cross-post of a Village Pump topic I started. Please read and add
in your thoughts here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Just_an_idea_for_dealing_with_problematic_users


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Legacy non-free images (non-commercial,
 non-third-party use, etc)

body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> There are some old images (pre-2005) which were uploaded before we had
> some clear rules on free images and do not allow commercial use,
> third-party use, cannot be modified or have other restrictions.
>
> Some are replaceable, some are not. I propose that we should put a
> bot to replace those tags with "fairuse" and the images which
> are replaceable should be deleted, while the rest should be kept as
> fairuse.
>
I'd say just announce a project to crunch on them manually where they
are, and possibly retag, but as {{fairusein}} or whatever as
appropriate. {{fairuse}} already makes its own cesspool of old junk,
needs to be cleared, not added to.

Stan


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
I haven't participated in any of the discussion about Assume Good Faith, but
in my experience, I've usually encountered it when users quote it to claim
that criticism of them is equivalent to not assuming good faith.

Does it really solve more problems than it causes?


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:57:00 -0500, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>I reckon MONGO will take a rest for a few months and come back as an
>admin.  When he does, I will almost certainly take the very very rare
>step of actually voting yes to support his adminship.

This is my hope, too.  We (he fellow admins) failed him, I think, in
not providing adequate support and not checking him earlier.  It is
unfortunate that the previous ArbCom case re MONGO did not adequately
express the concerns which were obviously felt back then, but I can
understand why that might have been the case - we do not want ArbCom
to give succour to trolls.  I am very much more comfortable with the
decision now it has been bolstered with a more detailed discussion of
the evidence.

A lot of us feel MONGO was hung out to dry, but I suspect that many,
maybe most, will acknowledge that the result of the case was both fair
and consistent with other similar cases.  As I say, the real failure
was that it ever got to that stage.  Having got there, the result was
probably inevitable.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:03:02 -0500, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>We do need to have a way of distinguishing these cases.

As long as we have some idea what the grounds for objection were, the
application of Clue should be sufficient.  Hopefully protection will
do that, since admins are supposed to posses that elusive quantity.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
[snip]
> It is this file btw:
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/India_roadway_map.svg
> Waerth

This is somewhat offtopic for foundation-l.

Some versions of firefox have a more buggy SVG renderer than others.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Mozilla folks rushed it out... and as
you've observed, broken SVG support is worse than none.

In any case we don't intentionally make use of the browsers SVG
rendering. The SVG link is not provided so you can view the SVG but
rather so you can save it and edit it. We're not trendsetters at all:
we're using SVGs for our 'source' format, but what we hand readers is
PNGs like almost everyone else.

The ideal way to view an image like this is probably via something
that provides zoom and navigation control like the djvu plugins or an
ajax based segmented image approach like Google maps. Unfortunately
both of these options are not great for accessibility.  So again,
we're not trendsetting on this front either.

You can probably relax about this subject:  The vast majority of users
are using a browser which doesn't try to render SVGs inline.

I suppose if browser based SVG support doesn't improve soon, we can
adjust the mime-type we hand out with these files to something the
browser won't try to render.


body:
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Yes and now here is the catch. The graphic is all over wikipedia
> already. Like in nl.wikipedia on the India page as a thumbnail. Now
> someone clicks on it and is immediately taken to the original huge .svg
> file which crashes firefox 2 about 50% of the times and IE doesn't seem
> to be able to open it at all.

That shouldn't be what happens. When the user clicks on the thumbnail
they should be brought to a larger image on the image page.

If the image on nlwikipedia is doing that, we have a copyright related
problem and some rendering warts should be the least of our worries.

Can you give me a URL on nlwikipedia where this is happening to you?


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
>> So, in theory every entry could be written by a bot, eh?
>>
>> /me imagines RamBot adding articles on every court decision and piece of
>> legislation...

Man, that'd be useful.  I think one of the most frustrating AfD debates
I've ever been involved with was one where the consensus was that
executive orders weren't notable.  Completely blew my mind.
>
> I'm manually writing articles on pieces of legislation - sadly the
> data isn't available to make it bot-generable, otherwise I'd set that
> going and tidy the results up.

I keep saying I'm going to do that for Supreme Court cases, but I never
get to it.

-Jeff


body:
On 12/18/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>  "Gregory Maxwell" write
> > I think we should totally do away with the Guideline/Policy/Essay
> > notices.. Instead we should put a signature space below... so users
> > can see all the people who support the page.
>
> Right. And people should renew their sig evey time the page is edited.
>
> Seriously, Voting IS Evil.

Encourage SPOV editing. ;)

What I suggested isn't a vote anyways. If you think it is, then you
misunderstand me or you misunderstand voting.


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course that's ok. Original research in that scenario would be to
> > say "the consensus among legal scholars is A, but they haven't
> > considered C, and therefore D is the correct position."
> >
> > Original research is about posing new theories, or making new
> > inferences, or drawing new conclusions that are your own opinions and
> > involve some element of analysis or synthesis. Fundamentally, original
> > research is introducing your own original thought into articles.
>
> And, of course, drawing your own conclusions and stating that there is
> a "legal consensus" on this matter, based on your own research into
> what various legal scholars have said, is a prime example of original
> research. Quote the scholars, list their names, state that there are a
> number of them, but don't introduce your own original thought that
> these selected sources have created a "legal consensus".

I was speaking to the particular example given, where there are two
popular positions on the subject held by lay people, while all expert
accounts support only one of those positions. In this context, where
all experts who have written on the subject have agreed with the same
position, surely it is not original research to say so.

It may be original research in a different context, for example where
there are no alternative opinions offered anywhere, and thus where the
published accounts would exist in a vacuum, as it were.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Mark Clements

subject:
[Wikitech-l] fixing lines automatically which run through
	theborder

body:
"Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:e92136380612161920k7469d462gf2b73e4316964eed at mail.gmail.com...
> On 17/12/06, Jax <cybercorecentre at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> > As you see if you copy text files to the mediawiki then some line will
> > overruns the border and after you got thousands of pages in your wiki it
> > can't be fix by hand. This wiki is not public, I need to maintain it for
> > my company so I can't just ask someone to setup a bot to fix it even if
> > that's a solution.
>
> The problem seems to be that some lines prefixed with spaces are
> creeping in from the source text. MediaWiki treats this as a cue to
> enter <pre> mode, which means that formatting and line breaks are up
> to the user. To correct this, delete the preceding spaces at the start
> of each line.
>
> To fix this in bulk, you could write a quickie maintenance script
> which whizzes through all pages in the database (or just those you
> specify) and performs this edit for you, saving the page if changes
> were made.
>

If the pages are text files, then presumably there is no wiki markup in it
anyway, therefore you should wrap the whole page in <nowiki> tags.

You will need to remove the tags and perform any clean-up (e.g. removing
leading spaces, as pointed out by Rob) if you want to introduce wiki markup
into the page at a later date.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On 12/17/06, A <jokestress at gmail.com> wrote:
> - Impartial admin(s) assigned to each OFFICEd article at the moment it is
> protected (preferably someone with no edits to the article prior to
> WP:OFFICE). Perhaps randomly chosen from an existing pool of volunteers and
> an a WP:COI clearance for the article in question. That person would be
> listed on the talk page as the coordinator and would check back in each day
> and respond to proposed changes.

Something along these lines would be good...just making sure that
whenever there is an WP:OFFICE action, *someone* is taking
responsibility for it, and in particular, managing the inevitable
friction that arises. The office people (understandably) don't have
time to manage the article, explain what's going on etc. But a trusted
admin who could just watch the article for a week or so, liaise with
the office and keep the article talk page up to date...?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> OR is when you go out and test the evidence yourself. Finding sources to
> corroborate a point is called research, not original research.

No. In Wikipedia, OR is when you do the interpretation of evidence
yourself. We should simplify the OR rule to make this clearer:
"Wikipedians are dumb. We cannot interpret, only repeat."

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Top posting poll; was Re: MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/15/06, Jim Schuler <jim62sch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oddly enough, the g-mail default is to top post.  How 'bout that?

Maybe top-posting isn't as evil as some people think. Regardless of
what outdated RFC's say.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
On 12/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > There is absolutely nothing at all in MediaWiki that makes a page in a
> > subcategory behave like it's also in the parent category. Nothing.
> > It's completely and utterly a construct in the mind of the user.
>
> But it's by far the most logical construct to make, and there is very
> little reason to keep the software free from any support of that
> construct (even if it is to the detriment of other, more exotic constructs).

I wasn't implying that MediaWiki *shouldn't* support the notion of
"supercategory". The opposite, in fact. It would be extremely to be
able to treat all members of all subcategories as also belonging to
that category - for certain categories.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
> > I don't think anyone can reasonably deny that this is strictly an
> > improvement, no matter how little. Someone who *really wants* the entire
> > list of X'es can now have it, and someone who doesn't can still browse
> > the sub-categories as before. Nothing has been taken away.
> >
> > Timwi

Yes, this would be good. But better navigation for categories with
large numbers of items would be good. Thousands per page if
necessary...

Steve


from_name: Matt Hampel

subject: [Wikitech-l] Stripping markup in search result excerpt

body:
Is there a function that will either strip or render Wiki markup in
the "excerpt" section the search results? It's unfriendly to give
users the markup in the results, but the excerpt itself is helpful in
judging a page's relevance.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> About a dozen, last time I counted.
>
> Less than 1% of admins, then... I don't think that suggests anything.

It suggests that it takes a lot to de-admin someone.  I'm not entirely
sure that's a good thing, but I'm not sure how to solve it anymore,
either.

-Jeff

--
If you can read this, I'm not at home.


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
On 12/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > On 17/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> >> Special:Export and Special:Import do not handle images at this time.
> >> There's some specs for it in the XML format but currently it's only used
> >> by the OAI feed system.
> >
> > What might be the best approach to making this work, then? Chucking
> > the filename in the XML somewhere and having Special:Import do a local
> > copy, if possible?
>
> That's pretty much how it would work if you implemented the spec. I
> stashed an example in docs/export-demo.xml:
>
> <page>
>   <title>Image:Some image.jpg</title>
> [snip]
>   <upload>
>     <timestamp>2001-01-15T20:34:12Z</timestamp>
>     <contributor><username>Foobar</username><id>42</id></contributor>
>     <comment>My awesomeest image!</comment>
>     <filename>Some_image.jpg</filename>
>     <src>http://upload.wikimedia.org/commons/2/22/Some_image.jpg</src>
>     <size>12345</size>
>   </upload>
> </page>
>
> Probably not too hard to hack up, actually, if someone wants to give it
> a try.

Or, we could use query.php (or that other api thing...) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php?what=imageinfo&titles=Image:Cetacea_range_map_Chinese_River_Dolphin.PNG

to import the image history, and use SpecialImport for the description
page only.

Magnus


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 12/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jim Schuler wrote:
> > On 12/15/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/14/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> M I i N d T- E p R o W s E t A i V n E g - i P s O t S h T e I o N n
> >> G l F
> >>>>> y O w R a M y E to go. :-)
> >>> You just stole at least a minute, probably two, of my life trying to
> >>> decipher your email, and I want them back.
> >> !gnitsop evaewretni daer ot drah *taht* lla ton s'tI
> >>
> >
> > !ton s'ti oN
> >
> >
>
> Qm90dG9tLXBvc3RpbmcgeW91ciBtZXNzYWdlcyBhZnRlciBCYXNlNjQ=
> ZW5jb2RpbmcgdGhlbSBiZWF0cyBldmVyeXRoaW5nLg==

begin 644 -
M5&AA="=S(&YO="!V86QI9"!B87-E-C0Z('EO=2=R92!O;FQY(&%L;&]W960@
C=&\@<'5T("<])R!A="!T:&4 at 96YD(&]F('1H92!F:6QE+ at H
end

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Parker Conrad

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Begging letters on our blogs?

body:
I'm curious -- what is the objection to advertising? If there was, say, one
unobtrusive text ad per page, I imagine that would cover all of the
wikimedia foundation's costs and allow new features to be developed a little
more quickly. Would people be offended and stop contributing?

On 12/18/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Feed the 'pedia, Let them know it's cup-rattling time ... I've put a
> note on my blog, as has Kat Walsh:
>
>   http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/375133.html
>   http://mindspillage.livejournal.com/11763.html
>
> If others could follow suit, that would probably be a good thing. If
> we're not going to have ads on the site, we need to get the money
> other ways. Let EVERYONE know we need their pennies!
>
> (Note I also suggest that if they're not cashed up, they can give us
> photos or write stuff!)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/17/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/17/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/17/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Of course that's ok. Original research in that scenario would be to
> > > say "the consensus among legal scholars is A, but they haven't
> > > considered C, and therefore D is the correct position."
> > >
> > > Original research is about posing new theories, or making new
> > > inferences, or drawing new conclusions that are your own opinions and
> > > involve some element of analysis or synthesis. Fundamentally, original
> > > research is introducing your own original thought into articles.
> >
> > And, of course, drawing your own conclusions and stating that there is
> > a "legal consensus" on this matter, based on your own research into
> > what various legal scholars have said, is a prime example of original
> > research. Quote the scholars, list their names, state that there are a
> > number of them, but don't introduce your own original thought that
> > these selected sources have created a "legal consensus".
>
> I was speaking to the particular example given, where there are two
> popular positions on the subject held by lay people, while all expert
> accounts support only one of those positions. In this context, where
> all experts who have written on the subject have agreed with the same
> position, surely it is not original research to say so.

On the contrary, it surely is. All of the people that this particular
investigator has found, and consider to be legal experts, have one
view, so it's fine to state something like "Legal experts have stated
Y", with a series of footnotes. However, one cannot go from that step
to stating "All legal experts believe that Y", since we have no idea
what *all* legal experts believe, only the statements of the ones we
happen to have surveyed. Even worse would be an insistence that we
must conclude that "the law is Y", since the law is complicated,
malleable, and context specific, and one often has no idea which way a
judge, panel of judges, or jury will rule.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
On 12/18/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I was speaking to the particular example given, where there are two
> > popular positions on the subject held by lay people, while all expert
> > accounts support only one of those positions. In this context, where
> > all experts who have written on the subject have agreed with the same
> > position, surely it is not original research to say so.
>
> It would be easiest in this case just to state it as fact and cite the
> sources you've found.
>
> "While some members of the public believe X [cite], legally, Y is
> correct [cite][cite][cite]."
>
> You are allowed to assume that your sources are correct, as long as
> they appear reliable (something published in a law journal counts as
> reliable). That's why we cite sources, so in the event that the source
> is wrong it is clear who is at fault, and we can't be charged with
> libel, or whatever else the consequences of false information may be.

No, the law is much trickier and more gray than that, and Wikipedia
editors need to get out of the notion that they can use original
research to outline arguments and pontificate about what the "true
facts" are.  As well, we really have no idea what people believe, we
only know what they say and do.  Thus, you can state,
"A number of authors have stated X[cite][cite], while legal scholars
have stated Y[cite][cite][cite]", but that's as far as we can go, and
indeed, as far as we need to go. It makes the point equally well
without the smell of argumentative POV-pushing.

Jay.


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On 12/18/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/18/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The number who have been desysopped suggests otherwise.
> >
> > How many people have been forcibly desysopped? I don't think it's
> many...
>
> About a dozen, last time I counted.
>
> --Ryan

That's about right, according to the list available at:
[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship]].

"Newyorkbrad"

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


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update

body:
Aphaia wrote:
> Thanks, Brad, for your clarification.
>
> On 12/18/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>>I think the best approach is to keep the notice, and add individual
>>localized information on the Deductability of Donations page, see DE and
>>FR comments, for example. This will prevent any confusion that may arise
>>about the law that applies to WMF in other countries.
>
>
> So how are we going to clarify it? Here we need clear criteria what to
> describe and not. Currently the default link may be led to
> deductability page in English and now mentions only US, Deutschland (
> in German) and France ( in French). There is no other country or area
> information. Some editor tried to add "no deductability in ..." in her
> language, but self-reverted. Similar ideas could happen to arise in
> other's mind.

I think "her" was I in this case. It was for the swiss chapter. I
realised I was not sure it was tax deductible (yet ?). The only chapters
I am sure have tax deduc are the french and german. I know the italian
does not as it is clearly mentionned on the site. For the other ones, I
just have idea. I prefered removing the info by default.

> - Yes, add your country information in your language to the central page !
> - Eh, sorry no, we are going to say "In other countries no tax
> deductability is available as of December 18, 2006" on that page
> additionaly, and encourage you to their language page.
>
> Which direction are we going? Thoughts?
> Cheers,

An important point to mention is that the chapters are different legal
entities than the Foundation. It may be (likely it is) that the money
collected by chapters serve the exact same mission than WMF, but we can
not garantee that to donators. So, somehow, we need to make it clear
that there is a difference. So, the general idea is not

We can give in countries x, y and z and get tax deductibility. In
others, no tax deduc

The general idea is

The Foundaiton is tax deduc in the USA and no where else. If you want to
help and want some tax deduction, consider giving to the chapters, which
are different entities, but helping toward similar goals.

This does not confuse people in thinking they are giving to the same
entity, only with different bank localizations.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising update


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
On 12/14/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the fundamental tenets of wikis is that they remain as close to
> natural language and markup as possible -- the wiki format should remain
> readable.
>
> This:
>
> Paris is a [[type:=city]] in
> [[located in::France]], with a population of
> [[population:=1,000,000,000]].
>
> is not.

Agreed. I don't see a major benefit in attempting to write "semantics"
*in* the text. This would be fine:

Paris is a city in France with a population of 10,000,000.
...
[[Category:...]]
[[Type:=City]]
[[Location::France]]
[[Population:=10000000]]

Perhaps rather than attempting to fuse that stuff with the text, try
fusing it with an infobox, which is inherently a way of formatting raw
data?

Steve


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Maybe top-posting isn't as evil as some people think. Regardless of
> what outdated RFC's say.

The quoted text is pretty much useless if it's the entire conversation
and it's at the bottom, so it's just a waste of bandwidth. Now
everyone has so much bandwidth (even 56k is a lot compared to when to
RFCs were written), that may not be a significant issue. So
top-posting is probably just a bad as not quoting at all (as long as
you aren't replying to a digest email...).


body:
On 12/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests

Kewl.

For 30 points: Is there any point duplicating this page on en and
commons? Should not all the en stuff be replaced by a gigantic
redirect?

Steve