from_name: Carbonite

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Grandfathering: an initiative to deprecate the spread
	of userboxes that are divisive

body:
On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> I welcome Jimbo's forthright statement that "political or, more
> broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project", and his
> thoughtful and considerate request that editors contemplate helping to
> reduce the userbox culture by "simply removing your
> political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same.
> This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the
> userbox wars."
>
> I know this is going to meet resistance, so I'm trying to think of a
> way in which those who think that expressing their opinions on their
> userpages helps wikipedia and have so far chosen to do so using
> userboxes, can be asked to do so in a way that doesn't contribute to
> the very divisive culture that has ground up specifically around
> userboxes.
>
> I've come up with a suggestion as follows:
>
> 1. that if he disagrees with Jimbo's request, the user should instead
> consider using the subst command to place the content of the template
> directly into  his userpage. This would reduce the "viral"
> transmission of userboxes somewhat and, for the user, it would have
> the benefit of divorcing the fate of parts of his userpage from the
> fate of individual userboxes--whether editing or deletion.
>
> 2. that having done this, he should take the opportunity to edit the
> text so that it more precisely expresses his individual views.  In my
> opinion this would be more in keeping with the *good* effects of
> userboxes in enabling self-expression, while being more in keeping
> with the principle that Wikipedia is a wiki in which we edit content,
> and not a cookie-cutter website in which we reduce our complex beliefs
> as individuals into regimented blocs that serve no purpose but to
> emphasize the cultural divisions.
>
> I think of this as "grandfathering".  Ultimately we should be able to
> foster a benign culture of fearless expression of our editorial
> biases, without enabling the  subversion of our relatively fragile
> neutrality principle by alliances between single-issue
> campaigners--however justifiable they may feel this subversion to be.

I think that one of the reason more users aren't using subst is
because they don't know the option exists. During one of today's
discussions, one of the strongest and most vocal supporters of
userboxes asked me to fill him in on the "secret" of subst. He had
been complaining about the userboxes on his user page being changed
without his consent, but seemed to be unaware of what subst even was.
Ideally, I'd like to see all POV userboxes exist only as code that was
pasted onto a user's page. If this isn't feasible, then strongly
encouraging the use of subst might be the next best option.

On a related matter, can anyone come up with even one good reason why
user categories should be part of POV userboxes? In fact, can anyone
come up with a reason why we have POV user categories at all?

Carbonite


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] I was blocked for an unexisting policy

body:
You are pissed because of the user-box conflict and
the amount of criticism you've received and now you're
taking out your anger on me. I should feel lucky for
not being banned just like you should feel lucky for
me not being banned, because my loss, would be equally
your loss, just like any other contributor's loss
would also be our loss. So I'm guessing I shouldn't
add your photo to my userpage, either, or else...

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

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> > Actually, I did try to explain, but the admin told
> me
> > not to be cute. I said that I liked the photo and
> that
> > it fitted in my page. The light-yellow colours
> gave me
> > peace of mind.
>
> Count yourself lucky that you haven't been
> permanently banned already by
> me personally.  Behave yourself going forward, or I
> will.
>
> This excuse isn't even _cute_.  It's an insult to
> our intelligence.
>
> --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
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions, bogus guidelines

body:
On 1/21/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> I'm sorry; the connection you are trying to make between what I wrote
> and your sky-falling false dichotomy is not a working connection.
> Please check your logic and try again, or ask your operator for assistance.
>

Yuo stated that process wasn't letting us get on very well. The
alturnative is worse.

--
geni


body:
On 1/21/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> The alternative to not getting along well is getting along better.  Why
> do you think that is worse?
>
> - --
>  Sean Barrett     | Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well.

There are people on wikipedia that I really don't like. Process means
that I can work with them.
--
geni


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Meta templates and Qif on :en

body:
On 1/21/06, Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
> So which ugliness shall we use until we have conditional functions
> in MediaWiki ("ifempty", "or", "not", "and". No loops,
> no gotos, no viruses)?

How about none of them, and play with templates how they were designed
to be played with?

--
Sam


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] Digital Universe: Encyclopedia of Earth

body:
While I knew that Digital Universe were planning an encyclopedia, I hadn't come
across many details, so I thought I'd forward these links. Please hit me an the
head and give me a pointer to where this has been discussed ad nauseum
previously!

As part of their "Earth Portal", DU are planning an "Encyclopedia of Earth":

   http://stewards.manyone.net/hosted/portalpages/2707/eoe.html

http://news.com.com/5208-1038-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=12490&messageID=101336&start=-1

They plan to use two wikis; a Public wiki and a "Steward" wiki. The Public wiki
will be editable by the public, but the Steward wiki will only be editable by
approved experts.

They're considering free licensing, there'll be overarching editorial decisions
which apply to every article, no anonymous authorship, and the articles will be
organised within a logical taxonomy developed by experts.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
NEW Yahoo! Cars - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online! http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[Flag] Re: [WikiEN-l] Another AfD example -- a serious proposal
	to fix it

body:
On 1/21/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I question whether AfD can be considered "deliberative" at this point.
> >  I think a deliberative process is obliged to listen to arguments
> > presented and make a decision based on them, and the evidence that AfD
> > does so is somewhat lacking.
>
> It's at least a little bit more deliberative than speedy deletion, I feel.
>

We can give people the opportunity to hold a discussion; unfortunately
we cannot force them to take that opportunity.  Although I think AfD
does an excellent job in most cases (how much discussion does a
self-written article about garage band formed three months ago merit?)
it fails us badly when facile arguments are made in favor of deletion
of perfectly good articles about people who have obviously achieved
something that has been written about in reputable, independent
sources or companies that, though quite small, are obviously an
important part of the infrastructure of modern business.


body:
On 1/21/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> While I knew that Digital Universe were planning an encyclopedia, I hadn't come
> across many details, so I thought I'd forward these links. Please hit me an the
> head and give me a pointer to where this has been discussed ad nauseum
> previously!
>
> As part of their "Earth Portal", DU are planning an "Encyclopedia of Earth":
>
>    http://stewards.manyone.net/hosted/portalpages/2707/eoe.html
>
> http://news.com.com/5208-1038-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=12490&messageID=101336&start=-1
>
> They plan to use two wikis; a Public wiki and a "Steward" wiki. The Public wiki
> will be editable by the public, but the Steward wiki will only be editable by
> approved experts.
>
> They're considering free licensing, there'll be overarching editorial decisions
> which apply to every article, no anonymous authorship, and the articles will be
> organised within a logical taxonomy developed by experts.
>
> -- Matt

We are still not completely sure what they are up to. While the
ammount of money they have got should mean they will be able to
produce something I'm haveing difficulty seeing how they will avoid
going head to head with encarta.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another AfD example

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> On 1/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I went through a rather tortured process yesterday in which I had to
>>>really put my foot down to put a stop to a CfD vote which was taking
>>>place without _any_ community dialogue or discussion first.
>>
>>
>>This appears to be the preferred way of proceeding for many: try to
>>beat a bad idea into the ground *rather than* discuss it.
>>
>>Presumably, that's the way COMMUNITY CONSENSUS works!
>
>
> That seems to be the trend throughout Wikipedia; I'm sure that you can
> recall a number of cases in the recent past where trying to delete
> things without attempting to engage in discussion has caused trouble
> ;-)
>
> The solution is to stop treating all of these issues with such
> urgency.  Nobody will die because Article X or Category Y exist in a
> "bad" state for a few days while we talk things over.
>
> Our byzantine system of deletion rules doesn't help, of course;
> there's an enormous benefit to getting an AFD result on something
> quickly, since it can then be used to bludgeon everyone else (with the
> "re-creation of deleted material" CSD clause, or simply to cry that
> there was "no consensus to delete/merge/whatever" if anyone tries to
> make major changes).
>
> The other option would be to transwiki "Don't be a dick" back to en:
> and to link to it prominently on every policy page ;-)
>

Once I got *very* annoyed with an editor who had obviously not
discovered the "Preview" button and whipped up {{preview}} to redirect
to [[Wikipedia:Preview]] (or whatever it is); I then subst:ed it onto
their talk page. IIRC I reverted myself, the template went to TfD, and
was saved after I or someone else wrote something sensible there.

But yeah, I can see cases where subst:ing [[Wikipedia:Don't be a dick]]
in all it's glory onto someone's talk page would have the desired effect.

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

body:
Thanks to Brion for his statement at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AUM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Qif was up for shooting.
It is ugly.

WP:AUM has been used on :en as a motto to replace uses of Qif
with other ugliness.

Question: What shall we do now?

Qif is replaced now with a CSS trick (ugly):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Adrian_Buehlmann/work/Conditional_expressions_with_CSS

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush for an example use
(look at html source created by Infobox President template).

There is a third ugliness called weeble trick. Example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Adrian_Buehlmann/work/Infobox_TV_channel/2006-01-02

So which ugliness shall we use until we have conditional functions
in MediaWiki ("ifempty", "or", "not", "and". No loops,
no gotos, no viruses)?

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Adrian_Buehlmann


subject: [WikiEN-l] Another AfD example -- a serious proposal to fix it

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 1/20/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Perhaps this is what a "deletion cabal" could do: simply make the call
>>to speedy pull a nomination, rather than penalize the nominator.
>
>
> At your service.
>

I have a link in my toolbox called "Week old AfD" - sometimes when I'm
really bored I go through and check everything that's still open,
keeping / {{db|(link to AfD)}} / tagging for merging / relisting as
appropriate.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/20/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
>>I would like to think that -- really I would -- but two years on the
>>ArbComm have turned me into a bitter, cynical, twisted shadow of my
>>former cheery, optimistic, happy-go-lucky self.
>>
>>Have nominations painlessly canceled, with no repercussions at all,
>>would make the deletionists /more/ likely to nominate stuff for
>>deletion, not less.
>>
>>- --
>
>
> If you look at the list of deletionists over at meta you will find
> most don't list much stuff for deletion.
>

I was Officialy Informed that the page in question is "a joke page" and
"was never meant to be serious". Last time I looked it was in
[[m:Category:Humour]].

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
John Lee wrote:
> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
>>> Yes, because Lord knows those evil deletionists must be PUNISHED!
>>> Drilled into the ground, pounded into dust, made never to return.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Yes please. Although I know that Wikipedia has a little more moderate
>> stance so lifetime bannings is OK for me. The "deletionists" are doing
>> more harm than any other type of troll or spammer.
>>
>> --
>> mvh Bj?rn
>>
>>
> Define "deletionists", please.
>
>

People who quite honestly couldn't give a Royal Flying Rat's Arse if
what they are doing is harmful, so long as they "purge crap" from the
encyclopedia.

(I wonder how many of same joined the pro-userbox crusade?)

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

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> Actually, I did try to explain, but the admin told me
> not to be cute. I said that I liked the photo and that
> it fitted in my page. The light-yellow colours gave me
> peace of mind.

Count yourself lucky that you haven't been permanently banned already by
me personally.  Behave yourself going forward, or I will.

This excuse isn't even _cute_.  It's an insult to our intelligence.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fair use images on user pages and enforcement

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>> We are already not allowed to have photos of the Louvre and other
>> buildings in France. This is the price we pay for Free content; if you
>> want to excercise Free Speech, use Tor or Freenet...
>>
> This seems like an extreme point of view.
>

That we aren't allowed photos of the Louvre? IIRC they were deleted from
Commons some months ago, because fr: uses Commons, meaning that
potentially copyvio pictures were viewable on a site targeted to the
juridstiction where the copyvio was taking place.

That if you want to exercise Free Speech, don't use Wikipedia? You
should read [[WP:NOT]] some time.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 1/19/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Tony has been arguing that the deletion process is borked. That, I think
>>>we can all agree on, even if we disagree on how it's broken. However,
>>>that's not licence to wholly ignore it,
>>
>>
>>Welll, I'd say that it's a very good reason to use your noggin and
>>reverse its most egregiously borked decisions. Something that you may
>>have noticed some of us are quite adept at doing.  Looks like Jimmy
>>Wales took a leaf from our book! :)
>
>
> Not really. Your recent record only looks good compared to your out of
> process deletion record.
>

The only time when process should take priority over common sense is
when dealing with the laws of physics.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notability meta-guidelines

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>> Ones with atomic number >103. Whether they exist or not is a grey area.
>> They can generally be "made to exist" for short periods of time. I'm not
>> sure whether it's fair to include an element just because it *has* been
>> made to exist (for a millionth of a second) and exclude another because
>> they couldn't decide whether made it exist or not. Anyway, scientific
>> theories have a place in Wikipedia, right or wrong - provided they have
>> been published in reputable journals.
>>
>> Question: Are there any "reputable" sources that publish articles about
>> Pok?mon characters?
>>
> When we move from "notable" to "reputable" we are just replacing one
> subjective criterion with another.  Not only that, we are making a
> decision for the reader that he should be making himself.  We can cite a
> dubious publication; we can even have an article about it since it at
> least does exist.  If the publication devotes itself entirely to Pok?mon
> fancruft or KKK rants it's fair for us to say that in our article about
> it.  It's then up to the reader to determine how reputable it really is.
>

Alright, so in boderline cases, simply keep anything with verifiable
references and deleted anything without as violating [[WP:NOR]].
[[WP:NOT]] a replacement for common sense, which a lot of our editors
seem to be severely lacking in.

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

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from_name: Jama Poulsen

body:
On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 05:18:39PM +0000, Sam Korn wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
> > So which ugliness shall we use until we have conditional functions
> > in MediaWiki ("ifempty", "or", "not", "and". No loops,
> > no gotos, no viruses)?
>
> How about none of them, and play with templates how they were designed
> to be played with?

You mean like this? :-)

  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter/Language_Specification

People can test the language here if they want (you do need a Wikicompany account):

  http://wikicompany.org/wiki?title=Wikicompany:Test4

Sure there are performance, security and editorial-complexity considerations
when deploying these kind of extensions, but some things are just too funky
too ignore.

Jama Poulsen


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>The only way I can see to interpret 1) is to make "notable"
>>>mean something like "well known".
>>
>>Yes, it was a mistake on my part.
>>
>>
>>>And frankly, the rule doesn't make sense to me.  Providing
>>>someone with information on something when they request it
>>>isn't advertising.
>>>Advertising is when you provide someone with information
>>>other than what they requested.
>>>
>>>IOW, if someone does a search for "Bob's Garage Band" and
>>>they get information on it, how is that advertising?
>>
>>I'm not 100% sure of the logic either, but articles get turfed for being
>>"vanity" all the time. Even, as we have seen recently, when they are
>>written by people unknown to the subject.
>>
>>Actually now that I think about it, maybe a subject *does* get false
>>notability from being on Wikipedia. If I searched for Bob's garage band
>>and found nothing but a crufty geocities website, that would be one
>>thing. If I found a fully-fledged Wikipedia article, I would think
>>something completely different about them. I would think they were more
>>notable than they really were.
>>
>>Steve
>
>
> What if the Wikipedia article said that they weren't notable?
>
> What exactly does notable mean, anyway?
>

Has some feature that distinguishes the subject from all members of the
same set in some non-trivial manner.

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cleanup adventures - Bob Stambaugh

body:
This time it took me an hour to get an article with {{wikify}} on it down
to a one-sentence stub.

It turns out that the colleagues of a recently deceased man wanted to
honor him with a Wikipedia entry and started contributing first-hand
accounts about the person to the article. Once I had moved those to the
talk page and removed possible copyright violations from the article there
was essentially nothing left.

Entry:

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

Exhortations to contribute to the entry:

http://www.ihrim.org/bobstambaugh.asp

"... asking everyone who knew Bob to collect their notes/facts/events and
enter them into this online encylopedia."

http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2005/12/robert_h_stamba

"I know there have been criticisms about Wikipedia and some of its entries
but Bob would be pleased his peers are honoring him with a well thought
out entry cataloging his extensive contributions to the HR discipline."

One of the main arguments in favor of deletionism is that we don't have
the manpower to maintain articles on all those marginally notable
subjects. The number of articles with cleanup tags on them seems to bear
this out.

I disagree with the idea that deciding to keep an article is always
harmless. Having tens of thousands of biography articles sprawling around
with few experienced Wikipedians checking them is *dangerous*. It is much
*less* dangerous to delete articles which we may not be able to maintain
in a neutral informative state.

Every time you comment in AfD, ask yourself the question: "Will we be able
to maintain this article?" It is not a question to be answered lightly and
demonizing those who frequently answer it with "no, I don't think we will"
is not productive.

I want to see the people who talk like they're living under some sort of
deletionist reign of terror, down in the trenches cleaning copyvios, libel
and dangerous misinformation out of marginal articles. Prove that we
really can maintain all the articles which you want to keep.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Meta templates and Qif on :en

body:
"Sam Korn" <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote in
message
news:cbffa3750601210918q71a7e501k3499701e319a0a52 at mail.gmail.com
> On 1/21/06, Adrian Buehlmann
> <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
>> So which ugliness shall we use until we have conditional functions
>> in MediaWiki ("ifempty", "or", "not", "and". No loops,
>> no gotos, no viruses)?
>
> How about none of them, and play with templates how they were designed
> to be played with?

Yes please remove the CSS trick from the following templates on :en

Infobox President
Infobox Governor
Infobox Person
Infobox Senator

and a few hundred others. You can start at [[:Category:Infobox templates]].

The hack conditionals have been beaten with big sticks and they are
still alive. Who wonders?

Adrian


from_name: Rob

body:
When a user wastes the time and interferes with the productivity of other
users with his or her nonsense, that can outweigh their positive
contributions and their absence from the project may turn out to be a net
gain.  Think about that before you poke the bear with a stick again.

On 1/21/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> You are pissed because of the user-box conflict and
> the amount of criticism you've received and now you're
> taking out your anger on me. I should feel lucky for
> not being banned just like you should feel lucky for
> me not being banned, because my loss, would be equally
> your loss, just like any other contributor's loss
> would also be our loss. So I'm guessing I shouldn't
> add your photo to my userpage, either, or else...
>


body:
--- Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> I disagree with the idea that deciding to keep an article is always
> harmless. Having tens of thousands of biography articles sprawling around
> with few experienced Wikipedians checking them is *dangerous*. It is much
> *less* dangerous to delete articles which we may not be able to maintain
> in a neutral informative state.

It's only dangerous because we always present every article as being a factual
encyclopedia article; if we didn't, then I think we'd be much better off. Let
me explain...

My hope is that soon we'll be able to introduce some kind of rating system, or
stable vs development system, or whatever, that can be used by readers to
distinguish between trustworthy articles (or article versions) and the
"unwashed masses" of greater Wikipedia.

I suspect that most AfD-fodder articles are probably going to be read by only a
handful of people a year, if that, and, inevitably, they're usually on less
notable topics than the majority of other articles. Therefore, having a huge
debates about whether to keep them or not seems to me to be a huge squandering
of human effort for very little gain. Apart from a couple of cases, I've
refused to get involved in VfD/AfD because I think it's a *colossal* waste of
time. I think it would be much more productive if we kept a few more articles
and invested our resources into identifying the quality stuff.

That is, rather than all Wikipedia articles being implicitly presented as
trustworthy (maybe they aren't, but people naturally tend to assume this), we'd
be better off making it crystal clear that articles are untrustworthy by
default -- maybe even David Gerard's "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" gif thing ;-) --
unless there's some documented reason to believe otherwise. That way we
wouldn't have to worry about the cruft so much.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 21 Jan 2006, at 19:36, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
> I haven't seen any of those pictures, but I prseume that they were
> pictures taken by individuals who had the perfect right to license
> their pictures as they see fit.  In case you don't know it the
> Louvre is more than 70 years old.  Quit inventing ridiculous laws.

The Pyramid at the Louvre is less than 70 years old and thats a
problem in french law.

Justinc


body:
On 1/21/06, Jama Poulsen <jama at debianlinux.net> wrote:
> You mean like this? :-)
>
>   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter
>   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter/Language_Specification

I admire the work you've done there.  I think it's very impressive.
However, I also think it's far too complex for a site where the
accesibility level should be low.  The syntax should be *very* simple
-- markup rather than programming.

--
Sam


references:
<dqtq5v$bmn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cbffa3750601210918q71a7e501k3499701e319a0a52@mail.gmail.com>
	<dqtt4s$kg3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 1/21/06, Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
> The hack conditionals have been beaten with big sticks and they are
> still alive. Who wonders?

No-one, because every time someone attempts a semantically acceptable
and half-way decent looking solution someone reverts because it loses
some minor function.

--
Sam


from_name: Omegatron

body:
> I admire the work you've done there.  I think it's very impressive.
> However, I also think it's far too complex for a site where the
> accesibility level should be low.  The syntax should be *very* simple
> -- markup rather than programming.

The *article* syntax should be very simple.  It's already way too
complicated for the type of person who is supposed to be contributing,
with pipe tables, HTML, visual style markup, and so on.  Currently,
only those who aren't intimidated by code can contribute to the
encyclopedia, leading to significant systemic bias.

> Do you see the need?  I don't.  All I see is people wanting to use one
> template in all situations, where they could easily use multiple
> templates.

Using templates, especially templates with complex markup and
conditionals, makes *article markup* simpler and easier to edit.
There are still plenty of people who understand them and can make
changes when necessary.

> How about none of them, and play with templates how they were designed
> to be played with?

How exactly were they designed to be played with?  If they were really
only designed for one specific purpose, is there a good reason for not
expanding their breadth?  If they can be used as an intermediate step
between editors and developers, and make the wiki markup simpler and
easier to use for regular people, shouldn't it be done?  The
developers don't have time to do everything we want, but if other
editors can do it with templates, and it's not hurting the servers,
and it's not hurting anything else, where's the problem?

Obviously it would be better if this functionality was present in the
Mediawiki itself, but until it is, what makes these templates so bad?
They make the encyclopedia better.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Grandfathering: an initiative to deprecate the spread of
	userboxes that are divisive

body:
I welcome Jimbo's forthright statement that "political or, more
broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project", and his
thoughtful and considerate request that editors contemplate helping to
reduce the userbox culture by "simply removing your
political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same.
This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the
userbox wars."

I know this is going to meet resistance, so I'm trying to think of a
way in which those who think that expressing their opinions on their
userpages helps wikipedia and have so far chosen to do so using
userboxes, can be asked to do so in a way that doesn't contribute to
the very divisive culture that has ground up specifically around
userboxes.

I've come up with a suggestion as follows:

1. that if he disagrees with Jimbo's request, the user should instead
consider using the subst command to place the content of the template
directly into  his userpage. This would reduce the "viral"
transmission of userboxes somewhat and, for the user, it would have
the benefit of divorcing the fate of parts of his userpage from the
fate of individual userboxes--whether editing or deletion.

2. that having done this, he should take the opportunity to edit the
text so that it more precisely expresses his individual views.  In my
opinion this would be more in keeping with the *good* effects of
userboxes in enabling self-expression, while being more in keeping
with the principle that Wikipedia is a wiki in which we edit content,
and not a cookie-cutter website in which we reduce our complex beliefs
as individuals into regimented blocs that serve no purpose but to
emphasize the cultural divisions.

I think of this as "grandfathering".  Ultimately we should be able to
foster a benign culture of fearless expression of our editorial
biases, without enabling the  subversion of our relatively fragile
neutrality principle by alliances between single-issue
campaigners--however justifiable they may feel this subversion to be.


body:
On 1/21/06, Jama Poulsen <jama at debianlinux.net> wrote:
> I did not create this extension User:Frantik did.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

>
> One could also say that the current Wiki syntax is too simple for many editors.
>
> Sure its much more complex than the 'standard' Wiki syntax, but I do see
> a need for more dynamic page constructions and displays, and this provides
> a very interesting building block for that.

Do you see the need?  I don't.  All I see is people wanting to use one
template in all situations, where they could easily use multiple
templates.

> I see this project as a natural progression of Wiki syntax. You can ignore this
> development for some time, but as the Wiki editing model grows in popularity,
> more people will want these more expressive Wiki editing options (like a more
> advanced templating language, semantical annotations, etc.).

Yes, they will want it.  I also want chocolate, but it doesn't mean
you must give it to me.

--
Sam


body:
On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> I welcome Jimbo's forthright statement that "political or, more
> broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project", and his
> thoughtful and considerate request that editors contemplate helping to
> reduce the userbox culture by "simply removing your
> political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same.
> This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the
> userbox wars."
>
> I know this is going to meet resistance, so I'm trying to think of a
> way in which those who think that expressing their opinions on their
> userpages helps wikipedia and have so far chosen to do so using
> userboxes, can be asked to do so in a way that doesn't contribute to
> the very divisive culture that has ground up specifically around
> userboxes.
>
> I've come up with a suggestion as follows:
>
> 1. that if he disagrees with Jimbo's request, the user should instead
> consider using the subst command to place the content of the template
> directly into  his userpage. This would reduce the "viral"
> transmission of userboxes somewhat and, for the user, it would have
> the benefit of divorcing the fate of parts of his userpage from the
> fate of individual userboxes--whether editing or deletion.
>
> 2. that having done this, he should take the opportunity to edit the
> text so that it more precisely expresses his individual views.  In my
> opinion this would be more in keeping with the *good* effects of
> userboxes in enabling self-expression, while being more in keeping
> with the principle that Wikipedia is a wiki in which we edit content,
> and not a cookie-cutter website in which we reduce our complex beliefs
> as individuals into regimented blocs that serve no purpose but to
> emphasize the cultural divisions.
>
> I think of this as "grandfathering".  Ultimately we should be able to
> foster a benign culture of fearless expression of our editorial
> biases, without enabling the  subversion of our relatively fragile
> neutrality principle by alliances between single-issue
> campaigners--however justifiable they may feel this subversion to be.

Well said, Tony.  I agree fully.

--
Sam


body:
On 1/21/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Jama Poulsen <jama at debianlinux.net> wrote:
> > You mean like this? :-)
> >
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter/Language_Specification
>
> I admire the work you've done there.  I think it's very impressive.
> However, I also think it's far too complex for a site where the
> accesibility level should be low.  The syntax should be *very* simple
> -- markup rather than programming.
>
> --
> Sam

Just to clarify -- I'm not really opposed to some very simple
conditional additions to the MediaWiki code, just against the breadth
included there.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Could an Administrator please look into this conflict?

body:
--- JEFFREY KAUFFMAN <jeffrey_kauffman at msn.com> wrote:

> This is where is gets incredible to me:  she then had me banned
> indefinitely for "making threats and harrassing."

You were banned for making legal threats, which are not tolerated on Wikipedia;
you said, "you and Wikipedia are about to hear from my attorney".

Please don't waste our time.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Aerik Sylvan

subject: [Wikitech-l] categories as tags

body:
Jama Poulsen wrote:
>I agree with this, but the solution isn't to not use
tags/labels/categories.
>The real solution lies in a combination of various meta-info systems and a
>powerful browse/search interface. For a project like Wikipedia a very
flexible
>solution is needed.

Semantic Mediawiki is very cool - I'll have to look at that some more.
Another approach relevant to what you're describing is to use multiple tags
for articles, and then search against those multiple categories (described
at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category_math and other places) - one
example of this in action is at
http://www.wikidirectory.org/index.php?title=Special:Intersections&catlist=Forums+Webmaster_Resources.
This gives you the more specific results from a combination of tags or
categories having less specific meaning.

Using an approach where you embrace tags/categories/labels/whatever that are
less specific, you begin to get an "average" kind of meaning.  I've also
been thinking about how to combine this approach (category intersections)
with some kind of relevance rating (maybe using the article validation code
to rate the relevance of each tag).

Best Regards,
Aerik


body:
I wonder if the coders could fix it so that templates are
auto-substing in userspace by default.  We would probably want to make
an exception for certain templates such as those that are related to
page protection and are used for housekeeping purposes, though in
practice it would probably be enough to "includeonly" a category.


body:
On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 07:57:59PM +0000, Sam Korn wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Jama Poulsen <jama at debianlinux.net> wrote:
> > You mean like this? :-)
> >
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frantik/Winter/Language_Specification
>
> I admire the work you've done there.  I think it's very impressive.
> However, I also think it's far too complex for a site where the
> accesibility level should be low.  The syntax should be *very* simple
> -- markup rather than programming.

I did not create this extension User:Frantik did.

One could also say that the current Wiki syntax is too simple for many editors.

Sure its much more complex than the 'standard' Wiki syntax, but I do see
a need for more dynamic page constructions and displays, and this provides
a very interesting building block for that.

I see this project as a natural progression of Wiki syntax. You can ignore this
development for some time, but as the Wiki editing model grows in popularity,
more people will want these more expressive Wiki editing options (like a more
advanced templating language, semantical annotations, etc.).

Jama Poulsen


subject: [Wikitech-l] Try #2: Idea for learning spam filter

body:
I posted previously about this and got no responses, but I think it's a
really good idea, so I'm trying one more time.  I've been thinking about a
filter that adds urls to a blacklist after X number of repeat posts of that
url within Y amount of time.

The idea is that the normal behaviour for a wiki is that it is very unlikely
for an url to be referenced in an edit more than X times in 24 hours (I'll
postulate twice, just for fun), but it is very common behaviour for a
spammer.  Therefore, if one could ascertain (do some tests) that some large
percentage (say 99.9%) of valid (non-spam) urls posted via edits occur less
than X in 24 hours, you could put in a filter inconveniencing a very small
percentage of users that would autmatically add those urls to a blacklist.

I think it's worth testing anyway.  What I'm proposing is to collect urls
posted via edit in a short period of time (say a week) and do an analysis.
Anybody else like this idea?  I'd be willing to write a script, but there'd
have to be a hook, or a small hack in editpage to call it.

Best Regards,
Aerik


subject:
[WikiEN-l] In defence of properly-used fair use images (was
	Image:Wp ayb.gif)

body:
On 1/21/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2. We approach fair use reasonably, not being afraid of using it where
> we need to and with a philosophy of "least likelihood of anybody
> thinking they could sue us and win."

Going down this route is  against Wikipedia's aspirations towards
being a *free* (as in speech) encyclopedia, demonstrates an open
contempt for intellectual property rights that is alien to the free
content principle, and is likely to be used against us with some
success in any future lawsuit.

As a free encyclopedia and the most significant free intellectual
property entity ever created, we must  never advocate, either openly
or in private, the abuse of the intellectual property of others, lest
we taint the entire free content enterprise.

Why is the inclusion of "fair use" content even a question for
Wikipedia?  People don't come to us in their millions for pictures of
movie stars and album covers; for those they can go to better funded
websites that have a considerable revenue and can retain legal
advisers and are in a position to pay royalties on those items that
they use.

We ought to be starting to deprecate fair use images ''in any
context''.  We are in a position now politely to request that, if
editors want to obtain an image for use on Wikipedia, they should
write to the copyright owner on our behalf and with our full blessing,
explaining the free content license and requesting such a license for
a specific image.

Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
image of an album cover?


body:
On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>  All "bold" actions using
> admin privileges (and some "bold" actions that any user can do) are
> actually [[WP:IAR]].

Same thing really, except that bold administrator actions can only be
reversed by equally bold administrators.    Bold editing needn't be
abusive; nor need bold administrative actions, though both must be
carried out with a sensitivity which is often proportional to one's
opinion that the edit is necessary.

Both types of bold action require bold, but not insensitive,
justification, which must be provided in a forthright and cooperative
manner.  The community may ultimately withhold the presumption of good
faith from a person who abuses the principles.  For further thoughts
on this, see various discussions on my talk page  history involving
Xoloz and myself.  I commend Xoloz's comments and have learned much
from the dialog.


body:
On 1/21/06, I wrote:
> Both types of bold action require bold, but not insensitive,
> justification, which must be provided in a forthright and cooperative
> manner.  The community may ultimately withhold the presumption of good
> faith from a person who abuses the principles.  For further thoughts
> on this, see various discussions on my talk page  history involving
> Xoloz and myself.  I commend Xoloz's comments and have learned much
> from the dialog.
>

Oops, I should say that I am User:Tony Sidaway on English Wikipedia
and my talk page history is at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Tony_Sidaway&action=history

Please add "&limit=500" or something to the above URL if you want to
have a proper guddle, otherwise you'll probably just get the latest
three days or so; I am considering selling the syndication rights of
my talk page on ebay. :)


body:
> Please add "&limit=500" or something to the above URL if you want to
> have a proper guddle, otherwise you'll probably just get the latest
> three days or so; I am considering selling the syndication rights of
> my talk page on ebay. :)

Hah! Your talk page is released under the GFDL like everything else :)

I would like to second Tony's suggestion - the conversation between him
and Xoloz is good reading.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Aerik Sylvan wrote:
> The idea is that the normal behaviour for a wiki is that it is very unlikely
> for an url to be referenced in an edit more than X times in 24 hours (I'll
> postulate twice, just for fun), but it is very common behaviour for a
> spammer.  Therefore, if one could ascertain (do some tests) that some large
> percentage (say 99.9%) of valid (non-spam) urls posted via edits occur less
> than X in 24 hours, you could put in a filter inconveniencing a very small
> percentage of users that would autmatically add those urls to a blacklist.
>
> I think it's worth testing anyway.  What I'm proposing is to collect urls
> posted via edit in a short period of time (say a week) and do an analysis.
> Anybody else like this idea?  I'd be willing to write a script, but there'd
> have to be a hook, or a small hack in editpage to call it.

Sounds great to me.

See extensions/ConfirmEdit in CVS for my half-done captcha system; it's got a
little thingy for extracting added URLs from an edit.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 21/01/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know being blocked is annoying and may well make you angry, but please
> don't spam the mailing list with 3 the same messages. One will do just as
> well.

That's my fault. All three messages had been jumped into the
moderation queue; had I read all three I would only have approved one.
For some reason the moderation queue had not been cleared for quite a
long while.

~Mark


body:
> Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
> refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
> image of an album cover?

Because that would make it one step more difficult for them to sue people
making bootleg copies of the album.

Why would they want to compromise their entire legal strategy over
something as trivial as having their album cover on Wikipedia?

Regards,
Haukur


body:
John Lee wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>> On 1/21/06, Travis Mason-Bushman <travis at gpsports-eng.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I would vehemently disagree, especially when among those ten articles
>>> are hoaxes, thinly veiled attack pages, vanispamcruftvertisements and
>>> other such content that has the effect of actively making Wikipedia a
>>> *worse* and *less authoritative* source of information.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Why should anyone consider Wikipedia to be authoritative?  It's
>> written by amateurs.  But I agree that we should get rid of tripe.
>> BUt we should discuss it properly.  Jimbo is right, there is far, far
>> too much emphasis on deletion.
>>
>> Bad articles can be identified and improved, or if there's nothing
>> good about them they can be deleted.  But there should be more
>> emphasis on improvement.  There should be fewer AfD listings carried
>> to term.  We should encourage editors to seek innovative solutions,
>> and not fetishize the deletion process.  So often these days it seems
>> like a fairground ride--once the journey starts you have to keep your
>> hands inside the car, and mustn't tamper with the deletion proposal.
>> Why on earth not? If an article looks like an obvious redirect
>> candidate, then do it and thank you for saving us five days worth of
>> debate about deletion.  Any further discussion can continue on the
>> discussion page.
>>
>>
> From someone in the trenches (I've been keeping [[WP:AFD/Old]] 100%
> backlog free for a week) who has disagreed with Tony before, I have to
> say that this is an excellent proposal. There's too much reliance on
> closing admins to do the work. Instead of saying "* '''Redirect''' as
> per Foo," why the hell not just redirect it?
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])

That's the point that annoys me most about AFD: You can't just redirect
or merge the articles, because of course once an article is on AFD, it's
sacrilegious to remove the AFD tag from the article and forgo the
"discussion" that's supposedly happening. So, it's basically locked
until it's deleted or kept. Of course, you can still edit and improve
it, but I'm not going to do that to an article that I think should be
merged or redirected anyway.

grm_wnr


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Search Engine

body:
You appear to be violating the terms under which Wikipedia content is
licensed, with that featured article and picture on your front page.
You should include a link back to the source Wikipedia article, as
we've suggested on our copyrights page
(http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights). Additionally,
you should also include a GFDL notice. One way of doing this would be
to add the text included below, and provide a link to
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Example GFDL notice text: This article is licensed under the GNU Free
Documentation License (GFDL), which means that you can copy and modify
it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this
license.

~Mark Ryan
[[User:Mark]]
Wikipedia Administrator

On 21/01/06, nfs_ nfs <nfs_xxx at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just launched new Wikipedia Search Engine, it is new but will grow fast.
>
> Wikipedia Search engine : http://www.wikipediasearch.org/
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's the point that annoys me most about AFD: You can't just redirect
> or merge the articles, because of course once an article is on AFD, it's
> sacrilegious to remove the AFD tag from the article and forgo the
> "discussion" that's supposedly happening. So, it's basically locked
> until it's deleted or kept. Of course, you can still edit and improve
> it, but I'm not going to do that to an article that I think should be
> merged or redirected anyway.
>
> grm_wnr

I've done it and got away with it (to be fair everyone includeing the
author agreeded with me).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth copyright (now that you bring it up)

body:
On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's why I suggest moving all free-license pictures over to Commons as
> soon as possible. Filtering out non-local images is even easier, and
> everything on Common is free, at least in theory (people mistag images
> all the time, but there's nothing we can do about that except delete
> them when we find them). I would even go as far as to use different
> syntaxes for Commons and local images to make parsing local ones out
> extremely trivial. Oh, and I'd also like a simpler way to transwiki free
> images to Commons...
>
> grm_wnr

Moveing stuff over to commons weakens our defences against vandalism.

--
geni


body:
> That's why I suggest moving all free-license
> pictures over to Commons as soon as possible.

That wouldn't be a bad thing. But remember that it's not as simple as
'free' and 'non-free'. We have *a lot* of images which are in the public
domain in the United States but not elsewhere. Last time I mentioned the
Bridgeman images as an example. Here's another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hundingsbane.jpg

This image is in the public domain in the United States but under present
law the copyright will hold in Europe until 2046.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> We ought to be starting to deprecate fair use images ''in any
> context''.

Hmm anyone who wants to help can start by telling me which Beatle is
which in this photo:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Beatles.jpg

--
geni


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] In defence of properly-used fair use images
	(was	Image:Wp ayb.gif)

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>
>Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
>refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
>image of an album cover?
>
Ah, refreshing naivete, brings to mind ponies and unicorns frolicking
in the flowery meadows...

These guys sue each other all the time over what seems like trivial
points to normal human beings, and they sue their customers too.
They paid a bunch of money for the images on those album covers,
and count the associated branding as company assets - they aren't
about to start giving all that away. Free use licenses? Their
heads would explode.

As untidy as it seems, fair use of cover art is a pragmatic solution.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the notoriously litigious
record companies don't hassle WP for copying thousands of album
covers - the companies don't give up their rights, readers get to
enjoy the illustrated articles. The only people unhappy with the
situation are a handful of Wikipedians concerned about the ideology.

Stan


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
>  In fact, the quotes are a
> more serious problem for the freeness goal, because while the images
> are tagged and filterable, the quotes are not easily removable.
>
> Stan
>
That's why I suggest moving all free-license pictures over to Commons as
soon as possible. Filtering out non-local images is even easier, and
everything on Common is free, at least in theory (people mistag images
all the time, but there's nothing we can do about that except delete
them when we find them). I would even go as far as to use different
syntaxes for Commons and local images to make parsing local ones out
extremely trivial. Oh, and I'd also like a simpler way to transwiki free
images to Commons...

grm_wnr


body:
On 1/21/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Please add "&limit=500" or something to the above URL if you want to
> > have a proper guddle, otherwise you'll probably just get the latest
> > three days or so; I am considering selling the syndication rights of
> > my talk page on ebay. :)
>
> Hah! Your talk page is released under the GFDL like everything else :)

We're talking about ebay.  Think about it... :)


from_name: John Lee

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>John Lee wrote:
>
>
>>BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Yes, because Lord knows those evil deletionists must be PUNISHED!
>>>>Drilled into the ground, pounded into dust, made never to return.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Yes please. Although I know that Wikipedia has a little more moderate
>>>stance so lifetime bannings is OK for me. The "deletionists" are doing
>>>more harm than any other type of troll or spammer.
>>>
>>>--
>>>mvh Bj?rn
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Define "deletionists", please.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>People who quite honestly couldn't give a Royal Flying Rat's Arse if
>what they are doing is harmful, so long as they "purge crap" from the
>encyclopedia.
>
>(I wonder how many of same joined the pro-userbox crusade?)
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
What's wrong with purging crap from the encyclopaedia? Nothing wrong
there. And as for "don't care if what they are doing is harmful", I
challenge you to name me anyone who you think seriously holds that
philosophy.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
geni wrote:
> [[WP:BOLD]] covers article content only. Admins are free to be bold as
> editors. WP:BOLD clearly does not encourage them to be bold as admins.
>
That's very true and I wish people what stop saying "I [[WP:BOLD]]ly
deleted that" and the like. [[WP:BOLD]] redirects to [[Wikipedia:Be bold
in updating pages]], not [[Wikipedia:Be bold]]. All "bold" actions using
admin privileges (and some "bold" actions that any user can do) are
actually [[WP:IAR]].

grm_wnr


body:
On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> True; but still we have the two pages. I only said that people should
> not justify their actions with a reference to a guideline page that
> doesn't even mention the thing they've been doing, especially since
> there's another page that does. Or we should just merge the two (yes, I
> know that won't happen).
>

Historically both pages express the same sentiment.  In recent months
it has become popular to cite or attack IAR, but really it can all be
boiled down to "it's a wiki".


body:
> Simple: Then it's not "free" as Commons understands the term and should
> remain on en locally. I guess that using an image that is only PD in the
> US is no better than using an image that is only covered by the US fair
> use laws, at least when we're discussing potential international
> reusers, which we are.

Sensible, but the portion of our images which are really free to use
anywhere in the world forever may be smaller than you think. Even images
created by Wikipedians and released "into the public domain" might be
problematic in some jurisdictions if the image creator changes her mind
about the licence. The whole concept of permanently licencing away your
rights to an image is badly supported in laws around the world. Sometimes
there are stipulations that any licencing of your rights to another party
can only last for X years.

And I wouldn't fancy trying to defend the byzantine GFDL (which most
Wikipedians have never read and Wikipedia itself is only barely in
compliance with) in courtrooms around the world. And whatever the licence
you'll always have to rely on the judges agreeing that by writing
something into our edit boxes you're doing something legally binding.

The line dividing 'free' and 'non-free' is a lot fuzzier than one would like.

Regards,
Haukur (IANAL)

P.S. Here's one issue I'm wondering about, look at this image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KingOfAtlantisEJ.jpg

This is a photo of an Icelandic sculpture. Under Icelandic laws the
copyright of the person who made the sculpture is important for how the
photo can be used. This image is definitely not free in Iceland. Is it
free in the US? Can anyone help me find out?


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/21/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> This is a photo of an Icelandic sculpture. Under Icelandic laws the
> copyright of the person who made the sculpture is important for how the
> photo can be used. This image is definitely not free in Iceland. Is it
> free in the US? Can anyone help me find out?

Created 1919-22 so probably.

--
geni


body:
>> This is a photo of an Icelandic sculpture. Under Icelandic laws the
>> copyright of the person who made the sculpture is important for how the
>> photo can be used. This image is definitely not free in Iceland. Is it
>> free in the US? Can anyone help me find out?
>
> Created 1919-22 so probably.

Okay. How about this photo of a sculpture created 1926-1927?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GriefEJ.jpg

I would really like to know.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  All "bold" actions using
>> admin privileges (and some "bold" actions that any user can do) are
>> actually [[WP:IAR]].
>>
>
> Same thing really, except that bold administrator actions can only be
> reversed by equally bold administrators.    Bold editing needn't be
> abusive; nor need bold administrative actions, though both must be
> carried out with a sensitivity which is often proportional to one's
> opinion that the edit is necessary.
>

True; but still we have the two pages. I only said that people should
not justify their actions with a reference to a guideline page that
doesn't even mention the thing they've been doing, especially since
there's another page that does. Or we should just merge the two (yes, I
know that won't happen).

grm_wnr


body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>> That's why I suggest moving all free-license
>> pictures over to Commons as soon as possible.
>>
>
> That wouldn't be a bad thing. But remember that it's not as simple as
> 'free' and 'non-free'. We have *a lot* of images which are in the public
> domain in the United States but not elsewhere. Last time I mentioned the
> Bridgeman images as an example. Here's another:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hundingsbane.jpg
>
> This image is in the public domain in the United States but under present
> law the copyright will hold in Europe until 2046.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
>

Simple: Then it's not "free" as Commons understands the term and should
remain on en locally. I guess that using an image that is only PD in the
US is no better than using an image that is only covered by the US fair
use laws, at least when we're discussing potential international
reusers, which we are.

grm_wnr


body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/21/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's the point that annoys me most about AFD: You can't just redirect
>> or merge the articles, because of course once an article is on AFD, it's
>> sacrilegious to remove the AFD tag from the article and forgo the
>> "discussion" that's supposedly happening. So, it's basically locked
>> until it's deleted or kept. Of course, you can still edit and improve
>> it, but I'm not going to do that to an article that I think should be
>> merged or redirected anyway.
>>
>> grm_wnr
>>
>
> I've done it and got away with it (to be fair everyone includeing the
> author agreeded with me).
>
>

Well, lots of non-process stuff is done and gotten away with, as
everyone probably knows by now. I'd just like to see this added to the
normal deletion rules, so that users that don't want, don't dare or
don't know about IAR can and will do it as well.

grm_wnr


subject: [WikiEN-l] more low bandwidth user comments

body:
(Apologies to Dan if you get this twice; I'm assuming you're not
subscribed to the list...)

Dan Jacobson wrote:
> On Talk pages there is a link '+' for adding a comment.
> Well why don't you spell out with English etc. what you mean instead
> of just this geekspeak '+'.
>

Have you checked the tooltip on that? Please don't tell me you don't see
it, you're using a decent browser...

> OK, and if one clicks on this +, one must download 100+ KB of form,
> just to add a comment.  Perhaps mostly rarely used accented chars
> entry help stuff.
>

I'm on 42kbps dialup. I don't have a problem with it.

> When one sees links like Discussion etc. you might as well give an
> article count, e.g., Discussion (21 items). Mainly if there is no
> discussion yet, I don't want to click, as I have nothing to say, just
> want to see others.
>

If you determine a way of distinguishing the exact number of topics on a
talk page, please submit your feature to http://www.mediawiki.org/ - not
everyone will start a new section for their comment, so section counting
won't do it.

> And this 4 tilde for a signature biz. Can't you do this thru
> cookie/preferences? How could I remember to do that each time.
> No complicated sounding plugin for me.
>

Not everyone wants to add their signature 100% of the time. I assure
you, ~~~~ is a lot less complicated than some "basic" HTML...

Anyway, the second to last button directly above the edit box gives me
the tooltip "Your signature with timestamp" and inserts --~~~~ (this can
be customised to something else BTW, I think it's been documented at
[[WP:US]]). HTH.

> I even made a script to add comments, that works as long as there is
> no funny characters in the page name.
> #usage eg. $0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminating_vista
> #to add a comment to it's Talk page without downloading the form
> set -e
> test $# -eq 1
> case $1 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*);;*)exit 33;esac
> p=$(basename $1) t=/tmp/wikipediacomment.html
> wwwoffle -o \
> 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Miso&action=edit&section=new'|
> perl -pwe 's@(action=")(/w/index.php)@$1http://en.wikipedia.org$2@;
>   s/Talk:Miso/Talk:'$p'/g' > $t
> firefox $t
>

If you're so desperate for bandwidth that you have to use perl to edit
your pages, why don't you just run [[Links (web browser)]] in the
simplest mode? No graphics, CSS or JS to download!

> On all pages there is "Go" "Search". Many don't know what "Go" means...
>

Type the name of an article into the box and hit "Go".

> Anyways, hope this gets to wikien-l, where I suppose it is read (as
> this is the best bug report address I know.)
>

Not the best place (wikitech-l at wikimedia.org /is/), but you could have
done a lot worse.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
> So how do people sell books in such countries, given that the text,
> illustrations, design, font and so on must all revert to the creator
> within X years?

Presumably you contact the respective copyright holders again if you want
to republish the works. But I'm not a lawyer and I don't really know what
I'm talking about. Here's one interesting clause from the Icelandic code.
This has to do with performing rights:

"If permission is granted for an indefinite period of time, regardless of
whether it confers exclusive right or not, this shall be considered valid
for a period of no more than three years."

Or take such a byzantine clause as this:

"If a literary or artistic work has not been published within two years
or, in the case of a musical work, within four years of the time the
author submits to the publisher the final manuscript thereof or another
copy to be used for reproduction purposes, the author may, unless a longer
time limit has been agreed upon for publication, cancel the publishing
contract, whether or not the conditions for cancelling a contract under
general rules of law have been fulfilled."

I submitted some articles to Wikipedia back in 2003 and they still haven't
published them so I can cancel the "publishing contract". No, probably
not, but this exemplifies how badly a law designed around traditional
publishing handles the free-content-on-the-web world.

It's not all bad, here's a helpful "fair use" provision, for example:

"Pictures or drawings of presented works of art may be presented in
newspapers and periodicals, on television and in cinematographic works in
connection with the reporting of current events. This shall not, however,
apply to works which were intended for presentation in the foregoing
manner."

Here's the thing I was referring to regarding the sculptures:

"Photographs may be taken and presented of buildings, as well as works of
art, which have been situated permanently out-of-doors in a public
location. Should a building, which enjoys protection under the rules
concerning works of architecture, or a work of art as previously referred
to, comprise the principal motif in a photograph which is exploited for
marketing purposes, the author shall be entitled to remuneration, unless
the pictures are intended for use by a newspaper or in television
broadcasting."

The law is full of special provisions and exceptions like that and I have
no idea how many of them would apply to a project like Wikipedia.

Read it here: http://eng.menntamalaraduneyti.is/Acts/nr/2428

I imagine that the difficulties involved in creating free content that
does not run foul of some special provision in the copyright laws of some
country are considerable.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [Wikitech-l] Dumps in progress

body:
There's still some improvements to be made, but I've gone ahead and started a
dump run. If it explodes partway through, oh wells. :)

Florida cluster:
http://download.wikimedia.org/

Korea cluster:
http://amaryllis.yaseo.wikimedia.org/backup/ (temporary URL)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] A Wikipedia lynching

body:
As an aside, my guess is that we do have a Jihadist or two, certainly
on the arabic wiki I would assume. I've often wondered how many CIA
agents and etc.. we have as well. They would be very foolish to
completely refrain from reviewing or interacting with such a dynamic
source of data.

On topic, I think describing wiki-events in hyperbolic terms is
stressful and encourages squabbling. It also embarrasses me and makes
me think i might have go to the pub instead of edit the wiki, if I
want to engage in a rigourous dialogue ;)

Perhaps we could have a lesser version of No Personal Attacks advising
against describing an edit war or deletion of ones vanity page a
holocaustic genocide, or an arbcom case as a "racial attack" and
Lynching (the former I don't know of having occurred, the second
refers to a current ARBCOM case ;)

Sam Spade

> In any event, this is no more "libel" than your own hysterical line
> about "crusaders and jihadists," which I assume was probably not
> actually a meant to be interpretted as anybody on Wikipedia actively
> being members of the 15th century European invasion of the Holy Land
> or active members of Islamic extremist movements.
>
> FF


body:
On 1/22/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> So request to become an admin there.
>

It's been a while but last I heard my wikipedia adminship alone would
not get me through the adminship process there.

--
geni


body:
On 21 Jan 2006, at 20:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Justin Cormack wrote:
>
>>
>> On 21 Jan 2006, at 19:36, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't seen any of those pictures, but I prseume that they
>>> were  pictures taken by individuals who had the perfect right to
>>> license  their pictures as they see fit.  In case you don't know
>>> it the  Louvre is more than 70 years old.  Quit inventing
>>> ridiculous laws.
>>
>> The Pyramid at the Louvre is less than 70 years old and thats a
>> problem in french law.
>
> OK, I can see where that would apply to the pyramid, but it should
> not apply to general photos of the Louvre itself.

I think other photos should be fine, I think it was only the ones
with the Pyramid that had a
problem.

Mind you there seem to be plenty of pictures of the pyramid on
commons too.

The also had a problem with the lighting on the Eiffel Tower.

Maybe they have just decided not to link from fr, not sure.

Justinc


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 1/21/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
>
>
>>>Please add "&limit=500" or something to the above URL if you want to
>>>have a proper guddle, otherwise you'll probably just get the latest
>>>three days or so; I am considering selling the syndication rights of
>>>my talk page on ebay. :)
>>>
>>>
>>Hah! Your talk page is released under the GFDL like everything else :)
>>
>>
>We're talking about ebay.  Think about it... :)
>
GFDL is a non-exclusive licence.  Potential buyers could still view it
here for free, but an eBay version by the celebrated original author
could have incompatible restrictions.

In the world of eBay they managed to sell an ordinary US $1.00 bill for
62 cents plus shipping,  The grilled Virgin Mary did go for a not so
cheesy $28,000.00.  William Shatner's kidney stone was sold at auction
for ?14,000, but I don't think that was eBay.

With the right marketting, who knows ... ?

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Dumps in progress

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> There's still some improvements to be made, but I've gone ahead and started a
> dump run. If it explodes partway through, oh wells. :)

I've aborted the dumps for the moment; there's something wrong with the text
prefetch system that's supposed to avoid unnecessary (and slow!) load on the
database servers during the dumps, and I'm having trouble debugging it at 4am.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>>Simple: Then it's not "free" as Commons understands the term and should
>>remain on en locally. I guess that using an image that is only PD in the
>>US is no better than using an image that is only covered by the US fair
>>use laws, at least when we're discussing potential international
>>reusers, which we are.
>>
>>
>
>Sensible, but the portion of our images which are really free to use
>anywhere in the world forever may be smaller than you think. Even images
>created by Wikipedians and released "into the public domain" might be
>problematic in some jurisdictions if the image creator changes her mind
>about the licence. The whole concept of permanently licencing away your
>rights to an image is badly supported in laws around the world. Sometimes
>there are stipulations that any licencing of your rights to another party
>can only last for X years.
>
>And I wouldn't fancy trying to defend the byzantine GFDL (which most
>Wikipedians have never read and Wikipedia itself is only barely in
>compliance with) in courtrooms around the world. And whatever the licence
>you'll always have to rely on the judges agreeing that by writing
>something into our edit boxes you're doing something legally binding.
>
>The line dividing 'free' and 'non-free' is a lot fuzzier than one would like.
>
>Regards,
>Haukur (IANAL)
>
>P.S. Here's one issue I'm wondering about, look at this image:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KingOfAtlantisEJ.jpg
>
>This is a photo of an Icelandic sculpture. Under Icelandic laws the
>copyright of the person who made the sculpture is important for how the
>photo can be used. This image is definitely not free in Iceland. Is it
>free in the US? Can anyone help me find out?
>

Under Canadian law a photograph of a building or of a statue on
permanent outdoor exhibit is specifically NOT a violation of copyright.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] In defence of properly-used fair use
	images	(was	Image:Wp ayb.gif)

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>> Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
>> refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
>> image of an album cover?
>
> Ah, refreshing naivete, brings to mind ponies and unicorns frolicking
> in the flowery meadows...
>
> These guys sue each other all the time over what seems like trivial
> points to normal human beings, and they sue their customers too.
> They paid a bunch of money for the images on those album covers,
> and count the associated branding as company assets - they aren't
> about to start giving all that away. Free use licenses? Their
> heads would explode.
>
> As untidy as it seems, fair use of cover art is a pragmatic solution.
> I don't think it's a coincidence that the notoriously litigious
> record companies don't hassle WP for copying thousands of album
> covers - the companies don't give up their rights, readers get to
> enjoy the illustrated articles. The only people unhappy with the
> situation are a handful of Wikipedians concerned about the ideology.

It may even be naive to believe that pragmatism is anything but a tough
sell among some mailing list participants.

Ec


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions, bogus guidelines

body:
On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Good anyone who need IRA to justify their actions should have carried
> > > them out in the first place.
> >
> > I'm not sure that using the IRA to justify your actions for you is
> > ever a good idea!
> >
>
> my statement should have read "Good anyone who needs IRA to justify
> their actions should not have carried them out in the first place."

There is a certain process when responding to public mailing lists too:

1. Read what you are replying to.
2. Try to understand what you are replying to.
3. Write your reply.
4. Make sure it is coherent, relevant and not a total waste of time
for others to read.
4. Spellcheck it.
5. Capitalize sentences.
6. Send it.

Please do not sidestep this process. Process is important.

WikiEN-l is not an AOL chat room, it's not a time-critical affair.
If something needs to be written, it'll wait until tomorrow, or most
likely someone else will write it if it is not pure crap.

Don't expect mercy if you write garbage. If you
throw the rules out of the window don't complain if you go that way
too (I have not ben playing to much Max Payne I have not ben playing
to much Max Payne)

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 1/21/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> That wouldn't be a bad thing. But remember that it's not as simple as
> 'free' and 'non-free'. We have *a lot* of images which are in the public
> domain in the United States but not elsewhere. Last time I mentioned the
> Bridgeman images as an example. Here's another:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hundingsbane.jpg
>
> This image is in the public domain in the United States but under present
> law the copyright will hold in Europe until 2046.

Are you absolutely sure that it is PD in the US?  Only if you can be
sure that it was first published/copyright registered in the US.  If
it was created or first published elsewhere, then the pre-1923 rule
does not apply, thanks to international convention.

Certainly the image description page does not answer this question,
but it mentions a book  first published in London, which would count
against this theory if that was the first publication of this image.

-Matt


body:
On 1/21/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> That wouldn't be a bad thing. But remember that it's not as simple as
> 'free' and 'non-free'. We have *a lot* of images which are in the public
> domain in the United States but not elsewhere.

If I remember correctly, another category is US government works.  The
US government has before asserted that just because US law requires
works of the US government be freely available within the US does not
mean, in their view, that the works are PD elsewhere.  They have
certainly, as I recall, charged non-US corporations for using such
data.

-Matt


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin meeting

body:
Hello

I want to toss the idea around of having an online meeting of all admins on
the English wikipedia. The reasons are simple:

1. A chance to get to know one another.
2. A chance to share some insights from the Foundation office as to what is
happening in the "big picture."
3. A chance to exchange ideas on dealing with vandalism and other problems.
4. A chance to discuss some existing policies.

If there is enough interest, I will set a time for this meeting. Because of
the nature of the discussions, it will be limited access.

Danny


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin meeting

body:
How about an admin only IRC channel and mailing list?

Fred

On Jan 22, 2006, at 5:27 AM, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> Hello
>
> I want to toss the idea around of having an online meeting of all
> admins on
> the English wikipedia. The reasons are simple:
>
> 1. A chance to get to know one another.
> 2. A chance to share some insights from the Foundation office as to
> what is
> happening in the "big picture."
> 3. A chance to exchange ideas on dealing with vandalism and other
> problems.
> 4. A chance to discuss some existing policies.
>
> If there is enough interest, I will set a time for this meeting.
> Because of
> the nature of the discussions, it will be limited access.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> 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: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: More news from Serbia and Montenegro chapter

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:
> Before Jovana sends (in Monday) our weekly digest about events related
> to Wikimedia SCG chapter, I want to say/ask a few things:
>
> - I think that lists Foundation, Wikipedia, Wikinews and email to the
> Board are good places for such informations. If someone thinks that
> some list(s)/email(s) should be excluded/included, please, tell us
> that.

Yes :-)
Please, remove the board address. We read this list already :-)

Thanks for the feedbacks :-)

ant

> - In the last 7-10 days we had a lot of contacts with media, one
> rostrum (I think that our dictionaries made correct translation :)
> this is some kind of lecturer with debate after that) as well as our
> regular meetings at Sunday with a lot of new people who are interested
> in developing Wikipedia (in general, Serbian, but others, too) and
> software for conversion (improvement of Zhengzhu's Chinese and Serbian
> version and possibility to implement it not only for Serbian version
> of MediaWiki, but, also for some others with similar needs).
>
> - Thanks to Dragan Ambrozic, our vice president and professional in
> event making, we have a lot contacts with media. I am surprised with
> the number of journalists who contacted our PR Jovana and me. In
> Friday we had 26 new registered users. I looked relations between
> registered users and users with more then 10 edits and when 26 users
> register accounts it means that we would have 3 Wikipedians more; if
> we continue with such progression, we would have 100 new users per
> month, very soon (to compare: the best month before was August 2005
> with 26 new users; also, approximation for December 2005 was that we
> would have 203 users at all!).
>
> - People outside of the project like our idea very much, many of them
> are willing to help in different ways. (Finally, we have the article
> about Jimbo ;) ) And I can say that I am very happy because of recent
> development: people who are not my close friends are calling me by
> phone and they are saying "I heard about Wikipedia in the news!".
>
> - It also should be noted that Wikimedia SCG is the first free
> knowledge organization in Serbia and Montenegro. There are no such
> organization in Serbia. And in this moment we are covering the hole
> space related to free knowledge. (There are some organization which
> promote open content, BUT they are doing that only because it is the
> new way for getting money from sponsors.)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admin meeting

body:
The fact that there are so many admins is one of teh key reasons why I  think
that such a meeting is so important. It is vital for people to get to know
one another a little better and see who the active admins are.

At the same time, I also think it is important that the admins be made  aware
of some things on a Foundation level. What should they be looking out for?
How can they resolve problems effectively? What are the exact policities and
when (gasp) should these policies be overlooked in the larger interest of the
project?

The meeting would take place on IRC as Cimon suggested. I think Fred's  ideas
are excellent, and we can certainly consider implementing an admin only  IRC
channel and mailing list. These are things that can be brought up at the
meeting.

I realize that the meeting will be clumsy at first because of all the  people
involved. I would like, however, to suggest that we try it and see  how many
people actually show up. We can, of course, have additional meetings as
necessary, and may realize that one meeting is impractical. As a full-time
Wikipedian, I will make a point of being at any meeting suggested.

Suggested time, anyone?

Danny


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin meeting

body:
> > How about an admin only IRC channel and mailing list?
> >
> > Fred
>
> No we should try and keep things as open as posible.
>
> --
> geni

I would support this idea as long as the mailing list archives were public.


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin meeting

body:
On 1/22/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I want to toss the idea around of having an online meeting of all admins on
> the English wikipedia. The reasons are simple:
>
> 1. A chance to get to know one another.
> 2. A chance to share some insights from the Foundation office as to what is
> happening in the "big picture."
> 3. A chance to exchange ideas on dealing with vandalism and other problems.
> 4. A chance to discuss some existing policies.
>
> If there is enough interest, I will set a time for this meeting. Because of
> the nature of the discussions, it will be limited access.

Keep in mind that there are nearly 800 admins on en.  It's going to be
hard to hold a meeting with so many people.

Kelly


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Fastfission wrote:
> >I think in regards to Wikipedia policy there are two options:
> >
> >1. We reject all fair use images in favor of entirely "free" ones. One
> >could read this as a retreat from copyright holders (as you imply
> >above), or one could read this as the only genuine way to create truly
> >free cultural products. Commons embraces this approach (with the
> >latter reasoning), WP:En does not.
> >2. We approach fair use reasonably, not being afraid of using it where
> >we need to and with a philosophy of "least likelihood of anybody
> >thinking they could sue us and win."
> > [....]
> It should be quite clear by now that I strongly support the second
> option.  Still I would be more inclined to base it on a fair-minded
> attitude in preference to one based on what could happen in a law suit.
> Fair mindedness involves taking into account the rights of others.

The way I've always viewed it, the best solution would be that there
is no copyright restriction on anyone, in any location, distributing
any Wikipedia article, along with any editorial changes which keep in
spirit with the original work (IOW, you can't just cut out everything
except for the picture).

There should certainly be no copyright restriction under US law on
anyone distributing any Wikipedia article without modification.  The
way I see it, Wikipedia doesn't currently even provide *that*, though
to the extent it doesn't it's probably a violation of Wikipedia
policies.

> I know that most of our
> discussions have focused on images, but the fair use law that applies to
> images is the same one that applies to text, and for me disallowing all
> fair use text would imply disallowing properly attributed quotes of
> one-sentence length.

It seems to me that a properly attributed quote of one-sentence
length, as used in Wikipedia articles, would fall under both of those
categories I gave above.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Do you know of a
jurisdiction which doesn't allow encyclopedias to include short
quotations without permission?

> Purpose is key to one of the fair use texts, and
> we have no way of controlling this in downstream users.

Sure, downstream users can always make *drastic changes* to change the
very character of the encyclopedia article.  There's really no way to
avoid that.  But I think you're trying for too much there.  I think it
should be enough to allow the encyclopedia to be copied and
redistributed with modifications which remain in the spirit of an
encyclopedia.  The purpose of Wikipedia is to make a free
encyclopedia.  A pedantic interpretation of that might require the
concept of freedom to stand alone, but I see it as good enough to
require that the freedom only extend to use in an actual encyclopedia.

> Perhaps we need
> to assume that the downstream use will fail that test.  Is it the most
> important of the four tests?  Since no one test alone is determinative,
> can a usage which fails that test satill be fair use when it passes the
> other tests?  Once we answer that in a US legal context, we will have a
> better idea of how to approach that problem in relation to other countries.
>
I think when analyzing the fair use one has to assume that Wikipedia
should be legally distributed for commercial purposes.  That's pretty
much the only change.  The German company which is redistributing the
German Wikipedia is a commercial enterprise, and it should be
perfectly legal for them to do the same thing with the English
Wikipedia.

> We can't duck from the political motivation, but it must remain
> secondary.  Before that can be a real motivation we need to be very
> aware in the legal areana.
>
> Ec

I've said for a long time that I think the first step is to define
what is meant by the "free" in "free encyclopedia", in much the same
manner as the FSF defined the "free" in "free software" (see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).  My current working
definition is essentially what I gave above ("no copyright restriction
on anyone, in any location, distributing any Wikipedia article, along
with any editorial changes which keep in spirit with the original
work").  It needs tweaking, especially in clarifying what is meant by
"any editorial changes which keep in spirit with the original work",
but I think it's close to what I picture the goals of Wikipedia to be.

But Jimbo has explicitly rejected this idea.  He says that what he
means by the "free" in "free encyclopedia" is already clear.  Unless
that's just a passive-agressive way of saying that he wants to
"eliminate fair use", I think he's horribly mistaken.

Anthony


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> Don't expect mercy if you write garbage.

Okay, okay, already :) But geni doesn't write garbage - his pithy replies
are often scathingly true and always insightful, spellchecker or no
spellchecker.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Fl Celloguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admin meeting

body:
>How about an admin only IRC channel and mailing list?
>
>Fred
>
>On Jan 22, 2006, at 5:27 AM, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> > Hello
> >
> > I want to toss the idea around of having an online meeting of all
> > admins on
> > the English wikipedia. The reasons are simple:
> >
> > 1. A chance to get to know one another.
> > 2. A chance to share some insights from the Foundation office as to
> > what is
> > happening in the "big picture."
> > 3. A chance to exchange ideas on dealing with vandalism and other
> > problems.
> > 4. A chance to discuss some existing policies.
> >
> > If there is enough interest, I will set a time for this meeting.
> > Because of
> > the nature of the discussions, it will be limited access.
> >
> > Danny

An admin-only mailing list is a good idea. Nl (Dutch) Wikipedia has had one
for some time, but then again, they have less than 100 administrators. Would
it be possible to set up such a mailing list for en?

Thanks!

Flcelloguy
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


body:
On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
> refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
> image of an album cover?

Probably the same reasons many Wikipedians refuse a reasonable free
use license for images of themselves.  Two major ones are fear the
image will be altered in some way that will harm them and a desire not
to allow others to profit off of their hard work.

The latter reason isn't going to be resolved, but maybe there are some
ways to appease those with the former reason.  For instance, a license
could be devised which allows an image to be distributed by anyone,
unaltered, in an encyclopedia in any medium (some lawyer-minded folk
would have to come up with a way to allow alterations necessary for
the change in medium but not other alterations).  Then this license
could be allowed for some subset of images which are currently being
used under fair use (album covers and publicity shots are two
categories which immediately come to mind).

Anthony


from_name: Jonathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admin meeting

body:
Please be advised that some areas have laws of assembly and the conduct
of such assembly. The assembly of admins, to vote or to effect policy,
may fall into such jurisdiction. The Brown Act, in U.S, is an example
implementation that governs public and private assembly.

Sincerely,
Jonathan

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>The fact that there are so many admins is one of teh key reasons why I  think
>that such a meeting is so important. It is vital for people to get to know
>one another a little better and see who the active admins are.
>
>At the same time, I also think it is important that the admins be made  aware
>of some things on a Foundation level. What should they be looking out for?
>How can they resolve problems effectively? What are the exact policities and
>when (gasp) should these policies be overlooked in the larger interest of the
>project?
>
>The meeting would take place on IRC as Cimon suggested. I think Fred's  ideas
>are excellent, and we can certainly consider implementing an admin only  IRC
>channel and mailing list. These are things that can be brought up at the
>meeting.
>
>I realize that the meeting will be clumsy at first because of all the  people
>involved. I would like, however, to suggest that we try it and see  how many
>people actually show up. We can, of course, have additional meetings as
>necessary, and may realize that one meeting is impractical. As a full-time
>Wikipedian, I will make a point of being at any meeting suggested.
>
>Suggested time, anyone?
>
>Danny
>_______________________________________________
>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] Re: Admin meeting

body:
On 1/22/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> No all users should be able to find that out not just admins.

There are Foundation-level issues that need to be kept to some degree
of confidence.  Although, frankly, I think "all admins" is too broad
of a level to release most of those items because, quite frankly, we
have a great many untrustworthy admins.

> Well since I can't get on IRC let me just say that the idea of an
> admin only mailing list has serious problems in terms of openess and
> createing cliques.

Wikipedia is overrun with cliques.  It would be a good thing, in my
opinion, if some of the more powerful ones were formalized; maybe then
something good would come out of them.

Kelly


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Haukur
> ?orgeirsson

> Sensible, but the portion of our images which are really free
> to use anywhere in the world forever may be smaller than you
> think. Even images created by Wikipedians and released "into
> the public domain" might be problematic in some jurisdictions
> if the image creator changes her mind about the licence. The
> whole concept of permanently licencing away your rights to an
> image is badly supported in laws around the world. Sometimes
> there are stipulations that any licencing of your rights to
> another party can only last for X years.

So how do people sell books in such countries, given that the text,
illustrations, design, font and so on must all revert to the creator within
X years?

Pete, puzzled