body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> Does Florida law require that member of nonprofits be actual persons?
> A nonprofit I used to work for (a national organization) had as its
> members the 50 state organizations of which it was comprised.  Perhaps
> the members of Wikimedia should be the various national organizations
> which already exist, as corporate entities.

"Members" is a technical legal concept which should not straightjacket
us too much.  We can be a fully hardcore community organization without
being a "membership organization" in the technical sense... as I
understand it, a "membership organization" is one very special type of
community-based organization, and one which for many reasons does not
fit how we think of ourselves.

But as to your substantive point, I agree completely that we need a
place at the board level (in the long term) for the interest of the
chapters.  I can really envision a case where, in the future, the
chapter boards elect from among themselves a representative to the
board, a fully voting representative.

I do not expect that to be an approach we take in the current
contemplated board expansion, but for a future board expansion I think
it would make very good sense.  (In the past, we have had a very uneven
distribution of chapters... but as chapters are being formed worldwide,
in another year or two we will be able to think of the chapters as a
whole as representing the segment of the community which is more
interested in "organizational" work as well as "editing" work.)

I hope people are beginning to see the outlines of my thinking about
what I mean when I say that I think we should be a community
organization with a diversity of routes to board membership, because I
think this better reflects who we are and what we do as a community than
global voting for all board members would.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/19/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think ironic statements such as the above are bound to happen in AfD
> discussions with the current reputation of wikipedia in the community.

Oh, well, if it's ironic...

Steve


list: commons-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Commons-l] An interactive copyright tutorial as a requirement
	for uploading?

body:
2006/6/18, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>:
> Hm, I'm not sure what would stop users just guessing and hitting
> 'back' a lot to get through it. And what questions would we ask? That
> would be the hardest bit. (Well, maybe collecting all the translations
> would be the hardest...)

I don't think users guessing and hitting 'back' would be so bad. It
will still function to have most of them think about the questions and
note the answer if it is not what they at first thought. Although to
really work, we should make "think and then make a reasoned guess" be
a faster way to get through then "press all buttons until one of them
works." One possibility might be to give the right/wrong not directly,
but only when all questions have been answered.

I think questions could be along the lines of "You get a picture from
a website saying such-and-such..." or "You get a picture in
such-and-such way..." Can you submit it to Commons? If so, what
license tag is applicable, and if not, why not?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/19/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> By discussing the *possibility*
> that it could ever exist on Wikipedia

But people are not doing that. People are discussing why they want it.
If you cannot tollerate discussion you have lost.

--
geni


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Per-page popularity?

body:
On 6/19/06, Eric Astor <eastor1 at swarthmore.edu> wrote:
> I've been investigating this for a while... I understand that per-page
> popularity data has been disabled. However, I'm trying to make some
> statistical investigations of Wikipedia, in an attempt to provide some
> utilities for the selection of articles for the One Encyclopedia Per Child
> (OEPC) project.
>
> To the point, then. For the English and Simple English Wikipedias - is there
> any way it could be possible to get per-page popularity data, or a stripped
> log file from some Squid proxy that this information could be extracted
> from? I already have a simple Perl utility that could be used to strip a
> Squid log file down to the information I need (the URL).

The Squids don't log.  Generally the feeling is that the information
isn't useful. I'd like to see us do at least a periodic sample for
these sort of applications. This could be accomplished without impact
on the production infrastructure by placing a box on a port mirror of
one of the squids, sniffing the traffic, and reconstructing the TCP
sessions enough to extract the requested URLs.  Unfortunately this
would require trusted staff access because of exposure to private data
in raw traffic, and as far as I know none of our core devs are
interested in this data.

In the absence of this data you can use pure connectectedness to
estimate important articles. You would just need the pagelink and page
tables to form metrics based on connectedness. We make mysql dumps of
this data available on download.wikimedia.org.

For Wikipedia subsetting, the use of the pagerank algorithm (ideally
combined with popularity as the initialization data) is probably the
ideal automated algorithm. ... Because even if a page is not widely
read if it is widely linked you should still probably include it.

A high performance implementation of pagerank is available in the
Boost Graph Library.

I've computed the internal pagerank of Wikipedia articles in the past
(initialized with neutral values), so if you need help with this I can
make myself available.

If you have a substantial amount of human hours available for this
purpose, I'd recommend that you get some folks building a man made
list of core subjects which must be included. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team for
work thats already been done in this area).  Such a list could be used
as part of the initialization data for pagerank.

It would likely be useful to begin producing a negative list, a set of
articles that you don't want to include because of the focus of your
project. For example, you might wish to exclude pop-culture subjects.
 Be careful about using category data for this purpose: Since there is
no built in method to view all the super categories that an article is
a member of sometimes links are made within the hierarchy which
produce confusing results. For example, there are a great many
articles reachable from every one of our top level cats.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Thumbnail params,
	Was: Image uploads now undeletable

body:
On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> A sharper thumbnail would, in general, be useful - not sure whether a
> parameter is specifically required.

Unfortunately the appreciate amount of sharpening is highly content
dependant (and to some extent a matter of taste). I have absolutely
zero hope of a single always on sharping setting giving better results
overall than none at all...  I do hope that a small number of user
specified settings (none,low,high) would suffice.  If someone is aware
of any papers on automagically selecting appropriate sharpening, I'd
love to hear about it. ... but this is just getting off topic.

I'm glad to hear that other people think such features would be useful.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/19/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> AfD is doomed: it doesn't, and can't, scale.

People have been saying this for over a year. Doesn't appear to have
fallen apart yet.

--
geni


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Username blocks on companies

body:
On 6/18/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> People identifying the company they work for shouldn't be editing the
> article on that company, per [[WP:AUTO]] and [[WP:CORP]].

If that's what those articles currently say, they're wrongheaded.
WP:AUTO, last I looked, discouraged (but did not ban) editing an
article on oneself.

One should exercise caution when editing articles on subjects one has
a personal stake in, yes.  Newbies should be discouraged from doing
so, although not too forcibly.  There are many problems with editing
such an article, of which POV-pushing is the least of it.  More of a
problem is verifiability: if you work at a company, you are likely to
write using non-public sources about it, including personal
experience.

An experienced editor familiar with sourcing can do good work on an
article on a subject they are associated with.

-Matt


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 02:08:57PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I'm glad to hear that other people think such features would be useful.

I hadn't gotten to chime in, but yes, by all means, I think that
user-specifiable crop and zoom parameters would be a useful addition to
MediaWiki.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] New SVN committers

body:
And one more:

Michael Dale (dale): Summer of Code project - multimedia integration (video
player plugin/applet selection etc)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] Enhancement requests : spreading the word,
 flagging problems, accept but delay

body:
Samuel Klein wrote:
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:
>
> * "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
> badly needed functionality

Too easily abusable to spam; also this functionality is already built-in to
every web browser I've seen.

/me nods at others

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Samuel Klein wrote:
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:
>
> * "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
> badly needed functionality

Too easily abusable to spam; also this functionality is already built-in to
every web browser I've seen.

/me nods at others

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Samuel Klein wrote:
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:
>
> * "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
> badly needed functionality

Too easily abusable to spam; also this functionality is already built-in to
every web browser I've seen.

/me nods at others

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Samuel Klein wrote:
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:
>
> * "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
> badly needed functionality

Too easily abusable to spam; also this functionality is already built-in to
every web browser I've seen.

/me nods at others

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> In that case, it sounds like the relevant parameter should also be
> stored on the image, rather than on the call to the image. It seems
> unlikely to me that one would want to downscale using one method on
> one page, and using a different method on another page. In extreme
> cases (like, wanting to demonstrate pixelation), people can use the
> current fallback method.

The amount of sharpening is size dependant.. I suppose you could
attach a sharpening list to the image, which provides a list of thumb
reduction ratios (rather than thumb sizes, so that it does the same
WRT cropping) well with and the correct sharpening for each.  This is
a good idea because it would prevent the bloat of maintaining multiple
versions. I like this... okay, so my point 2 is dead.  Thanks for
pointing this out. :)    This also would allow the users to fully
specify the sharpening parameters, which would be much better than the
few fixed settings I'd envisioned.

Cropping still applies, however.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/19/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> For the record, I think the Articles for Deletion process gets things right
> most of the time. In my view, there are much fewer problems than with speedy
> deletion. I am yet to be convinced that there is a better process than
> articles for deletion.

It could be greatly improved, by making it more process-driven and
focused on fact-finding, rather than "so, who reckons we oughta delete
this one??" I've suggested this before, but anyway:

1. Nominator specifies a single criterion which the article fails
under, and which is listed as being a reason for deletion (eg,
copyvio, non-notability of subject, or article irremediably fails to
establish notabilyt etc)
2. "Voters" express support or disagreement for this nomination: "Yes,
it does fail under that criteria" or "No, it doesn't, and here's why"
would be the only acceptable responses.
3. Closer (admin) verifies that the original nomination is valid (the
criterion is indeed a reason for deletion), then checks the votes. If
there are any strong, valid "keeps", it's kept. Otherwise, either
merged or deleted, depending on the original nomination.

Steve


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
	the	board?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
>The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
>core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
>what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
>might want to approach.
>
>Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
>Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
>extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
>Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
>community model)
>
>Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
>Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
>Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
>
I think appointment to the Board of outsiders is going to be a disaster
which discourages participation in the middle level tasks between the
casual dropin participants and the Board.

I would be interested in what experience people think is unavailable
from the existing participants.  If a summary of the skills and
experience desired for specific tasks or responsibilities became
available I suspect we could find people within the existing projects to
run for election to the Board or for appointment to special committees.

If we need input from people who are famous for some reason we can
invite them to address the mailing list or stand for election.

I would also be curious about how much time and effort these famous
people have to apply to the Wikimedia Foundation Board's
responsibilities.  Are they finished with their prior responsibilities
or they are so excellent that they can juggle responsibilities
effectively on several Boards?

regards,
lazyquasar


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>I found http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/ by typing in "oregon statutes"
>and hitting "I'm feeling lucky".
>
>
>
Might be less than lucky if depend upon this site for anything
substantive. At the top below the title:

"
The text appearing in this database was produced from material provided
by the Legislative Counsel Committee of the Oregon Legislative Assembly.
The official record copy is the printed published copy of the Oregon
Revised Statutes. The text in the database is not the official text of
Oregon law.
Although efforts have been made to match the database text to the
official legal text they represent, substantive errors or differences
may remain. It is the user?s responsibility to verify the legal accuracy
of all legal text. The Legislative Counsel Committee claims copyright
protection in those parts of Oregon Revised Statutes that are legally
subject to copyright protection."

Still it might be a useful starting point. I bookmarked it. Thanks!

regards,
lazyquasar


body:
On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 02:37:02PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In that case, it sounds like the relevant parameter should also be
> > stored on the image, rather than on the call to the image. It seems
> > unlikely to me that one would want to downscale using one method on
> > one page, and using a different method on another page. In extreme
> > cases (like, wanting to demonstrate pixelation), people can use the
> > current fallback method.
>
> The amount of sharpening is size dependant..

Specifically, the amount of sharpening one might want is proportional
to both the original *and* the cropped size of the image.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


body:
On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 08:52:10PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> What might be nice: defining a default "thumbnail" for an image, with
> cropping and sharpening parameters, say. Then, if a user specifies
> just [[image:image|thumb]], that's what gets used. Taking it further,
> if a user specifies [[image:image|thumb:200px]] and there exists a
> thumbnail profile for 200px, *those* parameters could be used.

Indeed; if one's going to enable cropping, it would be real handy to be
able to specify a default per-image crop set.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 6/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>>I could not find an official Oregon state site via google which is
>>>rather irritating and disappointing.   How the hell can we be a nation
>>>of laws if the laws are secret, unknown, or published in an expensive
>>>proprietary format nobody wishes to invest in?
>>>
>>>
>>I found http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/ by typing in "oregon statutes"
>>and hitting "I'm feeling lucky".
>>
>>
>
>It is generally well-known that one can get the government of any
>state by going to www.state.xx.us, where xx is the state's postal
>code.  Oregon's website can therefore be found at www.state.or.us.
>This redirects to oregon.gov, which is the state's official website.
>
>Kelly
>
>
The standard format provided redirects to a index page of links:
http://www.oregon.gov/how_do_i.shtml#laws

which has a bunch of useful information and the link with the disclaimer
that Anthony provided.

Apparently might as well be depending on a legal free wiki site and free
content typists and editors as the State's official online publishing.
Use of either is at your own risk.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Wikitech-l] double apostrophes in titles

body:
On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:50:57AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Maybe, maybe not.
>
> Since titles containing "''" cannot be reliably round-tripped,
> they need to be made invalid. Unfortunately somebody's pulled out
> a language that claims to need it, so we may be stuck with such
> breakage.

Was it authoritatively decided, then, that no other rendition of that
character was acceptable than two sequential ASCII apostrophes?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: James Hare

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
	the board?

body:
Well Mr. Wales, if you believe these people have very good ideas for
Wikimedia (and they most likely do), then I really don't see the harm of
appointing them. However, has something like this worked with other
non-profit organizations?

Sincerely,
James Hare

On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
>
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
On Jun 19, 2006, at 5:44 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

You've made 5 posts in this "Exit Interview" but haven't gotten around
to explaining the details of what prompted you to lose patience with
Wikipedia.  This is, I think, what would of most interest and use to
the rest of us.  We've heard the generalizations you've made so far
many times before - not that they arn't valid, just that they arn't
news to us.

However, the particular examples of problems you had probably *are*
news to most of us on the list, so explaining them might be helpful.

Just glancing over your contrib list, you seem to be working on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce
and various philosophy articles, like
[[Truth]] and [[Propositional calculus]]

One possible issue you (and many others) have had with dispute
resolution at Wikipedia is that, as intended, they give no advantage to
any side, requiring possibly endless argument, and in practice, the
endless argument can be short circuited either by all but one side
being blocked due to violations of norms of discussion (i.e. 3RR rule,
personal attacks).  Factual supperiority (i.e. citing more, or having
the books on your side) is only successful if you can convince most of
the people who happen to be interested in editing the page.  This is
very frustrating for many good researchers who come across Wikipedia.
Is that the sort of issue you had?

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!

Hey, didn't I hear Bill Gates will be free soon. ;-)  --LV


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Mail Stats

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Erik Zachte wrote:
>
>
>>In the category 'nice to know':
>>
>>I made a script to measure who is most involved in public mailing lists
>>discussions, and on which lists.
>>
>>For each list you'll find a breakdown of posts by author, with board
>>activity added separately, e.g. for the foundation list
>>http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/foundation-l.html
>>
>>
>...
>I find these stats more scary than anything :-)
>
>Okay, I shut up for a while...
>
>Thanks Eric ...
>
Yeah, thanks?!

The scary thing for me is how much time I spend on these lists producing
dubious accomplishments. :-[

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Mail Stats


from_name: SJ

body:
For fun and nostalgia, and because half of the people mentioned below
are on the original list, here is a very old, speculative and
good-humoured meta discussion of an "ideal Wikipedia board" before
Wikimedia existed*.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_ideal_Wikipedia_board

These old discussions can be refreshing; WP and the WMF have followed
one course, but there were many other sister roads that might have
been followed, each with its own tone.

SJ

* The "less dreamy, but more practical, version" mentioned at the top
was something this (a cross between nostalgia and deja-vu... if you
look at the people involved in the conversation) :
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees/Archive1

On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
>
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>

--
++SJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] Username blocks on companies

body:
On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would it be fair to say that good faith edits on an article are to be
> treated with caution, and bad faith edits are outright banned? That
> is, if one accepts that one has a stake in an article, and agrees to
> edit subject to the supervision of others, one can. If, however, one
> insists that one has a right to edit no matter what - then one can go
> and jump.

Certainly.  One should understand that it's HARD to write good stuff
if one's too involved.

On the other hand, someone closely involved can have valuable insight
and a good knowledge of published sources, too.

-Matt


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 scholarships available;
	early registration notes

body:
Dear all,

Some scholarships (and visa support) will be available for community
members hoping to attend Wikimania.  Please apply or encourage
suitable people you know to apply.  Details available here :

http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships

Early registration for the conference will be open through July 9; so
sign up before then if you are planning to attend.

http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/

Hacking Days registration is separate (please register for the normal
conference first; if only coming to hacking days, you might want to
write to wikimania-registration at wikimedia.org and explain).

http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/hacker/register

There will be a sitewide notice about Wikimania this week as well; you
can help translate it here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Wikimania/June_notice

And comment on the implementation of the notice here:
 http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-June/007382.html
 http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-June/007876.html

Looking forward to August,
    SJ

PS - As the program is finalized, you will be able to find out more
about speakers and presenters from the conference site (which still
needs work...) :
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:Index

Feel free to add comments and questions for presenters on those talk
pages; and ideas for open discussions at the conference here:
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_ideas


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 6/19/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
> Hey, didn't I hear Bill Gates will be free soon. ;-)  --LV

I'd LOVE to see Wikipedia used to force Creative Commons and FSF to work
together. We're the 800-pound (or 800000-pound) gorilla in the category
"users of the GFDL" and I'd really like to see formal license compatibility.

Using the Wikimedia Foundation board as a mechanism to do so would be
wonderful.

Other suggestions (always interested in non-American equivalents):

   - Michael Hart or Greg Newby, Project Gutenberg (Newby is *great*)
   - Karen G. Schneider, kgs at bluehighways.com , (former?) Internet
   Librarian for American Libraries Online,
http://www.ala.org/alonline/and the Coordinator of the Librarian's
Index to the Internet (LII),
   http://lii.org/ (IM: LIIchief)
   - Roy Tennant, http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/ , creator and
   editor of Current Cites, http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/
   - Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Publishing (if we want to get into making a
   dead-tree version)
   - Larry Page / Sergey Brin
   - Al Gore

I don't know the right names, but someone who's been really good at
advocating for improved resources/outreach into the third world, third world
civil rights etc. would also be a great addition outside of the "obvious"
choices.

I'm reminded that when Steve Jobs wanted to start Apple Stores, he got the
CEO of The Gap on the board--someone who knows nothing about computing, but
everything about retail. So what would be the equivalent for the Wikimedia
mission? I would think that, say, a former top UN official could be very
good for Wikimedia; someone who would know everyone in all the countries of
the world and know how to manage a multicultural coalition. Kofi Annan?
Madeleine Albright? I'm sure people can come up with better ideas.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
I love the formatting.

On 6/19/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> post 6.
>
> JL = John Lee
> SB = Steve Bennett
>
> SB: What is an accurate reporter?
>
> JL: And do define "responsible journalist / scholar".  If you arrive at
>     Wikipedia with preconceptions of how things should be done from past
>     experience, and don't adjust these preconceptions, then you will of
>     course have a difficult time fitting in, especially when our editorial
>     norms are established for good reasons.
>
> some people just seem driven to get the facts straight,
> no matter what they might have believed beforehand.
> that's my intuitive sense of what makes someone
> an accurate reporter or a reponsible scholar.
> i think that most AR's and RS's that come
> to WP find that the 3 content policies
> embody fantastically well what they
> have already been born or trained
> to do, since the basic ideas of
> grounded and sourced research
> were hardly invented locally,
> but derived from standards
> and practices, indeed,
> from norms of conduct
> that have goverened
> the life of inquiry
> for as long as it
> has been alive.
>
> so the "preconceptions" of this ethos are in pre-established harmony
> with the principles set forth in the 3 content-governing regulations
> of WP, namely, the policies of NOR, NPOV, and VER, and most folks
> who have been living by these rules in the grounded research
> portion of their intellectual lives feel themselves to be,
> at least, at first, very much at home.
>
> and what some of them, i'd never say all,
> get disgruntled about is precisely the
> extent to which the WP community as
> a real body fails to live up to
> what it espouses as its ideals.
>
> if the perceptions of these disgruntled masses
> are nevertheless saccurate and responsible,
> then it's important information for the
> long-term health and viability of WP.
>
> jon awbrey
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
> inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
> wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 6/19/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> And I still say we should just use ''.  What we want _is_ two
> consecutive apostrophes -- we just don't want them _parsed_ by the wiki
> engine.  Thus, they need to be escaped, which is exactly what ''
> does.

Or, as pointed out, ''

I was thinking about possible changes to the MediaWiki parsing engine
to accommodate this better (like changing the reinterpretation of ''''
from bold+' to ''), but I don't think many of them are good. The main
confusion with suggestions like yours is being able to easily talk
about the category etc in question:

* Is the name of the category "actually" foo''bar and it just
happens to display as foo''bar ?
* Is the name of the category "actually" foo''bar, and we put a page
in that category with the hackish wikimarkup [[Category:foo''bar]]
?

Actually, on the MediaWiki question, it *would* theoretically be
possible to just ignore all attempted formatting within [[Article]] or
[[Category:]] links wouldn't it? Since we don't support formatting in
page names (and are unlikely to with that syntax anytime soon), it
seems conceivable that [[Category:Foo''bar]] should take that name
literally and not attempt to interpret it as italics, which wouldn't
work anyway...

Steve


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> But people are not doing that. People are discussing why they want it.
> If you cannot tollerate discussion you have lost.

Please can we remove all reference to "winning" or "losing" from this
mailing list.  We are all working for Wikipedia.  We aren't looking to
win.  We may disagree, and one person's opinion may prevail.
Wikipedia wins or loses, not Tony Sidaway, Geni or Sam Korn.

Suggesting that Tony was seeking to "win" is provocative, puerile and
completely unnecessary.

--
Sam


body:
On 6/19/06, Sue Reed <sreed1234 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm sure I could do a google search for Richard Stallman and find out who he is, but as a newer member of the Wikimedia community, I have no clue who he is. The "needs no introduction" assumes that everyone is of a certain level regarding whose who in the world.
>
> I know who Larry Lessig is because of his connection to the John Edwards campaign in 2004, but otherwise I'd be lost as to who he is to.

You should google then...

No offense intended, but if you don't know who most (if not all) of
those people are, you're probably not informed enough about the sort
of people we're looking for to provide meaningful input.

In any case, I think finding people involved with free content will be
easy and all the people mentioned are reasonable choices (eben eben
eben eben).  Can we also find and consider people with experience in
media/publishing and experience with large non-profits?  I.e. any
bored ex-NPR executives out there anyplace?


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>   - Al Gore

Is having a highly prominent -- and still very active -- political
figure on the board such a good idea?  Something like that will
inevitably raise questions about Wikipedia's neutrality in political
issues; particularly if his presence on the board _does_ provide
significant benefits to the WMF, it will be assumed that said benefits
are a direct result of some quid pro quo political deal on our part.

--
Kirill Lokshin


body:
Yup, we'll be darned if someone raises some kind of Wikimedia-Democrat
Conspiracy Theory.

On 6/19/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >   - Al Gore
>
> Is having a highly prominent -- and still very active -- political
> figure on the board such a good idea?  Something like that will
> inevitably raise questions about Wikipedia's neutrality in political
> issues; particularly if his presence on the board _does_ provide
> significant benefits to the WMF, it will be assumed that said benefits
> are a direct result of some quid pro quo political deal on our part.
>
> --
> Kirill Lokshin
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] External link search

body:
A few months ago a table was added to the database to track external (URL)
links; the primary driver for this was to make it easier for an automated script
to find and cleanup spam attacks.

But it's also useful for tracking down obsolete URLs that need to be updated.
(Presumably because somebody didn't read http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI !)
I've whipped up a quick special page extension to search this links table.

For instance, all these links are broken since SourceForge mysteriously changed
their CVS server with no forwarding address in April; now we can track them down
and fix them:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch/cvs.sourceforge.net

You can also specify a path prefix. For instance these PyWikipediaBot links just
need to be updated to the new SourceForge URLs:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch/cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/pywikipediabot

while these MediaWiki links should be pointed to our new Subversion repository:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch/cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia

Wildcards for subdomains work too:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch/*.wikisource.org

At the moment you can only search http:// links, not https://, ftp:// etc.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 6/19/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yup, we'll be darned if someone raises some kind of Wikimedia-Democrat
> Conspiracy Theory.

They do that kinda junk already... making lists of Jewish admins and
the like.  I don't think the positions of insane people should be a
factor in who we consider talking to...

The qualifications needed in a board, vision, connectedness,
experience, dedication to our cause, or whatever should be our primary
considerations.


body:
On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know the right names, but someone who's been really good at
> advocating for improved resources/outreach into the third world, third world
> civil rights etc. would also be a great addition outside of the "obvious"
> choices.

Angelina Jolie? Works with U.N. without all the political implications
of Kofi Annan. Downside: May give Christine a bit of a stomach ache
considering Jolies past experiences with co-workers. ;-)  Okay, I'll
try and be more serious, I just couldn't help myself.  --LV


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Ilmari,
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Resonance_%28MIT%29
>
> I note, though, that neither you nor anyone else who has commented or is
> likely to comment here has seen fit to add your voices to the AfD in
> question.

Actually, I did.  The comment I quoted here was in response to that.

Also I wasn't really trying to bitch so much as see if someone here
would have something constructive to say about it, or at least would be
willing to support one side or the other in the debate.  At this point,
I can't think of much I could add to the AfD discussion itself on my
own, save for iterations of "Is too!" / "Is not!" ad nauseam.

I seem to recall Crzrussian posting to this list, so I was implicitly
soliciting his opinion as well.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Steve Summit wrote:
> Phil Boswell wrote:
>
>>Like this you mean?
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Boswell/Sandbox/Double_apostrophe
>
> (If it was me, though, I'd use U+200C Zero Width Non-Joiner or
> maybe U+200B Zero Width Space.  I believe the intent of U+200D
> Zero Width Joiner is that it tries to force ligatures, especially
> in scripts like Arabic that have lots of ligated characters, and
> fancy rules for when or when not to ligate them automatically.
> Clearly the double apostrophe isn't a ligature; it's just
> something you didn't want joined, in this case by the wiki markup
> parser.)

And I still say we should just use ''.  What we want _is_ two
consecutive apostrophes -- we just don't want them _parsed_ by the wiki
engine.  Thus, they need to be escaped, which is exactly what ''
does.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
On 6/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yup, we'll be darned if someone raises some kind of Wikimedia-Democrat
> > Conspiracy Theory.
>
> They do that kinda junk already... making lists of Jewish admins and
> the like.  I don't think the positions of insane people should be a
> factor in who we consider talking to...

So long as the people in question are regarded by the majority of our
readers as being a little funny in the head, yes.  But if the
_average_ reader starts to have reasonable doubts about our
impartiality -- and I believe that would be the case should we have
someone of Al Gore's prominence on the board -- then our credibility
as a source of information would suffer.

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ... the *940* admins, and a million registered users, and who knows how
> > many anonymous contributors. And that's just for the English Wikipedia!
> > What about on de:, fr:, ja: and the rest?
>
> See why I think we should prune all the dead registered users? Only a
> fraction of those claimed "million registered users" have ever even
> logged in and made a couple of useful edits. A tiny fraction are still
> logging in and making useful edits.

Where are the usage statistics (number of users making X edits/month
or whatever) kept, anyways?

Thanks.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

body:
I'll suggest three people who I think are great candidates for our board.

First, Brewster Kahle, founder of Alexa and the Internet Archive.
According to our own article on Brewster, his personal goal is
"Universal Access to all Knowledge", which seems pretty darn
compatible. His actions consistently show that he takes this goal very
seriously, and he would bring a huge wealth of practical experience in
making knowledge distribution viable.

Second, Mike Godwin (of EFF, and Godwin's Law fame) might be a good
choice.  A prominent legal scholar with a dedication to freedom of
speech, a great knowledge of the Internet, Mike could bring a solid
and practical legal view to our board.

Finally, I suggest Mark Shuttleworth.  An African citizen who was one
of the first to form a business dedicated to privacy and security on
the Internet, Mark is active in the Linux world and is involved in
educational and access-to-knowledge projects. His presence could not
only further internationalize our board, but it could help us work
better with potential future business partners in actually delivering
the knowledge our projects document.

-ilya

On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!


subject:
[Foundation-l] Enhancement requests : spreading the word,
	flagging problems, accept but delay

body:
A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:

* "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
badly needed functionality

* "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.

* User watching -- add the option to watch the edits of particular
anons or new users [logged-in users could opt out of being watchable].
 In addition to "/newbies" have an "unwatched newbie contribs" RC
page.

* Metadata about revisoin stability : A subtle but visible "recent
newbie edit" flag to articles to indicate that someone with no history
has edited the page recently, and this flag has not been reset.
Provide a way for any non-new editor to unset the flag.

**  A feature to prepare for the future, but not to apply unless
necessary : an "accept but delay" editing patch for new users -- new
users can see their own changes to an article; logged-in users can see
the "recent newbie edit flag" and also the latest changes; other users
see the last version before this edit.  Anon readers who try editing
the page (not seeing the newer revision) would be editing the text of
the old revision (with the standard warning), so a set of newbies
could conceivably overwrite one another's changes in quick succession
without realizing it; but other editors could learn to compensate and
work through the histories of especially current events articles with
rapidly changing content and information.

SJ


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > * Is the name of the category "actually" foo''bar, and we put a page
> > in that category with the hackish wikimarkup [[Category:foo''bar]]
>
> Yes.

Ok, so presuming it's not a category, will page moves to/from ''
notation work correctly? Would the hackish notation be required
anywhere except when linking to the page via [[...]] syntax? Are there
any cases where it would not be possible to link due to some further
restrictions on syntax being imposed?

Just checking...:)

> Theoretically, but links and bold/italics are handled on separate parser passes.
> Things get ugly... :)

Heh, I believe you.

Steve


body:
"Mail this article to a friend" -- yes, we do need this function. Thing is,
it may put a stress on the servers.

"Flag problem with this article" -- isn't that what article tags like
{{npov}} are for?

User watching -- Sounds like a good idea, thing is, it may lead to more
wikistalking

Revision stability -- Fundamentally good to ensure article quality, but it
can be argued that this stereotypes newcomers. Then again, newcomers really
have a tendency of doing things not exactly how we like them, but it's okay.
Sounds like a good idea.

Accept-but-delay -- anti-wiki. I prefer the newbie-edit flag better, since
it helps make sure the article doesn't degenerate in quality, but delaying
edits of someone is against the whole quick-editing concept.

On 6/19/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent conversations:
>
> * "Mail this article to a friend" and "Mail this image to a friend" --
> badly needed functionality
>
> * "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
> what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.
>
> * User watching -- add the option to watch the edits of particular
> anons or new users [logged-in users could opt out of being watchable].
> In addition to "/newbies" have an "unwatched newbie contribs" RC
> page.
>
> * Metadata about revisoin stability : A subtle but visible "recent
> newbie edit" flag to articles to indicate that someone with no history
> has edited the page recently, and this flag has not been reset.
> Provide a way for any non-new editor to unset the flag.
>
> **  A feature to prepare for the future, but not to apply unless
> necessary : an "accept but delay" editing patch for new users -- new
> users can see their own changes to an article; logged-in users can see
> the "recent newbie edit flag" and also the latest changes; other users
> see the last version before this edit.  Anon readers who try editing
> the page (not seeing the newer revision) would be editing the text of
> the old revision (with the standard warning), so a set of newbies
> could conceivably overwrite one another's changes in quick succession
> without realizing it; but other editors could learn to compensate and
> work through the histories of especially current events articles with
> rapidly changing content and information.
>
> SJ
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
All of these names, and several of those named later on in this
thread, would be admirably suitable candidates for the advisory board.
 Whether they'd fit on the governing board or not is a touchier issue.

Kelly

On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
>
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/19/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But people are not doing that. People are discussing why they want it.
> > If you cannot tollerate discussion you have lost.
>
> Please can we remove all reference to "winning" or "losing" from this
> mailing list.  We are all working for Wikipedia.  We aren't looking to
> win.  We may disagree, and one person's opinion may prevail.
> Wikipedia wins or loses, not Tony Sidaway, Geni or Sam Korn.
>
> Suggesting that Tony was seeking to "win" is provocative, puerile and
> completely unnecessary.
>
> --
> Sam

I don't nomal use the term but if someone choses force over defending
their positon in logical debate they have lost.

--
geni


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject:
[Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence of checkuser
	abuse

in_reply_to:
<4491D564.9040409@vankalken.net>;
	from walter@vankalken.net on Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:16AM +0700

body:
On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:16AM +0700, Walter van Kalken wrote:
> Zojuist heeft [[gebruiker:Walter]] gebruik gemaakt van de tool
> checkuser.

<columbo>
One last question, to check my assumptions

Were you in fact blocked from editing at the moment that this occurred?
</columbo>

sincerely,
   Kim Bruning
--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


body:
How is Al Gore politically active? He's on Apple's board, by the way.

On 6/19/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >   - Al Gore
>
> Is having a highly prominent -- and still very active -- political
> figure on the board such a good idea?  Something like that will
> inevitably raise questions about Wikipedia's neutrality in political
> issues; particularly if his presence on the board _does_ provide
> significant benefits to the WMF, it will be assumed that said benefits
> are a direct result of some quid pro quo political deal on our part.
>
> --
> Kirill Lokshin
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Pruning "dead" accounts (was Re: New York Times
	article)

body:
On 6/19/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Don't forget the accounts which exist to prevent impersonation in one's main
> language - names with capital I's to mimic L's and Cyrillic characters.
> Deleting these would just open things up for abuse again.

This sounds like a hack. Can't we just add them to a "do not create"
list of usernames?

Steve


body:
On 6/19/06, Chris L?er <chris at zandria.net> wrote:
> Is there are a reason why user names with weird Unicode characters
> are even allowed? It would seem sensible to limit user names on each
> Wikipedia to the alphabet that is used in that language.

That's probably excessively restrictive. I don't see that a name like
"Erik M?ller" or "Caf? Paris" should necessarily be banned...but some
of the more esoteric characters are definitely more trouble than
they're worth.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/19/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> I never cease to be surprised (and pleased) how many casual vandals
> stop editing when I give them a warning message. They're mostly just
> kids who've been caught with their hands in the biscuit tin (or
> "cookie jar", for all you septics).

I actually suspect that for some, a good telling off makes them
respect the project a bit more. The difference between "anyone can
write anything so it must all be rubbish" and "anyone can write
anything, but people actually check that it's not all rubbish".

> I worry there may be a few too many people who've got far too cynical
> dealing with vandalism all day, and need to relax a bit.

It's pretty understandable. Deal with borderline misanthropes long
enough and anyone becomes jaded. We just need fresh vandalism
fighters.

Disclaimer: I hate vandal fighting. I help in other ways. :)

Steve


from_name: Cobb

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
>Stephen Bain wrote:
>I agree. People have been saying it is broken for as long as I've been
>here and it seems to work ok.

Talk to people who don't want anything deleted from Wikipedia, and AFD
is marvellous because it is wide open to abuse by them, despite the empty
rhetoric about it not really being a vote.

The problem is, I think, that lots of people who comment here don't actually
take part in AFD.
They don't see the  day-to-day crap... they just see a system that keeps
struggling along
despite being hopelessly broken and unscalable. AFD is such a demented
system that
it's very often less hassle to just ignore rubbish than even try to get it
deleted. No doubt
certain inclusionist factions on Wikipedia rather like things that way, and
claim it is a
self-regulating mechanism rather than a system that cannot cope and which
people
avoid.


body:
On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> How is Al Gore politically active? He's on Apple's board, by the way.

Apple isn't trying to present a neutral description of, say, global
warming either ;-)

(And that's assuming he doesn't simply return to open politics;
whether that's a safe bet is something you can decide.)

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
Seems to be a great guy.  I've read his book "Free Culture" which I'd
recommend to anyone who wants to know more about his perspective on
what it is the free content movement is fighting for.

That said, I think one need only look to the license of that book
(Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial) to see where there's
room for concern as to whether his philosophy fits with Wikimedia.

> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
Don't know much about him.

> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
Could be interesting.  I certainly like the idea behind his
(abandoned) Gnupedia project currently at
http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html.  But putting
him on the board, especially in an appointed as opposed to elected
position, could very well cause a culture clash with the community.

> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
It's hard for me to tell what his philosophy is with regard to free
content other than free software.  I'd definitely love to see him on
an advisory board.

> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
How 'bout the guy who came up with the idea to use wiki software to
build an encyclopedia?  Larry Sanger!  (yes Jimbo, that last comment
was "trolling")

Anthony


body:
On 6/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> When you work on the hash store for primary storage you'll have to
> address thumbnails.
> When you do this, please keep in mind the ability to create thumbs
> with multiple parameters beyond size, I'm not suggesting that such
> extensions need be implemented today, I just want us to avoid a
> redesign should we decide to implement them in the future.

These first two suggestions would be good, as a good thumbnail is
rarely the same thing as "reduce X and Y dimensions by 80%" for
instance. It would probably be even more helpful to be able to store
thumbnail metadata on the image itself, so that any time it was used
as a thumbnail, the right portion of the image was automatically used.

A sharper thumbnail would, in general, be useful - not sure whether a
parameter is specifically required.

Steve


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 19/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> > "And yes, anything that can be deleted, probably should be deleted,
> > because we must have articles only on truly worthy topics so to continue
> > to be highly regarded by the reading public."
>
> Something is a bit wrong when debates about the goals of Wikipedia are
> taking place in the midst of an AfD discussion for a specific article.
>

I think ironic statements such as the above are bound to happen in AfD
discussions with the current reputation of wikipedia in the community.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Jonathan Leybovich

body:
>
> A few disparate feature thoughts from recent
> conversations:
>
[snip]
>
> **  A feature to prepare for the future, but not to
> apply unless
> necessary : an "accept but delay" editing patch for
> new users -- new
> users can see their own changes to an article;
> logged-in users can see
> the "recent newbie edit flag" and also the latest
> changes; other users
> see the last version before this edit.

This is a more specific case of the stable version or
"Wikipedia 1.0" feature discussed on this list last
week and which I hope will go live, in one form or
another, relatively soon.  Especially since the
current failure to distinguish between
stable/"official" and in-progress versions of an
article exacerbate many problems, both social and
technical.  If the last revision of an article is no
longer pulled by default for most users, then you
remove much of the incentive for vandals or spammers
since the only people who will see their handiwork are
the editors working on the next version of the
article.  Revision wars likewise cool down as neither
side can now seize an article's "prime real estate"
(i.e. its default view) by putting their revisions
into the latest version of an article.  Thus you
reduce unnecessary load on the system, and the editing
process becomes more deliberate and civil since only
through consensus will new edits ever make it onto the
stable, or "official" Wikipedia site.

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


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject:
[Wikitech-l] double apostrophes in titles (was: Categories on
	nap.wikipedia.org don't work)

body:
On 6/17/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 17, 2006 at 08:26:12AM -0600, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> > > And there's at least one more possibility: today I happened to
> > > notice that there's also a Unicode double apostrophe character,
> > > U+02EE.  I'm not sure, but it might be tailor-made for Neopolitan.
> >
> > Again, there are multiple Unicode double apostrophe characters,
> > but this one is also not punctuation but a letter: "modifier letter double
> > apostrophe".
>
> Which, if I correctly followed all the earlier conversation, means
> that yes, it's exactly what the Neapolitan people want.

OK. Now I understand the context of this discussion more fully.
I do not know much about Neapolitan so I cannot say whether it has a
letter which looks like a double quote or whether it has a letter which
looks like an apostrophe which can occur as a double letter. That would
be an important difference.

What I can say is that at least one indigenous language of Mexico,
Amuzgo, uses a letter which looks like an apostrophe which can occur
as a double letter. So the situation is certainly possible. I doubt anybody
is likely to start an Amuzgo Wikipedia any time soon though considering
the small number of speakers.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274
>
>     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>
>     A: Top-posting.
>     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> * Is the name of the category "actually" foo''bar and it just
> happens to display as foo''bar ?
> * Is the name of the category "actually" foo''bar, and we put a page
> in that category with the hackish wikimarkup [[Category:foo''bar]]
> ?

The latter, as clearly shown by the fact that [[foo''bar]],
[[foo''bar]] and [[foo''bar]]
all link to the same page.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Alex Hubner

subject: [Wikitech-l] DNS for Wikipedia.org.br

body:
Folks, I've registered the domain Wikipedia.org.br and I'm currently
forwarding it as a CNAME to pt.wikipedia.org. A pt-editor pointed me
that maybe is better to leave this with the Wikipedia DNS servers
(maintained by Wikipedia developers). Does it makes sense? Is this
possible? Thanks. Alex


body:
On 6/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Since titles containing "''" cannot be reliably round-tripped, they need to be

You mean in the sense that {{PAGETITLE}} etc would return the
unescaped name? Could those functions be fixed?

(yes, I admit I seem to be following a pattern of turning every remark
into "can I make more work for Brion?") ;)

What other senses does "round-tripping" have here?

Steve


body:
On 6/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately the appreciate amount of sharpening is highly content
> dependant (and to some extent a matter of taste). I have absolutely
> zero hope of a single always on sharping setting giving better results
> overall than none at all...  I do hope that a small number of user
> specified settings (none,low,high) would suffice.  If someone is aware
> of any papers on automagically selecting appropriate sharpening, I'd
> love to hear about it. ... but this is just getting off topic.

In that case, it sounds like the relevant parameter should also be
stored on the image, rather than on the call to the image. It seems
unlikely to me that one would want to downscale using one method on
one page, and using a different method on another page. In extreme
cases (like, wanting to demonstrate pixelation), people can use the
current fallback method.

Steve


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Would I want Eben Moglen, RMS or Larry Lessig to vote on our copyright
> policies, or on what new project to approve, or on what personnel to
> hire? Most likely not. Would I want Mitch Kapor, a key advocate of
> Mozilla's current corporate approach, to vote on whether Wikipedia
> should allow advertising? Definitely not. Nor do these people bring
> truly different perspectives to our organization that we do not
> already have.
[snip]

Of course you don't.
Should we decide to accept someone who is qualified and experienced it
would preclude selecting you.


body:
On 6/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Cropping still applies, however.

Yes, but with caution - one of the main uses of cropping would
probably be cutting faces out of CD covers and stuff, in violation of
fair use.

What might be nice: defining a default "thumbnail" for an image, with
cropping and sharpening parameters, say. Then, if a user specifies
just [[image:image|thumb]], that's what gets used. Taking it further,
if a user specifies [[image:image|thumb:200px]] and there exists a
thumbnail profile for 200px, *those* parameters could be used.

Dunno how much it would all be used, of course.

Steve


body:
On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course you don't.
> > Should we decide to accept someone who is qualified and experienced it
> > would preclude selecting you.
>
> Is there a policy against personal attacks on this list?

You're not qualified or experienced in terms of running a non-profit
foundation or large scale publishing, this is a matter of fact. You
are tireless politicking for a position on the board.

It would be inapproiate to quies criticism of board hopefuls.

If I am mistaken and you have no intention of ever serving on the
board, please say so publicly and I'll apologise and never again point
out that you never do much except worthless posturing.

Alternately you could spend some of the time you spend writing
proposals and conjecture and instead get something done, and then
perhaps I'd have a reason to support you rather than point out how
inaccurate the claims you make about your own importance are...


body:
On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It would be inapproiate to quies criticism of board hopefuls.
>
> I will leave it to others to decide whether your comments represent a
> personal attack or not. If they do, and you continue to make them, I
> hope that you will be put on moderation. I do not participate in
> discourse on that level.

I see you excerpted my post very carefully, and rather than simply
point out factual inaccuracies in my claims thus proving me to be a
fool you've left them stand, perhaps hoping your own playing the
victim and shameless self promotion drown them out?

For someone usually so loud an opinionated you're awful quick to
assume the role of a meek victim when it appears that you could gain
from it.

I'm sorry, but my tolerance for listening to you pretend to be prince
of the Wikimedia sandbox is completely dissipated when you dismiss the
potential contributions from people with ample experience and proven
trackrecords.

I wish that you still had that silly "Cheif Scientist" title so that
you could pretend to be important without actually obstructing the
organization.


body:
On 6/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > Would I want Eben Moglen, RMS or Larry Lessig to vote on our copyright
> > policies, or on what new project to approve, or on what personnel to
> > hire? Most likely not. Would I want Mitch Kapor, a key advocate of
> > Mozilla's current corporate approach, to vote on whether Wikipedia
> > should allow advertising? Definitely not. Nor do these people bring
> > truly different perspectives to our organization that we do not
> > already have.
> [snip]
>
> Of course you don't.

I gave a brief explanation of what I think Erik is talking about wrt
Larry Lessig.  For an example of the dispute, see also
http://intelligentdesigns.net/blog/?p=25

His problem with Mitch Kapor seems clear.  For more background see
[[Mozilla Corporation]].

I'm not sure what his problem with RMS and Eben Moglen are.

These people don't bring particularly different perspectives to the
organization, but I do think their input is useful, because they
represent some of the most influential people with regard to those
perspectives.  I'd love to have RMS and Larry Lessig battling it out
on this mailing list over how best to implement Wikimedia project
copyright policies (with Eben Moglen presenting his own opinions as to
how best to implement these policies).  But I think it's pretty
obvious that they're already invited to do so.

Unfortunately I don't know much about Mitch Kapor.  But given what I
do know I would love to hear his input on how best to bring
sustainable revenue to the foundation.  This doesn't mean I know
enough to say he should be given a vote.

As I alluded to of those 4 people I'd probably be willing to give RMS
a shot.  From what I've seen he definitely seems to have the integrity
I'd want from a board member.

Anthony


body:
On 6/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I gave a brief explanation of what I think Erik is talking about wrt
> Larry Lessig.  For an example of the dispute, see also
> http://intelligentdesigns.net/blog/?p=25

So you believe Erik opposed Lessig for being pragmatic enough to
believe that there is a place in the world for unfree but not
outrageously limited content?

I'd hope that Lessig would realize that "free as in beer" media is
already done rather well by NPR, and that while there is a place in
the world for unfree things, that place isn't Wikimedia.   I'd hope
so, and nothing from my limited conversations with him has suggested
otherwise...  It would seem to be rather disrespectful to dismiss him
on the basis of such presumptions.

> His problem with Mitch Kapor seems clear.  For more background see
> [[Mozilla Corporation]].
>
> I'm not sure what his problem with RMS and Eben Moglen are.

As above these people have a proven track record and substantial
experience.  They may hold some views which are incompatible, but we
can't know that based on assumptions and our own criticisms related to
circumstances which are vastly different from our own... It's clear
that they all have vision and  experience which could benefit us, and
a proven trackrecord to back up their claims.   It's not like anyone
is discussing handing them board seats without discussion.

> These people don't bring particularly different perspectives to the
> organization, but I do think their input is useful, because they
> represent some of the most influential people with regard to those
> perspectives.  I'd love to have RMS and Larry Lessig battling it out
> on this mailing list over how best to implement Wikimedia project
> copyright policies (with Eben Moglen presenting his own opinions as to
> how best to implement these policies).  But I think it's pretty
> obvious that they're already invited to do so.

Presumably they aren't here arguing on the list because they are busy
getting something done. :)

> Unfortunately I don't know much about Mitch Kapor.  But given what I
> do know I would love to hear his input on how best to bring
> sustainable revenue to the foundation.  This doesn't mean I know
> enough to say he should be given a vote.

Absolutely, I don't know enough either. But I know enough not to
dismiss them off hand...

The claim that we're so different from everything non-profit,
everything free culture, etc.. It sounds rather ridiculous to me.

> As I alluded to of those 4 people I'd probably be willing to give RMS
> a shot.  From what I've seen he definitely seems to have the integrity
> I'd want from a board member.

People are very polarized about RMS. I think people fall into three
groups about him, people who are just clueless, people who respect his
work but have never argued with him, and people who have had an
argument with RMS.  (Arguing with RMS is like arguing with a highly
intelligent brick wall).   :)


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
G'day Ilmari,

> "And yes, anything that can be deleted, probably should be deleted,
> because we must have articles only on truly worthy topics so to continue
> to be highly regarded by the reading public."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Resonance_%28MIT%29
>
> (I disagree, obviously.  Other than that, I'll let the article and the
> debate on it speak for themselves.)

I note, though, that neither you nor anyone else who has commented or is
likely to comment here has seen fit to add your voices to the AfD in
question.

AfD is doomed: it doesn't, and can't, scale.  But its only *current*
problems are social.  And those problems won't be solved if the people
who can recognise the issue and lend a hand aren't willing to get in
there and do something about it.

Don't like what someone says on AfD?  *Point it out to them*.  Most
people, even on the Internet, tend to be smart enough to recognise it
when they're told they're being silly by enough people.  You obviously
feel strongly about the opinions expressed there --- so why not, instead
of/in addition to complaining here, also tell them so on the AfD?

This is especially important as Crzrussian has recently become an
administrator.  He intends to be heavily involved in the deletion
process.  It's too late to revisit the RfA, so y'all have a choice ---
he can be a good admin, or he can routinely fuck up anything related to
deletion he comes across.  I suspect the former is much more likely if
everyone here who typically complains about this sort of thing is
willing to *educate*, as well as bitch.

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
 the board?

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> I'd LOVE to see Wikipedia used to force Creative Commons and FSF to work
> together. We're the 800-pound (or 800000-pound) gorilla in the category
> "users of the GFDL" and I'd really like to see formal license compatibility.
Hoi,
On the Holland Open conference (last week) Eben Moglen gave a keynote
speech on the Saturday. One of the things he mentioned was that on a
conference in Barcelona, there will be a first draft of the GFDL 3. He
also mentioned that he hoped that it will make it easier to combine both
GFDL and specific Creative Commons licenses.. I think I remember he
mentioned the 26th.

Eben also mentioned that Jimmy Wales was truly instrumental in many of
the changes that will be included in the newer GFDL. :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/19/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Ilmari,
>
> > "And yes, anything that can be deleted, probably should be deleted,
> > because we must have articles only on truly worthy topics so to continue
> > to be highly regarded by the reading public."
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Resonance_%28MIT%29
> >
> > (I disagree, obviously.  Other than that, I'll let the article and the
> > debate on it speak for themselves.)
>
> I note, though, that neither you nor anyone else who has commented or is
> likely to comment here has seen fit to add your voices to the AfD in
> question.
>
> AfD is doomed: it doesn't, and can't, scale.  But its only *current*
> problems are social.  And those problems won't be solved if the people
> who can recognise the issue and lend a hand aren't willing to get in
> there and do something about it.
>
> Don't like what someone says on AfD?  *Point it out to them*.  Most
> people, even on the Internet, tend to be smart enough to recognise it
> when they're told they're being silly by enough people.  You obviously
> feel strongly about the opinions expressed there --- so why not, instead
> of/in addition to complaining here, also tell them so on the AfD?
>
> This is especially important as Crzrussian has recently become an
> administrator.  He intends to be heavily involved in the deletion
> process.  It's too late to revisit the RfA, so y'all have a choice ---
> he can be a good admin, or he can routinely fuck up anything related to
> deletion he comes across.  I suspect the former is much more likely if
> everyone here who typically complains about this sort of thing is
> willing to *educate*, as well as bitch.
>
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher
> "What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
> - Danger Mouse
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Mark,

Excellent point. Many people whinge about articles for deletion on this
forum but few people vote.

For the record, I think the Articles for Deletion process gets things right
most of the time. In my view, there are much fewer problems than with speedy
deletion. I am yet to be convinced that there is a better process than
articles for deletion.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Johan Bos

body:
He was blocked at his normal account, but succeeded to do a lot of edits
with a lot of sockpuppets.

Johan Bos (Jcb)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kim Bruning" <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence of
checkuserabuse

> On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:16AM +0700, Walter van Kalken wrote:
>> Zojuist heeft [[gebruiker:Walter]] gebruik gemaakt van de tool
>> checkuser.
>
> <columbo>
> One last question, to check my assumptions
>
> Were you in fact blocked from editing at the moment that this occurred?
> </columbo>
>
> sincerely,
>   Kim Bruning
> --
> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
> gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence of
	checkuserabuse


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/19/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> My question would be: do /you /know your who is who and, what is /your
> /claim to fame.. ?? I know you from the mailing lists ..

Can we stop all these pot shots and belly aching?  Who gives a crap
what people's credentials are at this point in time?  If someone does
decide to try for a Board position, _then_ you can critique him or
her.  Let's all act like grown ups here.

But to the point (and I am sure this has been proposed in some form
before), for whomever mentioned here that is not eventually on the
Board, why not just set aside a small portion of the budget to use as
"consultant fees"? Those not on the Board, but whose opinions would
help, could be taken on as consultants to make suggestions to the
Board.  Nothing would be concrete, but some of these people might not
consult without getting paid.  Others may simply require a nice
official invitation from Jimmy or WMF in general.

I am under the impression that anyone can come in to make suggestions,
but perhaps asking nicely would drum up some advice (if we are indeed
looking for it). If much of this (consultant fees) has been suggested
before, would you mind pointing in the right direction? Thanks.  --LV


in_reply_to:
<BAY19-DAV3B4C03268F145D99AD425B4860@phx.gbl>;
	from skatinghacker@hotmail.com on Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:31:35PM
	+0200

body:
On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:31:35PM +0200, Johan Bos wrote:
> He was blocked at his normal account, but succeeded to do a lot of edits
> with a lot of sockpuppets.
>
> Johan Bos (Jcb)

Oh. Is this still about the first time he did that, or has he now done it a second time?

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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from_name: effe iets anders

body:
Hello all,

I think it is very good to think about this kind of stuff, but maybe i
missed a more general question, without asking about the exact person.
However I do understand the enthousiasm of people when the idea exists to
get Eben Moglan or another famous guy (I missed the women, but maybe
overlooked them?) on the WMF-board, but I was wondering if someone could
inform me why exactly we would need those people. Is it because they have a
good insight, because they have certain qualities to *do* stuff, or that
they could promote the concept better, as they are more famous, and will
network better? Probably all of these reasons will be a part of the
redenation Jimmy followed.
But I think that with the current way the board is organized, the members of
the board do a lot of stuff, and have to spend a very big amount of time on
WMF, prevents maybe that the people named are willing to participate, but it
would maybe also prevent that their qualities will be fully used. The board
is pretty small now, and the percentage of "famous" people, who are
*automaticly* buzzy too, will increase quickly when they are admitted to the
board. I don't want to say that is bad, but that it might need also then
some restructuring in the way the board functions.
So I think it might be a good idea to think first of all about if we want
prominant persons at all on the board (the answer will probably be yes
though) and secondly, as Jimmy mentioned before, we should think about what
kind of prominent person we want. Do we want someone with specific
knowledge, do we want to bond the WMF through this boardmember to a certain
type of organization, do we want someone active in politics so the ideals of
the WMF can be spread that way, etc etc etc. Maybe it would be more usefull
to think about this kind of questions first before we start with names. The
discussion gets quite soon complicated then usually. This way we don't have
to say people are bad or not famous enought also, as we are searching to
find someone who fits into the profile, after we found a profile :)
I hope my two cents are usefull,

greetings, Lodewijk aka effeietsanders (that guy with the long weird name)

2006/6/19, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com>:
>
> On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't know the right names, but someone who's been really good at
> > advocating for improved resources/outreach into the third world, third
> world
> > civil rights etc. would also be a great addition outside of the
> "obvious"
> > choices.
>
> Angelina Jolie? Works with U.N. without all the political implications
> of Kofi Annan. Downside: May give Christine a bit of a stomach ache
> considering Jolies past experiences with co-workers. ;-)  Okay, I'll
> try and be more serious, I just couldn't help myself.  --LV
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
At 23 May, Waerth has been blocked for 1 day, for calling a transsexual user
a "neuter". He bypassed that block as well, using about 15 sockpuppets.

Johan Bos (Jcb)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kim Bruning" <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence
ofcheckuserabuse

> On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:31:35PM +0200, Johan Bos wrote:
>> He was blocked at his normal account, but succeeded to do a lot of edits
>> with a lot of sockpuppets.
>>
>> Johan Bos (Jcb)
>
> Oh. Is this still about the first time he did that, or has he now done it
> a second time?
>
> read you soon,
> Kim Bruning
>
>
> --
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subject:
[Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence
	ofcheckuserabuse


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
I think they are at: http://stats.wikimedia.org/

(And for the record, I can't see how the journalist could possibly
have come up with reliable age statistics on admins. I don't recall
ever being asked my age nor ever posting it. I suspect the same is
true for most admins.)

FF

On 6/19/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > ... the *940* admins, and a million registered users, and who knows how
> > > many anonymous contributors. And that's just for the English Wikipedia!
> > > What about on de:, fr:, ja: and the rest?
> >
> > See why I think we should prune all the dead registered users? Only a
> > fraction of those claimed "million registered users" have ever even
> > logged in and made a couple of useful edits. A tiny fraction are still
> > logging in and making useful edits.
>
> Where are the usage statistics (number of users making X edits/month
> or whatever) kept, anyways?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
G'day geni,

> On 6/19/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> AfD is doomed: it doesn't, and can't, scale.
>
> People have been saying this for over a year. Doesn't appear to have
> fallen apart yet.

Yes, that was sorta my point.  It's doomed *eventually*, but for now
it's working, and its only *current* problems can be cured if we're
willing to put in the effort.

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


body:
he did it at least twice. This is about the one of two or three days ago.

effe

2006/6/19, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>:
>
> On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:31:35PM +0200, Johan Bos wrote:
> > He was blocked at his normal account, but succeeded to do a lot of edits
> > with a lot of sockpuppets.
> >
> > Johan Bos (Jcb)
>
> Oh. Is this still about the first time he did that, or has he now done it
> a second time?
>
> read you soon,
>         Kim Bruning
>
>
> --
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> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately it's difficulte to point things out and educate these sort
> of people without violating WP:NPA.

Or at least, to not be perceived as having done so even if one has tried not to.

-Matt


from_name: Jon Awbrey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

post 7.

JA = Jon Awbrey
JW = Jesse Weinstein

JW: You've made 5 posts in this "Exit Interview" but haven't gotten around
    to explaining the details of what prompted you to lose patience with
    Wikipedia.  This is, I think, what would of most interest and use to
    the rest of us.  We've heard the generalizations you've made so far
    many times before - not that they arn't valid, just that they arn't
    news to us.

Thank you for questions that go to the point.
I thought that I went to the heart of the problem
in my very first posting, namely, expanding abbrevs:

JA: In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the
    prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor
    of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the
    Accurate Reporters and Responsibe Scholars don't stand a chance.

That still seems like the best summary of my experience,
but I've been spending the subsequent posts mostly just
responding to what seems like a massive immune response
on the part of the faithful, and it just seemed like it
was necessary to go a little slower than I did at first.

I may have been stalling a little while I waited for the results of
a promised sock &/or meat-puppet investigation, but it looks like I
shouldn't hold my breath waiting on that, so I will just say what I
currently suspect, as already posted in my answer to the 3RR action.

JW: However, the particular examples of problems you had probably *are*
    news to most of us on the list, so explaining them might be helpful.

JW: Just glancing over your contrib list, you seem to be working on
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce
    and various philosophy articles, like
    [[Truth]] and [[Propositional calculus]]

JW: One possible issue you (and many others) have had with dispute
    resolution at Wikipedia is that, as intended, they give no advantage to
    any side, requiring possibly endless argument, and in practice, the
    endless argument can be short circuited either by all but one side
    being blocked due to violations of norms of discussion (i.e. 3RR rule,
    personal attacks).  Factual superiority (i.e. citing more, or having
    the books on your side) is only successful if you can convince most of
    the people who happen to be interested in editing the page.  This is
    very frustrating for many good researchers who come across Wikipedia.
    Is that the sort of issue you had?

I am used to controversy and dispute resolution, and if proceedings
are instituted and conducted fairly, then I can take my winnings
or losings and go back to work.  But I do not think that the
system in place in WP works that way, and I have begun to
see the reasons why it never will.  There are too many
flaws built into the system at its very foundation,
and everybody is just shutting their ears to
the creaks and the moans of the structure.

It may have sounded so far like I'm blaming administrators,
but all I'm faulting them for, at least, the ones that I have
interacted with so far, is the fact that they seem to be acting
on default assumptions that date back to another era in WP's life.
It seems to me that the  Expert Disrupters know the ins and outs of
the system far better than any of the admins that I've encountered,
and they jerk the rules around like any good Washington lobbyist.
I understand that the admins are out-numbered and over-worked,
but none of that would lead to despair.  The thing that makes
it seem so hopeless at present is that the admittedly noble
principles of WP are just not embodied and insisted on by
the WikiPopulace at large, and frankly no size army of
WikiPolice could force that spirit into their "hearts
and minds", as the fatal saying goes, if they just
don't really have it imbued in them already.  And
that is how it looks at present.  It's not a few
Brown Sockpuppets that make the Reich, it's the
rest of the population that thinks they see
some short-term advantage to themselves in
letting them do whatever the devil they
want for "just a little while, and then
we'll reign them in in the end".  Yep.

If you have heard this before, then
you should think about the fact
that you keep hearing it.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o


from_name: TWEBT

subject: [Wikitech-l] Conflict with Post / Redirect

body:
I tried to post William Albert Wirt today, and kept being redirected to
William Wirt; the General.

William Albert Wirt was the best Superintendent of schools, that started the
Platoon System.

I had to list him under, Superintendent William Albert Wirt .

Is there anyway, that it can be changed to just William Albert Wirt, without
conflicts with William Wirt the General?

TimT


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
"Steve Bennett" wrote:
> Hmm, not bad. A bit more info, like "There are 3 unconfirmed edits, by
> vandal1, vandal2 and niceguy3". Click here to review these, or click
> here to discard them and continue editing.
>
> Steve

That looks like the kind of message humans (''those stupid machines'') will
press 'ok, they're all good edits' '''without reviewing''' only to get the
editbox shown. :(