from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Conrad Dunkerson
> Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2006 10:30
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?
>
> W. Guy Finley wrote:
> > Umm, no.  Some things just aren't funny -- try going into
> an airport
> > and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just
> > joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled to jail.
> > "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
>
> Joking about having a bomb in an airport or actually having
> one is illegal. Joking about being a pedophile or actually
> being one is not.
>
> Still no difference in your mind?

Ummm, I think he sees both as equally unfunny.

Pete, inclined to agree


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
On 2/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> The primary reason I try and avoid links to redirects is avoiding
> double-redirects if the page changes names one day. A 'softwear' issue
> I suppose. Or should we just leave double-redirects to a bot to fix,
> if and when it feels like it?

Double redirects should be fixed by anyone who performs a move.  If
they fail to do that, bots can easily clean up.

-Matt


list: foundation-l

from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name

body:
It's strange that a national mark is considered as an international mark.

See here: http://www.whois.eu/whois/GetDomainStatus.htm

Ilario

>-- Messaggio originale --
>Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:33:33 +0100
>From: "Tim 'avatar' Bartel" <wikipedia at computerkultur.org>
>To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name
>Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
>Hi wikipedians,
>
>Michael Bimmler schrieb am 07.02.2006 21:03:
>> I just did a Whois for wikimedia.eu and I got "Firestorm Forces Ltd"
>> as applicant.
>> Are they somehow connected to "us"?
>
>No, they are the bad guys.
>Firestorm Forces Ltd = Infochannel Group
>
>Please read
>http://britannia.gotdns.org/wikipedistik/2006/01/11/infochannel-group-und-die-wikipedia/
>(german only)
>
>Bye, Tim.
>
>--
>But we made our own fun, mostly. I recall a time, many years later, when
>American children seemed unable to amuse themselves without a fortune in
>electrical and electronic equipment.
>We had no fancy equipment and did not miss it.       -- Heinlein, Friday
>
>Allegato: signature.asc
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] And now, for something completely different

body:
>> Not surprisingly, the average coverage of subjects is fairly
>> poor.  64% of
>> articles were rated "low" or "stub", indicating they did not have
>> even a
>> basic chronology of the subject's life, and 29% were rated "medium",
>> indicating a basic chronology but nothing more.  6% were rated
>> "good", with
>> a relatively complete chronology, and one article was approaching
>> "featured"
>> quality.  While doing the survey, one of the biographies was
>> deleted for
>> lack of notability, one as being unverifiable, and two were listed as
>> copyvios.
>
> Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of people don't get a good bio in
> Wikipedia until they die and there are nicely-researched obituaries to
> use as sources.

Even better, we're more free to criticize dead people because they
can't sue us for libel.

Would it be too unreasonable to propose WikiProject Assassinate
People With Wikipedia Biographies? :P

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Slashdot questions

body:
    http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/06/2223223

I've gone through every comment rated 1 or above, answering all I can.
Anyone else want to have a go? (I'm wondering if there will be any
questions left for Jimbo ...)

- d.


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name

body:
Okay, so according to [[meta:Domain names]] (very bottom of page),
there seem to have been discussions already in november/december 04
(sic) and later again in september 05 about who shall apply for the
domain (Wikimedia Foundation/local chapter/etc.). Have these talks
been continued somewhere/was a decision reached?
Michael

--
An eternity is very, very long, especially towards the end


subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name


subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name

body:
and btw: http://www.whois.eu/whois/GetApplicationDetails.htm?appId=231608
 provides a nice overview about the application of Firestorm Forces

On 2/8/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay, so according to [[meta:Domain names]] (very bottom of page),
> there seem to have been discussions already in november/december 04
> (sic) and later again in september 05 about who shall apply for the
> domain (Wikimedia Foundation/local chapter/etc.). Have these talks
> been continued somewhere/was a decision reached?
> Michael
>
>
> --
> An eternity is very, very long, especially towards the end
>

--
An eternity is very, very long, especially towards the end


subject: [Foundation-l] .EU domain name


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: No more blocking people for who they *are*?

body:
"Mark Wagner" <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:31073ef90602071549v22ddf451w3e14def1dfe1f540 at mail.gmail.com...
On 2/7/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> > While I agree with the general point, slippery slope arguments are
> > usually pretty weak.
> The problem is that the step from "admitted pedophiles" to
> "pedophiles" has already been taken, and from there, it's a *very*
> small step to "accused pedophiles", an illustrious group that includes
> Ta bu shi da yu, Schissel, and Lucky 6.9, all named by "Parents for
> the Online Safety of Children", Jtdirl, Gmaxwell, and me, all named by
> Jeff Merkey, and no doubt others.

I was labelled a "pedophile" by well-known Usenet-kook John Grubor about 10
years ago; you can look it up in newsgroup archives easily enough. It was
his favourite method of attacking anybody who stumbled into his line of
fire, and is practically a badge of honour (not so much a Purple Heart as a
Vaguely Lilac Heart :-).

This is not the sort of thing I want to be slung about like slurry outside
the town hall[1]...it would not, for example, have been easy to explain to
non-technical Social Workers when we adopted our daughter.

The fact remains: I have been accused thereof, it's verifiable: what if
somebody decides it would be a good idea to paste it into my User Page?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
[1] traditional form of protest employed by disgrunlted UK farmers :-)


from_name: A. Özgür Erdemli

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipubs Project Proposal.

body:
I am not sure if this is a site that is already created and now
willing to attach itself to Wikimedia or is this just a proposal?

Because it seems pretty much owned already. Not like a community. It
has own mail adress, web sites etc. already. :/

Dbl2010

On 2/8/06, admin at wikipubs.org <admin at wikipubs.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> Please find below a project proposal for wikipubs. More information can
> be found either on the project proposals page, via the project page
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipubs or on the wikipubs demo site;
> http://wikipubs.org.
>
> Kind regards,
> James.
>
>
> === Wikipubs ===
> * Domain names: Currently registered http://wikipubs.org,
> http://wikipubs.net, http://wikipubs.com
>
> * Scope: Wikipubs seeks to provide a source for the sharing of
> information relating to pubs, clubs, bars and festivals throughout the
> world. It will achieve this by encouraging users to post information,
> stories, anecdotes, reviews and ratings of their local pubs, clubs, bars
> and festivals. Wikipubs will also encourage discussion on pubs, clubs,
> bars and festivals between patrons of these establishments. Thus
> building a database for users to refer to when planning an enjoyable
> night out.
>
> * Details: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipubs
>
> * Proposer: mailto:admin at wikipubs.org
>
> * Demo Site: http://wikipubs.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why has everything gone to hell?

body:
Jesse Weinstein wrote:

>And, just for the record - I suggest as a possible rename for the CVU:
>Janitors On Speed

WikiProject HAZMAT Disposal!

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Delirium wrote:
>
>
>>If you'd like to be reminded, here's an exchange I had in mind, from
>>December 16, 2005:
>>
>>1. Jimbo says that he thinks anyone who saw the Seigenthaler article
>>should've seen that the mistakes were "blatantly obvious" and
>>"transparently outlandish".
>>
>>2. Anthony DiPierro replies that they were not obvious to him.
>>
>>3. Jimbo replies: "Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh
>>opinions.  But frankly, if you don't find those errors to be blindingly
>>obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is
>>quite frankly beyond you."
>>
>>Note that several other of us had also expressed agreement with
>>Anthony's point in #2, so Jimbo explicitly and publicly flamed a handful
>>of dedicated and long-time Wikipedia contributors.
>>
>>
>Well, I was on wikibreak between November 20th and December 30th,
>including not being subscribed to this list. How was I to know?
>
>Also, I think you are being a little harsh - I mean, he was only on the
>verge of being sued, having the site shut down, press attacking on all
>sides, etc...
>
>
Sounds like a normal day on a mega-site.

Ec


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Thomas est né - Thomas is born

body:
Bonjour,

Thomas Devouard, le fils de Florence (Anthere) est n? hier soir. Il
p?se 3,4 kg et mesure 51 cm. Il dort beaucoup et est bien sur le plus
beau b?b? du monde (dixit sa maman). Comme le dit la formule
consacr?e, la maman et le b?b? se portent bien.

Thomas Devouard, Florence's son (Anthere) was born yesterday. He
weighs 3,4 kg and is 51 cm tall. He sleeps a lot and is of course the
most beautiful baby in the world (says his mother). As the saying
goes, both mother and baby are doing great.

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [WikiEN-l] FA bot attacks -- anybody around with checkuser?

body:
>> Last time we were hit with a random-username creating bot, we blocked
>> all of AOL and said "consequences be damned". Now that we are bigger
>> than AOL, we *must* demand action on their part.
>
> More popular. Not bigger.

We're not bigger than AOL? Hell, we're bigger than Jesus Christ!

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Comparison with other wikis

body:
"Matt Brown" <morven at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:42f90dc00602072345x519dc76dx41d5a1b47ff63b98 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 2/7/06, Peter Mackay
> <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > If we are talking about doing things legally, that is. If Tony Blair
> > decided
> > to turn the UK into a one-party fascist state using illegal means, an
> > exciting possibility that would raise many British eyebrows, then the
> > Queen
> > would probably find herself unable to intervene. It would depend on
> > which
> > side the military decided to support, I suppose,
> Officers of the British armed forces swear an oath to the Queen only,
> I believe, which might have some import in such an unlikely
> circumstance.

Not to mention the exciting prospect of giving the government the shaft
instead of the other way around...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Throwing out the first ball

body:
"Peter Mackay" <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote
in message
news:20060208080943.LCFP24868.omta05sl.mx.bigpond.com at skyringstudy...
[snip]
> Pete, enjoying the prospect of the solemn twilight ceremony, the massed
> bands, the arena full of hushed spectators, the flags, the bunting...

Mentioning "bunting" in the same thread as [[Monty Python]] might not be the
wisest move ("what a silly bunt"[1] :-)...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
[1] Khaki, Kipling, King's Bollege Bambridge...you get the drift :-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Civility on the list

body:
Please cool it in general. (I've had emails from more than one person
dismayed at the recent standard of discourse, even though it's all
on-topic.)  Even I will be attempting to grit my teeth and be somewhat
less blunt, hurt as it may.

- d.


body:
Carnildo wrote:

>Not surprisingly, the average coverage of subjects is fairly poor.  64% of
>articles were rated "low" or "stub", indicating they did not have even a
>basic chronology of the subject's life, and 29% were rated "medium",
>indicating a basic chronology but nothing more.  6% were rated "good", with
>a relatively complete chronology, and one article was approaching "featured"
>quality.  While doing the survey, one of the biographies was deleted for
>lack of notability, one as being unverifiable, and two were listed as
>copyvios.

Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of people don't get a good bio in
Wikipedia until they die and there are nicely-researched obituaries to
use as sources.

- d.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>
> G'day Steve,
>
>>> Until now Jimbo has had to step in whenever
>>> people (especially cabal members) need to be told to cool off. He
>>> shouldn't have to. Jimbo's role is being the face of the foundation and
>>> being the last court of appeal. He has to handle all the Wikimedia
>>> projects -- he shouldn't be spending his time tackling problems on the
>>> English Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>> Agree. I suspect the only issue is getting people to trust the
>> authority and good sense of other people. They *must* be appointed
>> directly by Jimbo for that to happen, I think.
>
>
> I suspect it still wouldn't happen.  Witness [[User:God of War]]'s
> actions on the CSD page; he's decided that Jimbo's word can't trump
> consensus, and "consensus" is on his side, and therefore Jimbo can't
> change the CSD to include particularly stupid templates.
>
> What do we do about users --- most of them newbies, most of them bound
> up in some way with the userbox debacle --- who think Wikipedia is a
> democracy, and any opposition is rogue admins gone Fascist?  Standing
> over them and saying "Jimbo says such-and-such!  Respect his
> authority, damnit!" probably wouldn't do much good.
>
If they won't listen to the GodKing, we block them until the message
gets into their head? (With the GodKing's approval, of course.)

John Lee


subject: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of W. Guy Finley

> >> Umm, no.  Some things just aren't funny -- try going into
> an airport
> >> and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just
> >> joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled
> to jail.
> >> "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
> >
> > Joking about having a bomb in an airport or actually having one is
> > illegal. Joking about being a pedophile or actually being
> one is not.
> >
> > Still no difference in your mind?
>
> No.  Molesting children is a crime.

Sure. But saying you are a paedophile isn't. It might be stupid, but last
time I looked, stupidity wasn't a crime and the world is full of such people
slowly driving in the fast lane and getting in the way at revolving doors.

> Let me guess, the next
> splitting hair argument of "well he's a child so being
> attracted to children is okay".
> "Pedophile" in common usage is a pejorative term.

You say this with the benefit of your advanced years. The world may seem
very different to a sixteen year old. Cut the lad some slack. I don't see
too many people saying he did the right or bright thing, but he seems to
have reacted promptly to criticism and removed the userbox.

What more should we ask? Maturity, maybe? Should we have a minimum age limit
for editing? How do we enforce that?

Peter (Skyring)


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jake Nelson

> Peter Mackay wrote:
> > In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies
> as "16-ish".
> > Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age?
> > Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been
> unwise, but not
> > necessarily anything we should run around being headless
> chickens over.
> >
> > Pete, acting like a grown-up
>
> I don't want to get into the morass of definitions for these
> things, but pedophilia relates to prepubescent children, not
> those of a similar age to "16-ish". The term for a fixation
> on teenagers is ephebophilia, and it doesn't apply to a
> 16-ish person either.
>
> Just thought I'd clarify that.

Thanks. May I make the point that it would be a rare teenager to be aware of
such terms and distinctions?

Pete, who hadn't been aware of the meaning of at least one of those words
until a few moments ago


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of W. Guy Finley

> I have it, lets form a committee to review all of his edits,
> maybe even stop by his house and see if he actually IS a
> pedophile before we do anything!

I do hope that nobody is considering stalking or investigating or calling on
this 16YO.

Reviewing his edits is one thing, but apparently even that is wikistalking,
even if you make good edits out of bad.

'Nuff said.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>
>As for the mover of a page being expected to do it...well...I recently
>moved "cock (chicken)" to "rooster" and set out to fix the 10 or so
>double redirects. But my god what a tedious, painful process. I got
>through about 5 and said to hell with it. We really should do
>completely away with all menial labour of this kind...
>
I suspect the prospect of manual labor has the beneficial side
effect of discouraging moving articles around, otherwise some
would be getting moved to new names every day.

Stan


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
Here's a test case.  As per [[WP:CITE]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] a user
proposes inserting a quote regarding extremism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chip_Berlet#Proposed_inclusion
The author is qualified in *The Military Law Review *as the foremost
expert in extremism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chip_Berlet&oldid=28992316#WP:CON
The NLG good 'ol boy network determines cutting & pasting the discussion to
a user page warrants a one year ban.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision&diff=prev&oldid=29531355

nobs

On 2/7/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Wikipedia is a diverse community with extensive tolerance for what
> people put on their userpages.

> I don't care who anyone is, but I do care about actions and statements
> which may bring
> Wikipedia into disrepute


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: No more blocking people for who they *are*?

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ilya N.

> I'd like to quickly butt in to point out that I'm 14 and
> totally not happy with the pedophile thing.
>
> Yes, we should require maturity. In older times, the
> encyclopedists were the finest academics of all time.
>
> Why not cut vandals some slack? I mean they don't know that
> adding a penis to an article is harming a reputable resource.
> They think it's fun. So why ban them?

Having a bit of fun on your user page and doing the same thing in
articlespace are two quite different things. Judging by accepted community
standards here, adding a penis to (say) [[George W Bush]] is quickly
reverted, but doing the same on your user page won't spur anyone to quickly
revert you.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: charles matthews

body:
"David Gerard"  wrote

>Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of people don't get a good bio in
Wikipedia until they die and there are nicely-researched obituaries to
use as sources.

Yes, a high price to pay for getting your educational record straight.

It's not so bad though.  Many fairly stubby articles are there as
placeholders _in case_ someone gets into the news.  We have a stub on a
scientist, who gets a Nobel out of the blue (can be for work done 15-20
years ago, quite easily).  People look up the article as soon as the news
hits the wire services, and the article burgeons in real time as academics
look in to see what's here and sort it out.  No article, they may not start
one.  Also, say it's a Swiss researcher, and that the German-language
article is better than the English article.  We do at least have that
interwiki possibility, then.

So let's not forget that WP has always had the low-grade articles, has
thrived, and there is some connection.

Charles


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>Bonjour,
>
>Thomas Devouard, le fils de Florence (Anthere) est n? hier soir. Il
>p?se 3,4 kg et mesure 51 cm. Il dort beaucoup et est bien sur le plus
>beau b?b? du monde (dixit sa maman). Comme le dit la formule
>consacr?e, la maman et le b?b? se portent bien.
>
F?licitations!  Sans doute qu'elle dirait le plus intelligent aussi bien
que le plus beau.  Nous attendrons quelques jours pour qu'il se
chossisse un beau nom d'utilisateur. :-)

Ray


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 8 Feb 2006, at 12:29, David Gerard wrote:

> Carnildo wrote:
>
>> Not surprisingly, the average coverage of subjects is fairly
>> poor.  64% of
>> articles were rated "low" or "stub", indicating they did not have
>> even a
>> basic chronology of the subject's life, and 29% were rated "medium",
>> indicating a basic chronology but nothing more.  6% were rated
>> "good", with
>> a relatively complete chronology, and one article was approaching
>> "featured"
>> quality.  While doing the survey, one of the biographies was
>> deleted for
>> lack of notability, one as being unverifiable, and two were listed as
>> copyvios.
>
>
> Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of people don't get a good bio in
> Wikipedia until they die and there are nicely-researched obituaries to
> use as sources.

I think that is partly because there are very few online biographies,
and
many books about cultural things mention little about personal life (I
really need a good book with biographical details of architects but have
yet to find one).

Anyone fancy filling in some more on [[Bob Switzer]] the inventor of
Day-Glo that I just created...

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sean Barrett
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Peter Mackay stated for the record:
>
> > If we are talking about doing things legally, that is. If
> Tony Blair
> > decided to turn the UK into a one-party fascist state using illegal
> > means, an exciting possibility that would raise many
> British eyebrows,
> > then the Queen would probably find herself unable to intervene. It
> > would depend on which side the military decided to support,
> I suppose,
> > and the [[King's Own Queens]] regiment might find itself in an
> > impossible position. Well, more impossible.
>
> I'm having way too much fun contemplating the [[King's Own
> Queens]] (perhaps as portrayed by [[Monty Python]]), so
> please tell me what regiment you really meant.

Ah, I was just using it by way of humourous illustration. It comes from
something Redmond Simonsen or possibly Dave Isby said in Moves Magazine, way
back when, and the phrase has stuck in what passes for my mind.

Pete, grognardly


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
> Brion said:
>
>    /It doesn't solve our specified requirement (single Wikimedia-wide
>    namespace so a
>    single username works on all 600+ Wikimedia wikis transparently, no
>    muss no fuss).
>    /
>
> Really? I'd think that an Interwiki-namespaced username would solve
> that problem nicely, without requiring a big name-clash-fixing step
> when the technology rolls out. I think that having a single username
> across all wikis would be nice, if you didn't have to do resolve dupes
> across the system, but if you do, it's really kind of a hassle.
>
> I'd think that, since single-signon between wikis is a feature useful
> only for a minority of registered Wikimedia users (how many actually
> log into more than one Wikimedia wiki, ever? 10-20%, maybe? how many
> log into more than, say, 5 wikis? Or log into more than one wiki on a
> regular basis? 2%? 0.2%?), it'd be a good political idea to minimize
> the namespace-sorting hassle. That nameclash-fixing step is gonna
> suck, and it's not even helpful most users. It seems to me that a
> minor effort on the part of "interwikiists" -- just using a
> project+language namespace -- would be painless for them and
> unnoticeable for everyone else.
Given that Commons should be the only resource for pictures, everyone
needs currently at least TWO users. Bringing this as a "political" idea
is horrible certainly when you do not consider that several projects do
not allow upload to the local project any more. It is horrible because
it shows single project/language focus. When you consider the current
interwiki practice, it is horribly broken; I have only on the English
Wiktionary 15306 edits doing interwiki stuff for Februari 2006. I am
certain that I have some 50.000 edits on all Wiktionaries only in
Februari. This idea that projects and its language versions are not
related is wrong.

When we get Wikidata databases that are properly localised, we will be
able to have information about one topic in one database available for
ALL projects, this will be another example where interaction between
projects will become relevant.
>
> I think that if we use Interwiki prefixes on the UI side, OpenID
> becomes that much easier. A user could login to French Wikibooks as
> /wp:en:User:EvanProdromou/ or whatever, and the UI translates that
> into the right OpenID URL
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EvanProdromou) and goes through the
> OpenID two-step to get credentials checked. Under the covers, the
> OpenID stuff would get worked out right, but we could use simpler
> Interwiki strings for the UI.
OpenID is a great idea, it is included in the YADIS specification, a
framework where it interacts with more protocols than just OpenID. The
problem is that OpenID on its own will not provide the needs that the
Wikimedia Foundation will have. When we get Wikiversity running for
instance, we will have teachers that need to have access to the process
information of a students training. This is private information and it
requires stronger authentication than the authentication offered by OpenID.
>
> In fact, a drop-down box for project, and another for language, could
> also significantly reduce the complexity for users. For example, I
> could choose "Wikipedia" out of "Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary,
> ..." and "English" out of "English, Fran?ais, Esperanto, ..." and then
> my username on that project.
>
> Lastly, I think having a couple of professional developers eagerly
> awaiting a chance to get this implemented and who know OpenID and
> authentication issues inside and out is a really good thing. We
> shouldn't rollout every technology that people volunteer to throw into
> the software, but this seems like a pretty good match between
> Mediawiki (and Wikimedia) needs and what's being offered.
>
> ~Evan
It is great when developers want a chance to implement something good.
But do not approach it with this "all I have is a hammer so all my
problems are nails" idea. OpenID is great, it fits into YADIS,
technically it is possible to make a WMF authentication server BUT this
is not only a technical issue it is indeed an organisational issue.
Think of it, WillieOnWheels has a profile with the WMF, he gets banned
and still authenticates using an OpenID/YADIS profile ...

It is a technical issue if you want to implement YADIS for MediaWiki. It
is however a decision for the board if the WMF would and should turn it on.

Thanks,
     GerardM


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: OpenID Support

body:
Gordon Mohr wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Josh Hoyt wrote:
>>> I think that OpenID can meet your stated requirement. Is there a
>>> list somewhere
>>> of the other requirements for your authentication solution?
>>
>> The primary issue is the issue of unifying our username namespace so
>> there are
>> no longer any 'same username, different user' cases at our hundreds
>> of wikis
>> anymore.
>>
>> This is outside the scope of something like OpenID, which explicitly
>> uses
>> separate namespaces (something we don't want).
>
> You could settle on one master namespace (wikipedia.org?), then
> gradually roll sites over to only accepting logins from that
> namespace, giving people the option along the way of merging
> their old separate identity histories into the new master
> login(s). I suspect OpenID could help with the cross-domain
> logins, even if a final single namespace is the only one
> accepted for logins.
Given that you suggest "wikipedia.org", you do not appreciate that the
uploading of pictures into Commons is one of the more pressing issues.
There are MANY projects and wikipedia is only one.. :(
>
> I'd also guess that after starting to unify, there could be a
> backlash when people start losing their logins. Multiple
> namespaces might then seem more appealing.
>
> Is there a page or past thread capturing prior discussion and
> decisions about the single-signon goal?
>
> - Gordon
The discussion on single-signon is old. It has been discussed to death.
It has had special announced IRC chats dedicated to this subject and you
can find the relevant stuff on Meta. A decision has been taken to
implement this. Which is great given the problems that there is always
someone new, who thinks that OpenID for instance had not been looked into.

When the unification starts, there will be people who hate it. However,
you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Throwing out the first ball

body:
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps admins should publicly swear an oath of allegiance to Jimbo?
>

I pledge allegiance, to the Jimbo, of the United Articles of Wikipedia.  And
to the cabal, for which it stands, one oligarchy, under all, indivisible,
with speedy tags and vandalbots for all.

(This is meant to be entirely humorous and does not reflect my views on
anything.)

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


body:
Chip Berlet wrote:

>It's all about the Social Contract.
>
>1. Wikipedians must never post material that calls for illegal activity or the harming of human beings or, through inaction, allow such text to remain unchallenged.
>
But "illegal activity" is open to interpretation.  There are obvious
illegal activities, but there are many more whose illegality is
questionable, or whos legality may vary from one place to another.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Jay Converse wrote:

>On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Delirium wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If you'd like to be reminded, here's an exchange I had in mind, from
>>>>December 16, 2005:
>>>>
>>>>1. Jimbo says that he thinks anyone who saw the Seigenthaler article
>>>>should've seen that the mistakes were "blatantly obvious" and
>>>>"transparently outlandish".
>>>>
>>>>2. Anthony DiPierro replies that they were not obvious to him.
>>>>
>>>>3. Jimbo replies: "Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh
>>>>opinions.  But frankly, if you don't find those errors to be blindingly
>>>>obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is
>>>>quite frankly beyond you."
>>>>
>>>>Note that several other of us had also expressed agreement with
>>>>Anthony's point in #2, so Jimbo explicitly and publicly flamed a handful
>>>>of dedicated and long-time Wikipedia contributors.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Also, I think you are being a little harsh - I mean, he was only on the
>>>verge of being sued, having the site shut down, press attacking on all
>>>sides, etc...
>>>
>>>
>>Sounds like a normal day on a mega-site.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>I don't think that's the point, though.  Wouldn't you be just a little testy
>if the site you'd poured your entire existence into for the past 5 years was
>threatening to get shut down in 5 seconds?
>
>(Yes, this is an exaggeration, but 5 to 5 sounds better.)
>
>
But your first analysis was a little paranoid.  Shutting down the site
was not seriously mentioned; press attacks are sexy in the media, and
unfounded lawsuits can be a fact of life for a big enough organization.

Ec


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> And what about the guy who says "I am a Nazi Party member, and I am here
> to make sure that the POV that Jews are evil is properly represented in
> the encyclopedia"... or the guy who says "I am a pedophile, and I edit
> articles related to pedophilia to make sure that the articles show how
> healthy it is."

I find it pretty interesting that these hypotheticals all seem to have a
common 'structure', although of course some are more emotive than others.

Wikipedian: WP works because of positive feedback: people edit, they get a
rep here for being NPOV or POV, WP gets a rep because NPOV editors do credit
to it, more people come.

Outsider/Lobbyist: You know, that looks hard to do.  I can improve your
reputation for 'balance', today, by coming to your site and being an
advocate.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
Now now.  You need a separate category, "Alleged pedophiles" or
"Accused pedophiles.

nobs

On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> No-one is being banned just for being a paedophile.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Serious personal attacks may result in lengthy bans.

Fred

On Feb 8, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Rob Smith wrote:

> Here's a test case.  As per [[WP:CITE]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] a user
> proposes inserting a quote regarding extremism.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chip_Berlet#Proposed_inclusion
> The author is qualified in *The Military Law Review *as the foremost
> expert in extremism.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Talk:Chip_Berlet&oldid=28992316#WP:CON
> The NLG good 'ol boy network determines cutting & pasting the
> discussion to
> a user page warrants a one year ban.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/
> Proposed_decision&diff=prev&oldid=29531355
>
> nobs
>
> On 2/7/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Wikipedia is a diverse community with extensive tolerance for what
>> people put on their userpages.
>>
>
>
>
>
>> I don't care who anyone is, but I do care about actions and
>> statements
>> which may bring
>> Wikipedia into disrepute
>>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Wheel warring

body:
Jay Converse wrote:

>... you still have to admit that media
>attention on the scale that Wikipedia, and by extension Jimbo, are getting
>is enough to try anyone's patience when they're trying to fix what the
>media's yelling at them for.
>
For a website even negative media attention can bring more users.  In
many situations media attention has unexpected effects, as with the
Danish cartoons about Mohammed.

Ec


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is what I'm worried about, and the precedent I was mentioning.  All of
> a sudden, userpages now need to be politically correct, or you risk a
> block.  That is, if this precedent does get set.

You don't have a userpage in order to exercise any "right" to free
speech, but because it helps the project; it aids communication and
makes people happy.  You never did have the right to say anything you
pleased there; disruptiveness has always been unacceptable.

There's nothing particularly new about that proposed finding.

-Matt


body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I'd go as far as saying that all content saying that someone breaks US
>>>law should be forbidden as well.
>>>
>>>
>>Like "This user smokes weed"?
>>
>>
>Yes.  It's a line.  It's arbitrary.  It's needed.
>
But you would impose US law even in a country where smoking weed is legal.

Ec


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
On 2/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What the hell? You fix the double redirects when you move the page. The
> > message says it in bold. "Links to the old page title will not be
> > changed; be sure to check for double-redirects (using "What links here")
> > after the move."
>
> Fair enough :) Don't worry, I haven't been rampantly going around
> "fixing" links to redirects. If there are bots that fix up in these
> cases, so much the better.
>
> As for the mover of a page being expected to do it...well...I recently
> moved "cock (chicken)" to "rooster" and set out to fix the 10 or so
> double redirects. But my god what a tedious, painful process. I got
> through about 5 and said to hell with it. We really should do
> completely away with all menial labour of this kind...
>
> Steve

This is always the WP:AWB.  It's a great tool for mundane things like this,
especially since you can do some, leave it, and then fire it up again to
finish the rest.

Ian


body:
Recently a noted journalist threatened a libel suit over being
included [[Category:Gay writers]]; now given the propensity of the
ArbCom to accept evidence from sockpuppets (as in my case) to make
decisions, what would stop a user from placing a "This user is a
pedophile" template on his user page with a sockpuppet, then sue for
defamation.  But, who needs rules or proceedures.

nobs

On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/8/06, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now now.  You need a separate category, "Alleged pedophiles" or
> > "Accused pedophiles.
> >
> > nobs
> >
> > On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > No-one is being banned just for being a paedophile.
>
> Um, what?  What do you mean?
>
> --
> Sam
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: SPUI

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Proposed_decision#User_pages

11) While not explicitly stated on Wikipedia:User page, it is implict
there that users should refrain from creating user pages likely to bring
the project into disrepute. The pedophile userbox (and the like) falls
into this category. Note that this should not be construed to bar
reasonable criticism of the project.

     Support:

        1. Raul654 16:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        2. Fred Bauder 16:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        3. the Epopt 18:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        4. ?Matthew Brown (T:C) 19:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        5. SimonP 19:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        6. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        7. Charles Matthews 22:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        8. Dmcdevit?t 22:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        9. Mackensen (talk) 00:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       10. Jayjg (talk) 03:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       11. Neutralitytalk 06:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       12. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       13. Slight grammatical tweak. James F. (talk) 19:37, 7 February
2006 (UTC)

     Oppose:

     Abstain:

We have gone from a "live and let live" culture to one of political
correctness, where anything that could "bring the project into
disrepute" is a bad thing. This just leaves me totally speechless, to
the point where I'm considering making my user page more and more
"disreputable" until I am blocked.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEn-l] Alternative names for the Counter Vandalism Unit

body:
On 2/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Again, [[Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism]]. Simple. descriptive. Non
> > > us/them. And it's already on the works
> >
> > Didn't see this. It's perfect.
>
> I prefer names that don't give credit to vandalism -- I mean, there's
> going to be a segment of people that are excited about committing
> crimes of annoyance in the world. If you clean up stuff without
> crediting it as a crime, it makes it easier to deal with.

Ok. Wikiproject: Cleaning up unsightly mess.

Depends what the project does exactly. I was under the impression that
CVU actively deals with vandals with warnings, friendly messages or
whatnot.

Hang on, why are we trying to make the name uncool again? Why don't we
want people to join?

Steve


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ambi's two week block of Bobblewik

body:
bobble wik wrote:
> Ambi has given me a two week block with the comment:
> "Continues to make disputed edits under main account at bot-speed (120/hour) despite being asked to stop by multiple people.".
> Previous blocks have been made by Ambi and Talrias.
> Ambi said: the edits are "disruptive and not being supported by consensus or policy"; the Manual of style "is a very obscure page"; "Bobblewik's campaign is a personal one".
>
> The edits relate to date links and implementing WP:MOSDATE, WP:MOS-L, and WP:CONTEXT. Several editors have been working on this. Whenever anyone has disagreed with the implementation, I have directed them towards those policy guidelines and suggested they seek a change in the policy. I even suspended my edits for a short while and proposed more constrained wording.
>
> Ambi and Talrias also complained that my earlier edits were too fast. So I limited my speed to 120 per hour because I thought that was reasonable. If I can still be blocked for implementing the manual of style at that speed, I would be prepared to reduce to 60 per hour, 30 per hour or even perhaps 12 per hour. Just tell me what the limit is and I will comply. It is bizarre to have a policy that cannot be implemented for fear of being blocked.
>
> I hope I am not misattributing the following quotes from the various talk pages:
> "I think a block at present would be utterly wrong." Thincat
> "Disclosure: i favor the current guideline, and have made soem edits of the same sort. But blocking soemone for editing in accordance with the current state of the MoS seems improper to me." DES
> "It is certainly not justifiable to block someone for making edits for the manual's current advice." Neonumbers
> "I completely fail to understand how anyone can object to what Bobblewik is doing." Dpbsmith
> "Has he served enough time now? This is a good, experienced, civil, productive editor. I'm not sure a two week sentence is really the most beneficial way ahead." Haukur
>
> Please can people look into this and comment. Thanks
> Bobblewik
>

The problems I have with the edits you are making, Bobblewik, as I have
made clear to you in the past, is that you are using a computer
algorithm to make a page "better" aesthetically. I don't think that your
script you are using to clean up links is improving articles, as it is
removing useful links to other articles. Because it is a computer
algorithm, it doesn't "know" where a link is useful and where one is
not, and it always seems to err on the side of removing a link, rather
than leaving it in.

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/8/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>>These tidy-minded things often have little to do with the real issues in
>>writing a dynamic 'Pedia.
>
> The primary reason I try and avoid links to redirects is avoiding
> double-redirects if the page changes names one day. A 'softwear' issue
> I suppose. Or should we just leave double-redirects to a bot to fix,
> if and when it feels like it?

What the hell? You fix the double redirects when you move the page. The
message says it in bold. "Links to the old page title will not be
changed; be sure to check for double-redirects (using "What links here")
after the move."


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked username

body:
David Altmayer wrote:
> My usename has been blocked, and I believe that it is not in violation of
> the WP:Username policy.

What is the username you chose?

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block of Dschor

body:
David Schor wrote:

>User:Dschor was improperly blocked for a violation of WP:Point.
>There was no such violation.  The administrator who placed the block
>failed to WP:AGF.

and:

>User Dschor has been unjustly blocked by Fred Bauder.  Please remove
>the block.  Thanks.

Interested parties may care to look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Evidence#Statement_by_User:Dschor

- and also at Doc glasgow's rebuttal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Evidence#Rebuttal_evidence_relating_to_Dschor:

This led to a temporary injunction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Proposed_decision#Dschor_banned_from_editing_outside_RfAr

Dschor banned from editing outside RfAr

1) As Dschor has continued to make edits relating to the pedophilia
template which he was blocked for recreating and was unblocked only to
respond to this case, pending resolution of this matter he is banned
from editing any pages other than these Arbitration pages and his own
user and talk page. He may be briefly blocked should he edit any other
page.

Enacted on 23:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

    Support:

       1. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 14:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       2. Raul654 14:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       3. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       4. SimonP 19:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC), this needs to stop
       5. Fred Bauder 20:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       6. James F. (talk) 23:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
       7. ?Matthew Brown (T:C) 09:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

    Oppose:

    Abstain:

- d.


body:
Oh, it was misread.  External links from Wikipedia with advice like
"Train others to step forward if leaders are arrested, and arrange
beforehand for legal support for all those who are detained. Be aware
that some people, especially those with family caretaking
responsibility or medical issues, need to avoid arrest."
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/countering_repression.html

Doesn't say anything about the wisdom of taking children to
tear-gassing events, however.  And one wonders how many times the
author of such wisdom "sang in jail" or "washed tear gas" out of his
own eyes.

nobs

On 2/8/06, Chip Berlet <c.berlet at publiceye.org> wrote:
> It's all about the Social Contract.

> 1. Wikipedians must never post material that calls for illegal activity or the harming of human beings or, through inaction, allow such text to remain unchallenged.


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
G'day Steve,

>>Until now Jimbo has had to step in whenever
>>people (especially cabal members) need to be told to cool off. He
>>shouldn't have to. Jimbo's role is being the face of the foundation and
>>being the last court of appeal. He has to handle all the Wikimedia
>>projects -- he shouldn't be spending his time tackling problems on the
>>English Wikipedia.
>
> Agree. I suspect the only issue is getting people to trust the
> authority and good sense of other people. They *must* be appointed
> directly by Jimbo for that to happen, I think.

I suspect it still wouldn't happen.  Witness [[User:God of War]]'s
actions on the CSD page; he's decided that Jimbo's word can't trump
consensus, and "consensus" is on his side, and therefore Jimbo can't
change the CSD to include particularly stupid templates.

What do we do about users --- most of them newbies, most of them bound
up in some way with the userbox debacle --- who think Wikipedia is a
democracy, and any opposition is rogue admins gone Fascist?  Standing
over them and saying "Jimbo says such-and-such!  Respect his authority,
damnit!" probably wouldn't do much good.

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

--
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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.2/253 - Release Date: 7/02/2006


subject: [WikiEN-l] CVU -> WP:CVP? (was The Counter Vandalism Unit? Whaa?

body:
G'day Sherool,
[CVU]
> Whatever happened to just plain old "Recent Changes/RC patrol".

No, we can't have that, it's *boring*.  We've gotta have fancy userboxen
and copyvio logos and people declaring "war".  Otherwise, why would
anyone even *bother* fighting vandalism?

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

--
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Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.2/253 - Release Date: 7/02/2006


body:
On 2/8/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> >> Last time we were hit with a random-username creating bot, we blocked
> >> all of AOL and said "consequences be damned". Now that we are bigger
> >> than AOL, we *must* demand action on their part.
> >
> > More popular. Not bigger.
>
> We're not bigger than AOL? Hell, we're bigger than Jesus Christ!

Mr. Lennon has a point.

Actually, think about it.  We may not be bigger than AOL, but we sure as
hell are big enough that if we were to appeal to AOL at some level, there'd
be a decent chance of them listening.  Heck, with all the media attention
Wikipedia seems to get every time it farts, you can imagine the headlines...
"AOL refuses to help Wikipedia" or something...

Or am I just wishful thinking here?

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


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Proposed_decision#User_pages
>>We have gone from a "live and let live" culture to one of political
>>correctness, where anything that could "bring the project into
>>disrepute" is a bad thing. This just leaves me totally speechless, to
>>the point where I'm considering making my user page more and more
>>"disreputable" until I am blocked.
>
> Yes. That will certainly help the situation.

It will help me get on with my life... or be bored out of my mind.

> There are reasons these kinds of draconian guidelines are being
> written up - because there is a genuine problem that needs to be
> solved. Maybe you could propose a more constructive way of solving it.

I disagree with the idea that there is a problem with saying one is a
pedophile on one's user page.


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

SPUI stated for the record:

> We have gone from a "live and let live" culture to one of political
> correctness, where anything that could "bring the project into
> disrepute" is a bad thing. This just leaves me totally speechless, to
> the point where I'm considering making my user page more and more
> "disreputable" until I am blocked.

I predict that you will succeed very quickly.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Those who cannot remember the past are
 sean at epoptic.org | condemned to learn it from Oliver Stone movies.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> As for the mover of a page being expected to do it...well...I recently
> moved "cock (chicken)" to "rooster" and set out to fix the 10 or so
> double redirects. But my god what a tedious, painful process. I got
> through about 5 and said to hell with it. We really should do
> completely away with all menial labour of this kind...

How is it tedious and painful? You look at the "what links here" list,
search the page for (redirect), and edit all of 10 pages.


body:
On 2/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> There are reasons these kinds of draconian guidelines are being
> written up - because there is a genuine problem that needs to be
> solved. Maybe you could propose a more constructive way of solving it.
>
> Steve
>
This sets a bad precedent.  If someone decides they don't like gay
people because they might edit gay articles to be pro-gay even with no
established history of even editing those articles, all they have to do is
point to "Well, we banned pedophiles for having an inborn POV too, didn't
we?" and then Process(tm)(r) will dictate that since it happened before, we
should let it happen again.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> >Delirium wrote:
> >
> >
> >>If you'd like to be reminded, here's an exchange I had in mind, from
> >>December 16, 2005:
> >>
> >>1. Jimbo says that he thinks anyone who saw the Seigenthaler article
> >>should've seen that the mistakes were "blatantly obvious" and
> >>"transparently outlandish".
> >>
> >>2. Anthony DiPierro replies that they were not obvious to him.
> >>
> >>3. Jimbo replies: "Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh
> >>opinions.  But frankly, if you don't find those errors to be blindingly
> >>obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is
> >>quite frankly beyond you."
> >>
> >>Note that several other of us had also expressed agreement with
> >>Anthony's point in #2, so Jimbo explicitly and publicly flamed a handful
> >>of dedicated and long-time Wikipedia contributors.
> >>
> >>
> >Well, I was on wikibreak between November 20th and December 30th,
> >including not being subscribed to this list. How was I to know?
> >
> >Also, I think you are being a little harsh - I mean, he was only on the
> >verge of being sued, having the site shut down, press attacking on all
> >sides, etc...
> >
> >
> Sounds like a normal day on a mega-site.
>
> Ec

I don't think that's the point, though.  Wouldn't you be just a little testy
if the site you'd poured your entire existence into for the past 5 years was
threatening to get shut down in 5 seconds?

(Yes, this is an exaggeration, but 5 to 5 sounds better.)

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


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] What ever happened to Article Validation? Erratum

body:
{{nothanks}} ? :P

On 2/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ilya N. wrote:
> > On 2/7/06, rose.parks at att.net <rose.parks at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Dear All,
> >>
> >> Well, I found the site. There is a proposed project called "Stable
> >> Versions" at:
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stable_versions
> >>
> >> This is a site where various options are being discussed. As I said
> >>  before, this was mentioned in the current edition of PC Magazine.
> >>
> >
> > I would just perfer a seperate tab next to article and talk that just
> > said 'stable' and then admins (or someone so designated) could set
> > the flag for certain revisions. Easiest way out
> >
>
> {{socodeit}} ?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


body:
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

> If the community, through the ArbCom, decides that a line has to be drawn,
> then we should accept it.

Have you considered it may be possible for the ArbCom to bring
disrepute on Wikipedia through bad decisions?

nobs


body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>This sets a bad precedent.  If someone decides they don't like gay
>>people because they might edit gay articles to be pro-gay even with no
>>established history of even editing those articles, all they have to do is
>>point to "Well, we banned pedophiles for having an inborn POV too, didn't
>>we?" and then Process(tm)(r) will dictate that since it happened before, we
>>should let it happen again.
>
>
> No-one has said that.  Don't twist people's words.  No-one is being
> banned just for being a paedophile.

People are however not allowed to say that they are pedophiles on their
userpage, and presumably there is a ban to go with it if the Arbcom is
not just wanking.


body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>We have gone from a "live and let live" culture to one of political
>>correctness, where anything that could "bring the project into
>>disrepute" is a bad thing. This just leaves me totally speechless, to
>>the point where I'm considering making my user page more and more
>>"disreputable" until I am blocked.
>
> It's been done. It took quite a while for [[User:Deeceevoice]] to get blocked.

Apparently she had various issues with calling others honkeys and the
like though.


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> And isn't it legal to smoke dope in the US under some circumstances?
>

That's very much in dispute right now.  Federal law says that smoking
weed is always illegal, while some state laws sat that there are times
when it's legal.  Court decisions have gone both directions, and some
police departments have stated that they will not enforce the federal
law on the subject.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
"Steve Bennett" wrote

>Ideally, no links in Wikipedia should ever point to redirects.

I hope this is an 'urban myth' kind of thing.  There are plenty of reasons
to use 'Lord Byron', rather than George Gordon, 6th Earl of Byron, or
whatever he is.  Don't even get me started on [[Montesquiou]].  Piped links
are there to serve man, not  the other way round.

And another thing.  Suppose pages get subdivided, quite reasonably, in a
process of natural growth. (We may have started with [[Sonny and Cher]] and
redirected [[Sonny Bono]] to it then, but now Sonny, Cher, Sonny&Cher are to
be three pages.)  Then you may hope that Sonny Bono, which was a redirect,
but now is going to be a page on its own, has not been changed to Sonny&Cher
in all sorts of piped link by officious people.

Charles


body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>People are however not allowed to say that they are pedophiles on their
>>userpage, and presumably there is a ban to go with it if the Arbcom is
>>not just wanking.
>
> Pray, how does saying "look at me, I'm a paedophile, look at my pretty
> box" help us to build an encyclopaedia?

How does arguing with me help us to build an encyclopedia? Cease now or
you will be banned.

You are asking the wrong question. The real question is whether such a
thing HURTS the encyclopedia. And the answer is a resounding no. It may
make some anal-retentive conservatives avoid Wikipedia, but that
shouldn't be a problem. We don't need to be seen as good by the press.
We just need to produce a good product in the article space.

And, pray tell, how did Jimbo's knee-jerk ban of Joeyramoney help us
build an encyclopedia?


subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
On 2/7/06, Dan Jacobson <jidanni at jidanni.org> wrote:
> There should be an acronym sweep done of wikipedia. E.g, right at the
> start of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSCM we are hit with ELINT,
> SIGINT and ECM. More acronyms that an offline reader has no way of
> figuring out. Don't depend that we can click, or even mouseover, e.g.,
> on our PDA offline.

I think that's covered in the style guidelines somewhere. You're
totally right. In that particular case I'm not sure why the article
name is not the full name, and the abbreviation not just given as an
alternative name.

> Sweep for any (perl regexp) m at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/[A-Z]+@
> links that don't have an "(Explanation ...)" following in the text. Or
> better yet make sure they are all spelled out right in the file name.

Sure, propose a bot.

> P.S., in your articles that are "(Redirected from bla bla)", use real
> HTTP redirects or something, anything to not have the same hundreds of
> kilobytes end up on the user's disk but just in a different filename.
> Indeed, he now has to remember that he has already read the article
> and cannot depend on link colors alone etc.

Ideally, no links in Wikipedia should ever point to redirects. If you
find one, please feel free to fix it. There are some semi-automatic
bots to do this.

Redirects are, I believe, primarily intended for people to be able to
type in FireFox and get redirected to Firefox or whatever. You're
probably suggesting a lot of work for not much benefit.

> P.S., Looking at e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability in e.g.,
> lynx or plucker, there seems to be ads for political parties festooned
> across the top. Only in firefox does one see they are inoffensively at
> the side. Perhaps move them to the bottom.

Mmm, bug reports that sound like "This page looks bad in Lynx" always
go down well :) Best of luck to you with this one.

> P.S., the "personal appeal for donations" line looks small in firefox,
> but big in text browsers... also it is in the critical search engine
> indexing top of page area... I bet it might be all one sees in some
> search engines page preview snippet... Perhaps move to bottom.

No argument here.

Steve


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
In case anyone is following this. Fred unblocked Dschor based on an
agreement he won't edit outside his userspace or the arbitration pages.

Mgm

On 2/8/06, David Schor <daschor at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> User Dschor has been unjustly blocked by Fred Bauder.  Please remove
> the block.  Thanks.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
"Steve Bennett" wrote

> Examples where the
link points to some specific aspect of a more general topic are a
reasonable exception I suppose.

I really can't agree.  There are so many exceptions.

For example, this morning I was linking instances of [[livability]], which I
had made a redirect to [[quality of life]].  It would have been about the
same effort to paste [[quality of life|livability]] in each case.  But
suppose tomorrow someone second-guesses me, says that 'livability' doesn't
really mean close enough to 'quality of life', it's about amenities or
something.  If I _had_ piped each link there would be the whole backlink
list of [[quality of life]] to look through, rather than a perfectly simple
case of unpick the redirect, start a fresh page.

These tidy-minded things often have little to do with the real issues in
writing a dynamic 'Pedia.

Charles


body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This sets a bad precedent.  If someone decides they don't like gay
> > people because they might edit gay articles to be pro-gay even with no
> > established history of even editing those articles, all they have to do
> is
> > point to "Well, we banned pedophiles for having an inborn POV too,
> didn't
> > we?" and then Process(tm)(r) will dictate that since it happened before,
> we
> > should let it happen again.
>
> No-one has said that.  Don't twist people's words.  No-one is being
> banned just for being a paedophile.
>
> --
> Sam

I thought that's what started this whole mess.

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


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
On 2/8/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> I suspect it still wouldn't happen.  Witness [[User:God of War]]'s
> actions on the CSD page; he's decided that Jimbo's word can't trump
> consensus, and "consensus" is on his side, and therefore Jimbo can't
> change the CSD to include particularly stupid templates.
>
> What do we do about users --- most of them newbies, most of them bound
> up in some way with the userbox debacle --- who think Wikipedia is a
> democracy, and any opposition is rogue admins gone Fascist?  Standing
> over them and saying "Jimbo says such-and-such!  Respect his authority,
> damnit!" probably wouldn't do much good.

Well, I have just made a proposal to the infamous ArbCom case now
reflecting this. Provided this passes, you can point them to this and
say we are not impressed by people messing Jimbo about.

--
Sam


body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I thought that's what started this whole mess.
>
> Please read through the ArbCom's proposed decision to get a full
> decision on the matter.
>
> --
> Sam

The decision on the matter is not the same as what prompted discussion of
the matter.  My point was that what started this whole mess was someone
getting blocked for the simple reason that they were a pedophile.  Am I
missing something here?
Pete Mackay said:
*Oh, an editor can BE a paedophile. We don't mind that. It's just that he or
she can't SAY it on their userpage. That pisses everyone off and attracts
criticism.*
**
This is what I'm worried about, and the precedent I was mentioning.  All of
a sudden, userpages now need to be politically correct, or you risk a
block.  That is, if this precedent does get set.

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


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Most immature war ever? Are we embarrassed yet?

body:
On 2/7/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> The usual procedure for a controversial block is to go through normal
> channels.  A similar thing happens with speedy deletions---if I
> speedy-delete someone as non-notable and it gets undeleted by someone
> who claims otherwise, it's not appropriate to simply speedy-delete again
> without discussion.

Rubbish like this should be killed as soon as possible.  When "proper
channels" hamper us, we should drop them.  Administrators are expected
to show commonsense and not dig in their heels inappropriately over
the great god Process.

On blocks, I've always believed in subjecting my blocks to review.  I
perform the block and write it up on Administrators' Noticeboard.  In
my experience it makes for firmer blocks, far less likely to be
challenged.  One or two reviews of this kind have resulted in blocks
being extended as administrators pieced together more incriminating
information suggesting a long term career of abuse, which was not
immediately apparent to me or any of the previous blocking admins.
--~~~~


body:
On 2/7/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Sherool,
> [CVU]
> > Whatever happened to just plain old "Recent Changes/RC patrol".
>
> No, we can't have that, it's *boring*.  We've gotta have fancy userboxen
> and copyvio logos and people declaring "war".  Otherwise, why would
> anyone even *bother* fighting vandalism?

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

 The difference is that RC Patrol is more of an idea, a job.  CVU is a
collection of people who subscribe to that idea and perform that job.

That's the way I see it, anyway.

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


body:
On 2/7/06, bobble wik <bobblewik at mail.com> wrote:
>
> The edits relate to date links and implementing WP:MOSDATE, WP:MOS-L, and WP:CONTEXT. Several editors have been working on this. Whenever anyone has disagreed with the implementation, I have directed them towards those policy guidelines and suggested they seek a change in the policy.

This isn't an acceptable response.  These guidelines have wide support
but aren't Wikipedia policy.  Style is a matter of personal taste, and
the manual of style is useful when it's used in the sense for which it
was intended: to enable editors to work towards a harmonious
appearance in their own edits across the project.  What you're doing
in trying to implement the manual's recommendation across the whole
encyclopedia is certainly unnecessary, and probably needlessly
alienates other editors.


from_name: Katie Husband

subject: [WikiEN-l] Inappropriate material on website

body:
Hello,

I think your website has a problem with inappropriate material. There are
some sexually explicit articles, with graphic pictures. This should not be
allowed, as children are able to access them. These pages should only be
accessible to people over 18.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.

Katie Husband


body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'd go as far as saying that all content saying that someone breaks US
> law should be forbidden as well.

Like "This user smokes weed"?

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

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Jay Converse wrote:
>
> >On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Delirium wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>If you'd like to be reminded, here's an exchange I had in mind, from
> >>>>December 16, 2005:
> >>>>
> >>>>1. Jimbo says that he thinks anyone who saw the Seigenthaler article
> >>>>should've seen that the mistakes were "blatantly obvious" and
> >>>>"transparently outlandish".
> >>>>
> >>>>2. Anthony DiPierro replies that they were not obvious to him.
> >>>>
> >>>>3. Jimbo replies: "Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh
> >>>>opinions.  But frankly, if you don't find those errors to be
> blindingly
> >>>>obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is
> >>>>quite frankly beyond you."
> >>>>
> >>>>Note that several other of us had also expressed agreement with
> >>>>Anthony's point in #2, so Jimbo explicitly and publicly flamed a
> handful
> >>>>of dedicated and long-time Wikipedia contributors.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Also, I think you are being a little harsh - I mean, he was only on the
> >>>verge of being sued, having the site shut down, press attacking on all
> >>>sides, etc...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Sounds like a normal day on a mega-site.
> >>
> >>Ec
> >>
> >>
> >I don't think that's the point, though.  Wouldn't you be just a little
> testy
> >if the site you'd poured your entire existence into for the past 5 years
> was
> >threatening to get shut down in 5 seconds?
> >
> >(Yes, this is an exaggeration, but 5 to 5 sounds better.)
> >
> >
> But your first analysis was a little paranoid.  Shutting down the site
> was not seriously mentioned; press attacks are sexy in the media, and
> unfounded lawsuits can be a fact of life for a big enough organization.
>
> Ec

Well, that was Alphax's analysis, not mine.  I do realize that shutting the
site down never was a possibility, but you still have to admit that media
attention on the scale that Wikipedia, and by extension Jimbo, are getting
is enough to try anyone's patience when they're trying to fix what the
media's yelling at them for.

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

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


body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I'd go as far as saying that all content saying that someone breaks US
> > > law should be forbidden as well.
> >
> >
> > Like "This user smokes weed"?
>
> Yes.  It's a line.  It's arbitrary.  It's needed.
>
> --
> Sam

Okay, I was just making sure I understood what you were getting at there.

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

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


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Josh Gordon

> I'm not sure why. If someone shows up and the first thing he
> does is stick his penis in an article, an immediate block --
> a short one -- is far more efficient and equitable than our
> current practice of giving a warning, then another warning,
> then a couple days later another warning. I don't think
> anyone accidentally puts penis in an article; and those who
> do so should be shown unambiguously that we are not amused.

[[WP:DICK]] might apply here.

Pete, a member of Wikipedia


body:
On 2/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Just a thought in the wake of the pedophile thing. Could we agree
> not to ever again block people for what they are? No matter how
> disgusting, unpleasant, immoral etc. Such things always being at least
> somewhat objective, we should stick instead to only blocking people
> for actions.
>

Yes, I think we can:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Proposed_decision#Wikipedia_is_open_to_all_3

Wikipedia is open to all

10.2) It is not an accepted practice to ban users from editing
Wikipedia unless they are actively disrupting, endangering, or
otherwise harming the project. Such bannings usually require either
broad community consensus, an action from the Arbitration Committee,
or an action from Jimbo Wales. In addition, "The Wikimedia Foundation
prohibits discrimination against current or prospective users and
employees on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national
origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally
protected characteristics." -
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Non_discrimination_policy

    Support:

       1. ?the Epopt 19:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       2. Fred Bauder 19:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       3. Raul654 19:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       4. ?Matthew Brown (T:C) 19:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       5. SimonP 19:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC) Harm to the project has
to be the standard.
       6. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       7. Charles Matthews 22:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       8. First choice. Dmcdevit?t 22:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
       9. Mackensen (talk) 00:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
      10. Jayjg (talk) 03:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
      11. Neutralitytalk 06:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
      12. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
      13. James F. (talk) 19:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


body:
Sam Korn wrote:
>
> I'd go as far as saying that all content saying that someone breaks US
> law should be forbidden as well.

{{userbox|id=illegal activities|info=[[jaywalking|OMG! This user crosses
the street on a "don't walk" signal.]]}}


subject: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed

body:
On 2/8/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I hope this is an 'urban myth' kind of thing.  There are plenty of reasons
> to use 'Lord Byron', rather than George Gordon, 6th Earl of Byron, or
> whatever he is.  Don't even get me started on [[Montesquiou]].  Piped links
> are there to serve man, not  the other way round.

You're probably right, but what reasons specifically?

>
> And another thing.  Suppose pages get subdivided, quite reasonably, in a
> process of natural growth. (We may have started with [[Sonny and Cher]] and
> redirected [[Sonny Bono]] to it then, but now Sonny, Cher, Sonny&Cher are to
> be three pages.)  Then you may hope that Sonny Bono, which was a redirect,
> but now is going to be a page on its own, has not been changed to Sonny&Cher
> in all sorts of piped link by officious people.

Ah, that's quite a good example. Probably in many cases the link could
originally point to [Sonny and Cher#Sonny Bono] or something.

I was thinking of cases like differences in American/British
terminology (lift/elevator, cock (chicken)/rooster) etc, where it
makes no sense to retain links to the redirect. Examples where the
link points to some specific aspect of a more general topic are a
reasonable exception I suppose.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Slashdot questions

body:
I liked the question about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow ;)

On 2/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Also, isn't the interview for Jimbo only? I'm assuming they're waiting
> for
> > his answers and are treating everyone else's answers as just comments.
>
> I believe the most popular questions get asked, and if we can answer
> some of the dumb or obvious ones, the end result will be interesting
> answers from Jimbo to intelligent questions.
>
> Rather than the most popular question being "But if anyone can edit
> Wikipedia, doesn't that mean...?"
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: David Macdonald

subject: [Wikitech-l] New domain - australia.wikinews.org

body:
Greetings,

I am a contributor to the en:Wikinews project. For the past few months
we've been working on a country portal for Australia:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Australia

We would like to start advertising this portal using pamphlets and
posters in the hope of increasing the amount of local original reporting
that we produce. Unfortunately the URL is a little inappropriate for
such a purpose. We were hoping to get this URL:

http://australia.wikinews.org

... to redirect to a multilingual portal page, that would link to the
Australian portal within each Wikinews language project. I've created a
quick example:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Australia.wikinews.org_portal

.... modeled on the one used at www.wikinews.org.

Any idea where I should go next with this request? We basically want it
to function the same as www.wikinews.org currently does.

Thanks,
Dave.
(Wikinews User:Borofkin)


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Slashdot questions

body:
On 2/8/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >     http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/06/2223223
> >
> > I've gone through every comment rated 1 or above, answering all I can.
> > Anyone else want to have a go? (I'm wondering if there will be any
> > questions left for Jimbo ...)
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> Good work! Although, one should note that you haven't been modded up a
> single time (http://slashdot.org/~David+Gerard) :P I guess
> slashdotters really don't appriciate great wikipedians :D
>
Also, isn't the interview for Jimbo only? I'm assuming they're waiting for
his answers and are treating everyone else's answers as just comments.

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


body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > But you would impose US law even in a country where smoking weed is
> legal.
>
> Given that most of our users and most significant press coverage is
> American, yes.  That is why I drew the line there.  Yes, I know it
> isn't perfect.  But it's better than anything else I've seen.
>
> --
> Sam
>
If the servers are hosted in the US, wouldn't that be another reason to do
it? IANAL, but I thought that servers hosted in a country are bound to the
laws of that country, no matter where the users come from.

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


from_name: Jake Spady

subject: [WikiEN-l] being blocked

body: I (24.66.94.140) have been been blocked by Hall Monitor for alleged vandalism after supposedly being warned.  All I ever do is fix spelling and grammar on entries I randomly read and have never been "warned" on account of my not being a member.  I want this to go away.  Please feel free to email me or whatever.  I'm curious as to what happened.  Thanks


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, Guettarda wrote:
>
>
>
>>On 2/7/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If people had WWJD (What Would Jimbo Do) in mind when they start fighting
>>>over stuff, a lot of this crap would just go away.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Actually I think the aura of the God-King has either faded for a lot of
>>people, or they never had a sense of it in the first place (cf, Karmafist
>>wheel warring with Jimbo).  Our constitutional monarchy model has problems
>>.
>>
>>
>>
><snip>
>
One problem, Geoff: Jimbo *is* our GodKing. At least, that's what most
of us refer to him as. I agree with everything else, you said, though. :p

John Lee


from_name: Chip Berlet

body:
Hi,

Good point.  But still an issue.  In many countries, calling for illegal activity on Wikipedia is technically a violation of exisiting laws. Not writing text about people who call for illegal activity, however, since that is not incitement (I hope).

How about:

"post material in which they personally call for criminal activity that would harm human beings or seriously damage property, or suggest that a person or group of persons are inferior or deserve harm."

...thus leaving out minor infractions and civil disobedience.

Arguably child molestation seriously harms a human being.

There has to be a way to write this...

:-)

-Cberlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Wed 2/8/2006 4:43 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?

Chip Berlet wrote:

>It's all about the Social Contract.
>
>1. Wikipedians must never post material that calls for illegal activity or the harming of human beings or, through inaction, allow such text to remain unchallenged.
>
But "illegal activity" is open to interpretation.  There are obvious
illegal activities, but there are many more whose illegality is
questionable, or whos legality may vary from one place to another.

Ec


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Matt Brown
>
> > On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > This is what I'm worried about, and the precedent I was
> > mentioning.
> > > All of a sudden, userpages now need to be politically
> > correct, or you
> > > risk a block.  That is, if this precedent does get set.
> >
> > You don't have a userpage in order to exercise any "right" to
> > free speech, but because it helps the project; it aids
> > communication and makes people happy.  You never did have the
> > right to say anything you pleased there; disruptiveness has
> > always been unacceptable.
> >
> > There's nothing particularly new about that proposed finding.
>
> A common example is that while you have a right to freedom of speech, you
> don't have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema.
>
> If something on a userpage cause disruption and offence, then it should be
> removed.

The reason you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema is not because
it causes disruption and offense, but because it could cause a
panicked stampede, leading to real physical harm.

Which doesn't apply to Wikipedia.

People are entirely too touchy here.

> After all we are a community, and sometimes small individual
> freedoms get sacrificed for the common good.

Which, history tells us, is rarely for the common good in the long run.


body:
On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/7/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> >
> > G'day Sherool,
> > [CVU]
> > > Whatever happened to just plain old "Recent Changes/RC patrol".
> >
> > No, we can't have that, it's *boring*.  We've gotta have fancy userboxen
> > and copyvio logos and people declaring "war".  Otherwise, why would
> > anyone even *bother* fighting vandalism?
>  The difference is that RC Patrol is more of an idea, a job.  CVU is a
> collection of people who subscribe to that idea and perform that job.
>
> That's the way I see it, anyway.

That's yet another problem with the CVU. Every Wikipedian should be
considered part of the collection of people who subscribe to the idea
of keeping Wikipedia clean and neat. It's detrimental to have some
people say "This is my job" because then everyone else goes "Goody!
Now I don't have to worry about it."


subject: [WikiEN-l] Should we be declaring war on vandals?

body:
On 2/8/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/8/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/6/06, Joanne <joannebennaoj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > In my opinion, CVU activities and people could benefit from another name and
> > > structure (and there are people working on that), but regarding CVU as the
> > > source of all evil, like the Cunctator appears to do, is not likely the way
> > > to accomplish anything...
> >
> > I don't regard it as the source of all evil, nor have I said that I do.
> >
> > I do think declaring war on vandals is the wrong approach.
>
> It has it's uses.
>
> > I do think that the name should be changed.
>
> How about you start your own anti vandle project with a different name
> and see how that does?

I call it "being a Wikipedian". I've worked, for example, to
neutralize the [[Jack Abramoff]] wingnut without appealing to any
military metaphors or even calling in any brigade of other editors. I
also deleted nonsense from [[Omaha Royals]] and deleted the vanity
page [[Matt Ford]].

It seems to be going pretty well.


from_name: SPUI

subject: Fixng double redirects (was: Re: [WikiEN-l] acronym sweep needed)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>How is it tedious and painful? You look at the "what links here" list,
>>search the page for (redirect), and edit all of 10 pages.
>
>
> This was as efficient as I could get it:
>
> 1. Click what links here.
> 2. Choose a double redirect.
> 3. Click link to open in new tab
> 4. Click edit
> 5. Right click > Mozex > Edit text area
> 6. Search for "cockerel" (most of them were that)
> 7. Replace with [[Rooster|cockerel]]
> 8. Save/close
> 9. Click edit box
> 10. Paste edit summary
> 11. Save
> 12. Close tab
> 13. Go to step 2.
>
> Tedious. Especially when computers were designed to do this sort of
> thing for us, not the other way around. Some people thrive on this
> sort of menial task - not me.
>
> And I suspect a lot of users would be doing this without mozex, would
> retype the edit summary each time, and wouldn't think of opening the
> links in new tabs each time. Even more painful!

What the hell are you doing? You only have to edit each of the ten
redirects that formerly redirected to cock (chicken) and change them to
#REDIRECT [[rooster]].


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
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Hash: SHA1

geni stated for the record:

> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Well, that was Alphax's analysis, not mine.  I do realize that shutting the
>>site down never was a possibility, but you still have to admit that media
>>attention on the scale that Wikipedia, and by extension Jimbo, are getting
>>is enough to try anyone's patience when they're trying to fix what the
>>media's yelling at them for.
>>
>
>
> Is that an excuse I can try?
>
> --
> geni

Certainly.  Once you start regularly receiving requests for interviews
from international media about your top-ten Web site, you will be
welcome to use that "excuse."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Those who cannot remember the past are
 sean at epoptic.org | condemned to learn it from Oliver Stone movies.
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 2/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 2/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>John Lee wrote:
> >><snip>
> >>
> >>>There are many userbox fanatics who do great work around here, some
> >>>of whom are admins ([[User:Firefox]] and [[User:Karmafist]] come to
> >>>mind).
> >>>
> >>
> >>[[User:FireFox]] you mean, and [[User:Karmafist]] was desysopped in the
> >>latest wheel war...
> >>
> >
> > Merovingian racked up 66% support in the election with this userpage:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Merovingian&oldid=35010047
> >
> >
>
> Check my vote and the reason.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax

That doesn't affect my point.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why did Raul654 restore a nonsense edit?

body:
This makes no sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edgar_Allan_Poe&diff=37862022&oldid=37859683


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why has everything gone to hell?

body:
On 2/8/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2006 at 22:19, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Apparently no one is going to mention semi-protection.
> >
> > I think that was more softwear rather than policy.
>
> Softwear?  Is that something like underwear?
>
> --
> == Dan ==

Running everything a put into the article namespace through a
spellcheacker take long enough.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Philip Welch wrote:
>
>> You're acting like Jimbo is just another admin. He's not. He's Jimbo.
>>
> All the more reason that it's distasteful for him to get involve in
> wheel-warring.  These sorts of petty power-fights, combined with his
> flaming of several users on the mailing list as "unqualified" to edit
> Wikipedia, reduce my confidence in his ability to lead Wikipedia.
>

Jimbo is one of the few clear voices of sanity that prevails on this
crazy project. Writing articles is not the only way that people can
contribute to Wikipedia, and Jimbo has done much in the media to
highlight just how good we are for what could have been so chaotic. And
I don't recall him *ever* flaming people on this mailing list; but that
hasn't stopped people from attacking *him*, and to be honest, he
deserves better.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: The Cunctator
> > On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > A common example is that while you have a right to freedom
> > of speech,
> > > you don't have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema.
> > >
> > > If something on a userpage cause disruption and offence, then it
> > > should be removed.
> >
> > The reason you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema is not
> > because it causes disruption and offense, but because it
> > could cause a panicked stampede, leading to real physical harm.
>
> IOW, disruption and offence.

Um, no. Disruption and offense are not the same thing as battery and
manslaughter. Try to understand the difference.

> > Which doesn't apply to Wikipedia.
>
> We should browbeat and harass people rather than physically smack them over
> the head?

Huh?

> > People are entirely too touchy here.
> >
> > > After all we are a community, and sometimes small
> > individual freedoms
> > > get sacrificed for the common good.
> >
> > Which, history tells us, is rarely for the common good in the
> > long run.
>
> If we let the community decide what is best for it, so long as the ultimate
> goal of writing an encyclopaedia remains foremost, then surely we will find
> the common good?

Not necessarily. Again, history doesn't support that thesis.

> Wikipedia is not an iron-fisted dictatorship under the heavy hand of Jimbo,
> nor is it a theocracy under the all-seeing gaze of the ArbCom. Usually the
> community sorts things out at street corner level and it is only the problem
> cases that come to the attention of admins, the ArbCom and as a last resort,
> Jimbo.
>
> Personally, I'd prefer to see a lot more common sense and a lot fewer rules,
> but I suspect that common sense doesn't scale, judging by the way things are
> going here.

I essentially agree with the above.


body:
On 2/8/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/6/06, Joanne <joannebennaoj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In my opinion, CVU activities and people could benefit from another name and
> > structure (and there are people working on that), but regarding CVU as the
> > source of all evil, like the Cunctator appears to do, is not likely the way
> > to accomplish anything...
>
> I don't regard it as the source of all evil, nor have I said that I do.
>
> I do think declaring war on vandals is the wrong approach.

It has it's uses.

> I do think that the name should be changed.

How about you start your own anti vandle project with a different name
and see how that does?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis

body:
On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I have just made a proposal to the infamous ArbCom case now
> reflecting this. Provided this passes, you can point them to this and
> say we are not impressed by people messing Jimbo about.
>
> --
> Sam

As a general rule we are not impressed with people messing anyone
about (test1 on the pages of clear vandles does not count as messing
about).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Throwing out the first ball

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Matt Brown
> Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2006 18:45
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Comparison with other wikis
>
> On 2/7/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > If we are talking about doing things legally, that is. If
> Tony Blair
> > decided to turn the UK into a one-party fascist state using illegal
> > means, an exciting possibility that would raise many
> British eyebrows,
> > then the Queen would probably find herself unable to intervene. It
> > would depend on which side the military decided to support,
> I suppose,
>
> Officers of the British armed forces swear an oath to the
> Queen only, I believe, which might have some import in such
> an unlikely circumstance.

Perhaps admins should publicly swear an oath of allegiance to Jimbo?

Pete, enjoying the prospect of the solemn twilight ceremony, the massed
bands, the arena full of hushed spectators, the flags, the bunting...