from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Hi Milos,

The difference is that while Romanian uses both ? and ? to represent
the same sound, in Moldovan both of these are spelled ?. Thus, "O,
brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat pomului de Cr?ciun.
C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i este r?sp?ndit la
nivel mondial." is "O, brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat
pomului de Cr?ciun. C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i
este r?sp?ndit la nivel mondial."

Other than that the differences are very minimal, and they include the
Moldovan preference to use native words or Russian loanwords rather
than the Romanian preference for French and Italian words.

Cyrillic, however, is written very phonetically.

You asked earlier about the difficulties in orthographical conversion
between Cyrillic and Latin.

The letter i can be ?, ? or ? in Cyrillic, it depends on its pronunciation.
The combination iu can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ?, ??.
The combination ia can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ??, ??, ??,
or ??, but on its own the Cyrillic letter "?" is translitereated "ea"
in Latin (for example, the name of the popular song "Dragostea Din
Tei" is ???????? ??? ??? in Cyrillic.)

Mark

On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
> situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
> phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
> transliteration?
>
> May you tell me where to find mor data?
>
> On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> > UTC 2005:
> >
> > >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> > as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
> >
> > But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> > seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> > that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> > wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> > Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> > created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> > code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> > Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> > as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
> >
> > >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> > "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> > "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
> >
> > Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> > doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> > found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> > far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> > very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> > a goon!
> >
> > >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> > Only a dunce would
> > think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> > "Moldoveneasca",
> > /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> > non-Cyrillic content."
> >
> > Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> > I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> > politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> > link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> > what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> > Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> > Moldovan is always written, or at least
> > majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> > it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> > they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> > opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> > "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> > since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> > specify.
> >
> > Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> > against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> > else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> > and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> > clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> > would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> > http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Conflict between two Wikipedias

body:
Again I would like to point out that you are emphasising what is
"right" or "correct". Why does that matter? Why should we care? The
only people complaining about the current solution is you and other
ro.wikipedians. So far, the only Moldovan to visit has actually
expressed his opinion that the Cyrillic alphabet is better for writing
the language, and has referred to the Latin alphabet as the "Romanian
alphabet", and has not criticised the status quo.

So far there have been no complaints from real, live, Moldovans.
Again, I am being practical (as you admit), while you are being
theoretical. The status quo may not be technically "right" or
"correct", according to you, but why does that matter? There have been
no complaints from actual Moldovans, only from Romanians, and they are
all politically motivated.

My solution is practical, and currently it is working fine. As I noted
before, "mo-cyr" is a longer URL, and I don't see the need to switch
when the status quo is working just fine for all the people who
/should/ care, the only people who have a problem with it are
Romanians who are trying to meddle in the affairs of the Moldovan
Wikipedia for political reasons and replace the perfectly working
status quo with some sort of cumbersome change that they say is
technically correct, which will make the URL longer and require the
assistance of a developer.

Mark

On 16/04/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> UTC 2005:
>
> >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
>
> But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
>
> >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
>
> Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> a goon!
>
> >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> Only a dunce would
> think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> "Moldoveneasca",
> /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> non-Cyrillic content."
>
> Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> Moldovan is always written, or at least
> majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> specify.
>
> Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


list: wikien-l

from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
--- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>We seem to have banned one of the
> POTW subscribers because s/he misspelt the name of
> one of our user's on the POTW web-site. (Yep! That
> is right. A user claims that their Wikipedia account
> was blocked because of what that user wrote on
> another web-site).  If we so dislike misspelling
> (even if in this case the misspelling yields mild
> profanity and may have been conscious) then we need
> to be very careful ourselves.
>
> Theo

Are we talking about User:Bakudai?  I assume he
"misspelled" ClockworkSoul's Username?  I don't
believe that was why he was banned, but rather because
of his edit summaries on Wikipedia when he was making
"dare" edits on the VfD page: "cock" and "Lots of Cock
for all of you".

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
On 4/16/05, Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
> Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only >developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are >likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should >refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.

There is no reason why someone's first edit should be to VFD. 9 times
out of 10 they turn out to be a sock pupet. VFD has ended up with it's
methods and procedures through long experimentation. A low level
attack from a single forum is not a reason to change them.

--
geni


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Using commons - license issue

body:
In the 'de' Wikipedia you can reference a piction from commons as
follows:

[[Bild:Hagen Osthaus Museum Traditional Main Entrance keichwa.jpg|thumb|Osthaus Museum]]

If you click on the thumb you will be taken to:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Hagen_Osthaus_Museum_Traditional_Main_Entrance_keichwa.jpg

Where you read:

    This file is a shared upload and may be used by other projects.

This is not enough.  Please include the description from "commons" and
provide a back-link to
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hagen_Osthaus_Museum_Traditional_Main_Entrance_keichwa.jpg ;
[[:commons:Image:Hagen Osthaus Museum Traditional Main Entrance keichwa.jpg]]
seems to do the trick.
If you do not provide some such info, you don't have the right to copy
the image from "commons".  I release it under the conditions of the
"Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 License".

IIRC, you talked about the weakness of the current system soem months
ago - it is hard to believe that this rather serious issue is still not
fixed.

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C


from_name: Angela

body:
On 4/16/05, Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:
> In the 'de' Wikipedia you can reference a piction from commons...
> Where you read:
>
>     This file is a shared upload and may be used by other projects.

You can change this message, and add a backlink to the Commons by
editing [[MediaWiki:Sharedupload]].

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sharedupload for an example.

Angela.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] 501(c)(3) status granted to Wikimedia Foundation

body:
Quoting from a letter from the IRS:

Dear Applicant:

We are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for
tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal
income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Codfe.
Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code.  You
are also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises,
transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code.
Because this letter could help resolve any questions regarding your
extempt status, you should keep it in your permanent records.

Organizations exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Code are further
classified as either public charities or private foundations.  We
determined that you are a public charity under the Code section(s)
listen in the heading of this letter.

-----

Hooray! Finally!

The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
date), so this is fully retroactive.

--Jimbo


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Using commons - license issue

body:
Angela <beesley at gmail.com> writes:

> You can change this message, and add a backlink to the Commons by
> editing [[MediaWiki:Sharedupload]].

Thanks - but something along these lines has to happen automatically.  I
don't want to wade through all our WPs and related projects ;)

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C


from_name: Faraaz Damji

subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Jimmy Wales said:
>
>>First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
>>solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
>>article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
>>instead of being shown by default inline.
>
>
> I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary
> importance.  I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating
> topics where the image and the text are best seen together  Nobody has to
> download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image
> instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the
> image and the text it is supposed to illustrate.
> Inlining is *always* more flexible.  If you link an image, you are *taking
> choice away from the reader.*

Agreed, although I think that an ideal solution would be a
content-filtering system where users could choose which images they
wanted to see.  Displaying images as links by default would, detract
from my experience as a user who isn't offended by those images.

While I think that we should be aware of people's sensitivity in regards
to these images, we should do so without detracting from the educational
value of other readers.  Not offending people should always be secondary
to educating them.

Also, we can't promise to avoid offending *everybody* if we get into
displaying images as links.  Example: birds are considered a symbol of
death in japanese culture.  Should we then display all images of birds
as links? Since Wikipedia aims to be an international project, censoring
something that I percieve as offensive may ultimately lead to that being
used as rationale to censor something else.  It can get out of hand very
quickly.  But even if it doesn't, I think that linking to images by
default can detract from other readers overall experience, and (as Tony
said) takes away choice from the reader.

Blog: http://frazzydee.ca

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
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O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+
G++ e- h! !r !z
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Encarta goes wiki - sort of...

references:
<d3n2i4$i4p$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<BE84874C.E3C8%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<2ed171fb05041420024e2114eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<426004AE.2000003@wikia.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
>> Graduate students at the University of Washington Information School
>> are fact-checking all proposed changes to Encarta. They are trained in
>> research and passionate about corroborating facts. Stay tuned for
>> possible plans to expand our pool of researchers to the Encarta
>> community.
>
> Microsoft has extended an invitation for me to come and give a talk in
> Redmond.  I'll also see if I can give a talk at the University of
> Washington Information School.  It would be interesting to chat with
> these graduate students, I think, to learn more about their experience.

This could be a good opportunity for a Seattle meetup.  That would draw
Wikipedians from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
> solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
> article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
> instead of being shown by default inline.  And one of the quite
> reasonable arguments against certain images is that their shock value
> serves to diminish the educational value of the articles in which they
> are included.

Another technique that could prove useful in some cases would be to
insure that possibly offensive pictures are not near the top of an
article.  This would avoid shocked reactions from first reactions by
people who just came to the page.  The picture would not be visible
until the reader has scrolled down the page.

Ec


from_name: kylelutze

subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki

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

well, what about setting it up so you have to enter one of those
randomly generated image sequences that supposedly can't be read by bots
yet to keep them from spamming.

I think another item that could help clean up some spam is to set up a
limit of how small a post can become in one edit. What I mean is, if
there is over 1,000 words, and all of a sudden it sinks to less then 50,
it should be allowed, to stay in the (can't think of the word) of a
wiki, but be flagged on a "spam check" page for other wikipedians to
check and see if it is really spam, and then revert it. obviously it
won't stop the problem, but it can help clean it up faster.

Kyle
- - check out wikimania.wikipedia.org, hope to see everybody there!

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Dori wrote:
>
>>>On 4/16/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If every active member takes one "dead" wiki under his/her guide by
>>>>guarding it (and having sysop rights to delete trash) against spam and
>>>>immediately greating and talking to newcomers. Than we do not have to
>>>>lock inactive wikis! Just a check once every two or three days suffices
>>>>like I do at Laotian. You do not really have to speak the language.
>>>
>>>This won't work when you have to deal with bots. In two to three days they
>>>could have created hundreds of thousands of pages. The worst is when there
>>>are existing pages which could have been edited and moved a hundred times
>>>where the only efficient way would be to restore the database.
>
>
> Dori has a point of course, but do we really have this problem?
>
> If so, then "soft closing" might be a good solution to explore.  A "soft
> closed" wiki requires a captcha for posting, disallows external links,
> implements the 'nofollow' tag, etc.
>
> --Jimbo
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:

> Richard Holton wrote:
>
>> Mocking people for their world view is not constructive.
>
> I understand the point you were trying to make Richard but mocking
> people's world view actually has a hugely constructive history. Many a
> revolution would never had happened if this form of polemic had not
> being employed.

Trolls looking up through a tranparent bridge floor would be encouraged
by such a comment.

There is a kind of utilitarian truth to your observation, but I would
still question the ethics of such a revolutionary.  I prefer a
Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] logos

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> When we are dealing with people who want to use our logo, it's up to
> the board to decide, not the community.  The board of course needs to
> respect the community, but ultimately we have to really very strongly
> avoid an ethos which says that we have to go through a massive public
> discussion and vote about everything -- this is a formula for paralysis.

I'd take the somewhat less-strongly-worded position that "it's up to the
board to decide _as the representatives of the community_".  That is,
there is no need for a full public vote on every detailed issue (that
would defeat the entire purpose of having representatives), but if there
is reason to believe that the community has a strong opinion one way or
the other, it would be inappropriate to just ignore that and do the
opposite.  It would also be preferable to at least ask for input before
doing anything major.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] logos


from_name: Dori

body:
On 4/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Hooray! Finally!
>
> The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> date), so this is fully retroactive.
>
> --Jimbo
>

Great news indeed!


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why linking an image gives less choice to the reader

body:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge said:
> >>
> > It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot
> > more  choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an
> > image.
>
> I tried to explain earlier.  Here it is again in detail.  By the way, in
> case you're wondering, my phobia is real.  This is a fictional example,
> but my extreme reaction to pictures of certain bugs is very real.
> Suppose I know that there is a web page out there in entomology-land that
> contains several pictures, many of which I'm pretty sure will give me
> waking hallucinations.  Other pictures on the web page, well I'm very keen
> to look at them.
> It seems that the site owners have wisely interspersed the text of the
> page with inline images, they're all in the appropriate place in the page
> and they all have appropriate filenames, alt tags or captions.
> So it's a doddle, I just go to the website and read it like normal.  If I
> see a picture caption that looks interesting, I use the right button menu
> to make it appear in the page--which takes a second or so for most
> pictures.  If a caption suggests an image that may cause me to have a
> terrifying hallucination, I don't click it.
> Now suppose we caterpillarphobes all ganged up and said it wasn't right
> showing pictures of caterpillars on bug websites, and we convinced them
> that this was very distressing and shouldn't be ignored.  Maybe they'd
> react by linking those images.  That would suck because it wouldn't make
> things any better for me (I'm already quite happy because I know which
> pictures I want to see in the article and I select them). But everybody
> who didn't mind looking at ugly bugs (and I'm told there are quite a few!)
> would no longer have the option of making their own mind up whether to see
> the caterpillars alongside the text that they illustrate.
> Inline an image on Wikipedia, and you give the reader three choices:
>
> He can look at the image as you intended it to be seen, in the article.
>
> He can look at the article without the image.
>
> He can look at the image without the article.
>
> Link the image and you leave him with only two of those choices.  The most
> valuable of those choices--which should probably be the default for all
> readers who do not have a serious reaction to the image, is removed.
> There is no way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Once you
> displace an inlined image to a link, the text and the illustration are
> divorced.
> All you have done is to take away from the run-of-the-mill reader the
> opportunity to see the text and the illustration together, so he can read
> the description and look at the corresponding picture.
>
The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to
linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most
people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something
that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes
on autofelletio).


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
transliteration?

May you tell me where to find mor data?

On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> UTC 2005:
>
> >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
>
> But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
>
> >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
>
> Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> a goon!
>
> >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> Only a dunce would
> think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> "Moldoveneasca",
> /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> non-Cyrillic content."
>
> Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> Moldovan is always written, or at least
> majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> specify.
>
> Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: ClockworkSoul

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Rick wrote:

>--- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>
>
>>We seem to have banned one of the
>>POTW subscribers because s/he misspelt the name of
>>one of our user's on the POTW web-site. (Yep! That
>>is right. A user claims that their Wikipedia account
>>was blocked because of what that user wrote on
>>another web-site).  If we so dislike misspelling
>>(even if in this case the misspelling yields mild
>>profanity and may have been conscious) then we need
>>to be very careful ourselves.
>>
>>Theo
>>
>>
>
>Are we talking about User:Bakudai?  I assume he
>"misspelled" ClockworkSoul's Username?  I don't
>believe that was why he was banned, but rather because
>of his edit summaries on Wikipedia when he was making
>"dare" edits on the VfD page: "cock" and "Lots of Cock
>for all of you".
>
>RickK
>
He also contacted me, insisting that everything was a misunderstanding,
and that he merely misstyped "clock" as "cock".  Though this
explaination is a little shady, I gave him the benefit fo the doubt and
unblocked him. So far, he has been behaving himself.

- ClockworkSoul


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
pentiumforever at email.de wrote:
> Hi,
> now i have added the Simpel German Wikipedia to the new proposals list
> ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Simpel_German )
>
> It would be nice if you support me!

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids

This idea comes up regularly every three weeks, on the german mailing
list, addressed to the german info team, on meta, or wherever else.

Proposing projects is fine - are you actually willing to work on it and
help to build it? How much experience do you have with children and wikis?

greetings,
elian


from_name: Sj

body:
Wonderful !  You should scan it in for posterity.

--SJ, sure they were working hard to get it postmarked by April 15.

On 4/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Quoting from a letter from the IRS:
>
> Dear Applicant:
>
> We are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for
> tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal
> income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Codfe.
> Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code.  You
> are also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises,
> transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code.
> Because this letter could help resolve any questions regarding your
> extempt status, you should keep it in your permanent records.
>
> Organizations exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Code are further
> classified as either public charities or private foundations.  We
> determined that you are a public charity under the Code section(s)
> listen in the heading of this letter.
>
> -----
>
> Hooray! Finally!
>
> The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> date), so this is fully retroactive.
>
> --Jimbo

--
+sj+


from_name: Pablo Saratxaga

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Language conversion

body:
Kaixo!

On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 12:36:03AM -0400, zhengzhu wrote:
> > there is no need for ((sr-ec::...\\sr-el::...\\ etc.)). We need only

Why a markup syntax different of the one in zh: ?
It would be more intuitive to use the same markup for that
functionality on all wikipedias with multiscript conversions.

Also, there is a need to be able to specify the script;
for example the alphabetic table, alphabetic ordering is different
in latin and cyrillic, so it is needed to
be able to do
-{sr-Latn: ...... ; sr-Cyrl: .....}-

I tried a lot of possible syntax ant they all failed, the functionality
has been removed? (despite being described in the main page)?

--

Ki ?a vos v?ye b?n,
Pablo Saratxaga

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or Esperanto]
[min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]
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body:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Puddl Duk said:
> >>
> > The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to
> > linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most
> > people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something
> > that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on
> > autofelletio).
>
> Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"?  I don't
> think it resembles what I have described in any way.
>
Ok, requiring the right mouse button extra click to see any image. Not
an acceptable choice for most people and therfore shouldn't be
compared to linking, which is an acceptable choice to most people.

I object to taking away the community's right to decide what images to
use or not (if they happen to be objectionable), just because browers
are able to do what you say.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 17

body:
On 4/16/05, Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Jeandr? proposed on meta that Wikijunior pursue funding from the Shuttleworth Foundation (http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org) for a Wikijunior Afrikaans print edition, to complement the English edition funded by the Beck Foundation.

Sounds like a neat idea.  iirc, there was some discussion of other
Shuttleworth grants late last year; they certainly seem like the kind
of foundation that would be eager to support Wikimedia projects.

> PS Anyone interested in what the Wikibooks sub-project will be named, I'm trying to narrow the name game down by 6 possibilities every week, allowing people a chance to "save" a name before its retired from the running.

I assume you mean from this page:
   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior_project_name

I like Keiki, myself.  I don't know how "wiki" this particular project
will be in the end.

--
+sj+


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Actually, it's the other way around.

Romanian writes a number of different sounds with the same letter or
combination of letters.

Unless you're talking about Moldovan written in the Latin alphabet.
That's not an issue - the difference there is so minor we don't need
to worry about it.

I don't like to make generalisations, but what I would say is: "i"
becomes ? in most situations, ? usually after another vowel (or if
it's a double "i") and sometimes before, and ? most often at the end
of the word.

I think there's some really complex situational rules.

If you want (I would suggest some sort of neural networking to learn
complex rules), you can use the paralell texts of
http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%9F%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BB_%D0%B0%D0%BB_%E2%85%A1-%D0%BB%D1%8F
and http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioan_Paul_al_II-lea both about the
late Karol Jozef Wojtyla, the Moldovan version is currently a simple
transliteration of the Romanian with a few small exceptions.

Mark

On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK. As I supposed, Romanian variant have more morphological attributes
> then Moldovan.
>
> It is possible to solve that. First, with a lot of exceptions, then
> with smaller number of exceptions, but with dictionary.
>
> And, it is interesting computational linguistic work :)
>
> On 4/16/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Milos,
> >
> > The difference is that while Romanian uses both ? and ? to represent
> > the same sound, in Moldovan both of these are spelled ?. Thus, "O,
> > brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat pomului de Cr?ciun.
> > C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i este r?sp?ndit la
> > nivel mondial." is "O, brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat
> > pomului de Cr?ciun. C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i
> > este r?sp?ndit la nivel mondial."
> >
> > Other than that the differences are very minimal, and they include the
> > Moldovan preference to use native words or Russian loanwords rather
> > than the Romanian preference for French and Italian words.
> >
> > Cyrillic, however, is written very phonetically.
> >
> > You asked earlier about the difficulties in orthographical conversion
> > between Cyrillic and Latin.
> >
> > The letter i can be ?, ? or ? in Cyrillic, it depends on its pronunciation.
> > The combination iu can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ?, ??.
> > The combination ia can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ??, ??, ??,
> > or ??, but on its own the Cyrillic letter "?" is translitereated "ea"
> > in Latin (for example, the name of the popular song "Dragostea Din
> > Tei" is ???????? ??? ??? in Cyrillic.)
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
> > > situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
> > > phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
> > > transliteration?
> > >
> > > May you tell me where to find mor data?
> > >
> > > On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> > > > UTC 2005:
> > > >
> > > > >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> > > > as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
> > > >
> > > > But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> > > > seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> > > > that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> > > > wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> > > > Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> > > > created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> > > > code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> > > > Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> > > > as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
> > > >
> > > > >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> > > > "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> > > > "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
> > > >
> > > > Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> > > > doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> > > > found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> > > > far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> > > > very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> > > > a goon!
> > > >
> > > > >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> > > > Only a dunce would
> > > > think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> > > > "Moldoveneasca",
> > > > /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> > > > non-Cyrillic content."
> > > >
> > > > Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> > > > I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> > > > politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> > > > link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> > > > what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> > > > Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> > > > Moldovan is always written, or at least
> > > > majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> > > > it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> > > > they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> > > > opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> > > > "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> > > > since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> > > > specify.
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> > > > against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> > > > else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> > > > and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> > > > clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> > > > would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > __________________________________
> > > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > > Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> > > > http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> > --
> > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> >
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Jimmy Wales said:
>
> First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
> solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
> article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
> instead of being shown by default inline.

I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary
importance.  I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating
topics where the image and the text are best seen together  Nobody has to
download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image
instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the
image and the text it is supposed to illustrate.
Inlining is *always* more flexible.  If you link an image, you are *taking
choice away from the reader.*


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Theo Clarke wrote:

>John Cheese has written to me to thank us for deleting the article.
>
>He also says that he wishes "it didn't happen the way it did".  He acknowledges that he had not understood "that there was 5-day voting period" and he thought we were leaving the article there simply to make a point.
>
>He has promised to do his best to ensure that his readers "leave in peace.  If you guys ever have trouble with any of my readers, please don't hesitate to contact me, and I'll put a stop to it.  I don't foresee anything like that happening, but I'd still like to extend that olive branch just in case."
>
>Theo
>
That's very big of him, I think. Personally, I'm just glad the whole
misunderstanding is over.

-ClockworkSoul


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton wrote:

>On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge said:
>>
>>
>>>I prefer a
>>>Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
>>>realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.
>>>
>>>
>>All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good bit of
>>ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the king is so
>>keen to display his march brazenly down the street insisting that we pay
>>due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail to point out that he appears
>>to be stark bollock naked would be a gross failure of citizenship.
>>
>>
>What harm can be cause by personal attacks, which we have a policy against?
>
>
Having a policy on personal attacks is not what defines the harm.
Rather, the policy exists because of the harm.

Certainly kings and emperors leave themselves open to ridicule, but
there are very few kings and emperors in the world and far more of the
rest of us.  Ridicule is an integral part of military propaganda.  It
was used in World War 2, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to
characterize orientals whether they believed in their countries' war
policies or not.  It is used in schoolyard bullying as a form a
psychological abuse when a child is somehow different from the norm.
For revolutionaries it tells me that they are more interested in
personal power than in an ethical change to what ails a society.

Ec


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids
> >
> >This idea comes up regularly every three weeks, on the german mailing
> >list, addressed to the german info team, on meta, or wherever else.
> >
> >Proposing projects is fine - are you actually willing to work on it and
> >help to build it? How much experience do you have with children and
wikis?
> >
> >greetings,
> >elian
>
> Yes I'm willing to work on it much time i have definitely for the next 4
Months!
>
> What do you mean with experience with children? Me self I'm only 16 years
old and I have done a school projekt for one year every week 2 hours in a
kindergarten!
>
> Wiki exoerince i have with the German Wikipedia and the Wiki of a Open
source Application with a own Wiki (own Server) I have only a verry littel
experience!
>
> pentiumforever
>
> _______________________________________________

You would think that, being 16, you'd oppose an '8 to 16' project. 16 year
olds are capable of using Wikipedia. A, lets say, 7-12 years old based
project is much more efficient.


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Indeed, that's what I'm asking for. A choice as to whether to download
them - an acknowledgement that the image is likely to be offensive,
and then a *choice*. You, on the other hand, seem to be demanding that
I either be forced to download them, or to go the ridiculous extreme
of turning off all images.

-- ambi

On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Rebecca said:
> > I really think this comes down to an issue of accessibility. If we're
> > aiming to build a large, open and accessible encyclopedia, then I
> > don't think it helps that cause to effectively limit its readership to
> > the most extremely liberal people on the planet - which rules out a
> > vast amount of our potential readers and contributors.
>
> There are no a priori access restrictions on Wikipedia.  If the pictures
> offend you, don't download them.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Chinese Wikinews: board action required

body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
> project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
> the 100,000 articles.

Since we're all discussing the problems of French wikinews, it is
worth pointing out that French Wikipedia is prospering.  I don't like
for people to compete on article counts, because after all an article
count is a poor proxy for quality work in the final analysis.  But, we
all do it anyway because it is fun.  :-)

It seems likely that at recent rates of growth, French wikipedia will
surpass Japanese wikipedia in the next few months.  According to (En)
Wikipedia, French has 128 million total speakers (first and second
language) while Japanese has 127 million total speakers.  So we should
expect that most likely they will grow in parallel passing each other
several times in the coming years.

--Jimbo
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body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
> project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
> the 100,000 articles.

Since we're all discussing the problems of French wikinews, it is
worth pointing out that French Wikipedia is prospering.  I don't like
for people to compete on article counts, because after all an article
count is a poor proxy for quality work in the final analysis.  But, we
all do it anyway because it is fun.  :-)

It seems likely that at recent rates of growth, French wikipedia will
surpass Japanese wikipedia in the next few months.  According to (En)
Wikipedia, French has 128 million total speakers (first and second
language) while Japanese has 127 million total speakers.  So we should
expect that most likely they will grow in parallel passing each other
several times in the coming years.

--Jimbo
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body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
> project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
> the 100,000 articles.

Since we're all discussing the problems of French wikinews, it is
worth pointing out that French Wikipedia is prospering.  I don't like
for people to compete on article counts, because after all an article
count is a poor proxy for quality work in the final analysis.  But, we
all do it anyway because it is fun.  :-)

It seems likely that at recent rates of growth, French wikipedia will
surpass Japanese wikipedia in the next few months.  According to (En)
Wikipedia, French has 128 million total speakers (first and second
language) while Japanese has 127 million total speakers.  So we should
expect that most likely they will grow in parallel passing each other
several times in the coming years.

--Jimbo
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body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
> project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
> the 100,000 articles.

Since we're all discussing the problems of French wikinews, it is
worth pointing out that French Wikipedia is prospering.  I don't like
for people to compete on article counts, because after all an article
count is a poor proxy for quality work in the final analysis.  But, we
all do it anyway because it is fun.  :-)

It seems likely that at recent rates of growth, French wikipedia will
surpass Japanese wikipedia in the next few months.  According to (En)
Wikipedia, French has 128 million total speakers (first and second
language) while Japanese has 127 million total speakers.  So we should
expect that most likely they will grow in parallel passing each other
several times in the coming years.

--Jimbo
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subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
I changed the subject because I'm off on a general philosophical tangent.

Delirium wrote:
> I'd take the somewhat less-strongly-worded position that "it's up to the
> board to decide _as the representatives of the community_".  That is,
> there is no need for a full public vote on every detailed issue (that
> would defeat the entire purpose of having representatives), but if there
> is reason to believe that the community has a strong opinion one way or
> the other, it would be inappropriate to just ignore that and do the
> opposite.  It would also be preferable to at least ask for input before
> doing anything major.

The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
course involves profound respect for the community.

I say this not to contradict anything specific that you're saying,
because of course it would be inappropriate to just ignore the opinion
of the community and do anything opposite to that opinion, and of course
to ask for opinion before doing anything major is our tradition and a
very sensible one indeed.

This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people want
to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community votes to
abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for the US war on
terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and NPOV, are
not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we are doing is to be
a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable, and if the community
doesn't like it, we have to find different people to be a part of the
community.

As I said in my founder's letter in Quarto this month, though, I don't
think my position should be construed as "the encyclopedic purpose is
more important than the community".  Rather, it's that the purpose of
this community is the free, encyclopedic, charitable purpose.  I will
defend that purpose in the name of defending the community.

My sense is that the vast majority of really active and important
contributors consider this to be a very important part of our "social
contract"... that a huge part of my role in the community is
specifically to make sure that we stay _in focus_ and true to our
original principles -- a sort of bedrock force to make sure that as
newcomers come into our community, our values aren't swamped.

Reporters are always asking me questions like "But, as it grows, won't
Wikipedia just become another Usenet, another swamp overwhelmed by
trolls and pranksters."  The answer is: no, I won't let it.

I didn't gather everyone together by saying "Let's form a really neat
online community and do whatever we feel like doing" -- I gathered
everyone together by saing "Let's do something really great in the
world: write an encyclopedia, put it under a free license, and give it
away to everyone on the planet."

Wikipedia is a social experiment of sorts, but it isn't a representative
democracy (except in elements) and it isn't a monarchy (expect in
elements) and it isn't an aristocracy (except in elements) and it isn't
anarchy (expect in elements).  What it *is*, is a project to create and
give away an encyclopedia under a free license to everyone on the planet.

--Jimbo
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subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
I changed the subject because I'm off on a general philosophical tangent.

Delirium wrote:
> I'd take the somewhat less-strongly-worded position that "it's up to the
> board to decide _as the representatives of the community_".  That is,
> there is no need for a full public vote on every detailed issue (that
> would defeat the entire purpose of having representatives), but if there
> is reason to believe that the community has a strong opinion one way or
> the other, it would be inappropriate to just ignore that and do the
> opposite.  It would also be preferable to at least ask for input before
> doing anything major.

The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
course involves profound respect for the community.

I say this not to contradict anything specific that you're saying,
because of course it would be inappropriate to just ignore the opinion
of the community and do anything opposite to that opinion, and of course
to ask for opinion before doing anything major is our tradition and a
very sensible one indeed.

This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people want
to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community votes to
abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for the US war on
terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and NPOV, are
not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we are doing is to be
a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable, and if the community
doesn't like it, we have to find different people to be a part of the
community.

As I said in my founder's letter in Quarto this month, though, I don't
think my position should be construed as "the encyclopedic purpose is
more important than the community".  Rather, it's that the purpose of
this community is the free, encyclopedic, charitable purpose.  I will
defend that purpose in the name of defending the community.

My sense is that the vast majority of really active and important
contributors consider this to be a very important part of our "social
contract"... that a huge part of my role in the community is
specifically to make sure that we stay _in focus_ and true to our
original principles -- a sort of bedrock force to make sure that as
newcomers come into our community, our values aren't swamped.

Reporters are always asking me questions like "But, as it grows, won't
Wikipedia just become another Usenet, another swamp overwhelmed by
trolls and pranksters."  The answer is: no, I won't let it.

I didn't gather everyone together by saying "Let's form a really neat
online community and do whatever we feel like doing" -- I gathered
everyone together by saing "Let's do something really great in the
world: write an encyclopedia, put it under a free license, and give it
away to everyone on the planet."

Wikipedia is a social experiment of sorts, but it isn't a representative
democracy (except in elements) and it isn't a monarchy (expect in
elements) and it isn't an aristocracy (except in elements) and it isn't
anarchy (expect in elements).  What it *is*, is a project to create and
give away an encyclopedia under a free license to everyone on the planet.

--Jimbo
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subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
I changed the subject because I'm off on a general philosophical tangent.

Delirium wrote:
> I'd take the somewhat less-strongly-worded position that "it's up to the
> board to decide _as the representatives of the community_".  That is,
> there is no need for a full public vote on every detailed issue (that
> would defeat the entire purpose of having representatives), but if there
> is reason to believe that the community has a strong opinion one way or
> the other, it would be inappropriate to just ignore that and do the
> opposite.  It would also be preferable to at least ask for input before
> doing anything major.

The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
course involves profound respect for the community.

I say this not to contradict anything specific that you're saying,
because of course it would be inappropriate to just ignore the opinion
of the community and do anything opposite to that opinion, and of course
to ask for opinion before doing anything major is our tradition and a
very sensible one indeed.

This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people want
to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community votes to
abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for the US war on
terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and NPOV, are
not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we are doing is to be
a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable, and if the community
doesn't like it, we have to find different people to be a part of the
community.

As I said in my founder's letter in Quarto this month, though, I don't
think my position should be construed as "the encyclopedic purpose is
more important than the community".  Rather, it's that the purpose of
this community is the free, encyclopedic, charitable purpose.  I will
defend that purpose in the name of defending the community.

My sense is that the vast majority of really active and important
contributors consider this to be a very important part of our "social
contract"... that a huge part of my role in the community is
specifically to make sure that we stay _in focus_ and true to our
original principles -- a sort of bedrock force to make sure that as
newcomers come into our community, our values aren't swamped.

Reporters are always asking me questions like "But, as it grows, won't
Wikipedia just become another Usenet, another swamp overwhelmed by
trolls and pranksters."  The answer is: no, I won't let it.

I didn't gather everyone together by saying "Let's form a really neat
online community and do whatever we feel like doing" -- I gathered
everyone together by saing "Let's do something really great in the
world: write an encyclopedia, put it under a free license, and give it
away to everyone on the planet."

Wikipedia is a social experiment of sorts, but it isn't a representative
democracy (except in elements) and it isn't a monarchy (expect in
elements) and it isn't an aristocracy (except in elements) and it isn't
anarchy (expect in elements).  What it *is*, is a project to create and
give away an encyclopedia under a free license to everyone on the planet.

--Jimbo
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subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
I changed the subject because I'm off on a general philosophical tangent.

Delirium wrote:
> I'd take the somewhat less-strongly-worded position that "it's up to the
> board to decide _as the representatives of the community_".  That is,
> there is no need for a full public vote on every detailed issue (that
> would defeat the entire purpose of having representatives), but if there
> is reason to believe that the community has a strong opinion one way or
> the other, it would be inappropriate to just ignore that and do the
> opposite.  It would also be preferable to at least ask for input before
> doing anything major.

The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
course involves profound respect for the community.

I say this not to contradict anything specific that you're saying,
because of course it would be inappropriate to just ignore the opinion
of the community and do anything opposite to that opinion, and of course
to ask for opinion before doing anything major is our tradition and a
very sensible one indeed.

This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people want
to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community votes to
abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for the US war on
terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and NPOV, are
not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we are doing is to be
a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable, and if the community
doesn't like it, we have to find different people to be a part of the
community.

As I said in my founder's letter in Quarto this month, though, I don't
think my position should be construed as "the encyclopedic purpose is
more important than the community".  Rather, it's that the purpose of
this community is the free, encyclopedic, charitable purpose.  I will
defend that purpose in the name of defending the community.

My sense is that the vast majority of really active and important
contributors consider this to be a very important part of our "social
contract"... that a huge part of my role in the community is
specifically to make sure that we stay _in focus_ and true to our
original principles -- a sort of bedrock force to make sure that as
newcomers come into our community, our values aren't swamped.

Reporters are always asking me questions like "But, as it grows, won't
Wikipedia just become another Usenet, another swamp overwhelmed by
trolls and pranksters."  The answer is: no, I won't let it.

I didn't gather everyone together by saying "Let's form a really neat
online community and do whatever we feel like doing" -- I gathered
everyone together by saing "Let's do something really great in the
world: write an encyclopedia, put it under a free license, and give it
away to everyone on the planet."

Wikipedia is a social experiment of sorts, but it isn't a representative
democracy (except in elements) and it isn't a monarchy (expect in
elements) and it isn't an aristocracy (except in elements) and it isn't
anarchy (expect in elements).  What it *is*, is a project to create and
give away an encyclopedia under a free license to everyone on the planet.

--Jimbo
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from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge said:
> > I prefer a
> > Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
> > realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.
>
> All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good bit of
> ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the king is so
> keen to display his march brazenly down the street insisting that we pay
> due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail to point out that he appears
> to be stark bollock naked would be a gross failure of citizenship.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

What harm can be cause by personal attacks, which we have a policy against?

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Faraaz Damji said:
>  Not offending people should always be secondary to educating them.

Exactly.  There's nothing wrong with tweaking a few tweakable noses,
especially those who raise purely personal objections, based on local
cultural sensitivities, to aspects of an encyclopedic project.  Such
pressure is a naked and (because we're nice people and don't like to
offend, largely successful) attempt to distort the encyclopedia on
non-encyclopedic grounds.  We can give a little but only where it doesn't
matter much.
>
> Also, we can't promise to avoid offending *everybody* if we get into
> displaying images as links.

This is my long-term objection to the path of appeasement.  The only thing
we can do in the long term is to remind people who are offended that they
don't have to download, let alone render, the pictures.  We can't make
everybody happy.


from_name: pentiumforever at email.de

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids
>
>This idea comes up regularly every three weeks, on the german mailing
>list, addressed to the german info team, on meta, or wherever else.
>
>Proposing projects is fine - are you actually willing to work on it and
>help to build it? How much experience do you have with children and wikis?
>
>greetings,
>elian

Yes I'm willing to work on it much time i have definitely for the next 4 Months!

What do you mean with experience with children? Me self I'm only 16 years old and I have done a school projekt for one year every week 2 hours in a kindergarten!

Wiki exoerince i have with the German Wikipedia and the Wiki of a Open source Application with a own Wiki (own Server) I have only a verry littel experience!

pentiumforever


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Richard Holton said:
> > On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >> Ray Saintonge said:
> >> > I prefer a
> >> > Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
> >> > realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.
> >>
> >> All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good bit
> >> of ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the king
> >> is so keen to display his march brazenly down the street insisting
> >> that we pay due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail to point out
> >> that he appears to be stark bollock naked would be a gross failure of
> >> citizenship.
> >
> > What harm can be cause by personal attacks, which we have a policy
> > against?
>
> We're not going to get anywhere if you insist on lumping attacks on ideas
> alongside attacks on persons.
>

Your distinction, in this case, is false. Ridicule can be just as
easily addressed to people as to ideas. In fact, ridicule, even
against an idea, is specifically designed to have an impact on the
adherents of that idea. It behaves very much like a personal attack
(as I mentioned early).

Criticism can be distinguished from ridicule by its basis in logical
argument and by its respect for others. I am criticizing your
criticism of my post. Neither of us has engaged in ridicule. I hope
you can see the difference.

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Jimmy-

> Yes, this is what I had in mind.  The French Wikinews was started
> according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> ensure a proper launch with solid community support.  When we were in
> Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> hasn't been successful.

it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project
that follows a strict language creation policy. There are:
* 12 Wikinews editions
* 87 Wikiquote editions
* 121 Wikibooks editions
* 173 Wiktionary editions
* ~200 Wikipedia editions

Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote,
Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam
magnets. :-(

The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the
project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention.
But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions,
only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to
the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of
months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down.

The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
events" summary style right on the Main Page:

http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil

This is unfortunate, as it duplicates the page "Actualit?s" on the
French Wikipedia:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualit%C3%A9s

I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

The Swedish edition has seen no new stories since April 2, but was very
active until then; I have heard rumors that this is related to a
conflict on the Swedish Wikipedia.

All in all, I think we are doing quite well. Thanks to a volunteer from
the Romanian edition, Romihaitza, we now even have daily updates on the
number of new articles in each language per day:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Statistics

The new "Wikimedia regulars + start writing key pages on Meta" policy
for new languages seems to work, and I see no reason for any substantial
changes at the present time. Maybe the number of required regulars could
be increased slightly.

Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
the different languages.

All best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki

body:
On 4/16/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> If every active member takes one "dead" wiki under his/her guide by
> guarding it (and having sysop rights to delete trash) against spam and
> immediately greating and talking to newcomers. Than we do not have to
> lock inactive wikis! Just a check once every two or three days suffices
> like I do at Laotian. You do not really have to speak the language.

This won't work when you have to deal with bots. In two to three days they
could have created hundreds of thousands of pages. The worst is when there
are existing pages which could have been edited and moved a hundred times
where the only efficient way would be to restore the database.


subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
> Hooray! Finally!
>
> The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> date), so this is fully retroactive.
>

Grand. next should be the French chapter, since the bylaws have been
written so as to ensure that same tax deductibility. the next step
after the general assembly next week should be to obtain confirmation
that Wikimedia france can benefit from the "int?r?t g?n?ral" status
which offers tax deductibility for donators.
As a matter of fact, recent changes in the "associations" law have
made it easier and better for people who donate to an organisation
that is recognized of "general interest", which  should serve
Wikimedia France and thus the Foundation, by inciting donators to give
more ;)

Delphine
~notafish


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki

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

Dori wrote:
> On 4/16/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>>If every active member takes one "dead" wiki under his/her guide by
>>guarding it (and having sysop rights to delete trash) against spam and
>>immediately greating and talking to newcomers. Than we do not have to
>>lock inactive wikis! Just a check once every two or three days suffices
>>like I do at Laotian. You do not really have to speak the language.
>
> This won't work when you have to deal with bots. In two to three days they
> could have created hundreds of thousands of pages. The worst is when there
> are existing pages which could have been edited and moved a hundred times
> where the only efficient way would be to restore the database.

Dori has a point of course, but do we really have this problem?

If so, then "soft closing" might be a good solution to explore.  A "soft
closed" wiki requires a captcha for posting, disallows external links,
implements the 'nofollow' tag, etc.

- --Jimbo
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subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> Tony may have confused "garland fig-leafing" with "flat-chestedness":
>>
>> * The female centaurs in that sequence were originally bare-breasted,
>> but the Hays office insisted that discreet garlands be hung around
>> their necks.
>>
>> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100422
>>
>> (I guess it helps if you've actually seen the movie.)
>>
>> ... Hey, how about the mermaids in Disney's Peter Pan? (And Tinkerbell's
>>
>> figure leaves little to the imagination; and wasn't there an erotic
>> spanking scene, which caused her to shed fairy dust?)
>>
> Since we're on to fig leaves, it might not be a bad idea to have
> removeable fig leaves over the naughty bits.  These could have a
> smiley face and the words "click here" on each leaf.  Clicking would
> expose what's beneath the leaf.  This could all be in a Monty Python
> style.
>
> Ec

I like the idea of montypythonpedia :)

--
Alphax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
On 4/15/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:

> He can have my watchlist data it has over 4000 watched pages, so let;s
> see if that helps him further.

If his plans are what I think they are, he will need watchlists from
quite a large number of people, and having large watchlists from a few
people will not be a replacement. On the other hand, I do think that
there would be good possibilities not working with watchlists at all.

If his plans are not what I think they are, I'd better consider this
message not sent...

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
> legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
> course involves profound respect for the community.

That's only true for the unelected 3/5 of the board---two of the board
members very explicitly represent the community, and indeed the
community can replace them at the next election if it dislikes how it's
being represented.

> This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
> have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people
> want to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community
> votes to abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for
> the US war on terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
> and NPOV, are not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we
> are doing is to be a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable,
> and if the community doesn't like it, we have to find different people
> to be a part of the community.

This seems incompatible with en eventual move to an all-elected board;
does that mean the board will perpetually have less than 50% of its
members be elected?  I was under the impression that that was only a
temporary situation, not a permanent one.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Le Saturday 16 April 2005 21:19, Erik Moeller a ?crit :
> Jimmy-
>
> > Yes, this is what I had in mind.  The French Wikinews was started
> > according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> > ensure a proper launch with solid community support.  When we were in
> > Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> > get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> > hasn't been successful.
>
> it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project
> that follows a strict language creation policy. There are:
> * 12 Wikinews editions
> * 87 Wikiquote editions
> * 121 Wikibooks editions
> * 173 Wiktionary editions
> * ~200 Wikipedia editions
>
> Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote,
> Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam
> magnets. :-(

I advocate blocking projects when there is no real activity until one or
several volunteer(s) come(s) It would prevent them being squatted by spammers
like the Slovak Wiktionary recently (21 articles).

This was already proposed some time ago and a page was made on Meta in order
to have a general overview of the situation. However AFAIK?no action was
taken.

> The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the
> project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention.

I?think such a process should be used for any new project now.

> But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions,
> only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to
> the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of
> months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down.
>
> The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
> writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
> events" summary style right on the Main Page:
>
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil
>
> This is unfortunate, as it duplicates the page "Actualit?s" on the
> French Wikipedia:
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualit%C3%A9s
>
> I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
> editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
> spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

I?hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
the 100,000 articles.

> The Swedish edition has seen no new stories since April 2, but was very
> active until then; I have heard rumors that this is related to a
> conflict on the Swedish Wikipedia.
>
> All in all, I think we are doing quite well. Thanks to a volunteer from
> the Romanian edition, Romihaitza, we now even have daily updates on the
> number of new articles in each language per day:
>
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Statistics
>
> The new "Wikimedia regulars + start writing key pages on Meta" policy
> for new languages seems to work, and I see no reason for any substantial
> changes at the present time. Maybe the number of required regulars could
> be increased slightly.
>
> Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
> writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
> the different languages.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik

Yann
--
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from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ah well, that's what you get for jumping in on the middle of a
discussion. :)

C.

On 16 Apr 2005, at 8:27 pm, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>
>>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>> Since we're on to fig leaves, it might not be a bad idea to have
>>>> removeable fig leaves over the naughty bits.  These could have a
>>>> smiley face and the words "click here" on each leaf.  Clicking
>>>> would expose what's beneath the leaf.  This could all be in a Monty
>>>> Python style.
>>>
>> Except many people find that offensive in itself, including me.
>
> I'm sorry to hear of your offense.  My impression was that I was
> elevating the tone of this interminable wrangle to the appropriate
> level of seriousness.
>
> Ec


body:
> > Yes, this is what I had in mind.  The French Wikinews was started
> > according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> > ensure a proper launch with solid community support.  When we were in
> > Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> > get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> > hasn't been successful.

Well..let us say that I have *tried* to translate a few policies, so
as to make it a bit more "regulated" and ensure that I could
delete/tag articles with some background for doing so. this said, it
is too much work for one person, and having no-one to discuss those
policies is not very motivating anyway. But thank you Jimbo for
mentionning it.

 [snip]

> The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
> writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
> events" summary style right on the Main Page:
>
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil

I believe when you write contributorS, you really mean contributor (as
in one contributor). i invite you to take a look at the recent changes
or Main Page history to see that there is mainly one person actually
working on this wiki, who, as Anthere pointed out earlier, is not
familiar with the projects and not exactly acquired to the cause of
"NOPOV".  See his intervention on the Village pump to see his
standpoint about NPOV. This said, he is a good contributor in the
sense that although he may not agree with all our views, he has so far
kept his personal opinions away from the content as much as possible.

> I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
> editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
> spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

Yes, small is the word. Apart from this one contibutor, Weather Bot,a
few IP edits,  another contributor who is (as I am) only working on
the form and shape rather than the content, there is virtually no-one.
 Again, this will prove my point:
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges. Let us face it,
with 35 articles and one contributor since the begining of the
project, and this although it has ben advertized on the Village pump,
put for a while on the Community Portal, and re-advertized not so long
ago by yourself on the French Bistro (which, i must say generated a
good 20 or 30 edits). and absolutely no reaction on your second
intervention (a must for a French Bistro i must say).
So I say it again, I strongly believe the French community is
definitely not *ready* to undertake the Wikinews project at this
stage. As long as it continues surviving as it does, with somone
copy/pasting current events on to the main page, I guess I don't have
an opinion about it. Close it, or don't. I might chage my mind with
time if the situation does not improve. Wikinews.fr is , in my very
humble opinion, a disgrace both to the Wikinews project as a whole and
Wikimedia. But then again, it is MY opinion.

[snip]

>
> Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
> writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
> the different languages.

I can only wish you good luck with it. And unlike Yann, I doubt that
the 100 000 articles on fr will bring more contributors, but on the
contrary I believe they will bring this dormant (not to say dead)
project  into the spotlights and enhance its failure as such. Too bad.

Best,

Delphine
--
~notafish


body:
Unfortunately, he probably won't be able to help you because very few
Romanians know Cyrillic.

It's also not entirely an issue of syllables, and there are no exact
formal rules for how to read letters. There are some patterns, but in
general you just have to be fluent. That's why I suggested a neural
networking approach.

Mark

On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand what is the problem between Cyrillic and Latin... Long
> time ago, I made program in Perl which devides Serbian words into
> syllabs (the heart of it is at
> http://millosh.org/software/ltafos/afos/AFOS-0.6.4-16/mod/Slog.pm). As
> I see, Cyrillic-Roman conversion for Moldovan needs similar algorithm.
> The complete algorithm is formal, not fuzzy.
>
> During the next week, I'll go to the Philological Faculty in Belgrade,
> I hope I would find some Romanian phonologist there and I would ask
> him/her for transliteration rules.
>
> On 4/17/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, it's the other way around.
> >
> > Romanian writes a number of different sounds with the same letter or
> > combination of letters.
> >
> > Unless you're talking about Moldovan written in the Latin alphabet.
> > That's not an issue - the difference there is so minor we don't need
> > to worry about it.
> >
> > I don't like to make generalisations, but what I would say is: "i"
> > becomes ? in most situations, ? usually after another vowel (or if
> > it's a double "i") and sometimes before, and ? most often at the end
> > of the word.
> >
> > I think there's some really complex situational rules.
> >
> > If you want (I would suggest some sort of neural networking to learn
> > complex rules), you can use the paralell texts of
> > http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%9F%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BB_%D0%B0%D0%BB_%E2%85%A1-%D0%BB%D1%8F
> > and http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioan_Paul_al_II-lea both about the
> > late Karol Jozef Wojtyla, the Moldovan version is currently a simple
> > transliteration of the Romanian with a few small exceptions.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > OK. As I supposed, Romanian variant have more morphological attributes
> > > then Moldovan.
> > >
> > > It is possible to solve that. First, with a lot of exceptions, then
> > > with smaller number of exceptions, but with dictionary.
> > >
> > > And, it is interesting computational linguistic work :)
> > >
> > > On 4/16/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hi Milos,
> > > >
> > > > The difference is that while Romanian uses both ? and ? to represent
> > > > the same sound, in Moldovan both of these are spelled ?. Thus, "O,
> > > > brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat pomului de Cr?ciun.
> > > > C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i este r?sp?ndit la
> > > > nivel mondial." is "O, brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat
> > > > pomului de Cr?ciun. C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i
> > > > este r?sp?ndit la nivel mondial."
> > > >
> > > > Other than that the differences are very minimal, and they include the
> > > > Moldovan preference to use native words or Russian loanwords rather
> > > > than the Romanian preference for French and Italian words.
> > > >
> > > > Cyrillic, however, is written very phonetically.
> > > >
> > > > You asked earlier about the difficulties in orthographical conversion
> > > > between Cyrillic and Latin.
> > > >
> > > > The letter i can be ?, ? or ? in Cyrillic, it depends on its pronunciation.
> > > > The combination iu can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ?, ??.
> > > > The combination ia can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ??, ??, ??,
> > > > or ??, but on its own the Cyrillic letter "?" is translitereated "ea"
> > > > in Latin (for example, the name of the popular song "Dragostea Din
> > > > Tei" is ???????? ??? ??? in Cyrillic.)
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
> > > > > situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
> > > > > phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
> > > > > transliteration?
> > > > >
> > > > > May you tell me where to find mor data?
> > > > >
> > > > > On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > > In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> > > > > > UTC 2005:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> > > > > > as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
> > > > > >
> > > > > > But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> > > > > > seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> > > > > > that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> > > > > > wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> > > > > > Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> > > > > > created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> > > > > > code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> > > > > > Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> > > > > > as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> > > > > > "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> > > > > > "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> > > > > > doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> > > > > > found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> > > > > > far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> > > > > > very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> > > > > > a goon!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> > > > > > Only a dunce would
> > > > > > think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> > > > > > "Moldoveneasca",
> > > > > > /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> > > > > > non-Cyrillic content."
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> > > > > > I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> > > > > > politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> > > > > > link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> > > > > > what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> > > > > > Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> > > > > > Moldovan is always written, or at least
> > > > > > majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> > > > > > it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> > > > > > they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> > > > > > opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> > > > > > "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> > > > > > since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> > > > > > specify.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> > > > > > against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> > > > > > else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> > > > > > and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> > > > > > clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> > > > > > would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > __________________________________
> > > > > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > > > > Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> > > > > > http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > > > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > > > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > > > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> >
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

body:
Jeandr? proposed on meta that Wikijunior pursue funding from the Shuttleworth Foundation (http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org) for a Wikijunior Afrikaans print edition, to complement the English edition funded by the Beck Foundation.

According to the Shuttleworth site:
"We invest in projects which offer unique and innovative, albeit high-risk, solutions to educational challenges in an African society, focussing on the areas of Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Maths (STEM) in education and open source software."

This may limit us primarily to our "A World of Innovation" issues, but nevertheless gets our foot in the South African door.

The Foundation actually runs their own wiki to record information about their projects (http://wiki.tsf.org.za/shuttleworthfoundationwiki).

So, who is in charge of applying for grants? I want to work with them to pursue this possibility.

- Nick Moreau/Zanimum

PS Anyone interested in what the Wikibooks sub-project will be named, I'm trying to narrow the name game down by 6 possibilities every week, allowing people a chance to "save" a name before its retired from the running.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
On 4/16/05, Pablo Saratxaga <pablo at mandriva.com> wrote:
> Why a markup syntax different of the one in zh: ?
> It would be more intuitive to use the same markup for that
> functionality on all wikipedias with multiscript conversions.
>
> Also, there is a need to be able to specify the script;
> for example the alphabetic table, alphabetic ordering is different
> in latin and cyrillic, so it is needed to
> be able to do
> -{sr-Latn: ...... ; sr-Cyrl: .....}-

I were talking about that with Zhengzhu... Points are:

1. Serbian keyboards (Cyrillic or Latin) doesn't have signs {}|\[] and
it would be very hard to make changes between keyboards a lot of
times.

2. Also, we need something simple, like signs [] in US ANSI keyboard.
Signs ()/ exist on Serbian keyboards.

> I tried a lot of possible syntax ant they all failed, the functionality
> has been removed? (despite being described in the main page)?

I think Zhengzhu is working on markup...