body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
>> I for myself do expect that I can edit a page and type anything into the
>> edit window without anyone else knowing. Not even knowing that I have
>> this page open. I don't want to publish any info *until* I hit save.
>>
>> I have several times canceled a talk page post already written into the
>> edit window (censoring myself). And sometimes I was really glad having
>> canceled ;)
>
> Come to think of it, is there any need to display the username? Or at
> least, make username-displaying an optional, opt-in feature?
>
> It's certainly happened to me to consider editing articles which, at
> save time, I reconsidered and decided I didn't want to be a permanent
> part of my editing record. Call me a wuss, sure :)

Username yes, IP address for anons no. RC patrol can be a lonely task, I
want to make it a little bit more human. Displaying usernames encourages a
sense of community. But like I said in my original post, an opt-out feature
would be nice.

-- Tim Starling


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[New anti-Semitism]] and violations of NPOV re: top
	image

body:
On 8/25/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That was slimvirgin's claim, not mine.  I have no interest in an argument over whether Britinnica is better, more NPOV, etc.  I asked slimvirgin to provide a positive outside example that exhibits NPOV.  Such as, "Zombietimes.com consistently represent the best cases of NPOV",

On the basis that it described the film V for Vendetta as pro
anarchist I think that claim can be dismissed.

--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 25/08/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:

> That was slimvirgin's claim, not mine.

sorry, it wasn't clear from your formatting ... it's sometimes hard to
tell in your posts which bits are yours and which bits are quotes.

>  I have no interest in an argument over whether Britinnica is better, more NPOV, etc.  I asked slimvirgin to provide a positive outside example that exhibits NPOV.  Such as, "Zombietimes.com consistently represent the best cases of NPOV", as opposed to, "On a sunny day with a blue sky, no clouds, and no bugs, Fox News can provide a fair forecast for the next hour".  I appreciate you taking the time to respond.  I take it it's not representative of the "average" diligence that Wikipedia puts into content review.

I think we're improving. To credit Slim, she's working her butt off on
living bios. Even if she errs a bit toward sympathetic point of view.
But they're getting cleaned up much better than they were this time
last year. Because they're treated as important. Which, arguably, they
are; but mostly we have a lot of volunteers who think they are. And
it's all good work, so that's good.

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Always "Return to Home"

body:
On 25/08/06, Liz Kim <lizkim270 at gmail.com> wrote:
> My system is required to log in to edit any pages..
> When login in, it outputs the
> <http://scylla.gat.com/global/MediaWiki:Returnto>"returnto"  message saying
> Return to SOME_PAGE.
> However, without logging in, if I click on edit, it outputs the
> whitelistedittext message and
> ALWAYS says  "Return to HOME" - even if i was not on the home page.
> Any ideas?

As far as I can remember, this issue is fixed in SVN trunk, and the
fix will be present in MediaWiki 1.8. You can find the patch in the
Subversion logs and apply it to your installation if desired.

Rob Church


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Want to collaborate on writing a feature?

references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250554k3c70313ey9401faac38393346@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Ok. But you wrote:
>> ... "and the edit summary they have typed if any"
>>
>> So others could see the edit summary? (Shudder ;)
>>
>> Maybe an optional message box would be helpful (editable). The message
>> while editing might not be the same as the edit summary.
>
> Two separate messages for one short edit might be a bit overkill.

If it's too much then don't type it. If you think the feature won't be used
at all, then I think you have another thing coming.

> Dunno about everyone else, but my usual editing sequence goes
> something like this:
>
> 1. Make a change
> 2. Type an edit summary and set the watch/minor checkboxes
> 3. Preview
> 4. Save or go back to 1.

Yes, so does everyone's, that's because we don't have an interactive message
box to type into. Behaviour will change according to features.

Let me also say this: if your typical editing behaviour is to open the edit
box, change some little thing, and save it immediately, then you're one of
the culprits of the edit conflict problem. You're the kind of user that the
"please don't edit this" message is aimed at. Some users want to spend
longer editing and reviewing a change, and they shouldn't be penalised for
their extra dedication to correctness.

>> Chatting with each other while editing? Like an IRC channel with the
>> title of the page?
>
> Some kind of chat features would be kind of cool (but a totally
> separate project), bearing in mind that:
> - discussing anything "serious" by chat is bad for talk pages as it's
> not recorded
> - IRC already exists :)
>
> However, it would certainly be useful as not everyone has access to an
> IRC client, and it would be more centralised if built into the main
> interface.

Enough chit chat, where's my Person 1? I want concrete features and I want
them now. The feature is a simple one, if we can assemble the right skills,
just a few hours' work each. But to get us started, someone needs to make
that UI mockup.

-- Tim Starling


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Foundation-l] REMINDER: Skypecast - Wikipedia Conversation
	from Florida

body:
On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have made several request to obtain copies of the DV tapes for the
> sessions that were video taped so that I could make Oggs of the high
> resolution video and the uncompressed audio. I have offered to pay
> duplication costs.  My requests have been ignored.

I never saw any of those requests. And funnily, I am one of those who
can grant access to those tapes.

> How much money would you have required?
> $10,000 to get all the audio and video from our sessions into
> completely free formats for both archival and available live use?  I
> could have gotten you that. No one asked.

No-one proposed either.

>Kyle was standing the the
> conference *offering* to record unrecorded sessions, I brought
> microphones and recording gear (with the hopes of doing a wikimedia
> choral session, but that didn't end up happening).. and no one could
> confirm that we had *permission* to record the sessions.

I must have missed that question too.

It seems Austin did not either.
Maybe you should update your address book.

Cheers,

Delphine

--
~notafish


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official:
 on	voters' elibiglity

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Aphaia wrote:
>
>
>>For dear subscribers:
>>please discuss the democracy in general in ANOTHER mailinglist
>>
>>
>(voting == demoncracy on most planets in this solar system)
>
I'm glad to see that you believe that voting is a rule by demons, and
not democracy. ;-)

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Requests at Wikimedia Incubator

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> Wikimedia Incubator is there for testing new languages and new project
> ideas. To this end we feel that it would make sense to move the
> existing Meta page (Requests for new languages, Proposed projects
> etc.) to Incubator.

Hello

I did not notice any comment on your email, so here is mine

> We've had a couple of ideas about how to do this (specifically for the new
> language requests).
>
>    1.
>     New requests are made at Incubator, old requests finish as they
> would at Meta until the Meta page is empty.
>    2. All the current requests are moved to the Incubator and continued
>    there.
>    3. All the current requests are finished without consensus, and left
>    to start again at Incubator.

I'd say moving requests for new languages over there makes sense.

> What do you lot think? Similar things could happen with new project
> proposals, although it is more complicated (because of project description
> pages etc.).

However, I'd say that request for new projects should stay on meta. New
languages only need opinions collected on one page. projects requires
description, discussion, vote etc... taht's meta stuff

> Thanks, Daniel.
>
> -http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbmag9
>
>    1.

Thanks

Ant


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
Alright, then I'll be sending out the letters on behalf of myself.

On 8/25/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I suggest you work on getting these photos as
> individual editors.  After all "The Foundation"
> consists of around a dozen people and there are many
> thousands of individual editors.  I imagine at least
> three dozens of those editors are particulary
> interested in these pictures.  While at the same time
> the people that make up "The Foundation" propably feel
> as if they each have three dozen priority tasks to do
> already.  Anr I do not believe this project would be a
> priority by Foundation standards.  So practically
> speaking  you are *not* more likely to succeed in
> obtaining photos if it is left up to "The Foundation".
>
> Birgitte SB
>
> --- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the use
> > of copyrighted pictures
> > of living people (except when there's a freebie
> > available) because I don't
> > think they have the time to have a picture of
> > themselves taken so it can be
> > used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with semantics
> > -- I know it would be
> > usable for more than Wikipedia.)
> >
> > However, I do believe we should be persuing an
> > active effort to obtain
> > free-use photographs of living people wherever
> > possible. I'm talking about
> > an effort at the Foundation level.
> >
> > On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here
> > >
> >
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
> > > >  concerning fair use.
> > > >
> > > > To quote "In general, ordinary publicity photos
> > of celebrities should
> > > not
> > > > be used in Wikipedia unless they are released
> > under a free license. We
> > > are
> > > > powerful enough now that we can insist on this,
> > and get it, from just
> > > about
> > > > any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in a
> > number of different ways.
> > > > Using fair use in such cases discourages us from
> > creatively looking for
> > > a
> > > > way to enlarge the commons."
> > > >
> > > > Would it be a good idea if the foundation would
> > ask for 'free' images
> > > from
> > > > big record companies (like Sony music
> > entertainment), actor agencies
> > > etc. I
> > > > know any editor can do this, but it would
> > definitely have a greater
> > > > chance of success if it is coming from the
> > foundation.
> > > >
> > > > Garion96
> > > >
> > >
> > > Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and the
> > like? :)
> > >
> > > Garion
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


from_name: Stephen Streater

body:
On 25 Aug 2006, at 23:51, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 8/25/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> To me, the most important aspect of NPOV has nothing to do with
>> being "fair".  It has to do with removing your own personal
>> opinion and accepting that of the experts on the topic, thus
>> satisfying verifiability, even if it goes against what you prefer
>> or previously believed.
>>
>> Given that Britannica is both an easy target here and not NPOV
>> according to your original research, do you have a paradigm for
>> NPOV other than yourself and Wiki?
>
> s/experts/previously notable/
>
> Calling someone an expert requires a difficult value judgement. We
> don't find experts we find notable sources.. who are usually notable
> because they are experts or because they are very much not experts. ;)

Of course, any system can make it hard to introduce revolutionary ideas.

All the experts will share the same view, and have made their living
and reputation supporting this view. They are unlikely to admit their
life's work was based on fallacy, perpetuating the misconceptions.

Admittedly most revolutionary ideas are cranky, but most valuable
innovations are revolutionary. It's a balance between ability to fix
things and inertia.


from_name: niht-hræfn

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On Aug 25, 2006, at 9:53, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

> I've always liked "Wikipedia - the people's encyclopedia"
> _______________________________________________

Wikipedia is to information what democracy once was to government: of
the people, for the people, by the people.

Speaking of fascism, when will general spellcheckers learn that
"Wikipedia" is not misspelled?

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


body:
On 26/08/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

> Of course, any system can make it hard to introduce revolutionary ideas.
> All the experts will share the same view, and have made their living
> and reputation supporting this view. They are unlikely to admit their
> life's work was based on fallacy, perpetuating the misconceptions.

Sucks to be a tertiary source then.

> Admittedly most revolutionary ideas are cranky, but most valuable
> innovations are revolutionary. It's a balance between ability to fix
> things and inertia.

I think NPOV is pretty innovative.

- d.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell


body:
On 26/08/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I think NPOV is pretty innovative.

> Agreed... and publicly accessible revision controlled webpages.

That was Ward Cunningham's ;-) (Did his do version control?)

> Wanna take bets on which of the two will have a greater influence on
> the world outside wikipedia a decade from now? :)

I think NPOV is more powerful than is usually appreciated. To harp on
slightly, it's quite the powerful innovation in writing about
Scientology, for example.

- d.


references:
<ecmm8b$3hc$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmpg7$e21$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ecmqe8$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecmr9f$ka3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<f1c3529e0608250554k3c70313ey9401faac38393346@mail.gmail.com>	<ecmt43$qgt$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608250634p328ff7b7td4da92f35b53597a@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>> Two separate messages for one short edit might be a bit overkill.
>> If it's too much then don't type it. If you think the feature won't be used
>> at all, then I think you have another thing coming.
>
> ??? where did that come from???
>

I didn't mean to sound rude. Just a figure of speech.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
> Most of the Wikimania audio on the site
> (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives) is only available
> in MP3,  and the few vorbis files available that I've heard are very
> low quality (due to transcoding a lower quality MP3 into a lower
> quality Ogg).

Most of these few Ogg Vorbis recordings there have I recorded. And the
are the only recording availbel for some of the most interesting
sessions like the "Wikimedia Foundation Board Panel" or "Wikimedia
Foundation: building in diversity"

The are made from the RealMedia live-stream, played with gxine and
recorded with Audacity  and exported to Ogg Vorbis on a gnu/linux
computer powered with green electricity. The are not transcoded from mp3
to Ogg Vrobis.

So far I see on the list there are no transcoded recordings on the
archive page. There are only mp3 recordings or Ogg Vorbis present, and
not both for the same sessions.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
>  concerning fair use.
>
> To quote "In general, ordinary publicity photos of celebrities should not
> be used in Wikipedia unless they are released under a free license. We are
> powerful enough now that we can insist on this, and get it, from just about
> any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in a number of different ways.
> Using fair use in such cases discourages us from creatively looking for a
> way to enlarge the commons."
>
> Would it be a good idea if the foundation would ask for 'free' images from
> big record companies (like Sony music entertainment), actor agencies etc. I
> know any editor can do this, but it would definitely have a greater
> chance of success if it is coming from the foundation.
>
> Garion96
>

Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and the like? :)

Garion


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Aphaia wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>For dear subscribers:
>>>please discuss the democracy in general in ANOTHER mailinglist
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>(voting == demoncracy on most planets in this solar system)
>>
>>
>>
>I'm glad to see that you believe that voting is a rule by demons, and
>not democracy. ;-)
>
>Ec
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>

It was a typo. (or perhaps a freudian slip).

I just went on Wikibreak from meta due to Aphaia's constant harassment.
I will continue
working on the Machine translation project and Wikigadugi and MediaWiki
development off meta until Aphaia
is removed, apologizes, or ceases her harassment. I am too old and have
too much work to do on this project
to waste time with idiots.

Sincerely,

Jeff


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On 8/25/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I wonder, what has made Wikipedia so popular? That we're NPOV, or that
> we're a wiki? For some reason, people seem to think that "Wikipedia" is
> a generic term to describe a wiki ("They have their own Wikipedia"), or
> that "Wiki" is our name ("Please let me post this on Wiki"), or
> something...

Wiki-ness  makes us popular. NPOV keeps us relevant.

-Rich Holton

--

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Foundation-l] proposed new project - wikistandards

body:
No Spam (sic!) wrote:

> I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards,
> in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of
> international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).

> I look forward to comments.

You can already use Wikibooks to (collaboratively) write a
document on how some things should work.  But how do you get from
there to making it "a standard"?  The point with ANSI, ISO, IEEE
and these other organizations is that they already have a large
body of members from industry and governments that are bound by
laws and contracts to follow their standards, rather than yours.

For example, housing projects in Sweden get building permits and
government loans if they follow existing national construction and
housing standards.  Even though these standards have at times been
quite ridiculous, down to specifying the size of the coat hanger
racks, there is an enormously strong incentive for adhering to
them.

If you are in a position where you can change standards at will,
such as the coding standard for the MediaWiki source code, then
why do you need "a standard" at all?

I guess you could build a smorgasbord (a menu) of documents that
various organizations can pick and adopt as their internal
standards, just like you can pick your favorite prefabricated
license agreement text from Creative Commons.  For example under
coding standards you could publish the Free Software Foundation's
GNU Coding Standards [1] side by side with some alternative coding
standards.  But this could be done already as part of Wikibooks.
I'm saying this not to discourage your project proposal, but to
empower you to get working right now rather than waiting for the
foundation to consider your proposal.  (Hey, it was you who wanted
to avoid the "by committee" thing.)

I'm not speaking for the Wikimedia Foundation.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment,
	wasn't it?

body:
On 8/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, volunteers want to do what they want to do. If you stop them doing
> what they want to do, that doesn't mean they'll do what they don't
> want to do.

I think it's /possible/ he meant that if users have to spend less time
deleting articles that shouldn't have been created, they could spend
time editing rather than deleting.

I'd disagree with that, too; the kind of people who like going through
recent changes and doing janitorial work won't start writing; they'll
start doing other kinds of janitorial work.  However, such work could
be more useful, granted.

-Matt


from_name: Ian Woollard

body:
On 26/08/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Or to quote Jimmy wales, "we should proceed experimentally to see if
> this helps or not.  If not, we try something else.  Calvinball."

I think that that's true atleast.

I'm coming at the new article issue from the opposite direction.

Isn't the question how we can leverage the editors so that they can
easily remove new, inappropriate articles, rather than trying to stop
people from creating new articles?

And that ties back to visibility. Right now, new articles have low
visibility. That's really bad.

Perhaps we should insist that all new articles be classified in some
way, like the dewey decimal system or something, and allow editors to
see new articles in their favourite classification in their watchlists
or something.

That way, the new articles will appear and immediately get jumped on;
and the pain of policing new articles is distributed across all the
editors as much as possible.

--
-Ian Woollard

"Victory can be perceived but not created."
For your own security, the Department of Homeland Security is watching you.


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
I agree this is an instance where chapters are very
useful.  I didn't mean to imply that nothing should be
sent on to the Foundation.  But if the individual
editors take care of the easy ones.  And also gather a
list of the exact contact info of people who requested
to deal with someone official.  Well providing that
list to one the commitees or something is a different
proposition than asking the Foundation to gather free
photos of celebrities for Wikipedia in general terms.

Birgitte SB

--- effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:

> That is not fully true. I have tried myself in the
> past to get photo's
> sourcetexts and other material to extract from
> organizations. It works
> very difficult because they don't like to deal with
> individuals. And
> they don't get at all how the wikimedia-projects
> work. They feel an
> urgent need to speak with a formal organization,
> even if that does not
> matter at the end. If you want to get photo's on a
> large scale, you
> need to be able to say: "Hi, I'm xxx from the
> yyy-organization, and I
> am here to talk with you". It should not be a
> problem to mention as
> well that you are not allowed to make any agreements
> on behalf of that
> organization.
>
> Such an organization does not have to be per se the
> Wikimedia
> Foundation Inc., but can also be a local chapter. As
> long as you can
> tell them *somehow* that you are associated with
> such an organization.
> You need that to enter the conversation. If they are
> going to release
> images in the free domains, you don't ahve to make
> up contracts, sign
> stuff or someting like that, so it should not be a
> big deal.
>
> Of course the foundation-people have already a lot
> of work to do. But
> it should be possible to get more people in
> semi-formal positions,
> right? theoretically we could make up an officer for
> obtaining open
> content and material for the projects. The officer
> does not have to
> have any "power", abilities or something like that,
> just the name does
> already do a really good job. Maybe something to
> think about?
>
> Greetings, Lodewijk
>
> 2006/8/26, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>:
> > I suggest you work on getting these photos as
> > individual editors.  After all "The Foundation"
> > consists of around a dozen people and there are
> many
> > thousands of individual editors.  I imagine at
> least
> > three dozens of those editors are particulary
> > interested in these pictures.  While at the same
> time
> > the people that make up "The Foundation" propably
> feel
> > as if they each have three dozen priority tasks to
> do
> > already.  Anr I do not believe this project would
> be a
> > priority by Foundation standards.  So practically
> > speaking  you are *not* more likely to succeed in
> > obtaining photos if it is left up to "The
> Foundation".
> >
> > Birgitte SB
> >
> > --- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the
> use
> > > of copyrighted pictures
> > > of living people (except when there's a freebie
> > > available) because I don't
> > > think they have the time to have a picture of
> > > themselves taken so it can be
> > > used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with
> semantics
> > > -- I know it would be
> > > usable for more than Wikipedia.)
> > >
> > > However, I do believe we should be persuing an
> > > active effort to obtain
> > > free-use photographs of living people wherever
> > > possible. I'm talking about
> > > an effort at the Foundation level.
> > >
> > > On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
> > > > >  concerning fair use.
> > > > >
> > > > > To quote "In general, ordinary publicity
> photos
> > > of celebrities should
> > > > not
> > > > > be used in Wikipedia unless they are
> released
> > > under a free license. We
> > > > are
> > > > > powerful enough now that we can insist on
> this,
> > > and get it, from just
> > > > about
> > > > > any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in
> a
> > > number of different ways.
> > > > > Using fair use in such cases discourages us
> from
> > > creatively looking for
> > > > a
> > > > > way to enlarge the commons."
> > > > >
> > > > > Would it be a good idea if the foundation
> would
> > > ask for 'free' images
> > > > from
> > > > > big record companies (like Sony music
> > > entertainment), actor agencies
> > > > etc. I
> > > > > know any editor can do this, but it would
> > > definitely have a greater
> > > > > chance of success if it is coming from the
> > > foundation.
> > > > >
> > > > > Garion96
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and
> the
> > > like? :)
> > > >
> > > > Garion
> > > >
> _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


body:
On 26 Aug 2006, at 01:01, Bryan Derksen wrote:

> Steve Bennett wrote:
>> On 8/25/06, Stefan Sittler <kiaparowits at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Instead, it's an experiment of indefinite duration with analysis (of
>>> an unknown kind? where is this analysis described?) presumably being
>>> done by some person or persons, probably, and the results to be
>>> revealed at some later unspecified date.
>>
>> Think of it as a "trial" or a "change with unspecified duration",
>> rather than an "experiment", and the pain will go away.
>
> It doesn't, because "trial" is still just as misleading as
> "experiment"
> without some plan for evaluating the trial's results and "change with
> unspecified duration" is just a euphemism for "change with indefinite
> duration."
>
> I don't have any fundamental problem with making this a permanent
> change
> provided a rigorous analysis actually shows that it helped the
> situation. I'm told that an analysis has been done. So there's an easy
> and obvious way to make me quit complaining about this issue.

You seem to be asking for NPOV - a bit revolutionary ;-)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Leon Weber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiCharts

body:
Hi all,
I've finished WikiCharts now. A short description can be found here:

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

As described there: If you'd like to have WikiCharts for your wiki, just
contact me in the IRC (my nick is LeonWP).

-- Leon


body:
On 26 Aug 2006, at 08:51, Richard Holton wrote:

> On 8/25/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I wonder, what has made Wikipedia so popular? That we're NPOV, or
>> that
>> we're a wiki? For some reason, people seem to think that
>> "Wikipedia" is
>> a generic term to describe a wiki ("They have their own
>> Wikipedia"), or
>> that "Wiki" is our name ("Please let me post this on Wiki"), or
>> something...
>
>
> Wiki-ness  makes us popular. NPOV keeps us relevant.

MPOV makes us popular. It's only later that people discover NPOV ;-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

body:
Tim Starling schreef:

> PHP stores the entire contents of the POST request in memory, as it is
> receiving it. That's why we can't allow arbitrarily large uploads, the
> server would run out of memory. In any case, HTTP does not support resuming
> for uploads, so it's quite fragile.

The file sehare service YouSendIt.com , now only providing 100mb free
upload, used the support the upload of file up to 1gb with only a basic
webform.

Maybe the are willing to share how the do that if asked.

What also maybe is an idea is the use one specific server for the upload
of large files files. And when you inter a request to upload a large
file it is not uploaded but queued.

The user can get a message like; "there are 14 uploads before you.
Estimated time to completion: 3 hours 53 minutes

That is not a fantastic system but at least you could upload large files.

Currently when you upload a non-supported file format I have the very
strong impression the check of the is allowed is done after the file is
uploaded. That is annoying for the user and a waste resources to upload
the file.

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


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 8/26/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 26/08/06, Anthony wrote:
> >> Or to quote Jimmy wales, "we should proceed experimentally to see if
> >> this helps or not. If not, we try something else. Calvinball."
>
> >I think that that's true atleast.
>
> I think it's smart too and will turn out to be VERY beneficial.
>
> >I'm coming at the new article issue from the opposite direction.
>
> >Isn't the question how we can leverage the editors so that they can
> >easily remove new, inappropriate articles, rather than trying to stop
> >people from creating new articles?
>
> If you stop or significantly slow the creation of new, inappropriate articles, editors have more time to work on existing articles.  I think you'll also find that the majority of new articles that are kept or don't need complete rewriting are by registered users.  In fact, I'd bet if you pulled the stats that the same is true of all edits, not just creation.
>
I agree with David that volunteers are going to do what they want.
However, I also agree with Matt.  *IF* you can significantly slow the
creation of new, inappropriate articles, (and all other things remain
equal), the people who enjoy dealing with new articles will have more
time, time which at least some of them will likely spend productively.

This would be a good thing, for sure.  But having seen no study
conducted, I'm not convinced that this can be achieved.  And also,
it's pretty much obvious that all other things *don't* remain equal.
At least some people have switched their attention to Articles for
Creation, for instance, an activity which wasn't necessary before this
change.

I think Ian explained it well.  "how we can leverage the editors so
that they can easily remove new, inappropriate articles".  Moreover,
how can avoid excessive duplication of effort when identifying new,
appropriate articles?  It would be nice if we could flip a switch and
turn off bad articles, but short of requiring adminship to create new
articles I don't see it happening.  Improving the collaboration
process, on the other hand, that's much easier, and more the basis of
Wikipedia - trust that most people are trying to do the right thing,
and give them the tools to do it.

> I'd like to see the experiment applied to all edits.  I.e., no anon edits period.  Registration is so simple and requires so little info (name and password only) that it serves less as removing anonymity and more as simply forcing vandals to do more in order to vandalize.  If anything, it protects naive users from publicly broadcasting their IP to those looking for easy targets.
>
I wouldn't mind having the experiment applied to all edits, but only
if it was for a very short period of time (definitely less than a
month), and only if there were clear criteria for measuring the
effectiveness.

That said, I don't really see the point.  It makes it harder for
vandals to edit, but it also makes it harder for non-vandals to edit.
Other than making it harder for anyone without an account to edit (as
well as anyone with an account who isn't always logged in), it doesn't
really accomplish anything (protecting naive users could be
accomplished by simply not publishing the IP address of "anons" but
instead assigning them a unique number which can only be tied to their
IP address through CheckUser).  In fact, I'd say vandals tend to be
more persistent than casual copyeditors, and would be *less* likely to
give up when they find they have to register.

One last point to consider - you don't want to have a four day wait
before you can edit, right?  Assuming not, the barrier to vandals (and
to non-vandals) would be very low.

Anthony


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

body:
That is not fully true. I have tried myself in the past to get photo's
sourcetexts and other material to extract from organizations. It works
very difficult because they don't like to deal with individuals. And
they don't get at all how the wikimedia-projects work. They feel an
urgent need to speak with a formal organization, even if that does not
matter at the end. If you want to get photo's on a large scale, you
need to be able to say: "Hi, I'm xxx from the yyy-organization, and I
am here to talk with you". It should not be a problem to mention as
well that you are not allowed to make any agreements on behalf of that
organization.

Such an organization does not have to be per se the Wikimedia
Foundation Inc., but can also be a local chapter. As long as you can
tell them *somehow* that you are associated with such an organization.
You need that to enter the conversation. If they are going to release
images in the free domains, you don't ahve to make up contracts, sign
stuff or someting like that, so it should not be a big deal.

Of course the foundation-people have already a lot of work to do. But
it should be possible to get more people in semi-formal positions,
right? theoretically we could make up an officer for obtaining open
content and material for the projects. The officer does not have to
have any "power", abilities or something like that, just the name does
already do a really good job. Maybe something to think about?

Greetings, Lodewijk

2006/8/26, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>:
> I suggest you work on getting these photos as
> individual editors.  After all "The Foundation"
> consists of around a dozen people and there are many
> thousands of individual editors.  I imagine at least
> three dozens of those editors are particulary
> interested in these pictures.  While at the same time
> the people that make up "The Foundation" propably feel
> as if they each have three dozen priority tasks to do
> already.  Anr I do not believe this project would be a
> priority by Foundation standards.  So practically
> speaking  you are *not* more likely to succeed in
> obtaining photos if it is left up to "The Foundation".
>
> Birgitte SB
>
> --- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the use
> > of copyrighted pictures
> > of living people (except when there's a freebie
> > available) because I don't
> > think they have the time to have a picture of
> > themselves taken so it can be
> > used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with semantics
> > -- I know it would be
> > usable for more than Wikipedia.)
> >
> > However, I do believe we should be persuing an
> > active effort to obtain
> > free-use photographs of living people wherever
> > possible. I'm talking about
> > an effort at the Foundation level.
> >
> > On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 8/9/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >  Regarding Jimmy Wales's comment here
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881
> > > >  concerning fair use.
> > > >
> > > > To quote "In general, ordinary publicity photos
> > of celebrities should
> > > not
> > > > be used in Wikipedia unless they are released
> > under a free license. We
> > > are
> > > > powerful enough now that we can insist on this,
> > and get it, from just
> > > about
> > > > any celebrity, or we can get a free photo in a
> > number of different ways.
> > > > Using fair use in such cases discourages us from
> > creatively looking for
> > > a
> > > > way to enlarge the commons."
> > > >
> > > > Would it be a good idea if the foundation would
> > ask for 'free' images
> > > from
> > > > big record companies (like Sony music
> > entertainment), actor agencies
> > > etc. I
> > > > know any editor can do this, but it would
> > definitely have a greater
> > > > chance of success if it is coming from the
> > foundation.
> > > >
> > > > Garion96
> > > >
> > >
> > > Anymore comments on this? Ixnays, supports and the
> > like? :)
> > >
> > > Garion
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures


subject: [Foundation-l] REMINDER: Skypecast - Messages for board members

body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell schreef:
>
>>Most of the Wikimania audio on the site
>>(http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives) is only available
>>in MP3,  and the few vorbis files available that I've heard are very
>>low quality (due to transcoding a lower quality MP3 into a lower
>>quality Ogg).
>
>
> Most of these few Ogg Vorbis recordings there have I recorded. And the
> are the only recording availbel for some of the most interesting
> sessions like the "Wikimedia Foundation Board Panel" or "Wikimedia
> Foundation: building in diversity"

Which reminds me:

Walter have made ''an audio recording with fragments from talks from
Wikimania who I believe can be interesting for candidates for the board.
It is Jimbo and Anthere giving comments about this election, the current
situation with the board and the future of the board.''

*http://tinyurl.com/rdnxu - Ogg Vorbis 11,9Mb 32min
*http://tinyurl.com/s2j66 - Webbased Player playing the same file

-----------

Actually, I somehow lost (?) the software which allowed me to read the
ogg files, so I heard the second link.

I'll be interested in being recommanded a software to read the ogg file
(which will be 1) free of charge and 2) for a macintosh).

Greg, can you help ?

Anthere

> The are made from the RealMedia live-stream, played with gxine and
> recorded with Audacity  and exported to Ogg Vorbis on a gnu/linux
> computer powered with green electricity. The are not transcoded from mp3
> to Ogg Vrobis.
>
> So far I see on the list there are no transcoded recordings on the
> archive page. There are only mp3 recordings or Ogg Vorbis present, and
> not both for the same sessions.
>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
No Spam wrote:

>I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards, in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
>The first standard I would like to begin work on is a Project Management standard. The impetus for this comes from my frustration over the Project Management Institute's standard www.pmi.org
>It is also an IEEE standard:
>http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/product.asp?sku=IEEE+Std+1490-2003
>And there is also the ISO standard:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10006
>PRINCE2
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2
>There are other lesser known examples of closed committee works or this nature.
>
>The PMI standard suffers from 'design by committee' and is, to say the least, stultifying.
>Lets see how the wiki community does at designing standards.
>
>I look forward to comments.
>I am willing to start the first project off but need some guidance and advice on how to proceed.
>
>Regards
>Al
>
>
Have you seen the pages on Meta:

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

and a competing proposal

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

It should be noted that this proposal has been formally "voted" on by a
small community that has sought to create this idea into a full
Wikimedia sister project.  I am unsure of its current status by the
special project committee, especially as Wikiversity has been far more
dominent in the conversations that have been going on with that group.

I was actually planning on trying to move Wikistandards to the Incubator
Wiki (http://incubator.wikimedia.org/) to do a trial run of this idea,
but I'm currently quite overwhelmed right now trying to get Wikiversity
going instead (for myself).  I know that there is already a small
community of people who are interested in seeing something like this to
be developed, and it would really be just a matter of informing that
group if something were put together and to try and restart the momentum
that had occured earlier.

I would have to agree that a Wiki being used to develop standards in a
very open process is something that would be beneficial to the standards
development community.  The costs of purchasing "standards" range from
merely very expensive to insane.  In fact, one reason that has often
been given for the price of some standards is to act as an
anti-competitive pressure to make sure that those who purchase the
standards have the financial means to really make something work, or
specifically to discourage new people from  getting involved in the
development of the standards.  I have seen some of these standards go
for a price of over $100,000 for a single 300 page book.

ISO standards are ones that are "merely very expensive", as I don't
think paying $500 for a 500 page book is necessarily a fair value for
the standard.  The reason given behind why they charge so much, even for
a PDF version of the standard that you download off the internet, is
supposedly the network bandwidth and server storage costs.  You are also
indirectly helping to pay for the standards development committees, and
for the office staff of the standards agency (which for the USA is
located in downtown Manhattan).

I believe that such standards can be made much more cheaply.  Network
bandwidth and storage costs are not nearly what ANSI or IEEE make them
out to be (both are local agencies or "chapters" for ISO in the USA).  I
also beleive that there are sponsorship opportunities to help pay for
these costs that could be obtained by the Wikimedia Foundation
specifically to make sure that these standards are made available, and
they could be made free.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject:
[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official: on
	voters' elibiglity

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Aphaia wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>For dear subscribers:
>>>>please discuss the democracy in general in ANOTHER mailinglist
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>(voting == demoncracy on most planets in this solar system)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I'm glad to see that you believe that voting is a rule by demons, and
>>not democracy. ;-)
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> It was a typo. (or perhaps a freudian slip).
>
> I just went on Wikibreak from meta due to Aphaia's constant harassment.
> I will continue
> working on the Machine translation project and Wikigadugi and MediaWiki
> development off meta until Aphaia
> is removed, apologizes, or ceases her harassment. I am too old and have
> too much work to do on this project
> to waste time with idiots.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jeff

Jeff,

As one of the list moderators, my finger is one inch away from the
moderator button for you. The comment above is not really acceptable.

ant


from_name: Ligulem

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Very draft mock-up of a possible UI, from what I think you're describing:
> http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/ui-draft-mockup.png

Looks nice. Many thanks for doing the mockup.

While you guys are at it: could you make the edit summary field larger?
I mean extending it to right edge of the window. I always do have a
strong key hole viewing feeling when looking at this edit page.

Also could you please add a preview for the edit summary (when I hit
preview I want a preview for the page text *and* the edit summary as it
will appear in the history). Reason: I'm prone to typos but I see them
better when I can look at the text in original font and with links parsed.

And how bad would it be being able to edit my own edit summary *after*
save? Maybe with a time limit (after 6 hours or whatever time limit the
edit summary is fixed forever). We sometimes put some stuff in edit
summaries we regret later (example: Wikipedians have been opposed on
RfA's for edit summaries alone). Nobody is perfect ;-)
Of course, this feature would be limited to logged in users.

--Ligulem


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>No Spam (sic!) wrote:
>
>
>
>>I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards,
>>in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of
>>international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>I look forward to comments.
>>
>>
>
>You can already use Wikibooks to (collaboratively) write a
>document on how some things should work.  But how do you get from
>there to making it "a standard"?  The point with ANSI, ISO, IEEE
>and these other organizations is that they already have a large
>body of members from industry and governments that are bound by
>laws and contracts to follow their standards, rather than yours.
>
You are wrong here.  Wikibooks can't be used for such development, and
please don't suggest this either.  Wikibooks is not an incubator for new
project idea, and standards development is clearly outside of the scope
of the mission of Wikibooks, especially if you read through
[[b:Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks]].  I actually tried this sort of
development back almost two years ago and was (correctly) told to try it
out on Meta instead.  The Incubator Wiki is more where this sort of
development should take place.

As far as how to establish a standard that will be recognized by
standards bodies?  I don't think it is nearly so difficult as you are
trying to make it out here.  By far and away the hardest part of trying
to establish a standard is writing the content for such a standard, and
having knowledgable people understanding what the standard is trying to
cover to be involved with the development process of that standard.  I
have seen some very reasonable and responsible standards be put together
through RFCs and other groups such as the WC3 and the PNG image format
standard working group that have also been able to even get formal ISO
status once the standard has been described.  Even competing standards
are possible and getting international recognition, while not trivial,
is not impossible.

>
>For example, housing projects in Sweden get building permits and
>government loans if they follow existing national construction and
>housing standards.  Even though these standards have at times been
>quite ridiculous, down to specifying the size of the coat hanger
>racks, there is an enormously strong incentive for adhering to
>them.
>
Construction standards are indeed a mess and there is far too much
politics in the process.  The "National Electrical Code" (used in North
America for installing electrical wiring into buildings) is an ISO
standard that also has the force of law in many location.  If you want
to be a licensed electrician you are required to not only practically
memorize this document, but you are also expected to know about changes
to the standard that happen from year to year.

You might be surprised to find, however, that standards for installation
of newer technologies are not very well written and a Wiki that would
help with establishing those standards might be quite beneficial even
for the construction industry.  The problem is mainly trying to find
those who might be interested in the development of those standards and
be willing to implement them.

>
>If you are in a position where you can change standards at will,
>such as the coding standard for the MediaWiki source code, then
>why do you need "a standard" at all?
>
There are needs for standards simply because it is an area that until
now nobody has addressed, or in some situations there are so many
competing but propritary standards that a neutral restart of the process
must occur.  Standards for computer file formats, for example, are of
particular interest and is something that is often assumed through
defacto standards rather than any sane and rational thought on how they
can be put together.  Even trying to find what standards are available
is also something that is often overlooked, and many engineers that I've
known have simply ignored existing standards simply because they didn't
want to take the time to find what they might be.  Or found the standard
to be too complicated to implement.

There is a real need to have a central clearing house of standards
especially for open source/free projects like Wikimedia projects as well
as open source software projects like Linux and stuff produced by the
Free Software Foundation.  There are groups that do this already in a
haphazard way, but more attention can be called to the issue.

>
>I guess you could build a smorgasbord (a menu) of documents that
>various organizations can pick and adopt as their internal
>standards, just like you can pick your favorite prefabricated
>license agreement text from Creative Commons.  For example under
>coding standards you could publish the Free Software Foundation's
>GNU Coding Standards [1] side by side with some alternative coding
>standards.  But this could be done already as part of Wikibooks.
>I'm saying this not to discourage your project proposal, but to
>empower you to get working right now rather than waiting for the
>foundation to consider your proposal.  (Hey, it was you who wanted
>to avoid the "by committee" thing.)
>
>I'm not speaking for the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
>[1] http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/
>
>
>
>
I will say it again:   Do not use Wikibooks to write anything like this.
 It does not fit with Wikibooks and really needs to be established as a
seperate project.  I think you have a very mistaken idea of what
Wikibooks is really about if you think Wikistandards belongs on Wikibooks.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 8/25/06, No Spam <nospam at cacace.org> wrote:
>
>
>>I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards, in which the community at-large contributes to the creation of international standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
>>
>>
>
>There is a working prototype of this project at
>http://www.wikiforstandards.org/
>
>There was considerable interest from the language standards community
>when this was first discussed, but interest dropped when we actually
>gave them a wiki to play with.
>
>

Likely because those who needed to know about it weren't aware of its
existance.  Thanks for pointing this website out.

I don't think its lack of activity has anything to do with a lack of
interest.  Standards development is one of those synergy concepts that
once you have something worthwhile to look at, that more and more people
come by and see what you are doing and try to extend it.  Until then, it
is largely ignored.  Getting that initial kernel of useful information
is very difficult in this case to set up and takes a few dedicated
people to get it going.  The same could be said about any wiki BTW.

I also think this group was trying far too narrow of a focus by sticking
only with language standards, but that is a personal opinion.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Cheney Shill

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>Cheney Shill wrote:
>>To me, the most important aspect of NPOV has nothing to do with being "fair". It has to do with removing your own personal opinion and accepting that of the experts on the topic, thus satisfying verifiability, even if it goes against what you prefer or previously believed.
>>
>>
>Different POVs depend on a different selection of expert POVs. Being
>fair to those who do not represent your expert's POV means that you
>don't try to massage your opponent's views so that they seem worse than
>they really are.

I think we agree here.  I compressed experts of all editors (aka, reputable & reliable sources, not simply notable) into a single statement.  Given that you are working on an article with a group, the experts are not simply going to be the ones initially preferred and believed by you or the other editors.

They do, however, all have to meet the policy requirements for sources, which are very different from those requirements to simply have an article about a person.  A person doesn't need to be an expert on anything to have an article about them.  Another crucial aspect that Jimbo pointed out recently is that being verifiable (in the general non-policy sense) and notable is not equivalent to being reputable and reliable, or everything printed in tabloids, PR releases, religious texts, and advertisements would become equivalent to Nature or 60 Minutes.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1?/min.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 26/08/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > That was Ward Cunningham's ;-) (Did his do version control?)

> Heck, even ours doesn't properly do version control. You can't branch,
> tag, ...
> Hrm. Anyone want to re-implement MediaWiki with a /real/ version control
> back end?

You do. Use git - the key insight for git is that the working unit is
the project, not the file; so with Wikipedia, the key insight is that
the working unit is the project, not the article. So blame-per-phrase
can be preserved wherever a sentence wanders in the wiki! And just
imagine the author list for a particular article *that* will give us
...

- d.


body:
On 26/08/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:

> If you stop or significantly slow the creation of new, inappropriate articles, editors have more time to work on existing articles.

No, volunteers want to do what they want to do. If you stop them doing
what they want to do, that doesn't mean they'll do what they don't
want to do.

- d.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia-l] WikiCharts

body:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts/?wiki=enwikiversity

Awesome. Can we have this on en Wikipedia?

Steve

On 8/26/06, Leon Weber <leon.weber at leonweber.de> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I've finished WikiCharts now. A short description can be found here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCharts
>
> As described there: If you'd like to have WikiCharts for your wiki, just
> contact me in the IRC (my nick is LeonWP).
>
> -- Leon
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy way of
	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
On 26/08/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:

> > True. "Information wanted"?

> Wrong.
> You can make a house out of bricks, but a pile of bricks does not make a
> house.
> You can make knowledge from information, but a pile of information does
> not make knowledge.

Turn information into knowledge.

- d.


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
--- "Daniel R. Tobias" <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> "Wikipedia: Useful enough to be dangerous."

"Wikipedia: Informative enough to make you a pariah (within McSociety)."

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia-l] WikiCharts

body:
Steve Bennett schrieb:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts/?wiki=enwikiversity
>
> Awesome. Can we have this on en Wikipedia?
>
Sure. IRC?
Leon


body:
On 26/08/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

> (Or some variant.  Inspiration could be drawn from "I'd like to buy the
> world a Coke" if necessary.)

"I'd like to buy the world a Britannica DVD."

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Some light entertainment for you...

body:
Speedy death.  May as well become a birth, obituary, and highschool yearbook archive.  If you want to be nice, message the writer to consider a blog or myspace type site.

Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote: What would you do across a page that only said:
----------
Elizabeth Welch is an Australian-born resident of Rockwall County,
Texas. She attends school at Rockwall High School, where she

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

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1?/min.


from_name: Stephen Streater

body:
On 26 Aug 2006, at 11:41, David Gerard wrote:

> On 26/08/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> If you stop or significantly slow the creation of new,
>> inappropriate articles, editors have more time to work on existing
>> articles.
>
>
> No, volunteers want to do what they want to do. If you stop them doing
> what they want to do, that doesn't mean they'll do what they don't
> want to do.

I agree. But one of the core aims of Wikipedia is to promote free
content.
By stopping people adding non-free content, some proportion of people
who don't care whether their content is free or not will add free
content.

It's a conflict between building an encyclopaedia and building a
respository
of free knowledge.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy way
	of	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
On 26 Aug 2006, at 11:48, David Gerard wrote:

> On 26/08/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>> True. "Information wanted"?
>
>> Wrong.
>> You can make a house out of bricks, but a pile of bricks does not
>> make a
>> house.
>> You can make knowledge from information, but a pile of information
>> does
>> not make knowledge.
>
>
> Turn information into knowledge.

I think this doesn't reflect the broader aim of WMF
which is to make a repository of free information.

So how about:
Join the Information Revolution


subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS for wikien

body:
Im a little tired of mail threading, subject forking, ineditability,
untaggability, and the general disorganization of the standard Piper.

Something better, there is?  OTRS comes to mind, but that
might be too process oriented. Something... mailable, threadable, that
can show >> text as hidden in a collapsable div... something that will
do all of that and yet be low-maintenance... :)

SV
...Something that can strip the footer that will be at the end of this
message...

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


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 26/08/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

> > Turn information into knowledge.
>
> I think this doesn't reflect the broader aim of WMF
> which is to make a repository of free information.
>
> So how about:
> Join the Information Revolution

Every time I see that phrase I think of Ken MacLeod's IWWWW, the
"Information Workers of the World Wide Web"...

"Abolition of the encyclopedia system!", perhaps.

</obscurity>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS for wikien

body:
--- Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

> You should REALLY try gmail, it is almost unsettling how smart it is
> in collapsing what you don't need to see. Almost all footers (except
> for the first one in a thread, I think that's how it works by
> recognizing lines that repeat from mail to mail) gets collapsed,
> aswell as all quoted text, except when you need to read it to get the
> context of the message. I find myself going "How the hell did Gmail
> know I needed to read that!!!". It will also sort mails into
> "conversations" which is worse than threading (since it doesn't
> explicitly show who responded to whom) but is never a problem. You can
> also tag each conversation with whatever you want to make it easier to
> sort through. It has a brilliant search engine which you can find
> anything with, it has mindnumbingly large storage space and it's
> archiving concept means you never have to delete a thing (i've
> currently got 177 mb of mail in my account, most of it wikien) but
> still get mail out of your inbox. It really is the best there is.
>
> I'll send you an invitation :P

Well that's client based and I was talking about something server-based
that helps everyone see the threads in better way.

The idea is that subject headers are almost entirely useless for
following a thread, and for understanding the value of particular mails.
Oftentimes people will interject one-line humour into serious discussions
about policy, and this will basically kill the thread. Sometimes people
try to change funny discussion into serious discussion. Oftentimes we find
threads are just repeats of earlier types of topics, and its hard to tell
if 1) you dont know the history or and 2) you dont read up on all the
current threads well enough to understand the connections.

Anyway its neat that G-mail can do all of that sorting from just plain email,
and I certainly will try it out (again). :)

SV

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Good writers always welcome (was A tidy way
 of	handling "popular culture" references)

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Maybe: "New editors wanted"? - we avoid promising some kind of
>> irrevokable privelege, without any kind of threatening undertone.
>
> To most of the English speaking world an "Editor" does something
> mostly different from what an editor does on Wikipedia. Contributor is
> the correct word, and is the only description Wikipedians should be
> using when describing their position with the project to outsiders
> (the press, for example).
>

See .sig... :)

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

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body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Maybe: "New editors wanted"? - we avoid promising some kind of
>>> irrevokable privelege, without any kind of threatening undertone.
>> To most of the English speaking world an "Editor" does something
>> mostly different from what an editor does on Wikipedia. Contributor is
>> the correct word, and is the only description Wikipedians should be
>> using when describing their position with the project to outsiders
>> (the press, for example).
>
> True. "Information wanted"?
>

Wrong.

You can make a house out of bricks, but a pile of bricks does not make a
house.

You can make knowledge from information, but a pile of information does
not make knowledge.

What's Jimbo's famous quote? "Imagine a world where the sum of human
knowledge was available to everyone in their own language - that's what
we're doing"?

"Anyone can edit" is misleading. "You could be part of"?

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

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from_name: Aphaia

references:
<35be2a710608250421v5834bb22l6bd47f88861fb3e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<44EF1A4E.8080806@wolfmountaingroup.com> <44EFBC2A.20606@telus.net>
	<44EFC2B8.2010507@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
For dear subscribers:
please discuss the democracy in general in ANOTHER mailinglist, and
put your idea not here directly, but the specific page on meta. There
a discussion/presentation of opinion already has begun, I don't want
to see this discussion split here and there.

Effe, can you please c&p your postings to that page? If you have done
it already, please forgive my hasteness.

On 8/26/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>In America, only convicted felons loose the right to vote, and only in
> >>certain states. People on probation have the right to vote, and people
> >>
> >>
> >>from every social class and range of offenses have the right to vote
> >
> >
> >>(except for convicted felons). No "Concensus" of citizens can strip from
> >>any individual the right to vote in this country. This is because we are
> >>an "enlightened society", not the forum of the Roman Senate where
> >>splinter groups assassinate the emperor and and citizen or senator with
> >>views we don't like, or the Court of Queen Elizabet in the 1500's where
> >>you could loose your head for wearing the wrong color clothes on the
> >>wrong day or criticize the queen. I thank God America doesn't run this
> >>way, or most countries in modern times (except for a few in the middle
> >>eastern countries).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >But even the United States has a minimum voting age, and a waiting
> >period before new immigrants can become citizens.  I appreciate your
> >scare quotes around "enlightened society".  I'm sure that a modern
> >Senate and its parties have more sophisticated ways of performing
> >political assassinations without getting into the very messy business of
> >physical assassinations.  America runs this way when it's running other
> >countries.  The last democratically elected ruler of Iran was
> >assasinated by the Americans.
> >
> >
>
> Probably a good topic to avoid.
>
> >
> >
> >>Banned users from the
> >>whole of Wikimedia should not vote. Banned users from a particular
> >>project should vtoe just not on that project. This isn't an article for
> >>deletion, it's board members for the community. All the communities
> >>should vote.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >Single sign-on will make the process easier.  All individuals, rather
> >than all communities should vote.
> >
> >
> Thanks for the correction.
>
> Jeff
>
> >Ec
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[New anti-Semitism]] and violations of NPOV re: top
 image

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 26/08/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I think NPOV is pretty innovative.
>
>> Agreed... and publicly accessible revision controlled webpages.
>
>
> That was Ward Cunningham's ;-) (Did his do version control?)
>

Heck, even ours doesn't properly do version control. You can't branch,
tag, ...

Hrm. Anyone want to re-implement MediaWiki with a /real/ version control
back end?

>
>> Wanna take bets on which of the two will have a greater influence on
>> the world outside wikipedia a decade from now? :)
>
>
> I think NPOV is more powerful than is usually appreciated. To harp on
> slightly, it's quite the powerful innovation in writing about
> Scientology, for example.
>

I wonder, what has made Wikipedia so popular? That we're NPOV, or that
we're a wiki? For some reason, people seem to think that "Wikipedia" is
a generic term to describe a wiki ("They have their own Wikipedia"), or
that "Wiki" is our name ("Please let me post this on Wiki"), or something...

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS for wikien

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't really know what that format would be. A forum? A wiki-style
>page (which there are plenty of on wikipedia)? A newsgroup

I think what stevertigo is getting at is an enhancement to the mailinglist server software that would recognize the HTML markup Yahoo uses to quote what's being replied to.  Not necessarily to keep the HMTL, but at least to convert it.  As it is, you have to use a separate editor.  An RSS type mailinglist where you at least get some basic markup would be nice.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the  new Yahoo.com


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 8/25/06, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> What are the elections for? We choose a representative. That
> representative represents the communities. If someone is no part of
> the communities, should it be able to vote who should represent that
> community? It's a good question. But I don't think someone should be
> taken away his or her right to vote when (s)he is banned from a
> project. That would be as an additional punishment. I think it would
> be best to state that the edits on the project you are indeinitely
> banned from do not count. So if it was your only project, you can't
> vote. But when you were active enough on another project as well, and
> not banned indef there, it's ok to vote. That way it is not an
> additional punishment, but a clearer definition of the representation.

ACK. Also seems easiest to implement; Special:Boardvote only has to
check for a local block flag.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki entropy

body:
Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

>On 8/25/06, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> Yes, because people who revert war out citations in violation of NPOV
>> on their pet subjects[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_anti-Semitism&diff=71602684&oldid=71601636]
>> are exactly the sort of people we want on an editoral board. :-/

>Greg, that isn't fair. That was done within a context of a very
>difficult editing situation on that page, with troublemakers turning
>up to cause all kinds of problems. We've got a couple of them on the
>page at the moment actually trying to change quotations.

>I intend to wait until the page has quietened down and then I'm going
>to write a caption that fully reflects the debate and what the sources
>say, but there's just no point at the moment.

No point to write or keep an accurate caption, but point enough to revert over and over again, so much so as to cause 3RR violations?  If there's no point, why bother reverting?

It also seems that the article title has a very definite spin to it that would be better captured under Hezbollah or a Pro-Lebanon article considering that the opposition of the "New" is not just Israel.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.net/index.php?title=User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
 All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.


body:
No Spam wrote:

> That is my vision for starters, I suspect the thing will morph well beyond
> this -- meeting needs as they emerge. That after all is a nice benefit of
> wiki.
>
> Do you have any suggestions for me on how to proceed? Perhaps a contact at
> wiki headquarters where I can begin a fact finding mission?
>
> Al
>

You've made the initial contacts here on this list that matter.  There
are a few different directions we can go, and I'll try to respond
privately with a few additional suggestions.

I would suggest that you look around the Meta Wiki
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/) and revise and augument the existing
proposals that are already there, as I mentioned earlier.

This effort is clearly in need of a "reboot" or some restarting of the
effort, as earlier efforts have clearly stalled out.  The main thing I
wanted you to know was that this is a recurring proposal idea and has
been identified by multiple individuals as something valuable to
consider.  It is unfortunately the efforts to get this accomplished have
not hit the traction necessary to get this going in a fashion that
apparently you and I both agree upon here.

Hopefully, with a little bit of effort, you can help add some leadership
here that is needed.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: No Spam

body:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Scott Horning" <robert_horning at netzero.net>
> To: "No Spam" <nospam at cacace.org>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 12:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] proposed new project - wikistandards
>
>
>> No Spam wrote:
>>
>>>I would like to propose a new wikiproject, called wikistandards, in which
>>>the community at-large contributes to the creation of international
>>>standards (a wiki version of ANSI and ISO).
>>>The first standard I would like to begin work on is a Project Management
>>>standard. The impetus for this comes from my frustration over the Project
>>>Management Institute's standard www.pmi.org
>>>It is also an IEEE standard:
>>>http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/product.asp?sku=IEEE+Std+1490-2003
>>>And there is also the ISO standard:
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10006
>>>PRINCE2
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2
>>>There are other lesser known examples of closed committee works or this
>>>nature.
>>>
>>>The PMI standard suffers from 'design by committee' and is, to say the
>>>least, stultifying. Lets see how the wiki community does at designing
>>>standards.
>>>
>>>I look forward to comments.
>>>I am willing to start the first project off but need some guidance and
>>>advice on how to proceed.
>>>
>>>Regards
>>>Al
>>>
>> Have you seen the pages on Meta:
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikistandards
>>
>> and a competing proposal
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards
>>
>> It should be noted that this proposal has been formally "voted" on by a
>> small community that has sought to create this idea into a full Wikimedia
>> sister project.  I am unsure of its current status by the special project
>> committee, especially as Wikiversity has been far more dominent in the
>> conversations that have been going on with that group.
>>
>> I was actually planning on trying to move Wikistandards to the Incubator
>> Wiki (http://incubator.wikimedia.org/) to do a trial run of this idea,
>> but I'm currently quite overwhelmed right now trying to get Wikiversity
>> going instead (for myself).  I know that there is already a small
>> community of people who are interested in seeing something like this to
>> be developed, and it would really be just a matter of informing that
>> group if something were put together and to try and restart the momentum
>> that had occured earlier.
>>
>> I would have to agree that a Wiki being used to develop standards in a
>> very open process is something that would be beneficial to the standards
>> development community.  The costs of purchasing "standards" range from
>> merely very expensive to insane.  In fact, one reason that has often been
>> given for the price of some standards is to act as an anti-competitive
>> pressure to make sure that those who purchase the standards have the
>> financial means to really make something work, or specifically to
>> discourage new people from  getting involved in the development of the
>> standards.  I have seen some of these standards go for a price of over
>> $100,000 for a single 300 page book.
>>
>> ISO standards are ones that are "merely very expensive", as I don't think
>> paying $500 for a 500 page book is necessarily a fair value for the
>> standard.  The reason given behind why they charge so much, even for a
>> PDF version of the standard that you download off the internet, is
>> supposedly the network bandwidth and server storage costs.  You are also
>> indirectly helping to pay for the standards development committees, and
>> for the office staff of the standards agency (which for the USA is
>> located in downtown Manhattan).
>>
>> I believe that such standards can be made much more cheaply.  Network
>> bandwidth and storage costs are not nearly what ANSI or IEEE make them
>> out to be (both are local agencies or "chapters" for ISO in the USA).  I
>> also beleive that there are sponsorship opportunities to help pay for
>> these costs that could be obtained by the Wikimedia Foundation
>> specifically to make sure that these standards are made available, and
>> they could be made free.
>>
>> --
>> Robert Scott Horning
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "No Spam" <nospam at cacace.org>
To: "Robert Scott Horning" <robert_horning at netzero.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] proposed new project - wikistandards
 Hello Robert,

 Your historical knowledge of this is valuable and appreciated.
 And your personal insights are equally valuable and important.
 The reasons you state, and more, are what motivate me to get this going.

 I want to emphasize the following point to all that may be involved that
the
 intent (as I see it) is to generate a public domain knowledge base designed
 by inclusion (the wiki community and not an exclusive committee) in the
wiki
 tradition, that is created and used by everyone at no cost. The resulting
 body of knowledge will serve up enough information to spawn new businesses
 and organizations that feed off of the wikistandards effort. I suspect that
 some types of standards will have to become rigid; at defined points of
 progress, a permanent snapshot of a wikistandard will have to be archived
 for it to serve its purpose (such as a standard for a next generation
 bluetooth technology).

 I also believe, for a while anyway, that the ISO's and ANSI's of the world
 will continue to serve an important purpose. But they will nonetheless see
 this effort as a threat. To allay the fears of those who have something to
 lose wikistandards will not serve all needs. Firms that want to push
 standards in a direction that serves their proprietary needs (patents, etc)
 will be frustrated with the wiki way. They will insist on going through
ANSI
 and ISO. For example, the waring tribes of firms that fought over the HDTV
 standard for so many years feel that their interests can only be protected
 by fighting it out in exclusivity. It will be interesting to see how that
 continues to play out once the wiki standard effort goes open-source.

 The example of PMI (www.pmi.org) is interesting. PMI reminds us that their
 standard is a basis from which you, NASA for example, can build your own
 standard that is applicable to your industry or business. A sort of
building
 block or template. The standard is not directly applicable to any end-use.
 And, as you say, PMI charges a lot of money for this standard. Furthermore,
 they are quick to file suit against anyone who plagarizes their document
 (perhaps a large protion of the $1,500 for certain pubs pays for the
 lawyers).

 Wikistandards would act with autonomy and freedom to include every work,
 hyperlinked with every best practice, from which a menu of such elements
may
 be chosen to form your custom methodologies. And naturally, at least some
 standards will be useful on their own merits (such as a standard for a next
 generation bluetooth technology). If innovation is accelerating at a
 non-linear pace now (kurzweil) imagine what it can do if standards are
 broader, more alive, and easily accessed.

 I can also envision a day when wiki can offer certification exams for those
 who want to show they are knowledgeable experts on any given wikistandard
 (Certified Wiki-IT ?).

 That is my vision for starters, I suspect the thing will morph well beyond
 this -- meeting needs as they emerge. That after all is a nice benefit of
 wiki.

 Do you have any suggestions for me on how to proceed? Perhaps a contact at
 wiki headquarters where I can begin a fact finding mission?

 Al


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 8/25/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>Fair enough.  I'm too wrapped up in wiki-world now --- I can't remember
>>if "edits" makes sense to non-Wikipedians anymore!
>>
>>>How about something along a slightly different track:
>>>"Internet wisdom made accessible"
>>
>>"You're the man now, dog!"
>
> Combine them:
>
> "You're the editor."

Seriously now: "Help us help you!"

(Or some variant.  Inspiration could be drawn from "I'd like to buy the
world a Coke" if necessary.)

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


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 8/26/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/26/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 2006, at 9:53, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> >
> > > I've always liked "Wikipedia - the people's encyclopedia"
> > > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Wikipedia is to information what democracy once was to government: of
> > the people, for the people, by the people.
>
> Exactly! I realise that people might associate it with a certain
> Peoples republic (ironic, since said People's Republic are blocking
> us), But I really do think it describes us fairly well.

Information of the world, unite!

--
Sam


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 122

body:
On 25/08/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > In interviews I say "We're very far from perfect, but we're *good
> > enough to be useful*."
> >
>
> That's a nice slogan: "Wikipedia: Good enough to be useful"

"Wikipedia: Useful enough to be dangerous."

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> But to get us started, someone needs to make
> that UI mockup.

Very draft mock-up of a possible UI, from what I think you're describing:
http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/ui-draft-mockup.png
In the picture, the "Notify others of my edit" box should be ticked (since it is shown in the list).
Maybe "Notify others of my edit" should labelled "Notify others of my progress"?
Maybe the number of characters changed should be shown, maybe it shouldn't.
Maybe the name of the other user should be shown, and maybe it shouldn't.
Maybe the user's own changes should be shown in the list, maybe they shouldn't.

For the messages between client JavaScript and the PHP on the server, sounds like maybe there are 3 types of messages:
1) A status update when someone starts editing something, or a periodic update as they make changes.
2) A method for querying what the current status is of ongoing edits it.
3) A response from the server as to what the status of current edits is.

Format 1 probably needs the summary, section, revision, time since the user last changed anything in the textbox, and possibly the
number of characters changed. The server presumably already knows the username from the cookie.
E.g.: (Section, chars modified, revision, seconds since last change, edit summary):
["Background",235,20060823110052,34,"Typo fixes"]

Format 2:
Can just be a get request, using the exact same URL format as per index.php :
e.g. GET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/edit-status.php?title=User:Nickj/Sandbox

Possible response format from PHP on server for number 3 (in response to GET request #2) is:

# No conflicts:
[]

# Only one conflict. Fields are: Username, section name, changed characters, timestamp of version editing, seconds since last
change, edit summary:
[["User:Nickj","Background",235,20060823110052,34,"Typo fixes"]]

# Two conflicts (sorted by seconds since last change?) :
[["User:Nickj","Background",235,20060823110052,34,"Typo fixes"],["User:203.15.35.81","",1000,20041112231221,100,"I am a Vandal!"]]

You probably also need a timeout mechanism (e.g. if haven't received a status report from a client in 5 mins, then drop the user
from the list), and maybe also a message to inform the server if the user aborts the edit (although they can just click the "back"
button, rather than clicking "cancel", in which case you probably won't get the message).

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: cohesion

subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS for wikien

body:
On 8/26/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't really know what that format would be. A forum? A wiki-style
> page (which there are plenty of on wikipedia)? A newsgroup (which is
> essentially the same thing as a mailinglist, see
> news://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english )?
> If you want real discussion, you can't try to limit what somebody is
> saying, and if you have as many members as wikiEN has, there are going
> to be a lot of posts and not always easy to follow the discussion.
> Threads and forks and subject renamings and funny posts are going to
> occur. The only way to limit it is to drastically cut down on the
> number of members ("Everyone with less than 2000 edits must DIE!!!"),
> and that's not an option that any of us wants.
>
> Personally, I think the mailinglist/newsgroup (NNTP) way is by far the
> greatest way of conversing on the internet. Although, for shorter
> discussion that may take longer time (ie talkpages), the wiki-way is
> pretty awesome.
>

Since we're on the google thread already, google groups is kinda a
newsgroup/mailing list hybrid. I haven't used it extensively, but it
might be something to look at. It's not as open as what we're using
now though, so there are some drawbacks. It also looks like it does
push you to the webpage more than being email-only, which is probably
unacceptable for many people.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 26 Aug 2006, at 14:33, Sam Korn wrote:

> On 8/26/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 8/26/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Aug 25, 2006, at 9:53, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've always liked "Wikipedia - the people's encyclopedia"
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>> Wikipedia is to information what democracy once was to
>>> government: of
>>> the people, for the people, by the people.
>>
>> Exactly! I realise that people might associate it with a certain
>> Peoples republic (ironic, since said People's Republic are blocking
>> us), But I really do think it describes us fairly well.
>
> Information of the world, unite!

There is a risk that we will put all primary sources out of business:

Wikipedia - the encyclopaedia you used to be able to edit.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] More slogans

body:
On 8/26/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2006, at 9:53, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
> > I've always liked "Wikipedia - the people's encyclopedia"
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Wikipedia is to information what democracy once was to government: of
> the people, for the people, by the people.

Exactly! I realise that people might associate it with a certain
Peoples republic (ironic, since said People's Republic are blocking
us), But I really do think it describes us fairly well.

And by the way, when did "people" become one of those loaded, Newspeak
words, that cannot be used without making a reference to something
else. You know like communist, socialist, terrorist, freedom, liberal,
etc. Maybe a better slogan would be "Wikipedia - The encyclopedia for
the masses" or "Wikipedia - The encyclopedia for the rest of us". If
we're going down that path maybe we should just fess up and call it "I
can't believe it's not Britannica!" and post a picture of an "<- I'm
with stupid!" T-shirt on our frontpage.

Yeah, I guess, "Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia" is a pretty good
slogan. How about we just remove the "that anyone can edit" part? That
seems like a good solution to me...

--Oskar


subject: [Foundation-l] [Election] Language barriers, specially English one

body:
On meta, Fruggo said:
> I too found it odd that most statements were only in English, while most candidates stated that they participate in several languages (I wonder, what is the level of participation if you don't speak the language...). But what bothered me more was the level of English used in the statements. I've translated candicacy statements before, among other things on foundation and meta, but this was the first time I almost gave up: guys, what difficult words you use! Please keep in mind that the statements are also meant for non-native English speakers. If you use such difficult English now, how will that be when non-native English speakers try and understand board discussions? Fruggo 07:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well said.

I hope all native English speaking editors, in particular who are
ambitious to get involved into the Foundation level, or even on the
community, all who wants to join the interproject a/o  -language type
activities, more than half of the Wikimedia project participants are
NOT native speakers of English.

Fruggo is a good translator and one of core staff of En -> Nl
translations for a long time. Not only on candidate presentation, but
on other pages, I myself have faced several problems. I appreciate her
to bring up this problem in this occasion.

Also, I would like to stress hereby the Election Committee don't
assure each of candidates the possibility of translation. If you
writes unclearly, your statement loss the chance to be translated and
read on the community. So, dear candidate, please check your statement
and consider if it is clear for everyone, not for your friends who are
native English speakers, but for all. And if possible, consider to
rewrite it more clearly, or provide the community with another english
version - simple English or alike. And if you are capable in multiple
languages, please try to prepare another language version by your own
hands. For multilingual translators, such possibility of comparison
might be helpful to make a better work.

We try to find translators, and currently many translators are
volunterring to put those statement into their language, but as Fruggo
properly said on the above, no one cannot translate what they cannot
understand. It might be harmful, misguiding the reader-voters.

To translators: I request you all the Election translator to consider
to leave your work incomplete, boldly, in case you are not sure you
understand properly. Misinformation is worse than no information in my
opinion. Leave the original message in the original language and leave
your comment on the talk or as comment on that page. If you ask the
candidate to ask to clarify what he or she intended, I will greately
appreciate you for your efforts, and possibly the community, but
please note, it is not mundetory for you and you needn't be exhausted
for this work. Please give up, before you are torn. Close the window
and go out to take a fresh air of the late summer.

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload large files

references:
<44E9A0AF.8080108@web.de> <ece7r5$ps6$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecosr0$593$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 26/08/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> Currently when you upload a non-supported file format I have the very
> strong impression the check of the is allowed is done after the file is
> uploaded. That is annoying for the user and a waste resources to upload
> the file.

The pre-upload check couldn't determine that the user *was* passing a
file which was, e.g. a GIF, a JPEG, a PNG...that has to happen through
server-side MIME detection, which is done post-facto.

The most we could do is to check that the extension was on the allowed
list; we'd still have to check *what* the user uploaded afterwards and
make sure it was still allowed.

Rob Church


subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit conflicts

body:
On 25/08/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I would probably mumble something about my long-ago proposal to do away
> with the "Edit Conflict" screen altogether, if only it hadn't been
> criticised and flamed so much at the time....

I'd like to see it removed in more cases; more intelligent handling of
merges. And in the cases where it does come up, as mentioned above,
I'd like to see people presented with a fancier interface (where
possible), to make it all easier.

I'd suspect an edit conflict is up there with other horrendous quirks
when putting newbies off participating in discussions.

Rob Church