from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Article surveys, revisited

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/6/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>>Sean Barrett wrote:
>>>
>>>>Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
>>>>
>>>>>Sounds familiar.  For reasons now lost in the mists of time I have
>>>>>"donkey punch" on my watchlist; it never ceases to amaze me how so
>>>>>little can be said in so many words by so many editors.  For all that,
>>>>>it remains a "supposed sex move" which has never been documented by
>>>>>any reliable source as having been used.
>>>>>Guy (JzG)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>If the very existence of the subject of an article is unverifiable, can
>>>>the entire article be removed by any editor as unsourced?
>>>>
>>>
>>>It would be a shame to lose [[F-19]].
>>>
>>
>>I have a book which explains the story of F-19 and how it came into
>>being in about one paragraph; unfortunately I can't add the reference at
>>the moment because I've lent it to someone.
>>
>
> Let me guess: you're related to Pierre de Fermat.
>

*grin*

Alright, I've found the reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunk_works&action=edit&section=7

Alright, it would help if I'd actually read the article...

Basically, the [[Testor Corporation]] took the front end of the [[SR-71
Blackbird]], stuck some wings on it, and sold it as a model kit;
Lockheed and Air Force officials were furious that what was supposed to
be a top-secret project had become a best-selling kid's Christmas present.

I have no idea if the rest of the article is true or not, but that's
what I know about it. Well, at least it's a reference...

BTW, the same reference appears in [[Aurora aircraft]], which is also
mostly speculation; according to Ben Rich, Aurora was the CIA codename
for the /funding/ of the B-2. Getting enough money to build an aircraft
that cost $2 billion apiece was such a monumnetal task that they
codenamded it. I have no reason to believe otherwise; if such a plane
/had/ existed, /someone/ would have heard about it.

--
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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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Though a project to replace all the photographs on Wikipedia with
>>>drawings *would* be entertaining.
>>>
>>
>>If a little short notice for this year's April Fools' :)
>>
>
> A little tinkering with the image-crunching pipeline could auto
> translate photographs into line drawings when they're asked for,
> then clear the cache at the end of the day to cover one's tracks.
> OK, I've said too much already, please delete this message.
>

How about the software Apple use for their iPod/iTunes ads? :)

--
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: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 2006, at 4:00 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
> > On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's be silly on
> >> April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have some
> >> weaknesses.
> >
> >
> > This is about humor. What people find funny isn't something that is
> > to be
> > voted on. There is no "argument" in comedy. It's a joke. That's the
> > point.
> > Apparently, you don't find this idea funny. Others do. There isn't
> > any way
> > to resolve the discrepancy, whether in debate or in armed combat to
> > the
> > death.
>
> On the contrary. Armed combat to the death resolves all
> discrepancies, by means of exterminating all dissenters.

My favorite weapon is the lance with a brick on the end.

[http://www.kband.com/blog/2006/03/01/pwned.html]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/6/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>>Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>It's
>>>>inappropriate for them to do so in an infantile
>>>>fashion. That applies
>>>>to you and to Freakofnurture.
>>>
>>>
>>Stefan wrote:
>>
>>>Is it what you say official? If it is, then I would
>>>like to see this policy. Or perhaps you are Jimbo's
>>>right hand and have the authority to say what is, and
>>>what is not, appropriate. I think that the most
>>>appropriate thing for people to do, is to mind their
>>>own business when something is not harming anyone. And
>>>if Jimbo is Libertarian, as someone suggested in the
>>>past, then he should start acting like one.
>>
>>If you're asking me to assert an absolute right of infantile stupidity
>>and freedom to stalk and harass other users, then you won't get it, sorry.
>
>
> Whoa, where did the freedom to stalk and harass other users come into
> this conversation?
>
> Hello, straw man, burning in the square.
>

Is it acceptable to urinate on it if I'm trying to put it out?

--
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] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's much like a parent telling their rebellious teenager:
> >
> > "You think drugs and rock and roll are punk? What would be REALLY punk
> > would be to eat vegetables and do your homework and go to Sunday
> > School! That's how to REALLY break expectations!"
>
> [[Straight edge]]

Right. Straight edge is about self-empowerment -- being that way not
because of your parents, but because of self-determination.

It's not so much the message, as the messenger.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/8/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > On the contrary. Armed combat to the death resolves all
> > discrepancies, by means of exterminating all dissenters.
> >
> > --
> > Philip L. Welch
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
> Well I supose we could try and settle this by a vale tudo edit war.

Yeep.

If we are going to take the "let's be fundamentally serious" approach
to WIkipedia, it would be fun to be a little more baroque than just
highlighting oddness. Like giving over the homepage to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Harry_Potter .


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Craig Franklin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Voting for the closing down of Moldovan

body:
I hate to say, but I find myself agreeing with Node about this.  It seems
absurd to me that Romanians should be allowed to participate in the vote, to
the exclusion of all others.  It would be similar to having a vote on
closing the Scots wikipedia, where only English and Scots voters were
permitted to voice an opinion.

Note that I'm not disputing the facts that "Moldovian" and "Romanian" are
essentially the same language, or the assertation that all the content on
mo.wiki is rubbish, but it seems grossly unfair to me to gerrymander the
electorate in such a way as to exclude many people who might have a
legitimate point of view.

Regards,
Craig Franklin
[en:User:Lankiveil]

-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture.

Scr?obh Mark Williamson:

>I have to object to this summary. There are a number of things about
>the vote which were unfair. Please see
>http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Node_ue/Rezultat_alegeri_-_%D0%A0%D0%B5%D
0%B7%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D3%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8
C

>Note especially points 2, 3, 4, and 5.

>It seems highly suspect to me that of all voters (the dozens and
>dozens of them), only 6 are actually "from Moldova", and even that
>cannot be confirmed.

>I should note that I, for one, boycotted the vote; other votes were
>deleted unfairly.


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
I would've done it at school if I had it on Saturday. Stupid calendar
*grumbles*

On 3/7/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> geni stated for the record:
>
> > On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
> >
> >>I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move
> the
> >>main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".
> >
> > Anyone trying to do that will be blocked within seconds I happen to be
> online.
>
> /me makes a note to use his AOL account.
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | Give a person a fish and you feed them for
> sean at epoptic.org | a day; teach a person to edit Wikipedia
>                   | and they won't bother you for months.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> OX+K78VL3Mc6zdr6lYj2HrY=
> =9Z+q
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
Mark: have a break have a KitKat...

Serv

2006/3/7, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>:
>
> Mark,
>
> Whether or not you are fluent in Moldovan is extremely important here,
> because you are the unique contributor. You created mo.wiki, you
> copied (from ro.wiki) most articles, and you, alone, are fighting for it.
> Given that this wiki is by you and for you, it could be justified as a
> hobby. But there are two problems: you do not seem to learn Moldovan
> and you promote old stalinist linguistic policies that hurt people's
> feelings.
> It still is a mystery to me how an American came to profess such
> conservative communist linguistic policies.
>
> And, BTW, you called me a liar earlier, but you somehow failed to mention
> a single Moldovan editor (i.e. one that claims to be Moldovan) that
> supports
> your views.
>
>
>
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:> You excel in hiding important
> issues under details. Fact is that Romanian/Moldovan is complex, and that
> you cannot write Moldovan correctly.
>
> Whether or not the language(s) is/are complex is entirely irrelevant
> to the discussion. Also, my abilities (or alleged lack thereof) aren't
> particularly relevant to the discussion.
>
> > Concerning your claim that Moldovans are not Moldovans, it's pure FUD.
> If you want to continue in the same direction, please provide proof of your
> existence, and that you are not a KGB/FSB agent. :)
>
> I never claimed that "Moldovans are not Moldovans". What I did claim
> is that those people who claim on Wikipedia to be Moldovans have not
> substantiated their identity in the least, with the exception of
> Pavel.
>
> > As concerns the "Moldovan" schools of Transnistria, you forgot to tell
> that Moldovans there are forced to go to these schools, and that their
> attempts to open latin-scripted schools were crushed by security forces.
>
> No -- there are schools that teach in Latin. However, they are forced
> to operate as private schools and do not receive support from the
> state.  There are two Latin-script highschools and a total of 8% of
> Transnistrian kids go to Latin-script schools. There are also 14
> Moldavian schools (total), using Cyrillic, and 2 Moldavian-Russian
> bilingual schools.
>
> The Romanian press was happy to report when schools were closed, on
> the front page, but when some were re-opened (as private
> institutions), it was much farther back.
>
> Mark
>
> >
> >
> > Mark Williamson  wrote:  > Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but
> I think that discussing
> > > politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
> > > is off-topic on this list. :-)
> >
> > That was a sub-topic of an e-mail. When replying to e-mails, you are
> > more than welcome to ignore topics you find irrelevant.
> >
> > > Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
> > > evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
> > > a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
> > > must be in Moldova.
> >
> > Still, do you have evidence that any of the other so-called
> > "Moldovans" are real people, in Moldova?
> >
> > > Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
> > > with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
> > > language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.
> > >
> > > Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
> > > is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
> > > same language and just the name is different.
> >
> > That's not really the issue here. What is the issue, is that 36% of
> > Moldovans (excluding residents of Transnistria) claim "Moldovan" as
> > their native language; the official script in Transnistria is
> > Cyrillic, the official language in Transnistria is Moldavian (they
> > still call it that in English officially in Transnistria, I think),
> > and many schoolchildren in Transnistria/PMR/Stinga Nistrului go to
> > "Moldavian schools", where the teaching is in Moldovan Cyrillic, or
> > "Russian/Moldavian bilingual schools", where teaching time is divided
> > between Russian, and Moldovan Cyrillic.
> >
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.
> _______________________________________________
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> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Obviously, the larger and more contentious the community, the bigger the
> challenge of consensus.  But we cannot undertake such a debate without
> an open analysis of parliamentarianism's defects.  Such a system
> encourages the forming of parties that will promote and protect
> particular policies, and who will be happy to have their POV succeed by
> a bare majority.  It leads to the tyranny of the majority.

Parties generaly require a representive democracy. What we have is
closer to the athian system.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> On more serious note I'd just like to ask people to *please* limit
> themselves to free licensed images when doing the compulsary photoshopped
> Jimbo images and what not (or at least have them all deleted the next
> day). There are enough copyvio images to clean out on a regular wikiday as
> it is without ending up with long fights over "parody" fair use claims for
> months or even years afterwards, like
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki-gonzales.jpg> from last year.
> Sure it's fun, but it gives people the wrong idea about fair use on
> Wikipedia if we start keeping a lot of these patody pictures around in
> project space.
>
> --
> [[User:Sherool]]

Hmmm I suspect the fair use claim on
[[Image:AdParody-anti-gaySlogan.png]] may also be open to question.

--
geni


list: foundation-l

from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[Foundation-l] Results of second (German) Wikipedia usability
	test online

body:
On 3/6/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> The idea was the users who are just care about getting something
> uploaded will be satisfied, and the image will survive only with the
> help of more established users. We don't want new users changing the
> notice, even if this means that some users who could have selected the
> right license will not do so... it's better to have 5 more images
> flagged for review than 1 incorrectly flagged as free licensed.

I wonder if we should prompt more explicitly for image sources in the upload?

-Matt


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Voting for the closing down of Moldovan Wikipedia

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
>> It seems that I need to justify my participation in this
>> discussion. I have two arguments for it: 1. Fluency in Moldovan.
>> By any linguistic standards I speak  the Moldovan dialect of
>> Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact alone
>> should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can
>> even read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
>
>
> Somehow I doubt you are able to read and write "correctly" in
> Cyrillic.
>
>

Mark, I have some questions which I think you should answer before
anyone takes you seriously on this matter:

1. How old are you?
2. Where do you live?
3. Where were you brought up?
4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
5. How did you learn those languages?

--
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:
Interesting usability survey - and yes, most of it is common to most
Wikipedia editions (and indeed to most Wikimedia projects).

-Matt


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:51:12 +0100, Death Phoenix
<originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:

> It wasn't Main Page is Communism?
>
> On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
>> >
>> > I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd
>> move
>> > the
>> > main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".
>>
>>
>> LOL!
>>
>> Ryan

How about just "Main page is communism on wheels!" as a compromise :P

--
[[User:Sherool]]


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>The Cunctator stated for the record:
>
>
>>On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>It's much like a parent telling their rebellious teenager:
>>>>
>>>>"You think drugs and rock and roll are punk? What would be REALLY punk
>>>>would be to eat vegetables and do your homework and go to Sunday
>>>>School! That's how to REALLY break expectations!"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>[[Straight edge]]
>>>
>>>
>>Right. Straight edge is about self-empowerment -- being that way not
>>because of your parents, but because of self-determination.
>>
>>It's not so much the message, as the messenger.
>>
>>
>That's the Cunctator approach in a single sentence.  Anything said by
>anyone with any positive reputation, or, God forbid, actual authority,
>is prima facia wrong, regardless of content.  If it were said by someone
>else, it might not be, but if Jimbo says it, it is to be dismissed out
>of hand.
>
>
The solution is actually quite simple. The Cunctator needs to start
advocating a serious and stuffy fake hoax for April Fool's Day. Then
people will fall in line on Jimbo's say-so, but they'll get the joke
because The Cunctator is fronting it.

Now the only thing left to really complete this picture is for the whole
userbox fiasco to go away for a day, at least. Shock the world by having
peace, love, and unity break out on Wikipedia for April 1st!

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, SCZenz <sczenz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Amen.  If our April Fools' jokes are planned in advance and organized,
> we've defeated the purpose.
>
> SCZenz

Then the BBC defeated it years ago so we can ignore it and get on with
editing wikipedia as normal.

--
geni


body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 3/6/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The idea was the users who are just care about getting something
>>uploaded will be satisfied, and the image will survive only with the
>>help of more established users. We don't want new users changing the
>>notice, even if this means that some users who could have selected the
>>right license will not do so... it's better to have 5 more images
>>flagged for review than 1 incorrectly flagged as free licensed.
>>
>>
>I wonder if we should prompt more explicitly for image sources in the upload?
>
>
I've been advocating this as a required field for a long time.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Possible open proxies?

body:
There are sufficient responses in very similar language from
sufficient diverse IP addresses that the "abolish the GMC blogger"
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:General_Medical_Council) may be
doing us a service in locating some open proxies.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:54:38 +0100, NSLE (Wikipedia)
<nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Allow political userboxen? *runs*
> --NSLE
>
> On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
>> > dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
>> > Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.
>>
>> Done by google.

We could re-format the Main Page to list all information in userbox
format, and declare that due to popular demand all articles should
henseforth be made up of a series of userboxes instead of all that
tiresome text... Although that whole issue might be too touchy to toy with
even on April 1.

On more serious note I'd just like to ask people to *please* limit
themselves to free licensed images when doing the compulsary photoshopped
Jimbo images and what not (or at least have them all deleted the next
day). There are enough copyvio images to clean out on a regular wikiday as
it is without ending up with long fights over "parody" fair use claims for
months or even years afterwards, like
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki-gonzales.jpg> from last year.
Sure it's fun, but it gives people the wrong idea about fair use on
Wikipedia if we start keeping a lot of these patody pictures around in
project space.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh, I don't know; first there were the Inclusionists, Deletionists and
> Mergists; then there were the "joke parties" like the
> AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD

Hey, who says the AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD is a joke party?

;-)

-Kat
Staunchly and unswervingly flexible. Yeah, that's it.

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:LucidWaking
"Once you have tasted flight you will always walk with your eyes cast
upward. For there you have been and there you will always be."
- Leonardo da Vinci


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on small
 Wikipedias

body:
Andreas Vil?n wrote:

> Before rushing into this stub maniac, please think! Is it really
> a good idea to massadd substubs?

Instead of introvertly "thinking" about it, if anybody would
actually make a scientific study of growth strategies of various
wikis (or languages of Wikipedia), I'm afraid they would find that
adding lots of stubs actually does pay off, at least in the short
run.  It makes the website a bigger target for search engine
queries, and this draws a bigger audience, from where contributors
are recruited.  Creating a stub entry for every little town in the
country where the language is spoken, or for every semi-famous
person that speaks the language, can fill gaps that other websites
in the same language didn't cover.  The importance of this effect
depends heavily on how many other websites already exist in the
language.  For English, when Wikipedia started in 2001, IMDb.com
already covered most every actor and film director.  But in German
this was not the case, and the German Wikipedia filled a really
big gap during its rapid growth in 2002-2004.  I think there can
be a really big advantage in taking the substub track to growth.
If you want to stay on the quality track, you will need really
strong policies and actions.

For Swedish, one can say that susning.nu absorbed the substub
phase during its rapid growth in 2002-2003, and this has been used
as an argument to do something better with the Swedish Wikipedia.

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


from_name: future civilization

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The necessary steps to delete the Moldovan
	Wikipedia

body:
According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia "must be deleted". It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.

  This wikipedia must be deleted in respect for the people who voted there. No more talks, no more useless arguments. It was decided to delete the wikipedia and now is time to put this vote in practice.

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
  "Contributors to the Moldovan Wikipedia"? What %age of the voters had
more than 50 contributions to any Wikipedia project?

Mark

On 07/03/06, future civilization wrote:
> These are the necessary steps to delete the Moldovan Wikipedia:
>
> 1. "VALIDATION" and "ACCEPTING" by the Stewards, Bureaucrats of the votes made by the contributors on Moldovan Wikipedia.
>
> (Voting was done legally on the following link: http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri)
> (A CheckUser can be done in order to validate the votes of every contributor).
>
> 2. "Deletion of the Moldovan Wikipedia" as it was the only accepted solution proposed by the users.
>
> According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia must be deleted. It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail
Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Steve Bennett wrote:
> > >>Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> > >>willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> > >>Ourselves Too Seriously.
> > >>
> > >>Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
> > >
> > >
> > > Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> > > print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> > > ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> > > earth theory, etc etc?
> >
> > Well, I've been proposing this idea since last year, and I have to say
> > that I think both of you will come around to my perspective on this once
> > you reflect on it a bit.
> >
> > There is *nothing* clever about having fake articles on the homepage for
> > the day.  This isn't about "Not Taking Ourselves Too Seriously" it's
> > about being deliciously clever.  Fake stories on April Fool's day?  *yawn*
> >
> > But *real* stories, carefully sourced, which people *think* are fake...
> > now *that's* clever.  It's a second-order trick, a meta-trick.  Surely
> > I'm not the only one around here geeky enough to consider that kind of
> > hack to be infinitely more amusing than doing what everyone else does.
> >
> Some might consider the above argument to be a solipsistic defense of
> being stuffy and taking oneself too seriously.
>
> Especially considering the source.
>
> It's much like a parent telling their rebellious teenager:
>
> "You think drugs and rock and roll are punk? What would be REALLY punk
> would be to eat vegetables and do your homework and go to Sunday
> School! That's how to REALLY break expectations!"

[[Straight edge]]

--
geni


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Image license tags

body:
To get an idea as to what sort of image tagging is currently being used, I
did a survey of the license tags applied to the 2000 most recent images
uploaded (which represents about 24 hours and 20 minutes of uploading).  Of
those images, 134 were duplicate uploads or otherwise not accounted for,
leaving 1,866 images to check for tags.  The detailed results are at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/upload_stats

For 1,866 images uploaded, 2,014 license tags were applied:

745 images were tagged as some sort of "fair use".  The vast majority used
one of the boilerplate templates, with most of the images being tagged as
screenshots, covers, logos, and promotional images.  Only 26 generic "fair
use" tags were used, with most of them being "fair use in".

412 images were tagged with a "public domain" or equivalent tag, with most
of these being PD-self and "No rights reserved"

368 images were tagged with a free license tag.  275 of these were GFDL, 77
were Creative Commons, and the rest were an assortment of other free
licenses.

176 images were tagged with a license template that doesn't indicate the
license status, such as "don't know", "no source", or "no license"

313 images had no license tag at all.  This includes images that were
deleted before I could check for a license tag, so the number may be
misleading.

The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
forbidding modification and commercial use.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-08

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Basic section headings... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Handling of sections up to level 6 and beyond... FAILED!
Running test Resolving duplicate section names... FAILED!
Running test Template with sections, __NOTOC__... FAILED!
Running test Link inside a section heading... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 266 of 288 tests (92.36%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Need help on POV war

body:
On 3/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Second new topic today! Wow...
>
> Anyway, so I've stumbled into a POV war. Basically a topic that has
> apparently recently attracted a small number of very determined
> individuals with different points of view on the liquidation of a
> student organisation. At least one of the editing parties was a major
> player in the actual events, and possibly others. A general lack of
> knowledge, or respect for, Wikipedia conventions and editing policies
> is present.
>
> I'd really like to get a neutral, heavily sourced, informative article
> out of all this. However, there is a lot of destabilising reverts,
> deletions, additions of unsourced material, personal attacks etc going
> on.
>
> Does anyone have any advice to offer? How do you tell people that they
> can't suddenly wade into a Wikipedia article and use it to rewrite
> history? How do you tell people that removing a merge-to tag isn't a
> question of rights, it's a question of good faith? What do you do when
> someone removes carefully added material, without descending into an
> edit war?
>
> Basically, where do I go to send these people to Wikipedia 101?
>
> (I'm deliberately not mentioning the name of the article, but if
> anyone's that curious, you'll find it quickly).
>
> Steve

Well your meant to go in and try and talk to the participants and calm
them down and get them to negotate. This can work well. Or it can fail
completely.

Article RFCs can work if you get enough people. Using what links here
can also be another option for getting univolved people with at least
some interest involved.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/8/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On the contrary. Armed combat to the death resolves all
> discrepancies, by means of exterminating all dissenters.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Well I supose we could try and settle this by a vale tudo edit war.

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Need help on POV war

body:
Hi all,
  Second new topic today! Wow...

Anyway, so I've stumbled into a POV war. Basically a topic that has
apparently recently attracted a small number of very determined
individuals with different points of view on the liquidation of a
student organisation. At least one of the editing parties was a major
player in the actual events, and possibly others. A general lack of
knowledge, or respect for, Wikipedia conventions and editing policies
is present.

I'd really like to get a neutral, heavily sourced, informative article
out of all this. However, there is a lot of destabilising reverts,
deletions, additions of unsourced material, personal attacks etc going
on.

Does anyone have any advice to offer? How do you tell people that they
can't suddenly wade into a Wikipedia article and use it to rewrite
history? How do you tell people that removing a merge-to tag isn't a
question of rights, it's a question of good faith? What do you do when
someone removes carefully added material, without descending into an
edit war?

Basically, where do I go to send these people to Wikipedia 101?

(I'm deliberately not mentioning the name of the article, but if
anyone's that curious, you'll find it quickly).

Steve


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> <snip>
>
>Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple
>user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a
>maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed
>that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for
>the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support
>having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that
>aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly
>libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.
>
>Ec
>
>
I was about to sleep, but I need to reply to this.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple
>user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a
>maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed
>that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for
>the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support
>having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that
>aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly
>libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.
>
>Ec
>
>
Eek, sorry for the half-baked reply earlier. Stupid computers...

Anyway, I think those ideas are terrible. Process is important, but it
should not be fetishised. Blocking people for being pricks is one thing,
but lying about it and using the excuse of "blocking for imposing a
block exceeding 24 hours" is stupid and crazy. Has everyone gone mad
over the [[literal rule]] lately? Whatever happened to the [[mischief
rule]]? Our policies exist only because there tends to be a 1:1
correlation between the targets of their remedies and people being
dicks. Now people seem to think this correlation can hold, even if we
start developing policies with loopholes begging for trolls to demand
someone be sanctioned for "violating policy". In the end, process exists
as a guide to ferreting out the dicks in the community. It is not meant
to be used to find people you can label dicks and then sanction for
doing something else entirely.

I should also remind you that blocks are not meant to be punitive. I
find the idea of punishing an admin for a mistake by blocking utterly
ludicrous. Either the admin made a mistake, is compulsively a
mistake-maker/dick acting in good faith (not going to name names...), or
is just a plain dick acting in bad faith. The latter should be dealt
with by the arbcom or common sense; the two former categories *may* be
dealt with in a similar manner, but not always.

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh, I don't know; first there were the Inclusionists, Deletionists

Pro-content and Pro-encylopedists

> and
> Mergists; then there were the "joke parties" like the
> AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD; then the ultra-conservative nuts like the
> Association of Moral Wikipedians, Wikipedians for Decency, and finally
> the Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia...
>

You will note these parties are for the most part single issue and
there is nothing to stop you joining more than one of them.

> ...and now, while the people who still take the ADW and AIW seriously
> are largely confined to AFD/DRV (where they've become anally retentive
> process fetishests), two new powers have emerged: the Pro- and Anti-
> Userboxes camps.
>

Two much simplifaction. The process fetishests and anti-process groups
are also around and involved in the conflict alough pinning them down
to ether side can be tricky (probably favouring the pro userpage
freedom group at the monement since they have mostly stayed within
policy (admitedly with some interesting interpritations) unlike the
template namespace presivation group

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, like a parliament, there are party politics, including single-issue
> parties, floor-crossers, and a few independants.
>
Not in my country.

Consider you could have a:

deletionist, pro policy, anti userboxer

or a

deletionist, anti policy pro userboxer

Are they in the same part?

--
geni


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

Justin Cormack stated for the record:

> If there is no will to deal with it, forking en is the only other
> option.
>
> Justinc

I wish you fair winds, following seas, and the best of luck!

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Give a person a fish and you feed them for
 sean at epoptic.org | a day; teach a person to edit Wikipedia
                  | and they won't bother you for months.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEDvA7MAt1wyd9d+URAma3AJ4pIAVlF1GwJear7VEaOBsTtfM8LwCePtYd
y5zPnbhdRNy0AmAcD5X4C5c=
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-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Where is the database Schema, etc?

body:
maintenance/tables.sql

Rob Church

On 08/03/06, Rich Morin <rdm at cfcl.com> wrote:
> I'm looking for any documentation on the MySQL tables
> that MediaWiki uses.  Pointers would be appreciated.
>
> -r
> --
> http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
> http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
> http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841
>
> Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: W. Guy Finley

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/8/06 6:31 AM, "! Chris Sherlock" <ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com> wrote:

> Short and sweet: we have too many of them, most of them aren't being used as
> "fair use" images, many don't have sources, almost none have fair use
> criteria, and more than a few are being used in articles that have no real
> need for them.
>
> May I suggest that we start taking action on this issue? IMO they are a
> ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Not only that, but they are diluting
> the "freeness" of the project and causing problems for those who want to use
> our material unaltered.
>
> TBSDY

I think we need some more speedy delete criteria for images, it is getting
out of hand and I completely agree this is a ticking time bomb.

I think the first step is that any unlicensed image being uploaded as fair
use and does not have a source and fair use rationale should be speedied.  I
bet that's more than half of them right there.  The process of tagging them
as no source and then waiting a week is just way too long and too
susceptible to error.  It's the UPLOADER'S duty to make sure he/she is
meeting license requirements, if they aren't met the image should go.  It
shouldn't be the duty of the reviewer to prove it and that's usually the
perception.

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of "source" as well, some
folks seem to think citing a site that is a repository of unlicensed images
qualifies and it does not.  I think more precisely defining "source" as it
applies to images would be in order and a field to enter source information,
just like license information, should be added to the upload page.

--Guy  (EN User: Wgfinley)


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>
>We should stop all uploads of images now; free stuff can go to commons,
>so that we stop the increase: we have hundreds of thousands of old
>images
>to deal with. Its one setting on the software, we might need to get a
>bunch of admins to become commons admins to cope with the extra load
>there.
>
Not to spread too much FUD about an ongoing debate, but a flaw with the
"use commons for all free images" theory is that a number of commoners
consider that German "design rights" laws mean that nearly all pictures
of designed objects, such as toys or furniture, are not free, and that
as a consequence most interior shots are not free either. (Outdoors pics
are covered by the "Panoramafreiheit" exception.) There is also a
problem with pre-1923 things marked "PD-US" that are not necessarily PD
worldwide.

Image licensing is a hard issue that cannot be resolved with simple
solutions.

Stan


body:
Mark Wagner wrote:

>To get an idea as to what sort of image tagging is currently being used, I
>did a survey of the license tags applied to the 2000 most recent images
>uploaded (which represents about 24 hours and 20 minutes of uploading).  Of
>those images, 134 were duplicate uploads or otherwise not accounted for,
>leaving 1,866 images to check for tags.  The detailed results are at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/upload_stats
>
>For 1,866 images uploaded, 2,014 license tags were applied:
>
>745 images were tagged as some sort of "fair use".  The vast majority used
>one of the boilerplate templates, with most of the images being tagged as
>screenshots, covers, logos, and promotional images.  Only 26 generic "fair
>use" tags were used, with most of them being "fair use in".
>
This is good news actually! Boilerplates can be handled en masse with
tools as we improve our policy. It's the generic tags that require the
one-by-one manual evaluation.

>
>The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
>so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
>forbidding modification and commercial use.
>
I wouldn't miss it if it were retired, it's just confusing.

It would be interesting to retain the list of images and then see what's
happened to them a month from now. Empirically I've noticed that a lot of
fair use images are uploaded for articles that are soon deleted, and are
in turn deleted because they are orphans. I wouldn't be surprised if most
of the day's non-free uploads were gone after a month or two.

Stan


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
On 3/8/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Your plea is not well targeted. Commons our principal resource for the
> storage of media does not allow for "fair use" images. You describe a
> problem that is different depending what resource you target, many
> projects have different rules as to "fair use". The rules of new and
> the existence of "fair use" material differ as well. These rules have
> changed over time consequently pictures that complied with the rules
> at that time would not comply anymore.
[snip]

Commons may not allow it, but there are many non-free images there
which are mistagged (frequently as public domain, for example). At
least it's more clear how to handle them there.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> I'd prefer that discussion took place on IRC or some other place that
> serves as the online equivalent of "over beers at a local pub". The
> listserv is the online equivalent of "during a staff meeting at work"
> or, at best, "at the water cooler".

Ooh, them's fighting words.

But seriously, it's not fair to simply demand that a certain mode of
communication be used. IRC is inconvenient for me. I can't use it at
work, for instance.

So your analogy is quite apt - everyone can discuss at the water
cooler, but only a certain cross-section, excluding non-drinkers,
those with kids, and those allergic to smoke, can get to the pub in
the evening.

:)

Though maybe a less serious alternative list might not be a bad idea?

Steve


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
GerardM wrote:

>Hoi,
>Your plea is not well targeted. Commons our principal resource for the
>storage of media does not allow for "fair use" images. You describe a
>problem that is different depending what resource you target, many
>projects have different rules as to "fair use". The rules of new and
>the existence of "fair use" material differ as well. These rules have
>changed over time consequently pictures that complied with the rules
>at that time would not comply anymore.
>
>So yes, there is a problem. What is the problem that you want to
>address. What do you propose to do. Who do you want to do this?
>
>It is not as if people are not aware of it. It is not as if people are
>not actively dealing with it. My point is that we need people to DO
>things and not to cry wolf.
>
>Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>On 3/8/06, ! Chris Sherlock <ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Short and sweet: we have too many of them, most of them aren't being used as
>>"fair use" images, many don't have sources, almost none have fair use
>>criteria, and more than a few are being used in articles that have no real
>>need for them.
>>
>>May I suggest that we start taking action on this issue? IMO they are a
>>ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Not only that, but they are diluting
>>the "freeness" of the project and causing problems for those who want to use
>>our material unaltered.
>>
>>TBSDY
>>
>>
I think Gerard is dead on with this one.  Is it en.wikipedia that is
having a serious problem?  Policies and guidelines within Wikipedia are
fairly explicit about what is permitted and what is not, although it
does take some digging around to find the policies.  For en.wikipedia,
you have:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFair_use

which BTW is just a "guideline" but does cover some of the reasons to
have fair-use content on Wikipedia.  Another page to look at is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFair_use_criteria

which is "policy" but does seem to duplicate much of the previous page.

For en.wikibooks, due in part to some recent discussions here on this
mailing list, I started the following policy with a solicitation request
for comments:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3AFair_Use_Policy

It is on the fast track to becoming an enforced policy, and by using
these guidelines it is proposed that we delete content that may even be
legal for us to have from a strict interpretation of fair-use laws but
from the standpoint of project policy it would be unacceptable.  Noted
especially is parody applications of fair-use which is going to be
explicitly prohibited from Wikibooks, and a recommendation to use
Uncyclopedia if you really care to parody something.  The other point is
that if the use of the image is not explicitly permitted under the
fair-use policy, it is considered a copyright violation (barring content
acceptable to Commons).

BTW, I want to thank the administrators of the Italian Wikipedia for
showing me their policy on this issue, which the Wikibooks policy was
adapted from.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] It's dead, Jim!

body:
On 5 Mar 2006 at 21:59, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> The site is experiencing technical difficulties, apparently.  Seems to
> be titsup.com.

Given that it's published by a noncommercial organization, it really
should be titsup.org, shouldn't it?

--
== 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/


body:
On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:

> The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
> so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
> forbidding modification and commercial use.

This holds with what I've seen... the majority of the
"CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" images that I've seen are not free
(some are "provided that this image not be used for commercial use"!)
-- enough so that I wonder if it wouldn't be better to get rid of the
template altogether and ask the copyright holders of the other images
to license under CC-BY.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:LucidWaking
"Once you have tasted flight you will always walk with your eyes cast
upward. For there you have been and there you will always be."
- Leonardo da Vinci


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Intent to launch Chinese Wikinews

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Chinese Wikinews has long met the formal requirements of a new Wikinews
> edition to be launched. There has now been another poll:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh
>
> which currently has 36 votes in favor of launching, including many
> Chinese Wikipedians, and only one (!) vote opposed. As per the voting
> rules, given more than 90% support after a week of voting, this means
> that the project can go ahead.
>
> Are there any objections from the Board to launching the project now? If
> I don't hear anything by the end of the week, I presume we can go ahead
> and set up the site.
>
> Erik

Do it.

Ant

PS : could mainland chinese vote since they are blocked ?
(note that the answer will not change the statement above...)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Kat Walsh wrote:
> On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
>> so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
>> forbidding modification and commercial use.
>>
>
> This holds with what I've seen... the majority of the
> "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" images that I've seen are not free
> (some are "provided that this image not be used for commercial use"!)
>
I actually did some poking around in the conditional use image category
just last night, and while I didn't keep a rigorous tally I didn't find
any that weren't free of onerous conditions. The vast majority of them
were simply "free for any use as long as the artist is credited."
Perhaps the non-free ones get weeded out over time. But even in the new
images that Mark checked only two out of seven were a problem (out of
two _thousand_ total) so I don't see this as a major concern.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/8/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> The solution is actually quite simple. The Cunctator needs to start
> advocating a serious and stuffy fake hoax for April Fool's Day. Then
> people will fall in line on Jimbo's say-so, but they'll get the joke
> because The Cunctator is fronting it.
>
I already did, when I wrote:

If we are going to take the "let's be fundamentally serious" approach
to WIkipedia, it would be fun to be a little more baroque than just
highlighting oddness. Like giving over the homepage to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Harry_Potter .


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You created the username "Let's Get High And Edit Wikipedia" and
> wondered why you are blocked as having an inappropriate username. The
> reasons are the same as why we wouldn't allow any of the names I listed
> above.

(Note: I previously stated I thought this was an inappropriate username.)

Part of the complaint, I think, is that the username was blocked
without any comment other than "stoner..."

But it's possible the complaints are facetious, since there sure seem
to be a lot of  "Let's..." usernames associated with general
silliness.

I'll assume good faith, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to do so.


body:
On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
> so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
> forbidding modification and commercial use.

I don't remember if I ever asked this question, but are
"non-commercial use" images acceptable at all?

Also, you didn't really just manually check 2000 images did you???

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Need help on POV war

body:
On 3/8/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well your meant to go in and try and talk to the participants and calm
> them down and get them to negotate. This can work well. Or it can fail
> completely.

Sounds like, "when negotiating with a terrorist, try and get him to
calm down" :) What I mean is, I don't think I can manage to achieve
that by myself...so...

> Article RFCs can work if you get enough people. Using what links here
> can also be another option for getting univolved people with at least
> some interest involved.

...perhaps an RFC would be a good idea in a week or so.  More neutral
people probably is the way to go for a start. While I'm "semi-neutral"
on the topic I do have my own interest, of course...

Steve


body:
On 3/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
> > so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
> > forbidding modification and commercial use.
>
> I don't remember if I ever asked this question, but are
> "non-commercial use" images acceptable at all?

They are permitted if and only if they were uploaded before May 2005,
and even then, they should be deleted when a replacement is found.

> Also, you didn't really just manually check 2000 images did you???

No.  I wrote a program to count every template applied to the images,
then spent an hour removing non-license templates, sorting,
categorizing, and merging duplicates.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
On 3/8/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Mark Wagner wrote:
>
> >To get an idea as to what sort of image tagging is currently being used, I
> >did a survey of the license tags applied to the 2000 most recent images
> >uploaded (which represents about 24 hours and 20 minutes of uploading).  Of
> >those images, 134 were duplicate uploads or otherwise not accounted for,
> >leaving 1,866 images to check for tags.  The detailed results are at
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/upload_stats
> >
> >For 1,866 images uploaded, 2,014 license tags were applied:
> >
> >745 images were tagged as some sort of "fair use".  The vast majority used
> >one of the boilerplate templates, with most of the images being tagged as
> >screenshots, covers, logos, and promotional images.  Only 26 generic "fair
> >use" tags were used, with most of them being "fair use in".
> >
> This is good news actually! Boilerplates can be handled en masse with
> tools as we improve our policy. It's the generic tags that require the
> one-by-one manual evaluation.

The only tag that can be handled completely automatically is
{{fairusein}} -- such images can be removed from any article they
don't have a tag for.  All the other tags require human evaluation to
decide if the tag is applied correctly ({{promophoto}} and
{{promotional}} are frequently applied to any image found on official
or fan websites) and decide if the image is being used in a way that
the template allows.

> It would be interesting to retain the list of images and then see what's
> happened to them a month from now. Empirically I've noticed that a lot of
> fair use images are uploaded for articles that are soon deleted, and are
> in turn deleted because they are orphans. I wouldn't be surprised if most
> of the day's non-free uploads were gone after a month or two.

I've got the list.  The problem is that my program collecting the
statistics didn't distinguish between deleted images and those with
blank image description pages.  I noticed that the images with
more...interesting...titles (Image:Hentai - Pokemon - May, Misty & Ash
(1) (1).jpg, anyone?) tended to be deleted quickly, though.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
On 3/8/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Kat Walsh wrote:
> > On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the seven images
> >>so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that" clauses,
> >>forbidding modification and commercial use.
> >
> > This holds with what I've seen... the majority of the
> > "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" images that I've seen are not free
> > (some are "provided that this image not be used for commercial use"!)
> > -- enough so that I wonder if it wouldn't be better to get rid of the
> > template altogether and ask the copyright holders of the other images
> > to license under CC-BY.
>
> Perhaps we should add a "CopyrightedFreeUseWithAttribution" tag to cover
> the most common legitimate case, and then go through the rest with a
> fine comb?  Not sure what such a tag would gain over CC-BY, though,
> except that some people may simple be categorically opposed to CC.

{{Attribution}} already exists.  It's marked as deprecated in favor of
{{cc-by}}, though.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> {{Attribution}} already exists.  It's marked as deprecated in favor of
> {{cc-by}}, though.

I'm not sure I agree with that, or with any other attempt to force
Creative Commons licenses on people.  If people choose to actually
license under CC, that's one thing.  To make uploaders PRETEND the
image copyright holder licensed under CC when they did not, but just
said 'Free for use as long as you credit me' is quite wrong, IMO.

-Matt


body:
On 3/8/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Not to spread too much FUD about an ongoing debate, but a flaw with the
> "use commons for all free images" theory is that a number of commoners
> consider that German "design rights" laws mean that nearly all pictures
> of designed objects, such as toys or furniture, are not free, and that
> as a consequence most interior shots are not free either. (Outdoors pics
> are covered by the "Panoramafreiheit" exception.) There is also a
> problem with pre-1923 things marked "PD-US" that are not necessarily PD
> worldwide.

Personally, I ignore the latter and freely upload pre-1923 US-sourced
images to Commons on a regular basis and have had nobody question
this.  Images for which the copyright was held by a corporation, not
an individual, are likely to be free in most countries worldwide in
any case (since then date of publication or creation is the deciding
factor, not a death date).

As to the former, IMO, there are two aspects:

Firstly, that design rights laws are separate from copyright per se
and are more like trademark law.  We do not exclude images based on
trademark law alone, even though the appearance of a trademark in an
image may render it unusable for certain commercial uses, e.g.
advertising of other products.  Design rights laws I've seen, and I
believe the German one is similar, are intended to prohibit other
companies from producing 'knock-off' designs, not to prohibit
photographs that happen to have such objects in them.  We should not
let paranoia over other restrictive laws concern us too much.

Are there actual German legal cases in which the appearance of objects
over which design-rights laws apply appearing in a photograph have
caused a lawsuit, let alone a successful one?

(any pointers to where on Commons this was discussed, since I missed it?)

Secondly, I do not think that one country's peculiar restrictive law
should remove things from Commons; in theory, once one rounded up
every country's odd laws, nothing could be left.

-Matt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
Brion,

Can you please block (stop/freeze) the moldovan wikipedia and moldovan
wiktionary, after a link to the romanian version is simply put on the
moldovan main pages ?

Do not do a redirect from one to the other (so that the current content
at mo stays visible to anyone).

Do not delete the mo databases (<small>semi-private joke</small>)

Thanks

Ant

PS : if *anyone* feels like the moldovan project should be reopened
later on, for whatever reason, fine. But let's close it now.

REPS : can all current contributors to this topic on this mailing list
*freeze* and avoid sending any mails on the issue for ... say ... 24
hours ? Please ?


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images

body:
Hoi,
Your plea is not well targeted. Commons our principal resource for the
storage of media does not allow for "fair use" images. You describe a
problem that is different depending what resource you target, many
projects have different rules as to "fair use". The rules of new and
the existence of "fair use" material differ as well. These rules have
changed over time consequently pictures that complied with the rules
at that time would not comply anymore.

So yes, there is a problem. What is the problem that you want to
address. What do you propose to do. Who do you want to do this?

It is not as if people are not aware of it. It is not as if people are
not actively dealing with it. My point is that we need people to DO
things and not to cry wolf.

Thanks,
   GerardM

On 3/8/06, ! Chris Sherlock <ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Short and sweet: we have too many of them, most of them aren't being used as
> "fair use" images, many don't have sources, almost none have fair use
> criteria, and more than a few are being used in articles that have no real
> need for them.
>
> May I suggest that we start taking action on this issue? IMO they are a
> ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Not only that, but they are diluting
> the "freeness" of the project and causing problems for those who want to use
> our material unaltered.
>
> TBSDY
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair use images


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
>
>>See http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/marketing_and_w.html for
>>details. I consider the word "marketing" misleading. There is no reason
>>why companies shouldn't update information about themselves in wikipedia
>>if they have a source and if they follow the NPOV and other wikipedia
>>policies.
>
>
> I agree. That would make a great news story. "Company complains:
> Anyone can edit our article on Wikipedia - except us".
>
>
>>[[de:Siemens AG]]'s financial figures for 2005 were updated from IPs
>>from within Siemens. This is fine and not "marketing".
>
>
> As long as they do it transparently.
>
> Is it time we updated [[WP:AUTO]] to cover corporate entities?
>

Yes.

--
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] The admin problem

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> John Lee wrote:
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>>Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple
>>>user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a
>>>maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed
>>>that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for
>>>the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support
>>>having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that
>>>aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly
>>>libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Anyway, I think those ideas are terrible. Process is important, but it
>>should not be fetishised. Blocking people for being pricks is one thing,
>>but lying about it and using the excuse of "blocking for imposing a
>>block exceeding 24 hours" is stupid and crazy.
>>
>
> 24 hours is enough to cover off any possible urgency to an admin's
> unilateral action.  It gives others time to review the block, and extend
> it if that's appropriate, perhaps based on a recommendation by that
> admin.  Admins should know the rules better than a newbie, so why
> shouldn't those rules be applied equally?  I don't see where lying
> enters into the picture at all.
>

So, if someone finds an open proxy/Willy on Wheels/communism vandal,
they're only allowed to block for 24 hours? At which point /another/
admin must waste precious time re-doing the first action? That's about
as silly as making admins tag speedies instead of just shooting them on
sight.

>
>>Has everyone gone mad
>>over the [[literal rule]] lately? Whatever happened to the [[mischief
>>rule]]? Our policies exist only because there tends to be a 1:1
>>correlation between the targets of their remedies and people being
>>dicks. Now people seem to think this correlation can hold, even if we
>>start developing policies with loopholes begging for trolls to demand
>>someone be sanctioned for "violating policy". In the end, process exists
>>as a guide to ferreting out the dicks in the community. It is not meant
>>to be used to find people you can label dicks and then sanction for
>>doing something else entirely.
>>
>
> The mischief that such a rule would address is admins who are being
> dicks by imposing excessive blocks before another admin even has a
> chance to look at the problem being addressed.
>

So, you'd rather punish 500+ good admins for the sake of a few bad ones?

>
>>I should also remind you that blocks are not meant to be punitive.
>>
>
> Absolutely, and that's exactly the problem that is being addressed.
>

I'm not sure I follow you.

>
>>I find the idea of punishing an admin for a mistake by blocking utterly
>>ludicrous. Either the admin made a mistake, is compulsively a
>>mistake-maker/dick acting in good faith (not going to name names...), or
>>is just a plain dick acting in bad faith. The latter should be dealt
>>with by the arbcom or common sense; the two former categories *may* be
>>dealt with in a similar manner, but not always.
>>
>
> Common sense tells me that this would get the message across to rogue
> admins much more quickly than a lot of wangling at arbcom.
>

And then pretty soon admins will be afraid to use the admin tools at
all, for fear of being dragged off to Arbcom.

--
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: Justin Cormack

body:
On 8 Mar 2006, at 14:16, Kat Walsh wrote:

> On 3/8/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" tag is a problem: of the
>> seven images
>> so tagged, two of them had decidedly non-free "provided that"
>> clauses,
>> forbidding modification and commercial use.
>
> This holds with what I've seen... the majority of the
> "CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat" images that I've seen are not free
> (some are "provided that this image not be used for commercial use"!)
> -- enough so that I wonder if it wouldn't be better to get rid of the
> template altogether and ask the copyright holders of the other images
> to license under CC-BY.
>

As Jimbo pointed out once before, its better to let people upload
under these tags and then speedy the images, rather than make them
incorrectly label them as free. Hence the unknown tag too.

Feel free to remove them.

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Obviously, the larger and more contentious the community, the bigger the
>>challenge of consensus.  But we cannot undertake such a debate without
>>an open analysis of parliamentarianism's defects.  Such a system
>>encourages the forming of parties that will promote and protect
>>particular policies, and who will be happy to have their POV succeed by
>>a bare majority.  It leads to the tyranny of the majority.
>
>
> Parties generaly require a representive democracy. What we have is
> closer to the athian system.
>

Oh, I don't know; first there were the Inclusionists, Deletionists and
Mergists; then there were the "joke parties" like the
AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD; then the ultra-conservative nuts like the
Association of Moral Wikipedians, Wikipedians for Decency, and finally
the Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia...

...and now, while the people who still take the ADW and AIW seriously
are largely confined to AFD/DRV (where they've become anally retentive
process fetishests), two new powers have emerged: the Pro- and Anti-
Userboxes camps.

An interesting thing to note about all of the wrangling is that most of
it has been about "What is Wikipedia"; the Inclusionsionist/Deletionist
debate was largely about whether we should have articles on schools or
not, and the Userbox debate seems to be about whether user pages are
free webspace where you can promote your political agendas or not.

--
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: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Possible open proxies?

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> There are sufficient responses in very similar language from
> sufficient diverse IP addresses that the "abolish the GMC blogger"
> (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:General_Medical_Council) may be
> doing us a service in locating some open proxies.
> Guy (JzG)

Yep, looks like your guess was right.  Among the 50 latest edits, the
IPs 81.158.53.200, 213.52.175.218, 84.9.11.211 and 62.231.129.126 are
listed on xbl.spamhaus.org.  I've blocked all four already, but someone
needs to go through the rest of the page history.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
On 8 Mar 2006, at 08:11, Mark Wagner wrote:

> To get an idea as to what sort of image tagging is currently being
> used, I
> did a survey of the license tags applied to the 2000 most recent
> images
> uploaded (which represents about 24 hours and 20 minutes of
> uploading).  Of
> those images, 134 were duplicate uploads or otherwise not accounted
> for,
> leaving 1,866 images to check for tags.  The detailed results are at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/upload_stats

Very useful.

So every day we get about 1200 pages of non free content added to
wikipedia.

Call it 350,000 pages a year, assuming the rate is not increasing.

This is shameful, utterly and totally. It must stop.

This has been going on for far too long, and there has been no real
progress.

We should stop all uploads of images now; free stuff can go to commons,
so that we stop the increase: we have hundreds of thousands of old
images
to deal with. Its one setting on the software, we might need to get a
bunch of admins to become commons admins to cope with the extra load
there.

If there is no will to deal with it, forking en is the only other
option.

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>Hello, straw man, burning in the square.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Is it acceptable to urinate on it if I'm trying to put it out?
>>
>>Fine with me, but I think we should take a *straw poll*.
>>
>
> That was an egregious use of "scare crowtes".
>

Alright, enough bad puns. Back to the matter at hand:

The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/6/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
<snip>
>>>
>>Stefan wrote:
<snip>
>>>And if Jimbo is Libertarian, as someone suggested in the
>>>past, then he should start acting like one.
>>
>>If you're asking me to assert an absolute right of infantile stupidity
>>and freedom to stalk and harass other users, then you won't get it, sorry.
>
> Whoa, where did the freedom to stalk and harass other users come into
> this conversation?
>

I believe that this would depend on your definition of "Libertarian".

--
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] Admin Power Abuse

body:
Bacchante Maenad wrote:
>>You aren't trying to imply that these silly widgets make people look
>>silly, are you?  Golly, gosh.
>
>
> You aren't try to put (silly) words in my (silly) mouth, are you?  You must
> be trying to be silly.
>
>
>>Registering an account is incredibly easy.  What's to stop you
>>registering a new one, with a different username?
>
>
> I do appreciate that you are trying to re-welcome a potential wikipedian
> with loaded questions and rhetorical questions, and that you're telling me
> that I need to be a better person.
>

You have to appreciate it from the point of view of people who have been
dealing with trolls and vandals on Wikipedia for over a year; would
/you/ accept people having the usernames "GEORGE BUSH IS GAY", "DEATH TO
AMERICA", or "This account is used for image vandalism"?

You created the username "Let's Get High And Edit Wikipedia" and
wondered why you are blocked as having an innappropriate username. The
reasons are the same as why we wouldn't allow any of the names I listed
above.

--
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: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:32:35 +0000, you wrote:

>If there is no will to deal with it, forking en is the only other
>option.

You'll need at least one box of floppy disks.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On 8 Mar 2006, at 15:03, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:32:35 +0000, you wrote:
>
>> If there is no will to deal with it, forking en is the only other
>> option.
>
> You'll need at least one box of floppy disks.
> Guy (JzG)

No, only half a box, once the non free stuff is removed.

I was wondering, there is an organisation called the Wikimedia
Foundation that might be interested in hosting a free encyclopaedia,
they seem to host quite a lot of them, and just the one non free
one.

Justinc


body:
On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:06:03 +0000, you wrote:

>I was wondering, there is an organisation called the Wikimedia
>Foundation that might be interested in hosting a free encyclopaedia,
>they seem to host quite a lot of them, and just the one non free
>one.

<accent=Scottish>Free, you say?  Happen that will do quite
nicely...</accent>
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] BBC Radio Wales 'Mousemat' interview done

body:
This morning I went into BBC Television Centre and did a remote radio
interview for BBC Radio Wales 'Mousemat', which is to be run in this
Sunday's programme - 5pm Sunday, repeated 6pm Wednesday. If you're not
in Wales, you can pick it up on Sky TV channel 0117, or on the website
for a week after broadcast:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/shows/mousemat.shtml

I covered how Wikipedia works, how we keep it from turning to rubbish,
how good it is ("it's not perfect, and we're painfully aware of its
problems, but it's *pretty good*"), the millionth article (how you can
get so much good detail out of an unremarkable suburban railway
station) and I did a *big* push for Welsh speakers to get in on the
ground floor of cy.wikipedia - en. has 1,000,000 articles, but cy. has
4,000 and there's endless room to work on a really *good* Welsh
encyclopedia. The Welsh language is undergoing bit of a revival -
everyone there speaks English, but learn Welsh first, it's popular
with its ethnicity, it's something people feel they *should* know if
they're Welsh and of course kids learn it so their parents won't
understand them, and the parents learn to keep up with them ;-)

They recorded about 15 minutes, of which they'll probably use 5 or 6.

And I'm apparently to receive a small payment for my trouble. :-O Just
as well since I'm presently not on a contract. (Gi's a job!)

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] BBC Radio Wales 'Mousemat' interview done


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/6/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
>>>>willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
>>>>Ourselves Too Seriously.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
>>>print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
>>>ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
>>>earth theory, etc etc?
>>>
>>>
>>Probably not: but what we can do is announce some spurious change to
>>Wikipedia policy or governance.
>>
>>What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
>>dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
>>Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.
>>
>>
># '''Support'''  ~~~~
>
If Wikipedians are so foolish as to believe that AfD would be abolished,
they nre more gullible than I give them credit for.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
NSLE (Wikipedia) wrote:

>Good point. Damn. Can't we put flaccidpenises on the mainpage? :P
>
>--NSLE
>
>On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/7/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Allow political userboxen? *runs*
>>>--NSLE
>>>
>>>
>>Don't need a policy change for that. Created, speeded then undeleted
>>through DR and you have a political userbox.
>>
No they belong on the page that warns the user that the project is down
and suffering from erectile dysfunction.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Oh, I don't know; first there were the Inclusionists, Deletionists
>
>
> Pro-content and Pro-encylopedists
>
>
>>and
>>Mergists; then there were the "joke parties" like the
>>AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD; then the ultra-conservative nuts like the
>>Association of Moral Wikipedians, Wikipedians for Decency, and finally
>>the Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia...
>>
>
>
> You will note these parties are for the most part single issue and
> there is nothing to stop you joining more than one of them.
>
>
>>...and now, while the people who still take the ADW and AIW seriously
>>are largely confined to AFD/DRV (where they've become anally retentive
>>process fetishests), two new powers have emerged: the Pro- and Anti-
>>Userboxes camps.
>>
>
>
> Two much simplifaction. The process fetishests and anti-process groups
> are also around and involved in the conflict alough pinning them down
> to ether side can be tricky (probably favouring the pro userpage
> freedom group at the monement since they have mostly stayed within
> policy (admitedly with some interesting interpritations) unlike the
> template namespace presivation group
>

So, like a parliament, there are party politics, including single-issue
parties, floor-crossers, and a few independants.

--
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: Eugenia Tenneriello

subject: [Wikitech-l]  How to redirect from an image?

body:
Hello,
I would like to redirect to an external page from an image , but I can't redirect from any page of my website.
What parameters have I set to make any redirections?
How can I redirect from an image?
Thanks in advance
Eugenia Tenneriello


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Trying to purge the annoying cache without
	using'action=purge'

body:
"thomas Armstrong" <tarmstrong at gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:bf4479300603080758h6f17a779ua9f7ecfc6a268d4 at mail.gmail.com...
> I try to make MedaWiki serve the very last webpage, instead of the cached
> one.
> I've just found out the tip of adding 'action=purge' to the URL, but
> is there another way without
> using this URL extra code?

[Ctrl-F5] works for IE; YMMV depending upon which browser you are using.

You can also instruct your browser to empty its cache.

Is this a private or public wiki?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Guardian interview to appear Monday

body:
I just spoke to Natalie Hanman from the Guardian. This is to appear in
Monday's paper, in the 'Office Hours' column in the Media section.
This will be in the paper edition and *may not* be in the online
edition (they tend not to put up the entire Media section).

A reader had written in saying they'd read about Wikipedia's
unreliability and asked if Wikipedia was any good; and she also wanted
to know if it was good for office workers at their desks. I said we
weren't as good as Britannica as yet, but we were better than anything
else on the web, so the more media we get saying how bad we are the
more readers we get ... and office workers don't have the Britannica
on their desk but they *do* have Wikipedia. For usefulness, I pointed
out that as an IT contractor, I use Wikipedia as a reference work
daily. It's fabulous for computer and technical stuff, to quickly get
yourself up to speed on what a piece of jargon is in 60 seconds. And
Nature measured us as equal to Britannica in science. And we were
no.12 in the world on Alexa yesterday, and we've been no.1 reference
site for months now.

So the main message was: we're not Britannica, but we're better than
*anything* else readily available on the web. "We make the Web not
suck." And we're actually good and useful as a reference work *right
now*.

- d.


body:
On 8 Mar 2006, at 16:24, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Justin Cormack wrote:
>
>>
>> We should stop all uploads of images now; free stuff can go to
>> commons,
>> so that we stop the increase: we have hundreds of thousands of old
>> images
>> to deal with. Its one setting on the software, we might need to get a
>> bunch of admins to become commons admins to cope with the extra load
>> there.
>>
> Not to spread too much FUD about an ongoing debate, but a flaw with
> the
> "use commons for all free images" theory is that a number of commoners
> consider that German "design rights" laws mean that nearly all
> pictures
> of designed objects, such as toys or furniture, are not free, and that
> as a consequence most interior shots are not free either. (Outdoors
> pics
> are covered by the "Panoramafreiheit" exception.) There is also a
> problem with pre-1923 things marked "PD-US" that are not
> necessarily PD
> worldwide.
>
> Image licensing is a hard issue that cannot be resolved with simple
> solutions.

I was only suggesting this as an interim solution. We dont have
processes
that can deal with 1000 non free images a day, or the tens or
hundreds of
thousands in the backlog. Turn off images upload until we have fixed it
(leave it on far admins perhaps).

Justinc


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 3/8/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So the main message was: we're not Britannica, but we're better than
> *anything* else readily available on the web. "We make the Web not
> suck." And we're actually good and useful as a reference work *right
> now*.

"Admitting" that our main competitor is a paper encyclopedia with over
a century of brand leadership is good.  It shows the potential reader
that we're aiming high but are aware that we have a way to go.

I also like the bit about being cheaper than the Encyclopedia
Galactica and having the words "Don't Panic" in large, friendly
letters on the cover.


from_name: thomas Armstrong

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Trying to purge the annoying cache without using
	'action=purge'

body:
Hi.

I try to make MedaWiki serve the very last webpage, instead of the cached one.

I've just found out the tip of adding 'action=purge' to the URL, but
is there another way without
using this URL extra code?

Thank you very much.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
You shouldn't need to purge the cache on each script execution.
MediaWiki will attempt to touch pages as needed to ensure that things
are kept up to date with respect to the internal or squid caches (if
in use).

Rob Church

On 08/03/06, thomas Armstrong <tarmstrong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I try to make MedaWiki serve the very last webpage, instead of the cached one.
>
> I've just found out the tip of adding 'action=purge' to the URL, but
> is there another way without
> using this URL extra code?
>
> Thank you very much.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Yep. It could work, but don't you consider it's a little annoying for users?

On 3/8/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "thomas Armstrong" <tarmstrong at gmail.com>
> wrote in message
> news:bf4479300603080758h6f17a779ua9f7ecfc6a268d4 at mail.gmail.com...
> > I try to make MedaWiki serve the very last webpage, instead of the cached
> > one.
> > I've just found out the tip of adding 'action=purge' to the URL, but
> > is there another way without
> > using this URL extra code?
>
> [Ctrl-F5] works for IE; YMMV depending upon which browser you are using.
>
> You can also instruct your browser to empty its cache.
>
> Is this a private or public wiki?
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
Stop with the detailed summaries, you're going to cost them sales! :)

j/k

Steve

On 3/8/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just spoke to Natalie Hanman from the Guardian. This is to appear in
> Monday's paper, in the 'Office Hours' column in the Media section.
> This will be in the paper edition and *may not* be in the online
> edition (they tend not to put up the entire Media section).
>
> A reader had written in saying they'd read about Wikipedia's
> unreliability and asked if Wikipedia was any good; and she also wanted
> to know if it was good for office workers at their desks. I said we
> weren't as good as Britannica as yet, but we were better than anything
> else on the web, so the more media we get saying how bad we are the
> more readers we get ... and office workers don't have the Britannica
> on their desk but they *do* have Wikipedia. For usefulness, I pointed
> out that as an IT contractor, I use Wikipedia as a reference work
> daily. It's fabulous for computer and technical stuff, to quickly get
> yourself up to speed on what a piece of jargon is in 60 seconds. And
> Nature measured us as equal to Britannica in science. And we were
> no.12 in the world on Alexa yesterday, and we've been no.1 reference
> site for months now.
>
> So the main message was: we're not Britannica, but we're better than
> *anything* else readily available on the web. "We make the Web not
> suck." And we're actually good and useful as a reference work *right
> now*.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Hi again.

Just found out a workaround: use
$wgTitle->invalidateCache();
within each "switch...case" of 'index.php'.

On 3/8/06, thomas Armstrong <tarmstrong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep. It could work, but don't you consider it's a little annoying for users?
>
> On 3/8/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "thomas Armstrong" <tarmstrong at gmail.com>
> > wrote in message
> > news:bf4479300603080758h6f17a779ua9f7ecfc6a268d4 at mail.gmail.com...
> > > I try to make MedaWiki serve the very last webpage, instead of the cached
> > > one.
> > > I've just found out the tip of adding 'action=purge' to the URL, but
> > > is there another way without
> > > using this URL extra code?
> >
> > [Ctrl-F5] works for IE; YMMV depending upon which browser you are using.
> >
> > You can also instruct your browser to empty its cache.
> >
> > Is this a private or public wiki?
> > --
> > Phil
> > [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>


from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox of the Year

body:
Hey, don't bite the.... Genis.  There has been debate about whether a
template is something in template space, or whether it's simply something
that can be transcluded.  There's little to take out of context here, unless
you were trying to be ironic.

Ben

On 3/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/8/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You accept that argument? Good.
>
> Yes.  Indeed, you have my full permission to take my words out of
> context and otherwise twist them to give them whatever meaning you so
> desire.
>
> --
> Sam
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
The referrendum was unfair.

Mark

On 08/03/06, future civilization <future_civilization at yahoo.com> wrote:
> According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia "must be deleted". It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.
>
>   This wikipedia must be deleted in respect for the people who voted there. No more talks, no more useless arguments. It was decided to delete the wikipedia and now is time to put this vote in practice.
>
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>   "Contributors to the Moldovan Wikipedia"? What %age of the voters had
> more than 50 contributions to any Wikipedia project?
>
> Mark
>
> On 07/03/06, future civilization wrote:
> > These are the necessary steps to delete the Moldovan Wikipedia:
> >
> > 1. "VALIDATION" and "ACCEPTING" by the Stewards, Bureaucrats of the votes made by the contributors on Moldovan Wikipedia.
> >
> > (Voting was done legally on the following link: http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri)
> > (A CheckUser can be done in order to validate the votes of every contributor).
> >
> > 2. "Deletion of the Moldovan Wikipedia" as it was the only accepted solution proposed by the users.
> >
> > According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia must be deleted. It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Mail
> > Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin