from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSPAN copyright

body:
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the whole thing it says this in section 4b:
>
> "You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3
> above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward
> commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of
> the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing
> or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed
> toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided
> there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with
> the exchange of copyrighted works."

So, which of the following activities are allowed, and which are not?

1) Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging
them for the cost of the CD
2) Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging
them the cost of shipping
3) Using the work as part of an advertisement
4) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads I placed there
5) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads placed there by my webhost
6) Using the work on a webpage that also contains Amazon referral links
7) Using the work on a webpage that links to another webpage that
contains ads I placed there
8) Using the work on a webpage that also solicits donations
9) Sending the work to someone in exchange for goods or services

A strict reading of the license clause would seem to prohibit
everything except #9.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Rob Smith

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally a problematic
	conflict...

body:
On 3/7/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/7/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 07/03/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Rob Smith (User:Nobs) has just named a former admin who did not choose
> > > to name herself. Can the people monitoring the list step in, please?
> >
> >
> > That was indeed the last straw. He's on mod now.
> >
> Thanks, David.

All I know is what I read in the newspapers.

Rob Smith
User:Nobs01 & Nobs02


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Look Who's Using Wikipedia

body:
HOI!

>The en.wikipedia is strong on Pokemon, when there is an invasion of
>these creatures we know all there is to know about them. :)

ROTFL! This is one of the funniest ways to tell a tragic truth I've ever
seen :) It's true. Once again, a wiki is but a reflection (a summa, if you
like latin) of the community writing it.

In the middle ages monks would write a lot about proto-martyrs that did not
even exist, in the current middle ages us monks like anime... virtual sex
happens to be an eternal human feature, ever since Aphrodite was invented
and people could dream of Her and Apollon :)

The Wikimedia tribe did not invent our carelessness for enemies either.
Subject like Iran are not interesting to westerners AND are little
self-promoting. There is a big number of Iranians who speak English, I don't
see much activity from them, either. As it often happens, the Byzantine and
the Parthian emperor will probably ignore each other until a weird Arab guy
won't kill them both. It's a pity for our will to influence society by
spreading awareness and culture, but it's also a reflection of what our
societies really want at ground-zero level.

As per wiki-layering, possible split editions and Committees... there never
was a human society that did not evolve into a class layering system. The
problem is that here we do not have anything that will protect anyone from
arbitrary moves from the "powers".

That is, nobody knows what the Board can do but basically we all think they
are local Tamerlans. In reality it's more like Ceasars, because they do
depend from the popularity they get among us plebeians. If we got upset, we
could get rid of them. But there are NO written rules. So it's all a matter
of negotiating the mood of the judge. We love to talk about anarchy and
democracy but... in reality we just moved from the fortunate period of King
Jimbo to a kind of large triumvirate and have no Magna Charta whatsoever.
Isn't this interesting?

BTW, saying that we are "plebeians" is but a giant lie. Plebeians work out
there making up links and articles, while us senators sit here and complain
that the House of the Emperor is centralizing too much power... There ARE
barriers to an enlarged participation. One is the English language; the
other is what in the old times was called "social engineering". That is, the
capability to get something from the people. Not everyone is capable to do
it, so not everyone will want to (be capable to) be a senator, in real life
as here. So that 0,5% of people who sit here and read meta can hardly be
labeled as "plebeians". And yes, since language capability and social
(should I say "political"?) attitudes are mostly the product of family
education... chances are that our places will be transmitted to our kids.
Let's be real about it. Wikipedia is just a bit of life, and life is like
that. We may want to change it (I do) but then we have to work on it, and
not simply be ironical about it.

Anyway, wikipedia is also just another living human society. As all such
bodies it has a living cycle. It has been young, now it's getting older. One
day it will die, and it will spread its kids in virtual space. There's
nothing wrong with it, it's the way Nature works. It applies to languages,
nations, political parties, religions and Carnaby Street's miniskirt fad,
too.

Technology will get older and the wikimedia machine will look simply
ridiculous (as a visicalc looks today). So you can also get ready for the
time in which we will have to think about migrating content to more
"contemporary" platforms (kids at that time will say "not fossile"), while
people will have PHP emulators run a "real wiki" on their machines. It's
happened with pacman, it will happen with us, too.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


body:
Hoi!

>NPOV. In my opinion that's much more radical an innovation than merely
>letting any idiot edit your website.

Yes, it's the first time that our western culture embarks in the project of
exporting its good sides, instead of simply bombing those who happen not to
be telepathic.

My concern is that very little people realize how little NPOV is an easily
understood concept. If you go down to it it's the root of expressions like
"democracy", "human right", etc. Waste this and what you have is but a posh
chat-line about philosophers...

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a
	fundamentally a problematic conflict...

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 7, 2007 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally a problematic
conflict...
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 5, 2007 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
conflict of interest?
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

There are various techniques in the Internal Revenue Manual that could be
employed; for example, reviewing the edit contributions of an employee of a
non-profit organization, a reasonable estimate of manhours allocated by that
non-profit organization over a given period of time would meet standards of
proof to establish income from paid editing, as well as the activities of
the employer, not to mention possible conflicts of interest, or violations
of Wikipedia's internal policies.

On 3/7/07, Mercenary Wikipedian <mercenarywikipedian at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> What does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? There are already
> policies
> in place regarding NPOV and NPA, and there are multiple dispute resolution
>
> processes in place to handle serial/chronic non-compliance. What
> protections
> does _anyone_ have against defamation on Wikipedia? Well, if they are the
> subject of an article there is WP:BLP. If they are just an editor and not
> the subject of the article there is the policy mandating No Personal
> Attacks. What makes you think these won't work if people are getting paid?
> Is this an issue of scalability? If so, it seems a little late to be
> worried
> about whether or not the idea of Wikipedia is scalable.
>
> MW
>
> **********
>
> The point here is paid employees of a non-profit entity with an agenda
> evidenced by initiating internal processes of dispute resolution.  This is
>
> something not addressed in any policies anywhere.  ( 1 ) They are agents
> of
> a non-profit entity; ( 2 ) volunteers in dispute have no disclosure as to
> *
> whom* they are in dispute with; ( 3 ) the dispute may not be initiated for
>
> the purposes of improving articles or writing an encyclopedia; ( 4 ) what
> protections do volunteer editors, acting in good faith, have against being
> targeted and publicly defamed by a non-profit entity with a political
> agenda?
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Mortgage rates as low as 4.625% - Refinance $150,000 loan for $579 a
> month.
> Intro*Terms
>
> https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h27f6&disc=y&vers=743&s=4056&p=5117
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

None is addressed in current policies.  And there is evidence Wikipedia is
being used for purposes *other than* writing an encyclopedia, i.e. to target
certain individuals and smear their character.  The Daniel Brandt episode is
one such case.  Stephen Kinsella and the Ludwig von Mises Institute is
another. The Free Congress Foundation and Paul Weyrich is a target for much
questionable content being added, as well as an anonymous editor who
identified himself as a professional journalist and friend of Weyrich
received a community ban for efforts to instill NPOV & fairness in those two
articles.

By contrast, User:Katefan0, aka Kathryn Wolfe of *Scripps Howard* did
precisely the samething as Weyrich's friend, admitted a conflict of interest
prior to initiating official Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Policy, was
promoted to Admin, presented evidence before Arbitrators admitting her
conflict of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Personal_attacks.2C_incivility_and_bullying

yet the Arbs used her evidence against an aggrieved party.  There are
numerous other instances to be cited where a pattern is established that the
intent of some parties, acting as agents of others, are using Wikipedia to
pursue their own aims and not constructively contribute to the encyclopedia.


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki XML

body:
Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree wholeheartedly with Jared.  A rewrite shouldn't invalidate
> everyone's collective time spent learning the current syntax.  I mean,
> that's a whole lot of peoples time you could potentially be wasting.

I agree with you on this point. People should definitely still be
able to input and edit articles using the same wikitext markup to
which they've grown accustomed. Increasingly, however, people are
wanting something easier. I know people who find wikitext difficult
and are asking for WYSIWYG. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to use
wikitext as a basis for WYSIWYG. The people who are trying to do it
are going through something like the following:

wikitext -> HTML -> a Javascript WYSIWYG editor

When they save their changes, they have to go back through HTML on
the way to wikitext, and since there's no one-to-one correspondence
between wikitext and HTML, the results are inconsistent. It's hard to
imagine a good fix for this problem because the only people
interested in working on wikitext-to-HTML conversion are a subset of
the relatively small number who actually write code for MediaWiki.
Moreover, it's a moving target. Wikitext syntax changes every time
someone writes a new parser function, and with the proliferation of
MediaWiki-powered websites outside Wikimedia, it's looking more and
more like a language with numerous dialects rather than a single
consistent markup standard.

I realize that it's ambitious to contemplate putting XML under the
hood of MediaWiki -- just as it was ambitious in its day for Apple to
contemplate putting Unix under the hood of its graphical user
interface. The result, however, was a better, more extensible
operating system. If they hadn't done it, they'd probably have gone
the way of Atari or Amiga.

IMHO, MediaWiki is currently the best software in existence for web-
based wikis, and it has the considerable advantage of serving as the
content management system for Wikipedia, which alone will guarantee
its place in the world for the foreseeable future. However, there are
other competitors in the wings that are getting serious about
WYSIWYG, and MediaWiki might start to look dated if other platforms
manage to offer a significantly more user-friendly experience.

By the way, Jim...I like your RSS extension. I'm probably going to
install it on my own wiki.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


from_name: stvrtg

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
	nearly 2 years...

body:
On 3/7/07, Bartning at aol.com <Bartning at aol.com> wrote:

>
> I wouldn't say academia should be the only criteria for credibility.
> What
> about work in field or exposure to it?  Someone who fought in World  War
> II or
> a family member who had their loved one being killed in action  provides
> exposure to the topics involved.  Often, historians interview  those
> involved.
> Slavery and the Civil War provide other  examples.

See [[Nupedia]]

-Stevertigo


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, David Gerard wrote:
> > Smartie960's user page has this bouncing Wikipedia logo, which clicking on
> > takes you to Special:Random.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bouncywikilogo.gif
> > I know the logo is copyrighted, but I suppose people can put it on their
> > userpage?  I find it distracting in this case, but since apparently a number
> > of other users put it on their user pages then it's okay?
> Put it this way: the risk of the Foundation suing is 0.

But Wikipedia's fair use policy is not just based on people suing; in fact,
there are things which are legal fair use under the law which are prohibited
by Wikipedia's policy against using copyrighted images.

So I don't think "obviously the Foundation won't sue" applies here.  It's
still a copyvio.


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators ( now running at
	http://WikiBlogPlanet.com/ )

body:
On 07/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/7/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:

> > This stuff is supposed to be fun, and if it's constrained too much, it ceases to
> > be fun.

> I don't think constraining it to stuff which is _actually related_ to
> Wikimedia projects or the software running it is some huge blow
> against free expression. Do you know how many Wikimedians there are?
> And how many of them are running blogs, and have been since long
> before they became Wikimedians? If the only criterion to be included
> is "Hey, I'm going to post on wikis here from time to time", it's
> going to be nothing but a glorified LiveJournal.

That's why I want mine fed from reddragdiva.vox.com rather than
reddragdiva.livejournal.com ;-)

Even if one has a LiveJournal, one can give the URL and RSS for a
specific tag. Or do as I did and just put anything for the Wikimedia
audience on a separate journal.

- d.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
> Yeah, it's great to attack BE spelling on the BBC (it sounded to me like he
> was about to say "British spelling" before he changed it).

It sounds like that to me too - I think "British spelling" would have
been better. Dividing the world into USA and not-USA is not a very
neutral classification...


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/7/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> FYI
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_wikipedia_20070307.ram

I'm sure that the whole "British spelling is bad!"-thing went over
real well with the BBC people :D

--Oskar


from_name: Slim Virgin

body:
Rob Smith (User:Nobs) has just named a former admin who did not choose
to name herself. Can the people monitoring the list step in, please?

Sarah

On 3/7/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> None is addressed in current policies.  And there is evidence Wikipedia is
> being used for purposes *other than* writing an encyclopedia, i.e. to target
> certain individuals and smear their character.  The Daniel Brandt episode is
> one such case.  Stephen Kinsella and the Ludwig von Mises Institute is
> another. The Free Congress Foundation and Paul Weyrich is a target for much
> questionable content being added, as well as an anonymous editor who
> identified himself as a professional journalist and friend of Weyrich
> received a community ban for efforts to instill NPOV & fairness in those two
> articles.
>
> By contrast, User:Katefan0, aka Kathryn Wolfe of *Scripps Howard* did
> precisely the samething as Weyrich's friend, admitted a conflict of interest
> prior to initiating official Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Policy, was
> promoted to Admin, presented evidence before Arbitrators admitting her
> conflict of interest
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Personal_attacks.2C_incivility_and_bullying
>
> yet the Arbs used her evidence against an aggrieved party.  There are
> numerous other instances to be cited where a pattern is established that the
> intent of some parties, acting as agents of others, are using Wikipedia to
> pursue their own aims and not constructively contribute to the encyclopedia.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/7/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> This stuff is supposed to be fun, and if it's constrained too much, it ceases to
> be fun.

I don't think constraining it to stuff which is _actually related_ to
Wikimedia projects or the software running it is some huge blow
against free expression. Do you know how many Wikimedians there are?
And how many of them are running blogs, and have been since long
before they became Wikimedians? If the only criterion to be included
is "Hey, I'm going to post on wikis here from time to time", it's
going to be nothing but a glorified LiveJournal.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
It was nicely ironic that the ABC national news report on Essjay had taken
the tone of criticizing Wikipedia for inaccuracy, while showing itself only
able to provide the most superficially terse look into "the controversy."

The question that Im left with is the matter of process: Why was Essjay
forced to resign when he didn't even get a proper in-process review from the
Arbcom? That of course is why the Arbcom exists, to sort of try to
investigate a case and see if things actually violated the rules.

In which there would have to be an answer for the charge that Essjay used
his pseudonym credentials to "strongarm" others in the context of debates.
The exerpts Ive seen do not show that, rather they show that Essjay stepped
in to offer some clarification and explanation on particular points - not
that he "strongarmed" people with his opinions.
I think that characterization is flatly out of... character.

Aside from any particulars, what this episode in general represents if
anything is how mob rule has overstepped even the Arbcom's role, at a time
when JW has been almost completely out of the loop.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/8/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Or one could get a little nasty, and publish ratios of user page editing
>> vs article space editing, give out a "Most Useless Wikipedian" award to
>> the person at the top of the list.
>>
>
> Yeah, but not every article-space edit is good, and not every
> user-space edit is bad. Lately I've been making a lot of edits to my
> user page, but that's because I use it to keep track of articles I've
> created and photos I've uploaded. (Yes, most people would use a
> watchlist for that...;))
>
Some of the userbox habitues have ratios of 50x(!) or more edits to user
pages vs article space edits. It's kind of disconcerting to select just
the main space in user contributions, and find the long contribution
list drop to just a couple dozen edits *total*.

This was one of the dismaying realizations back in the first round of
userbox wars, that there was a subculture for whom having the WP login
was an end in itself. We've ended up tolerating it as not being worth
the trouble of trying to discourage officially.

Stan


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki XML

body:
Thanks Sheldon - those are excellent points.  The conversion back-and-forth
through HTML seems to be a sticky spot.

I wonder if there's any happy-medium?  If pages could be flagged as
"Wikitext" or "HTML", then using a WYSIWYG on the HTML pages and traditional
edit on Wikitext articles could make sense.

The idea being that _some people_ could write "content" pages with their
pretty WYSIWYG editor, and _other people_ could wire them all together via
templates and transclusion.  Something akin to the separation of concerns
between HTML and CSS.  You could even section-off portions of pages with
parser tags (<wysiwyg>some text</wysiwyg> etc), and a wysiwyg editor would
only touch those portions, leaving the rest unscathed.

The benefits of this approach is that it can started right away and probably
be completed through extensions alone.  (Though admittedly it'd be easier if
the Massive Hook Proposal were implemented)

Of course the obvious retort is "boy it sure would be nice if we could just
pick which editor we want and have them seamlessly interoperate" - but I
hope we can all agree that this is a ways off from where we are today.

Would anyone else find a split solution like this acceptable?  Am I alone in
thinking this is a good mid-term approach?

P.S. - Thanks Sheldon for plugging WikiArticleFeeds (the RSS extension) - if
you run into any issues, have enhancement requests etc, I'd love to hear
about them.  Thanks!

-- Jim

On 3/7/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
> Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I agree wholeheartedly with Jared.  A rewrite shouldn't invalidate
> > everyone's collective time spent learning the current syntax.  I mean,
> > that's a whole lot of peoples time you could potentially be wasting.
>
> I agree with you on this point. People should definitely still be
> able to input and edit articles using the same wikitext markup to
> which they've grown accustomed. Increasingly, however, people are
> wanting something easier. I know people who find wikitext difficult
> and are asking for WYSIWYG. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to use
> wikitext as a basis for WYSIWYG. The people who are trying to do it
> are going through something like the following:
>
> wikitext -> HTML -> a Javascript WYSIWYG editor
>
> When they save their changes, they have to go back through HTML on
> the way to wikitext, and since there's no one-to-one correspondence
> between wikitext and HTML, the results are inconsistent. It's hard to
> imagine a good fix for this problem because the only people
> interested in working on wikitext-to-HTML conversion are a subset of
> the relatively small number who actually write code for MediaWiki.
> Moreover, it's a moving target. Wikitext syntax changes every time
> someone writes a new parser function, and with the proliferation of
> MediaWiki-powered websites outside Wikimedia, it's looking more and
> more like a language with numerous dialects rather than a single
> consistent markup standard.
>
> I realize that it's ambitious to contemplate putting XML under the
> hood of MediaWiki -- just as it was ambitious in its day for Apple to
> contemplate putting Unix under the hood of its graphical user
> interface. The result, however, was a better, more extensible
> operating system. If they hadn't done it, they'd probably have gone
> the way of Atari or Amiga.
>
> IMHO, MediaWiki is currently the best software in existence for web-
> based wikis, and it has the considerable advantage of serving as the
> content management system for Wikipedia, which alone will guarantee
> its place in the world for the foreseeable future. However, there are
> other competitors in the wings that are getting serious about
> WYSIWYG, and MediaWiki might start to look dated if other platforms
> manage to offer a significantly more user-friendly experience.
>
> By the way, Jim...I like your RSS extension. I'm probably going to
> install it on my own wiki.
>
> --------------------------------
> |  Sheldon Rampton
> |  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
> |  Author of books including:
> |     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
> |     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
> |     Mad Cow USA
> |     Trust Us, We're Experts
> |     Weapons of Mass Deception
> |     Banana Republicans
> |     The Best War Ever
> --------------------------------
> |  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
> |  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
> |
> |  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
> |  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
> --------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 3/7/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/03/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Rob Smith (User:Nobs) has just named a former admin who did not choose
> > to name herself. Can the people monitoring the list step in, please?
>
>
> That was indeed the last straw. He's on mod now.
>
Thanks, David.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
On 3/7/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Not that that ever stopped a really dedicated rabid semi-Aspergic
> > human killbot on Wikipedia.
>
> He who dies haveing delt with the most copyvios wins.

Guess that makes OrphanBot the perpetual winner-in-waiting. (73,553
removals and counting)

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
Guettarda wrote

> > Interesting argument that the majority of readers are American, so that
> > American spelling should be used. What numbers do we have on that? ComScore
> > has something; our total readership is in the region of 150m?
> >
> > Charles

> Of course, where do the figures come from?

ComScore gives something like this: WP sites in all are read by 165m, with 43m of those from the USA.  Now the argument is really about enWP alone.  Most of those reading WP sites in the USA will be reading enWP, but I suppose there will be a proportion reading esWP, and smaller numbers reading all other languages.  So we'd have to assess the non-USA readers of enWP. The native speakers of English aren't going to add up to 43m; might be more like 20m?  There will be many European readers of enWP who aren't native anglophones. On balance it may be true that Americans reading enWP are in the majority.  But probably this will change.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh god. Userboxes were bad enough. What on earth is this new "sign my
> autograph page" trend?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/ANNAfoxlover
>
> I got a request from a different user. Rather than [[WP:BITE]] their
> head off, I thought I'd vent here.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smartie960/Autographs

We've got articles covering this: [[Autograph]], [[Celebrity
worship]], [[MySpace]].

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
stvrtg wrote:
> The question that Im left with is the matter of process: Why was Essjay
> forced to resign when he didn't even get a proper in-process review from the
> Arbcom? That of course is why the Arbcom exists, to sort of try to
> investigate a case and see if things actually violated the rules.
>
Why did Nixon resign, when he could maybe have beaten the impeachment
rap? Sometimes people decide it's just not worth all the trouble,
especially not if it's only to satisfy other people's notions of
"process". Resigning from everything is the smartest thing that Essjay
has done so far.

Stan


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh god. Userboxes were bad enough. What on earth is this new "sign my
> autograph page" trend?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/ANNAfoxlover
>
> I got a request from a different user. Rather than [[WP:BITE]] their
> head off, I thought I'd vent here.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smartie960/Autographs
>
> Ack.
>
> Steve

Oh dear. Wow.  It's so sweet and pre-teen.  "Please sign so I can contact
you later. Maybe the next time you change your signature you can sign again
so I can see it."

And this is a sig??

[[User:Cremepuff222|Cremepuff222]] ([[User talk:Cremepuff222|talk]], [[User:Cremepuff222/Autograph Book|sign book]])

I am all for making Wikipedia as much fun as possible...but autograph books?


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Subversion server upgrade

body:
On 07/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I'm upgrading Subversion to 1.4.3 on the server; theoretically if I
> upgrade the repository this can same some disk space as well though I'm
> not going to do that just yet.

Just pinch some cash for another disk...

Rob Church


from_name: Mercenary Wikipedian

body:
What does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? There are already policies
in place regarding NPOV and NPA, and there are multiple dispute resolution
processes in place to handle serial/chronic non-compliance. What protections
does _anyone_ have against defamation on Wikipedia? Well, if they are the
subject of an article there is WP:BLP. If they are just an editor and not
the subject of the article there is the policy mandating No Personal
Attacks. What makes you think these won't work if people are getting paid?
Is this an issue of scalability? If so, it seems a little late to be worried
about whether or not the idea of Wikipedia is scalable.

MW

**********

The point here is paid employees of a non-profit entity with an agenda
evidenced by initiating internal processes of dispute resolution.  This is
something not addressed in any policies anywhere.  ( 1 ) They are agents of
a non-profit entity; ( 2 ) volunteers in dispute have no disclosure as to *
whom* they are in dispute with; ( 3 ) the dispute may not be initiated for
the purposes of improving articles or writing an encyclopedia; ( 4 ) what
protections do volunteer editors, acting in good faith, have against being
targeted and publicly defamed by a non-profit entity with a political
agenda?

_________________________________________________________________
Mortgage rates as low as 4.625% - Refinance $150,000 loan for $579 a month.
Intro*Terms
https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h27f6&disc=y&vers=743&s=4056&p=5117


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
lol @ both.

I laughed when I saw that sentence in the article, too - is Wikipedia
now just as bad for kids as Sex Drugs and Rock And Roll?

Better kids find out about sex from Wikipedia than from dolphinsex or
goatse, right? And if they're researching school topics, so what? It's
not as if [[Martin Luther King]] is full of falsehoods that will get
them kicked out of school or anything.

Mark

On 07/03/07, David Still <daveydweeb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jimbo Wales doesn't care about children. Film at 11.
>
> On 3/7/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1595184,00.html
> >
> > "Search and Internet behavior data provide alarming insight into this
> > powerful but volatile resource ? alarming because one of the core groups
> > of Wikipedia users are school children."
> >
> >
> > OH MY GOD TEH CHILDREN WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN??!!???
> >
> > ;-)
> >
> > --Jimbo
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
On 3/7/07, Bartning at aol.com <Bartning at aol.com> wrote:

> I disagree.  People do not use critical thinking in their ignoring
> authority, and it's not just credentials, it's making a joke out of
> something  serious
> with pseudonyms or using systemic ad hominems such as WP:DICK, not  to
> mention the unfair application of standards.

You are right in that WP:DICK is dickish to reference. But that has little
to do with credentialism and much to do with sophomoric immaturity.

As far as the trappings of credentialism, Wikipedia has a fine line to dance
in wanting to appeal to experts, while staying true to its core ethos of
openness. Some argue that Wikipedia's growth demands a shift from
anti-credentalism toward credentialism to 'take it to the next level'. But
its important to remember this view as only one in much larger body of views
amongst contributors - many of whom don't participate in meta-discussion
like this. Keep in mind that most edits are done anonymously and by people
who aren't even logged in.

It must be nice to dream of some exclusive process as being the panacea for
all of WP's perceived ills. In reality WP has done well thus far without
them. Again, see [[Nupedia]] before making additional credentialist
proposals. ( I think it wound up costing something like 10,000 USD per
article. )

-Stevertigo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Look Who's Using Wikipedia ... gerardm

body:
I agree with this greatly. The only "major" language I can think of
with a more drastic native speaker to second language speaker ratio is
French, whose speakers are more than slightly more regionally
concentrated.

Spanish has a wider reach than either as a native language, but as a
second language it falls short.

Mark

On 07/03/07, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > When asked where the English Wikipedia fails, it is for me in the other
> > cultures. However, when you consider the Wikipedians that have a different
> > mother tongue, there is a group that does their native language and there
> > are others that work on the English Wikipedia. It could be argued that the
> > quality of the articles in the English Wikipedia has a relation to the
> > quality of the Wikipedia in the local language.
> >
> > I think en.wikipedia does reasonably better than the other wikipedias on
> this, because there are so many non-native speakers that write on it. It is
> easier to drift towards a "national" POV with languages that no one speaks
> outside a country. It's still not perfect, but it could be worse.
>
> Marco/Cruccone
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/7/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Why did Nixon resign, when he could maybe have beaten the impeachment
> rap? Sometimes people decide it's just not worth all the trouble,
> especially not if it's only to satisfy other people's notions of
> "process". Resigning from everything is the smartest thing that Essjay
> has done so far.

I might read this as yet another mischaracterisation of Essjay - first as a
"strongarm" and now a "Nixon," but I'll leave that alone. The point isn't
that he could have "beaten the rap" - I don't think he could have given his
RFC. And I agree that resigning was, in a sense "smart."

But we are left with some need to actually clarify what did happen,
according to our formal processes and to the judgement of our elected
judges. In this way we can at least have a formal statement which is removed
of all the hyperbole we have seen thus far. A statement in which Essjay's
actions are characterised not by an angry flash mob of closet
credentialists, but by a basic and fair (neutral) representation of all the
views involved.

-Stevertigo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
	nearly 2 years ago

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> I just can't get my head around the idea of a default assumption other
> than honesty if you're going to work on an encyclopedia project.

I would have thought everyone was on the same page with that too, if
I hadn't seen a significant outpouring of support for deception in
the Essjay case. It was a case where we clearly had deliberate
deception over an extended period of time, but nevertheless people
defended it on in grounds that it was okay and even "brilliant" if it
was "just on the user page" or if it helped protect anonymity. It
appears clear therefore that some people think honesty is *not* a
"default assumption." That's what a policy should clarify. Is honesty
something we should expect always, or are there circumstances in
which it's okay to mislead?

I know this sounds odd to be discussing. It reminds me a bit of that
Seinfeld episode where George Kostanza is fired for having sex with
the cleaning lady on his office desk, and he tells his boss, "If only
I'd known this sort of thing was frowned upon..." However, we have a
very clear transcript in front of us which tells us that some people
think deception on Wikipedia user pages is okay, and if we don't
address that, this community will have learned nothing from this
whole sad episode.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
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|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
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--------------------------------


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I
	made	nearly 2 years ago

body:
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> David isn't the only one having a problem with this. Are you
>> talking about a
>> "policy" that would be suggested be followed - or a "rule" that, if
>> broken,
>> would carry punitive consequences?

on 3/7/07 11:46 AM, Sheldon Rampton at sheldon at prwatch.org wrote:

>
> Wikipedia makes a distinction between "guidelines" and "policies,"
> but I'm not aware of a distinction between "rules" and "policies." In
> any case, I think honesty should be a policy, and yes, policies on
> Wikipedia carry possible punitive consequences. Someone who
> repeatedly plagiarizes or is insulting and abusive to others gets
> blocked. I don't see why it should be any more controversial to think
> Wikipedia should have an explicit honesty policy than to think it
> should have a civility policy.
>
Regardless of what you want to call them, are we a culture based on
policies/rules ? or based on trust?

>Marc seems to think that requiring users
> to be honest on their user pages is so onerous that we have to fear
> the punitive consequences.

Please be careful in trying to analyze what I am thinking at any given time;
sometimes I have trouble doing that :-).

I feel that whatever a person places on their own, personal, User Page is
their own business. What possible difference could it make to the quality of
the real reason we are here: the encyclopedia.
>
> In fact, it *doesn't* go without saying. In the absence of a
> generally agreed-upon policy, it *isn't* self-evident that users need
> to be honest on their user pages.

I believe when honesty and integrity are taught from the very beginning of a
person?s experience these values stay with them. These values are threatened
only when the person believes their very survival is at stake. Within
Wikipedia, if honesty and integrity were cornerstones of the very culture,
and clearly necessary for a person to thrive within it, anyone not sharing
those values, and exhibiting behaviors contrary to them, would not last very
long.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Marco Chiesa

body:
On 3/7/07, Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall.org> wrote:
>
> Could someone hazard a guess on which areas the Wikipedia is strong
> in, and which areas it is still lacking? FN
>
> I think Wikipedia is really strong in some pop culture niches (yes,
Pokemon may be one of that) and is weaker in some more scholarly subjects.
But this varies from project to project and from topic to topic. There are
articles which are the most complete essay ever written on the topic, there
are articles that simply suck. Uniformity is something we're weak (basically
people write about what they know and/or care about). We are strong in
correcting factual mistakes, we are weak because we cannot guarantee if what
we say is correct. We are strong because we give access to basic information
of very many things to a huge lot of people, and for most of them we offer
enough. We're far from being perfect, there's a lot to improve, but we're
good at it.

Marco/Cruccone


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
On 3/7/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> > On 3/8/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm in favor. Does not facilitate, etc. OTOH, I am ill, and I tend to
> be
> >> less tolerant when I don't feel well, so that may be affecting my
> attitude.
> >>
> >
> > Lets just politely ask them to stop, and it they do, we leave it
> > alone. If they persist, then we'll figure out the next step
> >
> My pipe dream is to tie it into a status system - for every 1,000 edits
> in article space, you get to add one userbox.
>
> Or one could get a little nasty, and publish ratios of user page editing
> vs article space editing, give out a "Most Useless Wikipedian" award to
> the person at the top of the list.
>
> :-)   ... maybe ...
>
> Stan

I like that idea.  We can also give "most bureaucratic Wikipedian" award
based on ratio of Wikipedia space to article space editing.

Anyway, gotta run - I need to pick out the 16 userboxes I need to bring my
user page up to standard :)


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] New Java audio player, now with video.

body:
On 3/7/07, Cary Bass <bastique at bastique.com> wrote:
> It worked perfectly on my system, although there was some considerable
> buffering delay.

The image server (amane) is seriously overloaded.  Our squids do not
cache files over 600KBytes, so when amane suffers video and audio
become mostly useless.   I have solved this for the in-browser player
by setting up a seperate squid which is only used by the in browser
player. I've preloaded it with all of our videos and the most popular
audio.

Performance should now be very good.

> I rather enjoyed the orchestra, although my first choice
> for an example would have been a much shorter selection, like, say:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/commonsJOrbisPlayer.php?path=Blen
> der3D+BouncingSoftbodyBall.ogg

I wanted something with sound. :)

I've fully populated http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Video
and every video has a play in browser link.

We only have about 600 videos on commons, so there is still plenty of
room to grow.  :)

A lot of our videos aren't even used in the projects, even though
there are interesting and informative.. like
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pop-o-matic_video.ogg


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki?

body:
Jim Wilson wrote:
>> We already have several instances of this happening:
>
> Here's another one: automagical removal of attribute tags.  Try these:
> *
whatever
 or
> * some text
>
> Notice how the 'class' and 'href' attributes hare stripped at submission
> time.

If that were true that would be a bug, however it is not the case.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> > Oh, I don't know; Sometimes you get some interesting stuff that's not
> > strictly MediaWiki / Wikipedia / Wikimedia - related.
>
> I consider this primarily a strategic tool to improve communication
> about what we are doing.

Wow, that sounds really quite dull. I read the words "strategic", "communication",
and "tool" all in the same sentence, and I started to lose consciousness and the
will to live  :-(

This stuff is supposed to be fun, and if it's constrained too much, it ceases to
be fun.

Besides, what does Wikimedia communication mean exactly? Does it include people
developing extensions that aren't (at least at first) going to run on the cluster?
(I'm assuming not, since that's not Wikimedia-related). What about Wikia stuff?
(I'm assuming that's out too, since it's not Wikimedia-related). What about
volunteer developers thinking about ideas? (I'm assuming that's out too, since
there's not much related to the WMF per-se in what a volunteer dev does with their
time). What about the citizendium folks? (Certainly not Wikimedia-related,
although their endeavours at the very least have the potential to be interesting).
It doesn't leave much, and what it does leave isn't likely to be very interesting,
especially if people self-censor to fulfil some strategic business communication
objective.

In short, I can sort of understand why the WMF might want to _write_ something
like this; I'm just a lot less clear on why normal people would want to _read_ it.

> Wikimedia is not a generic blog host.

Agreed: The WMF _is_ constrained in this way, but _I_ am certainly not.
Furthermore I think my conception of what a planet should be (anything goes,
just try and make it fun, and interesting, and semi-wiki-related if possible), and
your strategic-communication-objective have irreconcilable differences.

So I sincerely wish you good luck with what you're trying to do; run with it,
and I hope it works out well.

But me, I'm setting up a very simple planet as an experiment, that pulls in a
diversity of wiki-related-blogs, but which is not restricted based on the whether
or not the content is official communication approved by the WMF; In short, I'm
aiming for the kind of wiki-related planet that I would actually like to sometimes
read. The occasional evil cat doing tricks in New Jersey restaurants is welcome,
provided the author has a major interest (social, technical, administrative, etc) in
wiki-related things, especially the Wikipedia, the MediaWiki core, MediaWiki
extensions, and also Wikimedia, but other wiki-related stuff (e.g. wikia, citizendium,
Wikipedia on the OLPC, etc etc) is all good too (provided it doesn't drown out other
stuff).

An initial version is already up and running at http://WikiBlogPlanet.com/ ; (If that
URL doesn't work for you, leave it 24 hours for the DNS to propagate, & then try again).
To start with, it's based on Angela's blog list ( http://wikiangela.com/wiki/Blogs ),
including everything in the "Wikipedia/Wikimedia/MediaWiki" category, everything in the
"Wiktionary" category, everything in the "Wikia" category, and a handful of things from
the "Miscellaneous" category. Anything that I couldn't get a feed in English for was
omitted. Also there are tend to be a _lot_ more blogs about the social aspects of wikis,
and far fewer about the technical aspects, so the I've tried to include all the
technical ones, but haven't included all the social ones from the "Miscellaneous"
category, to try and get some semblance of balance between technical and social.
Currently it's set to automatically update once an hour, so there may be up to 60 minutes
delay between when blog entries are posted, and when they appear on the planet.

Also if you want to be added (especially if you have or start a technical blog, as that's
the most underrepresented category) either add yourself to Angela's list or email me
directly (or preferably do both). Also if you don't want to be included, please let me
know and I'll remove you. And lastly, the Planet software has a concept of a "Hackergotchi"
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackergotchi ) - the planet software seems by default to
want a PNG image, 65 pixels in width & 85 pixels in height, so if anyone wants to have a
little image of themselves against their blog postings then please either email me a
suitably-sized image, or send me a web link to one.

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/7/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course, where do the figures come from?  In addition, how does he come to
> the conclusion that Wikipedia editors are 7x more liberal than the average
> American?  And does he mean American editors, or all editors?  And how much
> more "liberal" is the rest of the world than the average American?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> From http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur
>
> "Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as
> "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been
> increasing for two decades.[1] But on Wikipedia, about three times as
> many editors identify themselves as "liberal" compared with
> "conservative".[2] That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal
> than the American public. "
>
> Yeah, that's how statistics work :)

Ahh, wrong link, its
http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia obviously.
Sorry 'bout that


body:
On 3/7/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> When asked where the English Wikipedia fails, it is for me in the other
> cultures. However, when you consider the Wikipedians that have a different
> mother tongue, there is a group that does their native language and there
> are others that work on the English Wikipedia. It could be argued that the
> quality of the articles in the English Wikipedia has a relation to the
> quality of the Wikipedia in the local language.
>
> I think en.wikipedia does reasonably better than the other wikipedias on
this, because there are so many non-native speakers that write on it. It is
easier to drift towards a "national" POV with languages that no one speaks
outside a country. It's still not perfect, but it could be worse.

Marco/Cruccone


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
stvrtg wrote:
> But we are left with some need to actually clarify what did happen,
> according to our formal processes and to the judgement of our elected
> judges. In this way we can at least have a formal statement which is removed
> of all the hyperbole we have seen thus far.
>
Clarifying what happened is a task for historians, not judges. When the
accused dies in mid-trial, the trial is dismissed.

If a responsible person or group wanted to develop a policy proposal to
cover future situations, it would be appropriate to include a careful
and detailed review of this case as part of their background material.
To abuse the judicial analogy, this would be a law professor kind of
activity.

Stan


body:
On 3/7/07, David Still <daveydweeb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, the player causes serious problems under Mac OS 10.4.8.
> Safari 2.0.4 either crashes when playing or reports that Java is
> unavailable (it's installed and enabled, so something's wrong there),
> while other browsers like Camino show other weird problems (where the
> Java player causes the entire window -- or large portions of it -- to
> appear as garbage, even after changing or closing tabs).
>
> Is there any way to test the player on these systems?

Sounds like you just did. :)

[I'm replying in public just to avoid people thinking that it's known
to be completely non-functional in OSX, which is not the case.]

I've had positive reports from other Mac users, although I believe
they were in FireFox. Do you know what Java virtual machine your
browser is using?  Behavior within a single JVM is usually fairly
consistent.

Do the videos at metavid work for you?
http://metavid.ucsc.edu/overlay/video_player/webview?stream_name=house_proceeding_02-05-07_00&t=00:00:00/00:01:00


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
On 3/7/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> The post by Rob Smith is a rambling affair. It is not clear at all what
> his
> argument is. The fact that he has been banned from the English Wikipedia
> and
> is currently on moderation on the wikien-l does not help understanding
> either. It does not help his case to come here in this way.

I beg to differ with this; the issues are stated clearly in the first
posting to this list.  There is ample evidence to support what I've stated.
It is not arguementative or partisan, and the objective is to give a clear
review of how some of the present problems have arose, not to point
fingers.  The problems can't be spoken about theoretically; some real life
situations need to be seen to gain insight.


from_name: Aude

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
Problem is the talk page spamming.  User has been warned to stop spamming
people's talk pages.  If they continue, the user should be blocked per
WP:CANVASS.  If they spam my talk page, they will be blocked because it's
too disruptive.

-Aude

On 3/7/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Oh god. Userboxes were bad enough. What on earth is this new "sign my
> > autograph page" trend?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/ANNAfoxlover
> >
> > I got a request from a different user. Rather than [[WP:BITE]] their
> > head off, I thought I'd vent here.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smartie960/Autographs
> >
> > Ack.
> >
> > Steve
>
>
> Oh dear. Wow.  It's so sweet and pre-teen.  "Please sign so I can contact
> you later. Maybe the next time you change your signature you can sign
> again
> so I can see it."
>
> And this is a sig??
>
>  Monotype Corsiva; font-size: 12pt;">[[User:Cremepuff222| color="#008000">Cremepuff222]] ([[User talk:Cremepuff222| color="#2F4F4F">talk]], [[User:Cremepuff222/Autograph Book| color="#2F4F4F">sign book]])
>
> I am all for making Wikipedia as much fun as possible...but autograph
> books?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Aude


subject: [Wikitech-l] Subversion server upgrade

body:
On 07/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > On 07/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> >> I'm upgrading Subversion to 1.4.3 on the server; theoretically if I
> >> upgrade the repository this can same some disk space as well though I'm
> >> not going to do that just yet.
> >
> > Just pinch some cash for another disk...
>
> It's the principle of the thing. ;)

If I'd suggested a new Mac, you'd have been filling in an expenses
claim like a bloody whippet!

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
> Oh god. Userboxes were bad enough. What on earth is this new "sign my
> autograph page" trend?

I agree.  I got the message too.  MFD?
--Mets501


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

body:
Hoi!

> current rules on en.wikipedia
Which ones? I'm interested and willing to help, just specify, pls.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: stvrtg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/7/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Clarifying what happened is a task for historians, not judges. When the
> accused dies in mid-trial, the trial is dismissed.

If a responsible person or group wanted to develop a policy proposal to
> cover future situations, it would be appropriate to include a careful
> and detailed review of this case as part of their background material.
> To abuse the judicial analogy, this would be a law professor kind of
> activity.

Well I can sort of make up the appropriate credentials. ;)  A real issue
though is this characterisation of "abuse" by Essjay has been repeated ad
nauseam in the media - including WP's own "Essjay controversy" article. By
opening up an Arbcom case, people can assist in gathering any evidence of
wrongdoing, beyond the citations given.

-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
Smartie960's user page has this bouncing Wikipedia logo, which clicking on
takes you to Special:Random.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bouncywikilogo.gif

I know the logo is copyrighted, but I suppose people can put it on their
userpage?  I find it distracting in this case, but since apparently a number
of other users put it on their user pages then it's okay?


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autograph pages

body:
I'm in favor. Does not facilitate, etc. OTOH, I am ill, and I tend to be
less tolerant when I don't feel well, so that may be affecting my attitude.

Mets501 wrote:
>> Oh god. Userboxes were bad enough. What on earth is this new "sign my
>> autograph page" trend?
>>
>
> I agree.  I got the message too.  MFD?
> --Mets501
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/7/07, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:

> we are left with some need to actually clarify what did happen,
> according to our formal processes and to the judgement of our elected
> judges. In this way we can at least have a formal statement which is
> removed
> of all the hyperbole we have seen thus far.

How about a 9/11 style investigatory commission, non-partisan, of course.

Nobs01


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
stvrtg wrote:
> Well I can sort of make up the appropriate credentials. ;)  A real issue
> though is this characterisation of "abuse" by Essjay has been repeated ad
> nauseam in the media - including WP's own "Essjay controversy" article. By
> opening up an Arbcom case, people can assist in gathering any evidence of
> wrongdoing, beyond the citations given.
>
People can create a page and do all that now, Arbcom adds no value. From
what I know of Arbcom, the case would be turned down inside of 15
minutes, setting a new record for AC speed :-)  , so you'd have to
create your own page anyway. After all, the "arb" stands for
"arbitration", and exactly what dispute between current editors would
they be settling? Now if you were to create an Essjay-related page and
get into an edit war over it, they might take that case, not that I'm
suggesting anything. :-)

Stan


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
Your reply seems to assume en.wikipedia only. I am however not as
pessimistic as you are.. The English Wikipedia provides a wealth of great
quality information in many subjects. Even though it is a work in progress
it gets better all the time in both quality and quantity.

When asked where the English Wikipedia fails, it is for me in the other
cultures. However, when you consider the Wikipedians that have a different
mother tongue, there is a group that does their native language and there
are others that work on the English Wikipedia. It could be argued that the
quality of the articles in the English Wikipedia has a relation to the
quality of the Wikipedia in the local language.

As to improving the "other" Wikipedias, there are many ways in which this
can be done. The question is do these Wikipedias have to be in the exact
mould of the "big ones" or is some cultural diversity allowed ?

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/7/07, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> The problem is with the current rules on en.wikipedia which are totally
> geared towards western style relevance and references ,and the bias
> amongst editors,  it is difficult to get the same debt for Africa, Asia
> and South America. Something has got to give. And the rules will never
> be changed because of the western pov of most of our editors. So we will
> have to accept that we will be weak in these areas forever. Or somehow
> with a miracle an exception clause has to be made for topics regarding
> this area.
>
> Waerth
>
> >Hoi.
> >Wikipedia is very much lacking in all areas.. What Wikipedia are you
> >talking about; it is not the same situation on all Wikipedias.. On the
> >English Wikipedia I would say that subjects to do with Africa, Asia and
> >South America could use a lot of refinement. One topic I think is
> >worrisome is the lack of a full picture for Iran. It really makes it
> >easy to paint them as a villain when there is so little public knowledge
> >about the people, the country and the culture.
> >
> >The en.wikipedia is strong on Pokemon, when there is an invasion of
> >these creatures we know all there is to know about them. :)
> >
> >Thanks,
> >   GerardM
> >
> >
> >Frederick Noronha schreef:
> >
> >
> >>Could someone hazard a guess on which areas the Wikipedia is strong
> >>in, and which areas it is still lacking? FN
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>On 3/6/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I really don't think "we" all in agreement on what "we" want.
> >>>>
> >>>>I do not have a problem with people using Wikipedia as a primary
> >>>>source for information. When it comes to certain topics, I would
> >>>>encourage it because I have confidence in our accuracy and wide
> >>>>coverage.
> >>>>
> >>>>However, I would not encourage people to stake their fortune or their
> >>>>health on Wikipedia at all, and there are certain topics that I would
> >>>>discourage people from using Wikipedia as a primary source or in some
> >>>>cases even a secondary source for (pretty much anything related to
> >>>>Eastern Europe, all of which is still definitely a Work In Progress
> >>>>when it comes to POV).
> >>>>
> >>>>Mark
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Update of Foundation organization

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 3/5/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>[snip]
>
>
>>* we wish to involve people from all over the world, not restricting
>>employees to USA only. Currently, those working "offshore" have to be
>>their own employers (they are contractants). This is not sustainable in
>>the long run, so we have to explore more international employment issues.
>>
>>
>[snip]
>
>First off, I'm terrified to raise this point in public because I know
>that there are people here who will scream that I'm some kind of
>nationalist bigot for bringing this up. But I think it's a very
>serious matter which demands the input and understanding of a wide
>audience.
>
>It is my understanding that if we have true employees in a nation that
>our organization will have a legal presence in that nation. If we have
>a legal presence in that nation, we will be subject to the
>jurisdiction of that nation.
>
Sometimes.  In reality it depends on what aspects of that country's laws
you are considering.  Simply having an employee leads to the question of
what that employee's duties are.

>It would be ideal that our activities would generally be so far away
>from the ambiguous grey areas of the law that the differing legal
>behavior would not be a substantial issue for us. However, this just
>isn't the case today. We benefit substantially from detailed aspects
>of US law in the areas of libel, copyright, and privacy.
>
Why would this need to be an issue?  If the employee's duties relate to
these matters that could be the case, but that is only likely to affect
him personally.  A legal action against WMF in such other country is
always possible, but that could also happen without an employee there.

>*Does operating the foundation with regular employees in a nation
>create a jurisdictional issue as I described?
>
Not usually.

>*How can we avoid this risk while maintaining the agility to hire
>useful people from any part of the world?
>
Every country has different laws.  It makes no sense to try to answer
this unless you have a clear idea about which country you will be hiring
from.

>*What are the qualities and risks of various jurisdictions?
>
What do you mean by qualities?  Risks can be so varied that there can be
no single answer.

>*How can we deal with the impact of being subject to multiple jurisdictions?
>
The same as we always have.

>I fear that in the worst case being directly subject to the laws of
>many nations we may find our entire method of operation (open access
>Wikis) to be too risky.
>
This is unfounded speculation.

To whatever extent people are employed in various countries it should be
as contractual workers.  The laws that should be of most concern are
those relating to employment stantards, taxation, social security and
related matters.  My experience has been that compliance attemps from
outside the country in these areas can involve disastrous
misunderstandings of law.  Even within the United States the
applications of another state's laws can be very confusing.  Remembering
that Florida does not have a state personal income tax dealing with just
this for out-of-state employees can be a burden.  Having employed one
person for a position does not mean that when he eventually leaves that
position his successor will be from the same country.  That would then
mean reviewing this every time a new employee comes on board.

Ec


from_name: Jared Williams

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wiki XML (was Re: AJAX and .aspx as technologies
	forMediaWiki?)

body:
> > Store wikitext, and cache the intermediary XML.
> >
> > Wikitext to XML back to wikitext for editing will lose
> something. Things
> > like optional whitespace would be removed.
>
> Why not just encode them?  It shouldn't be any worse than encoding the
> begin/end of line markers that you'd need to handle lists/tables in
> templates.  It may be a bit ugly, but the ugliness wouldn't
> be hidden away
> so deeply.

I suppose you could.
There are a few issues tho.

1, Want the XML to be pretty close to XHTML. At the moment the wikitext is
transformed to XHTML, with anything complicated (transclusions etc) being
output as object elements. Encoding optional markup means more work it to a
browser.

2, In the final parse for a browser, to resolve the browser unsupported
object elements, supports transclusion using xpath, so it could complicate
things there.

Jared


body:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> I just can't get my head around the idea of a default assumption other
>> than honesty if you're going to work on an encyclopedia project.
>
on 3/7/07 6:23 PM, Sheldon Rampton at sheldon at prwatch.org wrote:

> I would have thought everyone was on the same page with that too, if
> I hadn't seen a significant outpouring of support for deception in
> the Essjay case. It was a case where we clearly had deliberate
> deception over an extended period of time, but nevertheless people
> defended it on in grounds that it was okay and even "brilliant" if it
> was "just on the user page" or if it helped protect anonymity. It
> appears clear therefore that some people think honesty is *not* a
> "default assumption." That's what a policy should clarify. Is honesty
> something we should expect always, or are there circumstances in
> which it's okay to mislead?
>
> However, we have a
> very clear transcript in front of us which tells us that some people
> think deception on Wikipedia user pages is okay, and if we don't
> address that, this community will have learned nothing from this
> whole sad episode.
>
Sheldon,

It is clear the WP culture needs work, care, and nurturing. But I still do
not believe this can be accomplished by creating more RULES.

Marc

--
If you're restricted to what is - you are cut off from - - what could be.


body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Sheldon Rampton
> Sent: 07 March 2007 18:23
> To: wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for
> MediaWiki?
>
> Simetrical wrote:
>
> > I don't think it's realistic to
> > expect total lack of change in the parser anyway: often it's a good
> > idea to tweak parser output slightly to add new classes,
> style things
> > a bit better, or whatever.
>
> I think it helps to break things down conceptually into three
> categories: input format, storage format, and output format.
>
> STORAGE format should be extremely well-defined and stable, hence XML.
>
> There could be (and probably should be) a variety of INPUT formats:
> wikitext, WYSIWYG, etc., each of which is defined through
> conversion rules that turn them back and forth into the
> storage format.
>
> The could also be a variety of OUTPUT formats. In addition to
> the current HTML, there could also be an audio output format,
> a "plain text" format, maybe a "summary" format (consisting
> of the lead paragraph and a table of contents for the rest),
> and probably some others I haven't thought of. Again, these
> would be defined through conversion rules.
>
> I imagine there would be some third-party development of
> input and output formats for a variety of uses.
>

MediaWiki is in constant development, so nothing is stable.
And therefore any third parties are going to be playing catch up, almost
constantly.

Jared


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
On Mar 7, 2007, at 6:18 PM, wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

> It is clear the WP culture needs work, care, and nurturing. But I
> still do
> not believe this can be accomplished by creating more RULES.

Are you kidding? The entire Wikipedia community only exists BECAUSE
of rules. Some of them look like the 3 revert rule, and some of them
look like this:

$wgAllowExternalImages = true;

Rules are how a community formalizes its understanding of how members
should behave within it. It's a much better way of shaping a culture
than arbitrary mob action or arbitrary, case-by-case orders from some
dictator. What's your alternative?

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/7/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:

> People can create a page and do all that now, Arbcom adds no value. From
> what I know of Arbcom, the case would be turned down inside of 15
> minutes, setting a new record for AC speed :-)  , so you'd have to
> create your own page anyway. After all, the "arb" stands for
> "arbitration", and exactly what dispute between current editors would
> they be settling? Now if you were to create an Essjay-related page and
> get into an edit war over it, they might take that case, not that I'm
> suggesting anything. :-)

Your insightful comments notwithstanding, ("after all, the "arb" stands for
"arbitration")
I have filed one anyway.

-Stevertigo


from_name: J.L.W.S. The Special One

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Crosslist] [Press] Press list

body:
Should I try and find out about the journalists for The Straits Times
- Singapore's largest newspaper?

On 3/6/07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
> [Crossposted on many lists]
>
> Hello,
>
> The press team of the Foundation is currently building a press list file and
> gathering contact information of journalists and editors of all the major
> media (newspapers, magazines, radio, tv) around the world. The aim is to
> improve our communication and be able to reach people from all over the
> world (not only people from the US and not only people from English-speaking
> countries).
>
> We are requesting help from the whole community to gather this information.
> We have the chance to have a global community of users and volunteers and we
> need to take advantage of this chance. Please help us by sending contact
> information of journalists and editors you know or from your country.
>
> The basic information are :
> Name of the journalist:
> First name:
> Email:
> Name and type of the media: (for instance "CNN, worldwide news TV channel")
>
> Any other information about each contact is welcome (area of concentration,
> coverage, schedule...).
>
> Please send the information you have got to: press at wikimedia dot org and
> *do not answer this email*, I will probably not get the emails since I am
> not subscribed to all lists I have posted to.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> --
> Guillaume Paumier
> [[m:User:guillom]]
> http://www.wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Written with passion,
J.L.W.S. The Special One


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Be bold [in updating pages]

body:
On 3/7/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > Another fundamental principle that seems to have changed when I wasn't
> > looking: "Be bold" is now "Be bold in updating pages". Was it that
> > ambiguous?
>
> Yes.  People were being bold in messing with long-standing guidelines and
> causing problems.  I wasn't involved in the name change, but it was a good
> one.
>
> -Jeff

True.  It made the page less of a soundbite, but it is much clearer to
understand.

Mgm


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/7/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > I don't think policy is broken just because it doesn't explicitly
> > state that users should be honest on their user pages.  Mentioning
> > "oh, by the way, don't lie about credentials on your user page"
> > wouldn't hurt, but I think it goes without saying.
>
> The contrast between Marc's comment and Anthony's demonstrates the
> need for an honesty policy. Marc seems to think that requiring users
> to be honest on their user pages is so onerous that we have to fear
> the punitive consequences. Anthony, by contrast, thinks the rule is
> so obvious that it "goes without saying."
>
I don't actually think these viewpoints are as opposite as you make
them out to be.  For one thing, I only mentioned lying about
credentials on your user page, not that users need to be 100% honest.
And secondly, I think anyone who argues for *enforcing* a policy
against lying about credentials is going to have an uphill battle
making a convincing argument that this can be done without causing
harsh burdens upon users.

> There's a reason for this confusion: The internet is different from
> the real world, and it operates according to different rules that
> make deception both easier and more socially acceptable.

I guess I forget sometimes that people think of Wikipedia as an
MMORPG, because the way I see it, we're a group of real people
creating a real encyclopedia.  The Internet is just a medium for
communication.

Anthony


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki XML

body:
On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:35:25 -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:

> Thanks Sheldon - those are excellent points.  The conversion back-and-forth
> through HTML seems to be a sticky spot.
>
> I wonder if there's any happy-medium?  If pages could be flagged as
> "Wikitext" or "HTML", then using a WYSIWYG on the HTML pages and traditional
> edit on Wikitext articles could make sense.
>

Since the wiki text is more structured than the HTML, rendering it that
way would be a lossy conversion, which is why it would be useful to have
an intermediate XML that keeps the structure of the wiki text without its
ambiguities.

Initially, I think this XML would be more useful as a transfer encoding,
to export the full structure of the data to third-party software that
doesn't need to emulate our Parser, and would take some time to mature
before being used for storage.

Of course, we could consider wysiwyg to be be one of those programs,
encoding what it understands into XML, and flagging what it doesn't,
editing, then reversing it.  So the medium could be a partial conversion,
but done on the fly, and dealt with by the application.


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On Mar 7, 2007, at 7:32 PM, stvrtg wrote:

> The question that Im left with is the matter of process: Why was
> Essjay
> forced to resign when he didn't even get a proper in-process review
> from the
> Arbcom? That of course is why the Arbcom exists, to sort of try to
> investigate a case and see if things actually violated the rules.
>
Because sometimes Jimbo acts without the arbcom.

> In which there would have to be an answer for the charge that
> Essjay used
> his pseudonym credentials to "strongarm" others in the context of
> debates.
> The exerpts Ive seen do not show that, rather they show that Essjay
> stepped
> in to offer some clarification and explanation on particular points
> - not
> that he "strongarmed" people with his opinions.
> I think that characterization is flatly out of... character.
>
Indeed - we should note that Essjay's on-Wikipedia use of his
credentials was wholly unproblematic, at least in terms of effects.
This is something we should think hard about in terms of our anti-
expertise bias - the worst case scenario turned out not to be
meaningfully destructive to the encyclopedia.

-Phil


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wiki XML (was Re: AJAX and .aspx as
	technologies	forMediaWiki?)

body:
On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:27:21 +0000, Mark Clements wrote:

> Converting the reverse parser is where the problems come though:
>
> e.g.
>
>     ''test
>
> will be converted to the following HTML:
>
>
test

>
> Which would probably be converted back to:
>
>     ''test''
>
> In this example I don't think this is a problem - the parser neatly fixes
> any ambiguous syntax.  However there may be situations where this matters.
> I would be interested to see if anyone can come with a good example.
>
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)

How about just having an XML definition of the current wiki syntax.  I.e.
convert that as

<begin-italic/>test<eol/>

or even something like

<begin-italic/>test<end-italic implicit/><eol/>

which would keep more of the logic in the parser, while still being
reversible.

That is, keep all of the structure; don't actually render it, but allow it
to be rendered with a straightforward transformation, and not an FSM or
such.


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Simetrical" <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:7c2a12e20703070858l553205fcmeae3c833c7cac34a at mail.gmail.com...

> I don't really think it would be acceptable to have failure of
> round-tripping.  It's not that it's a problem that what's submitted
> isn't what's saved, it's the problem that what's loaded by the client
> isn't what's saved.  Merely touching a page, a null edit, could
> noticeably affect the page's display if we don't guarantee correct
> round-tripping.  And the changes wouldn't show up in a wikitext diff,
> either.  I don't view that as an acceptable option.

We already have several instances of this happening:

1) Expanding signatures: ~~~~
2) Pipe trick: [[Help:Contents|]]
3) {{subst:Page}}
...and maybe others.

I don't think it's as big a problem as you think.  Large changes (e.g.
entering wiki markup and getting back XML markup) would of course be a Bad
Thing. but so long as the rendering of the page isn't altered by null-edit
round-tripping, I don't think it matters too much if trivial changes (e.g.
whitespace) occur in the wiki text.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism

body:
I've been exceptionally busy today dealing with juvenile vandalism, in
between working on writing articles, and may have issued more blocks today
than any other single day.  The childish behavior is sure getting annoying.

Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some
stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits
go live.  Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's
going on with that?  I don't expect anything anytime soon.

Alternatively, I know that when I go on the German, Italian, and some other
Wikipedias, it seems they have many more pages (obvious vandalism targets)
semi-protected.  Our semi-protection policy says "Articles subject to heavy
and continued vandalism" - what amount of vandalism has to happen to be
considered "heavy and continued"?  The situation is getting to be such that
I would support a somewhat more liberal definition of "heavy and continued"
for pages like Taco, Kyle, or Africa which might not experience vandalism as
badly as George W. Bush or Gay but still experience too much vandalism.

Thoughts?

--
Aude


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 3/7/07 7:19 PM, Anthony at wikilegal at inbox.org wrote:

> we're a group of real people
> creating a real encyclopedia.

Yes! And a new person coming into the group is going to sniff around and try
to get a sense of what it takes to be accepted into the group: what does it
value? - how to they talk to each other?? And some, because of their own
problems with self worth are going to try and impress.

Marc


from_name: Frederick Noronha

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Reaching the next billion... Wikipedia...

body:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=156753

Reaching the next billion
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales seems focused on taking his online 'free
to edit encyclopedia' to everyone, as the world talks about his plans
to take on Google

S SHYAMALA
Posted online: Monday, March 05, 2007 at 2301 hours IST

Send Feedback 	  	E-mail this story 	  	Print this story
 He rewrote the rules of encyclopedia business. And online search
engines seem to be the next on target. But Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales seems occupied with taking his 'free to edit' encyclopedia to
everyone in the world. He is headed to Japan after mingling with
Indian bloggers and wiki professionals at an unconference (where crowd
participates in the discussion instead of just the speaker talking,
just like his Wikipedia). "We have to think of how to take it to every
corner of the world," he says.

India and Indian languages, for instance, are already getting a bigger
foothold on wikipedia, which ranks among the ten most visited sites
globally. You could find detailed information in a small, relatively
unknown town of India, thanks to the software created by IT
professional, Ganesh Krishnamurthy for about 5,000 Indian towns and
cities. "This wikibot is one of the examples of users making efficient
use of the basic tool and platform to create their own wikis, says
Jimmy.

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And expanding Wikipedia to the next billion people is on top of his
mind, even as he continues to refuse advertisements. "Every time we
turn down an advertisement offer, we remind ourselves that this money
could have gone into taking the access to developing countries. This
is one of the things I challenge people sitting in a wealthy country
with a broadband connection, he recently confirmed in a podcast from
Chennai.

"We have to be clear that we are turning ads down for a good reason.
And that's a stand for now. Project of a free wikipedia is a long-term
project and that 's a decision we take every year; every month," he
clarifies. Many in the industry believe that textlinks in Wikipedia
could fetch a fortune. His not-for-profit online encyclopedia gets
seven billion page views each month in more than five million multiple
language entries.

Here to attend India's first Wikicamp unconference, he also
kick-started an open book on the subject. "The most special feature is
that this book will be authored collaboratively by people worldwide.
These are people who have helped organise or attended unconferences
around the world. It will be written openly on a wiki," informs
Wikicamp organiser, Kiruba Shankar. Within days of the launch, 59
people from eight different cities have joined in.

Doesn't uncontrolled access to articles lead to vandalism and
self-promotion? Jimmy agrees but says such acts are duly corrected by
other users. Plagiarised copies can be easily found out because the
style of writing, which is unlike the encyclopedia style, betrays the
article, he adds.

Moreover, users take pride in publishing their own work rather than
copying material, Jimmy says.

Apart from the encyclopedia, Jimmy has also spearheaded a for-profit
organisation called Wikia, which is a repository of journals,
magazines, opinions and a library. The team is also working on
creating an open-source search engine to be called Wikiasearch, Jimmy
says.

Though there are a few proprietary players in the search space, they
lack innovations in the search methodologies, he says.

With open source, users will be able to create their own search
engines from the basic tool, he adds. Wikipedia communities can also
be involved to flag the best articles that will be given top priority
while returning search results, he says.

--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translating the Five pillars

body:
"Yury Tarasievich"
<yury.tarasievich at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:9f3c41b10702270128i27163954v2bda68575b2f096c at mail.gmail.com...
> So, an online community with no real rules. You must be kidding guys.

...except it's not a community... ;-)

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
Two instances as illustrations:

1)  Stephan Kinsella, like Brandt, did not become a Wikipedian voluntarily,
registered an account to defend himself against questionable content and is
the subject of the "Mercy" ruling which is part of WP:BLP. <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BLP#_note-0 >  A high profile Administrator
then used material from David Duke to rebut Kinsella's efforts to defend
himself.  <
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ludwig_von_Mises_Institute&diff=19397326&oldid=19384341
 >

2 ) Yesterday in response to a request SlimVirgin privately agreed to
remove an inappropriate link to the CODAH website, only to promptly place
another link back to the same questionable source in a less visible place. <
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laird_Wilcox&diff=113130787&oldid=110987454
>

These are two examples of high level Administrators using what is by policy
questionable sources with a grave potential for severe harm to the
subjects in articles of living persons.  And in both instances, neither
subject can be "linked" to David Duke and/or this organization, or the
Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODAH).

This pattern of action -- which extends to numerous other living persons --
warrants review.  And ArbCom has done nothing to mitigate circumstances such
as these even after they have been brought to their attention.


body:
> On Mar 7, 2007, at 6:18 PM, wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
>
>> It is clear the WP culture needs work, care, and nurturing. But I
>> still do
>> not believe this can be accomplished by creating more RULES.

on 3/7/07 7:55 PM, Sheldon Rampton at sheldon at prwatch.org wrote:
>
> Are you kidding? The entire Wikipedia community only exists BECAUSE
> of rules.

No! The Wikipedia Community exists because people want to be in it.
>
> Rules are how a community formalizes its understanding of how members
> should behave within it. It's a much better way of shaping a culture
> than arbitrary mob action or arbitrary, case-by-case orders from some
> dictator.

This is clearly your own personal POV.

>What's your alternative?

Some truly creative thinking for starters.

A culture is created by the community, and it is going to take the Community
coming together to do so.

But first, it is going to take the person at the top agreeing that a change
needs to take place, then asking the Community to do the work. He cannot
mandate a culture, he can only influence it.

Marc


body:
> Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some
stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits
go live.  Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's
going on with that?  I don't expect anything anytime soon.

I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org)
where you're more likely to get a response from the developers.
--Mets501


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wiki XML (was Re: AJAX and .aspx as
	technologiesforMediaWiki?)

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Sheldon Rampton
> Sent: 07 March 2007 20:02
> To: wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Wiki XML (was Re: AJAX and .aspx as
> technologiesforMediaWiki?)
>
> George Herbert wrote:
>
> > XML is more of a data interchange than storage format.  If you're
> > storing data, and the software which is using it is the
> only source or
> > destination, there is no clear reason why one would use XML, unless
> > you're using it for data structure.  But MW currently needs no
> > structure; you're either storing metadata (in the db) or the
> > article/page contents (text, with some output parsing, but
> just text;
> > also in the DB, but only for convenience of access).
>
> Actually, though, its "text with some output parsing" uses
> wikitext as a shorthand for HTML, so it *does* have a data
> structure. You just have to parse it to get the structure. So
> why not use a data structure that is already close to HTML
> and that is a widely-accepted standard rather than the
> idiosyncratic shorthand of wikitext?
>
> > If the parser is going to stay the same, then there's no reason to
> > change the storage format to something which requires an
> intermediate
> > parser before the output parser.
>
> I think there's a feeling already that the parser *shouldn't*
> stay the same. It works, but it is the result of an original
> idea that has been repeatedly hacked and modified to the
> point that it has become unwieldy and imprecise in its
> ability to map unambiguously to HTML.

That requires fixing the grammar which is ambiguous. Which has already been
ruled out by Brion, at least for the foreseeable future.

> Since it needs a rewrite anyway, why not be forward-looking
> and ambitious and rewrite with an eye to better
> standardization and reusability?

Wikipedia has hundreds millions (guess from numbers of pages  * number of
revisions) of pages of wiki text, so changing anything substantially is
going to cause a lot of problems.

Jared


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

body:
On popular articles, wouldn't this create huge edit-conflict problems?

Newyorkbrad

On 3/7/07, Mets501 <mets501wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about
> some
> stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon.
> edits
> go live.  Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's
> going on with that?  I don't expect anything anytime soon.
>
> I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org)
> where you're more likely to get a response from the developers.
> --Mets501
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Aude

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:  Dealing with juvenile vandalism

body:
Okay, I'm crossposting it, in hopes that someone technical can answer to the
enwiki list.

Though, I get the sense that maybe it's not so much a technical issue of
implementing it but some other issues holding it up?  I thought the
stable/delay thing was going to be tried on dewiki and then if it worked
then brought over here.  Has it even been tried yet on dewiki? or what?

-Aude

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mets501 <mets501wiki at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 7, 2007 8:40 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

> Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some
stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits
go live.  Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's
going on with that?  I don't expect anything anytime soon.

I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org)
where you're more likely to get a response from the developers.
--Mets501

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
Aude


body:
There would still be edit conflicts.  Let's say the delay is 15 minutes.  At
8:00, anon edits a sentence (validly). At 8:05, registered user edits the
same sentence differently.  What happens?  Okay, now it's 8:15, time for the
anon edit to go live.  What happens then?

Newyorkbrad

On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/8/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On popular articles, wouldn't this create huge edit-conflict problems?
>
> The proposal was to simply hide the anon edits from the outside world.
> It would have no impact on edit conflicts, as the changes go live
> internally straight away.
>
> I have always liked this proposal, but the consensus seemed to be more
> in favour of the "designated stable version" proposal.
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSPAN copyright

body:
On 3/7/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to an "email release" CSPAN is going to shift to a cc-by-nc type
> license.  Not quite good enough for us to use, but certainly a nice step.
>
> http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/7/1522/54537

Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how
the courts define non commercial?

--
geni


from_name: Ben Yates

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
> Aside from any particulars, what this episode in general represents if
> anything is how mob rule has overstepped even the Arbcom's role, at a time
> when JW has been almost completely out of the loop.
>
> -Stevertigo

Isn't Jimmy just supposed to be the proverbial head of state at this
point, no longer the commander in chief?

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com