subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
>
> On 13/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 13/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > With FA nominations often missing out on basic criteria (at least the
> last
> > > time I checked in there), rules are apparently needed. It stops
> additional
> > > work in de-featuring work that should not be featured to begin with if
> > > criteria are too lax.
>
> > Yeah. But it's gotta be more of a checklist and a general Request For
> > Shrubbery Demands.

David, what exactly are you referring to here?  Most of the minor detail
type things that come up in FACs are pretty easy to fix (such as formatting
and consistency issues).  Other potentially bigger problems that are still
somewhat debatable are things like prose quality and reference quality, and
these can take more time.  But in the end, the resulting work is usually
significantly superior to the old version (at least as far as I can tell,
being someone who thinks WP:RS and WP:CITE are indispensable).  Which of
these do you see as shrubberies, or am I missing another option?

Nathaniel


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Nathaniel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Objections which are answered by the nominator but which the objectors
> can't be found to cross off lead to the nomination failing, for
> example. Go read WT:FAC, there's an example listed. The nominator in
> that case was told "gee, go away and try harder."
>
> My objection is to a process which the regulars can straight-facedly
> say to someone who just got an FA and is objecting to the personalised
> shittiness of the process, "go away and learn to write properly" and
> have this tolerated as a response. Does that encourage the content
> creators to actually bother, or to say "screw you guys, I'm going
> home"?

I guess I would be hesitant to judge the overall FAC process based on the
interaction between Francesco and FAC regulars.  Rare are FACs that get so
heated (I recall the GNAA and Bulbasaur FACs, and that's it).  In this case,
it seems both sides (I include myself in this) got defensive when they
perceived that their opinions were under attack (for Francesco, that his
writing was poor, and for Tony/Sandy/Me, that the standards we've been
applying to FACs for months are faulty).  In the end (which occurred after
Francesco's initial complaints on WT:FAC), I think pretty much everyone
agreed that the article was at least somewhat better than it was when the
nomination started.  And everyone was much more calm, that's for sure.

As for people disappearing and not striking their objections, yes, that
happens, but in my experience Raul usually ignores these after several days
if the nominator makes a note under the objection saying that he/she has
addressed the objection.  Of course, sometimes it doesn't work out that way,
especially for nominations receiving few comments.

Nathaniel


from_name: Carl Peterson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
My experience in this is in WikiProject Louisville, where we've tried to
address the issue of people wanting to create articles for random elementary
schools that don't amount to much more than three lines. So, our [[List of
Schools in Louisville]] is a bit more than just a list of school names. We
haven't prodded the original articles, but that's one of the things we've
been doing to get an article (or list, or whatever you might call it) of
some length (we'll split it sometime down the road) that can cover a subject
without being a stub.

Carl

On 9/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/13/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/12/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > That goal (and the goal of even 100,000 FAs)
> > > may mean that articles which could not be brought to FA level on their
> own
> > > need to be merged (e.g., a single, comprehensive article on multiple
> schools
> > > instead of a stub for each individual article)
> >
> > I'm not sure I agree.  Some articles are going to be short simply
> > because there is not much known or notable about the topic to say.  It
> > still helps readers in many cases for the article to be separate if
> > it's a topic that's singular and not easily merged with others.  I'm
> > not against merging in most cases, but I'm against one-size-fits-all.
>
> To be a featured article an article should be reasonably complete for
> the level of coverage we provide... but that doesn't require it to be
> long.
>
> I've heard that there is a trend on FAC is to encourage the creation
> of very long articles... even, perhaps, where really long is
> inappropriate. If this is the case then it's a cause to improve the FA
> process, not a cause to back away from making more articles
> featurable.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>On 13/09/06, David Gerard wrote:

>> My heart bleeds for them. Really.
>> http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&guid=%7BA449A54F-8662-4100-A268-B34BBADC2D11%7D&keyword=

>And more: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060912-084125

>Editors should watch carefully both for company shills and for
>unduly-weighted criticism.

Hey, quit picking on good-faith shills.  They're red-blooded human beings with feelings just like you.  All they want is to do is help you make more informed decisions, just like PR people and people that want to know the stats on how many clicks external links get.  It's all in your interest.

Be nice.  My riends at http://www.connelldonatelli.com have friends at News Corp., who have friends in Australia that can help you with article maintenance.

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

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail.


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Last minute media alert: Wikimedia on ABC's
	Nightline tonight

body:
On 9/13/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >From the program:
> >
> > "1.3 million articles, and that's just the English version. Wikipedia
> > comes in 9 other languages."
> >
> > -- nyenyec
>
>
> How do they get ideas like that? I just read a question on the help desk
> from someone who wanted to know which encyclopedia an article came from, as
> if "the free encyclopedia" means copying copyrighted material and offering
> it up for free.
>
> :(
>
> Mgm

to be fair some of our stuff does come from EB 1911.
--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 13/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:

> > "1.3 million articles, and that's just the English version. Wikipedia
> > comes in 9 other languages."

> How do they get ideas like that?

www.wikipedia.org features TEN LANGUAGES AROUND THE WORLD! ... and the
others are obviously invisible.

- d.


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 13:11 -0700, Cheney Shill wrote:
> Hey, quit picking on good-faith shills.  They're red-blooded human beings with feelings just like you.  All they want is to do is help you make more informed decisions, just like PR people and people that want to know the stats on how many clicks external links get.  It's all in your interest.
>
> Be nice.  My riends at http://www.connelldonatelli.com have friends at News Corp., who have friends in Australia that can help you with article maintenance.

Can we keep the trolling off the mailing list, please?
--
Christopher Larberg [[w:en:User:Slowking Man]]
<christopherlarberg at gmail.com>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060913/891c521d/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think a process which tests Wikipedia content creators to
> destruction, and whose advocates actually think this is a good thing
> for a process to do, is prima facie pathological and needs removal as
> soon as possible. It's way too damaging to the community.

Again, Hilary Putnam is one example--we're regularly pumping out 50+ FAs a
month, so one loud complaint every few months doesn't suggest to me that the
entire system is broken.  On the contrary, FAC has encouraged many editors
to write better articles (including myself).  Perhaps it would be better if
we were all willing to work toward something with purely altruistic goals,
but I don't see that happening any time soon--the status of FA gives both a
sense of closure and a sense of accomplishment, and for many those are
powerful motivators.

Furthermore, I know of no advocates of FAC who think it's ok to maliciously
test content creators to destruction (AGF?).  There are many, however,
myself included, who aren't going to sugarcoat our comments just to make
people feel good.  If an article is poorly written, I'm going to say so,
providing evidence for my claim and being ready discuss the issue with
anyone who disagrees with my judgment.  Honest feedback means that people's
feelings can get hurt, but a mature response to that is either acceptance or
discussion regarding the validity of the feedback.  In a collaborative
project, editors must be allowed to give negative feedback, and they must be
mature enough to accept it when they are on the receiving end.  There's a
difference between polite yet direct honesty and "destruction", and if there
isn't, I don't see how that's the fault of the person giving the feedback.

Nathaniel


body:
On 13/09/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't you mean www.wikipedia.com ? :D

...

You win.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] 100,
	000 FAs as an achievable goal with a plan (was Contest and quality)

body:
On 13/09/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 9/12/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The underlying issue is that the FA process is wearing two different
> > hats.  It's based on criteria that people want to use as a checklist
> > for *all* articles -- hence the idea of having 100,000 FAs -- but at
> > the same time fills the role of selecting our "very best work" (with
> > all the prestige implicit is that) and serving as pretty much the only
> > formal recognition for articles available in Wikipedia.

> That's an excellent point, and maybe the time has come to admit that
> the FA process *doesn't* apply to every article.  Taking the FA
> process out of the whole grading scheme might just get more people to
> work on an actual checklist.

Yep. That's why I posted that list here.

> Of course this brings up the question of whether or not a checklist is
> what we want?

Saves arguing, I suppose, as compared to more subjective criteria.

Also: it's not a disaster if an article somehow ticks all the boxes
but isn't actually all that great.

(I still like my article rating idea, though I have NO IDEA what would
possibly satisfy Brion enough to put it in.)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 9/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm going to take down the wikicharts tool if I continue to see it
> used incorrectly to argument stupid arguments.
>

At this point I belive it is traditional to mention certian cultures
not getting irony.

> Secondly, we are not provided with any of another important metrics.
> For example, if a person googles for "penis anal fisting rectum
> succubus" they'll get [[Anal Sex]] and be counted as any other reader,
> but I'd be willing to bet good money that 9 out of 10 look at the page
> for all of 5 seconds before realizing that this is not the hardcore
> porno they were looking for and they hit the back button.

Perhaps but it is equaly likely to do with long established human
tendancy to look up rude words in dictionaries.

> The fact of the matter is quite simply that we don't know much, and we
> certainly can't say from the data we have that we have any clue about
> what people want.

Judgeing by various complaints people want answers.

> ... and I don't think thats a big deal. Nothing about creating a free
> content encyclopedia or freeing the knowledge of the world requires
> that we be the number one destination for the news of the day.

Perhaps but where else would you suggest that people should have got
information on Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005

--
geni


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
	please estabish the board of inspectors to investigate admins.

body:
Exactly -- the very root of the argument was to respond to the
argument rather than  the person.

The only time this does not apply is when the other person makes their
"person" part of the argument, for example by saying "I am more
credible in this area because I am Italian" or "You are not as
credible as I am because you are not German". But in these cases ad
hominem is still not really to be used beyond a very limited extent,
that is for example to ask 1) Why it is relevant whether or not you
are German, Italian or, say, Romanian; 2) Why it is expected that an
Italian or a Spaniard by sheer nationality will know more about a
topic than an Albanian or Korean; 3) Whether or not it makes sense to
say that a certain nationality is more directly concerned with a topic
than others.

Mark

On 13/09/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Respond to the ARGUMENT, not the PERSON. National
> > > origin is not
> > > relevant, despite what racists such as you will say.
> >
> > Nice speech, but have *you* not said of many others
> > that their oppinion is not relevant because of *their*
> > ethnic origin?
> >
> > Yeah, fight against racism is a good propaganda
> > argument as long as you use it, and not the other.
> > Cool!
> >
> > Dpotop
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> The fact that node ue is making this argument changes nothing. I could make
> the same argument and I would hope nobody would call me a racist.
>
> --
> theProject
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: stevertigo something

subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Editors should watch carefully both for company shills and for
> unduly-weighted criticism.

Here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Answers.com&oldid=73910181

sv


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Perhaps a visible note that says to scroll down for more languages?

Mgm

On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 13/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/13/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > "1.3 million articles, and that's just the English version. Wikipedia
> > > comes in 9 other languages."
>
> > How do they get ideas like that?
>
>
> www.wikipedia.org features TEN LANGUAGES AROUND THE WORLD! ... and the
> others are obviously invisible.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WSJ: Wales v Hoiberg

body:
On 12/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> Will Wikipedia Mean the End
> Of Traditional Encyclopedias?
> The Wall Street Journal Online invited Mr. Wales to discuss the topic
> with Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Britannica. Their exchange,
> carried out over email, is below.
> http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115756239753455284-zM_NmQpDWtRRSoHcPYcbQ6iq4H4_20061011.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/znyja

This seems a newly confrontative attitude to Britannica from Wikipedia ...

- d.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many
> articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if
> its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if
> it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what
> I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past
> FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.

Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
assessments here?  The projects would be in a good position to
determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd
get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate,
neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in
regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best
work" criterion.

The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less
process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating
system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active
projects).   All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more
consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this
rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more
rigorous approaches to this soon.

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cluesticks needed regarding WP:BLP and WP:RS

body:
On 9/11/06, Jason Potkanski <electrawn at electrawn.com> wrote:

> *Would [[Ebony magazine]] be a good source for [[Theory of relativity]]?
> *Would [[Seventeen magazine]] be a good source for [[China]]?
> *Would [[Dog Fancy]] be a good source for [[Linux]]?
>
> It is this kind of reasoning that makes me look at [[Southern Voice]]
> and wonder if it is a good source for [[Kyra Phillips]]. Same thing
> for Financial Times.

These ridiculous analogies are hardly apt.  A better analogy:  Would
Dog Fancy be a good source for criticism by dog owners of journalistic
coverage of dog issues?

> For fun, some authoritative ones that look innocent but fall apart
> under scrunity...
> *Use of Media Matters, a 501(3)c "dedicated to comprehensively
> monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in
> the U.S. media."

I don't see how this falls apart.  You aren't scruntinizing anything,
you are dismissing under a simplistic equation: openly stated
political viewpoint=partisan=unreliable.  NPOV states that articles
"must represent all significant views fairly and without bias."
Stripping articles of significant views is a violation of this policy.

> While researching outlandish sourcing...why does [[Barbra Streisand]]
> mention nothing on politics (one sentence about clinton), [[Al
> Franken]] relatively free of criticism...yet [[Ann Coulter]] and [[Pat
> Buchanan]] are loaded with it, even with POV forks? [[Al Gore]] seems
> cleanish too, but he has a POV fork as well. [[Howard Dean]]. [[Al
> Sharpton]], [[Jesse Jackson]] criticism sections are small. It is hard
> finding a liberal polemic figure on wikipedia with the same amount of
> criticisms as [[Ann Coulter]], [[Pat Buchanan]], [[Tom Delay]]. I am
> amazed at the left/right off balance!

I hope you aren't embracing the tired old criticism that Wikipedia is
a hotbed of "liberal bias".  You can select a small set of articles to
back up any preexisiting opinion.  There are plenty of articles on
liberal figures  with large amounts of criticism: Michael Moore and
Dan Rather, for example.  I don't agree at all that Al Franken is
"relatively free of criticism" - there are four paragraphs about one
letter he wrote to John Ashcroft alone!  I haven't looked at the
others you mentioned yet, but if you are correct that, for example,
Barbra Streisand lacks a significant section on her politics, the
solution is not to declare that WP has a "liberal bias" and strip
criticism out of articles on random journalists, but to fix the Barbra
Striesand article.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>On 13/09/06, Christopher Larberg wrote:

>> Can we keep the trolling off the mailing list, please?

>I assumed it was humour.

Maybe satire, because I was somewhat serious.  Anyway, I was attempting to bring together what may seem disconnected items involving promotions or public opinion massaging via wiki's trusted articles.

To help pull maybe the more obsure references together, a recent incident board item that didn't get discussed on the mailing list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive132#Recent_MySpace_edits

An incident board item from last year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians'_notice_board/Archive_12#SMH_Icon_article

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

--spam may follow--

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


body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
> > > assessments here?
> > > The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less
> > > process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating
> > > system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active
> > > projects).   All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more
> > > consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this
> > > rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more
> > > rigorous approaches to this soon.
>
> > That's an excellent idea!
>
>
> Hit 'send' too soon. That's an excellent idea because the problem with
> FAC or GA is that they're committee-based (even if it's an ad-hoc
> committee of regulars), and committees don't scale. (This, by the way,
> is I think why AFD and DRV get poisonous - the ad-hoc committee
> changes the process for its convenience without actively considering
> accessibility or scalability, so it becomes insular and jargonistic.)
> Using the WikiProjects is a way to make the committees scale with the
> article and editor base.

Perhaps of interest here (but please note that we're just getting
started, so the process may have some issues we haven't hit upon yet):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessment#Requests_for_A-Class_status

--
Kirill Lokshin


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikilinked dates in ISO-format and anon users

body:
Ligulem wrote:
> [Yes, a date linking thread again (feel free to hate me ;-)]
>
> Consensus about the date linking/not-linking issue is dominated by users
> that do have a login and can choose their date display format
> preferences. And I guess on en.wikipedia.org, a lot of users choose a
> format which is *not* the ISO-format (some hard statistics would be
> welcomed).

IIRC, the default is simply not to mess with the text, which is always the most
sensible thing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060913/421d719a/attachment.pgp>


body:
On 13/09/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

>  IOW, if the overall quality of the
> encyclopedia increases, it's likely that FAC will become even pickier
> so that their criteria only pass the same proportion.

I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many
articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if
its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if
it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what
I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past
FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.

- d.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikipedia-l] WSJ: Wales v Hoiberg

body:
> This seems a newly confrontative attitude to Britannica from Wikipedia ...

Has there ever been one? The more I read from and about EBI, the more
it amuses me. I guess Hoiberg's "Somebody help! Wales is using
hyperlinks!" will be in folk tales sooner or later.

Having experienced a certain amount of strange events in communicating
with EBI, I still would prefer to have a honest discussion with them.
To my knowledge, this is currently not an option for EBI for whatever
reasons. Others may be luckier.

Mathias


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: Copyright hindering scholarship in the
	humanities and social sciences

body:
Seen on the openrightsgroup.org.uk list:

13 September 2006
http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/release.asp?Newsid=219

A report from the British Academy, to be launched on 18 September,
expresses fears that the copyright system may in important respects be
impeding, rather than stimulating, the prouction of new ideas and new
scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

It is in the nature of creative activity and scholarship that original
material builds on what has gone before ? 'if I have seen further, it is
because I had stood on the shoulders of giants' ? therefore provisions
that are overly protective of the rights of existing ideas may inhibit
the development of new ones.

Existing UK law provides exemption from copyright for fair dealing with
material for purposes of private study and non-commercial research, and
for criticism and review. "There is, however, little clarity about the
precise scope of these exemptions, and an absence of case law" said John
Kay, who is Chair of the Working Group which oversaw the Review.
"Publishers are risk-averse, and themselves defensive of existing
copyrights."

The situation is aggravated by the increasingly aggressive defence of
copyright by commercial rights holders, and the growing role ? most of
all in music ? of media businesses with no interest in or understanding
of the needs of scholarship. It is also aggravated by the unsatisfactory
EU Database Directive, which is at once vague and wide-ranging, and by
the development of digital rights management systems, which may enable
publishers to use technology to circumvent the exceptions to copyright
which are contained in current legislation.

The Academy publishes with the report a draft set of guidelines for
Fellows and scholars on their rights and duties under copyright
legislation. They include

    * authors and producers of original creative material should
understand that their interests in copyright are not necessarily
identical with those of publishers and should not rely on publishers to
protect them
    * the law should be clarified - statutorily if necessary ? to make
clear that the use of copyright material in the normal course of
scholarly research in universities and other public research
institutions is covered by the exemptions from the copyright act.
    * publishers should not be able to use legal or technological
protection through digital rights management systems to circumvent
copyright exemptions
    * the growth of digital databases should be monitored to ensure that
ready access continues to be available for the purposes of scholarship

This report parallels a report from the Royal Society, Keeping science
open: the effects of intellectual property on the conduct of science
(2003), which expresses related worries about the ways in which
intellectual property, its interpretation and its use, impact on the
progress of science.

NOTES TO EDITORS

   1. Please contact Ms V Hurley at v.hurley at britac.ac.uk or call 020
7969 5268 for copies of the report and guidelines.
   2. For briefings and interviews please contact Professor John Kay ?
Chair of the Review Working Group that produced the report, preferably
on either Wednesday 13 or Thursday 14 September ? johnkay at johnkay.com or
call 020 7224 8797.
   3. For further media enquires relating the Review please contact
Michael Reade, External Relations Department m.reade at britac.ac.uk or
telephone 020 7969 5263.
   4. The Academy's Review was set up in November 2005 before the
establishment of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. The Review
Working Group took the lead in preparing the Academy's response to the
call for evidence that was issued in February 2006 by the Gowers Review
of Intellectual Property, which was established by the government to
examine the UK's in intellectual property framework, and determine
whether improvements can be made to it, especially in the context of
rapid technological change and globalisation. The Academy's submission
to Gowers is available from http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports. The
timetable of the Academy's Review means that this report has been
published before the results of the Gowers Review are known.
   5. The British Academy is the National Academy for the Humanities and
Social Sciences. Established by Royal Charter in 1902, the British
Academy is an independent learned society promoting the humanities and
social sciences. It is composed of Fellows elected in recognition of
their distinction as scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
   6. Further details about the British Academy may be found at:
http://www.britac.ac.uk

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Copyright hindering scholarship in the humanities
	and social sciences


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 9/13/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >From the program:
>
> "1.3 million articles, and that's just the English version. Wikipedia
> comes in 9 other languages."

Only out by 207.

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

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Akash Mehta

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Example of a user who should have been banned a long
	time ago

body:
I'm not saying we have blocks with sysop privs going around blocking
users, just compiling a list of the non-IP editors with these blocks.
I'm sure we could come up with a whitelist to reduce the load, and
they could work from a database dump so that the server isnt affected.
However, if a bot came up with a decent list, a respected user(s)
could go through the list and point out problematic users to sysops
for attention.

-- Akash/Draicone

On 9/13/06, Redvers @ the Wikipedia <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> From: Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do we have a way where we can scan talk pages for
> > such warnings and
> > come up with a record of those with 20+? I know
> > AmiDaniel's
> > vandalproof can look for warnings, and I'm sure
> > there could be a
> > similar function implemented.
>
> I'm pretty sure it would mostly find IPs, which would
> be meaningless for most pre-planned blocking, as we
> would be unable to assess which were static and which
> were dynamic in the same way we generally are now.
>
> I personally like the idea of blocking the lot of them
> and separating the sheep from the goats at our
> leisure, but this is a *wiki* and we don't and can't
> have this luxury. The benefits of having it outweigh
> the problems we would have, except in one vital way:
> we don't have enough excellent editors. If we prevent
> en masse the the chaff, we will always catch some
> wheat. And I speak as someone who has never, not even
> once, not even by accident, edited without logging in.
>
> There may be a couple, or a dozen, or even a thousand
> account-holding editors who have had a set of repeated
> warnings for various disruptions and could therefore
> be streamed out by a bot. But then any sensible
> blocking admin would check the talk page before
> blocking anyway (and shame on both those that don't,
> and those editors who complain if they do: which
> someone did to me recently!) and see them and act
> accordingly.
>
> If the talk page has been blanked, a human editor
> would check the history (one hopes). A bot could not
> be expected to do so without making mistakes.
>
> Certainly, a bot can't spot idiotic warnings from
> trolls, which a qualified eye can, and generally does
> - again I speak as someone who has suffered from mad
> complaints from trolling users. And a bot can't spot
> an idiot user who suddenly has touched the clue stick
> and wised up, something a human /can/ do.
>
> No. Bots have their place on Wikipedia, and I wouldn't
> want to be without them. But no bot can substitute for
> human intuition and judgment. Where such talents are
> required, humans must be the ones to act.
>
> -> REDVERS
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine
> http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Domain parking

body:
It does, lucky enough. Frankly I wasn't sure that the googlebombing of
sorts amounted to [[Main Page]] having the most inbound links.

-- Akash/Draicone

On 9/12/06, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/12/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Oh, and a google i'm feeling lucky for 'wikpedia' returns [[Bruno
> > Bettelheim]] :)
>
> Here, I'm feeling lucky opens as expected
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
>
>
> On 9/12/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > A thousand? I can guarantee a whole lot more than 1000. How about I
> > > build a prototype site to handle the petition where people can
> > > register their Wikipedia username as someone supporting the petition?
> > > It wouldn't be too hard, and if we can find hosting with reasonable
> > > database space, we can build it, post about it on village pump /
> > > community portal / whatever else. I bet we can get 10000 in a matter
> > > of weeks.
> > >
> > > On 9/12/06, Michael Billington <michael.billington at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > You could also come up with a petition, having all Wikipedia users
> > > > > sign it, and present it to domain owners. Anyone else have any
> > ideas?
> > > > >
> > > > Having all wikipedia users would be near-impossible, but I think it
> > would be
> > > > possible to drum up a thousand or so.
> > > >
> > > > Just about every time I've typed "wikipedia" wrong, i get a parked
> > > > domain.... so it is an annoying problem, but is it worth the trouble?
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Liviu
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Domain parking

body:
Yes, but the Wikimedia servers have a lot of load. I'd be happy to
code the system, I'm an experienced php dev and its a small project.

On 9/13/06, Andrew Archer <archer.andy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have the hosting capacities for a petition, and MySQL databases, but I'd
> probably need a little help setting up the system. However, I though
> Wikimedia servers could easily handle that.
>
> Andrew Archer
>
> On 12/09/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I very much appreciate the discussion about problem domains.
> >
> > It would benefit WMF greatly if we had the following:
> >
> > -List of problem domains (is there a page?)
> > -Petition engine to capture usernames against use of said domains
> >
> > That will give us what we need to pursue action as laid out by Akash with
> > a
> > minimum of WMF resources having to dedicate time to it.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > -Brad
> >
> > On 9/12/06, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 9/12/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Oh, and a google i'm feeling lucky for 'wikpedia' returns [[Bruno
> > > > Bettelheim]] :)
> > >
> > > Here, I'm feeling lucky opens as expected
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 9/12/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > A thousand? I can guarantee a whole lot more than 1000. How about I
> > > > > build a prototype site to handle the petition where people can
> > > > > register their Wikipedia username as someone supporting the
> > petition?
> > > > > It wouldn't be too hard, and if we can find hosting with reasonable
> > > > > database space, we can build it, post about it on village pump /
> > > > > community portal / whatever else. I bet we can get 10000 in a matter
> > > > > of weeks.
> > > > >
> > > > > On 9/12/06, Michael Billington <michael.billington at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > You could also come up with a petition, having all Wikipedia
> > users
> > > > > > > sign it, and present it to domain owners. Anyone else have any
> > > > ideas?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > Having all wikipedia users would be near-impossible, but I think
> > it
> > > > would be
> > > > > > possible to drum up a thousand or so.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Just about every time I've typed "wikipedia" wrong, i get a parked
> > > > > > domain.... so it is an annoying problem, but is it worth the
> > > trouble?
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Liviu
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Brad Patrick
> > General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> > 727-231-0101
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Domain parking

body:
The point of a WHOIS record is that domain owners can be contacted.
Whether its through their personal phone number or a domain registrar,
we can (well, we legally should be able to) contact domain owners.

On 9/13/06, Andrew Archer <archer.andy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Looking good! Now what would we do about domain holders who have got a
> private registration rather than published their details on the WHOIS?
>
> Andrew Archer
>
> On 12/09/06, Lorenzarius <lorenzarius at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Squatted_Wikimedia_domains
> >
> > I just copied the list from [[m:Domain names]], could tidy up the format
> > more.
> >
> > On 9/13/06, Andrew Archer <archer.andy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > How about starting a list on Meta, then putting a call out on
> > "Goings-on"?
> > >
> > > Andrew Archer
> > >
> > > On 12/09/06, Lorenzarius <lorenzarius at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi all, there's a small list here
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Domain_names#Typosquatted
> > > >
> > > > Such a list definitely deserves its own page though.
> > > >
> > > > On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On 12/09/06, Andrew Archer <archer.andy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > The only real way to find the problem domains would be to go out
> > and
> > > > search
> > > > > > for them manually I think. Maybe just a wiki list which people can
> > add
> > > > to?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Sounds reasonable. Is it possible to search domain space, regexp or
> > > > iteratively?
> > > > >
> > > > > Whatever happens - people shouldn't act on dodgy domains without
> > > > > Brad's say so. Vigilanteing would be a bad idea.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Larry Lo
> > > > http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
> > > > Tel: +852 95825791
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Larry Lo
> > http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
> > Tel: +852 95825791
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 13/09/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've heard that there is a trend on FAC is to encourage the creation
> of very long articles... even, perhaps, where really long is
> inappropriate. If this is the case then it's a cause to improve the FA
> process, not a cause to back away from making more articles
> featurable.

Well, yes. But more so, it's a reason to separate the notion of
general improvement in Wikipedia from listing on [[WP:FA]].

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 13/09/06, Nathaniel <spangineer at gmail.com> wrote:

> David, what exactly are you referring to here?  Most of the minor detail
> type things that come up in FACs are pretty easy to fix (such as formatting
> and consistency issues).  Other potentially bigger problems that are still
> somewhat debatable are things like prose quality and reference quality, and
> these can take more time.  But in the end, the resulting work is usually
> significantly superior to the old version (at least as far as I can tell,
> being someone who thinks WP:RS and WP:CITE are indispensable).  Which of
> these do you see as shrubberies, or am I missing another option?

Objections which are answered by the nominator but which the objectors
can't be found to cross off lead to the nomination failing, for
example. Go read WT:FAC, there's an example listed. The nominator in
that case was told "gee, go away and try harder."

My objection is to a process which the regulars can straight-facedly
say to someone who just got an FA and is objecting to the personalised
shittiness of the process, "go away and learn to write properly" and
have this tolerated as a response. Does that encourage the content
creators to actually bother, or to say "screw you guys, I'm going
home"?

- d.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] WikiPrint service - Could we make it easy to print
	out a selected category of Wikipedia for libraries etc.?

body:
I think we first need to finetune the quality of such articles. Sure,
for every TV show, wikipedia has an article. But many (if not most)
articles are stubs, they are subject to vandalism and lack references.
First we need to bring them up to, say, good article status.

On 9/13/06, jasonspiro4 <jasonspiro4+news at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Huge libraries (large / U.S. Ivy League universities' libraries, public
> libraries in world-class cities, Library of Congress, etc.) spend unbelievable
> amounts of money on buying books and magazines every year. Books and magazines
> are great, but there are certain subjects with no relevant books or magazine
> articles available. Example: TV. For any popular TV show, Wikipedia has a main
> article and numerous subarticles on characters, episodes, and so on. For some
> subjects, Wikipedia is truly the best choice for information.
>
> I propose we band together and start a WikiPrint service. We could somehow make
> it easy for schools, corporations and libraries to print out subsets of
> Wikipedia: e.g. if they want a PDF of a whole category to send to an online
> print-on-demand shop, we compile the PDF for them, add a nice cover page etc.,
> and send it to the shop for them if they like. They would pay us for the
> service.
>
> I am not sure if this would be a for-profit service or a free service (e.g.
> part of the WikiPress system). For-profit would mean we would be able to
> promote ourselves more and we would be more motivated to do well.
>
> Would this be a useful / popular service? What kinds of customers would come to
> us? For example, a question for you librarians among us: would libraries be
> interested in such a service?
>
> Jason Spiro
> Computer programming student and Wikipedian
> Toronto, Canada
>
> --
> Jason Spiro: computer consulting with a smile.
> I also do computer training and spyware removal for homes and businesses.
> Call or email for a FREE 5-minute consultation. Satisfaction guaranteed.
> jasonspiro4 at gmail.com / 416-781-5938 / Skype ID: jasonspiro
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l]  Contest and quality

body:
On 13/09/06, Nathaniel <spangineer at gmail.com> wrote:

> I guess I would be hesitant to judge the overall FAC process based on the
> interaction between Francesco and FAC regulars.  Rare are FACs that get so
> heated (I recall the GNAA and Bulbasaur FACs, and that's it).  In this case,
> it seems both sides (I include myself in this) got defensive when they
> perceived that their opinions were under attack (for Francesco, that his
> writing was poor, and for Tony/Sandy/Me, that the standards we've been
> applying to FACs for months are faulty).  In the end (which occurred after
> Francesco's initial complaints on WT:FAC), I think pretty much everyone
> agreed that the article was at least somewhat better than it was when the
> nomination started.  And everyone was much more calm, that's for sure.

I think a process which tests Wikipedia content creators to
destruction, and whose advocates actually think this is a good thing
for a process to do, is prima facie pathological and needs removal as
soon as possible. It's way too damaging to the community.

> As for people disappearing and not striking their objections, yes, that
> happens, but in my experience Raul usually ignores these after several days
> if the nominator makes a note under the objection saying that he/she has
> addressed the objection.  Of course, sometimes it doesn't work out that way,
> especially for nominations receiving few comments.

I'm wondering if FAC shouldn't be officially deprecated - it could be
preserved as a source of quirkies for the front page, but it certainly
seems less and less like anything to do with general Wikipedia
quality.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
On 13/09/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:

> My experience in this is in WikiProject Louisville, where we've tried to
> address the issue of people wanting to create articles for random elementary
> schools that don't amount to much more than three lines. So, our [[List of
> Schools in Louisville]] is a bit more than just a list of school names. We
> haven't prodded the original articles, but that's one of the things we've
> been doing to get an article (or list, or whatever you might call it) of
> some length (we'll split it sometime down the road) that can cover a subject
> without being a stub.

In that case, could the named articles be turned into redirects? There
was an article each for many of the cameras listed on [[Canon Digital
IXUS]], but most were redundant with the table of models, so I took
the good info out and made them redirects to the main article. If
there's ever even a short article's worth of new info, they could
easily be split back out again. (This also saves deletion rancor.)

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] any "notable UK wikipedians" want to talk to the
	Telegraph?

body:
The Daily Telegraph is working on a feature about Wikipedia and asked
me for contact details for 'notable UK Wikipedians'. Anyone here feel
they could reasonably put themselves forward as "notable UK
Wikipedians"? (And you're *so* doing this, Alison.) Please email me
:-)

- d.


list: commons-l

from_name: Cary Bass

subject: [Commons-l] Multi-Licensing on multiple projects

body:
On  Thursday, September 07, 2006 9:14 AM, Alison Wheeler wrote:

> I've put up an idea of what I meant as a status table at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AlisonW/Licensestatustest Obviously
> a template solution would be used to get the countries and standard texts
> inserted, but it might work and also provides us with a caveat for when
> (rather than if!) images get used where they shouldn't be ...
>
> Alison Wheeler

I encourage everyone to visit the example that Alison created and share
their thoughts on this possible solution for multi-licensing.  Something
like this may go some ways to solving some of our concerns.

Cary Bass


from_name: SJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
That was uncalled for.

On 9/12/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 12, 2006, at 10:28 AM, Anthony wrote:
>
> >>
> > He gave examples of exceptions, but nothing to suggest whether or not
> > these were special cases or the majority.
>
> Anthony, please stop pontificating to actually look at things
> occasionally. Danny offered the list at [[Wikipedia:Vital articles]].
> Go look at it, and you can see how many are featured, how many are
> good, and how many require cleanup.
>
> In the meantime, I'm placing you on moderation on this list. Posts
> that obviously fail to engage what people are saying, or that
> otherwise fail to engage reality in a sufficiently useful way will be
> rejected.

Please be restrained with moderation.

SJ

> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu


body:
Yes, by all means.

On 9/13/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a visible note that says to scroll down for more languages?
>
> Mgm

SJ, who misses the lovely 'scroll down' note from 2004.

> On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 13/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 9/13/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > "1.3 million articles, and that's just the English version. Wikipedia
> > > > comes in 9 other languages."
> >
> > > How do they get ideas like that?
> >
> >
> > www.wikipedia.org features TEN LANGUAGES AROUND THE WORLD! ... and the
> > others are obviously invisible.
> >
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Gianluigi Gamba

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Italia - new board

body:
Hello everybody,

on September 2nd/3rd Wikimedia Italia held its second annual general
meeting.

The associates approved the budget for the forthcoming year, approved the
candidature of Turin for Wikimania 2007 and elected the new association
board:

Frieda Brioschi (Frieda), president
Gianluigi Gamba (Paginazero), vicepresident
Mario Benvenuti (M7)
Ivan Vighetto (Sbisolo)
Nicol? Zamperini (Nick1915)

Details (in Italian only, sorry) at
http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Associazione:Valentano_2006

Bye all.
G. (aka Paginazero)


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] draft of WikiCreole 0.1 available for comment

body:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> This brings to mind a co-worker's annoyance with MoinMoin's table
> syntax - where if you don't put everything all on one ridiculously
> long line, it doesn't work (or so he says). Will you be required to
> put everything on one ridiculously long line if you want to bold a
> paragraph?

Er, you already are.  Every paragraph is on one line.  You can add
line breaks without necessarily affecting output, but that's strongly
discouraged because it screws up diffs.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Name pages and disambiguation

body:
Sean Black wrote

> This is really just a part of the continued onslaught against useful
> dab pages in the name of adherence to the manual of style... the
> stricter we make these pages, the more likely we are to be encouraging
> the blind elimination of good content.

To be fair, the _given name_ lists are not apparently generally favoured. I'm entirely tigerish in my defence of lists by _surname_ .

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 9/13/06, Gianluigi Gamba <gigamb at tin.it> wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> on September 2nd/3rd Wikimedia Italia held its second annual general
> meeting.
>
> The associates approved the budget for the forthcoming year, approved the
> candidature of Turin for Wikimania 2007 and elected the new association
> board:
>
> Frieda Brioschi (Frieda), president
> Gianluigi Gamba (Paginazero), vicepresident
> Mario Benvenuti (M7)
> Ivan Vighetto (Sbisolo)
> Nicol? Zamperini (Nick1915)

Grazie Gianluigi!

And welcome to the new board members.

Cheers,

Delphine

--
~notafish


body:
Now hang on. A committee is a group of people who, individually cannot
achieve anything; as a group, they can deduce that nothing can be
achieved.

On 9/13/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On 13 Sep 2006, at 03:10, geni wrote:
>
> > On 9/13/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e.,
> >> WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of
> >> content (esp.
> >> for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose
> >> Committee" of
> >> qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of
> >> experience)
> >> to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc.
> >> But that
> >> borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it
> >> creates an
> >> elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people
> >> who derive
> >> meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
> >>
> >> Carl
> >
> > You have suggested a committee. Generaly that isn't a good sign.
>
> It's easy to neutralise this suggestion:
> suggest a committee to discuss whether to have a committee.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andrew Archer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Domain parking

body:
This won't solve it completely, but I think at least some of the less
experienced squatters would give up immediately after an email from the
Foundation, just to avoid the threat of further trouble. But at the end of
the day, why should the Foundation let people steal their trademarks and
traffic? Those that have the domains will probably not be looking to give
them up, so the idea being reinforced wouldn't really be an issue.

Andrew Archer

On 13/09/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/12/06, Lorenzarius <lorenzarius at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Squatted_Wikimedia_domains
> >
> > I just copied the list from [[m:Domain names]], could tidy up the format
> more.
>
> Just for the record. Mentionning those domains in a "readable" format
> gives them traffic.
>
> Listing people as "squatters" just like that is a dangerous game,
> because people who just have the domains, are potential friends and
> forgot to connect them might not like being called a *squatter* (and I
> know what I am talking about, we almost lost one of our important
> domain extension because the guy who bought it was called a "squatter"
> constantly on our lists - he was not).
>
> In the end, I personally do not believe that making all this noise is
> the solution, because it only comforts real squatters in their
> conviction that squatting "wikipe-somethingorother.stuff" domains is a
> great idea. Not something we are particularly looking for.
>
> And to finish, as Ray points out, there is no way the Foundation will
> ever have the means to take every single domain/extension that sounds
> or looks or even is one of their trademarks.
>
> Listing those somewhere is also very tempting for squatters...
>
> Delphine
>
> --
> ~notafish
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Contest and quality

body:
I don't know, I wasn't aware until I saw the redirect happen when
running AID maintenance. I'm sure it was discussed on some random talk
page, just not brought to everyone's attention.

On 9/13/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> COTW and AID were merged? Obviously not well published because it took this
> message for me to notice. Where was this discussed?


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
> assessments here?
> The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less
> process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating
> system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active
> projects).   All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more
> consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this
> rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more
> rigorous approaches to this soon.

That's an excellent idea!

- d.


body:
On 13/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
> > assessments here?
> > The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less
> > process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating
> > system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active
> > projects).   All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more
> > consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this
> > rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more
> > rigorous approaches to this soon.

> That's an excellent idea!

Hit 'send' too soon. That's an excellent idea because the problem with
FAC or GA is that they're committee-based (even if it's an ad-hoc
committee of regulars), and committees don't scale. (This, by the way,
is I think why AFD and DRV get poisonous - the ad-hoc committee
changes the process for its convenience without actively considering
accessibility or scalability, so it becomes insular and jargonistic.)
Using the WikiProjects is a way to make the committees scale with the
article and editor base.

- d.


from_name: Carl Peterson

body:
On 9/13/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many
> > > articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if
> > > its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if
> > > it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what
> > > I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past
> > > FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
> >
> > Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
> > assessments here?  The projects would be in a good position to
> > determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd
> > get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate,
> > neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in
> > regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best
> > work" criterion.
>
> I've just been discussing this elsewhere, and my proposal:
>
> At the top of the pyramid, leave FA as it is now, but emphasise that
> it's a prize for our (subjectively?) "best" articles rather than those
> which are objectively above a specific level (inclusive of shrubberies
> and other clutter).
>
> This takes FAC in the direction it seems to naturally want to go, and
> allows us to make A-class into the "article scoring top marks and
> ticking all the boxes" level.
>
> So we formalise A-class, adopt some way of centrally recording all of
> them like we do with good articles and featured articles. But what we
> don't do is create a formal process for it... rather, we leave it to
> the wikiprojects. They know the field; they know what's needed and
> what the normal conventions are and so on. There's a central set of
> standards, but they can modify those standards to their own fields
> (requiring maps for geographical articles, say), they hold the
> discussions in a fairly decentralised way, and everyone's happy.
>
> Then the next layer of recognition is our trusty Good Articles, which
> at the moment are not quite working as anticipated (1400 articles?).
> We throw this open. Nominally, anyone can nominate and anyone can
> approve a GA; we want to emphasise this fact. Get projects to do it.
> Have ad-hoc committees do it. Have one editor mark some articles as
> candidates, then go to another and say "Can you look over this list
> and see what you agree with?". Bingo, much more throughput, much more
> chance of a good article being recognised as such.
>
> (For good and A-class articles, yes, this could be open to abuse. But
> I can think of two or three ways offhand to handle abuses of the
> proposed system; it's worth at least giving it a shot)
>
> I don't think this will solve all our problems - it won't magically
> create new good writing. But it will help us identify quality and it
> will help us appreciate its creators, and that'll bring many
> benefits...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>

While there are potential abuses, there's still the ability to appeal/review
a rating. An editor can always come along and say, "this article doesn't
meet criteria x, y, and z" and downgrade the article. It all works out in a
nice check-and-balance system, because if it turns into a rating war, we can
always do an RfC, PR or something on that order.

Carl


body:
I meant that I question this:
> For any popular TV show, Wikipedia has a main
> article and numerous subarticles on characters, episodes, and so on. For some
> subjects, Wikipedia is truly the best choice for information.
I don't agree that Wikipedia is the best choice for information based
on my comments below; article quality is still generally substandard.
Its brilliant considering we're not paying more than two-three
employees to run the whole thing (or are we..?) and we have
significant quantity, but we first need to make sure the content
printed is suitable for the purpose. And what about unobvious
vandalism? Just today I removed a "Dr. <something> has big glasses"
from an article, it had been there for quite a while and I only
noticed it because we had to visit the article for a project. if we
have comments like that in articles, god knows what will happen.

On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/09/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think we first need to finetune the quality of such articles. Sure,
> > for every TV show, wikipedia has an article. But many (if not most)
> > articles are stubs, they are subject to vandalism and lack references.
> > First we need to bring them up to, say, good article status.
>
>
> The infrastructure for the printed wikireaders described here is a
> separate issue from the article content - there's no reason to wait on
> it.
>
> I think having a printed copy of an article to hand will show its
> flaws quite glaringly and lead to improved articles directly ;-) It
> will be particularly nice if this is per-category.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Domain parking

body:
On 9/12/06, Lorenzarius <lorenzarius at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Squatted_Wikimedia_domains
>
> I just copied the list from [[m:Domain names]], could tidy up the format more.

Just for the record. Mentionning those domains in a "readable" format
gives them traffic.

Listing people as "squatters" just like that is a dangerous game,
because people who just have the domains, are potential friends and
forgot to connect them might not like being called a *squatter* (and I
know what I am talking about, we almost lost one of our important
domain extension because the guy who bought it was called a "squatter"
constantly on our lists - he was not).

In the end, I personally do not believe that making all this noise is
the solution, because it only comforts real squatters in their
conviction that squatting "wikipe-somethingorother.stuff" domains is a
great idea. Not something we are particularly looking for.

And to finish, as Ray points out, there is no way the Foundation will
ever have the means to take every single domain/extension that sounds
or looks or even is one of their trademarks.

Listing those somewhere is also very tempting for squatters...

Delphine

--
~notafish


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Tue, Sep 12, 2006 at 05:27:00PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> Another syntax cleanup proposal also suggested this dual use for *,
> and their solution was to evaluate bolding from right to left on a
> per-line basis, and any remaining asterisks on the left could become
> bulleted lists.  So
>
> A ** test** to ** see
> **what ** bold *
> and lists does ** *** **
> **  test ** end **
>
> Would probably become
>
> A **test to  see
> what  bold *
> and lists does ** *
>

 test  end

>
> That behavior might not be desirable, but the general idea of
> "interpret matched initial double asterisk as bold, unmatched as list"
> is a good one.
>
> On 9/12/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Your above example is invalid mark-up. :-)
>
> **This** line is valid, yet ambiguous under what appear to be current
> specs.  When is initial double asterisk bold, when is it list?

Oh, *c'mon* people; this one's *easy* to disambig:

if the asterisks are at BOL *and followed by a space*, they're bullets.

I'm *perfectly* happy to require a trailing space for bullets.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


body:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 08:26:30PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This brings to mind a co-worker's annoyance with MoinMoin's table
> > syntax - where if you don't put everything all on one ridiculously
> > long line, it doesn't work (or so he says). Will you be required to
> > put everything on one ridiculously long line if you want to bold a
> > paragraph?
>
> Er, you already are.  Every paragraph is on one line.  You can add
> line breaks without necessarily affecting output, but that's strongly
> discouraged because it screws up diffs.

Guys; you're making this one up.  We have enough problems without
having to invent extras.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


body:
On 9/13/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> if the asterisks are at BOL *and followed by a space*, they're bullets.
>
> I'm *perfectly* happy to require a trailing space for bullets.

As long as it's required for any number of bullets, that would be
quite a sensible solution, yes (keeping in mind that we're breaking
reverse-compatibility anyway).


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
No, this is a troll. [[User:Halliburton shill]].  Can't believe that guy's
still around. Apparently he's indef blocked, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Pro-Lick

On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 13/09/06, Christopher Larberg <christopherlarberg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can we keep the trolling off the mailing list, please?
>
>
> I assumed it was humour.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
stevertigo something <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote: On 9/13/06, David Gerard  wrote:
>
> Editors should watch carefully both for company shills and for
> unduly-weighted criticism.

Here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Answers.com&oldid=73910181

Wow, even the current answers page is using Wikipedia like billboard space.  Logos and other brand name stuff should automatically be pushed down to a marketing section.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Marketers on Wikipedia

body:
On 13/09/06, Christopher Larberg <christopherlarberg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Can we keep the trolling off the mailing list, please?

I assumed it was humour.

- d.


body:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 09:57:01PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > if the asterisks are at BOL *and followed by a space*, they're bullets.
> >
> > I'm *perfectly* happy to require a trailing space for bullets.
>
> As long as it's required for any number of bullets, that would be
> quite a sensible solution, yes (keeping in mind that we're breaking
> reverse-compatibility anyway).

To be clear: I'm recommending the following

*bold* word
* bulleted item
** Second level bullet
* *bulleted bold phrase*

So the bullet tokens are required to be space-terminated.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


body:
On 9/13/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> To be clear: I'm recommending the following
>
> *bold* word
> * bulleted item
> ** Second level bullet
> * *bulleted bold phrase*
>
> So the bullet tokens are required to be space-terminated.

Yes, exactly, except that bold is **double asterisks**, not single.
That way you don't run into confusion when someone uses a lone random
asterisk.


body:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 11:10:40PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > To be clear: I'm recommending the following
> >
> > *bold* word
> > * bulleted item
> > ** Second level bullet
> > * *bulleted bold phrase*
> >
> > So the bullet tokens are required to be space-terminated.
>
> Yes, exactly, except that bold is **double asterisks**, not single.
> That way you don't run into confusion when someone uses a lone random
> asterisk.

Well, *here*, we run into "do we leverage the instincts people already
have?"

Clearly, I have a different viewpoint on that than some other people do.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-14

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many
> > articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if
> > its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if
> > it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what
> > I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past
> > FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
>
> Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject
> assessments here?  The projects would be in a good position to
> determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd
> get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate,
> neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in
> regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best
> work" criterion.

I've just been discussing this elsewhere, and my proposal:

At the top of the pyramid, leave FA as it is now, but emphasise that
it's a prize for our (subjectively?) "best" articles rather than those
which are objectively above a specific level (inclusive of shrubberies
and other clutter).

This takes FAC in the direction it seems to naturally want to go, and
allows us to make A-class into the "article scoring top marks and
ticking all the boxes" level.

So we formalise A-class, adopt some way of centrally recording all of
them like we do with good articles and featured articles. But what we
don't do is create a formal process for it... rather, we leave it to
the wikiprojects. They know the field; they know what's needed and
what the normal conventions are and so on. There's a central set of
standards, but they can modify those standards to their own fields
(requiring maps for geographical articles, say), they hold the
discussions in a fairly decentralised way, and everyone's happy.

Then the next layer of recognition is our trusty Good Articles, which
at the moment are not quite working as anticipated (1400 articles?).
We throw this open. Nominally, anyone can nominate and anyone can
approve a GA; we want to emphasise this fact. Get projects to do it.
Have ad-hoc committees do it. Have one editor mark some articles as
candidates, then go to another and say "Can you look over this list
and see what you agree with?". Bingo, much more throughput, much more
chance of a good article being recognised as such.

(For good and A-class articles, yes, this could be open to abuse. But
I can think of two or three ways offhand to handle abuses of the
proposed system; it's worth at least giving it a shot)

I don't think this will solve all our problems - it won't magically
create new good writing. But it will help us identify quality and it
will help us appreciate its creators, and that'll bring many
benefits...

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


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
DON'T FEED THE TROLLS, PEOPLE

sheesh! go and do something productive instead.

On 14/09/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Respond to the ARGUMENT, not the PERSON. National
> > > origin is not
> > > relevant, despite what racists such as you will say.
> >
> > Nice speech, but have *you* not said of many others
> > that their oppinion is not relevant because of *their*
> > ethnic origin?
> >
> > Yeah, fight against racism is a good propaganda
> > argument as long as you use it, and not the other.
> > Cool!
> >
> > Dpotop
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> The fact that node ue is making this argument changes nothing. I could make
> the same argument and I would hope nobody would call me a racist.
>
> --
> theProject
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] note to readers interested in Wikipedia/Wikimedia
 in the UK

body:
David Gerard-2 wrote:
>
> We have a UK-based mailing list, wikimediauk-l, for Wikimedia-related
> topics concerning the UK. It was set up as a discussion list for the
> prospective Wikimedia UK organisation. I often post UK-related article
> discussion, media stuff, etc. to it.
> There appear to be a lot of UK-based readers of these lists who aren't
> on it and probably should be.
> List page: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK
>
Also available on Nabble here:
http://www.nabble.com/WikiMedia-UK-f14073.html

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/-Wikipedia-l--note-to-readers-interested-in-Wikipedia-Wikimedia-in-the-UK-tf2270951.html#a6305645
Sent from the Wikipedia General forum at Nabble.com.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, September 13, 2006

body:
A sampling:

Weekly Spin <weekly-spin at prwatch.org> wrote:

Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:45:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Weekly Spin <weekly-spin at prwatch.org>
To: cmd+weekly_spin-46979 at lists.democracyinaction.org
Subject: The Weekly Spin, September 13, 2006

THE WEEKLY SPIN, September 13, 2006

Sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy:
http://www.prwatch.org

3. CORPORATE SPIN CAN COME IN DISGUISE
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/09/10/news_pf/Worldandnation/Corporate_spin_can_co.shtml
"If McDonald's makes the case that fast food is nutritious or
ExxonMobil argues against higher taxes, it looks like simple
self-interest. But when an independent voice makes the case, the
ideas gain credibility. So big corporations have devised a form of
idea laundering, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to
seemingly independent groups that act as spokesmen under disguise.
Their views wind up on the opinion pages of the nation's newspapers
- often with no disclosure that the writer has financial ties to the
companies involved. A few examples: James K. Glassman, a prominent
syndicated columnist, denounced Super Size Me, a movie critical of
McDonald's. Readers were not told that McDonald's is a major sponsor
of a Web site hosted by Glassman. ... Steven Milloy, an analyst at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wrote a column in the
Washington Times that sided with the oil industry against windfall
profits taxes. Readers weren't told that groups closely affiliated
with Milloy have received at least $180,000 from ExxonMobil. By
having others deliver their talking points, the companies stay above
the fray, said John Stauber, whose Center for Media and Democracy
tracks corporate front groups. 'What these companies are doing is
paying somebody else to attack their critics while keeping their
fingerprints off the attack.'"
SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times (Florida), September 10, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5163

4. MORE JOURNALISTS ON U.S. GOVERNMENT PAYROLL
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15466239.htm
Ten Miami journalists have been paid by the Office of Cuba
Broadcasting (OCB) for their involvement in programs for the
anti-Castro propaganda stations, Radio Mart? and TV Mart?. The OCB
is a unit of the the U.S. government-funded Broadcasting Board of
Governors. Three of the ten were journalists with El Nuevo Herald.
"Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba and writes an opinion column,
was paid almost $175,000 since 2001 to host shows on Radio Mart?
and TV Mart?. El Nuevo Herald freelance reporter Olga Connor, who
writes about Cuban culture, received about $71,000, and staff
reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla, who covers the Cuban exile community
and politics, was paid almost $15,000 in the last five years," Oscar
Corral wrote. Alfonso and Isla have been fired by El Nuevo Herald
and Connor's freelance relationship terminated. The director of OCB,
Pedro Roig, defended the payments.
SOURCE: Miami Herald, September 8, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5162

5. WAL-MART SENDS IN THE TANKS
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/business/08walmart.html
"As Wal-Mart Stores struggles to rebut criticism from unions and
Democratic leaders, the company has discovered a reliable ally,"
report Michael Barbaro and Stephanie Strom: "prominent conservative
research groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage
Foundation and the Manhattan Institute," as well as lesser-known
think tanks such as the Pacific Research Institute. "Top policy
analysts at these groups have written newspaper opinion pieces
around the country supporting Wal-Mart, defended the company in
interviews with reporters and testified on its behalf before
government committees in Washington." What the think tanks haven't
done is disclose the more than $2.5 million in funding they've
received from Wal-Mart over the past six years. The National
Committee on Responsive Philanthropy has compiled a report detailing
the political objectives of Wal-Mart's charitable activities, titled
"The Waltons and Wal-Mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy."
SOURCE: New York Times, September 8, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5161

9. PHARMA PR TRIES TO SPIN GOLD FROM YAWN
http://www.prweek.com
Americans may tire quickly of some pharmaceutical PR, but they've
got nowhere to turn (certainly not in bed) when it comes to a new
campaign sponsored by the makers of a sleep-fighting medication,
Provigil. Drug-maker Cephalon hired Dorland Global Public Relations,
which has spun consumers' disinterest in "sleepiness" into a
Homeland Security-like campaign for "alertness." The trick: target
employers. "No employer is going to allow you to bring advertising
into their marketplace," notes Cephalon PR director Sheryl William.
Instead, employers opened the door when Dorland created an
"education" campaign, including two ex-NASA scientists, to warn
employers that the lack of alertness at work could be dangerous.
Among other things, Provigil has FDA approval for treatment of
"shift work sleep disorder"--a condition that can result from
employers' rotating shift requirements. Dorland also created a
website and launched a pilot in Atlanta and Chicago that included
street interviews and visits to baseball games. The "alertness"
website (which gently leads the viewer to Cephalon) has reached four
times its hoped-for audience.
SOURCE: PRWeek, August 28, 2006 (sub req'd)
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5155

Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found in the "Spin of
the Day" section of CMD's website:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin

Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues

CMD also sponsors SourceWatch, a collaborative research project
that invites anyone (including you) to contribute and edit
articles. For more information, visit:
http://www.sourcewatch.org

political debates and public opinion. Please send any questions or
suggestions about our publications to:
editor at prwatch.org

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


body:
"Matt Brown" wrote

> IOW, if the overall quality of the
> encyclopedia increases, it's likely that FAC will become even pickier
> so that their criteria only pass the same proportion.

Isn't it more or less tuned so we get an average of one new Featured Article per day? Any less could be a problem, any more and people start adding bells and whistles to the criteria.

But then, we are talking about recognition. I suspect the mathematicians have pretty much given up on FAs, because (a) it is hard to justify the effort, compared with other things you could do in the time, and (b) other kinds of recognition matter to them.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: Stephen Streater

body:
On 14 Sep 2006, at 08:31, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> "Matt Brown" wrote
>
>> IOW, if the overall quality of the
>> encyclopedia increases, it's likely that FAC will become even pickier
>> so that their criteria only pass the same proportion.
>
> Isn't it more or less tuned so we get an average of one new
> Featured Article per day? Any less could be a problem, any more and
> people start adding bells and whistles to the criteria.
>
> But then, we are talking about recognition. I suspect the
> mathematicians have pretty much given up on FAs, because (a) it is
> hard to justify the effort, compared with other things you could do
> in the time, and (b) other kinds of recognition matter to them.

Even so, we're gradually moving [[Mathematics]] to FA status.


from_name: Alison Wheeler

body:
On Thu, September 14, 2006 04:31, Brianna Laugher wrote:
> I dislike the idea of this because there is no 1-to-1 correspondence
> between language and country. en.wp is the Wikipedia of choice for
> most of the world.

Just to clarify, that is *exactly* the reason I put up the 'status' test
page; I was listing jurisdictions against copyright status, not language.

Whilst we can utilise the law in the uploader's location, or in the USA,
to determine some things it is absolutely clear that we cannot rely on
either of those two locations to give us carte blanche to use that image
everywhere in the world; a jurisdictional approach will be the only way,
moreso for content re-users than for WMF projects directly.

Alison


body:
On 14/09/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> But then, we are talking about recognition. I suspect the mathematicians have pretty much given up on FAs, because (a) it is hard to justify the effort, compared with other things you could do in the time, and (b) other kinds of recognition matter to them.

This may be worth noting on [[WT:FAC]].

- d.


from_name: Fastfission

references:
<50745.80.195.239.113.1157634830.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com>
	<OHEOKBPIOKBGALOCIOHIKEPBFAAA.bastique@bellsouth.net>
	<d20d84ea0609132031h487de202j9f371fc1bc9366df@mail.gmail.com>
	<453b6e50609140612m7ac0e746lc4fbe907ac2bb37e@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 9/14/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...what do you mean by "country of origin of the piece of work"?
>
> I'm French, I take a picture in Germany of anAmerican work of art
> that's public domain in the US but not in Germany. Which law applies?
>
> /me is lost.

Which law applies depends where you are publishing the work. If you
were publishing it in Germany then you would have to deal with the
fact that it is not PD. If you were publishing it in the US then you
would not.

"Country of origin" generally means "the place where something is
being published and thus where it is likely to end up in court."
Thinking about things as "where would I be before a judge?" is a good
way of thinking about jurisdictional issues, even though with
international treaties that itself is not always foolproof.

My problem with the example page given is that it gave the appearance
that a given contributor could license their works differently in
different countries (i.e. use free licenses one place and non-free in
another). That's clearly against the intent of Commons. I think,
though, that an approach which said, "This work is licensed as
CC-BY-SA" and then have a way to indicate that either "this only
applies in countries X, Y, and Z, because of such-and-such legal
condition" or "this does not apply in country X, because of
such-and-such legal condition." An example of this are photos of
copyrighted architecture, which in the USA (and I think Germany) are
explicitly said not to be copyright infringement, but in France and
some other countries are considered derivative works. So a photo of
the Eiffel tower at night could say, "GFDL in the USA and Germany; in
France elements of this could be considered copyright so-and-so."

I'm not sure a large and free-form table is the best way to accomplish
this. I think it will confuse people. I think perhaps though that if
we agree on certain issues (say, the architecture one), we could make
specific templates relating just to those instances. They should be
relatively limited in scope.

(The "free in the USA" requirement is necessary in any case, since the
Wikimedia servers "publish" the content from the USA. Whether it is
sufficient is a different question all together.)

FF


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] WiktionaryZ/Wikidata updates; new tarball

body:
The WiktionaryZ project has made rapid progress in the last few weeks,
thanks in no part to our growing team of developers, now including
myself, Peter-Jan Roes, Karsten Uil, and Rod Smith. There's a growing
community at http://www.wiktionaryz.org/ , and our intrepid editors
have already added more than 20,000 words to the original GEMET
database. While there are still many glaring deficiencies and lacking
key features, the WZ core model of terminology works.

Key functionality added to the code in the last few weeks includes:
- Basic versioning. All tables now have versioning information, based
on a transaction model where each record has an associated transaction
record. It is possible to get a simple aggregated history view on a
per-page level; more advanced history views are to come.
- Object identifiers. Key tables now have object IDs associated with
their records. These object IDs are themselves linked to a
database-independent universally unique identifier (UUID), which
allows us to expose data through APIs without using IDs that may not
be available in a target application. The object model also provides
us with a flexible method of grouping or annotating entitites.
- Sticky UI. Rod A. Smith has hacked a nice feature where your view of
the "tree hierarchy" in WiktionaryZ will remain persistent if cookies
are enabled. This allows editors to see only the information relevant
to them.
- New import scripts. We have some exciting new scientific data
sources that will be imported into WZ soon (target date is mid/end
October).
- Small things: hacks for search, adding languages, finding words that
need translation. Splitting exact meanings and imprecise ones.
Improved changelogging.

The versioning is arguably the biggest step here and puts us one step
closer to becoming a true wiki. Next in the roadmap: rollback and a
better class model for ontologies.

Now, let me be absolutely clear: WZ is still pre-alpha code, and it's
messy. We're still extending an old MediaWiki (not really a big deal
since there are relatively few points of attachment, but we'll still
need to fix it), and we have very little documentation. That said, if
you follow the instructions below, you should be able to get your own
edition up and running.

1) Download http://epov.org/temp/wz-sep14.tgz - it's a big file
because it contains the entire database _and_ uploads of
wiktionaryz.org.

2) Decompress the file to a directory in your Apache DocumentRoot.

3) Create and import the database from the .sql file in the dump (if
you don't know how to do this, you should probably stop here).

4) Correct LocalSettings.php $wgDBname to point to the correct
database and authentication, and fix the paths (/www/wz) to point to
the appropriate subdirectory of your DocumentRoot.

5) Run the wiki. Create a user through the "Create an account"
interface. Give the user the "wikidata" permission by inserting a row
into the user_groups table with the ug_user being the user ID of the
user you just created, and the ug_group being 'wikidata' (you should
probably give it 'sysop' and 'bureaucrat' rights as well).

You should now be able to edit the relational data in your WZ
installation, and can start playing with the code, particularly in the
extensions/Wikidata/WiktionaryZ subdirectory. You may want to get
updates to that code from the Wikimedia subversion repository.

I am currently unavailable but will be back on Sep 20 if you have
questions or problems. We are happy to accept new developers and will
prod Brion for you to give you Subversion access if necessary. ;-) We
also always have fun and interesting small and large projects to work
on.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik