from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion references
	Wikipedia

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Wow.  *That* seems pretty irresponsible on their part.  We're no
> authority on the homeland security advisory system, and there's no
> guarantee that our statement there is true, and I notice our
> statement
> isn't sourced.  They ought to have cited some primary sources if
> they're
> going to be basing a legal opinion on this.

Except of course that they of all people realise that primary sources
written down in books are quite often biased and unreliable (meaning
untrue). The fact that they quoted it means that they've done their
homework (lawyers ALWAYS do their homework) and that this was not the
first wikipedia article they have ever read.

Finally, how is wikipedia not a primary source? How do you know that
the people who entered the information in the Wikipedia in the first
place don't have personal knowledge of this? Maybe they do work for
the Department of Homeland Security.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Countering the "Just as bad" tactic (was: Objecting to
	hatespeech is grounds forbeing banned?)

body:
The arguments which claim that other contributors are "just as bad" are
pernicious and self-serving.

When I taught Sunday School, I figured out how to finesse this tactic.

Any time there were multiple violators of a rule (such as No Hitting or
No Teasing), I would simply target the MOST RECENT violator for a
time-out.

In all likelihood, I wound up giving a time-out to someone who was an
aggrieved party and only "righting a wrong" (as they may have thought).
Yet, the effect was remarkable.

The students soon learned that retaliation was not an effective tactic.
I reinforced this lesson by suggesting that if teased or hit in class,
they might appeal to me (the teacher) rather than taking matters into
their own hands.

The next stage was a real eye-opener. The ones that were always starting
trouble found that they COULD NOT provoke a response from the other.
When one student bullied another, he did not get hit back. Eventually,
he'd get caught red-handed (so to speak) and get a time-out. I can't
recall a case where any student get more than 3 timeouts for the same
type of offense.

In less than 3 months, my class became very orderly. It fairly hummed
with tranquility and good cheer and grew rapidly in size.

The student who had previously been the worst trouble-maker voluntarily
took on the task of telling every new student the rules!

I've told this story many times on this list, but no one has figured out
how to apply its lessons to management of adult Wikipedians. Too bad. So
much time and talent wasted.

I would like the arbcom to apply swift and short bans. Or change the
system so that any admin can apply a ban of up to 7 days, subject to
arbcom review.

If a contributor has been clearly warned of the rule on his talk page,
but continues to violate it, why not let ANY SYSOP apply a temp-ban?
Can't we trust administrators to apply the 'rule of law'?

If the contributor genuinely feels the rule has been misapplied, let him
appeal to the arbcom himself. (Not charge the admin with 'abuse', of
course, but apply to the arbcom for leniency or clemency or a reversal.)

Like a squad of sheriffs. Lock up the troublemaker first. Then, he can
either stay 'in jail' while he cools off (or sobers up) *OR* he can
demand a hearing in front of a judge.

We're getting to be such a big community that we're going to have to do
SOMETHING like this.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Matthews [mailto:charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]
> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 7:35 AM
> To: Wikien list
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Objecting to hatespeech is
> grounds forbeingbanned? Huh?!
>
>
> Rebecca wrote
>
> > Sometimes, Charles, I really do wonder if you read people's posts
> > before replying to them.
>
> Not a fair comment. My point is that consistency cannot under
> current conditions be instantly demanded, in the form that if
> Y is just as bad as X etc.  It can be demanded in the longer
> term in the form of precedents; which indeed is something to
> ask about.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Hateful ban shows that Wikipedia is flawed almost
	beyond hope

body:
Anthere wrote:

>  Yes, this was a bizarre suggestion.  Perhaps the next suggested remedy
>  will require financial donations in reparation, before restoring a
>  long-time user's editing privileges.

Actually, the idea of requiring financial donations shouldn't be
dismissed out of hand. A system of micropayments could conceivably
function as a deterrent to trolls and vandals.

Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia had a system
whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots of controversial
edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia Foundation 5 cents for
every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a cash *incentive*
so that people who have earned a reputation for good editing would
*earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)

This is just a rudimentary sketch of how something like this might be
implemented. To make it work, there would have to be a significantly
different system of user IDs than currently exists, and someone would
have to work out a way of preventing people from gaming the system.

Just a thought.

--Sheldon Rampton


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [jhyang@korea.net: Cooperation Request from the Korean
	Overseas Information Service]

body:
----- Forwarded message from Yang Jihyun <jhyang at korea.net> -----

From: "Yang Jihyun" <jhyang at korea.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 11:58:02 +0900
To: <jwales at wikia.com>
Subject: Cooperation Request from the Korean Overseas Information Service

Dear Sir or Madam,

First of all we are honored to introduce ourselves to you.

We are Korea.net Team in the Korean Overseas Information Service correcting Korea-related errors in overseas websites.

We appreciate your interest in Korea and enjoyed visiting your website.

However, we found a geographical error in your website that is related to Korea.

May we bring your attention to the map of South Korea on

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

The Korean Overseas Information Service (KOIS) found that the article carries the disputed name, Sea of Japan, to designate the sea between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.

We are well aware that the map above is for the introduction of Japan, but we also found out that your website uses "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan" simultaneously for the introduction of Korea.  Please look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea.
For this KOIS would like to ask you to consider using "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan" simultaneously on the introduction of Japan on your website.

As you well know, the name has long been a controversial matter to both Korea and Japan.
As for Japan, the "Sea of Japan" is legitimate because it has been used as an official name since its first adoption contained in the "Limits of Oceans and Seas," which was published by the decision of the 1929 Monaco Conference of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).

On the other hand, the Korean people have never accepted this misnomer, because the decision of the Monaco Conference was unfair to Korea, which then could not attend the conference and make its own voice--Korea was under the Japanese colonial rule between 1910-1945. Therefore, since its liberation in 1945, the Republic of Korea has made consistent efforts to restore the appropriate name for the sea area in question.

Until now, a number of Korean scholars, civic groups, and government agencies at home and abroad have participated in the activities to encourage the simultaneous use of "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan". And, such efforts have begun to yield remarkable results, thanks to the understanding of the international community. Notable examples in this regard are the recent decisions made by Rand McNally, Encyclopedia Britannica, and the National Geographic Society to use both names "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan" in their maps and publications. BBC, the Economist, CNN, The USA Today, and The Washington Times have also started to use both names simultaneously--CNN Newsbiz Today has recently used a map on which "Sea of Japan/East Sea" is displayed. In addition, the French Defense Ministry has released a maritime chart for 2003, describing the body of water between Korea and Japan as "East Sea (Mer de l'Est)" along with "Sea of Japan (Mer du Japon)." It is the first time a foreign government body has used the name "East Sea," although civilian maps have already begun to use both names, accepting South Korea's demand.

Following are the links of the world's leading website featuring South Korea's maps:

Korea.net
http://www.korea.net/korea/kor_loca.asp?code=A0101

National Geographic
http://iexplore.nationalgeographic.com/dmap/South+Korea/Overview
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/01/maps2_2001-01-25.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/updates/seaofjapan.html

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.travel-guides.com/MiniGuides/Country.jsp?General%2520Information=on&Public%2520Holidays=on&Social%2520Profile=on&Map=on&CreateMiniGuide=Create+Mini+Guide&Region=null&Country=kor

Economist
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=S%27%29H8%2DQ1%3B%24%23P%23L%0A

MSN Encarta
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?refid=701516652

University of Washington
http://flux.ocean.washington.edu./japan-sea/index.html

The KOIS would deeply appreciate if Wikipedia.com could give a full consideration on the simultaneous use of "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan" on the map. Given the influential power of your website, we firmly believe the simultaneous use of "East Sea and Sea of Japan" will have a significant precedence. If you need any further information or enquires regarding "East Sea" and "Sea of Japan", please, feel free to contact us at jhyang at korea.net or visit http://www.korea.net/menu/home/eastsea.html which carries various number of study results.

Please, take prompt action on this. We thank you for your time and attention. If you need any further information about Korea, please, feel free to contact us at jhyang at korea.net. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

Best regards,

Ms. Yang Jihyun
Korea.net Team
The Korean Overseas Information Service
82-1 Sejongno, Jongno-gu,
Seoul 110-703 Republic of Korea

----- End forwarded message -----

--
"La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


from_name: Robert

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Don't single me out for what many people are fighting
	against

body:
EdPoor writes about me:
> Ironically, the very day the ban was
> announced he blithely pounded another nail into
> his coffin by insinuating a fellow contributor was
> a "Nazi"; I distinctly remembering using HTML
>  strikeout codes to draw his attention to this error.
> I can't help someone who won't listen.

Ed, please cut it out. Stop attacking the victim and
publicly befriending people who are Holocaust deniers, and
who rely on the Neo-Nazi "JewWatch" wesbite.  It is not a
matter of opinion whether or not such attacks and arguments
are anti-Semitic.  Jew-baiting of Jayjg and others, by
using "Zionist" as an ad homenin attack, is offensive,
hateful and out of bounds.  And was NOT just me who noted
this.  What about all the other people who also made
similar accusations of racism against this person?

By repeatedly denying that the Holocaust occured, and by
using Neo-Nazi tactics from Neo-Nazi websites,
HistoryBuffEr has made it clear that he agrees with the
Nazi position on this issue.  That is NOT an ad homein
attack; it is a clear and factual description of his own
statements and belief systems.

Responsible members of the Wikipedia community have always
been obligated to point out that such behaviour is
unacceptable.  Has something changed on this point?
Jew-baiting always used to be a violation of Wikipedia
rules.  Similarly, attacks on black people, and vandalizing
an entry to claim that black people were never taken as
slaves is obviously a gross lie with racist intentions.
Bald-faced attacks on Jews as "Zionists" in a perjorative
sense, against blacks as "niggers", and against homosexuals
as "faggots" is simply wrong.

We cannot let Wikipedia turn into a forum for hatespeech.
If homosexuals are driven away by people who call them
faggots, if Jews are driven away by people who call them
"Arab murdering Zionists", if black people are driven away
by people calling them "niggers",who will be left?

Why do those who make the most outrageous hateful attacks
become valued members of the community, and why do those
who ask for decency become ostracised?  That is not a
rational position.

More to the point, MANY of us on Wikipedia have been
working against HistoryBuffEr and his sockpuppet, Alberuni.
 It was NOT just me who has taken offense to his repeated
ad homenin racist attacks. Your claims to the contrary are
factually incorrect. In fact, HistoryBuffEr (aka Alberuni)
has a long history of slandering other people in this
racist fashion, AND MANY OTHER WIKIPEDIANS have made the
same complaint. (Hence the proceedings against him.)

Unless you want to ban all of them, you may want to retract
your claims against me.

For issues of such magnitude, please get your facts
straight.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
RK,

Please take this off the mailing list.  This is not the right forum
for it.

If you want to make a formal appeal of your ban, you may write to me
privately.

--Jimbo


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Hyperlink convention

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Germany#Reparations

I just wanted to point out that this example, which I think was
universally agreed to be A Very Bad Thing(tm), still says "a plan was
formulated by which Germany was to pay 226 milliard gold marks in
forty-two fixed annuities".

To my knowledge, virtually no speaker of English will have the
slightest idea of what this might mean.  First, "milliard" which is
apparently in declining use everywhere.  Second "gold marks".  A "gold
mark" is worth approximately what?  I have no clue.

--Jimbo


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[WikiEN-l] 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion
	references	Wikipedia

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>Finally, how is wikipedia not a primary source? How do you know that
>the people who entered the information in the Wikipedia in the first
>place don't have personal knowledge of this? Maybe they do work for
>the Department of Homeland Security.
>
>
It wasn't sourced as such, so the logical thing is to presume it isn't.
It was a statement with no attribution, which gives me no reason to
believe it's true.  I can assume it's probably true, as it doesn't seem
like something anyone would lie about, but there's no evidence given in
the article that would lead me to that conclusion, or that would allow
me to follow it up to more authoritative sources.  For all I know, the
judge could have inserted that information himself before quoting it!

-Mark


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Sheldon Rampton (sheldon at prwatch.org) [041019 00:21]:
>
>
>>Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia had a system
>>whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots of controversial
>>edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia Foundation 5 cents for
>>every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a cash *incentive*
>>so that people who have earned a reputation for good editing would
>>*earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)
>>
>>
>We already have cranks on VFD claiming that they made a donation so we'd
>better put up their original research OR ELSE.
>
>
Money can alter interpersonal dynamics.  This is as true on the
micro-scale that concerns us directly, as it is on the corporate scale
where Sheldom performs due vigilence.

Ec


from_name: Sj

body:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:29:23 -0700, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
> Actually, the idea of requiring financial donations shouldn't be
> dismissed out of hand. A system of micropayments could conceivably
> function as a deterrent to trolls and vandals.
>
> Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia had a system
> whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots of controversial
> edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia Foundation 5 cents for
> every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a cash *incentive*
> so that people who have earned a reputation for good editing would
> *earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)

My inbox has a similar system whereby people who engage in trolling or
make lots of controversial suggestions are required to pay me 5 cents
for each character they send me. You own me seven bucks.  I prefer
payment via paypal (to 2.718281828 at gmail.com).

--
+sj+


from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] OpenFilm: could we do it together???

body:
On Sunday 17 October 2004 19:54, Marco Muccinelli wrote:
> I'm the OpenFilm project coordinator.
> In fact we have thought to you: we would like to link our project to yours
> (like a sister project)...is it possible???

I am the admin of the Wikinerds Community, which manages the Adapedia, NerdyPC
and MaatWorks projects, and I am thinking exactly the same :)

Wikinerds.org strives to popularise and promote Science. Adapedia is a
Computer Science and Mathematics knowledge base, it's a wiki. NerdyPC is a
wiki-based computer hardware review site and Information Technology knowledge
base. MaatWorks is a software development project.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] IRC

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> For your information, there is an IRC channel dedicated to all things
> wiktionary. At this moment it is still a lonely place, Yann (fr) and
> GerardM (nl) are some of the people that can be found there.
>
> Maybe it is a resource that you might like to add to the "Community
> Portal", so that more people will be able to find it :)

Sorry, but I've never gotten on very well with chat rooms.  As my son
says, I think too much. :-)   He further tells me that anything that I
write that is more than two lines long  is too long.  By the time I
consider what someone has said. and write my response everyone has gone
on to another topic. :-(

I'm more suited to the slow pace of mailing lists.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page cache not updated

body:
I have just experienced a talk page displaying an old version. I
looked to the history and when using a diff against the previous
version, the content was correct. But normally, the page dislpayed as
if the last change did not occur. So I suspect the problem is in the
page cache.

This has already happened to me a few weeks ago. Then, I tried
?action=purge, which seemed to help. Today, the problematic page is at
http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskuse:Seznam_%C4%8Desk%C3%BDch_premi%C3%A9r%C5%AF
-- if you look at
http://cs.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Diskuse:Seznam_%C4%8Desk%C3%BDch_premi%C3%A9r%C5%AF&diff=0&oldid=19175
you can see the last change, which does not display normally. (I don't
know for how long this problem will persist, or if it is going to
correct itself.)

(Note that I _did_ reload the page in the browser, so the problem is
not on the client side, AFAICS.)

Mormegil


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] How to enable word wrap of long line within <pre>
	</pre>?

body:
On Oct 18, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Kiss All wrote:
> This is a very big problem for me. I often copy & paste stuff into
> wiki page using tag

 to maitain the original looking. But
> the long line cannot be wrapped into several shorter lines. The final
> results are very ugly.
>
> How can I achieve word wrap within

?

Insert line breaks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Germany#Reparations
>
>I just wanted to point out that this example, which I think was
>universally agreed to be A Very Bad Thing(tm), still says "a plan was
>formulated by which Germany was to pay 226 milliard gold marks in
>forty-two fixed annuities".
>
>To my knowledge, virtually no speaker of English will have the
>slightest idea of what this might mean.  First, "milliard" which is
>apparently in declining use everywhere.  Second "gold marks".  A "gold
>mark" is worth approximately what?  I have no clue.
>
>
It seems that the writer may not be a native speaker of English.  I just
checked with the treaty, and at least the English version did not use
the word "milliard"; the numbers were written in full.

"Gold marks" and sometimes "Marks gold" as in "To be issued forthwith,
20,000,000,000 Marks gold bearer bonds, payable not later than May l,
1921" was used in the treaty.  That suggests that the term should stand,
but perhaps with some explanation.  What it was worth in 1921 or how it
was understood then is more relevant than what, if anything, the term
means now.

On the face of it "annuities" is also used wrongly.  That term already
relates to a series of payments.  What may have been intended is "an
annuity of 42 payments,". but I have not further researched the issue.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] New feature to win the win the vandalism battle

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:

>On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:25:42 +0200, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>I know you have mentioned my validation feature, but perhaps you didn't
>>realize that is, among other things, does *exactly* all that. It even
>>has a "validate" tab. It doesn't do the "last viewed" thing, though.
>>
>>
>
>Sorry, but I'm lost: which bits does and doesn't your system do? I had
>thought (without delving far into it) that yours was a 'global'
>validation feature: a way of the community communicating to each other
>their opinion of the quality of an article. Whereas the feature
>proposed here was an *individual* validation feature, to say "I have
>read this version" and then be told "this is what's changed since the
>version you read".
>
>
OK, brief summary: Every user can vote for every article version in a
number of "categories". When you click the "vote" tab for any article
version, you see your old votes as well, and the system can merge them
with your new vote, if you want.

It does *not* automatically register which version of an article you
viewed, though, only the ones you voted for.

Magnus


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Image tarball

body:
On Sun, 17 Oct 2004, Rowan Collins wrote:

> Ahem! Better make that:
>  tar -cf $FILE_OUT $IMG_PATH --no-wildcards-match-slash --exclude
> "$IMG_PATH/*.*"

Actually, a simple

tar cf $FILE_OUT en/[0-9a-f]/

would work for me.

The tarball comes from 7.5Gig down to 5.3Gig with that.

Thanks again to Tim Starling for making this available.

There is some duplication of pictures in the archive, and
I am not sure if orphaned pictures are also in this tarball -
I think that they are.

Any chance of providing a list of orphaned pics so I can
scrub them out too ?

Cheers,    Andy!


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 15, Issue 39

body:
Anthere and Robert both have had trouble finding my private e-mail
address. I guess I assumed that everyone could see it, merely because
I've gotten so many private e-mail messages from dozens of Wikipedians.

I don't put my work address at the website, because I think my employer
wouldn't like it. I'm only available three ways:

* Leave me a message on my talk page, and ask me to e-mail you.
* Via the mailing list (join it, or read the archives; it appears in the
header of each mailing list post.
* Guess my employer's name and ask the switchboard operator to connect
you.

Everybody likes their privacy. I use my Real Name at Wikipedia; how can
anyone say I'm hard to find?

Perplexed as ever, I beg to remain

   Your most obedient servent,

        Ed Poor
        edmund.w.poor at abc.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 2:03 PM
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 15, Issue 39
>
>
> Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
> 	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> 	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> 	wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more
> specific than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [jhyang@korea.net: Cooperation Request from the
	KoreanOverseas Information Service]

body:
Jimbo,

I thought we already settled this one: Wikipedia takes no position on
whether the "East Sea of Korea" should OR should not be called "Sea of
Japan".

In fact, there's an article which details the history of the dispute,
including the current South Korean campaign to make encyclopedias and
mapmakers give preference to the "Sea of Korea" form.

Our encyclopedia has the unique policy of being "neutral" rather than
"objective". If someone wants to edit the image of the map in question
and place East Sea or East Sea of Korea in parentheses, that's fine.
Just to indicate that the term is disputed.

But if this is an effort to make Wikipedia RECOGNIZE Ms. Yang's
preference as taking official priority over the alternative, I think a
polite refusal is in order.

Ed Poor


from_name: Kiss All

body:
This is a very big problem for me. I often copy & paste stuff into
wiki page using tag

 to maitain the original looking. But
the long line cannot be wrapped into several shorter lines. The final
results are very ugly.

How can I achieve word wrap within

?

Thanks in advance.

--
Be good....


from_name: Mark Richards

body:
Oh God let's hope not...
Mark

--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> Sheldon Rampton (sheldon at prwatch.org) [041019
> 00:21]:
>
> > Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia
> had a system
> > whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots
> of controversial
> > edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia
> Foundation 5 cents for
> > every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a
> cash *incentive*
> > so that people who have earned a reputation for
> good editing would
> > *earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)
>
>
> We already have cranks on VFD claiming that they
> made a donation so we'd
> better put up their original research OR ELSE.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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body:
What about a system where a bunch of people get
together to troll such a system and vote down someone
elses contributions? After all, 'trolling' is entirely
subjective.
Mark

--- Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
> >  Yes, this was a bizarre suggestion.  Perhaps the
> next suggested remedy
> >  will require financial donations in reparation,
> before restoring a
> >  long-time user's editing privileges.
>
> Actually, the idea of requiring financial donations
> shouldn't be
> dismissed out of hand. A system of micropayments
> could conceivably
> function as a deterrent to trolls and vandals.
>
> Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia
> had a system
> whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots
> of controversial
> edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia
> Foundation 5 cents for
> every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a
> cash *incentive*
> so that people who have earned a reputation for good
> editing would
> *earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)
>
> This is just a rudimentary sketch of how something
> like this might be
> implemented. To make it work, there would have to be
> a significantly
> different system of user IDs than currently exists,
> and someone would
> have to work out a way of preventing people from
> gaming the system.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> --Sheldon Rampton
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Countering the "Just as bad" tactic (was: Objecting
	tohatespeech is grounds forbeing banned?)

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>We're getting to be such a big community that we're going to have to do
SOMETHING like this.

Some points are: enforcement is not really a difficulty - bans are easy and
effective, except for the known but minor problem (in the scale of things)
of the returning bannee.  Justice is an unknown quantity - and the whole
business of being barred from what is time-consuming voluntary work is odd
(those who feel they have a 'right to edit' are probably harbouring some POV
they feel their right attaches to).  Justice is very important, because the
community feels it is.  Patently unjust tactics, 'pour encourager les
autres' as Voltaire didn't really mean, were employed at my school (I mean,
where I was a pupil), a most conservative place, with the object of
convincing young boys that the world is an unfair place.  It did that, all
right.

Charles


body:
Zinnmann wrote:

>GM> Thanks to our wonderfull media, the solution should be simple. I created
>GM> two interwikis; one to "milliard" and one to "gold mark". Somebody may
>GM> know something sensible to say about the gold mark, but the milliard
>GM> article is there.
>
>There is an article about "Goldmark" at the german wikipedia
>(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldmark). I could try to translate it,
>but since i'm not very experienced in writing english, i would prefer,
>if a native speaker could do this job.
>
>
I don't know if that German article will help.  It does mention that
Germany used it until 1918, but the treaty in question is from 1921. :-$

Ec


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy


body:
This is what I always want to avoid. It is very tedious to press
return line after another. :-(

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:09:33 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Kiss All wrote:
> > This is a very big problem for me. I often copy & paste stuff into
> > wiki page using tag

 to maitain the original looking. But
> > the long line cannot be wrapped into several shorter lines. The final
> > results are very ugly.
> >
> > How can I achieve word wrap within

?
>
> Insert line breaks.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>

--
Be good....


body:
[quote omitted for brevity: summary of the complaint is that we use "Sea
of Japan" in the map on [[en:Japan]], but "East Sea (Sea of Japan)" in
the map on [[en:Korea]].  Since the name is disputed, it is suggested
that we use both names in both articles.]

The request seems reasonable to me, but given the image on [[en:Japan]],
I have no good way of implementing it.  It's a map created by a
Wikipedian, but uploaded only as a raster image.  To edit the caption in
it would require some careful photoshop work and matching of typefaces.

If someone can manage to do it, I think the solution used on
[[en:Korea]] is the best one: use the preferred name of the country the
article is about primarily, but list other names in parentheses.  So
"East Sea (Sea of Japan)" on the Korean article, and "Sea of Japan (East
Sea)" on the Japanese article.  (I think a similar approach was
suggested for the disputed name of a gulf near Israel.)

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] timeouts

body:
I get timeouts on wikipedia

Is the server down?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: Benedikt Mandl

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2nd: Species project

body:
Sorry for repeating my request, but my first e-mail didn't lead to any
responses - though any comment, either via mailing list or at the
wikispecies village pump would be most welcome. At the bottom of this
message is my last e-mail; please comment the feasibility of the proposal.

Thank you,

Benedikt

Wikispecies.org: As the initial brainstorming on the village pump goes on,
one thing becomes clear: wikispecies has the potential to attract many
people who would not contribute to a general encyclopedia, but would to a
scientific database. As wikispecies will strictly suppress any forking
from wikipedia, I thought about an approach that would allow us to use the
pool of species-folks for wikipedia.

The tasks:
1.) Wikispecies provides an interface (already at www.wikispecies.org)
with templates for different categories (such as "synonymes", "habitat",
"morphology" etc.)

2.) These categories represent a table that can be accessed by wikipedia
and wikispecies

3.) Wikispecies, which have an emphasis on things like "synonymes" or
"original species description" will display these categories on a high
order

4.) Wikipedia will display the information that seems interesting for the
user of a general encyclopedia in an order that seems appropriate for that
purpose

As I don't understand the underlying technical questions, I would like to
know if this is technically feasible and - more important - who would
volunteer to set up a database that would work as proposed.

--
GMX ProMail mit bestem Virenschutz http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail
+++ Empfehlung der Redaktion +++ Internet Professionell 10/04 +++


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] IRC

body:
Hoi,
For your information, there is an IRC channel dedicated to all things
wiktionary. At this moment it is still a lonely place, Yann (fr) and
GerardM (nl) are some of the people that can be found there.

Maybe it is a resource that you might like to add to the "Community
Portal", so that more people will be able to find it :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy

body:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_10_14.shtml#1098119066

I'll be blogging about this in the morning, but I did want to say that
I think Orin Kerr is right about this particular entry, but wrong
about how wikipedia works and the degree of commitment that the
community has to getting it right.

In particular, I think he's wrong about this part:
>If I understand accurately how Wikipedia works -- a big 'if,' I should
>point out -- my views of what is in the Patriot Act are no more and no
>less valued by Wikipedia than the views of any other Internet user.

About this, I very much think he's wrong.  Certainly I am not aware of
any serious support for this kind of wholesale intellectual relativism
in any wikipedia discussions.  Instead, there's always an underlying
and thorough commitment to _getting it right_.

I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with
the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this
one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual
errors.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [elian@djini.de: [Foundation-l] wikimedia conference,
	round two]

body:
I just wanted to make sure that this gets the widest possible
distribution.  I'm not sure if announcements have been made in other
languages, but hopefully this conference will be widely discussed in
all languages.

It's going to be amazing!  Start saving your money now, no one should
miss it.  :-)

----- Forwarded message from Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> -----

From: Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 22:48:36 +0200
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia conference, round two

Hello,

a short report from the meeting on IRC yesterday. After a semi-public
question & answers session about the candidates we discussed the
different opportunities among the committee members.

It became we clear that we need detailed plans as a basis for the final
decision, but to save the participants unnecessary work, we decided to
narrow down the list to three candidates which appeared the most
promising to us: Dublin, Frankfurt and Rotterdam.

It was hard (and very sad :-(, for my part) to sort out the Eastern
European cities, main reasons for this decision were that there are not
enough local people to help and the difficult travel situation for
people from overseas even when the offers looked very beautiful.

The final city will be chosen in two weeks from now.

The rest of the meeting was about organization in general: we'll divide
the work up in different teams. Below is the first draft with the fields
and the people who volunteered for each job. If you'd like to help in a
certain field, please contact these people:

* conference program (Angela)
* sponsorships (Jimbo)
* finances (Oscar)
* PR (N.N.)
* social activities (Danny)
* information in the projects (Anthere)
* website & registration (Brion)
* technics (local)

greetings,
elian

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

----- End forwarded message -----

--
"La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [elian@djini.de: [Foundation-l] wikimedia conference,
	round two]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: <chem>

body:
On Oct 18, 2004, at 6:13 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
> Peter Danenberg wrote:
>>> Can this be made available by default? Please?
>>      I'll  do  my  part by uploading it into the /extensions
>> folder, but I have yet to ascertain who makes  the  decision
>> to install; Jens, Erik, Tim, Brion, Gabriel, ... ?
>
> Uploading it would be good. If you want it to go live immediately
> you'll
> have to backport it to REL1_3A -- please test the backported version if
> you do so. If there are no changes to be made from 1.3 to 1.4 then it's
> just a matter of committing to both branches.

extensions is a separate module in CVS, and AFAIK has no branches at
the moment. In general I'd prefer that things which are a) relatively
self-contained and b) rely on external software should be distributed
separately rather than sitting in the core distribution mostly unused.
(The same goes for texvc; I'd like to decouple it. The main thing
currently lacking iirc is a plugin hook for adding pref sheets to
Special:Preferences.)

The few things sitting in the 'extensions' directory in the main
distribution now are a mistake and should be moved to the separate
module.

>  The decision to install is
> made by anyone with shell access who is brave enough to take
> responsibility for any errors in it. They will ask for objections from
> the other developers, and if there are none, they install and debug it.

I'd really, really, really like to know that someone's done a security
review on it before installing it. We've been patching a lot of holes
lately, and I'd rather this gets done before things go live or get
released.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Germany#Reparations
>
>I just wanted to point out that this example, which I think was
>universally agreed to be A Very Bad Thing(tm), still says "a plan was
>formulated by which Germany was to pay 226 milliard gold marks in
>forty-two fixed annuities".
>
>To my knowledge, virtually no speaker of English will have the
>slightest idea of what this might mean.  First, "milliard" which is
>apparently in declining use everywhere.  Second "gold marks".  A "gold
>mark" is worth approximately what?  I have no clue.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
Thanks to our wonderfull media, the solution should be simple. I created
two interwikis; one to "milliard" and one to "gold mark". Somebody may
know something sensible to say about the gold mark, but the milliard
article is there.

It is one thing not to know a term, it is another not to be able to find
it. People who are confused as to the meaning of a word deserve an
article explaining a term. There is no need to dumb down. Because if we
do that, people will not be able to read the sources of our articles.

Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [Wiktionary-l] IRC

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> For your information, there is an IRC channel dedicated to all things
>> wiktionary. At this moment it is still a lonely place, Yann (fr) and
>> GerardM (nl) are some of the people that can be found there.
>>
>> Maybe it is a resource that you might like to add to the "Community
>> Portal", so that more people will be able to find it :)
>
>
> Sorry, but I've never gotten on very well with chat rooms.  As my son
> says, I think too much. :-)   He further tells me that anything that I
> write that is more than two lines long  is too long.  By the time I
> consider what someone has said. and write my response everyone has
> gone on to another topic. :-(
>
> I'm more suited to the slow pace of mailing lists.
>
> Ec
>
Hoi,
Ray, when you look at the glacial speed by which things are happening at
the moment, there is no chance of your pace being a limiting factor. I
am reseanably sure that it will liven up things having people saying
something. :) Ray, you are cordially invited (everyone is) to this
chanell. It is more real than TV. :)

The second bit, how do you like the idea of having it mentioned on the
"Community Portal" ??

Thanks,
    Gerard


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Marco-
> Hello Wikipedians,
> I'm the OpenFilm project coordinator.

> OpenFilm is a Open project which aims to create a system like Wikipedia
> but for the movies (an open imDB I could say...).

Think more abstract:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata

This is not just fantasy stuff, these people are already doing it:
http://jot.com/
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/jot.swf

I have a Jot beta account and their system works quite nicely. You can
easily apply forms to a page to define which data it can accept. You can
then do systematic searches and reports on this structured data.

A data-enabled wiki allows for applications far beyond just movies. An
open database of creative works of all types (books, articles, papers,
journals, films, games ..), for example.

My invitation to you is, instead of setting up your own project for one
specific purpose, work with us to make Wikidata a reality. Contact me and
I'll let you know how you can help.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom Community Service

body:
Indeed.

Just currently thinking of the huge number of hours I spent on the 168
case.

How sad.

Ant

Patrick Aiden Hunt a ?crit:
> Well, they do have the choice of just leaving Wikipedia... which is how
> I saw numerous decisions ended... that's what I was referring to...
>
> -Skyler
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthere [mailto:anthere9 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 7:46 PM
>
>
>
> Patrick Aiden Hunt a ?crit:
>
>>Thinking about it logically, community service does seem like a viable
>>option. However, the way it was originally said to be applied was not.
>>
>>If a person were willing to go through the whole arbitration process
>>until ruling, I would say there is a good chance they actually do
>
> enjoy
>
>>Wikipedia and may have some value to the greater good. Perhaps in the
>>future ArbCom can be given the option of giving community service in
>>exchange for a lighter sentence.
>
>
>
> Errrr. I think you are making a mistake on a point Patrick.
> Those who go through the whole arbitration process are not necessarily
> willing... I would even dare saying they usually are not.
>
> They just do not have any choice.
>
>
> For all other points about reducing sentence through good behavior
> (community work showing efforts), I absolutely agree with you.


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 02:50:46PM -0500, Kiss All wrote:
> This is a very big problem for me. I often copy & paste stuff into
> wiki page using tag

 to maitain the original looking. But
> the long line cannot be wrapped into several shorter lines. The final
> results are very ugly.
>
> How can I achieve word wrap within

?

Don't use
.
It's not supposed to have word wrap.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why didn't you ask for help? (was: Hateful ban)

body:
Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:

> I wish Robert well, and I hope that when he returns in mid-February, he
> will make more effort to get along with the other contributors.

Eh Ed, I can't count the number of times I tried to sent you an
wikipedia email, just to find that it was not in your preferences. Why so ?

ant


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] IRC

body:
Le Monday 18 October 2004 21:58, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :
> The second bit, how do you like the idea of having it mentioned on the
> "Community Portal" ??

Yes, I?think it could be useful.

> Thanks,
>     Gerard

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


body:
Sheldon Rampton a ?crit:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>  Yes, this was a bizarre suggestion.  Perhaps the next suggested remedy
>>  will require financial donations in reparation, before restoring a
>>  long-time user's editing privileges.
>
>
> Actually, the idea of requiring financial donations shouldn't be
> dismissed out of hand. A system of micropayments could conceivably
> function as a deterrent to trolls and vandals.
>
> Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia had a system whereby
> people who engage in trolling or make lots of controversial edits could
> be required to pay the Wikimedia Foundation 5 cents for every edit they
> make. (Maybe there could even be a cash *incentive* so that people who
> have earned a reputation for good editing would *earn* small amounts of
> money for their edits.)
>
> This is just a rudimentary sketch of how something like this might be
> implemented. To make it work, there would have to be a significantly
> different system of user IDs than currently exists, and someone would
> have to work out a way of preventing people from gaming the system.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> --Sheldon Rampton

Just for the record, it is not I who wrote what I seemed to be quoted
above.

Florence Devouard.


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

body:
PEW> But if this is an effort to make Wikipedia RECOGNIZE Ms. Yang's
PEW> preference as taking official priority over the alternative, I think a
PEW> polite refusal is in order.

The request is to use both names simultaneously, not to prefer the
name East Sea (and he didn't even call it "East Sea of Korea").

--
Ausir
mailto:fallout at lexx.eu.org
http://fallout.scifi.pl
ICQ 41090834 GG 2730728


from_name: Zinnmann

body:
GM> Thanks to our wonderfull media, the solution should be simple. I created
GM> two interwikis; one to "milliard" and one to "gold mark". Somebody may
GM> know something sensible to say about the gold mark, but the milliard
GM> article is there.

There is an article about "Goldmark" at the german wikipedia
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldmark). I could try to translate it,
but since i'm not very experienced in writing english, i would prefer,
if a native speaker could do this job.

    ...Zinnmann


list: foundation-l

from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia conference, round two

body:
Hello,

a short report from the meeting on IRC yesterday. After a semi-public
question & answers session about the candidates we discussed the
different opportunities among the committee members.

It became we clear that we need detailed plans as a basis for the final
decision, but to save the participants unnecessary work, we decided to
narrow down the list to three candidates which appeared the most
promising to us: Dublin, Frankfurt and Rotterdam.

It was hard (and very sad :-(, for my part) to sort out the Eastern
European cities, main reasons for this decision were that there are not
enough local people to help and the difficult travel situation for
people from overseas even when the offers looked very beautiful.

The final city will be chosen in two weeks from now.

The rest of the meeting was about organization in general: we'll divide
the work up in different teams. Below is the first draft with the fields
and the people who volunteered for each job. If you'd like to help in a
certain field, please contact these people:

* conference program (Angela)
* sponsorships (Jimbo)
* finances (Oscar)
* PR (N.N.)
* social activities (Danny)
* information in the projects (Anthere)
* website & registration (Brion)
* technics (local)

greetings,
elian


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Michael Snow

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion references
	Wikipedia

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>The fact that they quoted it means that they've done their
>homework (lawyers ALWAYS do their homework)
>
Ahem. I know better than to believe that.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 15, Issue 39

body:
I often needed it for mediation.

And I do not think mediation should be done on mailing lists, nor
publicly on talk page.

I do think that any mediator should be able to be privately contacted if
needed, any time.

I also have possibly up to 10 email addresses...

But, well, I just report you a feeling. Given the number of time I was
contacted by wikipedia mail, I think having a valid email is worth
considering ed. Just my opinion.

ant

Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> Anthere and Robert both have had trouble finding my private e-mail
> address. I guess I assumed that everyone could see it, merely because
> I've gotten so many private e-mail messages from dozens of Wikipedians.
>
> I don't put my work address at the website, because I think my employer
> wouldn't like it. I'm only available three ways:
>
> * Leave me a message on my talk page, and ask me to e-mail you.
> * Via the mailing list (join it, or read the archives; it appears in the
> header of each mailing list post.
> * Guess my employer's name and ask the switchboard operator to connect
> you.
>
> Everybody likes their privacy. I use my Real Name at Wikipedia; how can
> anyone say I'm hard to find?
>
> Perplexed as ever, I beg to remain
>
>    Your most obedient servent,
>
>         Ed Poor
>         edmund.w.poor at abc.com
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
>>wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>>Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 2:03 PM
>>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>>Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 15, Issue 39
>>
>>
>>Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
>>	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>>
>>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>	wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>>
>>You can reach the person managing the list at
>>	wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org
>>
>>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more
>>specific than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Hateful ban shows that Wikipedia is flawed almost
	beyond hope

body:
Sheldon Rampton (sheldon at prwatch.org) [041019 00:21]:

> Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that Wikipedia had a system
> whereby people who engage in trolling or make lots of controversial
> edits could be required to pay the Wikimedia Foundation 5 cents for
> every edit they make. (Maybe there could even be a cash *incentive*
> so that people who have earned a reputation for good editing would
> *earn* small amounts of money for their edits.)

We already have cranks on VFD claiming that they made a donation so we'd
better put up their original research OR ELSE.

- d.


from_name: Jonah Bossewitch

subject: [Wikitech-l] mediawiki evaluation

body:
Hi everyone,

We are in the final phases of evaluating wikis - we intend to use them
internally as well deploy it to faculty and students.  We anticipate the
need to customize and extend these deployments, in both skins and
functionality.

A few questions:

How far off is 1.4 from a beta release?  Will there be a migration script
from 1.3?

Will mediawiki 1.4 have better architectural support for plugins/extensions?
Especially things like wikiwhiteboars/twikidraw/svg?

What about anything comparable to macros (like moin moin) ?

Is there a systematic move towards phpTAL, or is it just being used in one
skin?

Aside from scalability/performance (which is not a major concern for our
deployments), do you have any great arguments for using the mediawiki over
moinmoin?

Thanks so much for you time,
Jonah


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediawiki evaluation

body:
On Oct 19, 2004, at 12:38 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
> Jonah Bossewitch wrote:
>> Is there a systematic move towards phpTAL, or is it just being used
>> in one skin?
>
> Just one skin.

I'd like to finish moving things to PHPTal in order to simplify the
skin code base, but this was delayed for some time by the lack of
availability of a PHP5-compatible version of PHPTal. That's in
development now and very close to rendering MediaWiki correctly, so if
I (or someone else) has the time and inclination to clean up the skin
code with a full PHPTal conversion, that'd be great.

Whether that gets done or not, it should be much easier to drop in new
PHPTal-based skins in 1.4.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>I just wanted to make sure that this gets the widest possible
>distribution.  I'm not sure if announcements have been made in other
>languages, but hopefully this conference will be widely discussed in
>all languages.
>
>It's going to be amazing!  Start saving your money now, no one should
>miss it.  :-)
>
>
Well, I'll start saving, but on a student's stipend it might be 2007
before I save up enough money to travel to Europe...

[Wonders when we can begin lobbying for Wikimeetup 2006 to be west of
the Atlantic. =]

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2005

body:
Hi

To help organisers, it would be best that those
interested in participating mention their name here :

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania%3AParticipants

Naturally, this is not "registration", but it will
provide useful information to make decisions upon
accomodation, size of rooms etc...

Please, also mention the cities in which you would
come (in comparison to those you would not - in case
this makes a huge difference :-)), and mostly,
indicate periods preferences.

Thanks for the organisers.

PS : We'll set into place an multilingual information
network asap, but right now errr... let's manage with
bits of boxes and string. Help in all committees is
welcome :-)

anthere

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2005


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimania 2005


subject: [Foundation-l] OVH is now the owner of www.wikipedia.fr

body:
OVH is now the owner of www.wikipedia.fr

The question is "is it a friendly reservation" or have we just lost our domain name ?
It was still free about a month ago. Look at the date of reservation by Bruckert.
It was only 3 weeks ago.

We were so near creating the association :-(
Less than a month and we could have finally got it :-(((((

Does anyone know OVH and can negociate with them ?

If this was not a friendly reservation and they request a big bunch of dollars to offer it back to us, what do we do ? Bad press ?

-----------

Nous avons perdu www.wikipedia.fr

Quelqu'un connait il OVH et est il possible que cela soit une r?servation "amicale" ?
Sinon, que fait on ?

Anthere

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Uploading Bug

body:
Hi,

I hope this is the right list for doing this: I would like to point out
the high urgency of bug report 548 (from September 22). There is a problem
when uploading images under a name which is already in use. You will get a
notice that there is already an image of that name and a query if you want
to overwrite the image. If you do nothing (i.e. you press neither yes or
no) the old image will be overwritten without any log entry. Thus we are
losing images without the possibility to restore the old versions. I
detected four occurrences of this bug by now, but there may be many more.
Thanks for your help.

Mirko (Baldhur)


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Is there news about the new GNU/FDL-version?

body:
I am working with Richard Stallman, Larry Lessig, and Eben Moglen on
GNU FDL 2.0.  In my opinion all of our concerns about the license
which are purely technical in nature and not philosophical, will be
addressed without difficulty.

NSK wrote:

> On Tuesday 19 October 2004 17:26, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> > I have read on this list some time ago about a new future version of the
> > GNU/FDL license.
>
> If you mean compatibility between GFDL and CC, I have questioned an FSFE
> mailing list over this issue (not relating to WP). If they reply, do you want
> me to forward?
>
> --
> NSK
> Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
> Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
> Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
"La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> I thought we already settled this one: Wikipedia takes no position on
> whether the "East Sea of Korea" should OR should not be called "Sea of
> Japan".

I was just passing along the info.

I agree with you.  If there's a controversy, our first instinct should
be to not take a stand on it, but to report on it.  Now we have some
first-hand documentary evidence on the nature of the controversy, I
guess. ;-)

> But if this is an effort to make Wikipedia RECOGNIZE Ms. Yang's
> preference as taking official priority over the alternative, I think a
> polite refusal is in order.

Well, they asked nicely, and I'm not sure they really expected a
reply.

To me, it is quite interesting in an abstract way that people are
dying in (for example) Sudan this morning, and other people have a
paid job which involves writing to me to complain about the name of a
body of water.  One should think that there might be more important
things to do in the world.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediawiki evaluation

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> >How far off is 1.4 from a beta release?
>
> God only knows.

Well, brion is pretty amazing, but let's not let our idol worship get
too far out of hand. ;-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Uploading Bug

body:
Selon Mirko Thiessen <wikipedia at mirko-thiessen.de>:

> Hi,
>
>
> I hope this is the right list for doing this: I would like to point out
> the high urgency of bug report 548 (from September 22). There is a problem
> when uploading images under a name which is already in use. You will get a
> notice that there is already an image of that name and a query if you want
> to overwrite the image. If you do nothing (i.e. you press neither yes or
> no) the old image will be overwritten without any log entry. Thus we are
> losing images without the possibility to restore the old versions. I
> detected four occurrences of this bug by now, but there may be many more.
> Thanks for your help.
>

Hi

The bug was already discovered, and a patch was coded.... but not applied in the
CVS ?!

cf:http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=548

Emmanuel Engelhart


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] [elian-EFJ1a5riuIw@public.gmane.org:
	wikimedia conference, round two]

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Delirium a ?crit:
>
>> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>>
>>> I just wanted to make sure that this gets the widest possible
>>> distribution.  I'm not sure if announcements have been made in other
>>> languages, but hopefully this conference will be widely discussed in
>>> all languages.
>>>
>>> It's going to be amazing!  Start saving your money now, no one should
>>> miss it.  :-)
>>
>> Well, I'll start saving, but on a student's stipend it might be 2007
>> before I save up enough money to travel to Europe...
>>
>> [Wonders when we can begin lobbying for Wikimeetup 2006 to be west of
>> the Atlantic. =]
>
> Best I can suggest is to prepare a *very* solid report for a city. Low
> costs, good accomodation, plenty of locals to help, funny nights,
> conference and sleeping at the same place... do all this, and you get
> a chance ! :-)

Sleeping at the same place?  Wow!

Ec


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Ahem. I know better than to believe that.

You have a point.

But if it's good enough for lawyers, surely it's good enough the
Everyday Man.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2nd: Species project

body:
On the technical side, I think we're down to one of three courses of action:
* Work on my proof-of-principle data management thingy that's in CVS
* Wait for a "real", carefully planned wikidata solution to emerge
* Write a pure database management software, independent of MediaWiki,
and then use it as a plugin

Let the flamewars ignite!

Magnus

Benedikt Mandl wrote:

>Sorry for repeating my request, but my first e-mail didn't lead to any
>responses - though any comment, either via mailing list or at the
>wikispecies village pump would be most welcome. At the bottom of this
>message is my last e-mail; please comment the feasibility of the proposal.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Benedikt
>
>Wikispecies.org: As the initial brainstorming on the village pump goes on,
>one thing becomes clear: wikispecies has the potential to attract many
>people who would not contribute to a general encyclopedia, but would to a
>scientific database. As wikispecies will strictly suppress any forking
>from wikipedia, I thought about an approach that would allow us to use the
>pool of species-folks for wikipedia.
>
>The tasks:
>1.) Wikispecies provides an interface (already at www.wikispecies.org)
>with templates for different categories (such as "synonymes", "habitat",
>"morphology" etc.)
>
>2.) These categories represent a table that can be accessed by wikipedia
>and wikispecies
>
>3.) Wikispecies, which have an emphasis on things like "synonymes" or
>"original species description" will display these categories on a high
>order
>
>4.) Wikipedia will display the information that seems interesting for the
>user of a general encyclopedia in an order that seems appropriate for that
>purpose
>
>As I don't understand the underlying technical questions, I would like to
>know if this is technically feasible and - more important - who would
>volunteer to set up a database that would work as proposed.
>
>
>


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>
>I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with
>the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this
>one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual
>errors.
>
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots
of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and
they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they
find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the
avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week,
instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive
amounts of time that could be used more productively.

Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are
completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be
right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to
acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view,
you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.

Stan


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: <chem>

body:
Peter Danenberg wrote:
>>Can this be made available by default? Please?
>
>
>
>      I'll  do  my  part by uploading it into the /extensions
> folder, but I have yet to ascertain who makes  the  decision
> to install; Jens, Erik, Tim, Brion, Gabriel, ... ?

Uploading it would be good. If you want it to go live immediately you'll
have to backport it to REL1_3A -- please test the backported version if
you do so. If there are no changes to be made from 1.3 to 1.4 then it's
just a matter of committing to both branches. The decision to install is
made by anyone with shell access who is brave enough to take
responsibility for any errors in it. They will ask for objections from
the other developers, and if there are none, they install and debug it.

-- Tim Starling


body:
I don't think the banning can be done unilaterally, but if you have
one person willing to consider that he might be wrong, versus another
who is utterly and absolutely convinced of his rightness, which of
the two POVs is more likely to be represented, and which is more
likely to be deleted from an article? By its nature, fair-mindedness
can make us weak against the single-minded.

One interesting experiment to try would be for the ArbCom to lower
the bar for accepting POV warrior cases, and have as a condition
of avoiding banishment, for the warrior to add to one or more talk
pages a statement like "I acknowledge that my opponent's point of
view may be correct." I suspect that nearly all of the troublesome
POVers would rather quit WP forever than go on record making such
a statement.

Stan

Fred Bauder wrote:

>One of the problems is that you run into these folks while editing in an
>area that you are interested in and probably have a point of view about
>yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be banning them.
>
>Fred
>
>
>>From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
>>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700
>>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy
>>
>>Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with
>>>the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this
>>>one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual
>>>errors.
>>>
>>>
>>Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots
>>of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and
>>they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they
>>find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the
>>avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week,
>>instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive
>>amounts of time that could be used more productively.
>>
>>Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are
>>completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be
>>right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to
>>acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view,
>>you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
>>
>>Stan
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediawiki evaluation

references:
<cl2900$c2$1@sea.gmane.org> <cl2gag$ert$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<CAA8C899-21AA-11D9-91C6-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>

body:
Thanks for the quick and thorough responses.

One more quickee - how easy is it to use the mediawiki's structured text
renderdering engine outside of the wiki.  For example, if we wanted to
parse and render an ordinary text area (without highlighting wiki
words), is there an easy api?  Or do we need to pass in proper php Page
objects?

I poked around, but I didn't see any plain text transformations in the
tests.

Jonah

Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Oct 19, 2004, at 12:38 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
>
>> Jonah Bossewitch wrote:
>>
>>> Is there a systematic move towards phpTAL, or is it just being used
>>> in one skin?
>>
>>
>> Just one skin.
>
>
> I'd like to finish moving things to PHPTal in order to simplify the skin
> code base, but this was delayed for some time by the lack of
> availability of a PHP5-compatible version of PHPTal. That's in
> development now and very close to rendering MediaWiki correctly, so if I
> (or someone else) has the time and inclination to clean up the skin code
> with a full PHPTal conversion, that'd be great.
>
> Whether that gets done or not, it should be much easier to drop in new
> PHPTal-based skins in 1.4.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
One of the problems is that you run into these folks while editing in an
area that you are interested in and probably have a point of view about
yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be banning them.

Fred

> From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy
>
> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
>>
>> I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with
>> the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this
>> one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual
>> errors.
>>
> Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots
> of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and
> they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they
> find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the
> avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week,
> instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive
> amounts of time that could be used more productively.
>
> Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are
> completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be
> right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to
> acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view,
> you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Minty

subject: [WikiEN-l] revolving around Wikipedia

body:
The fight for your right to share
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3752354.stm

"the net's open source movement ...
 revolves around Linux, and its
 collaborative encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia"

nice work :)

whilst I'm here and incase anyone missed it, back in Sept. the uk's
Guardian did a piece about wikipedia.  I found it very useful when
trying to explain what it was all about to my mum - who's curious, but
not entirely down with the lingo/ideas yet

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1302488,00.html


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Hyperlink convention

body:
In message <4174474C.8090002 at telus.net>, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> writes
>Zinnmann wrote:
>
>>GM> Thanks to our wonderfull media, the solution should be simple. I created
>>GM> two interwikis; one to "milliard" and one to "gold mark". Somebody
>>GM>may  know something sensible to say about the gold mark, but the
>>GM>milliard  article is there.
>>
>>There is an article about "Goldmark" at the german wikipedia
>>(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldmark). I could try to translate it,
>>but since i'm not very experienced in writing english, i would prefer,
>>if a native speaker could do this job.
>>
>I don't know if that German article will help.  It does mention that
>Germany used it until 1918, but the treaty in question is from 1921. :-$

A gold mark was also issued in April-October 1923 during the
hyperinflation period, at its pre-war value of 20 gold marks = ?1
sterling, 4.20 gold marks = $1 US. The hyperinflation was finally
stabilised in November 1923 at 1,000,000,000,000 paper marks = 1 gold
mark.

The same thing happened in Austria, with 14,400 paper kronen being worth
1 gold krone at the end of 1922.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] [elian-EFJ1a5riuIw@public.gmane.org:
 wikimedia conference, round two]

body:
Delirium a ?crit:
> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
>> I just wanted to make sure that this gets the widest possible
>> distribution.  I'm not sure if announcements have been made in other
>> languages, but hopefully this conference will be widely discussed in
>> all languages.
>>
>> It's going to be amazing!  Start saving your money now, no one should
>> miss it.  :-)
>>
>>
> Well, I'll start saving, but on a student's stipend it might be 2007
> before I save up enough money to travel to Europe...
>
> [Wonders when we can begin lobbying for Wikimeetup 2006 to be west of
> the Atlantic. =]
>
> -Mark

Best I can suggest is to prepare a *very* solid report for a city. Low
costs, good accomodation, plenty of locals to help, funny nights,
conference and sleeping at the same place... do all this, and you get a
chance ! :-)


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [jhyang@korea.net: Cooperation Request from the Korean
	Overseas Information Service]

body:
I have updated the map used on [[Japan]] with the naming format
Delerium suggested, that is, "Sea of Japan (East Sea)". I couldn't
match the font perfectly, but did the best I could. The image is
[[Image:Ja-map.png]].

~Mark

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:12:15 -0400, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> [quote omitted for brevity: summary of the complaint is that we use "Sea
> of Japan" in the map on [[en:Japan]], but "East Sea (Sea of Japan)" in
> the map on [[en:Korea]].  Since the name is disputed, it is suggested
> that we use both names in both articles.]
>
> The request seems reasonable to me, but given the image on [[en:Japan]],
> I have no good way of implementing it.  It's a map created by a
> Wikipedian, but uploaded only as a raster image.  To edit the caption in
> it would require some careful photoshop work and matching of typefaces.
>
> If someone can manage to do it, I think the solution used on
> [[en:Korea]] is the best one: use the preferred name of the country the
> article is about primarily, but list other names in parentheses.  So
> "East Sea (Sea of Japan)" on the Korean article, and "Sea of Japan (East
> Sea)" on the Japanese article.  (I think a similar approach was
> suggested for the disputed name of a gulf near Israel.)
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Elisabeth-
> It was hard (and very sad :-(, for my part) to sort out the Eastern
> European cities, main reasons for this decision were that there are not
> enough local people to help and the difficult travel situation for
> people from overseas even when the offers looked very beautiful.

There should be no reason for sadness. The criteria you listed are very
important for what is to be a world-wide meetup. However, given that the
Romanian Wikipedia in particular has put a lot of effort into this, I
think they would be a prime candidate for a "Wikimedia Eastern Europe"
meetup. Wikimedia meetups can be organized on all levels, from the very
global to the very local. As Meta becomes a more visible place in the
Wikimedia community, I'm sure we will see this multi-level approach
develop further.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Rebecca wrote:

>>[Wonders when we can begin lobbying for Wikimeetup 2006 to be west of
>>the Atlantic. =]
>>
>>
>
>...or south of the Equator. ;)
>
>
Perhaps the South Americans could fulfill both criteria! =]

-Mark


body:
Anthere wrote:

> Best I can suggest is to prepare a *very* solid report for a city. Low
> costs, good accomodation, plenty of locals to help, funny nights,
> conference and sleeping at the same place... do all this, and you get
> a chance ! :-)

The main thing would probably be plane tickets, if anyone manages to
come up with some great ideas or good pointers to cheap transatlantic
tickets.  This depends partly on when exactly the conference is and how
the airline market fluctuates over the next six months or so, but in the
one European vacation I've paid for (not counting family trips when I
was a kid), the plane tickets accounted for around 75% of the total trip
costs.  It seems hard to find a transatlantic flight for under US$600 in
the summer, and NYC-London is the only route that is even that
cheap---most others are $800-$1100.

Of course, perhaps something exciting could happen in the international
airline market in the next few months...

-Mark


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] revolving around Wikipedia

body:
Eek.  That wording makes it sounds as if Wikipedia is Linux's encyclopedia, not the net's encyclopedia.

RickK

Minty <mintywalker at gmail.com> wrote:
The fight for your right to share
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3752354.stm

"the net's open source movement ...
revolves around Linux, and its
collaborative encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia"

nice work :)

whilst I'm here and incase anyone missed it, back in Sept. the uk's
Guardian did a piece about wikipedia. I found it very useful when
trying to explain what it was all about to my mum - who's curious, but
not entirely down with the lingo/ideas yet

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1302488,00.html
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l]
	[elian-EFJ1a5riuIw-XMD5yJDbdMReXY1tMh2IBg@public.gmane.org:
	wikimedia conference, round two]

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Are you volunteering to try to negociate for us good travel
> transatlantic ticket Mark ?
>
> That is a great idea you have here, and I hope you can help on this.
> It will be much appreciated.

I'll certainly be willing to help, but I have no particular experience
in the travel market besides scouring the internet.  I could put
together a list of the best prices I can personally find though, and
people can wiki-update as necessary.  If there are any people who
actually work as travel agents who can help us out, that'd of course be
ideal. =]

One caveat is that it's very hard to predict the best prices.  It used
to be true that basically the earlier you buy tickets in advance, the
cheaper they are.  That's no longer true, because sometimes as the date
pulls closer prices will drop dramatically if it turns out there's too
many unsold seats left and the airline needs to get rid of them (last
year ticket prices for flights in June and July dropped quite a bit in
March and April).  But you can't count on or predict that well either,
so all we can really do is give people information and let them guess
for themselves...

-Mark


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>What about a system where a bunch of people get
>together to troll such a system and vote down someone
>elses contributions? After all, 'trolling' is entirely
>subjective.

It's partly subjective, but not *entirely* subjective. The same can
be said about most POV/NPOV controversies.

--Sheldon Rampton


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for arbitration refactoring

body:
Gah! Why did you remerge all the requests for arbitration?

The page is nigh unreadable.

I obviously had a reason for separating out everything. Why did you put it
back without comment?

If your concern is that you want to have one page that lists all the vote
tallies, then let's figure out a way to do that.

Having endless entries on one page is not the way to do it.

--tc


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
I have read on this list some time ago about a new future version of the
GNU/FDL license. Special modified for the use of this license on Wikipedia.

Is there news about this?

[[w:gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Detailled documentation for special pages

body:
On Oct 19, 2004, at 2:02 PM, Joel Wiesmann wrote:
> I'm having fun hacking my local metawiki installation. Currently I'm
> trying to implement a calendar
> (I think would be something new?) as a special page. What I miss, are
> detailed informations about
> the global variables like wgOut and wgRequest. $wgOut isn't that hard,
> because a var_dump will
> show detailed informations - but unfortunately that doesn't work with
> $wgRequest :(. Is there
> _any_ more detailed documentation about the metawiki internals than
> the informations on meta.wikipedia.org?

The first and foremost documentation is the source code. The code of
the functions, the comments in and around them, and their usage
elsewhere in the code should, ideally, be relatively clear. In practice
it's not always as clear as we'd like. :)

In 1.4 we've been adding more comments to produce internal API
documentation via phpdoc. A probably not current copy is at
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/mwdoc/ (select the 'MediaWiki' package
to see anything of any note). Note that 1.4 isn't quite the same as 1.3
if you're working with 1.3; some things have changed.

> I searched almost everywhere.. and the mailing-list archive seems not
> to have a search function!

Google.com provides an excellent search capability: add
site:mail.wikipedia.org to your query.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] more important things

body:
Don't get me going again. When the Haitians were dying from contact with
contaminated water during the hurricane, I was acutely conscious of
showering in pure, potable drinking water. I started estimating how many
people's lives could have been saved with the water my 20-minute shower
took....

Sadly,

Ed Poor

> To me, it is quite interesting in an abstract way that people
> are dying in (for example) Sudan this morning, and other
> people have a paid job which involves writing to me to
> complain about the name of a body of water.  One should think
> that there might be more important things to do in the world.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>


body:
<snip>

Sorry, this was supposed to go to Mark.

Gah.


subject: [WikiEN-l] GWB Picture vandalism

body:
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush somehow the thumb of GWB in
National Guard gear has been replaced by a pic of Hitler.

Ha, ha, bad joke.

I can't figure out how to fix it/who did it.


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy

body:
There is simmply no upside and lots of downside to
'lots more banning'.
Mark

--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
> >
> >I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more
> effectively with
> >the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries
> like this
> >one... where politically motivated hysteria leads
> to blatant factual
> >errors.
> >
> Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no
> upside and lots
> of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political
> partisans, and
> they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as
> long as they
> find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to
> identify the
> avowed partisans and kick them off after no more
> than a week,
> instead of agonizing over them for months and
> sucking up massive
> amounts of time that could be used more
> productively.
>
> Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because
> they are
> completely unable to admit that the other side might
> possibly be
> right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who
> refused to
> acknowledge the possible validity of a different
> point of view,
> you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
> pages.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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body:
Plus, they might be right...
Mark

--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> One of the problems is that you run into these folks
> while editing in an
> area that you are interested in and probably have a
> point of view about
> yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be
> banning them.
>
> Fred
>
> > From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh
> Conspiracy
> >
> > Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal
> more effectively with
> >> the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries
> like this
> >> one... where politically motivated hysteria leads
> to blatant factual
> >> errors.
> >>
> > Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no
> upside and lots
> > of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political
> partisans, and
> > they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as
> long as they
> > find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to
> identify the
> > avowed partisans and kick them off after no more
> than a week,
> > instead of agonizing over them for months and
> sucking up massive
> > amounts of time that could be used more
> productively.
> >
> > Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because
> they are
> > completely unable to admit that the other side
> might possibly be
> > right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody
> who refused to
> > acknowledge the possible validity of a different
> point of view,
> > you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
> pages.
> >
> > Stan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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body:
>If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge
>the possible validity of a different point of view,
>you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
pages.
>Stan

Well great. You say that black is white.
I say that, no, black is black.
You say that maybe I'm right, but you disagree - how
about the possibility that black is grey? Surely
that's being reasonable?
I say that no, black is black, I'm not interested in
compromise on this issue.
I get banned for not acknowlesging the validity of a
different point of view?

Surely this isn't what you mean?
Mark

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subject: [WikiEN-l] revolving around Wikipedia

body:
You're right, it's not Linux's, it's Slashdot's!
Mark

--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Eek.  That wording makes it sounds as if Wikipedia
> is Linux's encyclopedia, not the net's encyclopedia.
>
> RickK
>
> Minty <mintywalker at gmail.com> wrote:
> The fight for your right to share
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3752354.stm
>
> "the net's open source movement ...
> revolves around Linux, and its
> collaborative encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia"
>
> nice work :)
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] One men's valuable editor is another one's troll

body:
Erm, as far as I can see, we havn't got any further
than the traditional definition of a troll as:

"Someone who annoys me"
or
"Someone I disagree with".

Mark

--- Arkadiusz Danilecki <adanilecki at cs.put.poznan.pl>
wrote:

> Hi there!
>    I subscribed actually to discuss only one thing.
> From time to time i follow
> some discussions without taking part in it. But this
> time i just could stop
> myself for adding my point of view.
>
> There are discussion about how bad, bad people
> caused some valuable editor to
> leave (or wanting to leave) wikipedia. The problem
> is, that this "valuable"
> editor with contacts with me and some of my friends
> behaved quite often in
> vey unpleasant ways. He was unable to tolerate
> almost any Point of View
> except his own. He was unable to accept that someone
> could write something
> else because he has different PoV, not because he is
> troll or fanatic. He was
> unable to actually discuss many things.
>
> I know that he contributed a lot and sometimes was
> forcing more PoV-ish
> outlook in some articles, if sometimes
> unintentionally. However, it seems
> that some people are trying to paint him as some
> kind of saint.
>
> I am on wikipedia since end of 2001. I met a lot of
> people which I respected a
> lot more than him. People, who were able to discuss
> and argue. Which then
> left because of trolls. Heck, even I once left
> wikipedia for few months
> because i got frustrated because of trolls and
> because i stopped to add new
> articles but only watched over old ones. But, for
> God's sake, the men you are
> using as example of best valuable editor is the one
> which, amongst many
> others "valuable editors", inspired me to write
>
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_deal_with_Poles).
> He had his vices.
> And this all case is prime example that imposing
> MORE structures into
> wikipedia does not change anything. Before there
> were arbitrations,
> mediations, shmediations, etc there were trolls and
> people were leaving
> wikipedia. If you will include another level: "the
> editors" you probably
> would still get trolls, and valuable people instead
> of leaving, maybe won't
> stop coming to wikipedia.
>
> The solution would be to simply adding community
> voting mechanism for banning
> someone from certain article (but not from talk
> pages!) or to add mechanism
> for "pending changes", when every page change had to
> be voted until applied,
> or something similar. That would at least forced
> people in talking in talk
> pages instead of just reverting with remarks like
> "you are obsessed petty
> fanatical troll".
>
> A.D.Danilecki
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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body:
No, really, it's entirely subjective.
Mark

--- Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:

> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >What about a system where a bunch of people get
> >together to troll such a system and vote down
> someone
> >elses contributions? After all, 'trolling' is
> entirely
> >subjective.
>
> It's partly subjective, but not *entirely*
> subjective. The same can
> be said about most POV/NPOV controversies.
>
> --Sheldon Rampton
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Nathan Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] GWB Picture vandalism

body:
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:00:20 -0400, The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush somehow the thumb of GWB in
> National Guard gear has been replaced by a pic of Hitler.
>
> Ha, ha, bad joke.
>
> I can't figure out how to fix it/who did it.

Kate/kturner on #mediawiki fixed it, not sure exactly what she did.

Pak


body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>>If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge
>>the possible validity of a different point of view,
>>you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
>>
>pages.
>
>>Stan
>>
>
>Well great. You say that black is white.
>I say that, no, black is black.
>You say that maybe I'm right, but you disagree - how
>about the possibility that black is grey? Surely
>that's being reasonable?
>I say that no, black is black, I'm not interested in
>compromise on this issue.
>I get banned for not acknowlesging the validity of a
>different point of view?
>
>Surely this isn't what you mean?
>Mark
>
It's exactly what I mean. The correct response would be "well,
I'm pretty sure black is black, and haven't heard of anybody
besides yourself disagreeing, do you have a source for this
other POV? How about writing an article on the 'black is
white' theory, and we'll link to it from here?" We have plenty
of mechanism to constrain the scope of alternate theories, if
you're worried about that; despite people's fears, the existence
of a creationism article has not compelled us to modify every
reference to evolution in science articles.

When you declare that "obviously so-and-so is wrong and there's
no point in further discussion", you're giving POVers an opening
to make the same declarations for their POV. As persons engaged
in scholarly work, we need to be ready to question any statement
at any time, and so it's critical that we exclude anyone who wants
to declare that their statements must be accepted without challenge.

Stan


from_name: nikoru sanzo

subject: [WikiEN-l] article on chinese myth-realm of dead

body:
Greetings!

I was doing some research on Chinese mythology, namely on the realm of the
spirits. The research is for a fanfiction I'm writing. Your article on Yan
Luo was very helpful.

In light of this, I would like to ask permission to cite your website as one
of my sources. I would either include it as a footnote or part of the
Author's Notes at the end of the story/chapters.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message. I hope you would be able
to reply soon.

I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you.

sincerely,
Nicole Calayan