from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] This will be the last superfluous message be me today
	:)

body:
And this was certainly the opposite fault! Sorry for messing over your
mailboxes!

>From: "Wouter Steenbeek" <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Error: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia
>Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:23:49 +0200
>
>Hi Sabine,
>
>I am afraid I sent a message, meant for the mailing list, just to you, by
>mistake. Could you forward it?
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Wouter
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Spreek vrienden en familie met MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________
Spreek vrienden en familie met MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>>Rebecca said:
>>
>>
>>>I really think this comes down to an issue of accessibility. If we're
>>>aiming to build a large, open and accessible encyclopedia, then I
>>>don't think it helps that cause to effectively limit its readership to
>>>the most extremely liberal people on the planet - which rules out a
>>>vast amount of our potential readers and contributors.
>>>
>>>
>>There are no a priori access restrictions on Wikipedia.  If the
>>pictures offend you, don't download them.
>>
> But often a person has no way of knowing whether a picture will be
> offensive until he has seen it.  We can only suggest that a picture
> *may* be offensive to some, perhaps with some offensiveness rating.
> That can still give the user the option to set his own tolerance level.

I don't think we can say whether a given picture is or is not likely to be
offensive to anyone--for instance I was utterly unprepared for the
apparently genuine expressions of distress at the presence of a smudgy
nipple, and I don't think that's an untypical attitude.
I'm not going to stand in the way of those who want to give it a go,
though.  We use consensus for judging a lot of stuff on Wikipedia and
although it isn't infallible it seems to work better than you'd think it
oughta.


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Equating very different things

body:
> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated
>
> --- Joseph Osborne <josephosborne2005 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> We had our Familys watching the super bowl when she
>> did that.  Also we did not take the children to see
>> the Titanic!
>
> And?  How does a couple of seconds of bare breast harm
> anybody?

Actually, I'm surprised that anybody would equate these two scenes.

In _Titanic_, Kate Winslet's character Rose asks--practically
demands--that Jack sketch her in the nude. The activity is _very_
clearly consensual, and is initiated by Rose. Although one breast is
exposed, the two characters do not even touch. It doesn't strike _me_
as any more erotic than, say, Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner rolling
around on the beach in _From Here to Eternity_. One scene has more
taboo skin exposure, but one has more touching and kissing and erotic
body language.

I wouldn't want to have kids see Titanic, but not because Jack paints
Rose in the nude, or because the two of them steam up the window of
that 1912 Renault. I'm more concerned about the passengers falling long
distances and injuring themselves as the ship tips toward the vertical,
the scenes of blue corpses floating in the water, and above all the
scenes of kids being separated from their fathers as they're put into
lifeboats,

Now, apart from the number of exposed nipples, the Superbowl incident
is very different.

Janet Jackson, or Janet Jackson's "character" if you like, voluntarily
chooses to stick around while Justin Timberlake's "character" is
getting all worked up and singing rather aggressively about his
intention to "have you naked by the end of this song." At the end, and
apparently without her permission, he rips off a piece of her costume.
A mini-drama of a woman choosing to stay in an abusive relationship and
getting raped? No. But it's not just a little boy chanting "I see
London, I see France, I see Janet's underpants," either.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: Viajero

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sockpuppet onslaught at [[Ward Churchill]]

body:
Last night, an agressive POV warrior using the account names
Carlshooters, Johnnyio, and Jolutz mounted a ferocious assault on [[Ward
Churchill]]. He was reverted in turns by undersigned, Zen-master,
Cberlet,  BurtWard, and Boothy443, until the article was finally
protected by Antandrus. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&action=history

Now, the same individual using the account JailWardChurchillNow just has
started filling the talk page with his vitriol. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Ward_Churchill&action=history

Is there any precedent for having a dev lookup his/her IP number and
have it blocked for say 72 hours? If not, it is going to be another very
long night...

V.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suggestions for a work-safe encyclopedia

body:
Stan Shebs said:
>>
> Welcome to the 21st century.

Most ironic.

> So prudent USGS managers will not ask
> their minions to do anything for WP during work, because the
> managers could potentially be held liable as well as the minions,
> especially should the boobie pictures happen to pop up just as
> the Congressional oversight committee happens to be walking
> through.

This isn't something we can do anything about.  Perhaps you could try
voting for some sane congresscritters.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: pentiumforever at email.de

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
Hi,
now i have added the Simpel German Wikipedia to the new proposals list
( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Simpel_German )

It would be nice if you support me!

pentiumforever


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] left menubar

body:
On 4/15/05, Blanke, Tobias <T.Blanke at bls-hh.de> wrote:

> where can i change the entries of the left menu bar?

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ#How_do_I_change_the_contents_of_the_navigation_toolbar.3F

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


list: foundation-l

from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia.fr domain

body:
Hello.

Wikim?dia France just bought the wikimedia.fr domain.

It'll be the chapter's site, with different information as we see fit.

Nicolas Weeger


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia.fr domain


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> If he's using the same IP for the socks, I think it will be autoblocked
> for 24 hours.

Ok, I see that now on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3AIpblocklist

Thanks, and to Snowspinner too.


subject: [Foundation-l] logos

body:
> I think that absolutely *no one* should have the right to *unilaterally* decide who is a partner and who can use our logos on their website. It should be a community approved decision. Possibly an approval by a limited number of people to represent the community (we are not gonna vote for any logo use), but never a *one* person decision.

I agree to that. Wikimedia is a community, so everyone is entitled, as
much as possible, to give his/her opinion and help decide.

> Anthere

Ryo


subject: [Foundation-l] logos


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
On 4/15/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Richard Holton said:
> >
> > I suspect that if someone posted to this list being scornful or
> > mocking of, say, Muslim culture, they would get slapped down hard, and
> > likely be banned from the list if they persisted. Is my suspicion
> > wrong?
>
> Let's test that.  I think the Koran is as full of nonsense as the bible.
> Utterly incredible.
> Be seeing you.
>

Actually, Tony, you seem to have missed my point completely. There is
a very real difference between criticizing a thing -- even something
that some people consider sacred -- and being scornful or mocking of
people, individually or as a culture.

So, if you want to test my theory personally (note that I am not
asking you to, nor do I want you to) you would have to change your
message to mock Christians (as Christians) and Muslims (as Muslims),
or their respective cultures.

And you would have to do it in a context where you are not simply
being contrary.

Please don't take this as some sort of challenge. I'm not interested
in your being insulting of people just to see who gets pissed. After
all, that would seem to be quite troll-like.
--Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Encarta goes wiki - sort of...

body:
On 4/15/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Fred Bauder said:
> > I contributed the word "Wiki" to the collins dictionary site and
> > supposedly am to be given credit for discovering the word.
> >
> > Fred
>
> In honor of this discovery, I decree that the word shall be renamed to
> "Fredi".  Thus Wikipedia becomes Fredipedia.

But by so decreeing, you are responsible for the existence of the term
"Fredi", which I will therefore rename to "Toni" (thus "Tonipedia") in
your honour.

Of course, I will then claim the credit for *that* word, in the hope
that someone will come up with an appropriate portmanteau involving
"Rowan" or "IMSoP"...

:D

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Faraaz Damji

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Jason Trickey wrote:
>
> Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his
> email address?

The headers should usually be enough, no?

Blog: http://frazzydee.ca

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+
O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+
G++ e- h! !r !z
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------


subject: [Wikitech-l] Nasty messages (bugs?)...

body:
On 4/15/05, mbecker ? <wikimb at gmail.com> wrote:
> When I tried to view the following page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&target=mbecker&hideminor=0&namespace=6
> I got the following error message:
> Database error
> >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
> For Mbecker (Talk)
> A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in
> the software. The last attempted database query was:

That could be a transitory failure due to high server load; it happens
occasionally, probably something to do with the complex server setup
which I don't pretend to understand. It loaded for me fine.

> Also, on a different page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:#20406
> which is linked to by
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3AIpblocklist I get the
> following:
> Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in
> /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/index.php on line 50

That's an illegal page name - the "#20406" part will be interpretted
by the browser as an anchor link, so the URL becomes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User: - which obviously points to
nothing. The display of the database error was just submitted as
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1899 - which appears to
have been fixed already.

The fact that the block list links there - but doesn't have a
"contribs" link, I notice - is odd, and it seems that that's not
actually the name of the account. Note that all entries listed as
"autoblocked" have "usernames" of that form - actually, I'm guessing,
the internal ID number from the database. Looks like somebody
introduced a bug into the autoblocker code, such that it's not storing
the right information in the log.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
On 4/15/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ? the existance of a Simple
> English wikipedia justifies a Simple German wikipedia anyway.

That might be the case if the Simple English Wikipedia had been a
success, but, in my opinion, it has not. The project still has very
unclear goals, and few guidelines about which level editors should be
writing at. It is not even clear whether the wiki is meant for
children or learners of English as an additional language. The
majority of articles are stubs and there has been little interest in
extending them. Very little, if any, community has ever formed at the
site. Suggesting the Simple English wiki be closed seems a better
option to me than using its existence to justify the creation of other
projects.

If enough people believe the Simple German one can work, then that
could be trialed, but the existence of the failing English version
should not be used as the reason for creating this.

Angela
Administrator of the Simple English Wikipedia


from_name: Dori

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikinews-l] Chinese Wikinews: board
	actionrequired

body:
On 4/15/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
>
> If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
> lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
> welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
> language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
> blocking.

That's gotta be the worst reason for not starting a project IMO


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
>On 4/15/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
 the existance of a Simple
> > English wikipedia justifies a Simple German wikipedia anyway.
>
>That might be the case if the Simple English Wikipedia had been a
>success, but, in my opinion, it has not. The project still has very
>unclear goals, and few guidelines about which level editors should be
>writing at. It is not even clear whether the wiki is meant for
>children or learners of English as an additional language. The
>majority of articles are stubs and there has been little interest in
>extending them. Very little, if any, community has ever formed at the
>site. Suggesting the Simple English wiki be closed seems a better
>option to me than using its existence to justify the creation of other
>projects.
>
>If enough people believe the Simple German one can work, then that
>could be trialed, but the existence of the failing English version
>should not be used as the reason for creating this.
>
>Angela
>Administrator of the Simple English Wikipedia

The fact that the Simple English wikipedia did not succeed so far (I won't
say failed, because that sounds far too definitive to me) is certainly a
reason for serious contemplation en reconsideration of this proposal. On the
other hand, we could learn from what went wrong so far on simple: when
starting einfach:, and build a frim community with clear goals and
arrangements first. And attract enough willing contributors, of course.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


body:
On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?

If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
blocking.

Angela.


from_name: Arkady Rose

body:
It seems it didn't take long for the POV-pushers and sockpuppeteers to
wade back in once the page was unprotected - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&diff=0&oldid=12358703.

-a

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.11 - Release Date: 14/04/2005


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia UK - new mailing list

body:
Thanks for Kate, a new mailing list now exists for discussion of the
proposed UK chapter (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK>).

Please subscribe at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l

Angela.


body:
Arkady Rose said:
> It seems it didn't take long for the POV-pushers and sockpuppeteers to
> wade back in once the page was unprotected - see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&diff=0&oldid=12358703.>

I've set up a sandbox copy of the article for editors to work on and told
them to ignore vandalism attempts on it--just to choose an unvandalized
version from the history.  Any administrator can insert bona fide changes
that reach consensus amongst the more sane editors.


body:
Viajero said:
> This was his last edit summary, using
>  the name Truthserum, befor the page was re-protected:
>
>   dynamic IP's mean we can never be stopped, learn to compromise, or
>   permanently protect the article or accept the truth. Your choice.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&diff=12359779&oldid=12359719

He's about to make an amazing discovery: Wikipedia is cleverer than he is.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Help for a new wiki web site

body:
On 4/14/05, P. Steemans <p.steemans at ulg.ac.be> wrote:
> 1) As sysop, normally I can block users. To test this function I have
> tried to block an user but the system refuse the username and ask for the
> IP address?

You need to set $wgSysopUserBans=true; in LocalSettings.php

> 2) In the page "special pages for all users" the different entries towards
> the different special pages are not alphabetically organized, isn't possible to sort
> them in alphabetic order?

I think this is going to be implemented for the next version of
MediaWiki, even though that makes it very difficult to use wikis in a
language you can't read without setting your preferences to your own
language since the pages will no longer be in the same position across
all wikis.

> 4) In the Wikipedia website, I have seen that it is possible, in editing a
> page, to insert special characters in using a table containing them in the
> lower part of the edited page. This is a very useful tool. How can I add
> this in my wiki website?

To get those characters on the edit page, you need to use the
<charinsert> tag at [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]]. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning for an
example.

Angela.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
Why?

>From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>,wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia
>Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 13:20:58 -0700
>
>I don't think we should build a Simple German Wikipedia, and I think
>we need to try to gradually phase the Simple English one into
>nothingness.
>
>Mark
>
>On 15/04/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >On 4/15/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
 the existance of a Simple
> > > > English wikipedia justifies a Simple German wikipedia anyway.
> > >
> > >That might be the case if the Simple English Wikipedia had been a
> > >success, but, in my opinion, it has not. The project still has very
> > >unclear goals, and few guidelines about which level editors should be
> > >writing at. It is not even clear whether the wiki is meant for
> > >children or learners of English as an additional language. The
> > >majority of articles are stubs and there has been little interest in
> > >extending them. Very little, if any, community has ever formed at the
> > >site. Suggesting the Simple English wiki be closed seems a better
> > >option to me than using its existence to justify the creation of other
> > >projects.
> > >
> > >If enough people believe the Simple German one can work, then that
> > >could be trialed, but the existence of the failing English version
> > >should not be used as the reason for creating this.
> > >
> > >Angela
> > >Administrator of the Simple English Wikipedia
> >
> > The fact that the Simple English wikipedia did not succeed so far (I
>won't
> > say failed, because that sounds far too definitive to me) is certainly a
> > reason for serious contemplation en reconsideration of this proposal. On
>the
> > other hand, we could learn from what went wrong so far on simple: when
> > starting einfach:, and build a frim community with clear goals and
> > arrangements first. And attract enough willing contributors, of course.
> >
> > Wouter
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>--
>SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
>QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
>POSSIT MATERIARI
>ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
I really think this comes down to an issue of accessibility. If we're
aiming to build a large, open and accessible encyclopedia, then I
don't think it helps that cause to effectively limit its readership to
the most extremely liberal people on the planet - which rules out a
vast amount of our potential readers and contributors. By definition,
it particularly rules out a rather large proportion of people in
non-Western countries, which can't be good for our content.

I'm really tired of feeling like a conservative on Wikipedia.
Somewhere, it seems we lost a bit of basic common sense. If there's a
good reason an image is likely to offend people (and there's
justification for it being there it all), then make people use a
second click to access the image. In that instance, no information is
lost, it's still just as accessible, and the amount of people likely
to be offended/not use Wikipedia drops markedly.

-- ambi

On 4/15/05, Zach Alexander <zdalexander at gmail.com> wrote:
> Faraaz Damji wrote:
>
> > No, Wikipedia will never be completely safeguarded, just like it will
> > never be completely finished.  But if we use a keyword system (either
> > instead of or complementary to a rating scheme), then images can have
> > metadata that users can filter out.  So if people are offended by
> > images
> > of women's face, then they can block "girls, women, etc."
> >
> > The best thing about this is that it won't interfere with normal users,
> > since people will have to opt IN to it.
>
> Exactly, this is the way to go. I just wrote pretty much the same thing
> in another email.
>
> Zach
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Pointless Waste of Time]]

body:
On 4/15/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure whether this has already been posted to the mailing list.
> The VFD of this page is being invaded by vandals and needs regular
> reverting. The article and its talk page are already protected and
> they aren't showing any intent of stopping.
> (see also the link to the forum with the "call to arms" on [[WP:AN/I]].

It's slowing. It's not a problem.

--
geni


body:
Arkady Rose wrote:

> It seems it didn't take long for the POV-pushers and sockpuppeteers to
> wade back in once the page was unprotected - see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&diff=0&oldid=12358703.

This guy is a real piece of work. This was his last edit summary, using
the name Truthserum, befor the page was re-protected:

   dynamic IP's mean we can never be stopped, learn to compromise, or
   permanently protect the article or accept the truth. Your choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ward_Churchill&diff=12359779&oldid=12359719

V.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Pointless Waste of Time]]

body:
I'm not sure whether this has already been posted to the mailing list.
The VFD of this page is being invaded by vandals and needs regular
reverting. The article and its talk page are already protected and
they aren't showing any intent of stopping.
(see also the link to the forum with the "call to arms" on [[WP:AN/I]].

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
On 4/15/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Richard Holton said:
> > So, if you want to test my theory personally (note that I am not
> > asking you to, nor do I want you to) you would have to change your
> > message to mock Christians (as Christians) and Muslims (as Muslims), or
> > their respective cultures.
> >
> > And you would have to do it in a context where you are not simply
> > being contrary.
>
> Well I think you're the one who has missed the point, and gotten yourself
> into this silly backwater of a comparative religion pissing contest.
> What Arkady Rose said was this:
> "I presume said children weren't breastfed then. Heaven forfend that
> children should be exposed to the sight of something as normal and
> natural as a human breast.
>
> "Tell me, do you insist on cows' udders being covered by appropriate
> garments before you let them look at a picture too?"
>
> I see nothing about religion there.  I do see someone being justifiably
> boggled at the attitude expressed by a person who said "We had our Familys
> watching the super bowl when she did that.  Also we did nottake the children to see the Titanic!"
>
> I don't know whether she knew his religion, or even if he had any
> religion, but she didn't mention it when she mocked his, to her and to me,
> quite incomprehensible attitude.
>

Tony,

You are right. I made some assumptions that I should not have,
introduced things that did not belong, and expressed my main point
very poorly.

It was certainly a mistake for me to bring Islam into the
conversation. My intent was to provide a comparative example that
might help others to understand my point. However, as I say, that was
a mistake.

It was also a mistake for me to bring Christianity in the
conversation. As you rightly point out, religion was not part of the
conversation. I do think that the western  "breast taboo" has its
roots in (especially Elizabethan) Christianity, but I should not have
assumed that religion was involved here. (Just as an aside, I don't
believe that the Christian faith requires a taboo on exposed female
breasts. However, it is one expression of Christian faith as it is
practiced in much of the west -- certainly in the US.)

Leave out Christian or Islam culture, and think about a "conservative
world view" -- although don't take "conservative" as a political
orientation, but as a sort of moral world view that is shared by a
great number of people of virtually all political leanings. Part of
that "conservative world view" is sensitivity to exposed female
breasts in public and especially in front of older children (kids
under 2 or 3 often don't count).

My original point (better expressed) was (and is) that there have been
cases of a mocking attitude directed toward people who share that
conservative world view. Arkacy Rose's comment was an example.

Some of these obviously don't qualify as personal attacks -- they're
not directed at a particular person. However, they often have much the
same effect when you're in coversation with someone who shares that
world view.

Mocking people for their world view is not constructive. It does not
further the goals of Wikipedia or Wikimedia.

However,I am not trying to make an example of Arkady Rose. Rather, my
hope and intent is to  reduce the level of incivility in these
discussions. We should all be able to disagree with one another, even
give and accept correction, without resorting to disrespect and
incivility.

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


body:
Rick said:
>
> --- Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> This looks like POV nutcase vandalism - I've blocked
>>
>> JailWardChurchillNow and TonySidewer for 72 each.
>>
>> -Snowspinner
>
> Tony Sidewer should be blocked indefinitely as an
> impostor.

I already blocked them both indefinitely.  JailWardChurchillNow is an
inflammatory name, TonySidewer did in fact make some administratorish
finger-waggings, obviously intending to be mistaken for me.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Rick said:
>
> --- Joseph Osborne <josephosborne2005 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> We had our Familys watching the super bowl when she
>> did that.  Also we did not take the children to see
>> the Titanic!
>
> And?  How does a couple of seconds of bare breast harm
> anybody?

Indeed, most infants are necessarily exposed to considerably more than a
few second!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Joseph Osborne <josephosborne2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

>We had our Familys watching the super bowl when she
>did that.  Also we did not take the children to see
>the Titanic!
>
>
I presume said children weren't breastfed then. Heaven forfend that
children should be exposed to the sight of something as normal and
natural as a human breast.

Tell me, do you insist on cows' udders being covered by appropriate
garments before you let them look at a picture too?

-a

--
Imagination is just intelligence having fun.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.11 - Release Date: 14/04/2005


from_name: Zigger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mediawiki and mysql 5

body:
Also, it looks like you're using MediaWiki 1.3.x.  1.4 has been
released, and now supports the MonoBook skin when using PHP 5.

-- Zigger

On 4/15/05, wrote:
>...
> # PHP 5.0.3: the MonoBook skin will be disabled due to an
> incompatibility between the PHPTAL template library and PHP 5. The wiki
> should function normally, but with the older look and feel.
>...


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
> Is there any reason he can't just come up with a random watchlist for made
> up users? I guess the table could be given out with scrambled usernames, but
> I wouldn't like the watchlist tables to be given out otherwise.

Scrambled user names would not solve the privacy issue. It would still
be very easy to guess which watchlist belonged to which person based
on which articles they were watching. I doubt, for example, that
anyone else has all my user talk archives and other sub pages on their
watchlist other than me. Similiarly, most people watch the articles
they have created, so if only one person is watching [[Ajaria]],
[[Ajman]], and [[Batumi]], you can guess that this is probably Danny's
watchlist.

I think the only solution to this is to ask people to opt-in to the
study, and then the watchlists of only those people could be
extracted.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
> Indeed, most infants are necessarily exposed to considerably more than a
> few second!

Incerdently was anyone able to find a nipple on the picture?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Tom Haws said:
>
> Why does the tone of inquiry from this side of the issue so often turn
> mocking and taunting like this?  Does this help?

Arkady Rose's tone may be mocking, but I think it's a valid question.
Women's boobs are for kids, that's why they're there.  It seems odd to
single them out as something kids aren't supposed to see.  Are they only
ever supposed to be seen in the bedroom, on the beach, or in cheap
newspapers and magazines?


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
> Tom Haws said:
> >
> > Why does the tone of inquiry from this side of the issue so often turn
> > mocking and taunting like this?  Does this help?
>
> Arkady Rose's tone may be mocking, but I think it's a valid question.
> Women's boobs are for kids, that's why they're there.  It seems odd to
> single them out as something kids aren't supposed to see.  Are they only
> ever supposed to be seen in the bedroom, on the beach, or in cheap
> newspapers and magazines?
>

Heres a simple question - We've given the cons of nudity on Wikipedia, do
you have any reasonable pros, apart from making Wikiporn?


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Language conversion

body:
(Mark, thanks for forwarding mail on general Wikitech, because I am
not subscribed to the list where Zhengzhu sent the mail.)

On 4/15/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, as far as I know, there is only one Latin <> Cyrillic, so you
> don't need the 4 different varieties.

If you are talking about variants of articles: Ekavian/Iyekavian
problem is very simple and it needs only contributors' work and not so
complicated parsing. There would be one text in database (for
ekavian/iyekavian variants); anyone would be able to choose to see
ekavian or iyekavian and anyone would be able to choose ekavian or
iyekavian in preferences. (Mark, please, look at previous discussion
inside of this thread.) Also, you can see some differences at the page
now. (I am not iyekavian and for sure, I missed something.)

If you are talking about variants inside of syntax, you are right.
There is only need for ekavian/iyekavian manual transliteration, so
there is no need for ((sr-ec::...\\sr-el::...\\ etc.)). We need only
two variants: left should be ekavian, right should be iyekavian. So,
in general, we need only ((<ekavian>\\<iyekavian)). Left variant
should be sr-ec and sr-el; right variant should be sr-jc and sr-jl.
And it should be transliterated according to Cyrillic <-> Latin rules.

> Another potential problem is an all-caps environment: a Cyrillic
> letter which becomes a Latin digraph, if in a word of all caps, will
> still be Caps-lowercase instead of Caps-caps as it should be.

It is correct transliteration. Caps should be solved inside of
headings (i.e. markup language), not inside of transliteration. For
example, capital (Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) letters are Lj, Nj
and D?; not LJ, NJ and D?. Of course, capital letters should be

On 15/04/05, zhengzhu <zhengzhu at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have put up a test site for the Serbian language that supports
> Cyrillics and Latin alphabets: http://s87257573.onlinehome.us/sr/
>
>  Just for the fun of it, I also made a English version, running at
> http://s87257573.onlinehome.us/en/

First, I'll tell it to Serbian community and you will have some
comments from them about that very soon.

There is no need to have "sr" and "sr-ec" both; i.e., there is no need
for "sr", because "sr" should be "sr-ec".

And, I think, that order of alphabets/dialects should be: sr-ec,
sr-jc, sr-el, sr-jl (if it is complicated to implement, forget it).

Also, user should be back to variant which (s)he changed, not to
general page (if it is possible, of course).


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
David DJ Hedley said:
>
> Heres a simple question - We've given the cons of nudity on Wikipedia,
> do you have any reasonable pros, apart from making Wikiporn?

Why do you associate all nudity with porn?  In the Titanic example (at the
risk of laboring the obvious) showing Rose posing for a nude is a good way
of illustrating the fact that she poses for a nude for the artist, Jack.
I don't see any cons to this.  I do see some people who for reasons I will
probably never understand seem to think that nudity is utterly
unacceptable, but that's not the same as saying there are cons.  Nobody is
forced to download any Wikipedia content. Nobody who does so is forced to
download the accompanying pictures.  Nobody who downloads them is forced
to look at them.  While I'd be perfectly happy with a text-only Wikipedia,
it seems odd to single out one or two pictures and say that because of
nudity they should not be in the articles that they illustrate so well.


body:
On 4/15/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, as far as I know, there is only one Latin <> Cyrillic, so you
> don't need the 4 different varieties.

Finally, I saw what did you talk about :) You are right about
conversion. There is only need for Cyrillic <-> Latin transliteration.
Ekavian/Iyekavian should be solved according to syntax ((\\)).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
> David DJ Hedley said:
> >
> > Heres a simple question - We've given the cons of nudity on Wikipedia,
> > do you have any reasonable pros, apart from making Wikiporn?
>
> Why do you associate all nudity with porn?  In the Titanic example (at the
> risk of laboring the obvious) showing Rose posing for a nude is a good way
> of illustrating the fact that she poses for a nude for the artist, Jack.
> I don't see any cons to this.  I do see some people who for reasons I will
> probably never understand seem to think that nudity is utterly
> unacceptable, but that's not the same as saying there are cons.  Nobody is
> forced to download any Wikipedia content. Nobody who does so is forced to
> download the accompanying pictures.  Nobody who downloads them is forced
> to look at them.  While I'd be perfectly happy with a text-only Wikipedia,
> it seems odd to single out one or two pictures and say that because of
> nudity they should not be in the articles that they illustrate so well.
>

You evaded my question. Whether or not the exposed nipples, vaginas or
whatever does not have to be downloaded by users, sufficient cons have been
given by those against the nudity. No pros, I believe, have been given for
it.


body:
>
> I wouldn't want to have kids see Titanic, but not because Jack paints
> Rose in the nude, or because the two of them steam up the window of
> that 1912 Renault. I'm more concerned about the passengers falling long
>  distances and injuring themselves as the ship tips toward the
> vertical,  the scenes of blue corpses floating in the water, and above
> all the  scenes of kids being separated from their fathers as they're
> put into  lifeboats,

Yes, it's pretty traumatic movie for kids.  I was surprised it went as low
as PG13 (US) and 12 (UK).
>
> Now, apart from the number of exposed nipples, the Superbowl incident
> is very different.
>
> Janet Jackson, or Janet Jackson's "character" if you like, voluntarily
> chooses to stick around while Justin Timberlake's "character" is
> getting all worked up and singing rather aggressively about his
> intention to "have you naked by the end of this song." At the end, and
> apparently without her permission, he rips off a piece of her costume.

My girlfriend, who saw it live, made the same point, so I think the
suggestion that there was more than a hint of sexual aggression to it.
I didn't see the show, only a still from the show, and honestly it looked
incredibly tame, compared to the videos kids watch on TV day-in, day-out.
Really I'm much more worried by the portrayal of men as pimps,
drug-dealers and abusers or women than the suggestion that Justin might
get so worked up over the obviously complaisant Ms Jackson that he rips
off her top.


from_name: Sj

body:
Stuart, do you know of a place to get free content movie information?
There are lots of older movies we have nothing on; it would be useful
to snarf up an old database that's public domain.

On 4/15/05, Stuart Orford <sjorford at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I used to contribute to the [[Internet Movie Database]] - I was
> hovering around the top 100 contributors level, which would have got

--
+sj+


from_name: zhengzhu

body:
> If you are talking about variants inside of syntax, you are right.
> There is only need for ekavian/iyekavian manual transliteration, so
> there is no need for ((sr-ec::...\\sr-el::...\\ etc.)). We need only
> two variants: left should be ekavian, right should be iyekavian. So,
> in general, we need only ((<ekavian>\\<iyekavian)). Left variant
> should be sr-ec and sr-el; right variant should be sr-jc and sr-jl.
> And it should be transliterated according to Cyrillic <-> Latin rules.

I see. Would it make sense to have the common conversions between
ekavian and iyekavian be stored in the conversion tables as well? This
way you don't have to use the ((ekavian//iyekavian)) markup all the
time.

> Also, user should be back to variant which (s)he changed, not to
> general page (if it is possible, of course).
User can set the preferred variant in the preference. I think when
this is finally implemented, most user would just pick one variant and
stick to it, and only occationally would want to see how the article
looks in other variants.

--
zhengzhu


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
David DJ Hedley said:
>> David DJ Hedley said:
>> >aDavid DJ Hedley said:
>
> You evaded my question.

No.  I gave you a specific example and told you why it was so useful in
the article.  It illustrates something that happens in the movie--in this
case, the single scene that links the present-day and the past.  James
Cameron isn't a hack movie director, he knows how to tell a story in
pictures.  Here in a single still from the movie you have Rose, Jack,
their fast-developing bond of trust, her beauty, his talent, the drawing
that will be found in the wreck, the jewel that will draw the treasure
hunters to the wreck, and which Rose will possess all along.
> sufficient cons have
> been given by those against the nudity. No pros, I believe, have been
> given for it.

That's odd, because I believe that the reverse is the case.  All you can
say for the cons is that you don't like looking at nude pictures.  Well
don't look at them.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton said:
>
> I suspect that if someone posted to this list being scornful or
> mocking of, say, Muslim culture, they would get slapped down hard, and
> likely be banned from the list if they persisted. Is my suspicion
> wrong?

Let's test that.  I think the Koran is as full of nonsense as the bible.
Utterly incredible.
Be seeing you.


body:
It seems that Mark's email goes faster then Zhengzhu's.

April 15th, 2005. is big day in history of Serbian culture. For the
first time, one software supports all variants of Serbian standard
language! The software is MediaWiki and Zhengzhu did it.

Thank you, Zhengzu.

On 4/15/05, zhengzhu <zhengzhu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you can send me the conversion tables/rules between Cyrillics and
> > Latin alphabet for Serbian, I should be able to put out a preliminary
> > test site quickly. Supporting multiple variants should be doable as
> > well.
>
> I have put up a test site for the Serbian language that supports
> Cyrillics and Latin alphabets: http://s87257573.onlinehome.us/sr/
>
>  Just for the fun of it, I also made a English version, running at
> http://s87257573.onlinehome.us/en/
>
> --
> zhengzhu
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Language conversion


from_name: Theo Clarke

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
I have just received an e-mail from John Cheese, the editor of pointlesswasteoftime.com telling me that if we do not delete the [[Pointless Waste of Time]] article, he will ask his "80,000 loyal readers" and the readers of "somethingawful.com, fark.com, and portalofevil.com" "to pour them into that page and give them free range on anything connected to it". I don't know what his problem is, but it seems substantial.

T^heo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
John Cheese has now replied to my reply.  He feels that our "admins,?from?the beginning, have made it a point to be as rude and narrow-minded?as?humanly possible towards me and every person from my site. ?We are?now?prepared to show them the same lack of respect. ?We were being nice?at?first, and once we were talked down to, we stopped being nice."

I am writing back to him.

His call to arms is at http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14192

Theo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton said:
> So, if you want to test my theory personally (note that I am not
> asking you to, nor do I want you to) you would have to change your
> message to mock Christians (as Christians) and Muslims (as Muslims), or
> their respective cultures.
>
> And you would have to do it in a context where you are not simply
> being contrary.

Well I think you're the one who has missed the point, and gotten yourself
into this silly backwater of a comparative religion pissing contest.
What Arkady Rose said was this:
"I presume said children weren't breastfed then. Heaven forfend that
children should be exposed to the sight of something as normal and
natural as a human breast.

"Tell me, do you insist on cows' udders being covered by appropriate
garments before you let them look at a picture too?"

I see nothing about religion there.  I do see someone being justifiably
boggled at the attitude expressed by a person who said "We had our Familys
watching the super bowl when she did that.  Also we did nottake the children to see the Titanic!"

I don't know whether she knew his religion, or even if he had any
religion, but she didn't mention it when she mocked his, to her and to me,
quite incomprehensible attitude.


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Wikimedia Commonplace

body:
Ilya Haykinson has written a neat tool for Windows to upload images to
the Commons. Check it out:

http://tiredbrain.com/wikimedia/commonplace/

All best,

Erik


from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Conflict between two Wikipedias

body:
In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
UTC 2005:

>"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."

But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.

>"So far, nobody who claims to speak
"Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
"You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"

Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
a goon!

>"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
Only a dunce would
think, without some prior experience, that a link to
"Moldoveneasca",
/in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
non-Cyrillic content."

Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
I'm wrong because I think everything through too
politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
what's right and correct. If you put a link with
Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
Moldovan is always written, or at least
majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
"Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
specify.

Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
and it would surely delimit the issue much more
clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Hello

>Scrambled user names would not solve the privacy issue. It would still
>be very easy to guess which watchlist belonged to which person based
>on which articles they were watching. I doubt, for example, that
>anyone else has all my user talk archives and other sub pages on their
>watchlist other than me.
>
Ermmmm on the Dutch wikipedia I have everybody's talkpage on my
watchlist. Keeps me on track on discussions. But I am probably the
exception .... :(

>
>I think the only solution to this is to ask people to opt-in to the
>study, and then the watchlists of only those people could be
>extracted.
>
>
He can have my watchlist data it has over 4000 watched pages, so let;s
see if that helps him further.

Walter/Waerth


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Weirdly, John Cheese comes over as a rather pleasant reasonable guy by e-mail.  His original beef was that the PWOT article was inaccurate and he did not want to go to the hassle of fixing it. He sees his site as a self-contained pocket of bitter twisted humour that does not merit an encyclopedia article.  He feels that he asked nicely for it to be removed but was either ignored or dismissed as a newbie.  He has encouraged his friends to vandalise the site but has exhorted them to confine themselves to the PWOT article, its talk page and the VFD subpage.

Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of aggression:
1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain).
2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP addresses before making such accusations.
3. The perceived arrogance of some sysops sending messages to the effect that they will never win because we can ban them all. That sort of claim escalates the conflict; we should avoid them if similar circumstances arise.
4. Belligerent comments on their board by "Zazzy" who claims to be a Wikipedia sysop and appears convincing.  Zazy, if you are reading this, please try to be more temperate when jandling this sort of thing in the future.
5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no problem were they not already enraged.
6. Statements by some VFD voters that their vote is simply to spite the POW members. I have trouble understanding how the voters failed to see how inflammatory this was.
7. This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... ? ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Theo


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050415 22:58]:

> One possible way of making server-side filtering scale is for motivated
> editors to create their own ratings for images.
> [[User:Example/Classification/NotSuitableForKids]] might contain a list of
> links to images that, in the opinion of User:Example, are unsuitable for
> kids.  Someone for whom this kind of thing matters can then pop this into
> his Censorship file, with the result that he won't be able to download
> anything that gets put into that article.  The system would be based on
> trust.  People with religious objections and whatnot could club together
> and maintain their censor lists without bothering anybody else.

That could be a very good and workable solution, allowing classifications
to grow organically without a chilling effect on the production of raw
material..

   [ ] Block all images on pages linked to from the page: [________]

(that's a ticky-box at the start and a text box at the end.)

How's your PHP coding?

- d.


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] IMPORTANT Sent copyeditors,
	proofreaders to WQ/3/Draft -OFFLIST

body:
Sj+,

     Based on a number of e-mails of yours, like the one below, when I emailed the copyeditors and proofreaders, I sent them to:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/3/Draft

Now, I see that any content submitted is on:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/3

or the "retro" page. Do I re-email them, or will the content be moved to:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/3/Draft

                    As Ever,

                       Ruth Ifcher

--

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com>
> Hello all,
>
> The third Wikimedia Quarto is coming out next month, and we need your
> input.   Please submit ideas and short (1 paragraph) abstracts to
> newsletter--at--wikimedia.org over the coming week.  Or you can start
> writing your submission on the draft page on meta:
>      http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Draft
>
> Translators:  Please distribute this note to your local projects.  See also
>     http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WQ/2/Release_message
>
>
> When you submit an abstract, you will get feedback about how long to
> make the piece, and for what deadline.  General timeline:
>     * Short abstracts of submissions : by Friday, April 1
>     * Draft submissions : by Friday, April 8
>     * Translations start : April 18
>
> Don't forget to submit memories of Wikipedias past for the special Retro report!
> You can see the first two editions of the Quarto on the foundation site:
>      http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Quarto
>
> As always, feedback and design ideas are welcome.  If you're
> interested in working on production of this and future Quartos, see
>     http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Team
>
> +sj+
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
Viajero (viajero at quilombo.nl) [050416 03:21]:

> Last night, an agressive POV warrior using the account names
> Carlshooters, Johnnyio, and Jolutz mounted a ferocious assault on [[Ward
> Churchill]]. He was reverted in turns by undersigned, Zen-master,
> Cberlet,  BurtWard, and Boothy443, until the article was finally
> protected by Antandrus. See:
    [...]
> Is there any precedent for having a dev lookup his/her IP number and
> have it blocked for say 72 hours? If not, it is going to be another very
> long night...

Unfortunately not - if he was fingerable by IP, he would have been
autoblocked when he tried coming back in again. So he's in a DHCP pool.

In theory someone could have done IP lookup while the attack was in
progress, ascertained the DHCP pool and blocked it for 15-60 minutes to let
them cool down, but there's no precedent for doing so in a case of
vandalism. I certainly wouldn't feel it was a community-supported lookup to
perform at present.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
They have many tools in their drawer, some are URL-based, some domain based.

URL-filtering is a "standing" filter on everything being passed
around, but they still do hone in on specific domains to filter as
well.

-Andrew

On 4/16/05, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/15/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
> >
> > If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
> > lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
> > welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
> > language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
> > blocking.
>
> For what it's worth-- a recent Associated Press article
> (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7501488/) mentions that China seems to
> filter on keyword and not domain, these days.
>
> -ilya
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Suggestions for a work-safe encyclopedia

body:
On 4/15/05, Andrew Cranwell <andrew.cranwell at student.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:

> the information" falls into the same category - you can't object to
> something if you don't know what it is. It's like goatse - highly
> offensive, but unless you know what it is, you can't avoid it.

This is why anything which might reasonably be considered offensive to
a significant portion of our readership should be prefaced by a modest
warning.  Note that traditional paper encyclopedias are careful not to
have *any* images or text that could be considered deeply offensive;
this is the definition of dealing "tastefully" with a difficult
subject.

We can offer more choices than that; we can offer less tasteful and
more explicit descriptions of things; but we should not force them on
unsuspecting readers.

SJ


from_name: ClockworkSoul

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
geni wrote:

>On 4/16/05, Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only >developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are >likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should >refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.
>>
>>
>
>There is no reason why someone's first edit should be to VFD. 9 times
>out of 10 they turn out to be a sock pupet. VFD has ended up with it's
>methods and procedures through long experimentation. A low level
>attack from a single forum is not a reason to change them.
>
Usually that's true, but in cases such as this I can understand that
many new users would flock to Wikipedia in an attempt to rally votes. If
they are not sock puppets, it is entirely understandable that they would
be frustrated when their vote is simply dismissed.

Perhaps, as a beginning, we should at the very least create a template
that can be throw onto the user page of newcomers that head directly
into a voting situation, to let them know of our common practice, and
why it is so. Something along the lines of:

"Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}.
Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand
new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the
administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be another
user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock puppet").
Please understand that this is the common practice on Wikipedia, and
that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. "

I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I
will also report this email to the Admin board.

(Of course, this would be a moot point if we had a way to distinguish
genuine newcomers from sockpuppets, but until then we'll just have to
use our best instincts.)

-ClockworkSoul


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Alexa.com blogs about Wikipedia

body:
That's why we've set up a page for
> organisations that wish to volunteer to host individual squids:
>
> http://wp.wikidev.net/Volunteer_Squid_Sites

Hmm, do we really want to do this, have individual squids?

I have been telling people no on the theory that it would not help much
and would be an administrative nightmare.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
I love that quote, David. :)

I think that brevity is important here, and the purpose is just to tell
them that their vote may not be counted, and not to take it personally.
Here is the exact text I used, which I think makes the point adequately:

    Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on
    [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of
    course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote
    ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies the votes
    believes that you might be another user logged in under a second
    account (a so-called "[[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]]").
    Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and
    that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes.

Of course, it's subject to change, but I really think that it should be
kept short.

-ClockworkSoul

David Gerard wrote:

>Don't forget to note that "Votes" for deletion aren't "votes" per se -
>they're an attempt to ascertain whether there is community consensus to
>delete. If you've made your first-ever Wikipedia edit to VFD, and were
>there only because of a call to arms on another site, you might reasonably
>be considered not (yet) part of the community in question. That would need
>noting.
>
>(This is similar to the Calvinball rule of Wikipedia policy, i.e. "if you
>think you've come up with a stunningly clever hack of our rules which will
>get your way against our community wishes, good for you! The rule just
>changed.")
>
>
>- d.
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
I am currently a very eager learner of German, so of course I wish that
such a thing existed.  But I agree with Angela that the existence of
simple English wikipedia isn't really a firm argument for the creation
of the same thing in German, for all the reasons that she gave.

(Additionally, it is very likely that the demand by end users for a
simple English wikipedia is much higher than the demand for simple
German, simply because so many more people are learning English than
German at any given moment in time.)

I also think it's important to keep very clear that simple German for
adult language learners is a very very different thing from German for
children.  The problems faced by the two groups are quite different.

The original poster was interested primarily in a wikipedia in German
for children.  This raises a whole bunch of very interesting questions,
I think, and we should not confuse those questions with the questions of
simple language for adult learners.

I have no advice on whether such a thing should be pursued or where or
how.  :-)

--Jibo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
That post was terrible and very atypical of me. I guess that I shouldn't
deal with VfD after fighting with my wife.  :/

-ClockworkSoul

>>7. This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... - ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
>>
>>Theo
>>
>>
>
>It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us to
>not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound to
>be some people here willing to do it as revenge.
>
>BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written in
>which he asked for deletion nicely?
>
>--Mgm
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
> 7. This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... ? ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
>
> Theo

It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us to
not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound to
be some people here willing to do it as revenge.

BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written in
which he asked for deletion nicely?

--Mgm


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
> Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of aggression:
> 1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain).
> 2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP addresses before making such accusations.

That would really mess up normal operating precedure (and it's not
like there aren't ways round IP tracess anyway)

> 5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would >be no problem were they not already enraged.

If me not being able to spell is now going to be classed as a problem
you have around a thousand edits to fix

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] logos

body:
Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>> I think that absolutely *no one* should have the right to
>> *unilaterally* decide who is a partner and who can use our logos on
>> their website. It should be a community approved decision. Possibly an
>> approval by a limited number of people to represent the community (we
>> are not gonna vote for any logo use), but never a *one* person decision.
>
>
> I agree to that. Wikimedia is a community, so everyone is entitled, as
> much as possible, to give his/her opinion and help decide.

I agree in the very abstract sense, but there is a practical problem
with this.  As president of the foundation, I require a certain amount
of freedom of action which can't involve seeking community approval for
every single thing that I do.

When we are dealing with people who want to use our logo, it's up to the
board to decide, not the community.  The board of course needs to
respect the community, but ultimately we have to really very strongly
avoid an ethos which says that we have to go through a massive public
discussion and vote about everything -- this is a formula for paralysis.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] logos


from_name: Jason Trickey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his email
address?

Cheers,

-j

>I have just received an e-mail from John Cheese, the editor of
>pointlesswasteoftime.com telling me that if we do not delete the
>[[Pointless Waste of Time]] article, he will ask his "80,000 loyal
>readers" and the readers of "somethingawful.com, fark.com, and
>portalofevil.com" "to pour them into that page and give them free range on
>anything connected to it". I don't know what his problem is, but it seems
>substantial.
>
>T^heo


subject: [Foundation-l] Chinese Wikinews: board action required

body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Le Friday 15 April 2005 05:33, Andrew Lih a ?crit :
>
>>Perhaps it's apparent to all parties, but could somone elaborate on
>>"Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already"?
>>
>>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>
>
> I think that Jimbo refers to the French Wikinews which is still in beta with
> no real participant. There is still no consensus on what to do with this
> project within the French community. Some people proposed to close it untill
> there is a wider consensus.

Yes, this is what I had in mind.  The French Wikinews was started
according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
ensure a proper launch with solid community support.  When we were in
Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
hasn't been successful.

I don't support closing it; I don't support keeping it open.  I just
think we should observe and learn from the process.

It's probably worth noting that a polarized community (as zh is) is of
course different from a community which simply doesn't have people
interested (fr, and I think some other existing wikinews).  Zh might be
successful just because it is controversial.

There are many many factors to consider in making these decisions.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
At 08:51 PM 15/04/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>Jason Trickey wrote:
> >
> > Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his
> > email address?
>
>The headers should usually be enough, no?

Usually yes, but nothing replaces simply asking, 'did you send this' and
awaiting a reply.

Cheers,

-j


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
This will always be an issue for Wikipedia because there will always be
places where cultural differences make it difficult for people to find
consensus.

This shows up most prominently with photos, I think, because with text
we have a great deal more flexibility in terms of working together to
write the text in a way that is satisfactory to a wide audience.

The question has arisen here: what positive arguments can be given for
the inclusion of nudity in Wikipedia articles?  I think this is an
important question and it deserves a proper answer.  Or, I should say
"it deserves proper answers" because they answers are many and vary
according to the particular case.

Consider as an example articles about human sexuality, including
articles about sexually transmitted diseases.  Such articles more or
less require illustration for completeness.  This does not mean that the
illustrations should be done in "porn movie" style -- the problem of
tastefully and accurately representing medical/sexual information is an
old one which is solved by textbooks on the subject.  I think that the
current (well, last time I checked) illustration on [[:en:Clitoris]] is
a fine example -- it is accurate, clear, tasteful and "looks like" a
textbook illustration rather than a bad porn movie.

Consider, too, articles about great works of art from the past, works
which include nudity.  I surely don't need to explain this.

As a practical matter, though, these kinds of arguments only need to be
made in order to assure us all that such arguments can be made and have
been made.  In reality, I think that most of us are somewhere in the
broad middle ground -- I don't think there are more than a tiny tiny
handful of people who would say that (a) there should be a strict ban on
nudity in Wikipedia, or (b) we should place the infamous auto-fellatio
image on the homepage this coming Christmas day.

Within the broad middle ground, there is a very wide range of what seem
to me to be quite respectable and plausible positions, and a fair amount
of thoughtfulness and respect for other people who disagree with us is
going to be necessary if we are to make decisions with wide community
support.

There are a number of very useful techniques that I think can help to
reduce conflict in this area.  (Though of course for those who are at
the extremes that I mentioned, these don't solve the problem.  But
honesty, I think most of the people who are posturing at these extremes
are actually trolling us in the classical sense, disrupting wikipedia to
make a point.)

First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
instead of being shown by default inline.  And one of the quite
reasonable arguments against certain images is that their shock value
serves to diminish the educational value of the articles in which they
are included.

Second, partisans on both sides might want to consider working to find
more tasteful images to illustrate the same concept.  If, for example,
you find a particular photo disturbing, be creative about finding a
different illustration (medical-style drawing, different photo in a
different style, etc.) which will meet the educational objectives of
those on the other side while removing the shock-value problems.

Third, in all discussions of this sort, I think it best to avoid
nationalist or culturalist sneers and arguments.  This list has already
seen arguments about allegedly prudish American culture -- arguments
which (a) have a ring of truth about them and (b) are nonetheless at the
same time very mistaken.  US culture is extremely complex and
multi-layered with many historical quirks and oddities but in my
opinion, the US as a whole is significantly less prudish than most
Europeans seem to think.

So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet Jackson
incident.  But also, you can flip the channels any night of the week and
see people having sex on television.  My local grocery store puts
discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge porn
stores are open for business just down the street.  In my town, a woman
can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you can go any
night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people having sex
openly.  Diversity. :-)

The point I'm trying to make is that _for Wikipedia_ wide-ranging
discussions about the alleged prudishness or decadence of Americans are
not really going to help us get very far in figuring out how to handle
issues of taste.

"Assume good faith" is key, but also "Don't feed the trolls" is key.
Knowing when to do one versus the other is tricky and I can offer no
advice other than to be careful and thoughtful and kind.

--Jimbo
--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
I imagine that they expect us not to vandalise their board in much the same way that a graffitist does not expect the local authorities to retaliate by demolishing his home.

John Cheese's "nice" request was:
"    * Delete I'm 1/2 of the PWoT writing team. I'd rather brush my teeth with a wood-file than have a PWoT entry on this site. "Deserve" to be on Wikipedia? Please, for the love of God, delete this retarded entry before I vomit blood. -John Cheese"

He has acknowledged that it was not the nicest phrasing but he mistook some of the terse or intemperate phrasing by other editors to indicate that robust language was normal here. In my opinion, his post was nicer than some purportedly wikipedian posts on his website and way nicer than the normal tone of his members on that website.

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 09:18:25 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>>?we could swamp the hell out of their little board
>>
>?It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us
>?to?not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound
>?to?be some people here willing to do it as revenge.
>
>?BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written
>?in?which he asked for deletion nicely?


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 09:48:16AM -0400, ClockworkSoul wrote:
> I love that quote, David. :)
>
> I think that brevity is important here, and the purpose is just to tell
> them that their vote may not be counted, and not to take it personally.
> Here is the exact text I used, which I think makes the point adequately:
>
>    Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on
>    [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of
>    course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote
>    ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies the votes
>    believes that you might be another user logged in under a second
>    account (a so-called "[[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]]").
>    Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and
>    that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes.
>
>
> Of course, it's subject to change, but I really think that it should be
> kept short.

I agree that it should be kept short, but I'm also of the opinion that
it should include text to the effect that "votes" are not votes per se,
and may be ignored for no other reason than the fact that they may be
considered invalid for purposes of gaining a community consensus.  A
bunch of people whose only connection with Wikipedia is a VfD, and who
will likely never have anything to do with Wikipedia again aside from
that VfD and, perhaps, some vadalism, is not someone whose "vote" is
particularly valuable in a test of community consensus.

Maybe that's just me, though.

Frankly, I have little sympathy for John Cheese and his cronies.  Yes,
some Wikipedians have responded to them in the same manner they've
approached the Wikipedia community.  While those Wikipedian responses
are unfortunate and should be dealt with internally in much the same way
that they'd be dealt with if they were responses to other Wikipedians,
John Cheese and crew being somehow offended by this is absurd
considering their own behavior.  He has come here with the sole purpose
of removing encyclopedic information from an encyclopedia, and he
somehow expects the community that maintains the encyclopedia to bow to
his wishes.  I sincerely hope we wouldn't delete an entry about someone
just because that someone wishes it.  Just as someone creating an entry
about himself should be chastised for creating a vanity article, John
Cheese's efforts here should be viewed as attempting a "vanity
deletion".  To take up what is essentially a violent opposition to our
policies, then expect that nobody from Wikipedia will act equally
unreasonably in return, is an asinine slip in judgment: a community of
dozens has essentially declared war on a community of hundreds of
thousands, and is surprised when a handful of those hundreds of
thousands lack perfect self-control.  As I said, I have little sympathy.

Keep the article, if it's in any way encyclopedic.  Ignore any and all
votes from members of the PWOT community when the people voting have
only participated in Wikipedia procedures because of John Cheese's
actions, whether they vote for or against.  Be courteous, but firm, with
these vandals as we should with any.  Finally, and most importantly,
don't let spite motivate any of your actions in dealing with these
people.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current
draft reads:

    Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on
    [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of
    course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote
    ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure
    community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as
    literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on
    Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading"
    of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further
    contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the
    community.

It's being discussed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Voting_newcomers_.28that_aren.27t_necessarily_sockpuppets.29.

-ClockworkSoul

Chad Perrin wrote:

>I agree that it should be kept short, but I'm also of the opinion that
>it should include text to the effect that "votes" are not votes per se,
>and may be ignored for no other reason than the fact that they may be
>considered invalid for purposes of gaining a community consensus.  A
>bunch of people whose only connection with Wikipedia is a VfD, and who
>will likely never have anything to do with Wikipedia again aside from
>that VfD and, perhaps, some vadalism, is not someone whose "vote" is
>particularly valuable in a test of community consensus.
>
>Maybe that's just me, though.
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Rebecca said:
>
>
>>Indeed, that's what I'm asking for. A choice as to whether to download
>>them - an acknowledgement that the image is likely to be offensive, and
>>then a *choice*. You, on the other hand, seem to be demanding that I
>>either be forced to download them, or to go the ridiculous extreme of
>>turning off all images.
>>
>>
>Not at all.  Do you use Internet Explorer? 95% of people do.  The other
>day I gave a step-by-step demo of how to make that browser replace all
>pictures by placeholders, so you have fine control over the download of
>images on an image-by-image basis.  This is the way I normally browse WWW
>when I'm in a situation where I either am not interested in looking at
>pictures or know that some images may be unwanted for other reasons.  It's
>much nicer than having your browser download everything, especially if
>you're on dial-up.
>Most other browsers can also do this.
>
>
Our policy should not depend on the user's understanding of browser
settings.  Many who do not understand these settings have also not
figured out how to set the clock on their VCR.  We cannot base policy on
a presumption of what others understand about any outside technology.
As much as possible we need to accept responsibility for what WE do.
Any kind of restrictions about access to images should be based in our
own software.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:

>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> Since we're on to fig leaves, it might not be a bad idea to have
>>> removeable fig leaves over the naughty bits.  These could have a
>>> smiley face and the words "click here" on each leaf.  Clicking would
>>> expose what's beneath the leaf.  This could all be in a Monty Python
>>> style.
>>
> Except many people find that offensive in itself, including me.

I'm sorry to hear of your offense.  My impression was that I was
elevating the tone of this interminable wrangle to the appropriate level
of seriousness.

Ec


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales said:
> >
> > First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
> > solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
> > article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
> > instead of being shown by default inline.
>
> I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary
> importance.  I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating
> topics where the image and the text are best seen together  Nobody has to
> download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image
> instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the
> image and the text it is supposed to illustrate.
> Inlining is *always* more flexible.  If you link an image, you are *taking
> choice away from the reader.*
>

Linking gives more choice than it takes away.

Also, Jimbo mentioned the shock value of images detracting from the
article. The is a very good point that isn't limited to objectionable
materials. Its hard to concentrate on reading an article when
distracted by certain types of images, and that detracts from the
value of the article. For a non-objectionable example see [[Radial
engine]]. Try concentrating on reading the article.

This is also a good example of an image being necessary, much more so
than autofelletio.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.

Geni's spelling in general is not the key issue here.  I should have been more explicit: If we are interacting with angry or hostile people we should try to avoid inflaming them further.  It is clear that grammatical or spelling errors become sticks with which the criticised can beat us. I suggest that anybody writing anything critical or cautionary should take particular care to ensure that their posts are correct. We seem to have banned one of the POTW subscribers because s/he misspelt the name of one of our user's on the POTW web-site. (Yep! That is right. A user claims that their Wikipedia account was blocked because of what that user wrote on another web-site).  If we so dislike misspelling (even if in this case the misspelling yields mild profanity and may have been conscious) then we need to be very careful ourselves.

Theo

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 10:19:53 +0100, geni wrote:
>>?Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of
>>?aggression:
>>
>>?1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain).
>>?2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP
>>?addresses before making such accusations.
>>
>?That would really mess up normal operating precedure (and it's not
>?like there aren't ways round IP tracess anyway)
>
>>?5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism');
>>?I imagine that this would >be no problem were they not already
>>?enraged.
>>
>?If me not being able to spell is now going to be classed as a
>?problem
>?you have around a thousand edits to fix


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Jimmy Wales said:
>
>
>>First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link"
>>solution is helpful.  It does not reduce the educational value of an
>>article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link
>>instead of being shown by default inline.
>>
>>
>
>I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary
>importance.  I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating
>topics where the image and the text are best seen together  Nobody has to
>download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image
>instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the
>image and the text it is supposed to illustrate.
>Inlining is *always* more flexible.  If you link an image, you are *taking
>choice away from the reader.*
>
It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot more
choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an image.
Have I somehow misunderstood the difference between "inlining" and
"linking"?  If so, I must make it clear that I support clicking to give
more choice to the reader.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] 501(c)(3) status granted to Wikimedia Foundation

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Quoting from a letter from the IRS:
>
> We are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for
> tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal
> income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Codfe.
> Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code.
> You are also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises,
> transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code.
> Because this letter could help resolve any questions regarding your
> extempt status, you should keep it in your permanent records.

I presume that "extempt" is your typo rather than something that was in
the letter from the IRS. :'(

Ec


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton said:
>
> You are right. I made some assumptions that I should not have,
> introduced things that did not belong, and expressed my main point very
> poorly.

Well none of us has behaved as well as we should.  I hope the discussion
is salvagable and I can contribute light rather than heat--I know you're
trying to do so and I want to express my appreciation for that.
>
> Leave out Christian or Islam culture, and think about a "conservative
> world view" -- although don't take "conservative" as a political
> orientation, but as a sort of moral world view that is shared by a
> great number of people of virtually all political leanings. Part of
> that "conservative world view" is sensitivity to exposed female
> breasts in public and especially in front of older children (kids
> under 2 or 3 often don't count).

Yes.  I think that's a fair summary of the worldview.

I don't think it should be either challenged or accorded undue influence
in the making of Wikipedia.   I have tried to emphasize the options
available to those who want to use Wikipedia in a way that won't conflict
with their opinions.
I'd give the same advice to a person who didn't want to see pictures of
bugs (which happens to be me, actually).  I don't like looking at them, so
I don't download them.  If I visit London Zoo, I know which parts of the
biodiversity centre to avoid and I know which parts are "safe" because
they will not trigger my phobia, which is mild as these things go. I'm
getting waking horrors as I type this, but I can handle it.
>
> Mocking people for their world view is not constructive. It does not
> further the goals of Wikipedia or Wikimedia.

Agreed.  We should differ over these things without being dismissive and
mocking.
I've been rubbed a bit raw by the insensitivities of others, too, so I
appreciate how it degrades the discussion without any beneficial effect.


body:
Andrew Cranwell said:
>
> Your argument  "if you don't want to see a clitoris, don't go to
> clitoris" doesn't help people who don't know what a clitoris is.
> Therefore, saying "I might
> not want to have a picture of a guy masturbating appear right next to
> the information" falls into the same category - you can't object to
> something if you don't know what it is. It's like goatse - highly
> offensive, but unless you know what it is, you can't avoid it.

Unless you see it and react to it, how can you know that you'll be
offended by it?  Don't ask me to second-guess your reaction if you don't
know yourself.


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
--- David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> Heres a simple question - We've given the cons of
> nudity on Wikipedia, do
> you have any reasonable pros, apart from making
> Wikiporn?

Once again a failure to assume good will from the side
that keeps demanding that THEY be given that
assumption.

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Rebecca said:
> Indeed, that's what I'm asking for. A choice as to whether to download
> them - an acknowledgement that the image is likely to be offensive, and
> then a *choice*. You, on the other hand, seem to be demanding that I
> either be forced to download them, or to go the ridiculous extreme of
> turning off all images.

Not at all.  Do you use Internet Explorer? 95% of people do.  The other
day I gave a step-by-step demo of how to make that browser replace all
pictures by placeholders, so you have fine control over the download of
images on an image-by-image basis.  This is the way I normally browse WWW
when I'm in a situation where I either am not interested in looking at
pictures or know that some images may be unwanted for other reasons.  It's
much nicer than having your browser download everything, especially if
you're on dial-up.
Most other browsers can also do this.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
--- Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suspect that if someone posted to this list being
> scornful or
> mocking of, say, Muslim culture, they would get
> slapped down hard, and
> likely be banned from the list if they persisted. Is
> my suspicion
> wrong?
>
> Yet we're very tolerant of this sort of culture
> bashing when it comes
> to conservative Christian culture. You don't have to
> agree with
> someone's culture to respect that culture and
> members of it. Let's all
> try to show a little more respect for each other.
>
> --Rich Holton

Very good question, Rich, and I'll answer it from my
perspective.

Because the Christian culture, at least in the United
States, DEMANDS, that ONLY their particular cultural
sensitivities and prejudices be catered to.  There is
no "If you don't want to see it, don't look at it."
No, rather, it's "I don't want to see it, so you
can't, either."

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
--- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
> I have just received an e-mail from John Cheese, the
> editor of pointlesswasteoftime.com telling me that
> if we do not delete the [[Pointless Waste of Time]]
> article, he will ask his "80,000 loyal readers" and
> the readers of "somethingawful.com, fark.com, and
> portalofevil.com" "to pour them into that page and
> give them free range on anything connected to it". I
> don't know what his problem is, but it seems
> substantial.
>
> T^heo

What a shame.  The article has already been deleted.
If I had known that this threat was out there, I would
have changed my vote to Keep.

We can always restore it.

BTW, who hosts Pointless Waste of Time?  We might want
to contact them and let them know what the admin of
that website is attempting to do.

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 02:51:41AM +1000, David Gerard wrote:
> ClockworkSoul (mtitmus at optonline.net) [050417 02:15]:
>
> > Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current
> > draft reads:
> >    Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on
> >    [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of
> >    course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote
> >    ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure
> >    community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as
> >    literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on
> >    Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading"
> >    of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further
> >    contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the
> >    community.
>
>
> That's pretty good :-)

Aside from the extraneous "not" after the word "necessarily", I'd say
it's VERY good.  I like it.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton wrote:

> Mocking people for their world view is not constructive.

I understand the point you were trying to make Richard but mocking
people's world view actually has a hugely constructive history. Many a
revolution would never had happened if this form of polemic had not
being employed.

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
--- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:

> Several things have goaded this group to higher
> levels of aggression:
> 1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not
> explain).

Entirely, completely, utterly untrue.  We repeatedly
told them that the votes of anons and of IDs which
were created after the VfD listing are generally
discounted, and we repeatedly told them this is a
long-established Wikipedia policy.

> 2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we
> should check IP addresses before making such
> accusations.

We repeatedly told them that the usage of the term
sockpuppet in a Wikipedia VfD context means those who
create accounts after the VfD listing.

> 3. The perceived arrogance of some sysops sending
> messages to the effect that they will never win
> because we can ban them all. That sort of claim
> escalates the conflict; we should avoid them if
> similar circumstances arise.

We never did any such thing, unless it was done on
email.  I DID till John Cheese that he would be
blocked if he vandalized the article with the goatse
picture, which he threatened to do.

> 5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed
> 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no
> problem were they not already enraged.

Not too sensitive to non-native speakers, are they?
Talk about arrogance!

> 6. Statements by some VFD voters that their vote is
> simply to spite the POW members. I have trouble
> understanding how the voters failed to see how
> inflammatory this was.

Sorry.  I told them that if they had ever been on
Wikipedia before, which they had not, they would know
that I repeatedly vote Delete on articles which have
multiple Keep votes from sockpuppets.  Besides, they
were voting Keep, they only changed to Delete when
John Cheese demanded it be removed.  The majority of
regular Wikipedia editors was clearly in the Delete
column, whcih seems to be what he wants.

> 7. This post: You know, there's more of us than
> there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of
> their little board, if we had the inclination... ?
> ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
>
> Theo

That was well after the threats of vandalism and the
arrogant demands that we change our procedures to
accomodate them.

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Since we're on to fig leaves, it might not be a bad idea to have
>> removeable fig leaves over the naughty bits.  These could have a
>> smiley face and the words "click here" on each leaf.  Clicking would
>> expose what's beneath the leaf.  This could all be in a Monty Python
>> style.

Except many people find that offensive in itself, including me.

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed
> to have written in
> which he asked for deletion nicely?
>
> --Mgm

The first post SIGNED as John Cheese said, "Delete I'm
1/2 of the PWoT writing team. I'd rather brush my
teeth with a wood-file than have a PWoT entry on this
site. "Deserve" to be on Wikipedia? Please, for the
love of God, delete this retarded entry before I vomit
blood.".  Certainly not nicely written.

RickK

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