from_name: Karl Wick

subject:
[Textbook-l] Jimmy, my email, Wikiversity,
	Wikijunior and textbook standards

body:
The *following email* to *Jimbo* might have inspired a bit of the problems
about the game guides and policy issues:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karl Wick < karlwick at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 17, 2006 1:11 PM
Subject: Request for Advice for Wikibooks
To: jwales at wikia.com

...

The situation: For all of the textbooks to be developed on Wikibooks, there
are basically three options I see available for how they are organized, and
I'd like your input on which makes more sense.

   1. The first option: All of the books are housed on the same domain on
   one big umbrella site: en.wikibooks.org . A general biology book for
   high school would differentiate itself from a general biology book for the
   university level through its title, and each book would be linked from other
   pages on the site with other books of a similar level.
   2. The second, intermediate, option: House all of the textbooks on one
   domain with subdomains, like en.univ.wikibooks.org or
   en.k12.wikibooks.org, or replace the /wiki/ with the information, like
   en.wikibooks.org/jr/ etc.
   3. The third option: split everything up into different domains, like
   en.wikiversity.org, en.wikijunior.org, en.wikivideogameguides.org,
   etc.

I can see benefits to grouping it all together on one site, and benefits to
dividing it down into several, more focused sites, directed at each age
group or student type. And that reorganization could take place right now,
or at some determined point in the future.

I actually thought that you could ask Peter
Drucker<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker>,
the management guru who is focused on helping non-profit organizations,
because he could probably tell us in ten minutes what would take us years to
figure out by trial and error. I would contact him myself but since you are
already famous it's more likely that you could get in. You could even take
the opportunity to ask him about uncounted other organizational things you
have had on your mind.
Thanks in advance for your help,

Karl

----
Jimmy seems like he got things cleared up with his last couple of emails. My
two cents is that neither Wikipedia nor Wikibooks would even exist if not
for Jimmy'. So when he makes a decision, I usually just accept it and move
on. We should thank him and try to make his life easier and more
pleasurable, and not try to accuse him of selfish motivation or otherwise
speak ill of him.

As for *Wikiversity*, my opinion is that it should be a part of Wikibooks,
not a separate site. Wikibooks is for "Textbooks, study guides, and other
learning materials." I see no value in splitting it up, and much value in
having them all housed at the same place.

My personal opinion is that there should NOT be an accredited institution
requisite for a textbook. There are other subjects that deserve an
instructional book, such as the Myers-Briggs type
indicator<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator>,
which I don't know if is taught officially in any school or not.

I agree with Jimmy that to be used in US K-12, most books will need to
adhere to *standards*. How to get books that do that is another question. To
me it makes sense to allow non-standard-compliant books that will eventually
be modified to fulfill the different standards that different schools have.

The other area of wiki-books that I would like to see is *study guides* of
specific books. For example, summaries of current business books, where you
can find an outline of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seven_Habits_Study_Guide>.

I'd also like to give a plug to the proposed book, Wikijunior Fifth Grade
Math <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Fifth_Grade_Math>, for which
our friend Sanford Forte, of the California Open Source Textbook
Project<http://www.opensourcetext.org/>,
provided us with the CA standards and framework to follow.

The original grant for WikiJunior appears to not include the idea of
standards-following development. However it seems like a great experiment to
start at least one book following standards. Right now we do not have any
great examples of completed standards-following books that we can hold up to
show the world. With Wikijunior Fifth Grade Math we have the opportunity to
do so and have the end product actively promoted by someone who is already
on the inside of the textbook industry and the diplomatic/bureaucratic
circles. This would be good on so many levels.


list: commons-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Commons-l] Commons browser

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Mono 1.1.15 doesn't seem too happy with it; it seems to be missing the
>> SplitContainer control. Got source I could look at?
>>
> Sure:
> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/CommonsBrowserProject.zip

Yep, SplitContainer isn't implemented in Mono's System.Windows.Forms yet; it's a
.NET 2.0-only control, and not all of the class library is updated for 2.0. If
you can redo it with the older Splitter control it would likely work; or better
yet abstract out the UI so a Gtk# user interface can be written on it for Linux.

(Any reason you're not putting this in SVN?)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Dabljuh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's administrative system

body:
When I speak of edit count, this is metaphorical.
I do not mean so much the actual edit count, but
more so a hypothetical value, to force MMORPG
terminology on this, we could call it "experience
points", XP, that are probably better described
as the number of people in your social network,
as well as their individual "XPs". And admin
privileges are just (massive) bonus points, that
by themselves already require a large amount of "XP".

Consider the process of becoming an administrator:
You simply need a lot of people vouching for you,
and other people will follow the lead. People
who you have fought in edit wars will seldomly vouch
for you, but instead call against this. This could
be described as "negative" XP. So a good strategy
(for becoming an administrator) may be to keep out of
controversial articles and instead make many small
and large improvements to various articles while
building up this social network. People don't become
sysop or anything for quality work, but for networking.

Of course trying to display the administrative
System as a single faction would be false. It is much
more cliquish, but every admin has his network.
Once gained adminship, one is relatively free to
abuse people at controversial articles - regardless
of scholastic merit, since there is the clique to
protect him and decry anyone attacking him.

Consider barnstars - by themselves a nice gesture
and so on, it can be interpreted as scratching each
other's back, making each other look more well respected.
This concept of "Wikilove" has become increasingly creepy
to me over the years, to be honest. Eventually the
administrators turn out to be an old boys network
scratching each other's backs every opportunity by
inflating each other's apparent XPs.

And not disciplining administrative abuses is just
obvious - anything else would award both parties massive
negative XP.

Compared to these XP, "being a great writer" or
"being a good scholar" regarding a topic completely fade
when it comes to a content dispute.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>>On 6/16/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>ARTICLE III - MEMBERSHIP
>>>>The Foundation shall have no members.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>So the original bylaws had *everyone* as members, and the proposed new
>>>bylaws have *no one* as members.  Unfortunately, it seems to be
>>>possible for three members of the board to make this change.  I urge
>>>all the board members to vote against it.  At the very least, I hope
>>>the board will first poll the current membership (the community) to
>>>see what they think about the idea.
>>
>>What the f*** do you think I am currently doing Anthony ???
>>
>
> I think you're trying to get ideas on how to resolve the issue.

yes

   But
> you don't seem to be acting on behalf of the board in doing so.

correct

>>It does not need to do any poll of some sort. I am *trying* desperately
>>to make some of you react and help on the matter. Thanks for Sj and you
>>to have answered.
>>
>>Clearly, aside from Delphine basically, no one is interested in
>>discussing the Apache model. My question for the next week is whether I
>>make the effort to entirely re-write a membership section to propose the
>>board. Given to huge interest, I am not sure it is worth the effort.
>>
>
> Any chance of getting the board to set up a committee with the task of
> recommending a new set of bylaws?

Dunno

But... one should not set up bylaws and then try to make his view of the
Foundation fit the bylaws. The proper way would be to decide of what we
want... and set up bylaws that makes that possible.

> If not, then you're probably right - it's not worth the effort.
>
> Anthony


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] A proposal for organisation

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>*Community members (members of all Wikimedia projects)
>
Even that requires defining what a project member is.  This is the most
fundamental question upon which to build.  Initially the elected
directors were intended to represent the general editorship and the dues
paying members.  The latter never got off the ground, and we ended up
with two directors elected by the general editorship.  People who become
involved beyond the mere occasional edit need to feel that they have
some ownership in the project, and they need to feel that there is hope
that their influence will grow with time and contributions.

A person growing up today, has access to information and opinions on a
scale unimaginable to even the most powerful leaders of a century ago.
He also learns to work with these massive quantities of data in his own
way, since most of his teachers, who learned there own skills in
managing information a mere generation ago, cannot pass on experiences
they never had.  Autodidactism breeds innovative minds   There is nobody
there to tell us the accepted way of doing things, or the received
wisdom of the professionals.  We have to figure it out for ourselves,
and our solutions run the gamut from the utterly stupid to the
absolutely brilliant.  We awaken the Mr. Bean within each of us.

Apply these lessons to the socio-political sector where personal
analyses and proposed solutions are at odds with the play that goes on
legislative sandboxes around the world, and you have alienation.
Alienated people act out; at the extreme this can even come in deadly
ways.

To get back to earth, how does this affect WMF?  Perhaps it would be in
devising a system of membership (or citizenship?) that ensures the
empowerment of those members to whatever extent is appropriate for that
individual.

>*Project management committees - for us, these would be people within
>the community appointed by resolution of the board of directors of the
>Wikimedia Foundation. Once appointed, the PMC members have a right to
>propose to add members in their PMC. The PMC would be in charge of
>making sure the legal aspects of each projects are taken care of and
>observed, make sure that procedures are followed in the development of
>the projects. These are not automatically the editors with the
>greatest number of edits, but rather those who have shown a commitment
>to the organisation and the day-to-day running of the projects, taking
>care of legal issues, procedure issues etc. They'd have a
>responsibility and an oversight role. Not an editing power as such
>(ie. they can't impose their POV on an article). Their frame of action
>will have to be very clearly defined, but if it is, they'd be an asset
>to the projects.
>
Although there is much that I agree with in this, I also have concerns.
A PMC leader who is appointed rather than elected is probably in a
better position to deal with diverse factions without alienating his
voters..  That being said, a leader who is constantly battling his
membership is not likely to be a very effective leader. His personal
authority will suffer, and so would the project.  The qualities that
make a good leader are not always obvious to the general editorship.

It is in legal issues that the arms length relationship between the
projects and the WMF is most important.  Copyright, defamation and
pornography are the most frequently mentioned.  It needs to be
remembered that maintaining safe harbors depends very much on the degree
of editorial control which the WMF has over the projects.  It's
important to establish protocols where complaints received by the WMF
about a particular project are passed on to the affected projects for
action in accordance with established protocols.

>*Wikimedia Foundation members - those would be nominated by the board,
>proposed to the board by anyone else who feels someone should be a
>Foundation member. They could be issued directly from the community,
>from the PMCs or from anywhere else.
>
I argued for a two-tiered governance from the very beginning.  Perhaps
"Council" might be a less misleading term than "members".  PMC leader of
all projects of a certain size should certainly be a part of this.  As a
project gets bigger it can probably have more representatives.  The
directors could also add such other persons as it deems fit.

>*Wikimedia Foundation board of directors - are elected within the pool
>of members of the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
Perhaps it should be a bit bigger than what we have now.  The respective
roles of the directors and other Foundation members should be clearly
spelled out.

>*Special tasks committees : those are issued from the pool of members
>of the Wikimedia Foundation, or created around and with external
>individuals which show the necessary skills to lead/participate in
>those committees.
>
OK.  Perhaps with a similar structure to the Council, but not
necessarily composed of the leaders, and with varied mambership threshholds.

>As I see it, this is indeed an interesting bit. To answer Tim's
>concerns (and I agree with Lukasz comment, btw), I believe the fact
>that members of the Wikimedia Foundation would be appointed by the
>board actually make it pretty "safe" for anyone who might have a
>problem with a community elected body. For the record, I am one of
>those. A great editor in a virtual project does not make a great board
>member in a real-life organisation, and the predominance of one
>language or one project does not ensure harmonious representation. The
>model might seem restraining at first (only the board's "friends"
>could be considered as members of the Wikimedia Foundation) but in a
>mid-term perspective, I cannot see the board only appointing their
>best friends/supporters, as it would not scale. And the larger the
>body that nominates, the more diversified the people on it.
>
I agree.  There need to be safeguards to minimize the risks that you
mention.  It can't be avoided completely

>The way the PMC are set up also gives the board an oversight. However,
>it would be stupid from the board to appoint on the PMCs people who
>have absolutely no community support, because it would make the PMC
>members' job way harder. So in our case, the appointement of PMCs
>could be coupled with polls within communities as to who should be on
>the PMCs. Note that as I understand it, PMCs members have a real life
>responsibility, which would call for a disclosure of their real life
>identity. I would argue that PMC members are not necessarily stewards
>or bureaucrats, which would still be elected as "trusted" community
>members", but rather people who have made clear what their skills and
>agendas are as to the responsibility they are offered in being part of
>a PMC.
>
Whom the Board appoints it can also unappoint.  Stewards are not
necessarily just representatives of specific projects.  Bureaucrats
would probably be the first place to look for initial representatives,
but not the only place.  Each project big enough needs to be given
separate consideration.

>I would probably still consider a body such as the Wikicouncil in such
>an organisation of things, ie. people voted as "community"
>representatives, who have no "real life" responsibilities per se, but
>are tasked with making sure the communication between community
>members and the Wikimedia Foundation flows. It is high time the
>community be represented by someone(s) rather than speaking through a
>myriad of individuals who, in the end, have no other voice than their
>own.
>
Yes.  The best leaders are most often not the loudest.  They just carry
on with their duties, and limit their complaints to what really matters.

>I believe that in the end, it is indeed an interesting model. At
>least, it seems to me to make a very clear distinction between
>projects and organisation (the PMCs are the organisation's
>representatives in the projects). My belief is that in the mid-term,
>this lack of separation can be very dangerous, both for the projects
>and the Foundation. This model makes the separation very clear,
>without shutting out the community from accessing the responsibilities
>within the organisation, and without shutting it out from decision, as
>it provides a model for working harmoniously together (everyone knows
>what they have to do and what they're here for).
>
It's not just a matter of how PMCs are chosen.  Defining the
distinctions is even more important.

Ec


from_name: Phoebe Ayers

body:
On 6/17/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Those who are concerned about this kind of
> > governance issue would be better
> > served, I think, by focusing attention on board
> > composition and expansion,
> > as some have done.  Jimmy and the other board
> > members are of an open mind as
> > to what the future of the board will be, what it
> > will/should/could look
> > like, and there is a lot of discussion about all
> > this.  We may disagree on
> > various points for legitimate reasons, but I hope
> > everyone agrees the
> > conversation is healthy and beneficial to the
> > organization.
> >
>
> I do not mean to ignore the near-term composition and
> expansion of the board by discussing this model.  It
> is good everyone is examining the possibiliies of the
> future Board, but there is a great need for a larger
> infrastucture within the WMF (If you only edit at
> Wikipedia you probably do not see this need).  And it
> is not just to know who is member or who may vote in
> Board elections.
>
> The expanded Board and expanded commitees even would
> not solve the issues as the Apache Model would
> regarding communication of needs, repeatedly
> duplicating efforts across languages if not projects,
> and need for a bottom-to-top chain of authority.
> Authority is not the right word but when people need
> specific solutions they should not be coming to the
> top to get it worked out, but there is no other chioce
> right now.  For example the issue of guidelines for
> acceptable Wikibooks.  They come to this list where
> most people can't even fully understand the problem
> because you have to be familair with Wikibooks to
> really understand it.  How many people go and
> investigate the Wikibooks site, and read deletion
> archives before giving there opinion on the matter?
> And were the Wikibooks editor ever actually given
> useful guidelines at the end of such discussion?  Is
> any current comittee working on it for them? This
> could be handled in a much better fashion if there was
> Project Level organization.

<snip>

I like this argument for the Apache model - or something like it -
very much. Having "Project Level Officers" -- people who are both
knowledgeable about and invested in both the projects and the
Foundation -- as a level of organization in between the community in
general and the Board seems like it would not only go a long way
towards helping with communication and responsiveness (two of the
major complaints about the Foundation currently) but also mean the
people dealing with issues on a daily basis have a high level of
knowledge about the projects they work with. Having people at a
project level to liason with the Foundation committees that currently
exist would also be helpful; as Ant pointed out, the Apache Foundation
committees seem roughly equivalant to ours, so this would probably
work fine.

I also agree with Brad, that focussing -- and staying focussed -- on
Board expansion is important if it's going to get done; but discussing
what kind of organizational structures that Board will interface with
over the long term is also important.

There are various goals that a reformation of the organizational
structure of the Foundation would hopefully address -- e.g., spreading
out Foundation-level work, so it becomes less burdensome for any small
group of people; providing for a stable (fiscally and otherwise)
organization; providing a mechanism for visionary leadership (as Erik
eloquently put it); providing community representation in leadership;
providing good communication on decisions reached and in process;
providing a timely response to community and outside concerns
(lawsuits, offers of funding); etc. It would probably be helpful to
agree, if possible, on these broad goals for leadership which have
come up in these threads and others, and evaluate proposals (such as
the Apache model) in light of them.

For instance, as I said above, I think the major benefits of the
Apache model as described and Project Level Officer idea as expanded
on by Birgitte is that it would spread out [the ability to do]
foundation-level work (copyright questions, liasoning with the board),
as well as providing for greater community representation at the
Foundation level. (The original Apache model could also possibly
lessen community representation in terms of voting; it's unclear to me
who gets to vote or nominate for what). If it worked properly,
timeliness and responsiveness would also be improved since there would
be a larger pool of people to contact at the project officer level.
(Though, would the responsiveness/timeliness of the Board be improved?
hard to say).  An extra benefit to having this model of organizational
structure is that it might make it less daunting to get involved in
Foundation work. (I can't be the only person in the world who is
interested in Foundation-level stuff, and who makes an effort to
follow discussions etc., but who can't possibly make it a full-time
job -- and thus ends up not saying anything at all, because there's
simply too much traffic (issues, ideas) to follow).

> This was really long and I didn't even talk of
> Foundation level stuff.  But it is similar, the
> members are a pool of people with a low bar for entry
> not some kind of representatives.  Just people that
> are willing to work on Foundation level stuff and can
> be appointed to commitees etc.  I would imagine the
> Foundation basically collects money, deals with
> press/outside organizations, and  organizes
> developers, lawyers, and translators.  Of course the
> Board sets goals and trys to do what is most useful to
> as many projects as possible, but as of now I do not
> even know that they are aware what would be most
> useful in many cases.  This model is basically much
> more efficent and acknowledges the reality that each
> project has specific concerns that are not understood
> by people from other projects.

Yes.

-- phoebe (brassratgirl), catching up on email & diving in, rather long-windedly


body:
Brad Patrick wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The main arguments against a membership model last time around were that
>>it was too *limiting* in requiring a contribution, and too unclear in not
>>demanding that potential members opt in... are there other reasons not to
>>do this?
>>
>>SJ
>>
>
>
> I must confess this conversation has, to me, been completely bizarre.
> Membership organizations (open your wallet and see which of them you belong
> to) involve a quid pro quo - you give something, you get something.  You
> give dues, you get to "belong" and call yourself a member.  You attend a
> meeting of other members, maybe, and perhaps you are part of a particular
> local organization of that group.  Churches, civic organizations, soup
> kitchens, environmental groups, etc., all exist in this paradigm for good
> reason; they include as part of their fundamental mission a dichotomy
> between those who *are* in the group and those who *are not* in the group.
>
> Part of the worldwide appeal of Wikimedia projects is their egalitarianism
> and respect for the contributions of *everyone*.  There is no us and them -
> if you want to be a Wikimedian, you can be; you edit, you are.  It's simple,
> and only goes in one direction.  If you edit enough, you can vote for a
> person you want to see on the board.  Without money changing hands, you have
> the same representation you would under any other circumstances.  The
> Wikimedia you would see with stark membership requirements is a dark place
> indeed.  What happens to members who don't pay?  Are they prevented from
> editing?  If there is no meaningful distinction in categorization of either
> one or the other, what exactly is the point in the first place, except to
> give those who are interested and active another membership ID in their
> wallet - and this is the point - which confers no additional rights or
> privileges?

Just to clarify about the original idea which explain the current bylaws.

The idea was that absolutely every editor of any wikimedia project was a
member. This membership was described as "volunteer membership". There
was of course nothing to "give" in terms of money, since the gift was
the gift of one person time, energy and goodwill.

However, Jimbo thought there might be people who would bring other
things than "edits" but who would be valuable enough to find a path to
join as a member. And one of the simplest thing to imagine was simply
money. It was considered that if people gave money to the organisation,
they should be represented by someone as well. Hence the "contributing
membership". This option made it possible for everyone to join the
membership without having to edit.

As for those who both edited and paid, they were offered two representants.

As a deeper background... Jimbo's dream, at the time of bylaws creation,
was that the membership dues would represent a highly significiant
amount of the Foundation revenues.

I am not sure, but I think Jimbo envisionned a huge membership with
paying members spread all over the world. Something such as "if we have
100 000 members and each give 50 dollars...

It was not a dark scheme, there was no notion of removing or not
granting anyone right. The idea was rather to be totally inclusive and
to allow anyone helping, being as an editor or as a payer, to somehow
have a right to impact who was on the board.

What happened next ?

Well, we first met the issue of the dues. Jimbo was suggesting for
example dues of 80 dollars, because it is a very natural amount in most
us organisations. Other positions requested a much lower amount to fit
all countries. Then, we discussed amount per group of countries...per
professional status etc... and it became horribly complicated.

At the same time... some developers indicated that ... they participated
without being editors... so where not counted in the first group.

And some people highly objected to be mandatorily considered as members.
They asked that the memberships be opt-in.

And of course, there was the question of whether someone could be a
member without revealing his true identity. Add a layer of sockpuppetry
on top...

> As to the suggestion above by SJ that "Real name" is a field to be filled
> in, required or otherwise, I think recent history has shown that part of the
> lingering appeal to many in the community is that anonymity will be
> respected.  As soon as you cross the line into a "real world" membership
> situation, that is undermined substantially, if not eliminated.  To be sure,
> we have anonymous donors now.  But that is a quid without a quo - it is a
> gift from an unknown individual to an organization they want to support.
> Membership cannot be sustained the same way for any valid reason...there is,
> again, no meaningful distinction.
>
> The essence of this openness to all will be lost as soon as an us/them
> dichotomy is established.  It does not exist today, except as a relic of the
> bylaws which are long overdue to be changed.  The badges of "membership" -
> if you give money, if you contribute to projects, if you volunteer for
> various positions in the organization - all exist independent of that.
> Other than providing a political means for takeover of the organization
> directly (and that's a whole other conversation), I don't see the point.
>
> The Apache model has some strengths, but my personal opinion is that the
> difference between producing software alone and producing encyclopedias,
> news, etc. yields a gap that is difficult to close.  My hats are off to the
> Apache folks.  But they have a much more narrow mission and fewer moving
> parts to achieve that mission.  Different parts of the free culture movement
> are more or less affected by each undertaking of the Foundation, and are of
> varying degrees of interest to many.  I think the Foundation's mission is
> simply too broad to decide to govern it through direct reliance on
> formalized elected constituencies.  Creating representation from the
> existing pattern of projects is also inherently political.  If the
> Foundation is successful, the massive trend will be towards languages and
> projects with many fewer articles and users now, and millions more speakers
> and writers worldwide yet to be connected.  So, there is a shift ahead no
> matter which way you look at it, provided the projects continue to grow as
> they have.
>
> Those who are concerned about this kind of governance issue would be better
> served, I think, by focusing attention on board composition and expansion,
> as some have done.  Jimmy and the other board members are of an open mind as
> to what the future of the board will be, what it will/should/could look
> like, and there is a lot of discussion about all this.  We may disagree on
> various points for legitimate reasons, but I hope everyone agrees the
> conversation is healthy and beneficial to the organization.
>
> -Brad
>


body:
On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:04:20 +0200
Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I assume you are referring to this?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Dabljuh
> Which is interesting reading.
>
> Garion

And that is exactly what I am talking about. You reduce the argument
to "who" is talking, not on the argument itself. This sort of ad hominem
is not just typical, it is downright the "Wikipedia" way of
thinking these days.


body:
On 6/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suggest that a workshop be set up at Wikimania to discuss these
> things in person; in addition, if you want my personal thoughts on

Heck yes. Would having it over lunch suit? Otherwise, it would
conflict with sessions (or have to be before or after, on Thur./Mon.)

As ever, such things can be discussed/proposed here:
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_online

best,
phoebe


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 6/15/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Delphine M?nard wrote:
>>
>>
>>Note that a suggestion I would do is to include amongst groups of
>>voters, meta and chapters. This would largely tip the balance in favor
>>of those who are *actually* working for Foundation issues.
>>
>>
>You forget that many meta users and chapter members are *also* editors
>in a project or another. This could lead to people either voting
>twice, or having to choose sides (the project or the chapter? meta or
>wikipedia?)
>
Representing more than one project should in no way give a person two
separate votes.  There's nothing wrong with choosing to vote one way or
the other.

>>We might get to something like
>>* Wikipedia can elect up to 30 members overall to become members
>>* Wikibooks can elect up to 20 ...
>>* Wikiquote can elect up to 1 ... (just kidding)
>>* Meta can elect up to 20 members
>>* All chapters members can elect up to 20 members
>>
>>etc...
>>
>>It may be that people are supported in two places. So what ? Who cares
>>if there is no strictly fixed number ?
>>
>>There is another point...
>>You said "a good project editor does not necessarily make a good
>>Foundation member".
>>Yup... so what about "forcing" people to make a *choice* ?
>>Either PMC member... or Foundation member ?
>>The same skills are not required...
>>
>>
>Yes, that is indeed a must-be requirement. You have to chose your battles.
>
Most Foundation members/councillors should be PMC members.representing
that PMC.  Why should people be forced to make a choice?

>>(as a reminder, all PMC must have 2 Foundation member on them. These 2
>>guys may volunteer or be appointed by board or appointed by MWF members.
>>But only these 2 may be both on WMF membership AND a PMC).
>>
I don't see the point of this

>>The *most* important point would be to very very clearly define their
>>scope of action. They would have no particular rights as editors over
>>the other editors for example, nor would they have the right to
>>run/manage the local projects as "editor in chief".
>>
>>
>This is where any model fails, coming to think of it. If the PMC's are
>elected by the community and have some kind of oversight granted by
>legal means, where does the "legal" part of their task stops and the
>"community mandate" starts? If those PMC's are held by community
>recognition, it is my belief that they will, at some point, have to
>make a choice.
>
No.  In a federal system of government citizenship in the broader
country is not incounsistent with citizenship in a constituent state.  A
PMC would be the governing body of a project.  Members of that project
who choose to operate outside the law need to accept the legal
consequences..  Your expression "oversight granted by legal means" is
unclear.  In terms of legal obligations it doesn't matter how the PMCs
are chosen.  To maintain the separation that you mentioned before it is
important to maintain the autonomy of the projects.

>The big problem with Wikimedia as I see it, is that we are trying to
>apply something that works to build an encyclopedia (utter democracy,
>collaborative community decisions) to a world with different rules
>(legal, financial, etc.), and most of all, rules which can't really be
>changed with a community decision the way we change spelling or
>bibliography rules.
>
Does this need to be a problem?

>The same way copy/pasting the ASF model, or the Greenpeace model, ot
>the US Federal model, you name it, doesn't work, copy/pasting the
>Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects model to the organisation doesn't work
>either.
>
We can use any of these for ideas, but ultimately it would be our own model.

Ec


from_name: Erik Zachte

body:
Anthere:
> It does not need to do any poll of some sort. I am *trying* desperately
> to make some of you react and help on the matter. Thanks for Sj and you
> to have answered.
>
> Clearly, aside from Delphine basically, no one is interested in
> discussing the Apache model. My question for the next week is whether I
> make the effort to entirely re-write a membership section to propose the
> board. Given to huge interest, I am not sure it is worth the effort.

Anthere, apart from SJ, Anthony, and Delphine others responded as well with
constructive feedback, e.g. Delirium, Michael, Birgitte.
I also plan to respond for sure on the Apache system but it is complicated
matter and needs some careful thought.
Also I have other comittments to honour before I go on holiday for a few
days this week.
Maybe some other people are also tired or occupied elsewhere. Apparently
that goes for other board members as well.
My point, please give it few more days or even weeks, perhaps give yourself
a break as well, before you decide no one is interested.
We don't need to reach a conclusion within a week. Better slow and steady
than hastily and without results.

Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] the easy way or the less easy way

body:
Brad:
> > We may disagree on various points for legitimate reasons, but I hope
everyone agrees the
> > conversation is healthy and beneficial to the organization.
>
> Yes.  I'm very glad that you are participating in it.
>
> SJ

I'll break my self imposed rule and send a mail just to say I agree on all
the above.

Erik Zachte


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:36:07 -0400
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales may argue that the NYT got the situation exactly
> backwards, but the reality is that this is a semantic game and in this
> case the contrarian position the NYT is arguing is, if not ultimately
> correct, an important one to have. Wikipedia benefits by having
> outsiders challenging Wikipedia to be and remain open and free.
> Institutions by their nature are conservative and self-protecting, and
> their commitment to their claimed ideals must face constant challenge
> for them to remain true to said ideals.
>
> I would say that neither Wales for the NYT is really right-- I would
> argue that Wikipedia, as it grows in size and prominence, is evolving
> rapidly and in ways that no one person could possibly understand
> fully. That Wikipedia will always be straddling the uncomfortable
> divide between reliability and editability, just as it embodies
> conflicts between universality and topicality, brevity and
> completeness, accessibility and accuracy, etc. It is neither the
> golden perfect lovely machine that Wales seems so insistent on
> portraying nor the decadent failure its critics decry.*
>
> I would be happier if we lived in a world where the New York Times was
> writing articles promoting the promise of Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales
> was its biggest critic, finding fault where others see none, but I
> don't get to choose the world I live in.
>
> That said, I found it quite interesting how Larry Sanger is now lost
> from the official narrative of the creation of Wikipedia. History
> belongs to the victors, I suppose. Although I became one of his most
> active critics during his tenure, he does not deserve to become a
> footnote, or worse, forgotten.
>
> --tc

{{signed}} ~~~~


body:
Anthere
> We can expect two resignations in the year coming. And expansion of the
> board by 2 more members.
> Last proposal by Jimbo is 2 elected members, 4 appointed and himself.
> There is no mention in bylaws of way to remove appointed members.
> Elected are renewed every 2 years.
>
> My proposal is to have 4 elected members and 3 appointed ones. To have a
> clear renewal (or removal) of the appointed every 2 years. To have the
> elected renewed 2 one year, 2 the next year. And preferably to have the
> ones elected by a sub-group of the community (Foundation members).
>
> Angela wishes us to keep some elected members. I am not exactly sure of
> more.
>
> Tim and Michael did not give their opinion.
>
> My proposal implies a modification of the bylaws. So, it implies a new
> proposition AND that board members vote.
> Jimbo's proposition is consistant with current bylaws I think.
>
> So, if there are no new bylaws, by default you may expect 2 elected and
> 5 appointed soon. Possibly next year, 2 elected and 7 appointed.
>

Oh, an important clarification.
Naturally, appointed may be from outside of the community or from the
community. On this matter, Angela, Jimbo and myself agree that at least
the majority should be from the community.

The major benefit of "appointed" is there is more chance to get a united
team with complementary skills.
The major drawback is to risk similar-thinking people and limit
diversity of view points.


subject: [Foundation-l] sorry wrongbutton

body:
Please remove previous post, and possibly this one.
I hit the wrong button. It is just a unmodified post by Anthere before I
could add comments
and now seems to be my text which it isn't.
Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] sorry wrongbutton


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 6/18/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Various possibilities lie ahead. One is that we adopt legal membership
> with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. If this is done in
> the name of remaining "open", it's just as possible that in doing so
> we'd be departing from our openness toward those who value their
> privacy. Another possibility in the scenario is that depending on how
> membership is determined, including cost, we may find that relatively
> few people "join". At which point it becomes obvious that despite this
> effort, some people will choose to complain that the community is not
> represented in Foundation affairs, and it may seem that the entire
> exercise was valueless. It should also be observed that any definition
> of Foundation membership which is not coextensive with the community
> (and I don't see how gaps can be avoided) has the potential to
> factionalize people along the lines created by these fissures. A
> community divided over member vs. non-member, rich vs. poor, out vs.
> closeted, or other potential distinctions is certainly a possibility.
>
> Or, finally, after considering the benefits and drawbacks of legal
> membership, we might choose a path without using it. Certainly the
> Wikimedia Foundation needs to incorporate the community into its
> functions, but it ought to be possible to do that, formally or
> informally, in ways that avoid the drawbacks of the legal regime. We
> might even occasionally talk in terms of members, but ultimately should
> be careful to disavow the statutory definition if we follow this course.

Does Florida law require that member of nonprofits be actual persons?
A nonprofit I used to work for (a national organization) had as its
members the 50 state organizations of which it was comprised.  Perhaps
the members of Wikimedia should be the various national organizations
which already exist, as corporate entities.

Kelly


body:
> > We can expect two resignations in the year coming. And expansion of the
> > board by 2 more members.
> > Last proposal by Jimbo is 2 elected members, 4 appointed and himself.
> > There is no mention in bylaws of way to remove appointed members.
> > Elected are renewed every 2 years.
> >
> > My proposal is to have 4 elected members and 3 appointed ones.
> To have a
> > clear renewal (or removal) of the appointed every 2 years. To have the
> > elected renewed 2 one year, 2 the next year. And preferably to have the
> > ones elected by a sub-group of the community (Foundation members).
> >
> > Angela wishes us to keep some elected members. I am not exactly sure of
> > more.
> >
> > Tim and Michael did not give their opinion.
> >
> > My proposal implies a modification of the bylaws. So, it implies a new
> > proposition AND that board members vote.
> > Jimbo's proposition is consistant with current bylaws I think.
> >
> > So, if there are no new bylaws, by default you may expect 2 elected and
> > 5 appointed soon. Possibly next year, 2 elected and 7 appointed.
>
> Oh, an important clarification.
> Naturally, appointed may be from outside of the community or from the
> community. On this matter, Angela, Jimbo and myself agree that at least
> the majority should be from the community.
>
> The major benefit of "appointed" is there is more chance to get a united
> team with complementary skills.
> The major drawback is to risk similar-thinking people and limit
> diversity of view points.
>
> Ant
>

Apart from persons named above I believe only Delphine made a strong case in
recent discussions against voting for all board members? Am I right?

For me the major drawback to "appointed" would be that the community (the
people that made Wikimedia happen) is not acknowledged for what it achieved
so far.
The community has been and is competent enough to build a encyclopedia in a
few years that ranks among the best. The community has been competent enough
to elect two worthy representatives. Most community members have higher
education (unproven, but I doubt many would contest this).

I probably won't make myself more popular with what follows, but I favour
candidness, while being respectful: I think Jimbo is a great guy, with
tremendous vision and drive, and a friendly person. But with all that Jimbo
did for Wikimedia, which is a tremendous amount and which may indeed lead
him to the Nobel Price some day, it is still an undeniable fact that others
(read: the community) did collectively much more, orders of magnitude more.
Jimbo invested huge sums of money. Volunteers might have made huge amounts
of money had they not spent so much of their free time on this project, I'm
sure again orders of magnitude more than Jimbo has. For me it would be great
if Jimbo kept his life long membership to the board, as a sincere token of
appreciation, but I feel it is over the top, if he treats the foundation as
something he has special rights to forever, at least morally.

It can't be that a single person, and members from his close inner circle,
be it business partners or other people he knows and values, formally have a
final say over a global movement indefinitely, and extend their grip on the
organisation through co-optation indefinitely.

I can imagine three reasons why Jimbo would want to bypass elections for at
least part of the board:

1 Concern that the community does not have all required skills, and
therefore experts from outside need to be imposed.
2 Concern that the community does not have all required
information/knowledge to make wise decisions.
3 Concern that the community or possibly a future community does not have
the best of motives and wants to hijack the organisation.

ad 1: It is imaginable that the community lacks certain skills. To me it
would help if the community thinks so too. If this is not the case, and the
board decides to overule the community, how else to call this than
'paternalism'? If board and community agree on this, outside candidates for
the board could be proposed, discussed and elected like any internal
candidates. No need for appointments.

ad 2: This is probably true, and I still fear becomes more true all the
time. I'm cautiously concerned when a non-profit organisation can't discuss
most deals in the open, at least in general terms, and has no approved
guidelines for which issues can be settled behind closed doors. As stated
earlier, to me it would be OK to delegate authority from the community to
the board, but delegation is what mattters here.

ad 3: This would be a major concern for me too. But I tbink reasonable
precautions can be taken to avoid that say Greenland or the veganist society
(to name two unlikely examples deliberately) launches a dedicated attack to
take over the foundation by ordering all its inhabitants/members to sign up
and vote. At least if we discuss this fear in the open we can discuss
appropriate precautions.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
Dear god, now it's a slashdot story!
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/18/0042209

Can't we send in some sort of rebuttal, or clarification or something?

--Oskar

On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%20AH77qh5FKXKNw
>
> Regards
>
>
> Keith Old
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 6/17/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Another practical issue is that I am currently the only board member
> interested in trying to do that. Given that trying to rewrite bylaws is
> meant to take a few hours, I'd be happy to know what you guys think and
> what other board members think.
>
> And I get mostly silence.

Perhaps you have a better idea how I feel now. When the committees
first came up, I wrote a detailed summary of my concerns on this list
- zero response. The open meeting, which I put a lot of energy into,
had almost no visible follow-up. Jimmy asked for comments on possible
outside Board members, I made some - no follow-up. In the recent
discussions, most of my longer answers were also ignored, and you
responded to one of them by only labeling it a "campaign platform",
while Gregory has been sniping from the sidelines against
"windbagging" "douchebags".

I welcome your initiative, Anthere. I think the Apache model is a
remix of some ideas that have been discussed before, and will need
some thoughtful consideration. In particular, we definitely need to
figure out who our members are, if anyone -- and fix the bylaws.
"Wiki" philosophy to me means maximizing participation and openness,
but not without safeguards. Having voting members undergo a human
vetting process may work, but the process should be built so that it
doesn't degenerate into the mess RfA on en.wp has become, where every
voter makes up their pet criteria that make up a good Wikimedian. The
criteria of membership should be objective, and objections should be
actionable and reasonable.

I suggest that a workshop be set up at Wikimania to discuss these
things in person; in addition, if you want my personal thoughts on
anything, you can always ask. Based on past experience, I am not
convinced that a continuing discussion on this mailing list makes much
of a difference. I agree with Brad that reforming and expanding the
Board so that it can actually meaningfully engage the community in
these debates is very much needed. At the moment, arguing with the
Board feels like arguing with a one-armed assembly line worker during
the night shift. He just doesn't have a lot of time and attention for
you.

Erik


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Austrian Wikiversity in German

body:
On 6/18/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A link has been added to a "Austrian" Wikiversity in advertised as in
> German Language to the bottom of the front page of the English prototype
> of Wikiversity at English Wikibooks.
>
> http://wikiversity.at/MyWiki/index.php?title=Hauptseite
>
> at bottom of:
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity
>
> Is this an authorised prototype of a Wikiversity or should the link be
> removed?

See earlier discussion here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-March/006165.html

It's not operated by Wikimedia and should probably be removed or
labeled as such. de.wikiversity.org is an official prototype, though.

Erik


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On Jun 17, 2006, at 10:28 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Folks,
>>
>> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
>>
>
> This is remarkably poor journalism. It shows that the media are
> clutching at straws to write about us. I hope the recently created
> Communications Committee is building personal connections to some of
> the journalists involved, and will occasionally feed them interesting
> "exclusive" stories in addition to regular press releases. We can't
> prevent the press from screwing up, but perhaps at least we can give
> them a better idea about things which are actually happening, e.g:
> - ongoing reorganization of Wikimedia, heated debates about the
> non-profit's future
> - 1,000 featured articles, ongoing experiments towards Wikipedia
> 0.5/1.0
> - Wikimedia Commons becoming a gigantic archive of functional free
> content (643,000 files, ~250 GB)
> etc.
>
> Erik

Yes, a typical report about riding a horse by someone who choses not
to ride one.

Fred

> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy

This is remarkably poor journalism. It shows that the media are
clutching at straws to write about us. I hope the recently created
Communications Committee is building personal connections to some of
the journalists involved, and will occasionally feed them interesting
"exclusive" stories in addition to regular press releases. We can't
prevent the press from screwing up, but perhaps at least we can give
them a better idea about things which are actually happening, e.g:
- ongoing reorganization of Wikimedia, heated debates about the
non-profit's future
- 1,000 featured articles, ongoing experiments towards Wikipedia 0.5/1.0
- Wikimedia Commons becoming a gigantic archive of functional free
content (643,000 files, ~250 GB)
etc.

Erik


subject:
[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal
	Counsel

references:
<NMENLBGDKAFGBDHEPOBNOEGPDBAA.erikzachte@infodisiac.com>
	<448E32B7.1030107@wikia.com>
	<35be2a710606131952y712f204fk39477a186d6630a@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 6/14/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> How about a different point of view? Separated in concept, but united
> in practice.

I see it the other way around. For me, the key concept that has
enabled the success of Wikipedia is "within our goal (to create an
encyclopedia), maximize participation, transparency and
accountability". This means that we accept certain control mechanisms,
such as page protection and the notion of admins, as necessary to
protect the encyclopedia, at least until better solutions are found.

I believe Wikimedia would be well served by following the same
_principle_, using different _practices_ which are appropriate for an
organization (taking into account, for instance, the legal
requirements and risks an organization faces; certain tasks require
certain minimum qualifications, etc.). I also view this, in both
cases, as a never-ending _process_, rather than a permanent state. If
either Wikipedia or Wikimedia become static in their practices, it is
time to think about replacing them.

This same view is applicable to the other projects: what is an
appropriate practice for Wikipedia is not necessarily so for Wikinews
or Wiktionary. Again, within each project's defined mission, we should
seek to optimize the above key variables. This is what I call the
"wiki philosophy", and it is independent from any particular
implementation or scenario. This philsophy, I feel, is universal.

Erik


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 6/18/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Let me say it clearly for all of you. If you want to participate in
> legal membership in the Foundation, considering just how broadly we
> contemplate the concept of membership, you are effectively expressing a
> willingness for your name and address to become a public record. Any
> member can get a Florida attorney (Jack Thompson comes to mind) to
> represent them and ask for the membership records on their behalf. And I
> don't expect it will be possible to screen out in advance members you
> consider undesirable any more effectively than we can do so for project
> editors.
>
> Given how strongly attached some of the community is to privacy and
> anonymity, I don't know if that's a choice we want to be forcing on
> people. Certainly it's not a model we should adopt without making sure
> people have thought carefully about it.
>
No one is suggesting forcing anything on anyone.  In order to become a
foundation member, you would have to give your name and address.  You
don't have to be a foundation member in order to edit Wikipedia et.
al.

If this is such an issue, and I don't see why it should be, I'm sure
there are other states with more reasonable corporate laws.  Florida
is not a very popular state for corporations.  Even Wikia moved out of
Florida.  IIRC, oregon is usually recognized for very liberal
non-profit corporate laws.

> Various possibilities lie ahead. One is that we adopt legal membership
> with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. If this is done in
> the name of remaining "open", it's just as possible that in doing so
> we'd be departing from our openness toward those who value their
> privacy. Another possibility in the scenario is that depending on how
> membership is determined, including cost, we may find that relatively
> few people "join". At which point it becomes obvious that despite this
> effort, some people will choose to complain that the community is not
> represented in Foundation affairs, and it may seem that the entire
> exercise was valueless. It should also be observed that any definition
> of Foundation membership which is not coextensive with the community
> (and I don't see how gaps can be avoided) has the potential to
> factionalize people along the lines created by these fissures. A
> community divided over member vs. non-member, rich vs. poor, out vs.
> closeted, or other potential distinctions is certainly a possibility.
>
We are already divided between board member and non-board member.
Allowing people outside of the board to be members of the foundation
makes the gap smaller, not larger.

Anthony


from_name: Nan Desu-ka?

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
"The administrators are all volunteers, most of them in their 20's."

Did Hafner actually research the age of 51% of all administrators, or
is she just making things up here?

 -Nandesuka


body:
Now I see why my reply kept bouncing...  This was crossposted to
wikipedia-l and my client was trying to reply there.

On 6/17/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > The main arguments against a membership model last time around were that
> > it was too *limiting* in requiring a contribution, and too unclear in not
> > demanding that potential members opt in... are there other reasons not to
> > do this?
> >
> > SJ
> >
>
> I must confess this conversation has, to me, been completely bizarre.
> Membership organizations (open your wallet and see which of them you belong
> to) involve a quid pro quo - you give something, you get something.  You
> give dues, you get to "belong" and call yourself a member.  You attend a
> meeting of other members, maybe, and perhaps you are part of a particular
> local organization of that group.  Churches, civic organizations, soup
> kitchens, environmental groups, etc., all exist in this paradigm for good
> reason; they include as part of their fundamental mission a dichotomy
> between those who *are* in the group and those who *are not* in the group.
>
> Part of the worldwide appeal of Wikimedia projects is their egalitarianism
> and respect for the contributions of *everyone*.  There is no us and them -
> if you want to be a Wikimedian, you can be; you edit, you are.  It's simple,
> and only goes in one direction.  If you edit enough, you can vote for a
> person you want to see on the board.  Without money changing hands, you have
> the same representation you would under any other circumstances.  The
> Wikimedia you would see with stark membership requirements is a dark place
> indeed.  What happens to members who don't pay?  Are they prevented from
> editing?  If there is no meaningful distinction in categorization of either
> one or the other, what exactly is the point in the first place, except to
> give those who are interested and active another membership ID in their
> wallet - and this is the point - which confers no additional rights or
> privileges?
>
Let me give an example from my own experience, which hopefully will
make the concept less bizarre.  I used to be a volunteer firefighter.
I didn't carry any cards in my wallet, and I didn't pay any dues, but
I was a member of the Fire Association, a non-profit organization.

I wouldn't say there were any quid pro quos involved.  I volunteered
my time and efforts, and I got back the satisfaction of helping others
in my community.  The only real distinction as to who was in the group
and who was out of it was that the members had a say in the governance
of the organization.  We got to elect not just the directors, but the
officers, the fire chief, the deputy chief, etc., and we were eligible
to participate in the committees which did things such as proposed the
budgets, proposed modifications to the bylaws, organized the
fundraisers, etc.

I don't think I or many others would have voluntarily put on our
equipment and gone into a burning building on the say so of the fire
chief if he was chosen by a board of directors who was appointed by a
board of directors who was appointed by the guy who started the
organization.  Maybe if we were paid employees, but we weren't.

I'm not sure how that organization fits in to your explanation of
membership organizations, but it seems to differ in many of the same
ways that Wikimedia does.

> Those who are concerned about this kind of governance issue would be better
> served, I think, by focusing attention on board composition and expansion,
> as some have done.  Jimmy and the other board members are of an open mind as
> to what the future of the board will be, what it will/should/could look
> like, and there is a lot of discussion about all this.  We may disagree on
> various points for legitimate reasons, but I hope everyone agrees the
> conversation is healthy and beneficial to the organization.
>
> -Brad
>

My biggest concern with this is of the scope of the foundation.  Right
now the mission of the foundation is to create and distribute free
content.  However, the creation of the content is not done by the
foundation, it is done by the community.  To me it seems a usurpation
for the foundation to include in its jurisdiction the creation of the
content without giving us the creators a direct voice in the
management of the foundation.

So far the community has been largely self-governing.  Sure, office
actions come "down from above" from time to time, but these are
*mostly* concerning legal issues.  Regarding the legal issues I have
no problem with the foundation taking action on its own, in fact, I
prefer it.  But regarding the issues of content creation, the
community must be allowed to govern itself.

In my mind the most effective way to do that is to have the foundation
governed by its members, with an elected board with limited powers.
The current bylaws don't provide for that, but the new proposed bylaws
that Ant described are even further from that ideal.

The other alternative is to adopt a mission more like the FSF - "to
encourage, foster and promote" the creation and distribution of free
content.  Let the community govern itself, and provide the servers and
bandwidth (and printing presses and CD burners and whatever else is in
the future).

The third alternative is what I described to Ant earlier - "the
community will grow more and more distant [...] at some point there
will be a fork, and the foundation will lose everything but a couple
now-worthless trademarks."

Anthony


subject:
[Foundation-l] Dutch moderators destroy evidence of checkuser
	abuse

body:
I concur with Anthere's conclusion.  Thanks, henna, for the translation.

Kelly

On 6/18/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the translation Henna
>
> I do not think it is written anywhere that the tool should be used only
> in case of emergencies. Usually, the only reason for emergency reaction
> is that the logs are kept only for a limited amount of time.
>
> It is worth noting that the sockpuppets might have been created on
> purpose by a third party, in the intention of doing prejudice on Waerth.
> If that had been so, Waerth would have been more than happy if a
> checkuser had revealed he was not the sockpuppet holder.
>
> I do not see any abuse in what Walter did.
>
> Ant
>
> henna wrote:
> > I have tried to translate Walter van Kalken's email without
> > changingthe meaning of his words. I'm not a profesional translator, my
> > apologies for the less then nice flowing of the sentences from time to
> > time.
> >
> > Finne/henna
> >
> > On 6/15/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> >
> >>Have it translated by your favourite Dutch person:
> >
> >
> >>==De moderatoren vernietigen het bewijs van hun machtsmisbruik==
> >
> > ==Admins destroy proof of their abuse of power==
> >
> >
> >>Dit haalde [[Gebruiker:Dolledre]] zojuist uit de kroeg,
> >
> > [[User:Dolledre]] removed this a short while ago from the village pump
> >
> >
> >>het bewijs dat men oneigenlijke middelen gebruikt en de privacy van
> >>gebruikers ten grabbel gooit:
> >
> > the proof that tools are used inapropriatly and the privacy of users
> > is disrespected
> >
> >
> >>=== Misbruikmaken chekuser en inbreuk op de privacy ===
> >
> > ===Abuse checkuser and invasion of privacy===
> >
> >>Zojuist heeft [[gebruiker:Walter]] gebruik gemaakt van de tool checkuser.
> >
> > [[User:Walter]] has just used the tool checkuser
> >
> >
> >>Dit is een tool die ter beschikking staat aan de stewards en slechts in een
> >>uiterst noodgeval gebruikt mag worden.
> >
> > This is a tool available to stewards and should only used in emergencies
> >
> >
> >>Namelijk als iemand erg vandalisme pleegt om zijn IP op te kunnen sporen.
> >
> > Namely, when one vandalises to be able to retrieve someones IP
> >
> >
> >>Dit deed ik niet en toch heeft Walter checkuser gebruikt.
> >
> > I did not do this and still Walter used checkuser.
> >
> >
> >>Tegen alle richtlijnen daaromtrent in.
> >
> > Against all directives concerning this
> >
> >
> >>Hoe weet ik dat Walter dit deed?
> >
> > How do I know that Walter did this?
> >
> >
> >>Heel eenvoudig hij blokkeerde zojuist het IPadres waaronder ik werkte.
> >
> > Very simple, he blocked my IPadress
> >
> >
> >>Dat kan hij alleen geweten hebben als hij checkuser gebruikte.
> >
> > He can only have known this when he used checkuser
> >
> >
> >>Niet alleen is dit een schending van onze privacyregels.
> >
> > Not only is this an invasion of our privacy
> >
> >
> >>Maar ook nog eens een schending van het feit dat dit alleen in een noodgeval gebruikt mag worden.
> >
> > But it is also an infraction on the fact that this can only be used in
> > emergencies
> >
> >
> >>En dan alleen nog als er meerdere mensen mee instemmen
> >
> > And even then only when other people approve
> >
> >
> >>Daarnaast stuurde Walter mij ook nog eens een dreigemail vandaag dat ik
> >>voor altijd geblokkeerd ga worden en dat hij mij alleen
> >>''kan redden''als ik braaf > ben en allen als waerth edit.
> >
> > Apart from that, Walter send me a threatening email that I will be
> > blocked indefinitly and that he "can save" me only if i'm good and
> > only edit as Waerth
> >
> >
> >>Tja als dat editten me onmogelijk wordt gemaakt .......
> >
> > Tja, if this editting is made impossible for me
> >
> >
> >>Dit is:
> >
> > This is:
> >
> >
> >>A) Schending van iemands privacy ... er is een reden dat men onder een
> >>naam edit.
> >
> > A) Invasion of privacy, there's a reason people use names to edit
> >
> >
> >>B) Bedreiging
> >
> > B) Threath
> >
> >
> >>C) Oneigenlijk gebruik van machtsmiddelen.
> >
> > C) Inapropriate use of tools
> >
> >
> >>Ik vraag [[Gebruiker:Walter]] zelf de conclusie te verbinden aan deze 3 zeer > ernstige feiten!
> >
> > I ask [[User:Walter]] to draw his own conclusions
> >
> >
> >>WAERTH (die zijn computer opnieuw op heeft moeten starten)
> >
> > Waerth (who had to reboot his computer)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

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

Jon Awbrey stated for the record:

> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> first post.
>
> after six months in WP I am totally fed up.
>
> it is no longer worth the headache trying to
> write quality articles or to improve articles
> in this ennvironment.

Perhaps we can get straight to the point:

What do you hope to accomplish by repeating the standard Mk.1
Disgruntled User Rant, modified only by the Gratuitous Use of Fatuous
Initialisms (GUFI)?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | You non-conformists are all alike.
 sean at epoptic.com |
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from_name: Jon Awbrey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

post 2.

incorporating responses to:

CM = Charles Matthews

CM:  Yes, editing WP doesn't suit everybody.
And it is possible to leave, without feeling
a need to blacken its reputation.

the resistance to facing unpleasant realities is perfectly human
and thorougly understandable, but real situations do not improve
unless people squarely face the gap between ideals and realities.
i am not such a newbie on planet earth that i have not faced
constant disappointment and near-utter discouragement on
a recurring basis, and i have survived long enough on
planet earth to know that there is nothing for it,
when the transient pain has passed, but to salvage
what lessons can be learned from the experience.

so, yes, it will be necessary in this parting feedback
to recount a number of negative turns of events that
i have experienced during my sojourn in wikipedia.
but the purpose of examining these incidentals
is to find some means of learning from them.

when CM says "editing WP doesn't suit everybody"
does he mean WP the ideal, the ideals of WP,
as set forth in its policies and guidelines,
or does he mean WP the reality, its de facto
way of operating in reality?

that is the question.

jon awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity and Wikibooks

body:
Jon wrote:

>I was interested to see Cormac ask us what we thought of the latest Wikiversity proposal.
>
>I confess I still, after all this time, am unsure what it is: the name suggests that it is meant
>to be for wiki-based university-level learning, but I don't think that's right. And if it's not
>right, at the very least a new name would be advisable.
>
>I would also like to question the relationship between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as it really
>is time for the separate Wikiversity project to leave Wikibooks module namespace behind -
>I believe that would leave Wikibooks with the Wikiversity textbooks, which it would then
>be able to integrate into its own systems and categorisations. Any Wikiversity project
>pages could be moved to the Wikibooks namespace - although MetaWiki or the incubator
>would seem to be better places.
>
>I think this move is important. As some of you will be aware, I see the future of Wikibooks
>as having a strong core set of textbooks suitable for school exams surrounded by many
>other good textbooks for other types of studying. I am splitting these up into the following
>(and bear in mind that a textbook may fall within none or more than one of these):
>Wikijunior (for textbooks for 8 to 12 year olds)
>Wikistudy (for textbooks for exams typically first sat at ages 15 to 19)
>Wikiversity (or Wikiuniversity) (for university-level learning)
>Wikiprofessional (for textbooks for professionals)
>Wikilearn (for textbooks for adult learning)
>Wikids (if we ever have books for under 8s)
>These categorisations would, of course, sit alongside the current "by subject" style bookshelves.
>
>Constructive comments would, as ever, be welcome.
>
>Kind regards
>
>Jon
>
>
One of the suggestions I have made is that when the time comes for
Wikiversity to be "seperated" from Wikibooks, that Wikiversity simply
duplicate the Wikibooks database and let the editors on Wikiversity have
a fun time culling the Wikibooks-only content, with of course moving the
"Wikiversity" page to "Main Page" and some other minor housecleaning
items.  It might even be worth while to simply copy the user database as
well in this situation, and have a steward simply desysop and sysop the
new admins/bureaucrats for Wikibooks.

This also shows some of the problem in trying to understand the
relationship between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as the content between
the two projects has been intertwined so deep between the two projects
that it is very difficult to establish just what is the relationship
between the two at the moment.  This is something that both the
Wikiversity and Wikibooks communities need to come to an understanding.

Also, as this post by Jon suggests, Wikiversity is many things to many
people.  In reviewing the comments made during the voting period for
Wikiversity, I have come to a conclusion that almost every person who
participated, including both those who supported as well as those who
opposed Wikiversity, have a very different opinion as to what
Wikiversity really is or ought to be.  And I'm not alone, nor is Jon
obviously without opinion on this as well.  I have a very different view
as to what Wikiversity can be, and this is something very non-textbook
or even non-book.  The current proposal for Wikiversity is indeed that,
where Wikiversity would be primarily syllibi, non-textbook teaching
materials, educational standards, and link to some on-line "courses",
including guided learning exercises as well as IRC chatrooms for some
direct interaction between "students" and "teachers" of the subject.
 Doing this blows the above Wikiversity proposal completely out of the
water, as it could not possibly be a major organizational subdivision of
Wikibooks.  It also goes far outside of even being just textbooks, and
even encourages in some regards "original research" that would not
normally be considered acceptable on Wikibooks.  I would be strongly
opposed to moving Wikiversity "projects" to Meta for many reasons (Meta
doesn't want them to start with), and there is no point in adding them
to the current incubator wiki as it doesn't even seem as if
non-Wikipedia content is going to be permitted there right now.

As far as a classification of Wikibooks content that is more age related
as opposed to topical, I have no problem with that as a general
alternative classification system that would be equal to the bookshelves
system or things like Dewey Decimal classification.  This is just
another way to try and find a book that you might want to read.

There are some important differences, however, between books written
intentionally for 8 year olds and a sort of style that has been
developed with Wikijunior.  I don't think the straightjacket of what has
become Wikijunior and what somebody could do for a younger audience.  A
straightjacket in this case isn't the worst thing in the world, as it
does give structure and consistancy for a set of topics, and an
organizational standard.  Also, Wikijunior also faces some additional
legal issues as there is grant money (supposedly) for doing publishing
of Wikijunior content that is not generally available for the rest of
Wikibooks.  Indeed, Wikijunior has been largely operating as an
independent Wikimedia sister project anyway for some time, with its own
page on Meta, and even links on some Wikimedia pages indicating
Wikijunior to be a full sister project.  To "demote" Wikijunior as
merely another bookshelf is not really understanding what is going on
with Wikijunior, and ignoring the substantial body of discussion about
what it has been and what it could be.  Try out
http://www.wikijunior.org/ to see that this is not completely without
merit that Wikijunior is considered a sister project.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
That's what's so hard.

My plan has been to have a protected mainspace and editable drafts that
weren't obvious to the public eye, but that was denounced as unwiki. Having
a freely-editable website, however, introduces us to extreme liability and
would make Jimmy Wales's head explode if it were to happen.

What we need is a middle ground -- one that's not awfully anti-wiki but
should keep us pretty safe.

On 6/18/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, June 18, 2006 05:55, Kelly Martin wrote:
> > That seems like a fundamentally bad idea from the get-go.  Wikimedia
> > is probably not the best entity to sponsor the creation of the
> > emergency medical hologram.
>
> Can I give an even simpler warning/worry?
>
> At the moment we have students complaining that they were marked down in
> essays for getting things wrong, and their response is "But it must be
> true - I found it on Wikipedia!"
>
> What happens when someone reads something on WikiMed - the medical
> information that anyone can edit - (or whatever it gets called) and finds
> that what they read wasn't accurate and someone is injured, maimed, or
> even dies? Don't say it won't ever happen, in some countries people sue
> because their coffee is too hot. It will. There are plenty of medical info
> sites out there, but they don't permit drive-by editors. Us doing so would
> be a very dangerous step away from behaving in a legally and medically
> responsible way, imho.
>
> Which is a pity, as otherwise I liked the idea as being a way to find the
> info without being 'attacked' by so many adverts!
>
> Alison Wheeler
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


subject: [Textbook-l] Rewrite of Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks

body:
John Pozniak wrote:

>I have for a long time espoused the idea that once a book reaches a certain size, it should be given more and more autonomy. This includes creating its own policies, its own manual of style, its own naming conventions, and even overall control on its own content.
>
>John (gentgeen)
>
>

I generally agree with this sentiment, and have been particularly
annoyed when a VfD was posted about a particular module, such as recipes
from the Cookbook or the "What is gravity" module of Wikijunior Solar
System.  I have never seen these modules properly resolved in the VfD
forum, and instead is mainly is a place to roll the fight out and aire
dirty laundry.  More akin to a barroom brawl that runs onto the street
and into neighboring businesses.  It is never pretty, and the feelings
are usually so charged and divided by the time it gets to the VfD page
that the issue doesn't really get resolved.  A plea for a neutral
moderator to come into the discussion might be in order from time to
time, but in that case a direct plea to an admin would be more
reasonable, or a quick note on the Staff Lounge.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 17 Jun 2006 at 20:36, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> That said, I found it quite interesting how Larry Sanger is now lost
> from the official narrative of the creation of Wikipedia. History
> belongs to the victors, I suppose. Although I became one of his most
> active critics during his tenure, he does not deserve to become a
> footnote, or worse, forgotten.

This is ironic, given that Wikipedia is often a place where true
histories of things are given a fair presentation, even where they
differ from the "official corporate history".  See [[Monopoly
(game)]] (not really invented by Charles Darrow), [[McDonald's]] (not
really started by Ray Kroc), and the decades-long battle between
[[Skippy peanut butter]] and [[Skippy (comic strip)]] (ignored in the
corporate history).

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [Foundation-l] Sitenotice use for Wikimania

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

>As announced earlier, the Communications committee is coordinating the
>use of the site-wide notices on Wikimedia Foundation sites. Right now,
>we need to call attention to Wikimania and encourage people to register,
>so starting sometime tomorrow we will be putting up a brief project-wide
>notice about this. We expect the notice to run for about a week.
>
>When this use of the site notice ends it should be blanked again (except
>for any separate notices to anonymous users being used for fundraising).
>We don't want these to be overused, so an extended silent period for the
>site notice should follow. After that, the next use will probably be for
>the fundraiser, assuming that committee is organized and a date settled on.
>
>--Michael Snow
>
>
Does this mean that project admins can't use the site-wide notices for
internal use, such as major policy changes or bureaucrat elections?  I
fail to see why (provided that other admins are in agreement that the
notice should go up) a project like ru.wikibooks needs to get special
permission from the WMF in order to use this function.

Yes, they shouldn't be overused, but at the same time this is something
that can and should be under local project control.

Widespread notices on mulitple sites is something that perhaps should
get WMF coordination, but that is another issue entirely.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
On Sun, June 18, 2006 05:55, Kelly Martin wrote:
> That seems like a fundamentally bad idea from the get-go.  Wikimedia
> is probably not the best entity to sponsor the creation of the
> emergency medical hologram.

Can I give an even simpler warning/worry?

At the moment we have students complaining that they were marked down in
essays for getting things wrong, and their response is "But it must be
true - I found it on Wikipedia!"

What happens when someone reads something on WikiMed - the medical
information that anyone can edit - (or whatever it gets called) and finds
that what they read wasn't accurate and someone is injured, maimed, or
even dies? Don't say it won't ever happen, in some countries people sue
because their coffee is too hot. It will. There are plenty of medical info
sites out there, but they don't permit drive-by editors. Us doing so would
be a very dangerous step away from behaving in a legally and medically
responsible way, imho.

Which is a pity, as otherwise I liked the idea as being a way to find the
info without being 'attacked' by so many adverts!

Alison Wheeler


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> >As announced earlier, the Communications committee
> is coordinating the
> >use of the site-wide notices on Wikimedia
> Foundation sites. Right now,
> >we need to call attention to Wikimania and
> encourage people to register,
> >so starting sometime tomorrow we will be putting up
> a brief project-wide
> >notice about this. We expect the notice to run for
> about a week.
> >
> >When this use of the site notice ends it should be
> blanked again (except
> >for any separate notices to anonymous users being
> used for fundraising).
> >We don't want these to be overused, so an extended
> silent period for the
> >site notice should follow. After that, the next use
> will probably be for
> >the fundraiser, assuming that committee is
> organized and a date settled on.
> >
> >--Michael Snow
> >
> >
> Does this mean that project admins can't use the
> site-wide notices for
> internal use, such as major policy changes or
> bureaucrat elections?  I
> fail to see why (provided that other admins are in
> agreement that the
> notice should go up) a project like ru.wikibooks
> needs to get special
> permission from the WMF in order to use this
> function.

I know Wikisource has done this for various messages
of short duration.  Any admin can edit the Site notice
for the subdomain without needing specail permission.
It is not really a global notice technically speaking.
 The history at en.WS shows despite the Fund drive
officially ending Jan 5, the progress bar remained on
the site notice till a local admin removed it on Jan
12.  Since then it has been used to advertise a few
important votes and alert people of multi-step bot
maintaince activity that they might have "corrected"
if unaware.  I would like to know if there is a real
overuse of this feature anywhere or just a
hypothectical concern.  Not that concern is a bad
thing, we should certainly discuss some best practices
with regards to using this.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
"Jon Awbrey" wrote

> it is my impression from my acquaintances that more and more responsible
> scholars who buy
> into the ideals of WP in the beginning quickly find themselves disamyed by
> the realities,
> and just go way quietly after a short while of seeing their efforts go to
> waste here.

Yes, editing WP doesn't suit everybody.  And it is possible to leave,
without feeling  a need to blacken its reputation.

Charles


from_name: geni

body:
On 6/17/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:
> Consider the process of becoming an administrator:
> You simply need a lot of people vouching for you,
> and other people will follow the lead. People
> who you have fought in edit wars will seldomly vouch
> for you, but instead call against this. This could
> be described as "negative" XP. So a good strategy
> (for becoming an administrator) may be to keep out of
> controversial articles and instead make many small
> and large improvements to various articles while
> building up this social network. People don't become
> sysop or anything for quality work, but for networking.
>

Not really. They become an admin for being around for a while and not
doing anything people regard as a significant negative.

> Of course trying to display the administrative
> System as a single faction would be false. It is much
> more cliquish, but every admin has his network.
> Once gained adminship, one is relatively free to
> abuse people at controversial articles - regardless
> of scholastic merit, since there is the clique to
> protect him and decry anyone attacking him.
>

Considering the number of admins I've blocked at various times that
seems unlikely.

> Consider barnstars - by themselves a nice gesture
> and so on, it can be interpreted as scratching each
> other's back, making each other look more well respected.
> This concept of "Wikilove" has become increasingly creepy
> to me over the years, to be honest.

Nothing saying you have to have barnstars on your userpage. I don't.

> Eventually the
> administrators turn out to be an old boys network
> scratching each other's backs every opportunity by
> inflating each other's apparent XPs.

Considering the average age of wikipedians that seems unlikely

> Compared to these XP, "being a great writer" or
> "being a good scholar" regarding a topic completely fade
> when it comes to a content dispute.

False. You do however have to demostrate these abilities and go on
demonstrateing them every day.

--
geni


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Wildrick Steele wrote:
> On 15/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Possible solution (if it's absolutely critical that color and colour
>>both have top level non-redirected articles): Put all the content in
>>{{colr}} and transclude it. If you include a heading near the top and
>>people use section editing, they won't even know!
>
> Reasons include that [[color]] contains, or at least should contain,
> different etymologies, pronunciations, derived terms, related terms, etc.
> than [[colour]]. Another argument is that [[color]] also lists the Latin,
> Spanish, etc. words, which [[colour]] doesn't of course.

Hmm, that does rather ruin the redirect idea.  Silly of me not to figure
that out myself.  (Of course, I don't really find the Wiktionary
approach of putting homographs -- in different languages, even -- on the
same page very useful, but I'm not going to try changing _that_.)

The template approach proposed by Steve could still work, though.  One
could have both [[color]] and [[colour]] transclude {{en-color-colour}}.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
In a message dated 6/18/2006 8:03:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Anthere9 at yahoo.com writes:

I think  that it would be interesting that all current candidates
actually *give*  their opinion publicly on what they consider is
membership, on how  membership should be taken into account and which
type of organisation  they envision would be best for the Foundation.

Actually, there are no "current candidates" because there is no election
underway. This is very premature. Also, there are plenty of non-candidates who
would want to have a say in this. Why limit it?

Danny


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> As announced earlier, the Communications committee is coordinating
>> the use of the site-wide notices on Wikimedia Foundation sites. Right
>> now, we need to call attention to Wikimania and encourage people to
>> register, so starting sometime tomorrow we will be putting up a brief
>> project-wide notice about this. We expect the notice to run for about
>> a week.
>>
>> When this use of the site notice ends it should be blanked again
>> (except for any separate notices to anonymous users being used for
>> fundraising). We don't want these to be overused, so an extended
>> silent period for the site notice should follow. After that, the next
>> use will probably be for the fundraiser, assuming that committee is
>> organized and a date settled on.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>
> Does this mean that project admins can't use the site-wide notices for
> internal use, such as major policy changes or bureaucrat elections?  I
> fail to see why (provided that other admins are in agreement that the
> notice should go up) a project like ru.wikibooks needs to get special
> permission from the WMF in order to use this function.
>
> Yes, they shouldn't be overused, but at the same time this is
> something that can and should be under local project control.
> Widespread notices on mulitple sites is something that perhaps should
> get WMF coordination, but that is another issue entirely.

I should clarify what I meant, sorry about the confusion. We're
coordinating the use of site notices for Foundation business that
affects all projects, and my intent was to inform people of our plans
for such use. We are not taking away the ability of individual projects
to use the site notice for local business that affects only that
project. As a general matter, I don't think such uses need to receive
clearance on a Foundation level, although I hope that if anyone
anticipates conflicts with our planned uses, they would let us know so
we can resolve that.

Site notices should not be overused, so I do think silent periods are
important. However, if between this Wikimania announcement and the next
fundraiser, a project has a major announcement that requires use of a
site notice, I didn't intend to imply that this was prohibited.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/18/06, Nan Desu-ka? <wikidesuka at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The administrators are all volunteers, most of them in their 20's."
>
> Did Hafner actually research the age of 51% of all administrators, or
> is she just making things up here?
>
>  -Nandesuka

It is a reasonable guess although once you factor in all those below
20 the number of admins in thier 20s may well fall below 50%

--
geni


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
So is every single edit going to be researched? If I were to come in
switch a dosage of some medicine from 10mg to 100mg, throw up a junk
source to WebMD, is someone who might not intricately know the
specific medications going to go to each source and check even the
most minor of edits?

Don't take this as huge criticism, I am just looking for fundamental
flaws.  Thanks.
--LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


body:
On 6/18/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:04:20 +0200
> Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I assume you are referring to this?
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Dabljuh
> > Which is interesting reading.
> >
> > Garion
>
>
> And that is exactly what I am talking about. You reduce the argument
> to "who" is talking, not on the argument itself. This sort of ad hominem
> is not just typical, it is downright the "Wikipedia" way of
> thinking these days.

Maybe, but when someone I never saw before on the mailing list (or I forgot)
does a long e-mail like this on the mailing list. And when that user very
recently had a RFAR filed against him and is now banned indefinitely. It's
very hard to take that user or the e-mail seriously. Especially when you
read the case and see the diffs. That btw has got nothng to do with
editcount.

Garion


body:
On 6/18/06, listspam at cretin.net <listspam at cretin.net> wrote:
> Sure, but the more important issue is deletions desired by the
> contributors of larger books. For the cookbook this is especially
> important; we get lots of piecemeal, unfinished or downright bad
> contributions by more people than any other book. We shouldn't need a
> full scale VFD for each module we want to do away with and yet marking
> these modules as speedies raises objections from admins who see
> potentially usable content. There needs to be a greater degree of trust
> in the major contributors to decide what is not appropriate for their
> book.

Okay, then let's make another template for speedies within the
cookbook namespace.  Make it a be subcategory of the regular speedies.
Then, if it is a regular author of the cookbook, we will be more
liberal in deletion.  (Is there some page where regular cookbook
authors are listed? Sorry, it's been awhile since I checked out the
cookbook.)  I dunno, just throwing out an idea.
--LV


from_name: Kim Bruning

in_reply_to:
<4491D564.9040409@vankalken.net>;
	from walter@vankalken.net on Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:16AM +0700

body:
On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:16AM +0700, Walter van Kalken wrote:
> Have it translated by your favourite Dutch person:
> === Misbruikmaken chekuser en inbreuk op de privacy ===
>
> Zojuist heeft [[gebruiker:Walter]] gebruik gemaakt van de tool
> checkuser.

Yes, checkuser is a tool to find sockpuppets and people avoiding
blocks and bans. You were caught.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
Let's assume we're going to go with the editable-drafts-protected-mainspace
plan.

If I were checking the edits of a page, I would do each individual edit at a
time. I'd take a look at the addition to the page, check out the source they
supplied, and make sure that the source and the edit say the same thing. If
the source doesn't justify the addition, the addition is removed. If there
are no sources, it's removed, no questions asked. If the source justifies
the edit, it gets approved and added to the mainspace version. It wouldn't
be that hard: all you have to do is go to the source listed and make sure
that it all checks out. If it's hard to tell, then it's best to withhold the
information and contact the editor. Ideally, once an edit is made to a
draft, an administrator should take a look at the individual edit and check
it. For that reason, it'd be good to make sure there's a good proportion of
administrators to regular users to expedite the process.

Alternatively, we could create a new level of users that would be capable of
editing the main space: they could receive this status if they have a good
history of editing. This set of users wouldn't even have to make their own
edits on the drafts; they could simply edit the main space version (but once
they mess up, they'd better be ready to fix it and apologize). The benefit
of this middle-point between administrators and regular users is that if
they're trusted to make useful edits, but not necessarily trusted with admin
tools, they can receive this status.

To answer your question, Lord Voldemort, the accuracy on the wiki (that is,
the main space, as opposed to the drafts) depends on how dedicated the
administrator is. Or the slightly-elevated user, if we implement that
system. If we wisely appoint these people, we won't be disappointed. I'm
sure we have people motivated to work on such a daring endeavor. I know I
am.

On 6/18/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So is every single edit going to be researched? If I were to come in
> switch a dosage of some medicine from 10mg to 100mg, throw up a junk
> source to WebMD, is someone who might not intricately know the
> specific medications going to go to each source and check even the
> most minor of edits?
>
> Don't take this as huge criticism, I am just looking for fundamental
> flaws.  Thanks.
> --LV
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians