from_name: Servien Ilaino

body:
Hi Boris,

You I figured that it should have been both...

The spelling is actually based on the spelling used some decades ago
when LS used to be an official language of the regions (in 1500) it
was created by Ron ("Reinhard Hahn") as far as I know and later there
were many changes in the spelling which made it impossible to actually
stick to using that writing system. Like for ex. ey changed to ei, and
changed back to ey, uu changed to oe and then again back to uu, (die
Deutsche u-kl?nge)...

The y's were initially used to make it look more "trendy and hip" but
people who used it said it looked too much like
(Westlauwers-)Frisian... the v's are probably used because in Dutch
the f and the v are pronounced the same and where used as a compromise
so that it wouldn't look too much like German.

The future tense in "br??n w?rden" is the same as in Dutch: "bruin
worden" but it seems to me that both languages are completely
different. Twents would most probably be the closest you'd ever get to
GLS.

Servien

P.S. can't complain about our neighbours, sie sind gute Leute! ;-)
(only some OLD people still don't, but as we say in DLS that's just:
"ouwe koeien uut de sloot haolen" [taking old cows out of the ditch]
{bringing up old and irrelevant stories.})

2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
>
> corrigendum: in my third sentence "but" should be "both"
>
> wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 17:50:54:
>
>
> Hi Servien!
>
> Thanks for informing me about that. I must admit, I've never heard or read about ANS. So, like the name suggests that's supposed to work in but countries? A good idea for sure. However (and that's a big however), as far as I can tell noboby in Germany ever writes that way. Just have a look a websites from Germany written in nds. You won't ever find all those y's and v's there. Neither in Plattd??tsch literature you can find in book stores in Northern Germany. While that ANS spelling system might be a good thing in theory, I think you just couldn't re-educate thousands of people in order to have one single nds Wikipedia. But I guess I don't have to convince _you_ anyway.
>
> Thanks for the sample phrase. Here's my try:
>
> "Wenn <or "As"> en Minsch nich faken noog ruut <"na buten" would also work> k?mmt ward he ook nich <equivalent for "h?yl" would be "heel" but is usually not used here> bruun <future tense "w?yrden" also omitted here> s?nnern blievt witt. <Note: I can`t really think of a word for "pale" now - you could possibly take "bleek" (without "witt" in that case) but I'm not 100% sure here>
>
> Even though I have tried to stick to your wording as closely as possible, I think the differences are quite tremendous here. They go far beyond spelling. What was most striking to me was the use of the future tense in your sample phrase. The Plattd??tsch I know just doesn't have that - just like in spoken High German where that tense is not used either. But also the word "mer" (that's like "maar" in Dutch, isn't it?) wouldn`t be understood by readers in Germany. Other differences are less severe, of course. E. g. "genog" instead of "noog" would surely be understood, especially since we have "genug" in German. But take "kump" (do you speak an "?" or an "u" there?) for "k?mmt" for example or even "ie/y" instead of "he". If the decision about a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia were in my hands and I had to make that decision solely based on this one example - I would most definately create it! Not because I want to separate Dutch and German wikipedians - it's the 21st century and thank God we're good neighbours - but only of the language facts.
>
> Boris
>
> Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 15:33:43:
>
> Hi Boris,
>
> The orthography used in that text seems to me is de Algemeyne
> Neddersassische Schryvwys'... I also used to use it, but people don't
> seem to understand it quite as well in the Netherlands and Germany, I
> must honestly say I understand the ANS writing system way better then
> the one you used at the bottom (of course there are words which are
> completely unknown to me...)
>
> Here is a sample of DLS in ANS writing system:
> As 'n mins ny vaak genog buyten kump sal y ok ny h?yl bruyn w?yrden
> mer sal y spyrwit blyven.
>
> And here in the traditional one:
> As 'n mins nie vaok genog buut'n kump zal ie ok nie heul bruun wurd'n
> mer zal ie spierwit bliev'n/blyv'n.
>
> This is the one I use:
> As 'n mins nie vaok genog buten kump sal ie ok nie heul bruun wurden
> mer sal ie spierwit blyven. (it's a mixture of the traditional one and
> a little from ANS, I don't use the apostrophes because like in the
> word blyv'n is pronounced as "bliem" and this is confusing because
> bak'n [bake] is also pronounced differently like "bakng".)
>
> (Translation of the text:
> If a person doesn't go outside much then he won't have a tanned look,
> but will be pale white.)
>
> Servien
>
> 2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
> >
> > > Ahh wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which is "based on Missingsch.
> >
> > Ok "Patentplatt" or "Fernsehplatt" (TV Platt) as it is called sometimes - that really seems to happen. I think that word is less misleading. Of course, different people will have different views on what is unique and what is not. Languages like German or French have had established unified standards for centuries, so there is hardly ever any doubt what's linguistically correct or not at de: or fr:. Obviously, at nds: you don`t have that degree of unambiguousness. I would really appreciate any efforts to improve the linguistic quality of the Low Saxon Wikipedia. After all, it is still at an early stage. Unfortunetaly, I can't really help here for, being a native in High German, I'd probably only worsen the problem of "Patentplatt".
> >
> >
> > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> >
> > Where does that come from? The vocabulary is mostly alright. But the spelling looks awfully articifial to me. Never before have I seen anyone using "y" in written Platt. And why should you write "v" when you say "f". Just too make look "less German"? Also, the diphtong "ou" might somehow reflect the pronounciation but is certainly not usually used in Northern Germany. And why should one want to use "kk" instead of "ck"? Just because it's written that way in the Netherlands?? And why is there an apostrophe in " Elv' "? Just because the word is "Elbe" in High German. Complete nonsense, in my humble opinion. I don't want to comment comment on the "real Platt" word "kuntray" but the "I" at the beginning of the last sentence is either Bavarian or English but surely not Platt.
> >
> > Coming from the "?nner-Elv'" myself, let me try it:
> >
> > Liek so kannst dat in'n poor Dialekten vun de ?nnerelv (in Hamborg un ?mto) ook seggen. "Wat" kann dor in d?sse/s?kse F?llen liek as "dat" un "de" bruken. Ick/Ik do dat ook faken, man tomeest wenn ick/ik snack.
> >
> > Hmm...
> >
> > Boris
> >
> > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 08:34:13:
> >
> > Hi Boris,
> >
> > I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
> > people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
> > Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
> > wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
> > is "based on Missingsch".
> >
> > Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
> > actually ken the leid.
> > (It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"
> >
> > "It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> > WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
> > they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
> > "Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
> > German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
> > but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
> > the grammar and the authentic idiom."
> >
> > Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
> > would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
> > and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
> > only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
> > German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."
> >
> > This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
> > difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
> > just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
> > welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.
> >
> > Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
> > the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.
> >
> > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> >
> > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
> > kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
> > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> >
> > Hmm...
> >
> > Best
> > Mark
> >
> > On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Mark!
> > >
> > > I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
> > >
> > > I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.
> > >
> > > Boris
> > >
> > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.07.05 01:38:06:
> > >
> > > Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on
> > > ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real
> > > nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have
> > > personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about
> > > nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but
> > > rather a "contact variety".
> > >
> > > Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this
> > > huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the
> > > fact that it's written in Missingsch.
> > >
> > > Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start
> > > real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________________
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> > > Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
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> > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Password reminder from Wikipedia

body:
On 05/07/05, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> 1. does the alt. password that was sent to you stay active indefinately
> as well?

If I remember the gist of the code right, then yes, it probably does.
Glancing at the code, I think it gets deleted from the DB when you
next change your password.

> 2. If so isn't that a huge security risk?

Not really - it's no easier to guess than your "real" one (probably
harder, unless you're paranoid enough to use properly pseudo-random
strings rather than something vaguely word or number like), and only
you ever knew it.

Since exactly one random password + one "real" password can be active
at any time, it's equivalent to halving the odds of picking the right
one randomly. Sounds scary, until you consider that half of several
billion (?) possibilities is still several billion possibilities. I
don't know what the odds actually are, but human predictability
reduces the search space by far more than having 2 valid passwords
ever could. [And as I say, the generated password is likely in that
part of the search space that crackers would leave till last, as it's
more likely the user will have chosen something at least vaguely
predictable].

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Hi,

Question:
Maybe the name nds-nl.wikipedia is kind of long and suggests it would
only be for the Netherlands while it's for everyone who would
understand the DLS writing form better. Would it be better to use
ns.wikipedia or nsk.wikipedia? (abbreviation for Nedersaksisch)

Servien

2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
>
> corrigendum: in my third sentence "but" should be "both"
>
> wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 17:50:54:
>
>
> Hi Servien!
>
> Thanks for informing me about that. I must admit, I've never heard or read about ANS. So, like the name suggests that's supposed to work in but countries? A good idea for sure. However (and that's a big however), as far as I can tell noboby in Germany ever writes that way. Just have a look a websites from Germany written in nds. You won't ever find all those y's and v's there. Neither in Plattd??tsch literature you can find in book stores in Northern Germany. While that ANS spelling system might be a good thing in theory, I think you just couldn't re-educate thousands of people in order to have one single nds Wikipedia. But I guess I don't have to convince _you_ anyway.
>
> Thanks for the sample phrase. Here's my try:
>
> "Wenn <or "As"> en Minsch nich faken noog ruut <"na buten" would also work> k?mmt ward he ook nich <equivalent for "h?yl" would be "heel" but is usually not used here> bruun <future tense "w?yrden" also omitted here> s?nnern blievt witt. <Note: I can`t really think of a word for "pale" now - you could possibly take "bleek" (without "witt" in that case) but I'm not 100% sure here>
>
> Even though I have tried to stick to your wording as closely as possible, I think the differences are quite tremendous here. They go far beyond spelling. What was most striking to me was the use of the future tense in your sample phrase. The Plattd??tsch I know just doesn't have that - just like in spoken High German where that tense is not used either. But also the word "mer" (that's like "maar" in Dutch, isn't it?) wouldn`t be understood by readers in Germany. Other differences are less severe, of course. E. g. "genog" instead of "noog" would surely be understood, especially since we have "genug" in German. But take "kump" (do you speak an "?" or an "u" there?) for "k?mmt" for example or even "ie/y" instead of "he". If the decision about a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia were in my hands and I had to make that decision solely based on this one example - I would most definately create it! Not because I want to separate Dutch and German wikipedians - it's the 21st century and thank God we're good neighbours - but only of the language facts.
>
> Boris
>
> Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 15:33:43:
>
> Hi Boris,
>
> The orthography used in that text seems to me is de Algemeyne
> Neddersassische Schryvwys'... I also used to use it, but people don't
> seem to understand it quite as well in the Netherlands and Germany, I
> must honestly say I understand the ANS writing system way better then
> the one you used at the bottom (of course there are words which are
> completely unknown to me...)
>
> Here is a sample of DLS in ANS writing system:
> As 'n mins ny vaak genog buyten kump sal y ok ny h?yl bruyn w?yrden
> mer sal y spyrwit blyven.
>
> And here in the traditional one:
> As 'n mins nie vaok genog buut'n kump zal ie ok nie heul bruun wurd'n
> mer zal ie spierwit bliev'n/blyv'n.
>
> This is the one I use:
> As 'n mins nie vaok genog buten kump sal ie ok nie heul bruun wurden
> mer sal ie spierwit blyven. (it's a mixture of the traditional one and
> a little from ANS, I don't use the apostrophes because like in the
> word blyv'n is pronounced as "bliem" and this is confusing because
> bak'n [bake] is also pronounced differently like "bakng".)
>
> (Translation of the text:
> If a person doesn't go outside much then he won't have a tanned look,
> but will be pale white.)
>
> Servien
>
> 2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
> >
> > > Ahh wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which is "based on Missingsch.
> >
> > Ok "Patentplatt" or "Fernsehplatt" (TV Platt) as it is called sometimes - that really seems to happen. I think that word is less misleading. Of course, different people will have different views on what is unique and what is not. Languages like German or French have had established unified standards for centuries, so there is hardly ever any doubt what's linguistically correct or not at de: or fr:. Obviously, at nds: you don`t have that degree of unambiguousness. I would really appreciate any efforts to improve the linguistic quality of the Low Saxon Wikipedia. After all, it is still at an early stage. Unfortunetaly, I can't really help here for, being a native in High German, I'd probably only worsen the problem of "Patentplatt".
> >
> >
> > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> >
> > Where does that come from? The vocabulary is mostly alright. But the spelling looks awfully articifial to me. Never before have I seen anyone using "y" in written Platt. And why should you write "v" when you say "f". Just too make look "less German"? Also, the diphtong "ou" might somehow reflect the pronounciation but is certainly not usually used in Northern Germany. And why should one want to use "kk" instead of "ck"? Just because it's written that way in the Netherlands?? And why is there an apostrophe in " Elv' "? Just because the word is "Elbe" in High German. Complete nonsense, in my humble opinion. I don't want to comment comment on the "real Platt" word "kuntray" but the "I" at the beginning of the last sentence is either Bavarian or English but surely not Platt.
> >
> > Coming from the "?nner-Elv'" myself, let me try it:
> >
> > Liek so kannst dat in'n poor Dialekten vun de ?nnerelv (in Hamborg un ?mto) ook seggen. "Wat" kann dor in d?sse/s?kse F?llen liek as "dat" un "de" bruken. Ick/Ik do dat ook faken, man tomeest wenn ick/ik snack.
> >
> > Hmm...
> >
> > Boris
> >
> > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 08:34:13:
> >
> > Hi Boris,
> >
> > I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
> > people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
> > Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
> > wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
> > is "based on Missingsch".
> >
> > Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
> > actually ken the leid.
> > (It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"
> >
> > "It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> > WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
> > they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
> > "Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
> > German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
> > but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
> > the grammar and the authentic idiom."
> >
> > Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
> > would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
> > and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
> > only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
> > German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."
> >
> > This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
> > difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
> > just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
> > welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.
> >
> > Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
> > the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.
> >
> > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> >
> > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
> > kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
> > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> >
> > Hmm...
> >
> > Best
> > Mark
> >
> > On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Mark!
> > >
> > > I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
> > >
> > > I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.
> > >
> > > Boris
> > >
> > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.07.05 01:38:06:
> > >
> > > Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on
> > > ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real
> > > nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have
> > > personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about
> > > nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but
> > > rather a "contact variety".
> > >
> > > Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this
> > > huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the
> > > fact that it's written in Missingsch.
> > >
> > > Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start
> > > real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________________
> > > Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
> > > Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________________
> > Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
> > Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
> >
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> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>I'm coming into this a bit late, but the silliest thing about this
>policy is that the two types images currently allowed under Wikipedia
>policy are one with a free license, and ones without any free license
>at all except our somewhat dubious pro-active claim of fair use (fair
>use in the U.S. can only be used in defense, it cannot be used
>offensively).
>
I agree that fair use is essentially defensive in nature, but a fair use
is that from the time that the image is put up.  By definition if
something is used in fair use it is not a copyright infringement.  If
something is determined to be fair use it will be so irrespective of the
licensing situation.

>Now I understand the importance of having free licenses, but I think
>it is very silly that images licensed for non-commercial use are
>singled out as "non-free" while slapping "fair use" on anything seems
>to get by without so much as the raising of an eyebrow most of the
>time.
>
And so it should, as long as the person slapping on the tag is aware of
what that means, and is prepared, if asked, to evaluate the situation in
terms of the fair use criteria in the law.

>Let us say this is about content providing -- i.e., we don't provide
>things that others can't use. I don't see why "fair use" images would
>be any different in this respect -- the individual user is going to
>have to evaluate whether their particular use of the image is still
>covered by fair use, whether they want to take that gamble, etc. If
>non-profit Wikipedia feels comfortable using copyrighted images of
>Mickey Mouse and claiming fair use, great, but any future for-profit
>encyclopedia is going to have to answer for themselves. "Fair use" is
>just as conditional on context and use as any "permission for anything
>non-commercial" -- perhaps even worse, since pre-emptively claiming
>fair use is playing with legal fire as it is.
>
All downstream users should exercise their own diligence.  Although we
try to use images that can be used safely by them they still know their
own circumstances best.

>If we are only going to provide "totally free" content, we should
>eliminate all fair use images as well. If we are not going to do that,
>we should not worry so much about images which are licensed under
>relatively free licenses -- i.e., free for use with acknowledgement,
>free for use in non-commercial settings, free for use just on
>Wikipedia, etc.
>
An illustration under a relatively free licence may still be fair use.

>Claiming "fair use" in general seems legally problematic to me in
>general but I'm not a lawyer. I could imagine a very clever Disney
>lawyer saying, "Well, Wikipedia gives the impression that its content
>is 'free', and puts our images right next to the rest of their 'free'
>content. If Wikipedia was just trying to make their own non-profit
>encyclopedia, that would be one thing, but since they are also trying
>to provide an open-source, re-distributable content, they are actually
>in the business of telling people our copyrighted work is of
>questionable legal status, which we must affirm to the contrary."
>Whether such an argument would hold or not is not something I know,
>but it would be a messy thing nonetheless. And rest assured Disney
>Corp. would be no more worried about the "legions" of nasty e-mails
>they might get from Wikipedians than Microsoft Corp. does from the
>Open-Source movement members.
>
>
This is an extreme example.  Even a litigiously protective organization
will see a single still of Mickey Mouse as fair use.  It's effectively
free advertising for them.  You're speculating about the thinking of a
potential legal opponent who is speculating about what we are doing..
At least give them credit for a minimal ability to be realistic.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Hi

body:
On 7/5/05, Peter Parker <logicophilosoficus at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> How can I report an abuse by a moderator? I was blocked unfairly due to an
> ethnic debate in which the moderator had taken sides. I read somewhere that
> I had to join the mailing list, and so I did. I don't know how to
> participate however, I'd like to know who should I contact concerning this
> problem.
> Thanks in Advance.

You can join the list at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l - I've cc'ed your
message to wikien-l in the meantime. You should respond to the list,
and mention your username.

- d.


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Weyes

body:
>We say that he is, because:
>
>* His IP initially matched that of Enviroknot, both on the mailing list and
>on Wikipedia.

Which under DHCP can easily happen.

>* He instantly edited on the same topics as Enviroknot.

No, he didn't. His list of edits matches only ONE topic that I am aware of,
and in that topic he wasn't even involved in any fights.

>* On these topics he edited on, he shared an opinion with Enviroknot, which
>was a minority opinion anyway.

Not an opinion, a SUGGESTION - and one that was echoed as a good idea,
scarily enough, by Enviroknot's opponents.

There is a big difference there.

>I don't know about you, but are points cancel out yours ten times over. I'm
>out of this case now, but I think that the case is solved anyway.

And I think your so-called "arguments" are pure garbage.

A. Nony Mouse

_________________________________________________________________
Go where quality Irish singles meet - get FREE Match.com membership!
http://match.msn.ie


list: foundation-l

from_name: Kyle Lutze

subject:
[Foundation-l] Issues regarding admin(s?) on wikinews,
	effects: globally

body:
There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
troubling and need to be addressed.

It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
gather, the research director for WMF.

He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
has been disregarding the wiki process and community.

Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
just isn't right.

Kyle


list: wikimedia-l


body:
On 05/07/05, David Benbennick <dbenbenn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Since exactly one random password + one "real" password can be active
> > at any time, it's equivalent to halving the odds of picking the right
> > one randomly.
>
> Not quite.  The random password has been sent out by email, so it is
> stored and archived who-knows-where.

So don't register an e-mail address with your account, and then no
generated password will ever be sent out that way. This danger isn't
really reliant on the password being valid for a long time, only on it
being sent to or through an insecure e-mail server. If you're worried
someone may be trying to exploit the e-mailed password to get into
your account, change your real password, and it will immediately cease
being valid.

Besides, if this was a banking site, I'd take these issues a bit more
seriously; if someone just wants to impersonate or disadvantage you on
Wikipedia, I'm sure they could find simpler ways anyway.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject:
[Foundation-l] Issues regarding admin(s?) on wikinews,	effects:
	globally

body:
Kyle Lutze wrote:

>There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
>troubling and need to be addressed.
>
>It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
>problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
>gather, the research director for WMF.
>
>He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
>(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
>has been disregarding the wiki process and community.
>
>Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
>touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
>disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
>just isn't right.
>
>Kyle
>
>
forgot one of the aliases,
Erik/Eloquence/Xirzon are the one's I've been told

Kyle


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

body:
Ok, I'm really confused. There has indeed been some heated editing on
Wikinews which caused the departure of one admin (who I hope will come
back someday) and the temporary banning of another for violating the
3RR -- not an unusual thing.

But I think that this message makes no sense, as I think there has not
been any abuse by Erik.

If there are any problems on Wikinews, I think that they stem from
failures to communicate, and from an overindulgence in talking about
process versus writing more news articles. Those are correctable and
are being worked on: I doubt that Wikipedia grew up without tensions
between editors.

The majority of the message here is unsubstantiated, specifically
"many problems by abusing sysop rights", nor the bunch of aliases, nor
the admin'ed sysops. I've definitely not had the chance to find a
sockpuppet admin that Kyle is referring to.

-ilya haykinson
 en:wikinews sysop & bureaucrat

On 7/5/05, Kyle Lutze <kylelutze at cox.net> wrote:
> Kyle Lutze wrote:
>
> >There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
> >troubling and need to be addressed.
> >
> >It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
> >problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
> >gather, the research director for WMF.
> >
> >He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
> >(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
> >has been disregarding the wiki process and community.
> >
> >Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
> >touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
> >disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
> >just isn't right.
> >
> >Kyle
> >
> >
> forgot one of the aliases,
> Erik/Eloquence/Xirzon are the one's I've been told
>
> Kyle
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
bleh, I feel like an idiot now, the four people I'm talking to in
private messages about this on irc are adding in details they didn't
tell me before :/

let me clarify really fast:
Erik is his real name
Xirzon is his IRC nick
Eloquence is his wikinews name
Ida_mayhem is his bot name

sorry I didn't mention that earlier

Ok, I have now been informed that nGerda was blocked validly. I was told
he was just blocked and the Erik was doing this improperly. Once I
posted this email, I was told otherwise. I feel like an idiot right
now,  sorry for that :(

As for the specific examples, I'm making those fools dig up evidence now
as I'm a tad bit embarrassed that they told me lies in the first place.

Once again, sorry,
Kyle

Nathan Reed wrote:

>I'm a nobody at Wikinews, but...
>
>User:Xirzon doesn't exist and User:Erik is not a sysop and has no
>edits. What aliases is Kyle referring to?
>
>NGerda appears to have been validly blocked after a 3RR rule -- I
>think he would have been blocked earlier but all the available admins
>were involved in the dispute.
>
>Perhaps kyle can cite specific examples (with diffs?)?
>
>--User:Chiacomo
>
>On 7/6/05, Kyle Lutze <kylelutze at cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Kyle Lutze wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
>>>troubling and need to be addressed.
>>>
>>>It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
>>>problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
>>>gather, the research director for WMF.
>>>
>>>He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
>>>(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
>>>has been disregarding the wiki process and community.
>>>
>>>Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
>>>touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
>>>disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
>>>just isn't right.
>>>
>>>Kyle
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>forgot one of the aliases,
>>Erik/Eloquence/Xirzon are the one's I've been told
>>
>>Kyle
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Used-with-permission images, a modest proposal

body:
> I'm not aware of how it works around the world, but in the US we are
> very generous with extending copyright to photographs and in general
> to many non-artistic works which simply required a lot of effort to
> produce.
...
> then there is no rational reason that copyright can not equally be
> extended to an archival grade photograph.
>
> As far as I can tell this position is strongly supported by caselaw in
> the US ...

Not quite. Pasting from Wikipedia:

- - -

Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F.Supp.2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) was
a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain
images could not be covered by copyright because they lack originality.
Even if accurate reproductions may require a great deal of skill,
experience and effort, it is a process that lacks originality, which is a
key element for copyrightability under U.S. law. The decision applies only
to two-dimensional images such as paintings.

Many federal courts have followed the ruling in Bridgeman, though it has
yet to be specifically endorsed by the Supreme Court. However, the Court's
ruling in Feist v. Rural, in which it explicitly rejected difficulty of
labor or expense as a consideration in copyrightability, seems to have
supported the central reasoning behind Bridgeman.

- - -

> and I think that it would be a fair position on Wikipedia to
> make an effort to preferentially make use of made-by-wikipedian and
> truly PD photographs of PD artwork when such alternatives are
> available.

When possible, sure. But there are a great many
occasions where we can only maintain a photograph
under a Bridgeman type argument.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
> If we are only going to provide "totally free" content, we should
> eliminate all fair use images as well. If we are not going to do that,
> we should not worry so much about images which are licensed under
> relatively free licenses -- i.e., free for use with acknowledgement,
> free for use in non-commercial settings, free for use just on
> Wikipedia, etc.

My feeling exactly.

Out of those two options I prefer the second one
- allow some not totally free images, and keep
them clearly tagged so downstream users can
sort them out.

And it goes without saying that we should only
use them when totally free images can not be obtained.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
Nathan J. Yoder (njyoder at energon.org) [050705 23:24]:

> And no, saying you "should go cool off for a day" doesn't actually
> address them if you read them and it's also imposing a requirement on
> the person to counter a BUG. You REALLY keep avoiding this and
> absolutely insist on using examples (e.g. sock puppets) that aren't
> applicable to this.  Ther is no "disguise" and logs can easily prove
> that.

As I pointed out to you before, this isn't the dev list, and people here
don't determine whether this documented behaviour is a bug or a feature.
So making your case here, however eloquently, isn't going to do one dot of
good in achieving the change you want.

I note you haven't tried asking on the dev list, mediawiki-l. Perhaps if
you do, someone will explain why the feature works the way it does.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Weyes

body:
Who was the other, then?

Do tell. I'd really like to know.

A. Nony Mouse

>From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Weyes
>Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:23:39 -0700
>
>On 7/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > We say that he is, because:
> >
> > * His IP initially matched that of Enviroknot, both on the mailing list
>and
> > on Wikipedia.
> > * He instantly edited on the same topics as Enviroknot.
> > * On these topics he edited on, he shared an opinion with Enviroknot,
>which
> > was a minority opinion anyway.
>
>You forgot "We've already seen this before".  Kurita77 was not the
>first user who magically showed up from Enviroknot's IP, instantly
>interested in exactly the same articles as Enviroknot, and claiming
>not to be a sockpuppet.  This partially explains the abrupt reaction.
>
>-Matt
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos! http://meegos.msn.ie


subject: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

body:
My apologies to the list, this will be rather long as Maxwell staunchly
STILL refuses to deal in good faith.

>On 7/5/05, A. Nony Mouse <temoforcomments4 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Kurita77 actually sent emails from MANY IP addresses in his block.
> > >One overlapping IP is all we need for near certainty.
> > When DHCP is involved, no, I don't think so.
>
>The address that was used is allotted to a single HFC network  region.
>The both participants would have to live within blocks of each other,
>in the worse case the same town.  Within that area there is probably a
>dhcp pool of many addresses (hundreds for a geographically larger
>area). The provider in question uses persistently allocated IPs, as
>long as the modem stays on you should keep your IP.

*AS LONG AS THE MODEM STAYS ON* - and if an area is having consistent power
failures/brownouts (which seems to be a recurring theme in states like
California and Texas) what happens then?

>The chance of two unrelated people getting the same IP, and both
>editing the same subjects on wikipedia is infinitesimal and once you
>factor in any other additional indicators... it removes all doubt from
>anyone with any understanding of the issues.

ONE conjunction of interest out of multiple subjects of interest, and a
conjunction of interest in something that is WORLDWIDE a point of argument?

Sorry. That's a "coincidence" on the same order as "wow, who would have
thought a train would come down those parallel rails of metal conveniently
arranged over a procession of railroad ties."

> > >It's not. When combined with the overlapping IPs, however, it is very
> > >difficult to dispute.
> >
> > Again, when DHCP is involved, I don't think so. What would you do if it
>were
> > an AOL subscriber who happened to get the IP of another blocked AOL
> > subscriber and edited on the same topic?
>
>AOL proxies many users behind the same IPs. The case is not the same.
>You are incorrect here.

No, I'm not. This is no different than a user on DSL or dial-up getting
snagged the same way. DHCP is DHCP, IP addresses change.

> > > > Kurita77 was an example of a bunch of Inquisitionists running around
> > >needing
> > > > someone else to persecute, and biting the newbies. There was no good
> > >faith
> > > > involved in dealing with him.
> > >
> > >Perhaps it could have been handled better initially, I haven't looked
> > >but I'd be surprised if I hadn't posted saying that.
> >
> > If you did, you didn't spend much time on it. In fact, YOU were the one
>who
> > sent the little "gem" telling him that the only way he'd get his account
> > back would be to hunt down Enviroknot wherever he was and force him to
>move
> > out of the area.
>
>That was long after he became an abusive pest on the mailing list. In
>any case my advice, though silly still holds. We may have made a
>mistake, some unforeseen interaction... But we've made an effort, and
>now the accused can make an effort...  I don't see why you found it so
>offensive, if Kurita77 isn't the real enviroknott, going and finding
>the real one would probably be useful for all involved.

Yeah. Telling someone to go knock door to door in their neighborhood looking
for someone to tell them how naughty they are... lame. Beyond lame, even.

And the fact that you can't see what an insult that was? Pathetic.

> > No. You crossed the line, you purposely agitated Kurita77 rather than
> > dealing in good faith.
>
>I think you've lost your mind. I didn't even say "buzz off- you are
>enviroknott" to this user even though I think the likelihood is
>overwhelming.  I said that we just weren't going to change our mind
>for anything short of finding enviroknott... The practice of driving
>unwanted people off the network you are on is well precedents on the
>Internet which is why the antispam services will tend to overblock
>against IPs which permit spamming users.  Yes, I was a bit of a
>smartass in my reply, but the advice was still useful. If you don't
>think I should be permitted to be a smartass towards annoying pests
>flooding my inbox then, quite frankly, you can bite me.

You're supposed to be an example. I'm going to point out the MULTIPLE
personal attacks you've just made and let that be that, because making one
back would be against policy.

> > >I have assigned no bad faith to Kurita77, I have only stated that
> > >obvious that his equivalence with enviroknott is nearly beyond
> > >reasonable dispute.
> > And I state for the record that any such assertion is roughly the
>equivalent
> > of what I remove from my horses' stalls in the morning.
>
>You should focus your attentions on the horse then, because you appear
>to be misunderstanding technology.

No, I understand the technology perfectly well.

>Yadda yadda yadda.  Look, if you're going to make accusations against
>me get your darn facts straight.. and when I catch you slinging
>bullshit, at least you could give me an apology.

You're the one slinging bullshit. Anything else I'd say on the subject (and
I have edited out my initial instinct here) would be a personal attack.

>Back when you first started posting I argued with others to keep you
>on the list because they thought you were just another troll.  I
>regret that now. I am not sure of your intentions of motivations, but
>I can say with confidence that your repeated attacking messages are
>effectively trolling the list.

In the same way that blacks "trolled" lunch counters during Jim Crow days
perhaps.

> > > > We should not bite the newbies for actually paying attention.
> > >agreed.
> >
> > At least you agree on that. Too bad you fail to practice it.
>
>Yet another unsupported allegation from you, no shock there.
>:-(

Not at all. Your treatment of Kurita77 proves it.

>Yes users can come to write up on the same thing.
>You need to take a class in statistics.
>When you combine several rare uncorrelated events, the chance of them
>all happening becomes very low very quickly.

DHCP being reassigned - not a "rare" event by any stretch of the
imagination.

Users deciding to edit on Jihad - about as rare as waiting for a man to walk
into a barbershop.

User coming in and reading the tutorial before editing - not ALL that usual,
but when we ENCOURAGE them to do so we shouldn't hold it against them.

What's your point? You clearly haven't got one.

> > I don't buy it. This is a case of admins on a power trip biting the
>newbies
> > and refusing to admit they were wrong to do so, which was made worse by
> > admins like YOU who saw an opportunity to jump in and cause a personal
> > attack free-for-all on the innocent newbie.
>
>Get off it. We deal with hundreds of newbie editors a day. I agree
>that things don't always go right.. and we do have a few users who are
>too aggressive.  If you'd pay any attention who *who* you're ranting
>at you'll notice that you've yelled at a number of people who spend a
>fair amount of time looking at the work of others and reminding them
>to be more polite and good-faith assuming to all users and especially
>newbies.

No, I'm yelling at the ones who don't practice what they preach, who
regularly believe that they can lecture newbies and established editors
about policy and "good faith" all day long while being quite comfortable
ignoring those same policies whenever the mood strikes.

> > NEVER the way you should treat new users. But you and every other admin
>who
> > jumped in to start attacking Kurita77 (I think I only saw ONE mail that
>was
> > even close to being in good faith) showed what you were made of. It
>wasn't
> > pretty.
> > What's even sadder is that I see this kind of stuff all the time on
> > Wikipedia. The inner clique of Adminship has become a license to make up
> > rules as you go along and break the existing rules with impunity, rather
> > than a trust to enforce them and stay within them. Calling it a
>"despotism"
> > isn't far off from the reality.
>
>You know what, if you think wikipedia is so broken why don't you start
>your own?  You can even start off with all the articles that exist in
>the current one.   I'll even help you setup the software.

I'd rather fix the one that's here. It's worth saving.

> > We'll start with this one, thank you very much. Now address the points.
>
>It is your choice to waste your time on the nearly indefensible, as it
>was your choices to reply to my offlist email on list... in violation
>of netiquette, common courteous, and copyright law. ... and as it is
>my choice to petition the list moderators on list to deny you
>participation because you are antagonistic, disruptive, and
>disrespectful.

Netiquette - riiight. Since when do you care about that?

Common Courtesy - I'm keeping things right out in the open. If YOU want to
hide what you're doing, that's your problem.

Copyright Law - quoting someone's words is fair use, so I rather suppose
that you can (as you said to me earlier) "bite me".

A. Nony Mouse

_________________________________________________________________
Send a sexy animated wink with Messenger 7.0 - FREE download!
http://messenger.msn.co.uk


body:
This is a reasonable solution though I would ALSO suggest that such a policy
be accompanied by a disclaimer that (unless the actual copyright holder
comes forth and denies approval and denies that the item is fair use) we
prefer leaving the image in place to wholesale deletions done WITHOUT
providing a suitable replacement picture.

Otherwise I can see any number of trolls on Wikipedia running around
deleting pictures of their political opponents, or people they don't like,
or girls they think are sluts, or any other nonsense and then claiming "it
needed to go Wikipedia didn't have copyright approval" when called on their
vandalism.

A. Nony Mouse

>
>That said, the problem is big enough that it would be unreasonable to
>try to make a full correction at this time. I think we just need to
>start with the position that we prefer works made by wikipedians and
>will replace works not made by wikipedians with works by wikipedians
>as such choices come along.

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Upgrade status

body:
Henry Tan-Tenn wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason ti 2005/6/26 EP 10:54 sia-kong:
>
>> The upgrade process can be monitored at
>> http://wikimedia.org/conversion15done.txt
>
>
> It claims zh_min_nanwiki is done, yet the wiki inexplicably remains
> locked (http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/).

Probably a side-effect of the dashes in the hostname. That's now fixed,
but there's a funky problem with the localization; it seems to display
the UI in English unless you're logged in and save your preferences.

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: statistics now available

body:
Kate,

Again, I am delighted by these stats.

I am a bit perplex by the numbers for South Africa. Very low though we
have quite a big number of south african editors. Any idea ?

For info, the script initially came from Submarine.

ant

Kate a ?crit:
> Frieda Brioschi wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
>
>
>>What is
>>
>
> "italy.wikipedia.org<http://www2.knams.wikimedia.org/stats/italy.wikipedia.org/>"
>
>>?
>
>
> statistics are generated based on URLs accessed by users.  so, probably
> someone does not know where it.wp is :-) in the future, it should be
> filtered by the list of actual languages.
>
> kate.


from_name: Nathan Reed

body:
I'm a nobody at Wikinews, but...

User:Xirzon doesn't exist and User:Erik is not a sysop and has no
edits. What aliases is Kyle referring to?

NGerda appears to have been validly blocked after a 3RR rule -- I
think he would have been blocked earlier but all the available admins
were involved in the dispute.

Perhaps kyle can cite specific examples (with diffs?)?

--User:Chiacomo

On 7/6/05, Kyle Lutze <kylelutze at cox.net> wrote:
> Kyle Lutze wrote:
>
> >There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
> >troubling and need to be addressed.
> >
> >It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
> >problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
> >gather, the research director for WMF.
> >
> >He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
> >(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
> >has been disregarding the wiki process and community.
> >
> >Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
> >touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
> >disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
> >just isn't right.
> >
> >Kyle
> >
> >
> forgot one of the aliases,
> Erik/Eloquence/Xirzon are the one's I've been told
>
> Kyle
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
I chatted with Apple/Kyle for a few moments on IRC and it appears he
was goaded into posting by NGerda (who has been "helping him out with
some stuff"). Kyle was led to believe the block might have been
handled in the wrong way and in his words, "got kinda pissed and just
started writing an email". He's acknowledged that the post might have
better been directed to wikinews-l -- if it should have been sent at
all.

I think we can expect some clarification tomorrow.

-Chiacomo

On 7/6/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Kyle Lutze:
> > let me clarify really fast:
> > Erik is his real name
> > Xirzon is his IRC nick
> > Eloquence is his wikinews name
> > Ida_mayhem is his bot name
>
> Hi,
>
> yes, things can be a bit confusing sometimes. I intend to change my
> username to my real name once we have single login.
>
> > Ok, I have now been informed that nGerda was blocked validly.
>
> I'd be happy to post the relevant IRC log for anyone interested. I was
> actually very reluctant to block Nick, because we get along quite well,
> and because he has made many good contributions. However, I was the only
> admin who was not involved in the dispute and who was available at the
> time. 3RR is documented policy on Wikinews as it is on Wikipedia. I have
> never blocked a sysop on Wikinews before, as far as I can remember. I
> have also never created a sock puppet on a Wikimedia wiki, ever.
>
> > As for the specific examples, I'm making those fools dig up evidence now
> > as I'm a tad bit embarrassed that they told me lies in the first place.
>
> There is a big brouhaha going on at the moment about Amgine's departure
> and his plans for a new "Open Wikinews". Those who want to read the
> whole mess can do it at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Open_English
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikinews/Open_English
>
> Meanwhile, I'm inviting an open discussion about the future of the
> project, which I will announce separately.
>
> Best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 7/5/05, Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>
>
>>My understanding from museum and gallery folks is that the photography is a creative act.  This is substantiated by the variations that are possible in the representation of the object (if only variations of intensity and hue).
>>
>>
>[snip]
>
>I'm not aware of how it works around the world, but in the US we are
>very generous with extending copyright to photographs and in general
>to many non-artistic works which simply required a lot of effort to
>produce.
>
>And archival grade photography certainly does require a lot of effort
>to produce: There are several interacting axis of decision on which a
>compromise must be struck, mostly involving lighting.  In general
>lighting which operates efficiently enough to produce sufficient light
>generally tends to only operate at a few wavelegnths. Depending on the
>media used in the art this can cause a dramatically incorrect
>rendition of the colors.  So the photographer is often left trying to
>fix these compromises with their choice in film and the channel gain
>settings on the digital rig. It often requires specific knowledge of
>the behavior of the paints in use to get it right.
>
>In short, don't be so quick to discount the work. If we can grant
>copyright on any work which is purely function (as is some software),
>then there is no rational reason that copyright can not equally be
>extended to an archival grade photograph.
>
The claim that the photograph is of archival grade is a question of fact
that would need to be proven in court.  In a large number of situations
the quality of photographic paper and inks may be far more relevant that
the photographer's professional qualifications.  Let's not inflate the
role of professional photographers, when the work of a reasonably
competent amateur would have sufficed for our purposes.  The work of
amateur winemakers can be justt as good as anything that might be bought
from a store shelf.

Our interest is in the information contained in the ancient manuscript.
That information may involve more than just the words as a modern person
would perceive them.  To a paleographer the original handwriting itself
will be the basis of interest.

>As far as I can tell this position is strongly supported by caselaw in
>the US, and I think that it would be a fair position on Wikipedia to
>make an effort to preferentially make use of made-by-wikipedian and
>truly PD photographs of PD artwork when such alternatives are
>available.
>
>That said, the problem is big enough that it would be unreasonable to
>try to make a full correction at this time. I think we just need to
>start with the position that we prefer works made by wikipedians and
>will replace works not made by wikipedians with works by wikipedians
>as such choices come along.
>
I have no difficulty in agreeing that a photograph by a Wikipedian is
preferable in most cases.  It is the most effective way of avoiding the
problems that we have been discussiong.  At the same time copyright law
cannot be used to keep information in otherwise public domain material
from the public.  If the copyright claimant is concerned about the
copyrights of his photographs, he would do well to allow a Wikipedian
access to the original material for the purpose of making our own
photographs.

It is important to remember the significance of the effect on the
copyright holder's market in establishing whether there is fair use.  If
there is no market the presumption of fair use becomes much stronger.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] the features...

body:
Two comments.
The first is about the recent crisis on wikinews.
The second is a comment about the new features.

For the first point Erik, it seems some people are not happy with the way decision making happens on wikinews.

It seems that this time, the trigger of the conflict is the way a new feature was put into use,
even though there was no clear agreement whithin the community to use it. I'd say, it is fair to complain about
software changes, when software changes are not agreed upon. It is good that you propose now a discussion over
whether this new feature should be used or not, but the discussion should occur *before* the feature is used, or
even better *before* the feature is developped.
I suppose you will answer that it was discussed, it was agreed, that it is the best solution so should be used...
this may be. But you can not at the same time claim this... and ignore the fact regular editors are so mad that it
appears to them their *only* options are to suggest another wikinews (fork) or obey you (not so benevolent dictatorship).

How do you suggest to improve this in the future ?

For Kyle, I do not think there was any abuse of Erik in his blocking NGerda.
I am more dubious of whether the same standards apply to everyone, but this is another story. NGerda apparently disrespect a rule all
wikinewsies should follow, so it is fair he is given a time out. I trust NGerda has a tough skin :-)
As for Erik, being under different pseudos or his own name is generally known and I do not think there is any abuse either on the matter
(there is only one wikinews account). He is Eloquence on wiki, Zirzon on irc and Erik as a real person.
I will add that he is indeed an officer of Wikimedia Foundation, but this has nothing to do
with him being an editor on wikinews and should not mean he should be treated differently than others. He should be entirely and only
judged by his activity on wikinews as an editor, not by any official position he has in the organisation. In short, if he does good,
congratulate, thank him and support him to do more good. If he does wrong, complain and discuss. If he does really wrong, block him.

As a simple participant, I would like to comment on the new feature which I think is called "inputbox extension" (or is it "DynamicPageList extension" ?).
Anyway, if any of you goes to wikinews and intends to start a new page, here is what he will get : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Writing_an_article.

I invite you to enter the name of a new article and to edit it.

When you will get the edit box, you will notice two things :

First, the box does not start empty, it is already prefilled with a whole bunch of preformatted content. It indicates where to put the article. It has a table with pre-filled fields for citation of sources. It has a bunch of categories into place. And it has the "development" tag by default. If the editor wants the story to be visible to the reader, he must replace the development tag by a publish tag (this is quite clearly explained on top of the edit window).

On the positive side, I feel that the benefits of this are
* a more "similar" appearance to all articles
* a strong reminder to the editor that he should list his sources
* a system allowing to "publish" the article quite freely, without relying on an editorial team.

The drawbacks of this is
* if you are a new editor, chances is you will be very perplex in front of all this complex synthax.
* if you are a new editor, chances is you will not understand for a while the publish tag system, so your story will not be visible

As long as wikinews is small, there can be hope some oldbie will see and check the article and push it published... but when wikinews grows, it might be that the system does not scale so well and that articles are not quickly published. Still, we can hope some editors frequently check the list of articles with a "development" tag, so I am not sure it is really a problem.

The main problem I saw with this is not the publication system, but only the fact it will appear awfully complex to a new editor. The basic of wiki is
* it is simple synthax
* create an article, edit, save and this is it !

A more similar appareance and a reminder to cite sources is good, but I do not think the benefit balance the drawbacks of loss of easiness to edit.
I think these two issues should be community enforced and taught by model (looking at what already exist).

Last, I have been wondering how much difference there was with wikipedia. Indeed the publication system might be necessary, as the goal is to get on the main page and to get it *quickly*. So, the current semi-automatic tagging solution might not be bad.

However, Wikipedia just as well might propose pre-filled articles, with pre-formatted titles, subtitles, see alsos, external links, categories and international links. And IT DOES NOT. Why is it felt necessary on wikinews when it is not felt necessary on other projects ?

I have been caressing the idea of writing to Ward Cunningham and ask him to create a wikinews article... and tell us about his experience afterwards ;-)

Anthere

-----------------

Dear Wikinews community,dear interested individuals,I would like to invite you to participate in an open, unmoderated discussion about the future of the project, specifically the English edition. Members of other editions who want to learn about recent changes to the English version, and who want to debate whether these changes could be useful for their project, are also invited to join. Please sign up for a time that is convenient for you at:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Future_TalkThe purpose of this IRC meeting is to discuss issues such as* Should the DynamicPageList extension be used?* Should the inputbox extension be used?* How should decisions about issues like this be made in the future?* How local can Wikinews stories be?* How can we make Wikinews more accessible for newcomers?Please feel free to add topics of discussion to the agenda.Note that we should not be trying to make decisions at this meeting - those should be openly documented on the wiki - but to reach a
 basic consensus about how to proceed.Best,Erik

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
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subject: [Foundation-l] the features...


from_name: Amgine

subject: [Wikinews-l] [Fwd: Re: [Foundation-l] the features...]

body:
I'm very pleased that the technical solution I suggested and helped
develop with Ilya has been implemented on Wikinews. The fact that it
had been discussed and was in development before you changed the main
page should, however,  be mentioned Erik. Another is that it might not
now be in existence if I had not written a crude implementation this
afternoon and given it to Ilya.

> I put the inputbox on the Main Page to demonstrate it.

When has it been okay to experiment on the main page of a live site
without so much as an explanation to the regular contributors to that
site?

I'm not opposed to the inputbox extension in and of itself; it's a
slick piece of code which answers a need often expressed. I do not
think it is appropriate to use a complex nested template as it is
currently implemented, but that could be resolved by the community.

> Wikipedia has no such dependencies. I follow a link and I start
> writing. If my article is not perfect, that's fine, because it's
> still linked from the right places. People can see it. People will
> eventually fix it for me. In general, there's less things to know,
> and less things that can go wrong.

This was the justification for the use of the manual list in addition
to the automated list, until the additional functionality was coded. I
used nearly the same words, in fact.

The governance issues are not the basic reason for the Open English
proposal (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition)

There are currently 5 people supporting the creation of an Open
English edition of Wikinews, which is obviously not entirely due to
the recent differences regarding the DPL. Like any community at
en.wikinews there are different opinions as to what the goals of the
project may be, and some members of the community feel it is not going
someplace they wish to continue to support. But we continue to support
the larger goals of Wikinews, creating site where any human can
contribute news, valuable in its own right, with an open
decision-making process. And we would rather not leave the project, so
an alternative edition which serves different goals would give us the
opportunity to contribute without exacerbating strained working
relationships.

Amgine


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use and Registered Trademarks

body:
I've come across a potential legal issue that has an impact across
several Wikimedia projects that I'd like to bring up for general discussion.

I've been trying to find a home for the 1911 Wikipedia (for more
details, see the new project page), and I've been attempting to move it
to Wikisource, with the following discussion at the Scriptorium:
 http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource%3AScriptorium#1911_Wikipedia

The larger issue I am seeking input from the regulars of this mailing
list is in regards to proper use of registered trademarks for larger
projects.  In this case it is how a registered trademark can be properly
used or avoided when a project is tied to something that inevitably has
strong references to registered trademarks.

In this case it is in reference to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, where a whole sub project is going to be based on content
from that set of volumes.  This issue could also deal with How-to books
in Wikibooks or even Star Trek or Star Wars trivia entries in Wikipedia,
which is again why I'm posting this issue here rather than other
Foundation lists.

In particular for the Encyclopedia Britannica, this issue already came
up with Project Gutenberg where Encyclopedia Britannica's legal team
forced Project Gutenberg into a policy statement.  Keep in mind that
prior to this official statement, Project Gutenberg routinely referenced
the associated text with the Encyclopedia Britannica by name.  What
resulted was the following:

    "The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is a reproduction of a 1911
    edition of a famous encyclopedia. The text has not been updated.
    Although the text is in the public domain in the United States, the
    original publisher still has a valid trademark in the original title
    of the encyclopedia. The original publisher offered Project
    Gutenberg a license to use the trademark, but the terms of the
    license were not consistent with the volunteer noncommercial nature
    of Project Gutenberg or its primary goal of distributing electronic
    text with the fewest possible restrictions. In order to avoid the
    possibility of trademark infringement, all references to the
    original title and the original publisher have been changed or
    deleted. Because of numerous references embodying possible
    trademarks, the entire preface has been omitted. The original
    publisher of the 1911 print encyclopedia was not and is not involved
    in any way with the creation, editing or distribution of the Project
    Gutenberg Encyclopedia. Any errors which may have occurred in the
    conversion to electronic form can not be attributed in any way to
    the original publisher. In order to avoid possible future trademark
    infringements or confusion in the minds of the public, this
    electronic version should be referred to as the Project Gutenberg
    Encyclopedia. The name of the original print encyclopedia should not
    be used in any way in connection with this electronic text."

I am suggesting that the Wikimedia Foundation follow the lead of Project
Gutenberg in this case and try to avoid implied endorsement by also
avoiding the use of registered trademarks when possible.  The real
question then is how and in what cases should registered trademarks be
omitted?  Obviously there shouldn't be much of a problem for a Wikipedia
article about a company, but it gets into grey areas when you get into a
collection of articles that could be refered to by using a registered
trademark, such as Ford mussle cars or kinds of SPAM.

Obviously each Wikimedia project will end up having to deal with this
issue independently on the fine points, but it wouldn't hurt to
establish some general policy guidelines either.  Any general assistance
would be appreciated.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On 7/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > As I pointed out to you before, this isn't the dev list, and people here
> > don't determine whether this documented behaviour is a bug or a feature.
>
> What a strange attitude to take toward software development!
> Developers don't determine whether or not a behavior is a bug.
> Developers fix bugs reported by users.  It's the users that determine
> which behaviors are bugs.

Not exactly.  There are two questions here: firstly, what is the
intended design and does the MediaWiki software perform as designed
(this, a developer can answer); and secondly, does that design
correspond with user desires (this, they cannot, except in that they
can point to what has been asked of them before).

-Matt


from_name: Henry Tan-Tenn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Upgrade status

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason ti 2005/6/26 EP 10:54 sia-kong:
> The upgrade process can be monitored at
> http://wikimedia.org/conversion15done.txt

It claims zh_min_nanwiki is done, yet the wiki inexplicably remains
locked (http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Weyes

body:
No, I am not.

And I consider your unfounded accusation a personal attack.

A. Nony Mouse

>From: Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Weyes
>Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 18:00:09 -0400
>
>
>On Jul 5, 2005, at 5:19 PM, A. Nony Mouse wrote:
>
>>
>>And I think your so-called "arguments" are pure garbage.
>
>
>Of course you do - you're Enviroknot.
>
>-Snowspinner
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Start dating right now with FREE Match.com membership! http://match.msn.ie


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On 7/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> As I pointed out to you before, this isn't the dev list, and people here
> don't determine whether this documented behaviour is a bug or a feature.

What a strange attitude to take toward software development!
Developers don't determine whether or not a behavior is a bug.
Developers fix bugs reported by users.  It's the users that determine
which behaviors are bugs.

No wonder relations between MediaWiki developers and MediaWiki users
are so bad: the users are letting the developers walk all over them.
(Not that this is an uncommon problem with open source software; there
often isn't anyone who makes any real effort on the development side
to ensure that development is responsive to user requirements, and
products often wander off in whatever direction the developers think
is interesting whether or not anybody else wants it.)

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical expansion of deletability criteria under vote

body:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal

The main thrust of these proposals is to put into place notability,
rather than verifiability, as a criterion for *speedy* deletion, i.e. shoot
on sight. I urge you to go and vote.

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Issues regarding admin(s?) on wikinews,
	effects:   globally

body:
A new parallel wikinews project was started on meta by several
wikinewsisies : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Open_English

Anthere

Kyle Lutze a ?crit:
> bleh, I feel like an idiot now, the four people I'm talking to in
> private messages about this on irc are adding in details they didn't
> tell me before :/
>
> let me clarify really fast:
> Erik is his real name
> Xirzon is his IRC nick
> Eloquence is his wikinews name
> Ida_mayhem is his bot name
>
> sorry I didn't mention that earlier
>
> Ok, I have now been informed that nGerda was blocked validly. I was told
> he was just blocked and the Erik was doing this improperly. Once I
> posted this email, I was told otherwise. I feel like an idiot right
> now,  sorry for that :(
>
> As for the specific examples, I'm making those fools dig up evidence now
> as I'm a tad bit embarrassed that they told me lies in the first place.
>
> Once again, sorry,
> Kyle
>
> Nathan Reed wrote:
>
>
>>I'm a nobody at Wikinews, but...
>>
>>User:Xirzon doesn't exist and User:Erik is not a sysop and has no
>>edits. What aliases is Kyle referring to?
>>
>>NGerda appears to have been validly blocked after a 3RR rule -- I
>>think he would have been blocked earlier but all the available admins
>>were involved in the dispute.
>>
>>Perhaps kyle can cite specific examples (with diffs?)?
>>
>>--User:Chiacomo
>>
>>On 7/6/05, Kyle Lutze <kylelutze at cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Kyle Lutze wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>There have been slight issues on en.wikinews.org that are quite
>>>>troubling and need to be addressed.
>>>>
>>>>It seems that one of the admins, Eloquence, has been causing many
>>>>problems by abusing his admin/sysop rights. He is also, from what I
>>>>gather, the research director for WMF.
>>>>
>>>>He has now banned other sysops on that wiki, including Nick Gerda
>>>>(ngerda), uses a bunch of aliases that he has given admin status to, and
>>>>has been disregarding the wiki process and community.
>>>>
>>>>Please note, I do not do too much work on the wiki itself, but I keep in
>>>>touch with quite a few people in #wikinews on freenode that have left
>>>>disgruntled because of what Erik/Eloquence has done, which I believe
>>>>just isn't right.
>>>>
>>>>Kyle
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>forgot one of the aliases,
>>>Erik/Eloquence/Xirzon are the one's I've been told
>>>
>>>Kyle
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Kyle Lutze:
> let me clarify really fast:
> Erik is his real name
> Xirzon is his IRC nick
> Eloquence is his wikinews name
> Ida_mayhem is his bot name

Hi,

yes, things can be a bit confusing sometimes. I intend to change my
username to my real name once we have single login.

> Ok, I have now been informed that nGerda was blocked validly.

I'd be happy to post the relevant IRC log for anyone interested. I was
actually very reluctant to block Nick, because we get along quite well,
and because he has made many good contributions. However, I was the only
admin who was not involved in the dispute and who was available at the
time. 3RR is documented policy on Wikinews as it is on Wikipedia. I have
never blocked a sysop on Wikinews before, as far as I can remember. I
have also never created a sock puppet on a Wikimedia wiki, ever.

> As for the specific examples, I'm making those fools dig up evidence now
> as I'm a tad bit embarrassed that they told me lies in the first place.

There is a big brouhaha going on at the moment about Amgine's departure
and his plans for a new "Open Wikinews". Those who want to read the
whole mess can do it at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Open_English
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikinews/Open_English

Meanwhile, I'm inviting an open discussion about the future of the
project, which I will announce separately.

Best,

Erik


body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Kyle Lutze:
>
>> let me clarify really fast:
>> Erik is his real name
>> Xirzon is his IRC nick
>> Eloquence is his wikinews name
>> Ida_mayhem is his bot name
>
>
> Hi,
>
> yes, things can be a bit confusing sometimes. I intend to change my
> username to my real name once we have single login.
>
>> Ok, I have now been informed that nGerda was blocked validly.
>
>
> I'd be happy to post the relevant IRC log for anyone interested. I was
> actually very reluctant to block Nick, because we get along quite well,
> and because he has made many good contributions. However, I was the only
> admin who was not involved in the dispute and who was available at the
> time.

Hi Erik

Could you inform us more on the motive/root of the dispute ? What is a
NPOV edit war ?

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Future of Wikinews chat

body:
Dear Wikinews community,
dear interested individuals,

I would like to invite you to participate in an open, unmoderated
discussion about the future of the project, specifically the English
edition. Members of other editions who want to learn about recent
changes to the English version, and who want to debate whether these
changes could be useful for their project, are also invited to join.
Please sign up for a time that is convenient for you at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Future_Talk

The purpose of this IRC meeting is to discuss issues such as

* Should the DynamicPageList extension be used?
* Should the inputbox extension be used?
* How should decisions about issues like this be made in the future?
* How local can Wikinews stories be?
* How can we make Wikinews more accessible for newcomers?

Please feel free to add topics of discussion to the agenda.

Note that we should not be trying to make decisions at this meeting -
those should be openly documented on the wiki - but to reach a basic
consensus about how to proceed.

Best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Future of Wikinews chat


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Validation feature

body:
Aerik Sylvan (aerik at thesylvans.com) [050706 07:14]:

> I've only looked into it enough to get a basic understanding, and I
> honestly only have a rough understand of the issues with it, but love
> the concept and agree that this could be used in a variety of ways on
> many wikis.  I'm going to use it for ratings on my wiki.
> I'd be happy to help "fix" it (write code) but unfortunately need some
> more detailed guidance on what exactly needs to be done.

See discussion at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Article_validation_feature
and linked pages.

Brion's post of problems with it (incomplete) is at:

    http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-June/030325.html

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Issues regarding admin(s?) on wikinews,
	effects: globally

body:
Anthere:
> Hi Erik
>
> Could you inform us more on the motive/root of the dispute ? What is a
> NPOV edit war ?

If you are referring to the block, I don't really know much about the
dispute, as I was not involved in it. I think it was about a photo of a
ship or something. You should probably talk to CraigSpurrier or Pechorin
on IRC. Here's the history containing the reverts:

http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Lead_article&action=history

Best,

Erik


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Game-playing on Wikipedia

body:
On 7/6/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> A better solution would just be to put the game players on notice that
> if there is substantial participation in the games by people who are
> not participating in the wiki then the games will be shut down (and
> this thread has already made that clear)...  Then peer pressure will
> keep people participating in the wiki. As far as I can tell, there is
> currently no problem but if one arises this simple measure should
> correct it.
>
> Which brings up an important point: The detractors here have been
> complaining about loft what ifs...  The wiki is actually a fairly lame
> environment for most of the games people are currently playing. There
> are far better sites on the internet focused on these games. The only
> advantage of playing the games in the wiki is for members of our
> community to stay close to the community.

Well said!

If we have editors who are exclusively curmudgeonly joy-killers, then
we are going to have endless grumping and conflict. Let conflicts be
resolved over a friendly game of checkers, I say!

--
Pete, joyful curmudgeon


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Recreating Similar fundraising forms

body:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising/USD

> I found all the templates involved but since the above page wiki-source
> cannot be viewed, I am trying to replicate this page. Perhaps someone with
> rights can reply with the wiki-source for this page.

The wiki source is viewable, even if you have no account, using
[[Special:Export]].

See http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Export/Fundraising/USD
for example. If you need older revisions, go to
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Export and uncheck the
"Include only the current revision" box.

Angela.


body:
On 7/6/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:

> Besides, if this was a banking site, I'd take these issues a bit more
> seriously; if someone just wants to impersonate or disadvantage you on
> Wikipedia, I'm sure they could find simpler ways anyway.

BookCrossing uses a similar mechanism, but it's the original password
that gets sent out to the registered email address. Problems come when
this email address is one no longer in use, and then we have to ask
questions based on information stored on the profile that isn't
publicly available.

I think the only serious attempt at abuse we had was a disgruntled
ex-husband who wanted to delete his ex-wife's account. He didn't know
her password, he wasn't on the email address, and when we asked him
her birthday, he didn't know it!

It is good practice to change your password immediately after getting
a password reminder. As noted above, it deletes your temp password and
you can then choose one that you can either remember easily or scrawl
on a post-it and throw away a week later.

And again, what precisely is at risk here? WP is a project where just
about everything is revertable (and frequently is). If my on-line
banking was compromised but I could easily reverse any transactions, I
wouldn't be too concerned.

And after all, WP allows anyone to edit anything. We seem to deal with
malicious users quite well, at least until such people reach senior
positions in the WP heirarchy.

Probably the only real damage (apart from annoyance and confusion)
that could be done by a compromised password is the alteration of
private details, and I would hope that these could be restored
reasonably easily when the real editor complains.

--
Peter in Canberra (the real one)


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Validation feature

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>
>Brion's post of problems with it (incomplete) is at:
>
>    http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-June/030325.html
>
>
I consider at least the HTML safety issue as "fixed". The "management"
page is not too comfy indeed, but it will only be used to add topics,
which is about a dozen or so total, by experienced people (no newbies).

Exxessive database usage needs to be looked into, as well as changing
display to CSS (which I *thought* I did!).

Magnus
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from_name: Nicolay A. Vasiliev

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page output

body:
I meant the page content, mainly - articles content. I got how can I
change the content of static parts like header and footer (by editing
skin scripts). But now the actual problem is how to change the content
of dynamic parts of content (best of all articles of Wikipedia).

Rowan Collins wrote:

>On 05/07/05, Nicolay A. Vasiliev <nvasiliev at whiteriversoft.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>presuming you are hoping to modify that output in
>>>some way, there may be an earlier stage of processing which your
>>>modification would conceptually fit into more neatly.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>You're right - I try to do this. So, I'd like to know where is this point.
>>
>>
>
>What I meant was, what is it you are trying to modify? The HTTP
>headers? Some element of the skin? Some element of the page content
>itself? The "behaviour" of certain content? Any of these things
>*could* be done by altering the final output, but in each case there
>would be a better place to make your change - the code isn't
>brilliantly organised, but it at least attempts to organise the
>process into conceptual stages. If you describe what you're trying to
>achieve, I or someone else may be able to point you to the best part
>of the code to modify.
>
>
>


from_name: Norath Norath

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of admin powers by David Gerard and Snowspinner

body:
User:Norrath was block by David Gerard for "admitted
sockpuppet and role account". This account is indeed a
sockpuppet of a user in good standing, created to
protest other blocks caaried out abusively by
Snowspinner. The account was declared as a sockpuppet,
in accordance with Wikipedia policy (which does not
prohibit this) and the only edits were polite
questions to Snowspinner about why he did not follow
policy.

It is outrageous that admins block users simply for
making legitimate requests for explanation from other
admins about why they did not follow policy.

Please help.

Norrath

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