from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
>
> I like this idea, but this sounds more to me like a PR spindoctor for the
> ArbCom than anything else.  I don't know if we need more officials right
> now, we're already pretty sticky in the beauracracy.
>

The Ombudsman should actually be quite "ArbCom sceptic" if you know what I
mean - he or she should in no way succumb to the ArbCom interests, since the
whole point of an Ombudsman is to act as a structure of appeal and review
for the ArbCom and to a lesser extent admins.

As to bureaucracy - I agree that the Ombudsman's role is already carried out
to an extent by Jimbo. However, I presume Jimbo is already overloaded with
work, and that he simply doesn't have the time to investigate and report on
cases in depth. It is pretty unreasonable to expect him to be an ombudsman
and last-step-of-appeals person, and do all of the other work he does in
terms of the Wikimedia Foundation, and promotion, etc.

I guess many people would like to take on the function of the ombudsman, at
least those of us who are committed to justice on Wikipedia in the light of
recent admin and ArbCom action.

Food for thought, though. Just how much crap does Jimbo get, just for being
> who he is? My guess is that it's a lot.
>

Yes, I suppose it's a lot. That's why I don't think he should deal with
cases that sometimes may seem quite trivial in the greater scheme of
Wikipedia, but may be very important to particular users or the community.

Ronline


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Nick Boalch

subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
>> I'll bite.  What's wrong with wikicommons.org?  Are you trying to say
>> the WMF has a trademark on anything that starts with wiki?
>
> I can't speak for the original poster, but he probably doesn't realize that
> registering domain names is not copyright infringement. He's right about the
> first one though. WikipediaClassAction.org uses the Wikipedia logo, and I
> presume without permission. Has anyone in an official capacity contacted
> them about this?

They claim [[fair use]], presumbably as a parody. Good luck financing
*that* lawsuit. :/

Best wishes,

Nick

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] User against scientology

body:
On 1/9/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have deleted the template User against scientology, which expresses
> "vehement" opposition to scientology, and  which I found still
> moldering on TFD when a similar template attacking jews was speedied.
> I did so because, while such templates are well beyond the pale,  I
> suspect that I may be the only one with the brass neck to do so in the
> current situation, with arbitration elections running and blood style
> high over the earlier userboxes deletions.  I would have deleted it
> earlier had I known that it was not speedied along with the
> antisemitic one.

# '''Support''' - ~~~~


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia Blocked IP address 82.148.97.67 is for
	the whole counrty!

body:
On 09/01/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> > > > > This is my second email to you. I beleive that you blocked the whole
> > > > country of Qatar by blocking the IP address 82.148.97.67. Please fix
> > > > this as we cannot now make any edits!
>
> The whole country has only one IP address?

82.148.97.67 is proxy.qatar.net.qa

Bear in mind that a single proxy server at an ISP can cover a
surprisingly large number of individuals... and many small countries
have, in effect, only one ISP. I have a recollection this is not the
first time we've effectively blocked most if not all of a country; was
it Thailand that got hit before?

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS is filling again

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I've got a few tickets in the works, but unfortunately there's a few I just
> can't handle.
> People who think they can appeal about edit wars they're losing and
> complaints about so-called rogue users and admins.
>
> Unfortunately, more and more of the requests that come in ask Jimbo (or
> someone else) to intervene in something. Can't we have a standard message
> referring people to dispute resolution?
>

The defacto one on helpdesk-l is:

The Wikimedia Helpdesk mailing list is not the place for article
disputes. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:DR

Regards,
--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Troas

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Allow multiple entries for one topic

body:
I guess for me the difference was probably not so much about NPOV and SPOV
but rather between the Brockhaus in one volume and in 30 volumes.
And I think there's another important issue: I must admit that I feel
somewhat reluctant to delete another article and to replace it with my one.
Although I may be an expert in a field, how can I be sure that I'm going to
write a better (easier to read and understand, more accurate,...) article on
a topic than somebody else?

I think this is what is at the heart of my previous suggestion: Allow
multiple entries and let readers judge what constitutes a good article.

Best,
Troas

--
10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?

body:
Stan Shebs wrote

> DU has a lot of hurdles, but they know all about WP and are
> seeking to capitalize on our weakest points. We shouldn't get too
> complacent.

Agreed.  But I don't mind the division of labour too much if we accept the
bright grad students with time on their hands, who IMO are just the people
to push our coverage off the well-marked paths onto more current areas, and
leave them the post-docs with tenure worries.

Charles


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
On 09/01/06, fallout at lexx.eu.org <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:

> [[pl:Piotr W. Cholewa]], the (great) translator of [[en:Terry Pratchett]]'s
> books to Polish once said that once or twice for a book, he has to consult
> Terry and ask what some sentence actually means. Once, he was curious, so
> he asked him which translators do it most frequently. The answer was...
> Americans :). (Yes, Americans do "translate" British books to American
> English).

I have heard tell of there being an English edition of that great
foreign-language poet, Burns...

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


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fred Bauder
> Sent: Monday, 9 January 2006 17:06
> To: English Wikipedia
> Cc: Fred Bauder
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman
>
> Actually I think you kind of have this backwards. Usually an
> appeal is from a decision made by a specialized group to a
> larger group which represents broader community opinion. You
> have an appeal from a pretty large group to one person. How
> about appeals being to the administrators as a group? If
> there really is a consensus perhaps some way could be found
> to express it.

An [[ombudsman]] isn't a judge or a government bureaucrat. An ombudsman is
independent, not part of some appeals process or another knot of red tape.
Nor do they have any special powers. Instead the function of an ombudsman is
to investigate complaints and facilitate redress through existing channels.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] re:enforcing our trademark

body:
On 1/9/06, SCO Estmort <eudaimonic.leftist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Again, I see people who have filed lawsuits on behalf of the GPL have yet to
> lose any case, and have forced all the violators they contacted to comply (a
> few of which took it to court and the violators lost). Unless my confidence
> is misplaced, I feel that we should have little reservations about enforcing
> our trademark immediately. After all, there are laws against cybersquatting.

The laws against "cybersquatting" are very narrowly defined.

Anyway, the FSF has a bunch of lawyers on its staff, and two law
professors on its board of directors.  Maybe you and some others could
get together and start a "Sue People" fund for the WMF.  Otherwise I
doubt much more than nasty letter writing is going to happen.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Far

subject: [Wikitech-l] Please purge the data to help Chinese wikipedians.

body:
I am from zh-wikipedia. There were some problems  in  system at january 6th . Since
that,  thousands of articles are not included in the category pages. These articles has to be edited in order to enter the category pages.Because of reasons metioned above, we have to edit these thousands of articles into category pages. It would be a big task.Is there anyone can purge the data? Please purge it to help these pages getting into category pages.Thanks a lot.

                                                             ffaarr


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Userbox fads

body:
Jay Converse wrote:
> On 1/8/06, W. Guy Finley <wgfinley at dynascope.com> wrote:
>
>>On 1/8/06 9:02 AM, "wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org"
>><wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>From: "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
>>>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 01:14:34 +1030
>>>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads
>>>
>>>Here's my solution to the userbox problem.
>>>
>>>Any "userbox" (aka. babel-like template) which does not
>>>
>>>- Inform the reader about the languages (human) that one can understand
>>>and edit in
>>>
>>>- Inform the reader about the languages (computer) that one is
>>>proficient in to some degree and can use those skills constructively
>>>towards editing
>>>
>>>- Inform the reader about what browser/operating system they use so that
>>>they can be consulted wrt. technical issues with the wiki
>>>
>>>- Inform the reader about what musical instruments they play so that
>>>Free music can be recorded for articles
>>>
>>>- Inform the reader about what WikiProjects they are part of so that
>>>other editors can consult them about articles related to that
>>>wikiproject
>>>
>>>should be deleted. WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
>>>remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
>>>building an encyclopedia. Such silly things as "This user is a dickbrain
>>>with no respect for consensus, policy, copyright issues, or the task of
>>>writing an encyclopedia" should be deleted, and the user banned for
>>>wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.
>>
>>
>>I could live with and support this.
>>
>>--Guy (User:Wgfinley)
>>
>>
>
> While I agree mostly with this, I think allowing for no sense of humor in
> the boxes at all would be sending the wrong message.
>
> Also, I don't see a category for things such as "This user is an
> administrator" or "This user likes to help new users."  Reading your rules
> to the letter, things like that which are VERY nice to have so a user knows
> what they can and can't ask for help with will be outlawed along with "This
> user hates Republicans".
>

As with all rules on Wikipedia, it's the spirit of the rules, not the
letter of the rules, which should be followed (think 3RR). I'll
reproduce one of my closing remarks:

WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
building an encyclopedia.

That is to say: any userbox which is useful in getting Wikipedia written
can stay. Everything else can die.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] CafePress (was Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!)

body:
On 1/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> Totally unrelated question: Where can I find out what portion of
> cafepress.com merchandise goes back to Wikipedia?

20% of the listed price for each item purchased from
http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia goes to the Wikimedia Foundation.

CafePress commissions from the start of the recent fundraising drive
to the end of day 17 were $617.

Angela.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Duplicate articles

body:
How are the Wiktionary: namespace on csb.wiki a problem? The namespace
wasn't changed.

Mark

On 09/01/06, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Tonight nikerabbit and I have fixed some issues with namespaces on
> > several wikis. When changing namespaces, there are sometime conflicts
> > with already existing articles. They need to be fixed manually.
> >
> > We had errors on bnwiki ocwiki and csbwiktionary. Members of those
> > communities need to fix the article wich have been renamed with the
> > suffix '/broken'.
> >
> > The list are available on my webspace:
> >
> >   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/bnwiki-conflicts.txt
> >   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/ocwiki-conflicts.txt
> >   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/csbwiktionary-conflicts.txt
> >
> > If there is any issue, come chat with sysadmin on
> > irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-tech and/or open a bug report on
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ .
>
> We had some trouble with bnwiki , some article got wrongly moved and
> need to be moved back manually. I think NikeRabbit is fixing them right now.
>
> The list is available at:
>  http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/bnwiki-autofix.txt
>
> Sorry for the trouble :-/
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Jan

body:
Hello ffaarr,

the category-links are included in the articles? But the articles are not
assigned to the categorys?

try to execute "maintenance/refreshlinks.php" on webserver-commandline.

Regards,
Jan

Far schrieb:
> I am from zh-wikipedia. There were some problems  in  system at january 6th . Since
> that,  thousands of articles are not included in the category pages. These articles has to be edited in order to enter the category pages.Because of reasons metioned above, we have to edit these thousands of articles into category pages. It would be a big task.Is there anyone can purge the data? Please purge it to help these pages getting into category pages.Thanks a lot.
>
>                                                              ffaarr
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


from_name: SCO Estmort

subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
It occurs to me we should enforce some of our trademarks, because rampant
infringement of Wikipedia's trademarks, and Wikimedia's trademarks in
general is occurring. If we don't enforce our trademarks IIRC, we will
eventually lose the ability to enforce them forever.

For example: WikipediaClassAction.org is violating our trademark and
copyright. Wikipedi.org, wikicommons.org, etc. are candidates for trademark
infringement. I am not a lawyer, but it occurs to me that we apparently
abhor being on the defending side of lawsuits so much, we abhor being the
plaintiff.

There are several reasons why we should do this soon (ie. issue takedown
notices for infringement for these sites):

1. It would establish our authoritative presence in the legal arena, while
being relatively easy cases.
2. It would show that we are determined to be accountable, ie. it would
dissuade possible malicious vandals, or make them think twice, while not
discouraging new users.
3. Following this logic, it shows that just because it is Wikipedia, it
doesn't mean we're weak or helpless, or can't eventually use the long arm of
the law to find those who try to sabotage the encyclopedia.
4. Imagine what the consequences could be if someone redirected a
typosquatting site targeting the Wikipedia audience - to a porn site.
5. The GFDL is being enforced in the same manner: it doesn't compromise our
"free as in freedom/information wants to be free" philosophy whatsoever.
6. There's a large chance this will help unite the community in external
action.

We would discourage new users only very minimally, and might give us some
controversy, but that's only because of the misconception that open source
=> weak and vulnerable.

On the other hand, people have raised up suggestions that we also have a
large case against Willy on Wheels and Wikipedia is Communism.

Of course, I do not seem to know why we don't do this already. Thoughts?


body:
On 1/9/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On 9 Jan 2006, at 19:34, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> > Well, you seem to have been misinformed on all your points.  But I see
> > them filling a different niche from Wikipedia anyway.
> >
> > I have my doubts as to whether or not DU will be successful.  It's
> > really a matter of how well it's managed.  I think the idea is a good
> > one, though.  (I've personally watched a company I've co-founded, with
> > a similar idea, waste millions of dollars and go out of business,
> > during the dot-com days.  Actually when I showed this to one of the
> > other co-founders he asked me if this was our old CEO, who botched the
> > thing up back then, trying the idea again.  It isn't.)
>
> I just hope they feel that they can use some of what we have done
> (commons, perhaps, as a minimum) and dont try to remake the world from
> scratch. And realising this, use a compatible license.
>
> Justinc

Is there a license that isn't compatible with the stuff on commons?


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>On Mon, 2006-01-09 at 06:25 -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>>Reading between the lines, I think what they're really hoping is to
>>leverage the $10M for infrastructure, with most expert content
>>creators being "paid" in the form of bylines. For many experts,
>>this will be sufficient draw; they will be able to justify it
>>as part of work, it will be a way to get ahead, etc.
>>
>
>This doesnt happen. Academics and so forth are busy and expect to
>be paid for this type of thing. Bylines in an encyclopaedia dont
>cut it any more.
>
Unless things have changed a lot since I was in academia, there
are lots of things one doesn't get paid for, such as peer review of
papers. Computing Reviews didn't pay me for the paper and book
reviews I wrote for them. For that matter, academics rarely get paid
for publishing papers in the first place, they even pay to get them
published (the "page charges").

Most likely, DU will have an (unpublicized) sliding scale, where the
big names or otherwise desirable contributors can get cash, and the
smaller names will have to settle for less. By buying the prestigious,
they're hoping to gain instant credibility, not unlike journals
hoping to increase their prestige by recruiting big names for their
editorial board.

WP's best response is to continue with our program of increasing
the scholarly rigor (source citation, etc), and highlight how we
can do all the good things that experts do, but without being
handicapped by the gamesmanship and careerism that affict the
usual institutions. Sort of a return to the best traditions
of pure scholarship, if you will.

Stan


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Digital Universe

body:
On Sun, 8 Jan 2006, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

> I'm not sure I've got it all figured out, but... according to http://
> www.digitaluniverse.net/participate/ , "While participation in
> discussion about the Digital Universe is free, we do require that you
> have a registered account with us. You can also download the free
> ManyOne browser..."
>
> The free ManyOne browser, which apparently embodies technology needed
> to participate, is only available for Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
>
I'm surprised by that one. I just happen to know of the developers who
is (or was) working on this project for LMS -- who happens to be a
member not only of the local Linux group here, but also of the local
you-have-to-pay-dues-to-belong Linux business organization.

Then again, he might have been working on the server end of the site, &
not on the browser (which, dollars against donuts is likely a slightly
tweaked variant of IE or Firefox).

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
Am I just missing the point again, or wouldn't this concept of a
"Wikipedia Ombudsman" duplicate much of what a member of the
Mediation Committee would do?

Maybe an Ombudsman would have a special power or two that the
average Admin wouldn't have or need (say, the ability to force
both parties to negotiate in good faith or suffer sanctions),
but I wouldn't be surprised that whatever shape the position
might have, it'd have a rate of turnover somewhere between
the ArbCom & the Mediation Committee -- that is, we'd burn
thru one Ombudsman every 4-7 months.

Just my $0.02,

Geoff


body:
On 1/9/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 10 Jan 2006, at 00:44, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> > Is there a license that isn't compatible with the stuff on commons?
>
> Well 2 ways they could go:
>
> 1. Not use commons as they are not interested
>
> 2. Not produce media that we could use on commons (proprietary).
>
> I cant see any license reason why they cant use whats one commons,
> its pretty free.
>
> Justinc

Yeah, I hope they keep the vast majority of their content
non-proprietary (I'd say all of it, but I've kind of given up on that
one).  Otherwise there's not much of a point.  There's plenty of
no-cost proprietary information already out there.  I guess most of it
isn't ad-free, but I don't see that as *that* big of a draw.

Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
happened yet.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?

body:
> From: Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com>
> On Mon, 2006-01-09 at 06:25 -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
>> Reading between the lines, I think what they're really hoping is to
>> leverage the $10M for infrastructure, with most expert content
>> creators being "paid" in the form of bylines. For many experts,
>> this will be sufficient draw; they will be able to justify it
>> as part of work, it will be a way to get ahead, etc.
>
> This doesnt happen. Academics and so forth are busy and expect to
> be paid for this type of thing. Bylines in an encyclopaedia dont
> cut it any more.

Indeed.

Many professionals are very serious about being professionals--that
is, about being paid for their work.


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 1/9/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 10 Jan 2006, at 01:27, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
> > hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
> > be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
> > GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
> > fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
> > happened yet.
>
> Out of interest whats your problem (and fix?).

Not Anthony, but thought I'd put my oar in.  I'd rather the GFDL had
been something like the GPL, but for documents.  Easy to understand,
not very burdensome requirements.  Instead you get all the complexity
about invariant sections, about author attribution, about prohibiting
DRM, about all kinds of things.

Part of the problem was that the FSF seem to have been only thinking
of conventional books when they invented the GFDL.  Many of its
requirements (e.g. having to include the whole license with any
re-use, rather than simply a pointer to it) make sense with a book but
not if you want to re-use just a tiny portion of the work.

Bear in mind that Wikipedia is in actuality rather far from complete
compliance with the GFDL ourselves, even though we officially 'turn
off' parts of the GFDL for Wikipedia.  I'm not the person to go to
about this, but others on this list have studied this in more depth.

The Creative Commons people got a lot more right, although people have
issues with parts of it, e.g. no requirement for the original source
to be available.

-Matt


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!

body:
On 1/9/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Comments from the peanut gallery.  I felt like forwarding this
> somewhere, so I am.
>
> Kelly

Heh the arbcom notice was briefly at the top of every page but the
people who look after site notice removed it. So I compramised on
watchlists.

--
geni


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Fwd: LACNIC ranges being filtered]

body:
Forwarded from NANOG: a request for Wikipedia (and/or its upstream
providers) to examine its bogon filters.

-- Neil


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:18:10 +0100, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/9/06, SCO Estmort <eudaimonic.leftist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It occurs to me we should enforce some of our trademarks, because
>> rampant
>> infringement of Wikipedia's trademarks, and Wikimedia's trademarks in
>> general is occurring. If we don't enforce our trademarks IIRC, we will
>> eventually lose the ability to enforce them forever.
>
> This is true, and it's something the Foundation's legal committee are
> working on.
>
>> Wikipedi.org, wikicommons.org, etc. are candidates for trademark
>> infringement.
>
> Wikicommons.org is owned by the Foundation. Wikipedi is just
> [[Typosquatting]] and not something I'm too worried about since it
> would be too costly to prevent every domain typo from being
> registered.

Typos are one thing, but what about sites on other top domains like .com
or .net. Wikipedia itself seems to be covered, but things like
<http://www.wikimedia.com> and <http://www.wikimedia.net> (pornsite) are
out there. Though I guess it might be better to just ignore those rather
than give in to the "blackmail" of various domain sharks.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


subject:
[Wikitech-l] LACNIC ranges being filtered: request from LACNIC to
	Wikipedia

body:
Well, that attempt at forwarding didn't go too well, so here's the same
message from the NANOG list, quoted below, inline...

-- Neil

>
> Hello,
>
> In june 2005 LACNIC received two new IP block from IANA (189/8 and
> 190/8). And before starting to make allocation in it, we conducted
> some reachability tests with valuable help from this community.
>
> Those test showed that great majority of transit providers were not
> block those network ranges.
>
> But unfortunately turned out that there are now some end nodes
> networks which are still blocking them.
>
> Contact have been tried from LANCIC members being affected, their
> upstream and also from LACNIC itself since end of November 2005 with
> not much success so far.
>
> So we kindly ask you all to revise your filters and if some of the
> following networks/address range administrator could contact us
> offline we would appreciate:
>
> American Express
> Oracle
> Wikipedia
> HostDime.com, Inc
> American Airlines Inc.
> Gannett Co
> Adslzone.net
> 82.223.64.0/18
>
> Thanks
> Ricardo Patara
> RSG Manager
> --
> | LACNIC
> | http://LACNIC.NET
>
>
>


body:
On 1/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Totally unrelated question: Where can I find out what portion of
> cafepress.com merchandise goes back to Wikipedia?
>
> Steve

Sod all. Someone needs to find a better suplier.

--
geni


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
On 1/9/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> If the sh-Wikipedians are as bad as you suggest, then isn't the demand
> to shut down their project a question of feeding the trolls taken to the
> level of whole wikis?

The parts of English Wikipedia are controled by much worst people,
even English is well known language. In other words, it is usual on
Wikipedia, too.


from_name: nigel kerr

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:ConcatPages

body:
good folk,

find at meta User:Nigelk/ConcatPages to have source code for
SpecialConcatPages.php, a special page to work with the NavMap extension
(at User:Nigelk/Nav).  this is, you understand, a 0.1.  it does this:

	takes three POST or GET url parameters:

		map	(some extant map)
		start	(some page in the map)
		end	(some succeeding page in the map)

	and tries to output the concatenation of that start, all the
	pages in between (per the map), the end, and the children of the
	end into the body of the special page.

no features at the moment other than that.  the page points to a
demonstration.

no reason one could not apply this to a parameter that had arbitrary
pages listed in order.  and i think i finally 'got' wfMsg and the
MessageCache, et al.  only really tested it by me, with php 5.0.4 live
on the site.

comments, here or en Meta, as ever, welcome.

cheers,
nigel


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
> Eh? The law must have changed since I last looked. What
> happened to the cybersquatter who got a few million for mcdonalds.com?

Have you got a cite for it? The last I heard was either the law changed,
or they started enforcing it, but I'm sure I've read several articles
saying that you just can't do that anymore. Not that there are any
decent trademarks left to grab anyway.

See
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectID/60EC3491-B4B5-4A98-BB6E6632A2FA
0CB2/111/228/195/ART/ or, of course, [[Cybersquatting]] :)

Steve


body:
Peanut gallery to peanut gallery here:

> When most people log on they are taken to the Main Page, and the
> > ArbCom vote link should be on EVERY article, putting it on
> watchlists
> > marginalizes it, and if you have a rule that users need to
> be active
> > for a few months then their vote won't be registered regardless of
> > what page they come from. At this stage it's more important
> to educate
> > new users and the public about an important vote taking
> place within
> > Wikipedia than to have the request for MONEY on every page
> which makes
> > Wikipedia look greedy after they just raised around $300,000, don't
> > you think? Get rid of the merchandising and commercializing

I hadn't realised the ArbCom thing shows up only on the watchlist, but
it seems a very logical place for it. There is no point having newbies
or casual web surfers vote. They would have no idea what they were
voting for, let alone whom. Anyone who has a watchlist and checks it
cares at least a *little* bit about Wikipedia, and has a basic concept
of editing, and can probably understand the issues that could lead to
disputes, like (non-)ownership of pages, etc.

That said, he has a point re:fundraising. It would be more satisfying if
there *was* a fundraising goal, and if the notices were removed if that
goal were met. Fair enough if the goal *isn't* met to leave it
indefinitely.

Totally unrelated question: Where can I find out what portion of
cafepress.com merchandise goes back to Wikipedia?

Steve


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] User against scientology

body:
I have deleted the template User against scientology, which expresses
"vehement" opposition to scientology, and  which I found still
moldering on TFD when a similar template attacking jews was speedied.
I did so because, while such templates are well beyond the pale,  I
suspect that I may be the only one with the brass neck to do so in the
current situation, with arbitration elections running and blood style
high over the earlier userboxes deletions.  I would have deleted it
earlier had I known that it was not speedied along with the
antisemitic one.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> Are the existing factions on WP also a problem for you?
>

Yes, in the sense that they're a problem for Wikipedia.


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] {{ in Skin messages

body:
Hello,

I asked to remove {{ messages from en.wikipedia skin
( Mediawiki:aboutsite, Mediawiki:copyright, Mediawiki:pagetitle ),
and we gained 7% of performance. In these hard times when we're again
somewhat overloaded even small bits count.

If you're a sysop on big wiki and notice a message that is used on
skin and has {{ in it, do not hesitate and remove it. In future we
might hack that 10 (or more) largest wikis definitely won't be able
to use {{ in skin messages.

Every 1% saved results in multiple kilo$ in savings.. ;-)

Domas


subject: [WikiEN-l] Summarising policies and guidelines

body:
On 1/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>   I have an informal project to produce a summary of every policy and
> guideline "in a nutshell" at [[Wikipedia:List of policies and
> guidelines]].  I envisage that it would probably be useful to put that
> nutshell summary on the policy pages in question, but that can wait
> until such summaries are agreed upon.
>
> The goal is basically to have a page that can explain *every policy and
> guideline* to a user in a minute or two. Currently we have no real
> limits on how many policies and guidelines there are, and nothing
> stopping contradictory P/Gs being created. Consequently, people can pick
> and choose which P/Gs they follow, and we end up having silly pages like
> [[WP:ENC]] being created (I notice someone put the {policy} template
> back on it, despite no consensus or active discussion...).  Some sort of
> formal recognition that "yes, we have a community abide by the following
> 37 rules that we have created" would be good. If anti-anarchistic ;)
>
> Anyway, if anyone feels like summarising a policy or guideline in one
> line or so, or contributing any ideas on layout or project goals or
> whatever, please do. There is discussion on an earlier version of the
> project at [[template talk:Guideline one liner]].
>
> Steve

Have fun with the MOS. Generaly only refured to when when people are
trying to use it in order to win a debate.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] User against scientology

body:
On 1/9/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/9/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> # '''Support''' - ~~~~

Yep, I'm breathing out now because I got a couple of thank yous on my
talk page.  Looks like I did my good deed for the day.


from_name: Jim Cecropia

body:
I got one too. Is this going to be a WikiChainLetter? ;-)

C

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:44:19 -0600

>
> Comments from the peanut gallery.  I felt like forwarding this
> somewhere, so I am.
>
> Kelly
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: IZAK <simshalom at att.net>
> Date: Jan 9, 2006 12:04 PM
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!
> To: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> Hi Kelly:
> When most people log on they are taken to the Main Page, and the
> ArbCom vote link should be on EVERY article, putting it on watchlists
> marginalizes it, and if you have a rule that users need to be active
> for a few months then their vote won't be registered regardless of
> what page they come from. At this stage it's more important to educate
> new users and the public about an important vote taking place within
> Wikipedia than to have the request for MONEY on every page which makes
> Wikipedia look greedy after they just raised around $300,000, don't
> you think? Get rid of the merchandising and commercializing junk and
> mention the ArbCom stuff that is more to the core of what Wikipedia is
> about, a participatory effort and not just a scheme to raise money.
> Some of us are having trouble writing and editing articles with that
> flashing "Dollar sign" on top of every page. I hope you understand the
> importance of this. It's about the kind of image Wikipedia wants to
> project about itself, an
>   d someone has made a bad decision here lately it seems to me.
> IZAK.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


body:
Hello all,
  I have an informal project to produce a summary of every policy and
guideline "in a nutshell" at [[Wikipedia:List of policies and
guidelines]].  I envisage that it would probably be useful to put that
nutshell summary on the policy pages in question, but that can wait
until such summaries are agreed upon.

The goal is basically to have a page that can explain *every policy and
guideline* to a user in a minute or two. Currently we have no real
limits on how many policies and guidelines there are, and nothing
stopping contradictory P/Gs being created. Consequently, people can pick
and choose which P/Gs they follow, and we end up having silly pages like
[[WP:ENC]] being created (I notice someone put the {policy} template
back on it, despite no consensus or active discussion...).  Some sort of
formal recognition that "yes, we have a community abide by the following
37 rules that we have created" would be good. If anti-anarchistic ;)

Anyway, if anyone feels like summarising a policy or guideline in one
line or so, or contributing any ideas on layout or project goals or
whatever, please do. There is discussion on an earlier version of the
project at [[template talk:Guideline one liner]].

Steve


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Duplicate articles

body:
Hello,

Tonight nikerabbit and I have fixed some issues with namespaces on
several wikis. When changing namespaces, there are sometime conflicts
with already existing articles. They need to be fixed manually.

We had errors on bnwiki ocwiki and csbwiktionary. Members of those
communities need to fix the article wich have been renamed with the
suffix '/broken'.

The list are available on my webspace:

  http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/bnwiki-conflicts.txt
  http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/ocwiki-conflicts.txt
  http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/csbwiktionary-conflicts.txt

If there is any issue, come chat with sysadmin on
irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-tech and/or open a bug report on
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ .

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


body:
20%? I'm speechless.

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Angela
> Sent: Monday, 9th January 2006 11:43 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] CafePress (was Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!)
>
>
> On 1/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Totally unrelated question: Where can I find out what portion of
> > cafepress.com merchandise goes back to Wikipedia?
>
> 20% of the listed price for each item purchased from
> http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia goes to the > Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> CafePress commissions from the start of the recent
> fundraising drive to the end of day 17 were $617.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wik> ien-l
>


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 9 Jan 2006, at 19:34, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> Well, you seem to have been misinformed on all your points.  But I see
> them filling a different niche from Wikipedia anyway.
>
> I have my doubts as to whether or not DU will be successful.  It's
> really a matter of how well it's managed.  I think the idea is a good
> one, though.  (I've personally watched a company I've co-founded, with
> a similar idea, waste millions of dollars and go out of business,
> during the dot-com days.  Actually when I showed this to one of the
> other co-founders he asked me if this was our old CEO, who botched the
> thing up back then, trying the idea again.  It isn't.)

I just hope they feel that they can use some of what we have done
(commons, perhaps, as a minimum) and dont try to remake the world from
scratch. And realising this, use a compatible license.

Justinc


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fred Bauder

> True, but he has it set up more as an appeals court. A
> ombudsman in the sense you set forth would be welcome. I
> wouldn't mind at all someone dropping me a note, saying "Hey,
> cool it, you're getting carried away [with whatever]." We all
> need feedback. We don't need a second-guessing czar. Things
> are hard enough the first time.

OK, I didn't read the proposal. I don't think we need an appeals court that
isn't Jimbo. Not just yet, anyway. But I'd like to see an independent
person, possibly with a staff of helpers, review cases of perceived
injustice.

I'm not going to bring up old meals again, but I could certainly have used
someone like that a few months ago.

However, I don't think that there's much point in having an ombudsman,
because the community would want to elect him or her, and the end result
would be that the community would elect exactly the same sort of person that
they had elected to the ArbCom, resulting in an unsurprising groupthink.

I've just cast my eye over the voting process for the ArbCom and I have got
to say that it sucks. Every editor gets multiple votes, because they can
support or oppose every single candidate. That's like a single voter being
able to vote twice over in every voting district in the country. The end
result will be a remarkably uniformly thinking ArbCom that has the support
of a majority, while the minority will find that their views are
unrepresented.

To put it in party political terms, this is like having a Republican elected
in every single voting district (supposing the country to have a majority of
Republican voters), because any local differences will be smoothed out.

While I realise that WP is not a democracy, and we aren't quite at the stage
of organised factions or political parties, I cannot view such an situation
as leading to tranquility and stability.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Duplicate articles

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Tonight nikerabbit and I have fixed some issues with namespaces on
> several wikis. When changing namespaces, there are sometime conflicts
> with already existing articles. They need to be fixed manually.
>
> We had errors on bnwiki ocwiki and csbwiktionary. Members of those
> communities need to fix the article wich have been renamed with the
> suffix '/broken'.
>
> The list are available on my webspace:
>
>   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/bnwiki-conflicts.txt
>   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/ocwiki-conflicts.txt
>   http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/csbwiktionary-conflicts.txt
>
> If there is any issue, come chat with sysadmin on
> irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-tech and/or open a bug report on
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ .

We had some trouble with bnwiki , some article got wrongly moved and
need to be moved back manually. I think NikeRabbit is fixing them right now.

The list is available at:
  http://noc.wikimedia.org/~hashar/bnwiki-autofix.txt

Sorry for the trouble :-/

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Both of these are issues which can be dealt with independently from
the userbox question.

1. Should fair use images be allowed on user pages? Most people on
here seem to conclude "no" on this subject in general, and it's the
current policy, so that seems fairly straightforward.

2. Should user categories be allowed in general? I don't personally
have a strong opinion on this (I don't see the problem, personally --
if people are going to bloc vote, assuming that is the issue, they
have no problem doing that as it is. All one has to do to find
sympathetic editors to a given POV is to look at the edit histories of
contentious articles.) but surely a decision can be reached.

3. Should templates on user pages which are purely for decoration be
auto-substituted? If there's an argument to be made about server
performance, then okay, this should also be fairly straightforward.

Taking care of these issues as *general* issues and not related to one
specific fad is the way to extinguish whatever actual problems there
are without being idiosyncratic and draconian about it.

FF

On 1/8/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/8/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why is it that I agree with Sam Spade? Honestly, I still do not see
> > what all the fuss is about. Let people play with their silly trinkets.
> > They will tire of them and make new trinkets later. All you do in
> > heaping so much attention on one particular trinket is guarantee its
> > prolonged existence.
>
> Then we should make userboxes nothing more than silly trinkets. They
> should be snippets of code that someone adds to their user page and
> nothing more. Just a few simple ground rules: No fair use images and
> no user categories. I think that the opposition would pretty much
> disappear if userboxes truly were nothing more than a box with some
> text.
>
> Carbonite
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] 2 Questions: "Image-Batch-Upload" and "Refresh wiki
	data"

body:
Those scripts require that you've configured a valid AdminSettings.php
file in the wiki root. See AdminSettings.sample for more details.

Rob Church

On 10/01/06, Jan <2036 at gmx.de> wrote:
> > refreshLinks.php
>
> I successfully refreshed the links (in phpShell). So all articles imported by
> XML are assigned correctly to their categories.
> "php refreshLinks.php" works without problems.
>
> There are two more issues, which I have noticed in the meantime:
> First, the statistics are still wrong (Spezial:Statistics); it says, i have "0
> articles".
> And the search-funktion doesnt work: It just doesnt find the articles.
>
> I found "maintenance/rebuildall.php", but when I try to execute, i get
> (html-tags removed):
> FH-Wiki has a problem Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.
> Try waiting a few minutes and reloading. (Can't contact the database server:)
>
> When I execute "php rebuildtextindex.php", i get the same error-message.
>
> Any hints, how to repair stats and search-index?
>
> Regards,
> Jan
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 10 Jan 2006, at 00:44, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> Is there a license that isn't compatible with the stuff on commons?

Well 2 ways they could go:

1. Not use commons as they are not interested

2. Not produce media that we could use on commons (proprietary).

I cant see any license reason why they cant use whats one commons,
its pretty free.

Justinc


from_name: Jay Converse

body:
On 1/9/06, Jim Cecropia <jcecropia at mail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Comments from the peanut gallery.  I felt like forwarding this
> > somewhere, so I am.
> >
> > Kelly
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: IZAK <simshalom at att.net>
> > Date: Jan 9, 2006 12:04 PM
> > Subject: Wikipedia e-mail: Bad decision!
> > To: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Kelly:
> > When most people log on they are taken to the Main Page, and the
> > ArbCom vote link should be on EVERY article, putting it on watchlists
> > marginalizes it, and if you have a rule that users need to be active
> > for a few months then their vote won't be registered regardless of
> > what page they come from. At this stage it's more important to educate
> > new users and the public about an important vote taking place within
> > Wikipedia than to have the request for MONEY on every page which makes
> > Wikipedia look greedy after they just raised around $300,000, don't
> > you think? Get rid of the merchandising and commercializing junk and
> > mention the ArbCom stuff that is more to the core of what Wikipedia is
> > about, a participatory effort and not just a scheme to raise money.
> > Some of us are having trouble writing and editing articles with that
> > flashing "Dollar sign" on top of every page. I hope you understand the
> > importance of this. It's about the kind of image Wikipedia wants to
> > project about itself, an
> >   d someone has made a bad decision here lately it seems to me.
> > IZAK.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

To address the point that was brought up in this apparent chain letter, I
happen to like what's been done about the box.  You have to admit it was a
bit annoying to have that big honking yellow box at the top of everything
you were doing.  At least we've returned to the clean site design we've all
come to know and love.

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: Jan

body:
> refreshLinks.php

I successfully refreshed the links (in phpShell). So all articles imported by
XML are assigned correctly to their categories.
"php refreshLinks.php" works without problems.

There are two more issues, which I have noticed in the meantime:
First, the statistics are still wrong (Spezial:Statistics); it says, i have "0
articles".
And the search-funktion doesnt work: It just doesnt find the articles.

I found "maintenance/rebuildall.php", but when I try to execute, i get
(html-tags removed):
FH-Wiki has a problem Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.
Try waiting a few minutes and reloading. (Can't contact the database server:)

When I execute "php rebuildtextindex.php", i get the same error-message.

Any hints, how to repair stats and search-index?

Regards,
Jan


body:
On 10 Jan 2006, at 01:27, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
> hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
> be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
> GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
> fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
> happened yet.

Out of interest whats your problem (and fix?).

Justinc


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
On 1/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
> I'll bite.  What's wrong with wikicommons.org?  Are you trying to say
> the WMF has a trademark on anything that starts with wiki?

I can't speak for the original poster, but he probably doesn't realize that
registering domain names is not copyright infringement. He's right about the
first one though. WikipediaClassAction.org uses the Wikipedia logo, and I
presume without permission. Has anyone in an official capacity contacted
them about this?

Ryan


body:
Hello Rob,

thank you :-)

rebuildall.php has successful repaired the search.

To repair the Special:Statistics, I had to do an additional task (information
for archive, etc.):
Because in the database does exist an entry with key=1, the script
init_stats.php cant "INSERT" the values into the table "wiki_site_stats". So I
droped the first row from the table "wiki_site_stats", and execute
php Init_stats.php again. Success :-)

Regards,
Jan


subject: [WikiEN-l] enforcing our trademark

body:
On 1/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It can still be trademark infringement though. You can't go and
> register cocacola.org without hearing from lawyers.
>
> Steve

Eh? The law must have changed since I last looked. What happened to the
cybersquatter who got a few million for mcdonalds.com?

Ryan


from_name: Niklas Laxström

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Duplicate articles

references:
<dpupth$7lc$1@sea.gmane.org> <dpurhm$ck1$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<849f98ed0601091659r1733cedn@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 10/01/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> How are the Wiktionary: namespace on csb.wiki a problem? The namespace
> wasn't changed.
>
Namespace were changed:
-	NS_PROJECT          => 'Wiki',
-	NS_PROJECT_TALK     => 'Disk?s?j?_Wiki',
+	NS_PROJECT          => $wgMetaNamespace,
+	NS_PROJECT_TALK     => 'Disk?s?j?_' . $wgMetaNamespace,

MetaNamespace and Sitename were not changed. Pages that were in
Wiki:-namespace were moved to Wiktionary:-namespace. If there was
already a page, conflict occurred. Also links to Wiki:-namespace
stopped working. Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn't yet check
whether we need to do something to those pages and links.

--
Niklas Laxstr?m


from_name: SCO Estmort

subject: [WikiEN-l] re:enforcing our trademark

body:
>Quoted from Sherool:
>>Though I guess it might be better to just ignore those rather
>>than give in to the "blackmail" of various domain sharks.

Well, we would be the plaintiff, and we wouldn't of course accept anything
else than a settlement or a takedown (other than backing off, that is).
Which reminds me, we could possibly obtain compensation for damages in this
way, if we really want funds that much, provided the risk is low, of course.

My rationale for wikicommons.org is that if I recall, Wikimedia Commons is a
trademark, and wikicommons can thus be confused with it (ie. wiki concepts
aren't trademarked, but wikimedia names and such are).

Again, I see people who have filed lawsuits on behalf of the GPL have yet to
lose any case, and have forced all the violators they contacted to comply (a
few of which took it to court and the violators lost). Unless my confidence
is misplaced, I feel that we should have little reservations about enforcing
our trademark immediately. After all, there are laws against cybersquatting.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/9/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 10 Jan 2006, at 01:27, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
> > hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
> > be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
> > GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
> > fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
> > happened yet.
>
> Out of interest whats your problem (and fix?).
>
> Justinc

My problem is pretty much everything in the GFDL that isn't in
CC-by-SA.  See Section 4 of the GFDL - everything there except the
requirement to attribute authors (and personally I don't even like
that requirement, which is arguably too onerous for a wiki, but it's a
compromise to at least keep in the spirit of the GFDL).

The perfect fix (that is at all possible) would be to create a new
version of the GFDL which says something to the effect of "You may opt
to apply the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
instead of this license."  Of course, it's probably more realistic to
expect more gradual changes.

Anthony


body:
On 1/9/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/9/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 10 Jan 2006, at 01:27, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > > Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
> > > hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
> > > be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
> > > GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
> > > fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
> > > happened yet.
> >
> > Out of interest whats your problem (and fix?).
>
> Not Anthony, but thought I'd put my oar in.  I'd rather the GFDL had
> been something like the GPL, but for documents.  Easy to understand,
> not very burdensome requirements.  Instead you get all the complexity
> about invariant sections, about author attribution, about prohibiting
> DRM, about all kinds of things.
>
Actually I don't see any reason why using the GPL unmodified wouldn't
have been a much better solution than using the GFDL.  Sure, the GPL
was designed for software, but the GFDL was designed for software
documentation.  The GPL defines "Program" as "any program or other
work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it
may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License" and
"source code" as "the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it", so it *can* be applied to Wikipedia AFAICT.

> Part of the problem was that the FSF seem to have been only thinking
> of conventional books when they invented the GFDL.  Many of its
> requirements (e.g. having to include the whole license with any
> re-use, rather than simply a pointer to it) make sense with a book but
> not if you want to re-use just a tiny portion of the work.
>
I believe the GPL imposes this requirement too, though.  The best
solution (again, in hindsight) would have been a custom license.

> Bear in mind that Wikipedia is in actuality rather far from complete
> compliance with the GFDL ourselves, even though we officially 'turn
> off' parts of the GFDL for Wikipedia.  I'm not the person to go to
> about this, but others on this list have studied this in more depth.
>
> The Creative Commons people got a lot more right, although people have
> issues with parts of it, e.g. no requirement for the original source
> to be available.
>
> -Matt

I doubt the GFDL accomplishes much wrt making the original source
available either, though (at least in terms of Wikipedia).  The GFDL
lists HTML as an example of a "transparent file format", which
probably means there is no requirement to distribute the original
wikitext.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> >
> >If people are using Wikipedia to play rather than build an encyclopaedia,
> >then they should be encouraged in this primary objective, not castigated for
> >extraneous activies, because for every frivolous userbox, I dare say if I
> >went looking, I could find some other piece of useless guff on the user
> >pages of experienced editors. Let people play, if it does no harm and they
> >are participating in community activities, but also encourage them to be
> >more productive.
> >
> >
> The difference is experienced users tend to contribute to article space
> as well. Many userbox fanatics make minimal or no edits to articles. (Of
> course, most people with userboxes aren't fanatics; I have quite a few
> userboxes myself. But there are a few rogue bunch out there who seem
> more intent on userboxes than building an encyclopedia.)

Take a look at the edits of [[User:Jimbo Wales]] and [[User:Anthere]].
 There are productive things to do other than edit articles.  (This is
not at all to knock their contributions, it is instead to knock the
notion that article count means everything).


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > Peter Mackay wrote:
> >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > >If people are using Wikipedia to play rather than build an encyclopaedia,
> > >then they should be encouraged in this primary objective, not castigated for
> > >extraneous activies, because for every frivolous userbox, I dare say if I
> > >went looking, I could find some other piece of useless guff on the user
> > >pages of experienced editors. Let people play, if it does no harm and they
> > >are participating in community activities, but also encourage them to be
> > >more productive.
> > >
> > >
> > The difference is experienced users tend to contribute to article space
> > as well. Many userbox fanatics make minimal or no edits to articles. (Of
> > course, most people with userboxes aren't fanatics; I have quite a few
> > userboxes myself. But there are a few rogue bunch out there who seem
> > more intent on userboxes than building an encyclopedia.)
>
> Take a look at the edits of [[User:Jimbo Wales]] and [[User:Anthere]].
>  There are productive things to do other than edit articles.  (This is
> not at all to knock their contributions, it is instead to knock the
> notion that article count means everything).
>
Or [[User:Kelly Martin]].  I count one article edit in the last 500,
though I might have missed a few.

Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
encyclopedia as creating them.


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
> >
> > Take a look at the edits of [[User:Jimbo Wales]] and [[User:Anthere]].
> >  There are productive things to do other than edit articles.
> > (This is not at all to knock their contributions, it is
> > instead to knock the notion that article count means everything).
>
> Mmm, but if new editors got stuck into the same sorts of activity as Jimbo,
> my eyebrows would assume the shape of the Golden Arches.
>
> Peter (Skyring)

So new editors should stick to announcing edicts, begging for money,
telling people that they're too stupid to make an encyclopedia, and
travelling the world on the foundations dollar?


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fred Bauder

> I liked that as I was able to vote for a number of people,
> including some that have no chance at all of being elected.
> If we could only vote for a few people I would then have to
> engage in grim calculations, trying to be very careful when I
> really don't know all those people very well. I think I would
> probably make some mistaken votes in those circumstances and
> then have to live with them. Using this approach I was able
> to vote for a wide variety of candidates including some whose
> views differ from mine.

I spotted that and it outweighed some of the negative feelings I've had
about you. It was very kind and thoughtful, and I would not have expected
that from you.

The fact remains that the voting system is flawed and easily manipulated.
I'm seeing editors advertising on their user pages which candidates they
support or oppose, and you can then check on the voting pages which way they
voted. The "factional" vote is easily determined, and because the vote is
public, votes can, in effect, be bought and sold. Not for money (though that
would be possible), but in political terms of deals done and favours
exchanged.

The way the system is set up, this will inevitably lead, barring some sort
of revolt, to cronyism and concentration of power in the hands of those best
at gaming the system.

Let me put it another way. The term "Gerrymander" refers to the drawing of
boundaries of voting districts to favour one side (typically those already
in power). Even if an overall electorate is split 50:50, clever drawing of
boundaries can result in concentrating supporters for Party B in a small
number of voting districts, so that Party B will overwhelmingly win those
districts with margins of 90% or so, leaving Party A to scoop up the large
number of remaining voting districts with majorities of (say) 55% - because
most of their opponents have been concentrated elsewhere.

The Roman Republic had a similar deal, where voters were divided into urban
and rural "tribes". Urban tribes were vast in numbers, so each individual
vote was of small value, but the smaller rural tribes gave each voter a much
larger say. At the end of the day the *overall* votes of tribes were
tallied, much like an electoral college system where each State returns just
one delegate instead of a several based on population, and surprise,
surprise, the rural tribes usually ended up supporting the winning
candidate.

The system of ArbCom voting is one big gerrymander, with the difference
being that Party B cannot win a single district. Not unless they can somehow
mobilise enough voters to gain an overall majority, in which case they will
win every single contest.

As I say, so far WP has not progressed to overt parties or factions, so
there is no formal mechanism in place, but the evidence of informal
manipulation is easily seen.
>
> The thing is, the questions that we really have about
> arbitrators can't be answered abstractly. You know something
> when you see them in action in that role. It is very
> difficult to predict. Almost everyone who ran might be a good
> arbitrator. Or might be a good arbitrator for two weeks then
> we have to beg them to look at cases. One thing I did
> consider very negative, lengthy and wordy responses to
> questions. I can't stand written or oral filibusters.

That's command of language rather than judicial ability, IMHO. If someone
can summarise a situation in a completely wrong fashion, then that's a big
strike against them as a magistrate. And incidentally, the source of my
negative feelings toward you, dating back to my own case.

WP doesn't (yet) have a system of junior magistrates, unless you stretch the
role of an admin well beyond the "mop and bucket" role, so it is difficult
to say how someone will perform in an ArbCom position.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [WikiEN-l] offline users wish to add comments to pages via email

body:
I am on a costly slow and brief modem, mostly batched by wwwoffle. So
it is hard for me to submit bugs and comments interactively.

Indeed there should be a page saying how 3rd world users could
interact best with your site, e.g., It would be nice if there was a
email way to add comments to discussion Talk: pages.

Also I would like to note that when one sees "Your account has been
created. Don't forget to change your Wikipedia preferences.", the
"Wikipedia preferences" should be a link!


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >Or [[User:Kelly Martin]].  I count one article edit in the last 500,
> >though I might have missed a few.
> >
> >Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
> >encyclopedia as creating them.
> >
> >
> These people have assumed duties that aid the process of building an
> encyclopedia which do not (directly, at least) involve article editing.
> A new user (and pretty much everyone who isn't on the Board, Medcom,
> Arbcom, etc.) does not have such responsibilities. The only way they/we
> can help out will almost certainly involve article editing (stub
> sorting, AfD/speedy tagging, etc.). Even some niche tasks (like
> preparing spoken articles or uploading images) involve some article editing.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])

So, it's bad to not make many article edits.  And the response to my
comment that there are board members and arbcom members who don't make
many article edits is that it's OK, because they're board members and
arbcom members?

I'm sorry, but that seems circular to me.  I think there are lots of
ways to improve Wikipedia which don't involve any article editing, and
most of them don't involve admin powers either.

Now let me completely change the topic because I noticed this on one
of Kelly's edits, [[User talk:Croc Hunter]]: "This account has been
blocked indefinitely because it has edited from, or was created from,
the IP address 204.13.170.30, which has been identified as a probable
compromised webhost or open proxy."

Is it now a bannable offense simply to edit from an open proxy?  If
so, I'm sure the people over at the or-talk list will be interested to
hear this.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
>
> For insiders Jimbo would probably need a boilerplate response
> like, "I have referred your complaint to the ombudsman, all
> future correspondence on this matter should be directed to
> him."  As long as that Jimbo even sporadically deals with
> user problems they will roll the dice to get his attention.

My point being that Jimbo must be getting a lot of crap *now*. Having an
ombudsman (and assistants) to deal with the crap, make investigations and
recommendations, without actually having the power to implement their
recommendations, would take a load off him.

Peter (Skyring)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Begging notices,
	external commercial distributors (was Ads on Wikipedia?)

body:
On 1/10/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Only putting it on watchlists and recent changes would exclude anons and
> certain newbies, which is good for arbcom elections but not for fundraisers.
> A lot of funds comes from people who find Wikipedia useful, but don't edit
> themselves.
>
> I don't consider it begging. I'm sure they'd be more upset with constant
> adverts instead of occasional fundraiser notices.
>
> Mgm

I'm sure others disagree, but I'd certainly prefer targetted
advertisements to begging for money, especially since there's no "I
just gave you money two days ago now stop bothering me" button.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
If we had a real ombudsman (as opposed to what is being proposed,
which is not an ombudsman, but a sort of appeals court) the ombudsman
could accept a complaint about official action, and whether or not
the parties had requested or agreed to mediation, investigate it,
contact the users involved and enter into negotiations designed to
resolve any difficulties or bad feelings. It's a good thing.

It would not be designed or intended to punish or expose wrong doing,
but to resolve the bad consequences of lapses in judgement,
misunderstanding or unintended consequences.

Fred

On Jan 9, 2006, at 9:26 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:

> Am I just missing the point again, or wouldn't this concept of a
> "Wikipedia Ombudsman" duplicate much of what a member of the
> Mediation Committee would do?
>
> Maybe an Ombudsman would have a special power or two that the
> average Admin wouldn't have or need (say, the ability to force
> both parties to negotiate in good faith or suffer sanctions),
> but I wouldn't be surprised that whatever shape the position
> might have, it'd have a rate of turnover somewhere between
> the ArbCom & the Mediation Committee -- that is, we'd burn
> thru one Ombudsman every 4-7 months.
>
> Just my $0.02,
>
> Geoff
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
> Have fun with the MOS. Generaly only refured to when when
> people are trying to use it in order to win a debate.

Yeah, pages which contain hundreds of distinct suggestions with no
single underlying motivation present a problem. Perhaps we can produce a
short mock-up of a "perfect" page with "perfect" style?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
I think there is a genuine fear of factions or parties and the host
of actions which might follow. This was highlighted by what seemed to
be attempts to organize a Catholic faction. Part of the problem is
potential escalation. First there is point of view editing, then tag
team reverting, alerts to other members of the faction. Then imagine
an arbitration case and we, looking at these folks, make some kind of
remedy. Then all the usual kicking and screaming and politicing which
follows what is perceived as an unfair decision follows. Whether an
administrator enforces the remedy becomes an issue of whether there
is anti-catholic bias and so on. Arbitrators are googled to see if
they ever engaged in Catholic or Protestant activity, etc.

Substitute communist or anti-communist for Catholic and take a look
at the Nobs case for a real life example.

The problem is real, but it is in the context that we not only don't
want to exclude people with strong points of view but welcome them
for what they can add to articles which relate to their point of
view. So I think the problem is not preventing factions but insisting
that those who share a point of view act responsibly within the
policies and purpose of Wikipedia.

Actually any Wikipedia project serves as an organizing vehicle for
factions. We certainly would not want to hamper Wikipedia projects.

Fred

On Jan 9, 2006, at 10:31 PM, Fastfission wrote:

> Should user categories be allowed in general? I don't personally
> have a strong opinion on this (I don't see the problem, personally --
> if people are going to bloc vote, assuming that is the issue, they
> have no problem doing that as it is. All one has to do to find
> sympathetic editors to a given POV is to look at the edit histories of
> contentious articles.) but surely a decision can be reached.


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of geni

> On 1/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Totally unrelated question: Where can I find out what portion of
> > cafepress.com merchandise goes back to Wikipedia?
> >
> > Steve
>
> Sod all. Someone needs to find a better suplier.

We had this same problem with BookCrossing.com. CafePress had a great range
and good service, but we didn't get much back. Now we have a small staff who
handle book labels, bookmarks, clothing, backpacks, all sorts of stuff.

The benefits are that "the supply store" generates most of the revenue for
the site and we can tailor our merchandise precisely to what we want, rather
than what is convenient for CafePress. The downside is that we have to have
a staff and a storeroom and an infrastructure to handle the orders from a
userbase of hundreds of thousands, even if only a few of them are active at
any one time.

Peter (Skyring)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] stewards election

body:
Last day to vote on stewards

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006

The votes have not been updated today, but there are roughly 10
candidates supported over 80%, which is pretty good :-)

The vote will be closed tonight and the board will make the final pickup
in the group supported by the community, to nominate between 1 to 10 new
stewards.

---------

<SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE TO DEVELOPERS>

Several stewards and non stewards wish that BOTS flags are set up by
bureaucrats locally.

Benefits :
* reduce strain on stewards
			 	---> makes stewards happy
* reduce waiting time
				---> makes bot managers happy

* increase quality as bureaucrats are aware of local rules
				----> makes local communities happy

</SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE TO DEVELOPERS>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] stewards election


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
>I think that some new editors are being
>made to feel that they are not part of the established WP community and
>consequently they are "acting up". This is the same "old hands" vs "young
>Turks" divide I see on other sites and indeed in real life. This is not to
>say that all old hands are pitted against all new arrivals, but it's a noisy
>minority at both ends of the spectrum who are stirring things up.

>Peter (Skyring)

Indeed, reminds me of how I was mistreated when i first came to the
wiki. Things certainly havn't gotten much better since then...

Sam Spade


from_name: Matt R

subject:
GFDL & FSF (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Did I miss the great Digital Universe
	debate?)

body:
--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Using the GFDLed stuff is more problematic.  Using it was, in
> hindsight, probably the biggest mistake made by Wikipedia.  It might
> be worth starting over from scratch just to get rid of the ties to the
> GFDL.  Of course one can always hope that the FSF is finally going to
> fix that license, but we've been asking for years and it hasn't
> happened yet.

What requests has Wikipedia made FSF to improve the GFDL to date? Has there
been any response? Has this been documented somewhere?

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Jean Lamy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using of mediawiki engine

body:
Hi,

I was wondering if it was possible to use the mediawiki engine in an
external project.

My goal is to use the mediawiki engine (only the engine, not all the
mediawiki application) in Lodel (http://www.lodel.org, french CMS) to
interpret the WiKi language.
And if possible, allowing the use off all extension to MediaWiki.

Is there any documentation on this ? Is is possible ?

Sincerely

Jean Lamy.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Begging notices,	external commercial distributors
	(was Ads on Wikipedia?)

body:
I was under the impression that the fundraising objectives for the
quarter were achieved.  What becomes tacky is continuing to post these
notices (including Jimbo's appeal letter) after the objectives have been
reached and the pre-determined fundraising period has ended.  If someone
miscalculated the needs, they should be adjusted next time around.

Ec

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Only putting it on watchlists and recent changes would exclude anons and
>certain newbies, which is good for arbcom elections but not for fundraisers.
>A lot of funds comes from people who find Wikipedia useful, but don't edit
>themselves.
>
>I don't consider it begging. I'm sure they'd be more upset with constant
>adverts instead of occasional fundraiser notices.
>
>Mgm
>
>
>On 1/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>>mav wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Well, current appeal could be called "begging". As Mav explained
>>>>already, we are far from having enough right now to fulfill our first
>>>>trimester needs. And we finished the year on our reserves.
>>>>So, "begging"
>>>>makes sense.
>>>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Using of mediawiki engine

body:
You'll be looking at borrowing our parser, although I suspect you'll
want to remove several things, including the cache (since it's a
CMS)...

Parser.php would be the best place to start looking. There is some
internal (development) documentation available at
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/doc, but I don't know how up-to-date
or suitable it is.

Rob Church

On 10/01/06, Jean Lamy <jean.lamy at revues.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if it was possible to use the mediawiki engine in an
> external project.
>
> My goal is to use the mediawiki engine (only the engine, not all the
> mediawiki application) in Lodel (http://www.lodel.org, french CMS) to
> interpret the WiKi language.
> And if possible, allowing the use off all extension to MediaWiki.
>
> Is there any documentation on this ? Is is possible ?
>
> Sincerely
>
> Jean Lamy.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Carbonite wrote:
> What's your opinion on the inclusion of user categories (Pro-life,
> Democrat, etc...) in userboxes? Even if these userboxes are kept, I
> don't see why these templates should categorize users unless it
> somehow relates to the encyclopedia (we should keep Babel boxes, for
> example). I realize you'd like to remain neutral on the general issue
> of userboxes, but would you support the removal of categories from
> most userboxes?

I'm not going to be heavy handed about this, but I would recommend that
as a general social rule, we try to refrain from self-identifying as
advocates within the context of Wikipedia.  Given that we're trying to
work together collaboratively on a _neutral_ encyclopedia project, it
seems to me to be not relevant and perhaps leaning towards the unhealthy
to do so.

Let me give an example.  I have a vague general understanding that my
politics and David Gerard's politics are quite different.  But, we
basically never talk about this, and there's never any real reason to
talk about this, because the ultimate point is that we're both firmly
committed to kindness and neutrality and getting it right, and so our
own personal opinions on various matters outside Wikipedia are pretty
much no obstacle at all to our working together extremely well within
Wikipedia.

Most people outside Wikipedia assume that it must be, internally, some
kind of grand struggle between what we might roughly call "the party of
the left" and "the party of the right".  In general, though, of course
it is not.  (Sometimes, on some pages, it sadly ends up being that way
for short periods of time.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
SCZenz wrote:
> I've become more and more convinced that the inmates are indeed
> running the asylum on these issues, so my question to you is: what do
> you think we (as ordinary users who agree with your non-decree) should
> do?

Work gently to build a friendly loving culture in which outright
partisanship is discouraged, while individuality and an appreciation for
differences is valued.  Sometimes, of course, individuality and
differences are manifested in outright partisanship, so there's no
simple answer to how to draw the line between the two.

I mostly worry about userboxes being a leveragepoint for the building of
political factions within Wikipedia.  (And I don't mean "wikipedia
politics" like "deletionists/inclusionists" but actual politics like
"The Association of Anti-Evolutionist Wikipedians" who might want to
turn wikipedia articles into ideological battlegrounds.)

Mostly I would like to see people not beating each other up about this.
:)  I have a preference here for a social attitude that "here we are
Wikipedians," meaning: let's leave our political fights at the door to
the greatest extent that we can.

--Jimbo


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Effects of fixed release version on a Wikipedia? (was
	Ads on Wikipedia?)

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>I think there are better revenue streams for the Wikimedia Foundation
>to be pursuing, in particular CD/DVD dead-tree versions of
>Wikipedia/Wikibooks, although those will corrupt the nature of the
>project too, perhaps in worse ways, so who really knows.

Has de: been corrupted in this sense by the DVD edition? (I'm not
entirely clear on what you specifically mean here by "corruption,"
though I'm very aware that a fixed version will have strong side
effects on the dynamics of the wiki, good and bad.)

As I understand it (and would welcome correction), Digitalmedia's
genius move with this was to set out their quality needs in such a way
that the de: Wikipedia volunteers would *want* that work to be done
(polishing, referencing, fact-checking, etc).

I really really really want en: to be good enough to pull a DVD-ROM
edition from!

- d.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>mav wrote:

>> Well, current appeal could be called "begging". As Mav explained
>> already, we are far from having enough right now to fulfill our first
>> trimester needs. And we finished the year on our reserves.
>> So, "begging"
>> makes sense.

>Sensible, but tacky. (IMVHO).

I got an email yesterday from an editor upset with the tacky begging
notices on every page, compared with the ArbCom election only being
advertised on the watchlists and recent changes ... neither of which I
actually use, and in fact I frequently advocate that wikistressed
editors abandon using a watchlist at all. I haven't used mine since
2004 and I'm much happier that way ;-)

It's a tricky one ... how to ask for money we're *really desperately
in need of*.

>> The problems associated with "selling hard copies" are
>> * making a partnership with a firm or organisation to
>> "produce the hard
>> copy" and then to "distribute" the content. Or should we set
>> up another
>> organisation to do that ourselves ?

>Surely online publishers would lap it up if someone did the hard work of
>filtering and cleaning up first.

The discussions so far seem to be ignoring that this has already
happened, and successfully for everyone involved, with de:. Can we do
that with en:? I'd REALLY LOVE TO!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New York Times article on WP v. EB

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>>George Johnson, "The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the
>>Experts" ''New York Times'' (January 3, 2006).
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html
>>
>>
>That's the preview only. Whole article:
>
>    http://www.mezomorf.com/technology/news-19255.html
>
I liked the image of the "swarms of proofreading enzymes".

Even such an article in such an august publication does not escape from
typographical gremlins.  He states, "The name has appeared in history as
Crotona and, for that matter, Kroton (when it was part of Greece), but
Crotene is the modern name."  When did it change from Crotone to
Crotene?  Does beta-crotene really cure cancer in newspaper articles?

 From the nitpicking masses

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Is it now a bannable offense simply to edit from an open proxy?  If
> > so, I'm sure the people over at the or-talk list will be interested to
> > hear this.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Yep has been for ages.
>
>
> --
> geni

It has been for "ages"?  I have to say I was completely unaware of
that.  I knew the IPs of open proxies could be blocked, but not that
people who merely edit using those IPs could be.  In fact, I've used
open proxies to edit as recently as a few months ago and I was never
banned because of this.

What about people (like me, but I really don't care about myself) who
run open proxies on their home computer?  They can be permabanned?

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think there is a genuine fear of factions or parties and the host
> of actions which might follow. This was highlighted by what seemed to
> be attempts to organize a Catholic faction. Part of the problem is
> potential escalation. First there is point of view editing, then tag
> team reverting, alerts to other members of the faction. Then imagine
> an arbitration case and we, looking at these folks, make some kind of
> remedy. Then all the usual kicking and screaming and politicing which
> follows what is perceived as an unfair decision follows. Whether an
> administrator enforces the remedy becomes an issue of whether there
> is anti-catholic bias and so on. Arbitrators are googled to see if
> they ever engaged in Catholic or Protestant activity, etc.
>
I think userboxes should only be allowed for users who don't edit war
or push a POV.  But then again, I think editing should only be allowed
for such users.

Anthony


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I was under the impression that the fundraising objectives for the
>>quarter were achieved.  What becomes tacky is continuing to post these
>>notices (including Jimbo's appeal letter) after the objectives have been
>>reached and the pre-determined fundraising period has ended.  If someone
>>miscalculated the needs, they should be adjusted next time around.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>See:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice
>
I wasn't looking for techniques for removing the banner.  I've learned
to ignore it.  Tackiness is not just a matter of how it impresses me
personally.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The userbox fad

body:
Deathphoenix wrote:

>I didn't mind them so much: I got into it late, but found them to be a
>source of fun. However, I agree with you: these userboxes have gotten a
>little out of hand. There's no need to make a separate [[Template:User
>some_obscure_thing]] for every little thing. The userboxes that state
>language and other skills are innocuous enough, but userboxes stating
>religion, political affiliation, race, etc., are really pushing it, I think.

That's why my user page lists en, en-AU, BS, 1337-0, du-1 and zomg+4.

- d.


body:
>George Johnson, "The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the
>Experts" ''New York Times'' (January 3, 2006).
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html

That's the preview only. Whole article:

    http://www.mezomorf.com/technology/news-19255.html

- d.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
> encyclopedia as creating them.

I don't have anything really more to add except to say that this is
the best and most concise statement so far I have seen encapsulating
the ridiculous irony of the whole situation.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Achieving validation on Wikipedia

body:
Tidycat wrote:

>Hi.  I've been studying the issue of article  validation on Wikipedia
for almost two months now (since before the  Seigenthaler incident),
and I've written up an in-depth analysis of it  at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TidyCat/Achieving_validation_on_Wikipedia

Nice one! I've added it to [[Category:Editorial validation]].

(no, I have no idea of the status of the article rating feature or extension)

- d.


body:
> I'm all for this option; however, edit conflicts would be difficult to
> avoid on heavily edited pages. User authentication is another obvious
> problem; my preferred solution can be discerned from my .sig and the
> attachments to this message.

I think the suggestion is just for them to be able to send a comment
that would be stuck on the comments page - another user would then at
some stage integrate that into the page text. You see this happening
already sometimes, people drop by, say they don't know how to work
wikipedia, but ... is wrong with the following page.

Steve


from_name: Manilal K M

subject: [Wikitech-l] LDAP Group authentication problem

body:
hello all,
   I am beginner to this list, since i have just started hacking
mediawiki. I am trying to apply the LDAP authentication plugin to
mediawiki-1.5.2 in a FC-4. I'm using openldap-2.2.23-5.
   I have read the  documentation at :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LDAP_Authentication and downloaded the
plugin from :http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/attachment.cgi?id=1042&action=view

I have dropped the above file in /includes and changed
Localsettings.php accordingly. Luckily everything seems to be working
fine.
But everything crashed when I tried to Group based authentication in
mediawiki. I have added group entry to the ldap server, restarted it
and then inlcuded the configuration parameters for group based
authentication. Now my Localsettings.php looks like this:
<code>
require_once( 'LdapAuthentication.php' );
$wgAuth = new LdapAuthenticationPlugin();
$wgLDAPDomainNames = array( "libregeek" );
$wgLDAPServerNames = array( "libregeek"=>"localhost"  );
$wgLDAPSearchStrings = array(
"libregeek"=>"uid=USER-NAME,ou=People,dc=libregeek,dc=net"  );
$wgLDAPUseSSL = false;
$wgLDAPUseLocal = false;
$wgLDAPAddLDAPUsers = false;
$wgLDAPUpdateLDAP = false;
$wgLDAPMailPassword = false;
$wgLDAPRetrievePrefs = false;
$wgMinimalPasswordLength = 1;

$wgLDAPGroupDN = "cn=itpeople,ou=Groups,dc=libregeek,dc=net";
$wgLDAPProxyAgent = "cn=root,dc=libregeek,dc=net";
$wgLDAPProxyAgentPassword = "secret"; //this should work with hashes btw
$wgLDAPBaseDNs = array("libregeek"=>"dc=libregeek,dc=net");
$wgLDAPSearchAttributes =
array("libregeek"=>"(uid=USER-NAME)(wikiAccess=TRUE)");
</code>

With this configuration I can't login . It simply says "The password
you entered is incorrect (or missing). Please try again.".
is there any missing configuration items ??
I just tried to print the global variables corresponding to Proxies in
LdapAuthentication.php and it gives nothing.
One more thing I didn't got the correct idea of Proxy. is it like the
"Manager" account who has read permission to all the directory
entries.

what may have gone wrong?
please help
regards
Manilal


body:
We can mock up a page that is "perfectly" in accordance with the
manual of style. That's all I was hoping for.

Steve

On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >>Have fun with the MOS. Generaly only refured to when when
> >>people are trying to use it in order to win a debate.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Yeah, pages which contain hundreds of distinct suggestions with no
> >single underlying motivation present a problem. Perhaps we can produce a
> >short mock-up of a "perfect" page with "perfect" style?
> >
> >Steve
> >
> >
> But what constitutes "perfect" or even "ideal, given existing
> limitations"? Many things on Wikipedia have no consensus, as a visit to
> FAC can tell you. Should the "perfect" article use only free images, or
> be satisfied with fair use where free images are impractical? Should the
> "perfect" article use footnotes? What about Harvard referencing? Or
> inline external links? And speaking of references, do we follow
> [[Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style]] or [[Wikipedia:Template
> messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations]]? (Yes, the styles
> differ in some cases.) Should captions be compliant with
> [[Wikipedia:Captions]] or with the style currently used on most articles?
>
> In case my point isn't clear, we can't produce a mock-up of a "perfect"
> page with "perfect" style. It just isn't possible when we haven't even
> decided what is "perfect".
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Only putting it on watchlists and recent changes would exclude anons and
certain newbies, which is good for arbcom elections but not for fundraisers.
A lot of funds comes from people who find Wikipedia useful, but don't edit
themselves.

I don't consider it begging. I'm sure they'd be more upset with constant
adverts instead of occasional fundraiser notices.

Mgm

On 1/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> >mav wrote:
>
> >> Well, current appeal could be called "begging". As Mav explained
> >> already, we are far from having enough right now to fulfill our first
> >> trimester needs. And we finished the year on our reserves.
> >> So, "begging"
> >> makes sense.
>
> >Sensible, but tacky. (IMVHO).
>
>
> I got an email yesterday from an editor upset with the tacky begging
> notices on every page, compared with the ArbCom election only being
> advertised on the watchlists and recent changes ... neither of which I
> actually use, and in fact I frequently advocate that wikistressed
> editors abandon using a watchlist at all. I haven't used mine since
> 2004 and I'm much happier that way ;-)
>
> It's a tricky one ... how to ask for money we're *really desperately
> in need of*.
>
>
> >> The problems associated with "selling hard copies" are
> >> * making a partnership with a firm or organisation to
> >> "produce the hard
> >> copy" and then to "distribute" the content. Or should we set
> >> up another
> >> organisation to do that ourselves ?
>
> >Surely online publishers would lap it up if someone did the hard work of
> >filtering and cleaning up first.
>
>
> The discussions so far seem to be ignoring that this has already
> happened, and successfully for everyone involved, with de:. Can we do
> that with en:? I'd REALLY LOVE TO!
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Frederic Briere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: No new dumps since last month?

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I'm rewriting the system that manages the dumps to finish automating it.
> Should start running again this week.

That's good to hear.  Thanks!

--
             Fr?d?ric Bri?re    <*>    fbriere at fbriere.net

 =>  <fbriere at abacom.com> IS NO MORE:  <http://www.abacomsucks.com>  <=