from_name: Philip Welch

body:
> Honestly, does anyone actually use these userboxes to find experts?
> This is a genuine question: I have never done so. Does anyone
> regularly use userbox categories or "what links here" on userbox
> templates to locate people who are experts in certain fields to help
> with a project?

I usually look for a WikiProject.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

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

Joshua Griisser stated for the record:

> I'm almost speechless with rage at Jimbo's unilateral deletion of the encyclopedia article [[Brian Peppers]] - not to mention his locking (via [[User:Danny]] and [[WP:OFFICE]]) of [[Harry Reid]] for *five days*.
>
> As I feared, userboxes have proven to be the canary in the coal mine. Now it's articlespace that is being jerked around.
>
> Wikipedia ultimately must decide whether it wants to be Jimbo's personal fiefdom, or be "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The two are clearly mutually exclusive at this point.

  +------------------------------------------------+
  | This user believes that there exist people who |
  | want to damage Wikipedia, and opposes allowing |
  | it to become something "that anyone can edit." |
  +------------------------------------------------+

- --
 Sean Barrett     | If you believe in telepathy, think about honking.
 sean at epoptic.org |
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
On 2/22/06, Tjipke de Vries <tdevries at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> If I was able to "fix" my client, I would love to.
>
> Not sure what standars you are referring to though. I allways learned that
> it was good netiquette to post ASCII messages to mailinglist and not use
> encoding of any type (e.g. MIME).
>
> This is not a "my e-mail client is better than yours" issue, is it? Or even
> a "Microsoft is sh<cencored>, because <insert reason here>. Use another
> client/software/OS" issue?
>
> I am surprised by your (sarcastic?) reaction. If I upset you with my post,
> please accept my apologies, I had no intention to.

Cryptographically signed emails is nothing new or weird. Brion's
mailer is behaving normally. If it's a problem for you then it's a
problem on your side.  We should be encouraging more widespread use of
cryptographic tools, not complaining about their use.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>I don't see it being banished, I see Jimbo saying let's all walk away
>and come back if anyone still cares in a year.  What's the rush?  My
>view is that no topic should be added until at least a year after it
>happens, in order to allow formation of a proper perspective, there is
>no rush to scoop anyone. Wikinews is that way ----->
>
>
No articles on any topic for a year until it happens?  Don't you think
that's going a bit far?

Here's some articles that'd have to be deleted, just scanning through
Current Events
* [[European Institute of Technology]] -- was just proposed this week;
hasn't even opened
* [[Grbavica (film)]] -- just released this month
* [[Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy]] -- the cartoons were
first published 5 months ago, and just got famous a month or so ago
* [[2006 Southern Leyte mudslide]] -- happened five days ago

I shouldn't think there's anything so inherently wrong with an
encyclopedia having up-to-date coverage to merit such a rule.

-Mark


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>In the four years or so I've been here, nobody's *ever* had a clear picture of
>what the "Simple English" Wikipedia was meant for: who it's targetted at, what
>kind of "simple" is meant, what's appropriate or not appropriate.
>
>
I can see the point of the Simple English Wikipedia, but IMO it's not
likely to attract enough attention to be useful.

The argument is that since so much of the world turns to English as a
second language for information, it would be useful to have an English
Wikipedia written in simple, easy-to-understand English, but at the same
time we don't want to banish the use of "big words" from the normal
English Wikipedia and require it to be written in some sort of
lowest-common-denominator English, so instead create a separate
Wikipedia explicitly for that purpose.

A good idea in theory, but the problem is that very few people seem to
want to work on such a thing.  Even people who speak English relatively
poorly as a second language seem (based on current evidence) to prefer
to struggle through editing the "real English Wikipedia" than to
contribute to the simple-English one.

-Mark


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but it
seems that the community overruled against his
decission and for so far, decided to keep the article.
:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld

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


from_name: sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com

subject:
[Wikitech-l] new install - problems with stylesheets not being
 used? Look it not what was expected.

body:
Hello,
We've just installed mediawiki.

New Redhat  2.4.21-4.ELsmp (application server 3). mediawiki-1.5.6. All
the requisites were installed using xammp 1.5.1. All installed fine.
Ran the wiki config, ran fine except the initial image didn't show (hmm).

But when going to the main wiki page
(http://...blah..../wiki/index.php/Main_Page), it works, but is a very
plain page. Nothing at all like the wikipedia page or what was expected.

The apache logs how no errors, but it is almost as though the style sheets
weren't being used. xammp left ownerships a bit fuzzy, so I changed
ownerships of htdocs and cgi-bin to apache:apache, but left all files
world-readable.  Switched back and forth from php5 and php4 - no
difference.

Should the page be not plain? Any thoughts? Do I need to give more info?
Thanks!

/ Sid /


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com wrote:
> The apache logs how no errors, but it is almost as though the style sheets
> weren't being used. xammp left ownerships a bit fuzzy, so I changed
> ownerships of htdocs and cgi-bin to apache:apache, but left all files
> world-readable.  Switched back and forth from php5 and php4 - no
> difference.

1) Are you using Mozilla or Firefox?
2) Have you checked that the .css files are returned with text/css as the
Content-Type?
3) If not, fix the Apache configuration.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
On 2/22/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I can see the point of the Simple English Wikipedia, but IMO it's not
> likely to attract enough attention to be useful.
>
> The argument is that since so much of the world turns to English as a
> second language for information, it would be useful to have an English
> Wikipedia written in simple, easy-to-understand English, but at the same
> time we don't want to banish the use of "big words" from the normal
> English Wikipedia and require it to be written in some sort of
> lowest-common-denominator English, so instead create a separate
> Wikipedia explicitly for that purpose.
>
> A good idea in theory, but the problem is that very few people seem to
> want to work on such a thing.  Even people who speak English relatively
> poorly as a second language seem (based on current evidence) to prefer
> to struggle through editing the "real English Wikipedia" than to
> contribute to the simple-English one.

Simple English wikipedia makes fantastic sense as a resource for
people who do not speak English as a primary language.... and it isn't
quite as adrift as Brion made it sound, at least last I checked there
was a proposed vocabulary.

I think the most important counter is the argument "How can we expect
to make a usable Simple English, when the English Wikipedia still
lacks sold coverage of so many fairly basic subjects you would expect
to find in an encyclopedia?".    If you accept that argument it would
follow that it makes sense to shut down simple English until English
moves on to the next stage of it's existence.... better tasking what
little resources are currently going into simple English.

But it's not that simple...

At least on English Wikipedia we've been almost completely unable to
agree on what is important and focus our resources on those tasks. For
some reason (perhaps inexperience?) most people seem to believe that
'volunteer' means completely disorganized... and as a result, even
though we have an unimaginable amount of man-hours of work being put
into the project, many basic things which are considered important are
being left to rot because we're afraid of telling people what to work
on.

I've even seen it argued that we must permit and even encourage
various unprofessional looking content on userpages in order to
attract volunteers. ... I wonder if the people making these arguments
have ever been a volunteer at a off-internet organization?  Using
volunteer labor means simple that, it doesn't mean abandoning
professional standards, accountability, or proven practices for
reaching goals. But this has been lost on English Wikipedia.

Under this current model, the impact of keeping around a bit-rotting
and infrequently edited simple English Wikipedia is no different than
the impact of the multitude of elementary school stubs which are
created and then forgotten on En.  Harmless by itself, and there no
compelling reason to discourage it since we would be unable to
effectively focus any recovered resources.

Brion, would turning off simple english recover much of *your* time?
If so I could see a case for removing it, ... but that isn't the
argument you seemed to be making.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
On 2/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Cryptographically signed emails is nothing new or weird. Brion's
> > mailer is behaving normally. If it's a problem for you then it's a
> > problem on your side.  We should be encouraging more widespread use of
> > cryptographic tools, not complaining about their use.
> >
> Hoi,
> Blanket statement like these are .. inviting suggestions.
> Cryptography is also used for things like DRM.. sure, bring it on.
> Thanks, but let ME think about it if I want it
>     GerardM

Oi, I should have qualified it 'personal cryptographic tools'.  It
wouldn't take more than a glance at any of my other rants^Wposts to
see that I don't support anything which removes control from the users
of technology. :)

Tools like PGP free us from DRM because they offer us an alternative
for some of the potentially positive features without disrespecting
freedom.... But this is now well offtopic. :)


body:
> 1) Are you using Mozilla or Firefox?
firefox, ie, opera

> 2) Have you checked that the .css files are returned with text/css as
the Content-Type?

Good question. I wonder how I would know, but let me tell you something
else we discovered....
>From a browser if I loko directly at a css file, say quickbar.css - I see
the text - I can even point to the file and right-click and save it and
get a copy. If I do the same with common.css I get nothing, also I can't
save it. The ownerships and permissions are exactly the same.

> 3) If not, fix the Apache configuration.

There apperas to be something funky going on with apache, but it is pretty
strange.

/ Sid

wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org wrote on 02/22/2006 03:10:34 PM:

> sid_shapiro at bio-rad.com wrote:
> > The apache logs how no errors, but it is almost as though the style
sheets
> > weren't being used. xammp left ownerships a bit fuzzy, so I changed
> > ownerships of htdocs and cgi-bin to apache:apache, but left all files
> > world-readable.  Switched back and forth from php5 and php4 - no
> > difference.
>
> 1) Are you using Mozilla or Firefox?
> 2) Have you checked that the .css files are returned with text/css as
the
> Content-Type?
> 3) If not, fix the Apache configuration.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> [attachment "signature.asc" deleted by Sid Shapiro/Hercules/US/BIO-
> RAD] _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Keith Old

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New draft policy on userboxes being workshopped on
	[[WP:UBP]]

body:
On 2/22/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is a policy proposal developed by Pathoschild from an original by
> Doc glasgow.
>
> It picked up quite a lot of favorable comments in Pathoschild's
> userspace and so after discussion I've moved it to [[WP:UBP]] (which
> believe it or not hasn't actually had any concrete proposals on the
> main page for weeks).
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Proposed_policy_on_userboxes
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

This looks like the basis of a sensiblecompromise. Hallelujah!

*Keith Old*


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A rational proposal

body:
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:19:31 -0500, you wrote:

>Jimbo's informal wish that people voluntarily remove
>divisive and polemic userboxes doesn't seem to have done much to
>defuse the current situation

I find a significant number of people with the attitude "who's Jimbo
to tell me what to do with *my* user page?"

References to WP:OWN don't seem to help much here.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
JzG wrote:

>What is the overarching principle here?  "Do no harm".

Um, I thought it was "NPOV and encyclopedic." But anyway.

(I wrote most of the current [[WP:LIVING]], fwiw. Basically: "NPOV,
referenced to the hilt, neither hagiography nor hatchet job.")

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A modest proposal.

body:
On 18/02/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:

> > Get real. Jimbo hath spoken on thy matter, and polemic or inflamatory
> > templates are fair game, ie. can be shot during hunting season, which on
> > Wikipedia is always. A reminder that Dick Cheney is *not* invited to
> > edit... :)
>
>
> Neither is King William II of England, for that matter :D

Hey, he's safe - 900-year-dead individuals don't vandalise much...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
On 17/02/06, dalbury at bellsouth.net <dalbury at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> There is no protection of free speech on private property, such
> as the servers on which Wikipedia is hosted. Try going to a
> shopping mall and lecturing the shoppers in favor of a position
> that is not popular in your community.

The most effective analogy I've seen for "free speech does not apply
to private property" is asking if newspaper editors should be required
by law to print whatever articles anyone sends them...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Stupid bomb]]

body:
"The two most plentiful elements in the Universe are bad Uncyclopedia
articles and hydrogen, and I'm not sure about the ... hydrogen. Hold
on, I'll try that one again." - Albert Einstein on an off day

The Stupid Bomb uses only the second-finest-grade stupid in the world,
capable of penetrating five light-years of lead. (The ''finest'' grade
stupid in the world would penetrate the bomb's neutronium shielding
and affect the guidance system.)

==Generating stupidity==

[do adapted zombie botnet image, write based on this]

-- Images --

bomb diagram: (based on real smart bomb) control system behind
neutronium shield, sharpened cluelessness tip, clue anti-pheromone
coating for easy atmospheric transport

gw bush: Various traitorous liberal homosexual paedophiles have
alleged that a Stupid Bomb was accidentally set off near the White
House in early 2001. Other groups have alleged it was deliberate.

e-meter: The €-meter is used by the Church of Objectivism to
remove ''money thetans'' from the subject's wallet. The meter measures
variations in clue resistance.

image of interconnected boxes: slashdot, wikipedia, wikipediareview,
what else ... take from the Zombie Botnet image - How stupidity is
generated and captured.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Drini drini wrote:
> Hmm... I wonder why do we have articles like [[Alfonso X of Castile]]
> that happened 800 years ago??
> who kept notes offline so much time?
>
> I wonder if someone did is because he actually is, *ahem* *ahem* notable?
>
The point is to avoid the extra work involved in recreating the article
from scratch and of having to research events up to a year old rather
than inserting them as they occur. Sure, you can do it the hard way, but
why should we _have_ to? I'll bet a whole barrel of fine Albertan crude
oil that if February 22 rolls around again and the article's still
stored away in the deletion database it's going to be undeleted straight
away, and if that's acceptable then I don't see why it's not acceptable
to store the article somewhere more appropriate during the intervening
year instead.

Deletion is not an appropriate way of _storing_ articles. It is an
appropriate way of _deleting_ things. The fact that they can usually be
viewed and undeleted later by admins doesn't make it so, it just means
it can be misused for it.

What would have been far better, IMO, would be to move the article to a
subpage off its talk page; [[Talk:Brian Peppers/Temp]] for example.
That's done on other controversial articles to allow for reworking of
material without messing with the main article space, and it would keep
it from showing up in Wikipedia's mirrors if that's a concern. If it's
Google searches that's the problem, store it in a subpage of some
Wikipedia: namespace instead. We had a discussion about AfD pages along
these same lines and I was just as vigorous in my opposition then when
it was proposed that they all be deleted as a way to store them "out of
sight."


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stupid bomb indeed.

body:
I drooled:

>"The two most plentiful elements in the Universe are bad Uncyclopedia
>articles and hydrogen, and I'm not sure about the ... hydrogen. Hold
>on, I'll try that one again." - Albert Einstein on an off day

Er, wtf. Evidently my mailbox was just hit by one. This is notes for
an Uncyclopedia article that I *meant* to email to myself, and sent to
wikien-l by mistake. It's probably time to go home and drink copiously
now.

- d. (buh)


from_name: Finlay Mcwalter

subject:
[Wikitech-l] upload of non-empty zipfile gets this-file-is-empty
	error

body:
I'm setting up a new mediawiki install on RHEL3, and I'm encountering
problems uploading larger.zip files to the wiki.  If I try to upload a
zip of 2.58 Mbytes (which is fine, well formed, opens in winzip
properly, no permissions issue, and certainly not empty) I get the
following mediawiki error:

"The file you uploaded seems to be empty. This might be due to a typo
in the file name. Please check whether you really want to upload this
file."

It's an internal wiki, so I don't need to impose any file-type or size
restrictions on uploads.  Clearly I've neglected a setting or two -
what should I change?

Thanks,
Finlay McWalter

Notes:
1. Image uploading works fine.

2. I've added the following to LocalSettings.php
$wgCheckFileExtensions = false;
$wgUploadSizeWarning = 10000 * 1024;

3. I also added these, although I guess wgCheckFileExtensions=false
makes them redundant
$wgStrictFileExtensions = false;
$wgFileExtensions = array( 'png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'doc', 'zip',
'tar', 'gz', 'pdf' );

4. I'm running mediawiki-1.5.6, php-5.1.2, apache-2.2.0, mysql-4.1.18
on a 2.4.21 kernel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Civility on the list

body:
Has been much better lately. Thank you.  Just because you're arguing
with an evil evil-ist doesn't mean you can't be *nice* about it. (You
don't see the complaints, I do.)

That said, I usually let through block complaints even if they fall
short of this - when someone feels they've been blocked unfairly, they
will be unduly tetchy. But I did reject two today noting that if I did
let them through, the senders would probably have stayed blocked until
the heat death of the universe, and suggested a rewrite. Fun fun fun!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Time to finish this userbox war once and for all

body:
On Feb 22, 2006, at 2:47 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> Do you find members in that wikiproject by userboxes on their page, or
> by them signing up on the wikiproject page itself?

The WikiProject page, usually.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] I propose adding a community namespace

body:
On Feb 21, 2006, at 10:18 AM, stevertigo wrote:
> --- Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
>> Ok, so now we can get into how this would work (or
>> not) - AFAIK, we  already have a namespace for community pages.  That
>> is, pages used by the people writing the encyclopedia(the community)
>> to discuss, plan,  organize, etc.  It's called the Wikipedia
>> namespace.

> Its not my necessary for me to explain how things
> would work.

I wasn't asking you to.  I was, and am, asking you what would go on in
the "Community" namespace that would be different than what goes on in
the namespace we already have for community pages, the "Wikipedia"
namespace.  Sorry if that wasn't sufficiently clear in the previous
message.

> This is of course in the context of the excessively
> long userbox discussion, so the "why" and "what for"
> should be reasonably obvious.

Either the "Community" namespace would be identical in scope to the
"Wikipedia" namespace, in which case it would be redundant, or it would
have some different scope.  Assuming you are not proposing a redundant
namespace, I want to know what the different scope would be.

Jesse Weinstein


body:
On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Jesse W wrote:

> No.  They would not.  Wikipedians by field of interest could (and
> should) be merged into the WikiProjects list - I've continued to
> wonder
> what benefit it is to know that a wikipedian is a firefox user *if
> they
> are not interested in web brower articles on wikipedia*.  What does
> that get us in terms of writing the encyclopedia?

They see how it renders in Firefox?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On Feb 22, 2006, at 1:37 PM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I certainly don't want suggestion 3 to be done. Wikipedians by field of
> interest and any category that shows specific Wikipedian knowledge and
> expertise have a use in the project and would be deleted with this
> suggestion just because a few people have been warring.
No.  They would not.  Wikipedians by field of interest could (and
should) be merged into the WikiProjects list - I've continued to wonder
what benefit it is to know that a wikipedian is a firefox user *if they
are not interested in web brower articles on wikipedia*.  What does
that get us in terms of writing the encyclopedia?

> And what is the use in banning images on userboxes when they are to be
> hardcoded anyway?
To prevent whatlinkshere from being a quick way to generate a list of
people identifying with that statement.  I think this is a little over
the top, but thats the reason.
> How about we get around the table and decide on what type of user
> categorization and boxes would be acceptable?
I think merely basing it on - it has to be useful to writing an
encyclopedia, i.e. it needs a page in the Wikipedia namespace, is
probably sufficient.

See the proposed policy.

Jesse Weinstein


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
> On 2/22/06 2:26 AM, "Phil Boswell" <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> But don't you see that what you have written there is the essence of what
>> the article **should** say? It should be expanded a bit, but you've
>> summarised it nicely.
>>
>
> A compromise was proposed that I - and a few others - could have lived with
> - a protected redirect to a short paragraph on [[Internet phenomenon]] or
> [[List of YTMND fads]], which simply states he was some guy who got
> convicted of a minor sex crime and had his picture turned into an Internet
> meme.
>
> No, that was not good enough for the article's proponents - we had to have
> his complete life story (such as it is) and picture for all to see. The
> proposal was rejected.
>
> So, now we have nothing for a year.
>
I opposed redirecting to "YTMND fads" since the article listed Fark and
Something Awful as other places the photo was being used extensively as
well, which meant it wasn't just a YTMND fad and so redirection there
when linking to [[Brian Peppers]] would be misleading. Provided it's
true that Peppers has been used elsewhere, I still stand by that -
nothing has changed, it'd still be misleading to redirect there.

But there's no reason why we can't _also_ have paragraphs at those two
other places you mention, especially given that an independent article
is apparently out at the moment. It just means we can't have a
{{main|Brian Peppers}} at the start of them.


body:
On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:44 PM, Philip Welch wrote:
> On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Jesse W wrote:
>> No.  They would not.  Wikipedians by field of interest could (and
>> should) be merged into the WikiProjects list - I've continued to
>> wonder
>> what benefit it is to know that a wikipedian is a firefox user *if
>> they
>> are not interested in web brower articles on wikipedia*.  What does
>> that get us in terms of writing the encyclopedia?
>
> They see how it renders in Firefox?

But wouldn't that be better handled by asking someone involved with the
Usability WikiProject? </semi-serious>

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Joshua Griisser wrote:
> I'm almost speechless with rage at Jimbo's unilateral deletion of the
> encyclopedia article [[Brian Peppers]]

It wasn't unilateral.  It was an in-process deletion of recreated AfD'd
content.  Read FCYTravis' history of the article on the talk page.

> - not to mention his locking
> (via [[User:Danny]] and [[WP:OFFICE]]) of [[Harry Reid]] for *five
> days*.

5 whole days?  Wow.

> Wikipedia ultimately must decide whether it wants to be Jimbo's
> personal fiefdom, or be "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
> The two are clearly mutually exclusive at this point.

Where do we go to vote on that?  I vote very strongly against Wikipedia
being my personal fiefdom.  I also vote very strongly against alarmism. :)

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Delirium wrote
> I fail to see how this could possibly be legally problematic.  What's
> more, deleting it from the encyclopedia reduces our coverage of internet
> culture, which is currently an active area of academic research.

I don't think it's legally problematic.  It's morally deeply
problematic, but that's a different question altogether.

The issue is that it was a recreation of already AfD'd content.

> I can see arguments against using Wikipedia to *create* fads, but that
> is clearly not the case here.  Are we going to delete [[Star Wars kid]]
> if his family complains, too?  After all, he too is famous against his
> own will, and in that case the famous video was even leaked onto the
> internet illegally (while in Brian Peppers case the famous photograph
> was officially posted by the State of Ohio on its website in accordance
> with state law).

I don't know anything about this case, but in general, I would say that
a thoughtful approach to our astounding global power to hurt people
deeply by having inappropriate articles on people who are not famous
through any fault or merit of their own will may lead us to respectfully
decline to have abusive articles about such people.

This is why I merged the culprit in the Siegenthaler case into the
Siegenthaler page.  It is just deeply inappropriate when the #2 hit in
google is to this poor fellow who made one simple stupid mistake in his
life (which is made, we know, by dozens of people daily who are trolling
wikipedia) and accidentally got famous because of it.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Although I should say that my deletion was a commentary on process, not
a commentary on the worth of the article per se, I have to say that I
agree completely with the thrust of Keith Old's remarks here.

Keith Old wrote:
> If he did, well done to him. There is no legitimate reason for an article on
> Mr Peppers other than people on a couple of websites chose to make fun of
> his appearance. In the latest AfD, one voter said words to effect of we're
> just making fun of his appearance. Surely, Wikipedia should have higher
> purposes than mocking the disabled which his article has generally tended to
> be.
>
> In general, we need to pay much more attention to people's privacy than we
> have. As one of the world's most popular Internet sites, articles on people
> generally tend to be high up on the first page of a Google search. If people
> do a Google search for a potential employee or date, our articles come up
> fairly quickly. If we have an article alleging criminal or other antisocial
> behavior, we need to ensure that the case is well-known and highly
> verifiable through reliable sources.
>
>  We therefore need to ensure that if we have articles on people for a
> negative reason, our policies on verifiability and reliable sources are
> applied vigorously. As well, our editorial red pencils should be vigilant
> about negative claims about individuals and if they don't have a reliable
> source/s or don't comply with NPOV, they should be taken out.
>
> Our longterm credibility as a biographical source and much else depends on
> it. We now have a reasonable degree of prominence and we should endeavour to
> use it responsibly.
>
> Regards
>
>
> *Keith Old*
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I hold the opinion that any article on this man is not going to be NPOV,
>>since the only reason he is popular is because Peppers is unfortuantely
>>stricken with a condition that makes him look funny.
>
>
> Not entirely - the person has a Snopes.com entry, and is a registered
> sex offender in Ohio.
>
> I'm not endorsing it one way or another (for now), but it's certainly
> not a "slam dunk" case.

Agreed.  But it was AfD'd more than once and people kept recreating it.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny - Harry Reid

body:
Sue Anne Reed wrote:
> In this
> instance, with Harry Reid's staff, they are making a very open request
> to Jimbo and the others in WP:OFFICE to identify things that they
> disagree with in the article about Reid.

I want to strongly point out that WP:OFFICE is not designed or intended
to change *anything* about NPOV or the community process of editing
articles.  Often, Danny will not be using it to protect articles, but
just to remove a section while asking people not to add it back without
cites.

This is a great way to handle disputed bios, and it has been quite
successful when I have done it myself.  In many cases, I have nuked
entire articles with a kind request that they be very carefully sourced,
and the net result has been very good.

But, I'm on the road again, and it's hard for me to do this in a timely
fashion, especially when a telephone complaint comes to the office.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

references:
<1140576063.b66bd9bcJDGRII8338@NGCSU.EDU>
	<cblov1dikb84u7rhlpve4o9g6ga1n69jca@4ax.com>
	<f1c3529e0602220446h412b2a20m82bca3a6b2b3a40c@mail.gmail.com>
	<5c5f03dd0602220528s7c830cb7md10f68ae5f018292@mail.gmail.com>
	<44sov1dioilm9bs6oee1c5s1rbvijs07pp@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> Sit back, calm down and wait to see if he's still remembered in a
> year's time seems a perfectly reasonable approach for an
> *encyclopaedia* to take here.  But of course I was for not having the
> article in the first place.
> Guy (JzG)
>
As one who would probably be categorized as an eventualist, and as one
who doesn't pay any particular attention to internet fads, I'm pretty
calm already. I don't really care about the subject of this article. The
thing that is getting my particular dander up is simply the technical
abuse of deletion as a way to "store" content we might eventually want
back for a long period of time.

The notion that it's better to delete controversial articles than it is
to work out the problems with them is also problematic to me, but mainly
as a direct consequence of that first bit. Content that we may
eventually want back should never be deleted if we can at all help it.
Put it in a subpage of the article's talk: page for a year if need be,
or some wikipedia: namespace vault somewhere, or even a user: subpage.
Heck, even just blanking and protecting the article would be preferable.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

body:
On Feb 22, 2006, at 7:24 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

> consensuses
> (consensi?)

Consenses?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but it
> seems that the community overruled against his
> decission and for so far, decided to keep the article.
> :)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld

This is absurd.  What an idiotic article.

Let me say again now what I said when I deleted it the first time, but
with more detailed.  Even though I'm wonderful and charming and
obviously the most noteworthy person on the planet (ha), it is still not
the case that every person with whom I have had contact needs a
biography in Wikipedia.

I consider this bio to be a terrible invasion of privacy for Jeremy, and
an embarassment for Wikipedia.

"A-bit-stronger-than-weak Keep there exist a controversy about who
presented Jimbo with idea about wiki. Therefore, this guy is
controversial enough to became notable."

That's such an overwhelming non sequitur I just don't even know where to
begin.  Jeremy Rosenfeld is controversial?  I think not.  He's a nice
guy who wandered into my office one day to show me a cool website.  The
one quote we can come up with is that Larry doesn't remember him well?

I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at AfD, because if it
is this far broken, there's something seriously seriously worse about it
than I thought.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Christian Thiele

subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal

body:
Hi,

Mark Evans <alberrosidus at gmail.com> schrieb am Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:12:43
+0100:

> Your project sound like a great idea. I didn't look to far into it,
> but you might want to check out a similar project called wikitree:
> http://www.wikitree.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I think the whole idea of wikitree and rodovid.org is great. The problem
on wikitree is, that the data is on normal wiki pages and so very
unusable. I like the software rodovid.org uses, because it stores real
data and bases on MediaWiki. I think to have such a project under
Wikimedia would be great, because noone has a profit of many projects
collecting the same data and I know that there are a lot of people, who
like this idea but hadn't the software to do this til now.

Sincerelly
Christian Thiele

--
Christian Thiele - de:User:APPER
Member of the board of Wikimedia Germany


subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome to Wikipedia tagline WAS: Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/22/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> Absolutely. Much better than:
>
>  "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" *
>
> * Offer does not apply to vandals, trolls, people who cannot refrain
> from personal attacks, people who cannot play by the rules of an
> online community, blocked users, banned users or people who share an
> IP with them etc...
>
> Except s/author/editor:
>
> "Welcome to Wikipedia, where good editors are always welcome".
>
> -- nyenyec

Unless they upset the wrong people.

--
geni


body:
On 2/22/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> geni stated for the record:
>
> > On 2/22/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>"Welcome to Wikipedia, where good editors are always welcome".
> >>
> >>-- nyenyec
> >
> >
> > Unless they upset the wrong people.
> >
> >
> > --
> > geni
>
> Then they aren't good editors, are they?
>

Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
people.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo and his strategy

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It beats me why we let this crap fester for so long in the corners of
>>Wikipedia.  Time for a Scouring of the Shire.
>
>
> I remember when being a deletionist was hard.
>

You thought being a deletionist was hard!? We mergists had to walk
uphill both ways, in the snow!

--
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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subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo and his strategy

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 2/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Not really. Declaring {{user childless}} and {{User Public Transit}}
>>anathema does not strike me as a good idea.
>
>
> That said, I'd rather read someone's beliefs and philosophy in their
> own, considered words.
>

As would I. Proposal:

"Userboxes, consisting of Babel template-like contructs which have one
sentance of text describing a user in the third person, are considered
plagiarism, copyright infringement, and anyone using them for purposes
other than declaring their skills in languages, for the purposes of
writing an encyclopedia, will have the 'userbox' deleted, their
fingernails pulled out, and their account blocked.

Signed this merry day the 22nd of February, in the year of our Lord 2006,

His Royal Jimboliness,
Jimbo Wales"

</parody>

--
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: Tjipke de Vries

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Hi Brion

Your messages on the various mailinglists show up here as an empty message
with two files attached: signature.asc and ATT0xxx.txt. Can you please
change this behaviour of your e-mail client? Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards,

Tjipke de Vries
[[nl:Gebruiker:Tdevries]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
> Your e-mail client is incorrectly displaying messages with
> electronic signatures. Can you please fix your e-mail client
> to conform to standards? Thank you very much in advance!

If I was able to "fix" my client, I would love to.

Not sure what standars you are referring to though. I allways learned that
it was good netiquette to post ASCII messages to mailinglist and not use
encoding of any type (e.g. MIME).

This is not a "my e-mail client is better than yours" issue, is it? Or even
a "Microsoft is sh<cencored>, because <insert reason here>. Use another
client/software/OS" issue?

I am surprised by your (sarcastic?) reaction. If I upset you with my post,
please accept my apologies, I had no intention to.

Regards,

Tjipke de Vries


from_name: Minh Nguyen

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> The page says it should not be recreated "until February 21" at the
> earliest. It is now February 22. I think that now is a good time to keep our
> [[WP:COOL]] and talk this out rather than run around screaming about how the
> sky is falling and how Jimbo is ruining our wiki.

A small nitpick: note the year "2007" in Jimbo's delete summary. :)

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 2/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> I don't see a problem with an open and honest request for factual
> correction.  We have always encouraged living people to engage with
> the community in keeping their biographies factually accurate - just
> not by actually editing them.  Engage on the talk page, go to the
> Office, whatever.  And if they point out an error which can be
> verified as an error, that's good.  And if they dislike the fact that
> verifiable but unflattering information is in there, maybe they should
> have thought about that before they did whatever they did :-)

The way to get around NOR problems in this case might be to suggest
that we recommend that they create a webpage on their own webspace
that says "I have been characterized in X source [wherever Wikipedia
is getting the info] as having done Y. This is untrue, in reality I
only did Z."

Then, once that page is up (and stable), we change the article to say
"Source X says that Mr. SoandSo did Y. On his own webpage, Mr. SoandSo
later claimed that this was untrue, and that he had only done Z."

I think in that sort of article, that would be an acceptable form of
balancingout the NPOV without running into NOR problems. It also
serves our goal to encourage the people to take up the question of
truth with the original sources -- not Wikipedia's distillation of
them -- and that if they do so, we'll be happy to record that they
did.

Just a thought... obviously it would be a lot more work than most of
these people would be willing to do, but NOR is a Very Good Thing and
I don't see how any other approach would really get around that,
assuming the offending information is well-cited itself.

FF


body:
Fastfission wrote:
> The Babel boxes were really no help in this -- unless I'm totally out
> of the loop, I don't know of any way to do a JOIN type query in this
> (i.e. both native German and English speakers), and both of those
> categories individually have far too many people to look them over in
> any sort of systematic way. And of course none of that really gets at
> the question of who has recently edited. In the end I just gave up on
> trying to find someone (eventually someone the text I wanted
> translated, which worked just as well, but of course the fact that it
> was a relatively common language on En helped with that).

Try
<http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=User_en-N&mode=cs&tagcat=User+de-N>.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago, Pietras1988 at the Polish Wikipedia
<http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Pietras1988> contacted me
(most likely via a Babelbox), asking me to translate a little Polish
town called Kur?w into Vietnamese. By the looks of the interwiki links
on that article now, it looks like Pietras1988 contacted quite a few
people. That town now has the distinction of being described in Gothic
and Aramaic, of all languages.

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


body:
I have a very hard time using them for this purpose. Even the Babel
ones. I was looking for a good German speaker not too long ago. The
problem is, I needed someone who was 1. fluent in German, 2. fluent in
English, 3. had a good chance of being online soon.

The Babel boxes were really no help in this -- unless I'm totally out
of the loop, I don't know of any way to do a JOIN type query in this
(i.e. both native German and English speakers), and both of those
categories individually have far too many people to look them over in
any sort of systematic way. And of course none of that really gets at
the question of who has recently edited. In the end I just gave up on
trying to find someone (eventually someone the text I wanted
translated, which worked just as well, but of course the fact that it
was a relatively common language on En helped with that).

Sure -- there are other solutions. I could go to the Village Pump or
the De wiki Village Pump or a number of other places. And I'm not
saying that I find Babel useless -- they are very helpful as
*descriptive* tags. But I couldn't figure out a good way to actively
*find* someone with them, as the level of information they give me
(long lists of users associated with a single language) is useless for
this.

FF

On 2/22/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Honestly, does anyone actually use these userboxes to find experts?
> This is a genuine question: I have never done so. Does anyone
> regularly use userbox categories or "what links here" on userbox
> templates to locate people who are experts in certain fields to help
> with a project?
>
> Steve
>
> On 2/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I certainly don't want suggestion 3 to be done. Wikipedians by field of
> > interest and any category that shows specific Wikipedian knowledge and
> > expertise have a use in the project and would be deleted with this
> > suggestion just because a few people have been warring.
> >
> > And what is the use in banning images on userboxes when they are to be
> > hardcoded anyway?
> >
> > How about we get around the table and decide on what type of user
> > categorization and boxes would be acceptable?
> >
> > Acceptable:
> > 1) Admin status
> > 2) WikiProject membership
> > 3) Skills (fields of interest)
> > 4) Languages
> > 5) System information (IE, Firefox, Windows, Linux, etc.)
> >
> > Anything I missed?
> >
> > Unacceptable:
> > ???
> >
> >
> > On 2/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > It seems difficult to follow one of these two positions without
> > > > losing  a
> > > > significant number of great contributors, so we need to come up
> > > > with some
> > > > sort of compromise solution. This is mainly just a collation of
> > > > various
> > > > suggestions, but I wondered what people think of it as a solution
> > > >
> > > > 1. The only userpage templates that are allowed in Template space
> > > > are those
> > > > of direct relevance to the project - e.g. babel, {{userpage}},
> > > > {{WikimediaNoLicensing}} etc.
> > >
> > > Workable.
> > >
> > > > 2. Userboxes cannot be 'transcluded' from user subpages - the only
> > > > allowed
> > > > way to have a userbox is to copy the source code for it (this wouldn't
> > > > preclude Wikiproject Userboxes from having a list of boxen, all
> > > > they would
> > > > have to do is have a list of code rather than a list of {{user
> > > > userbox}}
> > > > template calls
> > >
> > > Problematic. My user page actually transcludes lots of things from
> > > subpages within my own user space. Perhaps disallow transcluding from
> > > within other people's userspaces?
> > >
> > > > 3. Userboxes are not allowed to use images or categories. In fact all
> > > > 'Wikipedians by...' categories (except Wikipedians by location and
> > > > other
> > > > categories whose existence is of evident utility to the project)
> > > > should be
> > > > deleted (can we add something to CSD to this effect, assuming there
> > > > isn't
> > > > already?)
> > >
> > > I think the thing to do here is to restrict use of Wikipedia user
> > > categories instead of banning categories and images from userboxes
> > > outright. Userboxes have legitimate categorical use when it comes to
> > > adminship, Babel, and Wikiproject membership.
> > >
> > > > 2 and 3 are meant to stop 'vote stuffing' - the other major gripe
> > > > people
> > > > have with boxen. Fair use images in userboxes are already not
> > > > allowed (since
> > > > they aren't fair use at all in  boxen), and allowing public domain/FDL
> > > > images would give us precisely the same vote-stuffing problems that we
> > > > currently have with categories
> > >
> > > But images aren't problematic for non-vote-stuffing userboxes, unless
> > > you believe that all admins or all members of WikiProject Wikipedians
> > > for Writing an Encyclopedia can be trusted to reliably vote the same
> > > way :)
> > >
> > > --
> > > Philip L. Welch
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Tjipke de Vries <tdevries at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> If I was able to "fix" my client, I would love to.
>>
>> Not sure what standars you are referring to though. I allways learned that
>> it was good netiquette to post ASCII messages to mailinglist and not use
>> encoding of any type (e.g. MIME).
>>
>> This is not a "my e-mail client is better than yours" issue, is it? Or even
>> a "Microsoft is sh<cencored>, because <insert reason here>. Use another
>> client/software/OS" issue?
>>
>> I am surprised by your (sarcastic?) reaction. If I upset you with my post,
>> please accept my apologies, I had no intention to.
>>
>
> Cryptographically signed emails is nothing new or weird. Brion's
> mailer is behaving normally. If it's a problem for you then it's a
> problem on your side.  We should be encouraging more widespread use of
> cryptographic tools, not complaining about their use.
>
Hoi,
Blanket statement like these are .. inviting suggestions.
Cryptography is also used for things like DRM.. sure, bring it on.
Thanks, but let ME think about it if I want it
    GerardM


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimbo, you hurt my feelings. I've contributed with
quite a few articles, and no-one ever called them
idiotic. Either way, I don't see why you're saying
that it's an invasion on Jeremy's privacy. Firstly,
because there are probably many people with his name
and he wouldn't be recognized by anyone; and secondly,
because it isn't really something he ought to be
ashamed of. It doesn't involve his private life.

Chill out, Jimbo. You're a lucky guy -- you've got
everything: a wife, a Ferrari, and a cool site. Your
eyes should only spark with love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anittas#Regarding_the_picture_dispute

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> > Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but it
> > seems that the community overruled against his
> > decission and for so far, decided to keep the
> article.
> > :)
> >
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld
>
> This is absurd.  What an idiotic article.
>
> Let me say again now what I said when I deleted it
> the first time, but
> with more detailed.  Even though I'm wonderful and
> charming and
> obviously the most noteworthy person on the planet
> (ha), it is still not
> the case that every person with whom I have had
> contact needs a
> biography in Wikipedia.
>
> I consider this bio to be a terrible invasion of
> privacy for Jeremy, and
> an embarassment for Wikipedia.
>
> "A-bit-stronger-than-weak Keep there exist a
> controversy about who
> presented Jimbo with idea about wiki. Therefore,
> this guy is
> controversial enough to became notable."
>
> That's such an overwhelming non sequitur I just
> don't even know where to
> begin.  Jeremy Rosenfeld is controversial?  I think
> not.  He's a nice
> guy who wandered into my office one day to show me a
> cool website.  The
> one quote we can come up with is that Larry doesn't
> remember him well?
>
> I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at
> AfD, because if it
> is this far broken, there's something seriously
> seriously worse about it
> than I thought.
>
>
> --
>
#######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture
> and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a
> free world         #
>
#######################################################################
> > _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Sure it can be expanded, now when Jimbo gave us
another reply on the subject. ;)

--- Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia <zzyzx11 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Ugh. I am tempted to merge that Jeremy Rosenfeld
> article into something
> else. I highly doubt it can be expanded beyond that
> single paragraph.
>
> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
>
>
>
>
> >From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny
> >Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:27:30 -0800
> >
> >STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> > > Jimbo also deleted one of my stub articles, but
> it
> > > seems that the community overruled against his
> > > decission and for so far, decided to keep the
> article.
> > > :)
> > >
> > >
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jeremy_Rosenfeld
> >
> >This is absurd.  What an idiotic article.
> >
> >Let me say again now what I said when I deleted it
> the first time, but
> >with more detailed.  Even though I'm wonderful and
> charming and
> >obviously the most noteworthy person on the planet
> (ha), it is still not
> >the case that every person with whom I have had
> contact needs a
> >biography in Wikipedia.
> >
> >I consider this bio to be a terrible invasion of
> privacy for Jeremy, and
> >an embarassment for Wikipedia.
> >
> >"A-bit-stronger-than-weak Keep there exist a
> controversy about who
> >presented Jimbo with idea about wiki. Therefore,
> this guy is
> >controversial enough to became notable."
> >
> >That's such an overwhelming non sequitur I just
> don't even know where to
> >begin.  Jeremy Rosenfeld is controversial?  I think
> not.  He's a nice
> >guy who wandered into my office one day to show me
> a cool website.  The
> >one quote we can come up with is that Larry doesn't
> remember him well?
> >
> >I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at
> AfD, because if it
> >is this far broken, there's something seriously
> seriously worse about it
> >than I thought.
> >
> >
> >--
>
>#######################################################################
> >#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture
> and  Free Knowledge #
> >#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a
> free world         #
>
>#######################################################################
>
>
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger!
> Download today - it's FREE!
>
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>>I shouldn't think there's anything so inherently wrong with an
>>encyclopedia having up-to-date coverage to merit such a rule.
>>
>>
>
>It's not about a problem with being up-to-date, it's about lacking the
>perspective which time provides.
>
>
That's the rationale behind the {{current event}} header---to let
readers know that information is not settled, and may change rapidly.  I
consider that quite a bit better than not having the information at *all*.

Plus, one year is a pretty arbitrary timeframe.  For some things, like
the Cold War, you could argue that we really need another 50 years to
have the proper back-looking perspective.  But we go ahead and write the
best article we can now, and then revise it again later as new
information and scholarship comes out.

-Mark


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
G'day Mark,

> Since I hope Wikipedia will become, in the long term, a compendium of
> all human knowledge, I think it sad that an unexplained decision to
> unilaterally remove content has poked holes in its coverage of internet
> culture, an important area of current sociological research at which
> Wikipedia ought naturally to excel.

Fear not, my good man!  I'm sure the denizens of Encyclopedia Dramatica
are more than ready to step up to the plate and document the phenomenon
of Mr Peppers' deformity; if anything, their coverage will be more
complete, and feature more swearing and callous mockery.  As such, they
can do a much better job of recording Internet culture than we'll *ever* do.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.0.0/266 - Release Date: 21/02/2006


subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cryptographically signed emails is nothing new or weird. Brion's
> mailer is behaving normally. If it's a problem for you then it's a
> problem on your side.  We should be encouraging more widespread use of
> cryptographic tools, not complaining about their use.

I have no problem with the PGP-sign at all. I have been receiving PGP-signed
messages for years without any problems. The PGP-singn shows up here as
"signature.asc" which is perfectly understandable.

The problem I have is that the _messagetext_ is not displayed aswell, I see
it as an attachment here ("ATT00715.txt" for example, in Message-ID:
<43FCB4BD.1090905 at pobox.com>).

To read the messagetext, I have to eighter open the attachment (which is not
a recommended thing to do with e-mail) or view the messagesource, which is
not handy, because it needs too many handling.

If there is any way for senders to avoid this, and still PGP-sign the
message you want to send: please do so. I'm sure I am not the only one using
MS Outlook Express here (although I understand that this is concidered
"lame" by some people).

If you send a message, I assume your intention is that others read it....

Best regards,

Tjipke


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

references:
<1140576063.b66bd9bcJDGRII8338@NGCSU.EDU>	<cblov1dikb84u7rhlpve4o9g6ga1n69jca@4ax.com>	<f1c3529e0602220446h412b2a20m82bca3a6b2b3a40c@mail.gmail.com>
	<lvrov1h3a7j9ntea2t40sdkp0f8qt3rbfn@4ax.com>
	<43FCC060.8070003@hackish.org>

body:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 14:49:52 -0500, you wrote:

>>I don't see it being banished, I see Jimbo saying let's all walk away
>>and come back if anyone still cares in a year.  What's the rush?  My
>>view is that no topic should be added until at least a year after it
>>happens, in order to allow formation of a proper perspective, there is
>>no rush to scoop anyone. Wikinews is that way ----->

>No articles on any topic for a year until it happens?  Don't you think
>that's going a bit far?

Not a firm policy, just a rule of thumb.  How many times have you seen
the interpretation of current events change as fuller information
becomes available?

>Here's some articles that'd have to be deleted, just scanning through
>Current Events
>* [[European Institute of Technology]] -- was just proposed this week;
>hasn't even opened

So no article required.  It's a footnote in the article on the
European Commission until it at least exists.

>* [[Grbavica (film)]] -- just released this month

But has been over a year in the conception and making; not really a
current event (we are documenting the film, not the release event).

>* [[Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy]] -- the cartoons were
>first published 5 months ago, and just got famous a month or so ago

Yep.  Remember how it came out that the most offensive ones had never
been published by the paper?

>* [[2006 Southern Leyte mudslide]] -- happened five days ago

Indeed.  No details of root cause yet, death toll unknown, news still
arriving of what has been going on on the ground.  Wikinews is
thataway ---->

>I shouldn't think there's anything so inherently wrong with an
>encyclopedia having up-to-date coverage to merit such a rule.

It's not about a problem with being up-to-date, it's about lacking the
perspective which time provides.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:35:41 +0000, you wrote:

>>What is the overarching principle here?  "Do no harm".

>Um, I thought it was "NPOV and encyclopedic." But anyway.

So did I, but Jimbo said otherwise, and I think he's right.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/22/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> Just a number of observations on this topic.
>
> 1. If a person is a topic of sufficient attention, for whatever
> reason, Wikipedia should have an article on that person.
>
> 2. I thought Delerium's stub was quite accurate & NPOV.
>
> 3. The edit history of this article had 675 edits -- including
> Delerium's. Sheesh.
>
> 4. I am reminded of a strategy I mentioned in another thread --
>
>         a. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's
>         many other articles in need of attention.
>         b. Wait x number of weeks.
>         c. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later
>         contributions intact.
>         d. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
>
> and of the variations other people mentioned.
>
> 5. When I hear that this person's family is concerned about the
> article, are they more worried about the picture of his appearance, or
> that he was declared guilty in a court of law for a sex crime --
> specifically on the charge of "Gross Sexual Imposition" & an attempt
> to do the same?
>
>
> 6. And just what is "Gross Sexual Imposition"? For the curious, I
> found a definition at
> http://www.ag.state.oh.us/le/training/pubs/cert/unit2-2C_rev0506.pdf --
> which defines it as involuntary sexual groping, with the usual
> conditions that apply to a definition of rape: use or threat of use
> of force, whether the parties involved are married[*], whether the
> victim was capable of consenting to this act, & if the victim was
> less than 13 years of age. FWIW, when I Googled for the specific
> part of the Ohio Revised Code that he was convicted under, I found a
> hit that explains this is one crime that explicitly cannot be expunged
> from his record.
>
> 7. Looking at this guy's picture & considering the crime he was
> convicted of, I have to wonder if this wasn't some mean-spirited
> practical joke gone badly wrong, & for which he is being mangled by the
> gears of justice. (Of course this kind of thing happens -- & not only
> in the US: I remember reading about a case in the UK where a pair of
> homeless bums were arrested & convicted of being notorious IRA
> bombers, despite the fact both were obviously incapable of holding a
> normal job or even attempting to apply for one, let alone managing such
> a demanding chore as making & setting these complicated devices.)
>
> 8. Again, FWIW I went to school with a guy with a similar deformity
> similar this one. He exhibited normal intelligence. If the findings of
> the court were accurate, then he knew what he was doing: coercing
> another person to being groped.
>
> 9. Are we more worried about providing verifiable information in
> Wikipedia, or if people are going to object to the nature of our
> information? After all, are we going to back off from stating that
> Vice-President Cheney shot Whittington in the face with a shotgun, &
> that Whittington later apologized to Cheny & his family for the
> accident?
>
> Geoff
>
> [*] I am not expressing an opinion on this clause of the relevant
> section of the Ohio Revised Code. I am merely reporting what it says.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

The question is do we have articles on every person convicted of such an
offence in Ohio or elsewhere. The answer is we don't nor do we have articles
on the vast majority of them. The reason that we have an article on Peppers
is that he is disabled and that some people have decided to single him out
on a couple of websites. That doesn't excuse his behaviour but it doesn't
justify an article.

 Should we have? In my view, no we shouldn't unless there is strong public
interest in the case as reflected in multiple verifiable sources. All we
have for Peppers is the reference from Snopes so the verifiability is shaky.

There is clear interest in the Cheney case reflected in thousands of
reliable sources in existence. This is not the case in the Peppers case. In
my view, it doesn't even warrant a minor mention in Internet culture.

Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/22/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is right of course. I think the problem is that the free and open
> nature of Wikipedia has given people the feeling that they are somehow
> entitled to the freedom. You don't hear anyone complaining about the fact
> that they can't have userboxes on Britannica.

Not until now anyway. BRB.

Steve


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 22 Feb 2006 at 06:40, "Daniel P. B. Smith" <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:

> 1) It's still free, isn't it?

That word has a number of different senses, some of which apply to
Wikipedia and some that don't.  It can be accessed at no charge, but
people using it are not free to do things that its admins and Jimbo
don't allow them to do.

> 2) Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, isn't it? Surely you can have
> an encyclopedia without an article on Brian Peppers in it. Many other
> encyclopedias get by without such an article.

Yes, I wouldn't expect the Encyclopedia of 18th Century French
Revolutionaries to include such an article, nor the Encyclopedia of
Star Wars Planets.  An Encyclopedia of Internet Memes, on the other
hand, might well have such an entry.  So the question then becomes
just what sort of encyclopedia is Wikipedia.

> 3) Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, can't they?

Other than the people who are banned, anyway.

> 4) If this deletion was made "unilaterally" then who are the twenty
> or so other sysops who also deleted the page? Are they all Jimbo's
> sockpuppets?

They're one side of an edit war, obviously, with those who undeleted
or recreated it on the other side.

Jimbo ended up taking sides in this war, something he's been doing
more often lately, and perhaps necessarily, given the apparent
increasing inability of the community to reach stable consensuses
(consensi?) by itself.

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


from_name: Josef Goebbles

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Abuse

body:
Greetings:

Let it not be said that justice is undone on the whims of one solitary
man.  The Wikipedia user:  HerrGoebbles, has been blocked by Wiki Admin
MarkSweep, whose reasons given were dislike of my user name ( because I
am German?) maybe due to MarkSweep claiming to be a former US Marine, he
considers me to be an enemy.  The other reason given was harassment of
user TastyCakes, who seems to have a dislike of anyone who disagrees with
her views of the destruction of the American Indian tribes during
American expansion.  The user TastyCakes has used the term "Dumb Ass" as
a personal attack and an insult towards me, (maybe because I am German,
and not gentically as superior as TastyCakes?)  However, I do not wish to
discuss this at length, I only wish to be given the opportunity to learn
from any mistakes I may have made, and continue to have the ability to
simply use Wikipedia's site without any overzealous attempts by Admins to
silence me once and for all, with malice.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

HerrGoebbles

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


body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

>Yes, I wouldn't expect the Encyclopedia of 18th Century French
>Revolutionaries to include such an article, nor the Encyclopedia of
>Star Wars Planets.  An Encyclopedia of Internet Memes, on the other
>hand, might well have such an entry.  So the question then becomes
>just what sort of encyclopedia is Wikipedia.
>
>
Why, the union of all other encyclopedias, of course. What sort of
proper world-domination force would we be if we left behind a competitor
whom we failed to assimilate? =]

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Mark,
>
>
>>Since I hope Wikipedia will become, in the long term, a compendium of
>>all human knowledge, I think it sad that an unexplained decision to
>>unilaterally remove content has poked holes in its coverage of internet
>>culture, an important area of current sociological research at which
>>Wikipedia ought naturally to excel.
>
>
> Fear not, my good man!  I'm sure the denizens of Encyclopedia Dramatica
> are more than ready to step up to the plate and document the phenomenon
> of Mr Peppers' deformity; if anything, their coverage will be more
> complete, and feature more swearing and callous mockery.  As such, they
> can do a much better job of recording Internet culture than we'll *ever* do.
>

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who endores /that/ trollpit can go
*directly* to Hell.

--
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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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Mark,
>
>
>>Since I hope Wikipedia will become, in the long term, a compendium of
>>all human knowledge, I think it sad that an unexplained decision to
>>unilaterally remove content has poked holes in its coverage of internet
>>culture, an important area of current sociological research at which
>>Wikipedia ought naturally to excel.
>
>
> Fear not, my good man!  I'm sure the denizens of Encyclopedia Dramatica
> are more than ready to step up to the plate and document the phenomenon
> of Mr Peppers' deformity; if anything, their coverage will be more
> complete, and feature more swearing and callous mockery.  As such, they
> can do a much better job of recording Internet culture than we'll *ever* do.
>

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who endorses /that/ trollpit can go
*directly* to Hell.

--
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: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
I certainly don't want suggestion 3 to be done. Wikipedians by field of
interest and any category that shows specific Wikipedian knowledge and
expertise have a use in the project and would be deleted with this
suggestion just because a few people have been warring.

And what is the use in banning images on userboxes when they are to be
hardcoded anyway?

How about we get around the table and decide on what type of user
categorization and boxes would be acceptable?

Acceptable:
1) Admin status
2) WikiProject membership
3) Skills (fields of interest)
4) Languages
5) System information (IE, Firefox, Windows, Linux, etc.)

Anything I missed?

Unacceptable:
???

On 2/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> > It seems difficult to follow one of these two positions without
> > losing  a
> > significant number of great contributors, so we need to come up
> > with some
> > sort of compromise solution. This is mainly just a collation of
> > various
> > suggestions, but I wondered what people think of it as a solution
> >
> > 1. The only userpage templates that are allowed in Template space
> > are those
> > of direct relevance to the project - e.g. babel, {{userpage}},
> > {{WikimediaNoLicensing}} etc.
>
> Workable.
>
> > 2. Userboxes cannot be 'transcluded' from user subpages - the only
> > allowed
> > way to have a userbox is to copy the source code for it (this wouldn't
> > preclude Wikiproject Userboxes from having a list of boxen, all
> > they would
> > have to do is have a list of code rather than a list of {{user
> > userbox}}
> > template calls
>
> Problematic. My user page actually transcludes lots of things from
> subpages within my own user space. Perhaps disallow transcluding from
> within other people's userspaces?
>
> > 3. Userboxes are not allowed to use images or categories. In fact all
> > 'Wikipedians by...' categories (except Wikipedians by location and
> > other
> > categories whose existence is of evident utility to the project)
> > should be
> > deleted (can we add something to CSD to this effect, assuming there
> > isn't
> > already?)
>
> I think the thing to do here is to restrict use of Wikipedia user
> categories instead of banning categories and images from userboxes
> outright. Userboxes have legitimate categorical use when it comes to
> adminship, Babel, and Wikiproject membership.
>
> > 2 and 3 are meant to stop 'vote stuffing' - the other major gripe
> > people
> > have with boxen. Fair use images in userboxes are already not
> > allowed (since
> > they aren't fair use at all in  boxen), and allowing public domain/FDL
> > images would give us precisely the same vote-stuffing problems that we
> > currently have with categories
>
> But images aren't problematic for non-vote-stuffing userboxes, unless
> you believe that all admins or all members of WikiProject Wikipedians
> for Writing an Encyclopedia can be trusted to reliably vote the same
> way :)
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
Deleting userpages would make editing unnecessarily hard. I'd would
instantly kill all the notes I keep on my wiki projects. And all the links I
keep for easy access so I don't have to search to find stuff.

Basically, I can only see downsides to doing it.

Mgm

On 2/22/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Getting rid of user pages is like curing the disease by killing the
> patient.
> Completely unnecessary.
>
> Ryan
>
> On 2/22/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Not only would a number of users simply leave (the benefits and final
> > ramifications of which I'm sure many people have many different opinions
> > on), and not only would it generate bad press from the snickering
> > Wikipedia
> > Defeatists ("looks like Wikipedia can't allow everyone to edit it after
> > all!"  You know that'd start showing up), but the remaining people who
> > want
> > user pages would do what [[User:Tony Sidaway]] has done, and simply
> > userpagify their talk pages (That Tony Sidaway... always sticking it to
> > the
> > man! *;-)* ), bringing us back to square one.
> >
> > JDoorjam
> >
> >
> > On 2/18/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > What's the worst thing that could happen if we got rid of userpages
> > > altogether? Wikipedia would grind to a halt because most of the users
> > > would
> > > probably leave. Not because they're hugely attached to their
> userpages,
> > > but
> > > because it would be a ringing endorsement of the conduct of certain
> > admins
> > > (deleting inflammatory userboxes without a policy for it, and then
> when
> > > there IS a policy for it they abuse THAT, and block people who
> disagree
> > > with
> > > them, etcetera) in this whole userbox mess.
> > >
> > > Cynical
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>I can see arguments against using Wikipedia to *create* fads, but that
>>is clearly not the case here.  Are we going to delete [[Star Wars kid]]
>>if his family complains, too?  After all, he too is famous against his
>>own will, and in that case the famous video was even leaked onto the
>>internet illegally (while in Brian Peppers case the famous photograph
>>was officially posted by the State of Ohio on its website in accordance
>>with state law).
>>
>>
>
>I don't know anything about this case, but in general, I would say that
>a thoughtful approach to our astounding global power to hurt people
>deeply by having inappropriate articles on people who are not famous
>through any fault or merit of their own will may lead us to respectfully
>decline to have abusive articles about such people.
>
Have you tried googling for "Brian Peppers" recently?  Wikipedia was,
until the article was deleted, the most neutral, calm, matter-of-fact
source of information on the subject, reporting that the poor guy was
the victim of a meme based on his unusual experience likely caused by a
disability, without getting all sensational and/or insulting.

Now, the Snopes article is the best of the remaining lot, and some are a
*lot* worse.  I don't see how we're doing this guy any favors by
directing people searching for his name to much more offensive sites
instead of providing factual, encyclopedic information ourselves.

-Mark


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
On 2/22/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally I don't find much redeeming value in these "Character X in
> show/game Y was based on this person" references at all.

If they need to exist at all, the correct place is in an article about
the show, game or character, not in the article about the person who
was the inspiration.  And it better damn well have a good, cited
source.

-Matt


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Death Phoenix wrote:

>On 2/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:28:51 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I agree, especially because the article didn't show the image, nor did it
>>>provide much in the way of information about Brian *the person* (only
>>>
>>>
>>Brian
>>
>>
>>>the meme).
>>>
>>>
>>Part of the problem is that it *did* / did not / did / did not / did
>>/did not contain the image, details of the man not the meme, details
>>of the meme spreading after Snopes identified him as a sufferer from a
>>congenital deformity and YTMND put up a page detailing the fact that
>>he is disabled and lives in a nursing home.  We had every extreme from
>>those who apparently wanted to perpetuate the YTMND fad to those who
>>didn't want the article at all, and there was no possibility of
>>agreeing on a neutral version, and not much chance of enforcing it
>>even then.
>>
>>Sit back, calm down and wait to see if he's still remembered in a
>>year's time seems a perfectly reasonable approach for an
>>*encyclopaedia* to take here.  But of course I was for not having the
>>article in the first place.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Don't worry, I'm already calm. Whatever my beliefs about Mr. Peppers, I
>simply don't feel strongly enough to really care about it all that much.
>
>
That's the spirit. I've become rather apathetic about these meta-debates
and the hype surrounding them, and have gotten on with writing the
encyclopedia instead (trite as that sounds). Look out for your daily
dose of Malaysian articles on DYK until all this emo drama blows over. :)

John


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Sue Anne Reed wrote:

>I don't know how Wikipedia is going to handle this as it continues to
>become a more widely read source of information. People, especially
>politicians, are going to want to be able to have a voice in that
>information. How do we balance that with NPOV? On the Abramoff / Reid
>situation, I don't think you'll be able to reach NPOV. Folks on the
>right and possibly centrists are going to point to certain facts and say
>that it shows Reid is connected to the lobbying scandal and that he's a
>hypocrite for saying he's not. Folks on the left are going to call it a
>giant smear campaign by the right to try and downplay their culpability.
>Has any news outlet reached consensus on this one?
>
This kind of issue will continue to face us regularly with different
people.  The issues must be faced directly; you don't achieve NPOV by
avoidance,

Ec


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
I think not all fault is due to the email reader but the
"
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l"

automatic mailing list signature also has something to do. Not sure about if
the result email is compliant, but, as some readers show *only* the
signature i think it's messing the reader, creating an email different than
the one your program sent.


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-21

body:
Briefly:
* Brion was copy'n'paste happy today ;-)
* "Works for me" = "Works on my computer if I look at HTML with mark 1
eyeball, but does not pass the parser test". PHP 4.something, tell you
tomorrow. Will check under PHP5
* "You liked producing invalid XML? :) " - Sure! :-) Except the only
underscore-to-space conversion (which was suppsed to be the error)
occured in the title attribute of the link, which I changed...

Tomorrow starts the "hot phase" of carnival here in Cologne. Still
thinking about costume. Maybe I'll wrap myself in some USB cables, glue
on a laser pointer, shave my head and go as Borg. Maybe not.

Magnus

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> I didn't get around to fix the parser test, but here's my current
>> analysis, by looking at the HTML output manually:
>>
>>
>>> An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:
>>>
>>> Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Works for me.
>>
>
> Works how?
>
> Does it:
> 1) Pass the test on your computer?
> 2) Not pass the test on your computer?
>
> If 1), try again with PHP 5.1.2 and see if it's the same or changed.
> If 2), what makes you think it works?
>
>
>>> Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Fixed. I liked the previous behaviour better, though.
>>
>
> You liked producing invalid XML? :)
>
>
>>> Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Parser test expects blank, parser (now) generates
>>

, which is valid as well.
>> Blank output might require major hack. So, works for me.
>>
>
> Works how?
>
> Does it:
> 1) Pass the test on your computer?
> 2) Not pass the test on your computer?
>
> If 1), try again with PHP 5.1.2 and see if it's the same or changed.
> If 2), what makes you think it works?
>
>
>>> Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Works for me.
>>
>
> Works how?
>
> Does it:
> 1) Pass the test on your computer?
> 2) Not pass the test on your computer?
>
> If 1), try again with PHP 5.1.2 and see if it's the same or changed.
> If 2), what makes you think it works?
>
>
>>> Running test Magic links: PMID incorrectly converts space to underscore... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Fixed, I guess...
>>
>
> Fixed how?
>
> Does it:
> 1) Pass the test on your computer?
> 2) Not pass the test on your computer?
>
> If 1), try again with PHP 5.1.2 and see if it's the same or changed.
> If 2), what makes you think it's fixed?
>
>
>>> Running test Simple category... FAILED!
>>>
>>>
>> Works for me.
>>
>
> Works how?
>
> Does it:
> 1) Pass the test on your computer?
> 2) Not pass the test on your computer?
>
> If 1), try again with PHP 5.1.2 and see if it's the same or changed.
> If 2), what makes you think it's fixed?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Honestly, does anyone actually use these userboxes to find experts?
This is a genuine question: I have never done so. Does anyone
regularly use userbox categories or "what links here" on userbox
templates to locate people who are experts in certain fields to help
with a project?

Steve

On 2/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I certainly don't want suggestion 3 to be done. Wikipedians by field of
> interest and any category that shows specific Wikipedian knowledge and
> expertise have a use in the project and would be deleted with this
> suggestion just because a few people have been warring.
>
> And what is the use in banning images on userboxes when they are to be
> hardcoded anyway?
>
> How about we get around the table and decide on what type of user
> categorization and boxes would be acceptable?
>
> Acceptable:
> 1) Admin status
> 2) WikiProject membership
> 3) Skills (fields of interest)
> 4) Languages
> 5) System information (IE, Firefox, Windows, Linux, etc.)
>
> Anything I missed?
>
> Unacceptable:
> ???
>
>
> On 2/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> >
> > > It seems difficult to follow one of these two positions without
> > > losing  a
> > > significant number of great contributors, so we need to come up
> > > with some
> > > sort of compromise solution. This is mainly just a collation of
> > > various
> > > suggestions, but I wondered what people think of it as a solution
> > >
> > > 1. The only userpage templates that are allowed in Template space
> > > are those
> > > of direct relevance to the project - e.g. babel, {{userpage}},
> > > {{WikimediaNoLicensing}} etc.
> >
> > Workable.
> >
> > > 2. Userboxes cannot be 'transcluded' from user subpages - the only
> > > allowed
> > > way to have a userbox is to copy the source code for it (this wouldn't
> > > preclude Wikiproject Userboxes from having a list of boxen, all
> > > they would
> > > have to do is have a list of code rather than a list of {{user
> > > userbox}}
> > > template calls
> >
> > Problematic. My user page actually transcludes lots of things from
> > subpages within my own user space. Perhaps disallow transcluding from
> > within other people's userspaces?
> >
> > > 3. Userboxes are not allowed to use images or categories. In fact all
> > > 'Wikipedians by...' categories (except Wikipedians by location and
> > > other
> > > categories whose existence is of evident utility to the project)
> > > should be
> > > deleted (can we add something to CSD to this effect, assuming there
> > > isn't
> > > already?)
> >
> > I think the thing to do here is to restrict use of Wikipedia user
> > categories instead of banning categories and images from userboxes
> > outright. Userboxes have legitimate categorical use when it comes to
> > adminship, Babel, and Wikiproject membership.
> >
> > > 2 and 3 are meant to stop 'vote stuffing' - the other major gripe
> > > people
> > > have with boxen. Fair use images in userboxes are already not
> > > allowed (since
> > > they aren't fair use at all in  boxen), and allowing public domain/FDL
> > > images would give us precisely the same vote-stuffing problems that we
> > > currently have with categories
> >
> > But images aren't problematic for non-vote-stuffing userboxes, unless
> > you believe that all admins or all members of WikiProject Wikipedians
> > for Writing an Encyclopedia can be trusted to reliably vote the same
> > way :)
> >
> > --
> > Philip L. Welch
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 2/22/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> You assume that these people have their own webspace.

Frankly, I think most of them probably do in the cases where this has
come up. If they are big enough to have a Wikipedia biography full of
things about themselves they object to, they probably have their own
webspace.

For those rare few who don't, there are plenty of free hosting sites
out there. For those who can't do that -- well, I'm just not sure of
any other way for them to contribute facts to articles about
themselves which doesn't violate NOR.

FF


body:
Do you find members in that wikiproject by userboxes on their page, or
by them signing up on the wikiproject page itself?

Steve

On 2/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > Honestly, does anyone actually use these userboxes to find experts?
> > This is a genuine question: I have never done so. Does anyone
> > regularly use userbox categories or "what links here" on userbox
> > templates to locate people who are experts in certain fields to help
> > with a project?
>
> I usually look for a WikiProject.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Will someone explain what we have these "Simple English" sites for?
>
>It's recently come to my attention that there's a simple.wiktionary.org as well
>(probably created by accident when Wiktionaries were bulk-created) and
>somebody's been editing it and is now requesting a custom logo.
>
>In the four years or so I've been here, nobody's *ever* had a clear picture of
>what the "Simple English" Wikipedia was meant for: who it's targetted at, what
>kind of "simple" is meant, what's appropriate or not appropriate.
>
>Having a Wiktionary too looks completely useless IMHO. It's bad enough that it's
>an unstructured wiki for a dictionary, but without knowing its purpose? Bah.
>
>What are we doing with these? What are they here for? Who are they here for? Do
>we actually want to keep them?
>
While I don't use them myself because I am addicted to big words.  I
find that these projects have some value for those with a limited
knowledge of the English.

The simple Wiktionary was indeed started when the bulk creation
occurred.  It did not receive much attention for a long time, but I'm
glad to see that some people have finally taken an interest.  I have no
opinion on their logo request.  I would simply let the people interested
in them carry on.

I don't find an unstructured wiki for a dictionary to be very much of a
problem.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
<snip>
> What really worries me is the bad precedent this sets. The (very condensed)
> facts are:
>
> 1) This article survived its last AfD. Some people voted delete, but
> it survived.
>
> 2) A short time later, a phony email was sent to wikipedia by someone
> *claiming* to be a relative of Brian Pepper. The article was immediately
> deleted. It was later shown that this almost undoubtedly was not sent
> by a relative, but by someone sending fake notes to Wikipedia and to
> other sites.
>
> 3) DR, AFD, mailing list arguments, wheel warring, and finally a deus
> ex machina ends with the article, for all practical purposes, being
> even more deleted than at the end of step 2.
>
> I know there is a lot of middle stuff in part 3, and the arguments expanded
> well beyond the legal worries raised in 2 (although quite a few people
> calling for deletion continued to cite them), but it is really disheartening
> to to note that, in effect, a prankster just succeeded in having an article
> removed from Wikipedia.
>

The potential for damage is greater than the amount of information we
have lost. If someone really wants to find out about the guy, they can
use Google. I see this as a page which if it were recreated, would most
likely have to be permanantly protected to prevent the reinsertion of
the material which caused it's removal in the first place.

--
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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