from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...

body:
Don't feel bad Anthere, it happens to me all the time. Wikipedia has
made a lot of success and
with comes a lot of folks who are jealous of its success. Personally I
would not discuss the
financial details of any venture I have with anyone outside of a board
room or to the main
financial contributors as a matter of policy, but I don't run the board.

I would ignore these trolls -- there's no such thing as bad publicity.
If anything, it may
encourage more people to contribute to the efforts.

Sorry this happened to you. Keep your chin up, boss, we are still here
for you and the Foundation.

Jeff

Anthere wrote:

>RUMORS
>
>I was away from my computer for 4 days last week, to participate to a
>conference (LIFT) in Switzerland. During this conference, the organiser
>asked me questions about the financial situation of the projects. I
>answered with plain honesty and unfortunately with some words which
>raised the attention of a blogger in the room.
>
>Never mind that the words were taken out of context, never mind the
>smiles that went with the words, the words were out. Twisted.
>
>So, if some of you have heard that Wikipedia might close in 4 months due
>to financial difficulties, these are the words I am talking about.
>
>For more on the discussion on the matter, please see the blog of Mr
>Guissani. I had a long discussion with him on financial matters on
>friday morning.
>
>http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/02/the_wikimedia_c.html
>
>I think that summarize things pretty well.
>
>---------
>
>BEING INFORMED
>
>The day the WMF will plan to close Wikipedia for lack of funds, believe
>me, you'll know. Before the press.
>
>Will Wikipedia close in 4 months ? NO. NO. AND NO.
>
>---------
>
>TRANSPARENCY AND FIGURES
>
>All of our financial statements for year 2004, 2005 and 2006 are public
>and audited. Please find them here:
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report#Audited_financial_statements
>
>We also have a page where we state our needs for the coming 6 months.
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for.
>
>(as a reminder, our fiscal year goes from june to june)
>
>TO make it short, we currently have above 1 million (exact figures to
>pick up from Carolyn, perhaps 1,5) in bank, available for use.
>
>Current monthly expenses as of today are about 75 000 dollars.
>We had an (optimistic goal) of hardware investment of 1,6 million before
>june. We can expect bandwidth and hosting costs to naturally follow. We
>also need more human help, at least hiring a permanent executive
>director, a CTO and probably more developers.
>
>Just have a look at the page and do count yourself. If you add current
>daily operations + hardware investment + increase in bandwidth +
>increase in hosting + 3 to 5 additional employees, we are already over
>that 1.5 millions that we have in hand.
>
>So, as of today, I think we can quietly say that
>
>"yes, we have about 3-4 months of operations at hand". Not 6 months. Not
>1 year. Not 2 years. Roughly 3-4 months.
>
>If you look at the bottom of this page,
>(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for#Retained_revenue)
>you'll see that the recommandations of auditors is always to try to have
>6 months of reserve. We are far from it. We have roughly 4 months.
>Having 6 months of reserve is financially wiser.
>
>Did you have a way to know this previously ?
>Yes you did. It was listed in the site notice during the full month of
>fundraising. So, there is nothing new to wikipedians. There might be
>something new to press though.
>
>---------
>
>IS THAT A BIG DEAL ?
>
>I repeat, we are not going to disappear. We have been in worse state in
>the past. Well, in december 2006, some expenses were delayed, delayed
>till the money from the fundraising was flowing in, and we could pay the
>bills.
>
>Someone mentionned image server a few days ago. Image server was planned
>in september hardware quote. But purchase was delayed till december.
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_sept_2006
>Because given our cashflow situation, it would have been unreasonable to
>buy the image servers.
>
>
>This should not happen. We should not come to the point where we delay
>hardware investment. We should aim to provide the best service, not just
>the service we can afford.
>
>
>We should not try to pretend we do not need money. We do need more
>money. People at the Foundation are trying to find creative ways to
>collect more, with services (datafeed), royalties from brand use
>(Wikipedia in particular), matching donations etc... but raising the
>money for the projects should not become only the business of 10 or so
>employees. This should be many people concern. Because Wikipedia is not
>the website of a few people, not even the website of the community, it
>is a common good.
>
>ant
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...


list: wikien-l

from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:14:01 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>The problem I find with this analysis is that it's too one sideed.  You
>outline three broad problems that do indeed happen, and take up a lot of
>admin time.  Still another huge problem is the tendency of some admins
>to zealotry, or assuming that a small error by a newbie is a precursor
>to vandalism.  The most desirable skill in an admin is patience, and we
>don't see much of that.

That's partly a consequence of promoting mainly vandal fighters, with
a culture of immediatism, and partly the result of the cynicism
inspired by the relentless onslaught of POV pushers, self-promoters
and other types.

But yes, there are issues like you describe.  One that particularly
annoys me is the tendency to overdramatise supposed death threats and
legal threats when the comments have no degree of credibility.  A
credible threat of harm is bad, and reducing the currency of such by
saying that generic "Meh!  I'll kill ya!" crap is a death threat
(rather than just simple stupidity) does not help.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] - category clutter on biographical articles

body:
on 2/12/07 10:29 AM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:

> An alternative approach might be to dig out that old idea of giving
> wikiprojects more power and giving them the power of cat deletion in
> their respective areas.

Whatever it takes. At any rate, I think the entire Categorization System in
WP needs reevaluated. It appears to have turned into whatever any individual
thinks it should be.

To be most effective, this undertaking would require a formal proposal with
agreed upon goals, and a specific group of persons to take it on.

Marc


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] About rumors...

body:
Suggestions, anyone? en:wp is the largest project by far, hence both
the most expensive to run and the greatest base for possible
fundraising.

We've been slightly hacking around the sidebar lately - see
[[MediaWiki:Sidebar]]. I recently added "About Wikipedia". I also just
now changed the tooltip for "Make a donation" from "Support us" to
"Help keep Wikipedia running". This will probably show up for most of
you later today. (The sidebar is very aggressively cached, i.e.
action=purge doesn't update it ;-)

One idea that sprang to mind was a donation GIF, linking to
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising . Not a PayPal button,
but something that specifically draws the eye to it. Think of it as a
logo ad for ourselves. How to make it eye-drawing but not unstylish or
obnoxious is a tricky one. (And part of why graphic designers are paid
money.)

Any others?

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
Date: 12-Feb-2007 10:21
Subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...
To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org

RUMORS

I was away from my computer for 4 days last week, to participate to a
conference (LIFT) in Switzerland. During this conference, the organiser
asked me questions about the financial situation of the projects. I
answered with plain honesty and unfortunately with some words which
raised the attention of a blogger in the room.

Never mind that the words were taken out of context, never mind the
smiles that went with the words, the words were out. Twisted.

So, if some of you have heard that Wikipedia might close in 4 months due
to financial difficulties, these are the words I am talking about.

For more on the discussion on the matter, please see the blog of Mr
Guissani. I had a long discussion with him on financial matters on
friday morning.

http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/02/the_wikimedia_c.html

I think that summarize things pretty well.

---------

BEING INFORMED

The day the WMF will plan to close Wikipedia for lack of funds, believe
me, you'll know. Before the press.

Will Wikipedia close in 4 months ? NO. NO. AND NO.

---------

TRANSPARENCY AND FIGURES

All of our financial statements for year 2004, 2005 and 2006 are public
and audited. Please find them here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report#Audited_financial_statements

We also have a page where we state our needs for the coming 6 months.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for.

(as a reminder, our fiscal year goes from june to june)

TO make it short, we currently have above 1 million (exact figures to
pick up from Carolyn, perhaps 1,5) in bank, available for use.

Current monthly expenses as of today are about 75 000 dollars.
We had an (optimistic goal) of hardware investment of 1,6 million before
june. We can expect bandwidth and hosting costs to naturally follow. We
also need more human help, at least hiring a permanent executive
director, a CTO and probably more developers.

Just have a look at the page and do count yourself. If you add current
daily operations + hardware investment + increase in bandwidth +
increase in hosting + 3 to 5 additional employees, we are already over
that 1.5 millions that we have in hand.

So, as of today, I think we can quietly say that

"yes, we have about 3-4 months of operations at hand". Not 6 months. Not
1 year. Not 2 years. Roughly 3-4 months.

If you look at the bottom of this page,
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for#Retained_revenue)
you'll see that the recommandations of auditors is always to try to have
6 months of reserve. We are far from it. We have roughly 4 months.
Having 6 months of reserve is financially wiser.

Did you have a way to know this previously ?
Yes you did. It was listed in the site notice during the full month of
fundraising. So, there is nothing new to wikipedians. There might be
something new to press though.

---------

IS THAT A BIG DEAL ?

I repeat, we are not going to disappear. We have been in worse state in
the past. Well, in december 2006, some expenses were delayed, delayed
till the money from the fundraising was flowing in, and we could pay the
bills.

Someone mentionned image server a few days ago. Image server was planned
in september hardware quote. But purchase was delayed till december.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_sept_2006
Because given our cashflow situation, it would have been unreasonable to
buy the image servers.

This should not happen. We should not come to the point where we delay
hardware investment. We should aim to provide the best service, not just
the service we can afford.

We should not try to pretend we do not need money. We do need more
money. People at the Foundation are trying to find creative ways to
collect more, with services (datafeed), royalties from brand use
(Wikipedia in particular), matching donations etc... but raising the
money for the projects should not become only the business of 10 or so
employees. This should be many people concern. Because Wikipedia is not
the website of a few people, not even the website of the community, it
is a common good.

ant

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: foundation-l

from_name: geni

subject:
[Foundation-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use"
	decision

body:
On 2/12/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 2/11/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> >> Not only do I agree, but I believe a similar issue surrounds fair use.
> >> Accusations of U.S. centrism are indefensible when they're based on
> >> restrictive laws in non-U.S. countries.
> >>
> >> Now, that doesn't mean there aren't practical advantages to
> >> accommodating other countries' needs, but the lack of doing so is hardly
> >> "U.S. centrism."
> >
> > The problem with that is the logical end point of that position is the
> > move the foundation and servers to Iran.
>
> That's absurd. How does one go from "not changing to accommodate
> restrictive laws from other countries is not U.S. centrism" to "we must
> move our servers to Iran"?
>

You want minimum restrictions with regard to copyright that is the
correct course of action.

> I'm arguing that we should weigh the advantages of accommodating foreign
> restrictions

Try again this time try not to think so americano centric

>(further reach) with the disadvantages of changing the
> content (esp. censorship). If we happen to decide that accommodating a
> restriction isn't worth the changes to content, then we're still not
> guilty of U.S. centrism. Accommodating Iran's requirements is clearly
> out of the question.
>

So not copyright on items produced outside Iran doesn't appeal? Well
Ok then how about move commons to the UK? At least one type of item
enters the public domain there well before ti does in the US. Sure it
might be a good idea to win a Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp case
first but that should be doable.

>
> U.S. centrism is borne of ignorance or willful exclusion. Neither is the
> case here.

Then try and think why when dealing with the option of moving the
foundation to somewhere with the most liberal copyright laws on an
international mailing list why using the term "foreign restrictions"
isn't exactly ideal phrasing.

--
geni


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] WYSIWYG (or WYSIWYM or WYSIWYM) status?

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>
	<b8ceeef70702112024j4349bf54w767cb499eefee421@mail.gmail.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.0702121006360.13181@localhost.localdomain>

body:
On 2/12/07, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> The current wiki syntax cannot be described in simple BNF, but it
> is not impossible to parse.

No, just very difficult, with lots of corner cases.  Which makes it
effectively impossible to guarantee that any tool other than MediaWiki
itself (which is correct by definition) can parse the wikitext
correctly in all cases.  And perhaps more importantly, parse time for
MediaWiki itself is, as I recall, somewhere on the order of 800ms.
That's totally unacceptable for real-time use like WYSIWYG.

If a lossless intermediate representation such as XML could be
developed, in theory, that would be ideal.  Then the XML could be
served for WYSIWYG or other clients and used for rendering, while the
wikitext could be served to those who want to use it.  The difficulty
(if not impossibility) is in making it lossless: you have to be able
to convert back and forth without changing anything.

*That* is probably the most interesting question right now from the
perspective of stuff like WYSIWYG and third-party use.  Formally
parsing the current syntax is hopeless.  But if we develop a mapping
such that the entire enwiki database can be roundtripped, as a test
case, *that* will allow all sorts of stuff to work.  Once we have an
intermediate XML representation, that could probably be turned
directly into a rendered page (even including all skin elements) with
just XSL, after template substitution.  And that could probably be
done in real time in most modern languages, including JavaScript.  At
least I hope.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>	<45D02473.3010000@gmail.com>
	<eqpefd$cdq$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Minh Nguyen schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> With the realisisation that this is also a problem that prevents
>> Neapolitan from being written as it is standard practiced, the
>> Neapolitan language uses '' in its language. The result of the MediaWiki
>> practice of using the ' in bold and italic breaks functionality in the
>> first place. Given that it is also a problem in the parser itself, maybe
>> a good reason to ditch this abomination.
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>
> I was wondering... would it be possible for nap: users to enter
> "smart-quotes", namely ’’ or ??? The advantage of this
> character over ' is that you can represent it in plain text (no
> HTML code), even in Category tags and page titles. It also looks nicer
> if you have a good font. You could, of course, add ? to a <charinsert>
> tag in [[MediaWiki:Edittools]] to make this character easier to insert.
Hoi,
The problem is that the practice of people /are/ writing Neapolitan in
this way. You do not ask people who write Dutch to use the "proper"
character in stead of the ij combination. When people type, they expect
the characters to be there on the keyboard. For "smart-quotes" to be
used by everyone you expect to much. It just will not happen.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...

body:
RUMORS

I was away from my computer for 4 days last week, to participate to a
conference (LIFT) in Switzerland. During this conference, the organiser
asked me questions about the financial situation of the projects. I
answered with plain honesty and unfortunately with some words which
raised the attention of a blogger in the room.

Never mind that the words were taken out of context, never mind the
smiles that went with the words, the words were out. Twisted.

So, if some of you have heard that Wikipedia might close in 4 months due
to financial difficulties, these are the words I am talking about.

For more on the discussion on the matter, please see the blog of Mr
Guissani. I had a long discussion with him on financial matters on
friday morning.

http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/02/the_wikimedia_c.html

I think that summarize things pretty well.

---------

BEING INFORMED

The day the WMF will plan to close Wikipedia for lack of funds, believe
me, you'll know. Before the press.

Will Wikipedia close in 4 months ? NO. NO. AND NO.

---------

TRANSPARENCY AND FIGURES

All of our financial statements for year 2004, 2005 and 2006 are public
and audited. Please find them here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report#Audited_financial_statements

We also have a page where we state our needs for the coming 6 months.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for.

(as a reminder, our fiscal year goes from june to june)

TO make it short, we currently have above 1 million (exact figures to
pick up from Carolyn, perhaps 1,5) in bank, available for use.

Current monthly expenses as of today are about 75 000 dollars.
We had an (optimistic goal) of hardware investment of 1,6 million before
june. We can expect bandwidth and hosting costs to naturally follow. We
also need more human help, at least hiring a permanent executive
director, a CTO and probably more developers.

Just have a look at the page and do count yourself. If you add current
daily operations + hardware investment + increase in bandwidth +
increase in hosting + 3 to 5 additional employees, we are already over
that 1.5 millions that we have in hand.

So, as of today, I think we can quietly say that

"yes, we have about 3-4 months of operations at hand". Not 6 months. Not
1 year. Not 2 years. Roughly 3-4 months.

If you look at the bottom of this page,
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for#Retained_revenue)
you'll see that the recommandations of auditors is always to try to have
6 months of reserve. We are far from it. We have roughly 4 months.
Having 6 months of reserve is financially wiser.

Did you have a way to know this previously ?
Yes you did. It was listed in the site notice during the full month of
fundraising. So, there is nothing new to wikipedians. There might be
something new to press though.

---------

IS THAT A BIG DEAL ?

I repeat, we are not going to disappear. We have been in worse state in
the past. Well, in december 2006, some expenses were delayed, delayed
till the money from the fundraising was flowing in, and we could pay the
bills.

Someone mentionned image server a few days ago. Image server was planned
in september hardware quote. But purchase was delayed till december.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_sept_2006
Because given our cashflow situation, it would have been unreasonable to
buy the image servers.

This should not happen. We should not come to the point where we delay
hardware investment. We should aim to provide the best service, not just
the service we can afford.

We should not try to pretend we do not need money. We do need more
money. People at the Foundation are trying to find creative ways to
collect more, with services (datafeed), royalties from brand use
(Wikipedia in particular), matching donations etc... but raising the
money for the projects should not become only the business of 10 or so
employees. This should be many people concern. Because Wikipedia is not
the website of a few people, not even the website of the community, it
is a common good.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...


body:
on 2/12/07 11:02 AM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:

> Our current system appears to be fairly
> good at avoiding that trap at least.

I definitely agree there. You would have to go a far way to find someone
less bureaucratic-thinking than me. What I am suggesting is that, like any
system that's been around for a while, we take an objective step back to see
how it has evolved over time. Is it still accomplishing the goals that were
originally set? Has the system kept pace with the growth of the project?
Things like that.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sanger and CZ

body:
On 11/02/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> It confirms my belief that Citizendium is having serious problems. In a
> Citizendium post announcing that they would no longer be forking Wikipedia,
> Larry Sanger claimed that they had 24 active contributors as I recall. That
> isn't very many and it seems that a couple of those are no longer active.
> Sanger's claims about micromanaging suggests that many of the senior people
> aren't contributing much. Twenty odd people aren't terribly many people for
> a project of Citizendium's claimed ambit.
 [...]
> Larry Sanger has been talking about how Citizendium will be much better than
> Wikipedia. It hasn't gone live yet and I doubt that it will for some months.
> If it does, I am predicting that I will fall well short of Wikipedia in both
> quantity and quality.

I'd say that comparing it to English Wikipedia is not really fair -
most other Wikipedias would lose out badly in such a comparison.

Instead, compare it to a new language Wikipedia. What's the typical
ramping-up curve for those? Contributors over time, articles over
time, word count over time.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection

body:
On 2/12/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> There have been several requests for per-page access
> permissions. There have been implementations of this. They just did not
> make it into the MediaWiki SVN. This is a shame because as a consequence
> you have a fork. Forking is really unproductive. With some regularity
> the same issue raises its ugly head again; often resulting in a new fork.

I'm not aware of any forks.  I'm aware of a large-scale patch that
aims to implement this, that I think is kept up to date with the
stable releases.

On 2/12/07, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> So, out of interest, are you saying that even if somebody implemented this
> cleanly and completely and provided a fully tested patch against HEAD, it
> would still not be accepted to the main development branch?

Brion has strongly implied that in the past.  That's what WONTFIX
means: not that we aren't willing to code it, but that we aren't even
willing to accept it.  But it's his decision, of course.

On 2/12/07, Alex Powell <alexp at exscien.com> wrote:
> Possibly this change has been checked in error - it was from a branch. Still
> it begs the question: has the position on this changed, as this change
> is there meaning that the code would need to be reviewed to put in page
> protection. This really is the last thing that needs to go into the trunk.

I'm not clear on what you mean here.  The page_restrictions table was
just a restructuring of the schema.  Without having looked at the
actual code, I assume that pr_type can only be 'edit' or 'move', just
as has always been true.  I think it's been possible for a long time
to add other stuff to a global like $wgRestrictionTypes, but I'm not
aware of whether that actually works, and doubt that whether it works
or not has been changed by the existence of a new table.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
On 2/4/07, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra at ukr.net > wrote:
>
> Hi

Hello

>This is the point. It is my language, my country, my region - if you want.
> >Some things that are important to me. I come from there. While he - he
> came
> >in there.
>
> No, I did not. I live in Kiev, not in Romania. Anyway, there is but one
> problem in what you say: you keep confusing a language with a country.

I
don't. I understood quite well that you were in Ukraine. In previous
posts on this thread,
it was "that" country we - Gerard and I - were talking about. A bit
vague a notion,

something between country and region.

And
> from WMF's POV they are 2 different things.

I am aware of this.

Here it's WMF, it's WMF laws
> working, not your own or the Romanian laws.

I never intended to apply or impose any laws to WMF. I'm playing by its
own.

WMF will never tell Romania how its street signs should look like, Romania
> cannot tell WMF how a wiki page should look like.

Romania doesn't. Romanians do. And more important, perhaps, Moldovans do.

Failure to understand this
> is... the soviet encyclopedia. A place where, instead of being a SUBJECT
> for
> classification, politics become the SOURCE of classification. It's fascism
> in its purest form (whether red or black fascism it's absolutely
> irrelevant).
>
> You may not like this, okay, that's your right. Then download the software
> it takes and make yourself an independent wiki. Because here pillars are
> pillars and they cannot be discussed. Over.

I do not discuss Wikipedia's pillars. I am quite OK with the committees
stance that decisions concerning linguistics are to be independent of
political decisions (or reality).

I sometimes hate these pillars myself. That's why Wikipedia is not a
> monopolist to my spare time and yes I do start my own projects. I have my
> own stupid personality and I love to show it (as anyone else). Even in the
>
> most extreme fashion. Fantastic, that's what forums are for, for example.
> Go
> find yourself one and have fun.

Do you really think that it is for fun that I am doing all
this? Explaining the realities of Moldova,
advocating for the closing of this Moldovan Wikipedia, voting for it,
getting involved in endless and
often fruitless or senseless debates? Do you consider that I'm enjoying all
this?

And when you are here either be a
> wikipedian, or quit coming here at all.

I don't see how my doing all this has anything to do with my being a
Wikipedian. As a Wikipedian,
I contribute to the English and French Wikipedias, mainly. Expressing by
convictions on the Wikipedia-l mailing list does not take way this from me.

It's called context (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context), I add a link in
> case you have doubts on the meaning. The usual problem with dictatorships
> and fundamentalism is that they do no understand what context is. They
> cannot adapt, they are absolute in their essence. There's no such a thing
> as
> a private space to them. EVERYTHING on earth must either be their way or
> vanish. Ok, you are free to love that

What makes you think that I accept that, or - more interesting -
love that? Are my arguments in
a "my way or the highway" style?
I would be OK with the situation, if a conversion script were
installed on the Romanian Wikipedia,

or if mo domain got renamed to something less confusing like mo-cyr (I
understand that this one is hardly
implementable). But WMF doesn't seem to intend any such compromise steps.

And if it is context <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context> we are talking
about, I believe that the WMF fails to realize certain
circumstances surrounding the Moldovan language. And the following is
addressed to the Language Committee, mainly.

First of all, how come does the WMF still consider Moldovan.. a language? A
separate, independent language? At best, it is a dialect of the Romanian
language; at worst - a script used for writing the same Romanian
language. It was deemed as a language by the Soviet authorities, from
political considerations, for political purposes, through a political
decision and with the help of a customized
script<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet>_created_ in the
1930s (different from the original
script <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet> used for
writing the Romanian language). And currently there is
one<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasile_Stati>scientist supporting
this POV, which happens - by the mere existance of the
Moldovan Wikipedia - to be WMF's POV.

In other words, the WMF simply takes over a Soviet time political decision.
On this point, I find the
words<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Robert_Horning#A_technical_question>of
Robert
Horning <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Roberth> particularly relevant:
"the mere act of creating this language version of Wikipedia is making a
political statement that the WMF should stay out of and away from. I don't
know how you can create a NPOV Wikipedia in a language whose very existance
is expressing a political point of view."

So, why does this Moldovan Wikipedia exist? As far as I
am aware of the WMF policies,
WMF does not create wikipedias for dialects or scripts. Nor does it create
these from political considerations. Which - unintendedly - is the case
here.

What I am doing here is trying to persuade the WMF decision makers that it
is not sensible <http://www.wordreference.com/definition/sensible> for the
WMF to tolerate the existance of this
Wikipedia. It is not reasonable to keep a Wikipedia based
on a "language" that is a political emanation. It is not reasonable to keep
a language version Wikipedia
whose natives are against it. It is not reasonable to expect much
future of this Wikipedia,
if contributions are made by one authentic
Moldovan<http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:Node_ue> supporting
it,
Mark Williamson. One argument to which I cannot
retort much is that this writing is still in use (at a limited scale).
However, the usage of a writing script is not a viable argument for
dedicating an entire Wikipedia to it.

These are my arguments.

, yet the fact that one may love
> Securitate does not make Securitate's ways acceptable to wikipedia.
>
> WMF is WMF, you are yourself, it always was and it always shall be two
> different things.

I don't confuse this either.

Liviu

Learn to live with this, as we all did.
>
> Berto 'd Sera
> Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
>
>
>

--
Liviu


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
Gary Kirk wrote:

>IMHO, it should be easier to get adminship as a) it's No Big Deal(r)
>and b) all actions can now  be reversed - and users can quickly be
>dysopped. The three month tenure, however, I find silly - if someone
>was good enough and behaved well for those three months then obviously
>they should be allowed to continue. Desysopping after three months
>would turn the whole RfA process into a lottery-like game - "if it's
>no big deal, why can't I continue as an admin?".
>
You may even be right about what happens after a three month tenure.  In
that case we would be able to drop the probationary provision.

Choosing a first random batch of 100, and reporting after 3 months about
what happened to this group would support the radical concept of basing
later choices on facts.  Thus:
    1. How many refused the nomination outright? (This group could be
immediately replaced by new nominations.)
    2. How many went nuts?
    3. How many stopped editing within 1 month and within 2 months?
    4. How many continued editing without using admin powers?
    5. Which admin powers did they use?
    6. other questions?

Ec


body:
On 12/02/07, Cool Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think it is getting overly cluttered. About link is already on the bottom
> of every page.

It was added to the sidebar at Sandra's request because no-one sees it
down there.

> I think we should remove entries from the sidebar and not
> add. When was the last time you clicked "Current events"? We are not
> wikinews and current events are already on the main page.

Possibly. See Village Pump discussion.

- d.


from_name: Jared Williams

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Eric Astor
> Sent: 12 February 2007 03:03
> To: Wikimedia developers
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] WYSIWYG (or WYSIWYM or WYSIWYM) status?
>
> Nick Jenkins wrote:
> >> As one of the many people who's done so, I agree. :)  The
> problem is
> >> that ~80% of wikimarkup is pretty straightforward to parse using
> >> standard methods, another 10-15% can be done without huge
> difficulty
> >> using known-but-less-standard methods, and the remaining
> 5% doesn't fit
> >> well at all into any of the normal models of lexing/parsing.
> >>
> >> [...snip...]
> >>
> >> -Mark
> >
> > Can I maybe suggest please giving some examples that you
> encountered of
> > the 10-15% hard category, and the 5% very hard category?
> >
> > I ask so that if anyone feels tempted to start on defining
> the behaviour,
> > we can gently suggest doing the harder stuff *first* (with
> examples),
> > thus hopefully preventing the situation where we have
> multiple unfinished
> > 80%-done definitions, and no 100%-complete formal definitions.
> >
> > All the best,
> > Nick.
>
> Just one example - probably of the 5% very hard category:
>
> '''''hello''' hi''
> vs.
> '''''hi'' hello'''
>
> Rendered in HTML, the first reads hello hi, and
> the second
> reads hi hello. The problem is that the meaning of the
> first 5 quotes changes based on the order in which the bold
> and italic
> regions close - which is not determined while scanning left-to-right.
>
> Another example:
>
> '''hello ''hi''' there''
>
> MediaWiki renders this as hello hi
> there, properly
> handling overlapping formatting.
>
> There are ways to deal with these... putting off the
> resolution until a
> later pass is the only way I know of that deals with the
> first one, and
> it's a bit touchy. Manageable, but touchy.

Think the easiest method (and nearer to be able to keep as it a single pass)
is to use DOM. Guarentees valid XML output always, which I believe the
MediaWiki parser doesn't always do.

Also can easly going back and fixing up the DOM tree, if the parser has made
an initial wrong choice. Like

'''italics''

It might start out as italics, but seeing '' its can be corrected to
'italics.

Jared


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>There's a reason why adminship isn't given to everyone. If you do it the
>other way around, abuse can cause a lot more damage before the person
>abusing the rights get blocked which will result in a lot more housekeeping
>to undo damage. It's nice in theory, but it simply doesn't work in practice.
>
>People who get adminship should display knowledge of the rules. If any
>newbie got those powers, this would be anarchapedia.
>
I'm afraid that any evidence to support this is purely anecdotal or
outright guesswork.  If you are personally dealing with the problem
cases all the time, and have no reason to deal as much with the good
admins your view of the amount of problems is bound to be distorted.

Ec


body:
On 2/12/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Suggestions, anyone? en:wp is the largest project by far, hence both
> the most expensive to run and the greatest base for possible
> fundraising.
>

Moving away from cafepress for t-shirts and the like  is the standard
one. On of the biggest brands on the web can do better than cafepress.

> One idea that sprang to mind was a donation GIF, linking to
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising . Not a PayPal button,
> but something that specifically draws the eye to it. Think of it as a
> logo ad for ourselves. How to make it eye-drawing but not unstylish or
> obnoxious is a tricky one. (And part of why graphic designers are paid
> money.)

Could be done when you consider the talent we have available. Would
need clearance to us foundation logos mind.
--
geni


body:
On 12/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > One idea that sprang to mind was a donation GIF, linking to
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising . Not a PayPal button,
> > but something that specifically draws the eye to it. Think of it as a
> > logo ad for ourselves. How to make it eye-drawing but not unstylish or
> > obnoxious is a tricky one. (And part of why graphic designers are paid
> > money.)

> Could be done when you consider the talent we have available.

I contemplate in horror
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_logos_%28overview%29 .
Mind you, it did give us our current rather nice Wikipedia, Wikimedia
and MediaWiki logos.

> Would
> need clearance to us foundation logos mind.

I think we can assume that a design good enough that the volunteer
community wouldn't scream loud enough in protest to be heard around
the world would be approved pretty quick-smart!

- d.


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
Appreciate that Romanian and Montenegrin are understood as the names for
linguistic entities. In your reply you relate to people. You forget to name
the people living in Transnistria.
Thanks,
   Gerard

On 2/12/07, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/4/07, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra at ukr.net > wrote:
> >
> > Hi
>
> Hello
>
>
> >This is the point. It is my language, my country, my region - if you
> want.
> > >Some things that are important to me. I come from there. While he - he
> > came
> > >in there.
> >
> > No, I did not. I live in Kiev, not in Romania. Anyway, there is but one
> > problem in what you say: you keep confusing a language with a country.
>
> I
> don't. I understood quite well that you were in Ukraine. In previous
> posts on this thread,
> it was "that" country we - Gerard and I - were talking about. A bit
> vague a notion,
>
> something between country and region.
>
>
> And
> > from WMF's POV they are 2 different things.
>
> I am aware of this.
>
>
> Here it's WMF, it's WMF laws
> > working, not your own or the Romanian laws.
>
> I never intended to apply or impose any laws to WMF. I'm playing by its
> own.
>
>
> WMF will never tell Romania how its street signs should look like, Romania
> > cannot tell WMF how a wiki page should look like.
>
> Romania doesn't. Romanians do. And more important, perhaps, Moldovans do.
>
>
> Failure to understand this
> > is... the soviet encyclopedia. A place where, instead of being a SUBJECT
> > for
> > classification, politics become the SOURCE of classification. It's
> fascism
> > in its purest form (whether red or black fascism it's absolutely
> > irrelevant).
> >
> > You may not like this, okay, that's your right. Then download the
> software
> > it takes and make yourself an independent wiki. Because here pillars are
> > pillars and they cannot be discussed. Over.
>
> I do not discuss Wikipedia's pillars. I am quite OK with the committees
> stance that decisions concerning linguistics are to be independent of
> political decisions (or reality).
>
>
> I sometimes hate these pillars myself. That's why Wikipedia is not a
> > monopolist to my spare time and yes I do start my own projects. I have
> my
> > own stupid personality and I love to show it (as anyone else). Even in
> the
> >
> > most extreme fashion. Fantastic, that's what forums are for, for
> example.
> > Go
> > find yourself one and have fun.
>
> Do you really think that it is for fun that I am doing all
> this? Explaining the realities of Moldova,
> advocating for the closing of this Moldovan Wikipedia, voting for it,
> getting involved in endless and
> often fruitless or senseless debates? Do you consider that I'm enjoying
> all
> this?
>
>
> And when you are here either be a
> > wikipedian, or quit coming here at all.
>
> I don't see how my doing all this has anything to do with my being a
> Wikipedian. As a Wikipedian,
> I contribute to the English and French Wikipedias, mainly. Expressing by
> convictions on the Wikipedia-l mailing list does not take way this from
> me.
>
>
> It's called context (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context), I add a link
> in
> > case you have doubts on the meaning. The usual problem with
> dictatorships
> > and fundamentalism is that they do no understand what context is. They
> > cannot adapt, they are absolute in their essence. There's no such a
> thing
> > as
> > a private space to them. EVERYTHING on earth must either be their way or
> > vanish. Ok, you are free to love that
>
> What makes you think that I accept that, or - more interesting -
> love that? Are my arguments in
> a "my way or the highway" style?
> I would be OK with the situation, if a conversion script were
> installed on the Romanian Wikipedia,
>
> or if mo domain got renamed to something less confusing like mo-cyr (I
> understand that this one is hardly
> implementable). But WMF doesn't seem to intend any such compromise steps.
>
> And if it is context <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context> we are talking
> about, I believe that the WMF fails to realize certain
> circumstances surrounding the Moldovan language. And the following is
> addressed to the Language Committee, mainly.
>
> First of all, how come does the WMF still consider Moldovan.. a language?
> A
> separate, independent language? At best, it is a dialect of the Romanian
> language; at worst - a script used for writing the same Romanian
> language. It was deemed as a language by the Soviet authorities, from
> political considerations, for political purposes, through a political
> decision and with the help of a customized
> script<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet>_created_ in the
> 1930s (different from the original
> script <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet> used for
> writing the Romanian language). And currently there is
> one<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasile_Stati>scientist supporting
> this POV, which happens - by the mere existance of the
> Moldovan Wikipedia - to be WMF's POV.
>
> In other words, the WMF simply takes over a Soviet time political
> decision.
> On this point, I find the
> words<
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Robert_Horning#A_technical_question
> >of
> Robert
> Horning <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Roberth> particularly
> relevant:
> "the mere act of creating this language version of Wikipedia is making a
> political statement that the WMF should stay out of and away from. I don't
> know how you can create a NPOV Wikipedia in a language whose very
> existance
> is expressing a political point of view."
>
> So, why does this Moldovan Wikipedia exist? As far as I
> am aware of the WMF policies,
> WMF does not create wikipedias for dialects or scripts. Nor does it create
> these from political considerations. Which - unintendedly - is the case
> here.
>
> What I am doing here is trying to persuade the WMF decision makers that it
> is not sensible <http://www.wordreference.com/definition/sensible> for the
> WMF to tolerate the existance of this
> Wikipedia. It is not reasonable to keep a Wikipedia based
> on a "language" that is a political emanation. It is not reasonable to
> keep
> a language version Wikipedia
> whose natives are against it. It is not reasonable to expect much
> future of this Wikipedia,
> if contributions are made by one authentic
> Moldovan<http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:Node_ue> supporting
> it,
> Mark Williamson. One argument to which I cannot
> retort much is that this writing is still in use (at a limited scale).
> However, the usage of a writing script is not a viable argument for
> dedicating an entire Wikipedia to it.
>
> These are my arguments.
>
>
>
> , yet the fact that one may love
> > Securitate does not make Securitate's ways acceptable to wikipedia.
> >
> > WMF is WMF, you are yourself, it always was and it always shall be two
> > different things.
>
> I don't confuse this either.
>
> Liviu
>
>
>
>
> Learn to live with this, as we all did.
> >
> > Berto 'd Sera
> > Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti
> vojaotri)
> > http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Liviu
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection

body:
Rob Church schreef:
> On 12/02/07, Alex Powell <alexp at exscien.com> wrote:
>
>> I noticed the SVN tables.sql now has a permissions table. Dare I dream that
>> per page permissioning is on the way? Is the ethos of the wikipedia
>> changing, or has some money been thrown into the development? Is it likely
>> to be in 1.10, or a few versions away?
>>
>
> No, we've just split off page editing permissions (for protection)
> into a new table, and introduced a few columns in advance, to
> facilitate future features such as expiring protection. This was done
> at the same time as cascading protection was introduced.
>
> I am not aware of plans to introduce per-page access permissions to
> the software beyond anything we already have, at this time. MediaWiki
> is a wiki engine, not a content management system.
>
>
> Rob Church
Hoi,
MediaWiki is a versatile tool. Gartner wrote at some stage: "Knowledge
management became affordable thanks to the MediaWiki boys". The point
being, yes it is a wiki engine at its core, it is however used in many
settings. There have been several requests for per-page access
permissions. There have been implementations of this. They just did not
make it into the MediaWiki SVN. This is a shame because as a consequence
you have a fork. Forking is really unproductive. With some regularity
the same issue raises its ugly head again; often resulting in a new fork.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>Then, of course, there's the damage an admin can do.  Willy on Wheels can
>sit tight for 50 edits.  Fifty edits with a sleeper account and you can put
>all the penises you want on the main page. A dozen sleeper accounts and a
>dynamics IP, and you could really have fun.  And while I won't go into
>details per WP:BEANS, there are a lot of ways that an admin can do
>effectively irreversible damage.
>
Out of 100 randomly chosen admins how many would actually engage in this
kind of behaviour?  Is there any evidence for such a number?

Ec


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:48:21 +0000, Gurch
> <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>> Look, some of us have this thing called "real life" (you may have heard
>> of it) which sometimes gets in the way of things
>
> What is this real life of which you speak, and where can I download
> it?
>

Try [[Second Life]].

--
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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body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 2/9/07 3:49 PM, Gary Kirk at gary.kirk at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia is not a democracy.
>
> What is it then?
>

A free encyclopedia. See [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]].

--
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] Admin burnout

body:
On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 07:14:47 -0500, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>Do you know exactly how many admins that would encompass?

Not many, as far as I can see.  Or do you mean blindly follow process,
instead of canonical policy? ;-)

Lighten up, Jeff.

List, be it noted that I personally consider the failure to sysop Jeff
as a prime example of the RFA system being broken.  Not one person was
able to advance a credible reason why we should worry that Jeff would
abuse the tools.  Chances of unwarranted deletions and blocks: roughly
zero.  Chances of wheel warring?  Low, and if he does we desysop him.
Jeff is not stupid.  Jeff also participates in deletion reviews and it
would be of great assistance if he could see deleted history.  He'd
also be likely to Wikignome, removing personal info from histories and
stuff.  So what if he's the most inclusionist inclusionist on the
project?  If we allow republicans to be sysops we should allow
inclusionists :-)

Others who should have been promoted but were not for ridiculous
reasons include Stephen B Streater and Georgewilliamherbert.

/me gets off soapbox.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
on 2/12/07 12:50 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman at spamcop.net wrote:

> some of the RFA crowd almost seemed to think that rewriting crap
> articles on good subjects so we had instead pretty good articles on
> good subjects is somehow not playing the game.  Go figure.

It's about power. There is a cancer in the culture.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting orphaned unfree images

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> I was thinking your motivation was to reduce some real-world harm. E.g.,
>> images sitting for a week causes difficulty X to person Y. I gather
>> you're saying it's a more abstract thing, an aesthetic preference?
>>
>
> The real world harm is that of copyright violations. IANAL, so I don't
> know if it is actually illegal for us to have unfree images on the
> site for a week without them being fair use, but it has to be quite
> close to that fine line.
"According to Wikipedia", the copyright holder does have to make a claim
of infringement before the legal system will even take an interest in
the matter. I don't really see how any copyright holder is going to make
much of a case for the revenue they're losing because a copy of an image
is flagged as being a probable copyvio for a few days, and is deleted
even faster if they complain about it. Intent is all-important, and it
will be pretty clear to everybody that we police ourselves rather
severely, in fact several fair-use advocates who work in the publishing
business grumble that we're being way pickier about copyright than is
normal for the industry.

To tie back into admins, it would be amusing if a court ordered us to
create more admins so that copyvio backlogs could be cleared quicker.
:-) Then people voting against RfAs could be jailed for being in
contempt of court... :-)

Stan


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> Jeff Raymond wrote:
>
> >George Herbert wrote:
> >
> >
> >>We apparently just lost Alkivar (hopefully just on a stress relief
> >>break, but he says he's out of here indefinitely).
> >>
> >>We're doing terribly at keeping identified, overstressed admins from
> >>ending up going over the edge.  What are we doing wrong, or what do we
> >>need to learn to do right?
> >>
> >>
> >On the other side, his message isn't really just about admins, but
> >editors in general.  People who edit articles simply are not valued on
> >this project anymore.  Tha'ts a big problem, since it's people who edit
> >articles that got us to this point.
> >
> Absolutely!  Newbies get jumped on for breach of incomprehensible
> rules.  Articles are cluttered with transclusion templates that only the
> experts know how to edit properly.  Articles get threatened with
> deletion because they don't have the right kind of references.  Some
> editors become so obsessed with trying to be authoritative that they
> take all the fun out of editing.  We all want an accurate reference
> work, but there are certain intangibles that we should not accept as
> part of the cost.

It's kind of fascinating how these discussions go, off into blue sky meandering and frank ranting. An admin leaves (which is regrettable, but I hope Alkivar will come back some day). And you get a whole washing line full of people's pet beefs attached to the notion. Anecdotal evidence proves little enough, in the first place.

Charles
>

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject: [WikiEN-l] How touching...

body:
On 10/02/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> One of the Wikipedia Review posters has referred to my messages as
> "the only stuff that makes WikiEN-L worth reading"...  Awwww... I
> guess I have to take it as a compliment, even though the writer
> (Somey) also notes my 'near-complete lack of concern for things like
> "facts" and "the truth"'.

Now you need to look DEEP INTO YOUR SOUL and work out what you've been
doing wrong.

- d.


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

body:
On 2/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/10/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Seasoned web users know this convention; newbies don't.
>
> Ok, I stand corrected. What about my other suggestions?

Getting rid of the "upload file" link would solve some of the major
image-related problems.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Cool Cat

body:
Geni people can make good use of search tools. Categories should be used to
group people who significantly relate to each other such as by
nationality/occupation and not trivial material like hobbies/likes/dislikes.

The problem is we do not have a 'little' overcategorization but instead we
have a lot. CfD process is overwhelmed with the constant mass cfds.

We do not get a lot of excess stub templates/categories. One is not allowed
to create a stub template w/o a discussion in principle. Same principle
should be applied to categories. If something doesn't ever get acceptance,
fewer people would be upset.

Perhaps a wikiproject regulating categories might not be a bad idea.

   - Cool Cat

On 2/11/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/11/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Cool Cat wrote:
> >
> > >Based on this discussion I wrote an Essay, feel free to comment/expand
> > >
> > >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Do_not_write_articles_using_categories
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > The general principle of avoiding excessive categories is sound.  The
> > art is in getting cleaning up the excesses without upsetting a lot of
> > people, and causing a lot of flame wars.  Patience can be your friend.
> >
> > Ec
>
> But what is excessive? Since you have very little idea exactly what
> groupings people will be looking for I would tend to  argue that it is
> worth risking a little over categorisation.
>
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Jews -> Category:Jewsih people

body:
This actually points out the real problem rather well. Categorization should
be done carefully. Mixing religion with ethnicity is just asking for trouble
in categorization.
   - Cool Cat

On 2/12/07, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/11/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Yonatan Horan wrote:
> >
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Specific_diseases
> > >
> > >I suggest you look at that. In addition to that, I remember seeing some
> > >research papers published on Ashkenazi Jews and will look for them if
> you
> > >really see the need. Just to support the above point, my cousin who is
> an
> > >Ashkenazi Jew has Familial Dysautonomy and my other cousin who is also
> an
> > >Ashkenazi Jew has Crohn's Disease.
> > >
> > >-Yonatan
> > >
> > >On 2/9/07, Mets501 <mets501wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>>Jewish is not only a religion but also a race. Someone can be an
> atheist and
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>still Jewish. For example, I personally don't really believe in god
> but I'm
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>still a Jew.
> > >>>
> > >>>Yonatan
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>Judaism is not a race.  There is nothing biologically which separates
> a
> > >>Jew(ish person) from a non-Jew(ish person).
> > >>It is OK to call it a culture, but not a race.
> > >>--Mets501
> > >>
> > I respectfully hold that treating Jews as a race is fraught with
> > problems.  The epidemiological evidence cited may very well suggest
> > racial characteristics among the Ashykenazim, but that says nothing
> > about the Sephardim.  To what extent do they share the same congenital
> > diseases?  I would even suggest that Ashkenazim and Sephardim are
> > racially more different than Catholics and Protestants.
>
> You'd be wrong, though.
>
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/12/6769
>
> Jay.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
I think it is getting overly cluttered. About link is already on the bottom
of every page. I think we should remove entries from the sidebar and not
add. When was the last time you clicked "Current events"? We are not
wikinews and current events are already on the main page.
   - Cool Cat

On 2/12/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Suggestions, anyone? en:wp is the largest project by far, hence both
> the most expensive to run and the greatest base for possible
> fundraising.
>
> We've been slightly hacking around the sidebar lately - see
> [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]]. I recently added "About Wikipedia". I also just
> now changed the tooltip for "Make a donation" from "Support us" to
> "Help keep Wikipedia running". This will probably show up for most of
> you later today. (The sidebar is very aggressively cached, i.e.
> action=purge doesn't update it ;-)
>
> One idea that sprang to mind was a donation GIF, linking to
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising . Not a PayPal button,
> but something that specifically draws the eye to it. Think of it as a
> logo ad for ourselves. How to make it eye-drawing but not unstylish or
> obnoxious is a tricky one. (And part of why graphic designers are paid
> money.)
>
> Any others?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> Date: 12-Feb-2007 10:21
> Subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
> RUMORS
>
> I was away from my computer for 4 days last week, to participate to a
> conference (LIFT) in Switzerland. During this conference, the organiser
> asked me questions about the financial situation of the projects. I
> answered with plain honesty and unfortunately with some words which
> raised the attention of a blogger in the room.
>
> Never mind that the words were taken out of context, never mind the
> smiles that went with the words, the words were out. Twisted.
>
> So, if some of you have heard that Wikipedia might close in 4 months due
> to financial difficulties, these are the words I am talking about.
>
> For more on the discussion on the matter, please see the blog of Mr
> Guissani. I had a long discussion with him on financial matters on
> friday morning.
>
> http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/02/the_wikimedia_c.html
>
> I think that summarize things pretty well.
>
> ---------
>
> BEING INFORMED
>
> The day the WMF will plan to close Wikipedia for lack of funds, believe
> me, you'll know. Before the press.
>
> Will Wikipedia close in 4 months ? NO. NO. AND NO.
>
> ---------
>
> TRANSPARENCY AND FIGURES
>
> All of our financial statements for year 2004, 2005 and 2006 are public
> and audited. Please find them here:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report#Audited_financial_statements
>
> We also have a page where we state our needs for the coming 6 months.
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for.
>
> (as a reminder, our fiscal year goes from june to june)
>
> TO make it short, we currently have above 1 million (exact figures to
> pick up from Carolyn, perhaps 1,5) in bank, available for use.
>
> Current monthly expenses as of today are about 75 000 dollars.
> We had an (optimistic goal) of hardware investment of 1,6 million before
> june. We can expect bandwidth and hosting costs to naturally follow. We
> also need more human help, at least hiring a permanent executive
> director, a CTO and probably more developers.
>
> Just have a look at the page and do count yourself. If you add current
> daily operations + hardware investment + increase in bandwidth +
> increase in hosting + 3 to 5 additional employees, we are already over
> that 1.5 millions that we have in hand.
>
> So, as of today, I think we can quietly say that
>
> "yes, we have about 3-4 months of operations at hand". Not 6 months. Not
> 1 year. Not 2 years. Roughly 3-4 months.
>
> If you look at the bottom of this page,
> (
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for#Retained_revenue
> )
> you'll see that the recommandations of auditors is always to try to have
> 6 months of reserve. We are far from it. We have roughly 4 months.
> Having 6 months of reserve is financially wiser.
>
> Did you have a way to know this previously ?
> Yes you did. It was listed in the site notice during the full month of
> fundraising. So, there is nothing new to wikipedians. There might be
> something new to press though.
>
> ---------
>
> IS THAT A BIG DEAL ?
>
> I repeat, we are not going to disappear. We have been in worse state in
> the past. Well, in december 2006, some expenses were delayed, delayed
> till the money from the fundraising was flowing in, and we could pay the
> bills.
>
> Someone mentionned image server a few days ago. Image server was planned
> in september hardware quote. But purchase was delayed till december.
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_sept_2006
> Because given our cashflow situation, it would have been unreasonable to
> buy the image servers.
>
>
> This should not happen. We should not come to the point where we delay
> hardware investment. We should aim to provide the best service, not just
> the service we can afford.
>
>
> We should not try to pretend we do not need money. We do need more
> money. People at the Foundation are trying to find creative ways to
> collect more, with services (datafeed), royalties from brand use
> (Wikipedia in particular), matching donations etc... but raising the
> money for the projects should not become only the business of 10 or so
> employees. This should be many people concern. Because Wikipedia is not
> the website of a few people, not even the website of the community, it
> is a common good.
>
> ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [19877]
	trunk/phase3/includes/GlobalFunctions.php

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

aaron at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Revision: 19877
> Author:   aaron
> Date:     2007-02-10 22:31:06 -0800 (Sat, 10 Feb 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * Get messages to actually transform (use magic phrases)

This causes unexpected breakage such as expansion of braces in parameter
text. An example which was reported was automated deletion summaries.

I've reverted this in r19898.

Can we get a further explanation of what problem the change was intended
to address?

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: Evan Prodromou

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>
	<b8ceeef70702112024j4349bf54w767cb499eefee421@mail.gmail.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.0702121006360.13181@localhost.localdomain>
	<7c2a12e20702120817i57305cd7nc6e425104981cf2b@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Mon, 2007-12-02 at 11:17 -0500, Simetrical wrote:

> No, just very difficult, with lots of corner cases.  Which makes it
> effectively impossible to guarantee that any tool other than MediaWiki
> itself (which is correct by definition) can parse the wikitext
> correctly in all cases.  And perhaps more importantly, parse time for
> MediaWiki itself is, as I recall, somewhere on the order of 800ms.
> That's totally unacceptable for real-time use like WYSIWYG.

So, it's probably worth noting that the Wikiwyg library
(http://www.wikiwyg.net/ ) doesn't actually parse Wikitext.

What happens is that at the user's request (clicking "edit this page",
for example), the HTML of the page (output by MW itself) is put into
"editable mode" on the client side. This uses some fancy features built
into the two main browsers to provide WYSIWYG editing of HTML content.

If the user chooses to switch over to "wikitext mode", or when they
choose to save, then a process walks the DOM tree of the HTML content
and outputs wikitext. This is either shown in the "wikitext mode" window
or submit back to the server. (NB: this is a very tricky process that
works fine for simple markup, sections, tables, etc. and is extremely
difficult for things like magic words, transclusion, category listings,
etc. It can be done, but we'll probably need to make some changes to our
parser output to e.g. "tag" a <span> of text as coming from a particular
magic word.)

If the user switches from wikitext mode to WYSIWYG edit mode (or preview
mode, or even "raw HTML editing" mode), the library uses Ajax to submit
the wikitext it has back to a special page on the server to be rendered,
and then shows the results of that rendering.

If you think about it, it's really a clever system. MediaWiki is
excellent at converting wikitext to HTML, and you really shouldn't have
any other software do that job. And the client nowadays is really good
at parsing HTML into a DOM tree, so it should take on the job of the
HTML -> Wikitext conversion. The actual conversions only happen at times
that the user has asked for a change of mode or submit for a save, so
the delay isn't unexpected or frustrating for the user.

~Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/
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from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use"
 decision

body:
Brad Patrick wrote:
>
> On 2/12/07, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This worked a treat on our article for the author Jim Butcher. I posted a
>> request for an image on his fan forum and the favourite image turned out
>> to be this:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JimButcher_sepia.jpg
> Sorry, just had to delete the copyright on the drawing.  It's a CC-by-sa
> 2.5license; the whole point of this discussion.  It was rather ironic to
> slap a (c) notice on the drawing which is supposed to demonstrate the
> "right" way to do it.
>
Sorry, couldn't see what you meant for a minute. You refer to the (c) which
used to be in the *caption* of the image in the actual article. I hadn't
realised that could be a problem...yet more evidence that those of us who
are trying to do things properly just keep blundering on.

So what is the general rule: no (c) notices in articles at all?

TIA HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/-Wikipedia-l--precisions-about-the-recent-WMF-%22fair-use%22-decision-tf3196431.html#a8933529
Sent from the Wikipedia General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


body:
On 2/12/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/12/07 6:19 AM, Cool Cat at wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Perhaps a wikiproject regulating categories might not be a bad idea.
>
> Sounds like a great idea. I'd be one of the first in line to sign on.
>
> Marc Riddell
>

When trying to sort out our images and their copyright status I would
rather not have to submit every category I find myself needed to a
bunch of self appointed busy bodies who are unlikely to know much more
about copyright than the average wikipedian.

The stubs wikiproject works because the vast majority of people who
are interested in new stubs and stub sorting are part of the project.
That would not be the case with a categories wikiproject.

--
geni


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Cherokee Wikipedia Syllabary Maps for Drifted
	Dialects

body:
This information is provided for WikitionaryZ and other Wikimedia
projects who have requested updated Syllabary Maps of modern Cherokee
vs. Otali Dialect Cherokee used by Modern Speakers.

Following are Syllabary maps which map drifted Otali Dialect Language
vowels Characters back into the Sequoyah Syllabary. Drifted Otali words
which us the following constructs should be mapped to the Sequoyah
Syllabary characters in this table. Many hours of reviewing Cherokee
writings from the 1800's til the present were used to construct this
table, including the writings of Cherokee linguists and language experts
about the evolution of the Language. This map should handle most of the
cases. As you can see from the table, there are now a total of 126
syllables used in modern Cherokee words. This is a significant expansion
from the language of Sequoyah's day which only supported 85 chracters.

*nah-32:(0) ? (nah)
*hna-31:(1) ? (hna)
*qua-38:(2) ? (qua)
*que-39:(3) ? (que)
*qui-40:(4) ? (qui)
*quo-41:(5) ? (quo)
*quu-42:(6) ? (quu)
*quv-43:(7) ? (quv)
*dla-60:(8) ? (dla)
*tla-61:(9) ? (tla)
*tle-62:(10) ? (tle)
*tli-63:(11) ? (tli)
*tlo-64:(12) ? (tlo)
*tlu-65:(13) ? (tlu)
*tlv-66:(14) ? (tlv)
*tsa-67:(15) ? (tsa)
*tse-68:(16) ? (tse)
*tsi-69:(17) ? (tsi)
*tso-70:(18) ? (tso)
*tsu-71:(19) ? (tsu)
*tsv-72:(20) ? (tsv)
*hah-79:(21) ? (ya)
*gwu-11:(22) ? (gu)
*gwi-40:(23) ? (qui)
*hla-61:(24) ? (tla)
*hwa-73:(25) ? (wa)
*gwa-38:(26) ? (qua)
*hlv-66:(27) ? (tlv)
*guh-11:(28) ? (gu)
*gwe-39:(29) ? (que)
*wah-73:(30) ? (wa)
*hnv-37:(31) ? (nv)
*teh-54:(32) ? (te)
*qwa-6:(33) ? (ga)
*na-30:(34) ? (na)
*ne-33:(35) ? (ne)
*ni-34:(36) ? (ni)
*no-35:(37) ? (no)
*nu-36:(38) ? (nu)
*nv-37:(39) ? (nv)
*ga-6:(40) ? (ga)
*ka-7:(41) ? (ka)
*ge-8:(42) ? (ge)
*gi-9:(43) ? (gi)
*go-10:(44) ? (go)
*gu-11:(45) ? (gu)
*gv-12:(46) ? (gv)
*ha-13:(47) ? (ha)
*he-14:(48) ? (he)
*hi-15:(49) ? (hi)
*ho-16:(50) ? (ho)
*hu-17:(51) ? (hu)
*hv-18:(52) ? (hv)
*ma-25:(53) ? (ma)
*me-26:(54) ? (me)
*mi-27:(55) ? (mi)
*mo-28:(56) ? (mo)
*mu-29:(57) ? (mu)
*da-51:(58) ? (da)
*ta-52:(59) ? (ta)
*de-53:(60) ? (de)
*te-54:(61) ? (te)
*di-55:(62) ? (di)
*ti-56:(63) ? (ti)
*do-57:(64) ? (do)
*du-58:(65) ? (du)
*dv-59:(66) ? (dv)
*la-19:(67) ? (la)
*le-20:(68) ? (le)
*li-21:(69) ? (li)
*lo-22:(70) ? (lo)
*lu-23:(71) ? (lu)
*lv-24:(72) ? (lv)
*sa-44:(73) ? (sa)
*se-46:(74) ? (se)
*si-47:(75) ? (si)
*so-48:(76) ? (so)
*su-49:(77) ? (su)
*sv-50:(78) ? (sv)
*wa-73:(79) ? (wa)
*we-74:(80) ? (we)
*wi-75:(81) ? (wi)
*wo-76:(82) ? (wo)
*wu-77:(83) ? (wu)
*wv-78:(84) ? (wv)
*ya-79:(85) ? (ya)
*ye-80:(86) ? (ye)
*yi-81:(87) ? (yi)
*yo-82:(88) ? (yo)
*yu-83:(89) ? (yu)
*yv-84:(90) ? (yv)
*to-57:(91) ? (do)
*tu-58:(92) ? (du)
*ko-10:(93) ? (go)
*tv-59:(94) ? (dv)
*qa-73:(95) ? (wa)
*ke-7:(96) ? (ka)
*kv-12:(97) ? (gv)
*ah-0:(98) ? (a)
*qo-10:(99) ? (go)
*oh-3:(100) ? (o)
*ju-71:(101) ? (tsu)
*ji-69:(102) ? (tsi)
*ja-67:(103) ? (tsa)
*je-68:(104) ? (tse)
*jo-70:(105) ? (tso)
*jv-72:(106) ? (tsv)
*a-0:(107) ? (a)
*e-1:(108) ? (e)
*i-2:(109) ? (i)
*o-3:(110) ? (o)
*u-4:(111) ? (u)
*v-5:(112) ? (v)
*s-45:(113) ? (s)
*n-30:(114) ? (na)
*l-2:(115) ? (i)
*t-52:(116) ? (ta)
*d-55:(117) ? (di)
*y-80:(118) ? (ye)
*k-6:(119) ? (ga)

This information is also located at the Cherokee Wikipedia.

http://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Drift

Jeff


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 12/02/07, Cool Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:

> Where is this discussion on the villige pump? (Dont want to read every VP
> page - yea I am lazy)

whoops, I thought I linked it -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump_%28proposals%29/Sidebar_redesign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Sidebar#Wikipedia:About

- d.


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> >>> Probably, if anybody ever wants this kind of functionality done, we
> >>> need to direct them to start helping us defining the parser behaviour.
> >>>
> >> Well I've been advocating that since the second I heard of such
> >> projects. If they start doing it, let me know. ;)
> >
> > I think a lot of people have *started* doing it.  It's *finishing*
> > that's the tricky bit.  :P
>
> As one of the many people who's done so, I agree. :)  The problem is
> that ~80% of wikimarkup is pretty straightforward to parse using
> standard methods, another 10-15% can be done without huge difficulty
> using known-but-less-standard methods, and the remaining 5% doesn't fit
> well at all into any of the normal models of lexing/parsing.
>
> [...snip...]
>
> -Mark

Can I maybe suggest please giving some examples that you encountered of
the 10-15% hard category, and the 5% very hard category?

I ask so that if anyone feels tempted to start on defining the behaviour,
we can gently suggest doing the harder stuff *first* (with examples),
thus hopefully preventing the situation where we have multiple unfinished
80%-done definitions, and no 100%-complete formal definitions.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 2/12/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> An alternative approach might be to dig out that old idea of giving
> wikiprojects more power and giving them the power of cat deletion in
> their respective areas.

Yes, please!

(I recall a time -- when I first started editing -- when a WikiProject
could go and clean up a bunch of redundant or misnamed categories by a
combination of by-hand changes and speedy tags on the empty
categories.  Now, unfortunately, this type of thing tends to get
stamped out rather quickly, since "all category changes must go
through CFD".)

Kirill


from_name: Alex Powell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection

body:
So I'm guessing that in the field:

  -- The protection type (edit, move, etc)
  pr_type varchar(255) NOT NULL,

pr_type = "read" will not be supported/undefined because "its a
wiki" (whatever that means)? Seems like a bad way to go, and actually the
time limiting factor on reads could be useful as contentious pages could be
restricted for a period of time, whilst people work out what to do with them
qv potentially libelous comments...

On 2/12/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/02/07, Alex Powell <alexp at exscien.com> wrote:
> > I noticed the SVN tables.sql now has a permissions table. Dare I dream
> that
> > per page permissioning is on the way? Is the ethos of the wikipedia
> > changing, or has some money been thrown into the development? Is it
> likely
> > to be in 1.10, or a few versions away?
>
> No, we've just split off page editing permissions (for protection)
> into a new table, and introduced a few columns in advance, to
> facilitate future features such as expiring protection. This was done
> at the same time as cascading protection was introduced.
>
> I am not aware of plans to introduce per-page access permissions to
> the software beyond anything we already have, at this time. MediaWiki
> is a wiki engine, not a content management system.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: rfrangi at libero.it

body:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> This is not the case at all.. You can continue to accept "with
> permissions" images, so long as they would also qualify as Fair Use.
>
> If what you are saying is completely true, that you only use "with
> permissions" because there is no fair use in your local law then no
> images would need to be deleted at all.
>
> However, this does not appear to be the case on itwiki:
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:PuntanoQui/Template:Copyrighted
>
> Where very many of these images could have be recreated as free works
> by anyone.. many of them are even the works of wikipedians but they
> are not released as free content.

Ok. A partial cleanup like you propose is different from the "remove all" we have understood up to now.

Roberto (Snowdog)

------------------------------------------------------
Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
http://click.libero.it/infostrada12feb07


body:
Platonides wrote:
>
> Phil Boswell wrote:
>> Sorry, couldn't see what you meant for a minute. You refer to the (c)
>> which
>> used to be in the *caption* of the image in the actual article. I hadn't
>> realised that could be a problem...yet more evidence that those of us who
>> are trying to do things properly just keep blundering on.
>> So what is the general rule: no (c) notices in articles at all?
> If the (c) was on the article... what happened with "Image:JimButcher
> sepia.jpg" of 23:28, 8 October 2006?
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload&user=&page=Image%3AJimButcher+sepia.jpg
> shows three uploads but only the last two on
> [[Image:JimButcher_sepia.jpg]])
>
The first attempt used an incorrect licence and was speedied as an "I3". If
you like I can take a look to see whether there was any sort of dialogue
with the uploader but I don't have the time right now. Given that it ended
up OK, at least they weren't put off for ever...

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/-Wikipedia-l--precisions-about-the-recent-WMF-%22fair-use%22-decision-tf3196431.html#a8934152
Sent from the Wikipedia General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Platonides

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>	<45D02473.3010000@gmail.com>	<eqpefd$cdq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<45D03F14.1000401@gmail.com>

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Minh Nguyen schreef:
>> I was wondering... would it be possible for nap: users to enter
>> "smart-quotes", namely ’’ or ??? The advantage of this
>> character over ' is that you can represent it in plain text (no
>> HTML code), even in Category tags and page titles. It also looks nicer
>> if you have a good font. You could, of course, add ? to a <charinsert>
>> tag in [[MediaWiki:Edittools]] to make this character easier to insert.
> Hoi,
> The problem is that the practice of people /are/ writing Neapolitan in
> this way. You do not ask people who write Dutch to use the "proper"
> character in stead of the ij combination. When people type, they expect
> the characters to be there on the keyboard. For "smart-quotes" to be
> used by everyone you expect to much. It just will not happen.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM

What about rendering ' key on nap ? ? Would this conflict with anything?
Bold and italic would be done via <b> <i>, and being a different
character, wouldn't break other wikis references (e.g. interwikis).


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use"
	decision

body:
Sorry, just had to delete the copyright on the drawing.  It's a
CC-by-sa 2.5license; the whole point of this discussion.  It was
rather ironic to slap a
(c) notice on the drawing which is supposed to demonstrate the "right" way
to do it.

On 2/12/07, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> David Goodman wrote:
> >
> > This discussion has forgotten about one of the traditional media that
> > work very well with computer based systems: drawing. A public figure
> > can try to prevent himself from being photographed except under terms
> > he dictates, but he can not (at least in the US) prevent  an artist
> > from drawing or painting him based on whatever images are available,
> > in any way the artist may please, fair or unfair, characteristic or
> > satyrical, and publishing it as desired--as long as it is not an
> > actual reproduction of the original.
> >
> This worked a treat on our article for the author Jim Butcher. I posted a
> request for an image on his fan forum and the favourite image turned out
> to
> be this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JimButcher_sepia.jpg
>
> Surely any author with even a modest fan-base can manage this ;-)
>
> HTH HAND
> --
> Phil
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/-Wikipedia-l--precisions-about-the-recent-WMF-%22fair-use%22-decision-tf3196431.html#a8927818
> Sent from the Wikipedia General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/12/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> There's simply no way I can discuss this issue with you unless you're
> willing to adopt a more holistic consideration of Wikipedia's needs.
> Your arguments are trapped in the consideration of the *one* idea you
> seem to support, which is restricting Wikipedia content to what may be
> republished in *your* country.
>

There area couple of unclear elements of English and welsh law which
mean that I cannot support that at this time. However given the
percentage of countries that follow English and welsh law it would not
be an entirely irrational approach.

> Nowhere in my post did I mention copyright,

You mentioned fair use

> yet you framed my argument
> as if copyright were its only consideration.

You didn't mention any other in your initial post.

>You straw-manned my
> argument by ignoring aspects of the balance I proposed -- most notably
> ignoring censorship -- that didn't fit nearly within your pet issue.
>

You didn't propose a balance.

> Finally, you invoked a false slippery slope by stating my argument leads
> to hosting Wikipedia in Iran. Only your imaginary, straw-manned version
> of my argument has that flaw.

Not a strawman. Just feeding extreme values into your argument as
presented. A standard technique for testing the validity of models. Of
course you are free to present a modified version of that argument.
You may also wish to take more care in stating your auxiliary
assumptions.

--
geni


from_name: Jim Wilson

body:
Why not add *this* and _this_ to the "Extended MediaWiki" markup, then just
make vanilla MW syntax one of the many light-markups supported?  So when you
author an article, you can pick from MediaWiki, Extended MediaWiki,
Markdown, Textile, APT, Usenet, Plain Text, XHTML, etc?

I'm only partly kidding.  It makes sense for Wikipedia to have exactly one
supported syntax, but for other wikis, having the flexibility to pick a
markup would alleviate these kinds of disputes.  Perhaps putting in enough
hooks to allow extension devs to make their own parser grammars? (Not sure
if there are enough hooks for this now btw).

More seriously though, I think adding any new magic to the MediaWiki parser
is just fueling the fire surrounding the parsability of the syntax - which I
am against.  Also, regarding parsability, has anyone attempted to write
Doxia[1] plugins for MW syntax?  I'm considering giving it a whirl if there
isn't any prior art.

[1] http://maven.apache.org/doxia/

On 2/12/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 08:25:54PM +0000, Rob Church wrote:
> > On 12/02/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Only a vanishingly tiny percentage of our target audience (which is
> > > all of humanity) is familiar with Usenet-style emphasis conventions.
> >
> > It's bloody criminal, isn't it?
>
> I know you're being at least 50% snarky there, Rob, but I a) think that
> it is, in fact, criminal, and b) still don't think that penalizing the
> people who do is a good idea, absent overwhelming other evidence.
>
> And let's just note here that *Microsoft Word does this translation in
> realtime during input*, assuming you don't turn it off.
>
> So, clearly, it's not *that* abstruse.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                             RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...

body:
Anthere wrote:
> TO make it short, we currently have above 1 million (exact figures to
> pick up from Carolyn, perhaps 1,5) in bank, available for use.

Just a clarification after I talked with Carolyn. Cash available is not
1,5 million. It is 1 million. Around 900 000 dollars in us bank. 80 000
in paypal. And some leftover in Dexia.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] About rumors...


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 10:02:33PM -0500, Eric Astor wrote:
> Just one example - probably of the 5% very hard category:
>
> '''''hello''' hi''
> vs.
> '''''hi'' hello'''
>
> Rendered in HTML, the first reads hello hi, and the second
> reads hi hello. The problem is that the meaning of the
> first 5 quotes changes based on the order in which the bold and italic
> regions close - which is not determined while scanning left-to-right.
>
> Another example:
>
> '''hello ''hi''' there''
>
> MediaWiki renders this as hello hi there, properly
> handling overlapping formatting.
>
> There are ways to deal with these... putting off the resolution until a
> later pass is the only way I know of that deals with the first one, and
> it's a bit touchy. Manageable, but touchy.

I know no one ever likes this question, but I'm going to ask it again
anyway:

Is that problem easier or harder to deal with than whatever problems
you would have if you just redefined bold to *this* and italics to
_that_?

Everyone keeps saying that causes horrible collisions, but *I* don't
think that most of them are that difficult to disambig.

Cheers
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>
	<b8ceeef70702112024j4349bf54w767cb499eefee421@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 03:24:23PM +1100, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/12/07, Eric Astor <eastor1 at swarthmore.edu> wrote:
> > Just one example - probably of the 5% very hard category:
> >
> > '''''hello''' hi''
> > vs.
> > '''''hi'' hello'''
>
> Just to check: Is changing MediaWiki sytnax absolutely out of the
> question? Using // and ** for italic and bold respectively would solve
> that problem, be more consistent and more intuitive, and probably not
> be excessively difficult to phase in, right?

With reference to my similar note elsewhere, let us *please* attempt to
utilize reflexes everyone[1] already has, rather than generating even more
new markup tags?

Cheers,
-- jra
[1]  Everyone who already has reflexes at all; let's not penalize the
smart people *again*.
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 10:39:02AM +0100, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Changing to // and ** doesn't necessarily make the wiki syntax any
> more BNF parsable than today, does it?  You can still write *****
> and what's that supposed to mean?  If clarity is wanted, the best
> would probably be <i> and <b>.

We *don't*, per se, want clarity.

We want easy-to-typeness, as much as possible without impairing
clarity.

In my humble perception.

Cheers,
-- jr 'hobby horse, yes' a
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
On 2/12/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Canada (or Australia, or South Africa) would be a better option: only 50
> years p.m.a. Next India might be interesting: 60 years p.m.a.
>
> Yann

I've run across reports of India selectively filtering a few wikipedia
pages so no.

India is also has a slightly less free fair dealing system than the UK
in that it doesn't include the private study clause although I doubt
that would have any impact on us.

Australian copyright law may be kinda unstable right now there are a
couple of possible changes that would really bite.

I don't really know anything about South African law other than I
assume it is based of old British law.
--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection

body:
On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 03:35:51PM +0000, Rob Church wrote:
> I'm not saying it's *never ever ever* going to happen - I used to, but
> it's inevitable that Wikimedia is going to drop the "freedom" attitude
> soon enough. What I *am* saying is that, as far as I know, there's
> still nothing on the roadmap for us to go back and start that process,
> and so far, it's been resisted.

Freedom for whom to do what?  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/12/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> Probably, if anybody ever wants this kind of functionality done, we
> need to direct them to start helping us defining the parser behaviour.
> I say this, but of course, defining the behaviour of the behemoth we
> have now is a task rather akin to removing all the sand from the
> Sahara.

How much of this task is possible without looking at the code base?
How much can be done merely by inspection? Would it be possible for
someone (Brion, yourself?) to structure this apparently very large
task in such a way that non-developers like me would be able to
contribute bite-size pieces of work? Such a task might look something
like "Define the grammar for the [[Category:...]] statement". Do we
have anything like that?

Steve


from_name: Simetrical

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKCEEMKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<45CFD8C9.2010300@swarthmore.edu>
	<20070212200521.GC2162@cgi.jachomes.com>

body:
On 2/12/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Is that problem easier or harder to deal with than whatever problems
> you would have if you just redefined bold to *this* and italics to
> _that_?
>
> Everyone keeps saying that causes horrible collisions, but *I* don't
> think that most of them are that difficult to disambig.

* collides horribly with list syntax.  Even worse than **.

On 2/12/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> With reference to my similar note elsewhere, let us *please* attempt to
> utilize reflexes everyone[1] already has, rather than generating even more
> new markup tags?
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> [1]  Everyone who already has reflexes at all; let's not penalize the
> smart people *again*.

Only a vanishingly tiny percentage of our target audience (which is
all of humanity) is familiar with Usenet-style emphasis conventions.
I wouldn't assign them much weight.


body:
On 2/12/07, Eric Astor <eastor1 at swarthmore.edu> wrote:
> Just one example - probably of the 5% very hard category:
>
> '''''hello''' hi''
> vs.
> '''''hi'' hello'''

Just to check: Is changing MediaWiki sytnax absolutely out of the
question? Using // and ** for italic and bold respectively would solve
that problem, be more consistent and more intuitive, and probably not
be excessively difficult to phase in, right?

Steve


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re: Admin
	burnout)

body:
John Vandenberg wrote:

>However, the issue of access to copyvios increases with the number of
>admins.  In my opinion this isnt solved with less admins, but by
>expunging copyvios completely or further restricting access to them.
>In this, I am more thinking about copies of articles from other
>encyclopedias, as opposed to the snippets taken from a website.  These
>copyvios are of limited usefulness to admins after a few days and
>should be inaccessible, both in the article history and the deletion
>log; instead a boilerplate page should alert the reader that the
>version they have requested is a copyvio and provide the details, such
>as source, contributors name, etc.  All access to these copyright
>violations after it has been removed should be restricted to case by
>case needs.
>
Some broad access to these copyvios may still be needed for admns.
Putting "COPYVIO" in big letters across its face could make it unusable
except for checking out possible copyvios.  Some popular pictures may
very well keep being uploaded by other users who are unaware of the
previous determination.

Ec


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

references:
<38a7bf7c0702081829u62f0261ai77cd02368817e402@mail.gmail.com>
	<btaos2tg8da5r1u714qe6vdd763pp3jmfu@4ax.com>
	<45D013B9.9040309@telus.net>
	<45D05A37.6060901@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<0hn0t29lg4hi35jev809q7hoqdaro8v3cb@4ax.com>
	<f30e42de0702120642g3490367ch527bcf4cdba646bf@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:42:53 +1100, "Stephen Bain"
<stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

>This sounded like a good idea to me before, but I wouldn't be
>surprised if I'm hounded down as a cabalist: how about if any X number
>of admins think someone should have the mop, then that person gets the
>mop on a trial basis for Y amount of time, perhaps with a regular RFA
>at the end of the trial period. Adjust X and Y to taste.

Happy enough.  My main problem with RFA is - no, I can't say this
without gross overgeneralisation and assuming bad faith, which would
in some cases at least be very unfair, but suffice it to say that it's
as bad as the bloody FA cabal, only without the redeeming feature of
actually delivering high quality articles.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG