subject:
[Wikitech-l] AOL proxies, etc. (re-sent,
 this time without the attachments)

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
>
> First, I did a DNS reverse lookup on the entire AOL Proxy IP range, as
> defined in http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html using dig in
> batch mode. Out of the 56542 addresses in those ranges, only 6740 give a
> valid reverse lookup.
>
> I then went through the list of 116 pages flagged with the {{AOL}}
> template, and extracted their IP addresses, and compared them to the
> list of reverse lookups generated above.
>
  [snip]
>
> Out of all of the 116 pages flagged as {{AOL}}:
> * six are bogus non-AOL addresses, and are probably attempts by vandals
> to confuse anti-vandalism efforts
> * 32 are from the AOL client range, with *.ipt.aol.com reverse lookups
> * 76 are from the official AOL proxy range, with *.proxy.aol.com reverse
> lookups; they all appear to be either of the form
> cache-XXX-XXXX.proxy.aol.com [74 of them], or
> spider-XXX-XXXXX.proxy.aol.com. [2 of them]
> * four have no reverse lookup, but are in the official AOL proxy range

I think the info at http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html can be
trusted, certainly more than whatever templates random Wikipedians may
have slapped onto user talk pages.  So no, the 172.* ranges should not
be treated as proxies, and the {{AOL}} templates on those pages should
probably be removed or replaced with a more accurate template.

> [On review: not all the figures sum to 100% so I may have dropped a
> couple in my counting, but I think the overall conclusions still hold up]

That's probably a _good_ sign.  Now who was it who said that any set of
figures that add up to exactly 100% is almost certainly doctored?...

--
Ilmari Karonen


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
It's incredible how much conversation there is sorrounding a blank message.

On 7/17/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Sean Whitton wrote:
>
> >If you've written a message, I can't see it.
> >
> >On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>http://mail.wkipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Sorry,
>
> I upgraded my desktop system to ES4 and the utility to import mail
> folders did a "send unsent mail" after I completed the upgrade (when
> there wasn't any unsent mail in the first place).  Got to love open
> source ...
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] ..


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Right... we tell the people that our encyclopedia is free -- for use, and
for distribution. When they're interested in distribution -- that's when
they're basically asking for legal terminology.

On 7/17/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> James Hare wrote:
>
> >It also should be noted we shouldn't have to inundate common people with
> >complex logical arguments about something as boring as copyright law.
> >
> >Jimmy Wales was from Alabama, he had a thirst for knowledge. He studied
> >finance at Auburn University -- that's where options trading caught his
> >eyes. After a bout of that and Internet porn, he realized: he wanted to
> live
> >like common people; he wanted to live and drink with common people. So he
> >decided to dump a lot of money in a website -for- the common people
> because
> >he just liked it that much.
> >
> >All in all, Wikipedia is for common people, and they'd prefer simple
> terms
> >like "free encyclopedia" than "GFDL general and specialized knowledge
> >provider licensed for free and educational use." Common people is what
> >Wikipedia is all about.
> >
> >
> >
> I agree with all of this. "Free" is fine with me and I agree I don't
> think anyone cares
> about copyright issues on GFDL text.
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


list: wikien-l

from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

body:
On 7/17/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
> Keith Old wrote:
> > On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>The simplest answer to why is that there are a lot of people who want
> >>to know about him.  Also, there is a lot of misinformation going
> >>around.
> >
> > Where is the evidence that a lot of people want to know about him?
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22
>
> For some comparisons:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22linus+torvalds%22
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22ghyslain+raza%22
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22jimmy+wales%22%2C%22john+seigenthaler%22
>
> As it happens, we do have a fairly reasonable entry on Peppers in [[List
> of Internet phenomena]]; it says:
>
> "Brian Peppers ? An Ohio sex offender with a facial malformity whose
> photo in the Ohio eSORN (Electronic Sex Offender Registration and
> Notification) database became widespread. Snopes has since confirmed the
> photograph to be real [8]"
>
> I think much of the perpetual debate surrounding the issue could be
> alleviated simply by replacing the "this page is deleted" notice
> currently at [[Brian Peppers]] with a redirect to [[List of Internet
> phenomena]].  That way, we wouldn't be telling every single person who
> googles for the name that "HEY, LOOK, WIKIPEDIA USED TO HAVE AN ARTICLE
> ABOUT THIS GUY BUT IT WAS DELETED BECAUSE JIMBO SAID SO! SEE!"
>
> Of course, the other alternative would be to fix MediaWiki so that we
> can _actually_ protect a deleted page, rather than having to fake it
> with a template saying, in effect, "This page is intentionally blank."
> This would be a desirable feature in general, and I hope to see it
> implemented some day in any case, whether by me or by someone else.
> It's not even particularly complicated, it just happens to require some
> significant changes to the database schema.
>
> (I'm cc'ing this directly to Jimbo, since I'd like to hear his personal
> opinion on this.  Of course, I could just be bold and make the page a
> redirect myself, but in my experience this is one of the situations
> where such a change, if done unilaterally, would be likely to be quickly
> reverted with the summary "no, Jimbo decreed this" regardless of its
> actual merit or lack thereof.)
>
> --
> Ilmari Karonen
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Ilmari,

Thanks for alerting me to the List of Internet Phenomena.

I will be removing Brian Peppers name from that list as well. My personal
view is that he is not nearly significant enough to be on that list and we
should not further attack him by adding him to the list.

I have no doubt that it will be reverted and I won't enter into an edit war
over it. My view is that the decision was taken by Jimbo to remove mention
of Brian Peppers for at least a year. My assumption is that this included
reference to him in other articles.

Regards

Keith Old
Keith Old


body:
On 7/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/17/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> >
> > Keith Old wrote:
> > > On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>The simplest answer to why is that there are a lot of people who want
> > >>to know about him.  Also, there is a lot of misinformation going
> > >>around.
> > >
> > > Where is the evidence that a lot of people want to know about him?
> >
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22
> >
> > For some comparisons:
> >
> >
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22linus+torvalds%22
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22ghyslain+raza%22
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22jimmy+wales%22%2C%22john+seigenthaler%22
> >
> >
> > As it happens, we do have a fairly reasonable entry on Peppers in [[List
> > of Internet phenomena]]; it says:
> >
> > "Brian Peppers ? An Ohio sex offender with a facial malformity whose
> > photo in the Ohio eSORN (Electronic Sex Offender Registration and
> > Notification) database became widespread. Snopes has since confirmed the
> > photograph to be real [8]"
> >
> > I think much of the perpetual debate surrounding the issue could be
> > alleviated simply by replacing the "this page is deleted" notice
> > currently at [[Brian Peppers]] with a redirect to [[List of Internet
> > phenomena]].  That way, we wouldn't be telling every single person who
> > googles for the name that "HEY, LOOK, WIKIPEDIA USED TO HAVE AN ARTICLE
> > ABOUT THIS GUY BUT IT WAS DELETED BECAUSE JIMBO SAID SO! SEE!"
> >
> > Of course, the other alternative would be to fix MediaWiki so that we
> > can _actually_ protect a deleted page, rather than having to fake it
> > with a template saying, in effect, "This page is intentionally blank."
> > This would be a desirable feature in general, and I hope to see it
> > implemented some day in any case, whether by me or by someone else.
> > It's not even particularly complicated, it just happens to require some
> > significant changes to the database schema.
> >
> > (I'm cc'ing this directly to Jimbo, since I'd like to hear his personal
> > opinion on this.  Of course, I could just be bold and make the page a
> > redirect myself, but in my experience this is one of the situations
> > where such a change, if done unilaterally, would be likely to be quickly
> > reverted with the summary "no, Jimbo decreed this" regardless of its
> > actual merit or lack thereof.)
> >
> > --
> > Ilmari Karonen
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> Ilmari,
>
> Thanks for alerting me to the List of Internet Phenomena.
>
> I will be removing Brian Peppers name from that list as well. My personal
> view is that he is not nearly significant enough to be on that list and we
> should not further attack him by adding him to the list.
>
> I have no doubt that it will be reverted and I won't enter into an edit
> war over it. My view is that the decision was taken by Jimbo to remove
> mention of Brian Peppers for at least a year. My assumption is that this
> included reference to him in other articles.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Keith Old
> Keith Old
>

Folks,

I have removed Brian Peppers name from the list although I have no doubt
that the removal will be  temporary.

In my view, this article should be under serious consideration for deletion.
It is a grabbag of unrelated people who are claimed to be Internet phenomena
including Zinedine Zidane, Chuck Norris, Howard Dean and Kim Jong Il who are
allegedly Internet phenomena.

The non-celebrities section should be gone through with a red pen. This is
the section featuring Mr Peppers and there are other entries in there which
are highly problematic in my view.

I am usually a supporter of lists as I consider that they serve a useful
purpose. I fail to see what useful purpose this list serves.

Regards

Keith Old

User:Capitalistroadster


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>The way it's worded in GPL2 (and GPL3) its ambiguous. I've also been
>following the FSF and
>their litigation strategy over the years, and to be honest they wilt
>away like chaff in the wind
>on a certain class of GPL violators -- big software companies who pinch
>GPL code then use it.
>
>They onyl go after folks with little or no litigation resources. I Think
>they know if this thing got in front
>of a court and someone bankrolled 20 mil into costs, it may not stand up
>... just a theory.
>
>
>
A few points to note here....   The biggest known "abuser" of GPL'd
software is Tivo (the set-top real-time video recorder).  The company
openly admits to be using Linux as the OS for their products but doesn't
give copies of "modified" software they have been using within the
devices that they sell.  The problem here is, are they selling devices
that happen to have GPL'd software "embedded" in the device, not
re-selling software.  The GPL is ambiguous if this is even a violation,
and other companies that you are talking about also view pinching GPL'd
code under the same light.  I guess this is one of the "classes" of
violators you are talking about.  Some of this is also a mistaken belief
that the GPL requires "giving back to the community" any changes to
software that you make.  It does not, and Tivo has decided to keep their
changes as trade secrets.

The other known major abuser of copyleft software was none other than
Microsoft itself, who copied the TCP/IP software from BSD Unix for the
Windows NT operating system network routines.  The problem here is that
it was not the GPL, but rather the BSD license that this software was
released under, and the FSF has no copyright claim on any of these
routines either.

BTW, the exact opposite view is sometimes applied, where you will not be
hired by some software development groups if you have ever been exposed
to GPL'd software source code.  The reason is that they don't want to
have their software "contaminated" by GPL'd software specifically
because they don't want to deal with the viral nature of the GPL and
being forced to release all of their software under the GPL.

Of course the most famous court case for testing the GPL is SCO vs. IBM,
where it was originally seen as a major test of the GPL (with IBM
backing of the GPL in a weird twist of events).  Instead it looks as if
the case is going to spin into a stock fraud case and turn from civil
litigation into a criminal matter.  Where the SEC will take this, I'm
not sure, but I'm certain that the GPL will be the least of the problems
for the CEO of SCO.  This case did air out some of the legal issues
regarding the GPL in court and did deal with many copyleft issues in
general, but it doesn't look like the GPL will be significant for any
precedence to use this case in future GPL-related litigation.

I'm curious what other major copyright violators of the GPL that you are
talking about that the FSF didn't litigate against?  The real issue that
the FSF has been facing is that major violators of the GPL havn't
necessarily been violating the use of GNU/Hurd software or anything else
with a copyright claim by the FSF.  I guess this is another "class" of
GPL violations, but if they don't have a copyright claim, the FSF can't
really file as a plaintiff and enforce the copyright.  There is also the
issue of statutory vs. actual damage claims that I raised earlier that
also apply to software under the GPL, making even a positive judgement
(for the GPL) something that is essentially a moot point and effectively
unenforcable.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Anthony,
>
> > On 7/15/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> >> G'day Anthony,
> >>
> >> > Calling 911 to get a date is boneheaded.  Trying to force yourself
> >> > sexually onto a child is more than just boneheaded.
> >>
> >> Writing an article to punish its subject is pretty boneheaded in itself.
> >>   That the subject is "boneheaded" (or worse) is no reason to write a
> >> bad article on someone, even people you think are attempted rapists.
> >>
> > I never suggested that the reason to write an article was to punish
> > its subject.  The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
> > that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
> > him.
>
> Okay, I've clearly misunderstood your comments in this thread.  Just to
> make things ultra crystal clear, then: you agree that Mr Peppers'
> criminal conviction actually has no relevance whatsoever in the argument
> over whether or not an article about the fellow violates some ideal of
> human dignity, and therefore should never have been mentioned?
>
I don't actually understand what the Peppers case has to do with human
dignity *at all*.  Perhaps this is at least in part because I don't
assign a good or bad value to his appearance.

That said, I do think there is a personal privacy consideration.  I
don't think Wikipedia should have articles about just anyone.  In the
case of Peppers I think the privacy argument is overcome because he
voluntarily committed an act which put himself into the public
spotlight.

Could the same be said of 911 woman?  I guess.  But her crime (for
which I don't believe she has yet been convicted) is one which I see
as much more minor, and she is a whole lot less popular (especially
her name, which I don't even remember).  Personally I have no opinion
either way as to whether or not to keep an article about 911 woman.
If it came out that she personally asked us not to have an article,
then I'd support deletion of any such article which popped up, out of
respect for her personal privacy.  Otherwise, I'd neither support nor
oppose deletion, though maybe I'd take a different position 6 months
or a year later if the sources and interest either grow or go away.

> If you do agree, then I must have completely misread the thrust of your
> arguments, and I apologise.

My argument, in terms of the Peppers article, is that it is "notable"
due to the huge interest in him, and it is justifiable in terms of
privacy rights due to his particular conviction.  I see these as two
separate issues for the most part, because the privacy issue is a
hurdle that has to be overcome regardless of how much interest there
is in a person.

Jimbo has suggested that the privacy issue is similar to what he's
referring to as "human dignity".  I don't really see much connection,
but I could just be confusing the term.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Whitton

subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
Shall we continue? When you saw that blank message, what was your first thought.

I must admit I thought spam over mistake.

On 17/07/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's incredible how much conversation there is sorrounding a blank message.
>
> On 7/17/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> > Sean Whitton wrote:
> >
> > >If you've written a message, I can't see it.
> > >
> > >On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>_______________________________________________
> > >>foundation-l mailing list
> > >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >>http://mail.wkipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > Sorry,
> >
> > I upgraded my desktop system to ES4 and the utility to import mail
> > folders did a "send unsent mail" after I completed the upgrade (when
> > there wasn't any unsent mail in the first place).  Got to love open
> > source ...
> >
> > Jeff
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


subject: [Foundation-l] ..


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
G'day Anthony,

> On 7/15/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> G'day Anthony,
>>
>> > Calling 911 to get a date is boneheaded.  Trying to force yourself
>> > sexually onto a child is more than just boneheaded.
>>
>> Writing an article to punish its subject is pretty boneheaded in itself.
>>   That the subject is "boneheaded" (or worse) is no reason to write a
>> bad article on someone, even people you think are attempted rapists.
>>
> I never suggested that the reason to write an article was to punish
> its subject.  The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
> that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
> him.

Okay, I've clearly misunderstood your comments in this thread.  Just to
make things ultra crystal clear, then: you agree that Mr Peppers'
criminal conviction actually has no relevance whatsoever in the argument
over whether or not an article about the fellow violates some ideal of
human dignity, and therefore should never have been mentioned?

If you do agree, then I must have completely misread the thrust of your
arguments, and I apologise.

> And I never suggested writing a bad article on anyone.

Well, that's good to hear.

<snip/>

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 7/16/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have removed Brian Peppers name from the list although I have no doubt
> that the removal will be  temporary.

Just to stir the pot a little, what exactly was wrong with the
paragraph we had on the guy? No one's saying he was the next Crazy
Frog, but a single, neutral and well-written paragraph about him -
minus photo - seems totally appropriate. Especially given that people
are apparently still searching the web for information on him, two
years after his major memeship.

[In other words, I can understand and support the reason not to create
an article with photo about him, in order not to add to the poor guy's
woes. But a quick sentence summarising his existence as a meme?]

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
G'day Guy,

> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:32:20 +1000, Mark Gallagher
> <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>We attempt to have neutral, unbiased articles about the utter dregs of
>>humanity, the worst scum the human race has produced.  We don't say
>>(sorry) "Mr Hitler was a bad man, so we don't need to follow NPOV"
>
> Last time I checked, Mr Hitler was (a) dead and (b) dead famous.

Just to make sure I'm being clear here, I was comparing the argument
(which, it seems, Anthony was not making, but never mind) that we don't
need to worry about any concept of privacy or "human dignity" because Mr
Peppers Is A Bad Man with the repeatedly-discredited argument that we
don't need to worry about writing a NPOV article about certain
historical figures because Those Historical Figures Were Bad Men.

The, ahem, badness of the subject has no bearing on how good our article
should be --- or, in some cases, whether or not we should have an
article at all.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

references:
<C0DD5CA1.128A6%travis@gpsports-eng.com> <44B83652.5080502@shaw.ca>
	<f30e42de0607150146i3efd211el3366dcde52ac1921@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90607150706j622a44b4hf89e157a50ada3e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<44B99724.6000203@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<71cd4dd90607160553l4fe0a05bt517b2df272ad7a0a@mail.gmail.com>
	<ngrkb2daltlhu84nhph7cm8dpdc0o5k8mi@4ax.com>
	<ngrkb2daltlhu84nhph7cm8dpdc0o5k8mi-e09XROE/p8c@public.gmane.org>
	<f80608430607161001u4cef7ebdxeeca6b89c42442a1@mail.gmail.com>
	<rKHSicNGSnuEFwv5@cartref.demon.co.uk>

body:
On 7/16/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> But far fewer than are looking on information for Gandhi. It does help
> to spell the person's name correctly.
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandhi&ctab=0&geo=all&dat
> e=all

The list of news items is about Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. It's a pretty
common surname.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blogosphere takes notice of Reuters confusion

body:
On 7/13/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Reuters offers correction to Wikipedia slam. junger writes "Reuters
> put out a hit piece on Wikipedia, saying that the encyclopedia wasn't
> credible in 'covering' the breaking news of the death of Enron's Ken
> Lay, but then Reuters has to correct their own story because they
> couldn't properly identify one of their sources."

What's actually apparent in all this is that Wikipedia was one of the
first places the Reuters journalist turned to when he needed to write
an obituary. And he got upset when the information kept changing on
him.

Steve


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>The way it's worded in GPL2 (and GPL3) its ambiguous. I've also been
>>following the FSF and
>>their litigation strategy over the years, and to be honest they wilt
>>away like chaff in the wind
>>on a certain class of GPL violators -- big software companies who pinch
>>GPL code then use it.
>>
>>They onyl go after folks with little or no litigation resources. I Think
>>they know if this thing got in front
>>of a court and someone bankrolled 20 mil into costs, it may not stand up
>>... just a theory.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>A few points to note here....   The biggest known "abuser" of GPL'd
>software is Tivo (the set-top real-time video recorder).  The company
>openly admits to be using Linux as the OS for their products but doesn't
>give copies of "modified" software they have been using within the
>devices that they sell.  The problem here is, are they selling devices
>that happen to have GPL'd software "embedded" in the device, not
>re-selling software.  The GPL is ambiguous if this is even a violation,
>and other companies that you are talking about also view pinching GPL'd
>code under the same light.  I guess this is one of the "classes" of
>violators you are talking about.  Some of this is also a mistaken belief
>that the GPL requires "giving back to the community" any changes to
>software that you make.  It does not, and Tivo has decided to keep their
>changes as trade secrets.
>
>The other known major abuser of copyleft software was none other than
>Microsoft itself, who copied the TCP/IP software from BSD Unix for the
>Windows NT operating system network routines.  The problem here is that
>it was not the GPL, but rather the BSD license that this software was
>released under, and the FSF has no copyright claim on any of these
>routines either.
>
>BTW, the exact opposite view is sometimes applied, where you will not be
>hired by some software development groups if you have ever been exposed
>to GPL'd software source code.  The reason is that they don't want to
>have their software "contaminated" by GPL'd software specifically
>because they don't want to deal with the viral nature of the GPL and
>being forced to release all of their software under the GPL.
>
>Of course the most famous court case for testing the GPL is SCO vs. IBM,
>where it was originally seen as a major test of the GPL (with IBM
>backing of the GPL in a weird twist of events).  Instead it looks as if
>the case is going to spin into a stock fraud case and turn from civil
>litigation into a criminal matter.  Where the SEC will take this, I'm
>not sure, but I'm certain that the GPL will be the least of the problems
>for the CEO of SCO.  This case did air out some of the legal issues
>regarding the GPL in court and did deal with many copyleft issues in
>general, but it doesn't look like the GPL will be significant for any
>precedence to use this case in future GPL-related litigation.
>
>I'm curious what other major copyright violators of the GPL that you are
>talking about that the FSF didn't litigate against?  The real issue that
>the FSF has been facing is that major violators of the GPL havn't
>necessarily been violating the use of GNU/Hurd software or anything else
>with a copyright claim by the FSF.  I guess this is another "class" of
>GPL violations, but if they don't have a copyright claim, the FSF can't
>really file as a plaintiff and enforce the copyright.  There is also the
>issue of statutory vs. actual damage claims that I raised earlier that
>also apply to software under the GPL, making even a positive judgement
>(for the GPL) something that is essentially a moot point and effectively
>unenforcable.
>
>
>
Novell, Microsoft, and HP.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity (warning: verbosity follows...)

body:
Joseph Hiegel wrote:
> Were there to be a consensus for the idea that we ought to act to
> limit harm in view of the nebulous "human dignity", I'd suspect that
> there'd nevertheless be no abiding consensus toward the proposition
> that the "human dignity" argument ought always to be dispositive;
> there are, after all, other encyclopedic concerns to which "human
> dignity" ought not to be superior.

Indeed.  I doubt very much whether anyone would say that such concerns
ought always be dispositive.  Rather, what I wanted to lay on the table
more explicitly is my own view, as an editor, and not something that I
expect to be universally shared, that it is indeed a perfectly valid
factor to consider, among many others.

> As [[WP:POLICY]] makes well clear, the nature of the wiki is such
> that nothing is immutable; were most frequent contributors, for
> example, to determine that we should no longer require
> [[WP:V|verifiability]], it's likely that Wikipedia would (d)evolve in
> a fashion consistent with community consensus (surely Jimbo would
> consider whether to jump in at this point, but I think even he would
> concede that his capabilities to act unilaterally contrary to an
> evident consensus are somewhat limited and that, in any case, the
> community would look with strong disfavor on such unilateral action),

Actually, I consider WP:V to be so central to Wikipedia that if there
were ever a significant majority of contributors who wanted to do away
with it, we would have an internal war on our hands that would make the
userbox wars look simple by comparison.  The important thing to remember
here is that merely existing and typing in a web form does not make one
a Wikipedian.  The community is defined by the goal of the community,
and people... no matter how numerous or vocal... who do not accept that
goal are not a part of the Wikipedia community.

But on finer grained issues of editorial judgments, another core
principle of Wikipedia is a strong embrace of a diversity of opinion.
Some editors may consider human dignity to be an entirely pointless
factor, while other may give it a fairly high weight.  We can live in
harmony with such differences of opinion, and we can have a healthy give
and take and rational discussion about specific cases.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> I don't even see what's so undignified about this particular incident
>> that anyone would argue it on that basis in the first place. Everyone
>> does boneheaded things from time to time.
>
> This particular incident may only be embarrassing; what is undignified
> is AP's reportage using a full name. What would likewise be
> undignified would be the immortalisation of this in a biography,
> forever linking this person's name with this event and this event
> alone (there is no other biographical information available), as if
> that was the sum total of their life.

Exactly.  Perhaps I am surprisingly old-fashioned, but it seems to me
that the news reporting in this case would have been _better_ had they
simply used initials or some other literary device.

For me, the amusement at the cute story (woman calls 911 to ask for a
date) was seriously impaired by my distaste for the fact that this poor
woman's name was being brought into the matter globally and on the
Internet and against her will, in a way that makes it somewhat likely
that future googling on her name for the next 30 years will bring this
incident, and only this incident, to the forefront.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Anthony wrote:
> In fact, the first time one particular
> article went up for deletion (I think it was Jimbo, but it might have
> been Angela), I voted to delete it out of respect for their wishes.

To my recollection, the article about me has never been up for AfD.  For
a long time past when NPOV would have demanded it, we did not have an
article about me, for two reasons.  First, as a courtesy to me, because
I felt silly about it.  Second, to head off a potential snarky critique
of Wikipedia: "A new online encyclopedia, with 1,000 articles, including
one about the founder, ha ha ha!"

Of course we are still vulnerable to the critique in a more
sophisticated form, in that I believe that many more articles than
should talk about Wikipedia itself in connection with various well-known
figures.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
>> dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.
>
> Since we don't have a real policy on notability, anything is a valid
> reason for voting delete if the people participating in that
> particular AFD discussion think it is.

In a technical sense, yes, but closing admins have the liberty to ignore
particularly stupid reasons.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> This incident is really a bad example for discussing the subject we're
> supposedly discussing, I wish Jimbo had used one that wasn't so
> obviously deletable for unrelated reasons.

Sure.  I am open to other examples.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> A spurious concept of concensus is
> endemic, and the sheer poisonous nature of the current processes seems
> (by personal reports I've had) to repel many otherwise highly involved
> and motivated editors.

It is very common to hear from our best editors, "Oh, I avoid AfD like
the plague."

--Jimbo

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 7/16/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>>> Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
>>> easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
>>> site to have as the #1 hit?
>> That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any
>> information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity,
>> that Snopes does
>
> Indeed, this is a very powerful moral argument on which I'd
> particularly like to hear Jimmy's thoughts: Isn't a neutral summary
> better than the rubbish of fark.com and so forth? At least in cases
> where the damage is already done? (If anything, we've pushed the meme
> further by arguing endlessly about it.)

Yes!

I think taking into account human dignity as one factor among many in
our editorial judgments can go either way depending on the specific
case.  In the case of Brian Peppers, there is certainly a good argument
to be made that having a thoughtful, NPOV article about him, including
as much verifiable information as possible, can be a healthy antidote to
the juvenile mocking we have seen in this meme.

In other cases, I think that human dignity points us in the other
direction.  The fellow in the Seigenthaler incident does not deserve to
have a standalone article about him with this one tiny fact of what is
likely an otherwise exemplary life turned into the #1 google hit for the
rest of all time.  (I think the current solution is fine, by the way:
the article about him is redirected into the Seigenthaler incident
article, therefore reporting the context.)

--Jimbo

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image statistics -- 374 000+ "fair use" images

body:
maru dubshinki wrote:

>On 7/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>What's wrong with Commons that we shouldn't upload obviously free En
>>content there? The only problems I've ever had with Commons is the
>>difficulty of getting things which are probably (but not
>>unambiguously) copyvios deleted, because the collective knowledge of
>>US copyright law is pretty low there (or ambivalent when not low, "US
>>shouldn't be our standard" and all that), but never a problem with
>>free content.
>>
>>FF
>>
>
>Wait- it isn't policy to upload Free images to Commons? I thought it was.
>
It's recommended but not required. There aren't many reasons left
to upload free images to en:, but there's some inertia resisting
the change. Plus, in the absence of single signon, it would result
in many more redundant logins to merge later, so my personal
inclination is not to press the issue until after single signon is
up and running.

There have been some criticism of commons policy, but I attribute
that to commons being genuinely multinational. For instance,
en: and de: WP editors are mostly happily unaware of their differing
practices, but on commons they can end up butting heads over how
to handle a shared image.

Stan


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Michael Monaghan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Custom left nav per namespace?

body:
On 7/16/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Mick Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?
> >
> > Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> > the namespace?
>
> MediaWiki:Sidebar is applied to all pages. Of course there's no reason
> that the sidebar can't itself display customised information, since
> you can put ParserFunctions stuff in it.

OK

> What sort of custom
> information are you thinking about displaying?

Well, the content in the particular namespace I have in mind might
well need different licensing info, terms of use, disclaimers etc. It
would be convenient if I could easily config the left nav to
accomodate this info.

However, I am using a mediawiki site that I don't own - I can request
config favors etc., but I might not be able to get this level of
customization.

Thanks for all the responses, ideas etc.

~mm

>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Peter Jacobi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Hi Geni, All,

geni wrote:
> On 7/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>
> About the same as Gandi:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Ahem. (not to be cofused with ''Amen'')

IMHO we aren't in the business if writing a backup copy of the Internet. Last time I've checked, our primary mission was the creation of a free encyclopedia.

So, how many people opened the encyclopedia of their choice and were astonished and disappointed, that there's no "Brian Peppers" lemma?

[[User:Pjacobi]]

--

Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*!
"Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


body:
maru dubshinki wrote:

>On 7/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It's recommended but not required. There aren't many reasons left
>>to upload free images to en:, but there's some inertia resisting
>>the change. Plus, in the absence of single signon, it would result
>>in many more redundant logins to merge later, so my personal
>>inclination is not to press the issue until after single signon is
>>up and running.
>>
>...
>
>>Stan
>>
>
>Not quite following you here; what do you mean by "redundant logins to
>merge later"? It is a bit annoying to have to login to Commons to
>upload an image, but I don't think that's what you are getting at...
>
Yes, that's what I'm getting at. One of the practical headaches
with implementing single signon is that there are many thousands
of identical usernames. If you can somehow determine that the
same username in several projects is actually all the same person,
then great, merging is trivial, but there are still thousands for
which identity is unclear. Those logins are going to get username
changes, but then if the renaming was a mistake, that's some
manual work to fix. If we go and pressure 50,000 en: editors to
make commons logins today, some percentage of those will need
manual fixing too.

Post single signon, it should be possible to set up some
semi-automated mass moves to commons, and that will quickly
take care of recent en:-only uploads.

Stan


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Languages*.php/Messages*.php proposed changes

body:
On Mon, 2006-17-07 at 16:45 +1000, Tim Starling wrote:

> I've already done most of the technical work for this change, including
> converting three languages as a pilot. Most of what remains is the rote work
> of converting all of the language files.

Ugh. That is a lot of tedious rote work. Are the advantages of this new
system worth the work and the instability?

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/) -- the free, complete, up-to-date
and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/11/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Much humour involves some kind of offense to a particular group of people.
> It is a very difficult issue, someone will complain regardless of who is
> targeted. I do believe, however, that examples of jokes are necessary to an
> article about jokes (perhaps a couple of audio clips in which famous
> comedians deliver a joke or two). An article about novels will contain the
> names of many novels, this not being the case would strike most as odd.
>
> Are there any extremely widely known offensive jokes such that their
> documentation by us wouldn't be offensive to anyone?

> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)

The Aristocrats?

~maru


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are there any extremely widely known offensive jokes such that their
> > documentation by us wouldn't be offensive to anyone?

Blonde jokes?  --LV


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> There is one thing I don't really quite understand, and I was wondering
> if someone could explain this to me in very simple and easy-to-follow
> terms...
>
> Basically, I seem to be making the following two recurring observations:
>
> (1) Users who are unhappy with some admin action or other post to the
>      mailing list - sometimes angrily, sometimes rationally, but always
>      making explicit that they are annoyed - complaining about what they
>      perceive to be "admin abuse".
>
> (2) Admins sometimes defend their actions by using the argument, "If
>      you've managed to piss off several admins, chances are you've done
>      something wrong."
>
> Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
> demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
> the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
> applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
> doing much more significant wrongs?

Now now, this is a simple data-collection fallacy. Admins don't
complain to the mailing list when they are annoyed with users, so that
can't possibly be used as an indication of whether or not users or
admins are more often annoyed. And it is also the case that you can
have fewer admins annoyed by greater numbers of users -- why, I can be
annoyed by five users at the same time, all of whom think that I have
somehow devoted my time to suppressing their particular version of the
truth!

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On 7/17/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> "Only if" is the converse of "if", right? So the above statement means:
> "If admins are annoyed [at a user], then that user has been bad". This
> is the argument that is often used here to justify discriminating
> behaviour against a newbie.

Let's not use the very subjective term "annoyed" and instead consider
it as a fact-finding exercise. The question is, if more than one admin
has found a user to have done something wrong, does that make it
likely that they have done something wrong? If the admins in question
get no obvious benefit out of agreeing with one another (i.e. they are
not conspiring), then this is a statement about the ability of
independent assessments by people who are classified as being "known
to be reliable" to arrive at something like the truth. In a
commonsense way this should not be controversial in and of itself.

> Okay -- by that argument, invidivual admins are quick to block and ban
> users who they are unhappy about, without making any attempt to
> demonstrate that the other admins' level of unhappiness about the user
> is significant.

Demonstrate where? How? Usually it is pretty obvious from a disruptive
user's talk page. And if it needs to be demonstrated (i.e., someone
asks), it is usually pretty easy to do so.

> Please don't stray away from the argument. Unsubscribing does not make
> them go away -- the users would still get annoyed at the admins, and
> would still complain. I am not bothered by the fact that I *see* the
> complaints, but about the fact that users are generally unhappy about
> the admins and their behaviour towards them.

The question is whether the complaints are valid. Sometimes they are.
Often they are not. We need to take care to differentiate between the
two, which I generally do on the basis of whether or not admin
opinions have been completely one-sided. If there is significant and
well-reasoned disagreement among admins, though, then it is something
which should be taken at least somewhat seriously. But if all admins
come to more-or-less the same conclusion, then the likelihood is the
complaint is "not valid" (which can mean a number of things, usually
"is not resonant with the way things are done on Wikipedia", which is
a relatively non-normative way of putting it).

> The complaining users have already done that numerous times. All of that
> evidence is usually brushed under the rug, and the topic changed to
> collecting evidence of that user's own wrong-doing (the "tu quoque"
> fallacy). I get the impression that the percentage of people on this
> mailing list who take any of those evidence-presenting complaints
> seriously is alarmingly low.

I try to take them seriously, but most of the time it becomes
abundantly clear that the complaining user is, at best, trying to use
technicalities of rules to game the system, or has absolutely no
regard for any of our core policies. Again, I think complaints should
be evaluated seriously, and admins should not uncritically leap to the
defense of other admins, but I don't find your argument as stated very
compelling.

FF


body:
On 7/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/13/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In theory, the number of free-content images on en.wikipedia should be
> > close to zero (a few meta-images are acceptable).
>
> That would mean that somewhere along the line we would have to trust
> commons though.

What's wrong with Commons that we shouldn't upload obviously free En
content there? The only problems I've ever had with Commons is the
difficulty of getting things which are probably (but not
unambiguously) copyvios deleted, because the collective knowledge of
US copyright law is pretty low there (or ambivalent when not low, "US
shouldn't be our standard" and all that), but never a problem with
free content.

FF


body:
On 7/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> What's wrong with Commons that we shouldn't upload obviously free En
> content there? The only problems I've ever had with Commons is the
> difficulty of getting things which are probably (but not
> unambiguously) copyvios deleted, because the collective knowledge of
> US copyright law is pretty low there (or ambivalent when not low, "US
> shouldn't be our standard" and all that), but never a problem with
> free content.
>
> FF

Wait- it isn't policy to upload Free images to Commons? I thought it was.

~maru


from_name: Adam Lorenz

body:
I thought one of the licenses was free GFDL from en.wikipedia.

On 7/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What's wrong with Commons that we shouldn't upload obviously free En
> > content there? The only problems I've ever had with Commons is the
> > difficulty of getting things which are probably (but not
> > unambiguously) copyvios deleted, because the collective knowledge of
> > US copyright law is pretty low there (or ambivalent when not low, "US
> > shouldn't be our standard" and all that), but never a problem with
> > free content.
> >
> > FF
>
> Wait- it isn't policy to upload Free images to Commons? I thought it was.
>
> ~maru
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Adam J. Lorenz


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>
>Please don't make automated moves..  Commons is not yet as effective
>at dealing with En's copyright problems as en is.
>
That's why I said "semi-automated". For instance, since I know
about stamps, my ideal is that I should be able to review the
PD-stamp category, move all the dubious ones over to fair use for
later disposal, then give a command to move the remainder. Larger
amorphous categories could be done in groups, a la FlickLickr.

Also, I would expect that prior to requiring uploads to commons,
that commons sign up enough additional reviewers and admins to
deal with the added workload. I know there are a bunch of people
who would relish commons' "shoot on sight" policy - en: always
feels bogged down in legalisms by comparison... :-)

Stan


body:
On 7/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> It's recommended but not required. There aren't many reasons left
> to upload free images to en:, but there's some inertia resisting
> the change. Plus, in the absence of single signon, it would result
> in many more redundant logins to merge later, so my personal
> inclination is not to press the issue until after single signon is
> up and running.
...
>
> Stan

Not quite following you here; what do you mean by "redundant logins to
merge later"? It is a bit annoying to have to login to Commons to
upload an image, but I don't think that's what you are getting at...

~maru


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 7/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Yes, that's what I'm getting at. One of the practical headaches
> with implementing single signon is that there are many thousands
> of identical usernames. If you can somehow determine that the
> same username in several projects is actually all the same person,
> then great, merging is trivial, but there are still thousands for
> which identity is unclear. Those logins are going to get username
> changes, but then if the renaming was a mistake, that's some
> manual work to fix. If we go and pressure 50,000 en: editors to
> make commons logins today, some percentage of those will need
> manual fixing too.
>
> Post single signon, it should be possible to set up some
> semi-automated mass moves to commons, and that will quickly
> take care of recent en:-only uploads.

Please don't make automated moves..  Commons is not yet as effective
at dealing with En's copyright problems as en is.

Also, creating dupe accounts isn't so bad.. so long as they are dupes
of you and not dupes of someone else.


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<l3lfb2hms38p953ba8ao8hut6ki1f67qag@4ax.com>	<e98l3m$eom$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<2lsfb2l3571cf9hi0s7odcnvc9liqv2glf@4ax.com>
	<e9gf9e$pbl$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Jul 17, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Timwi wrote:
>> I think people are used to forums and Usenet where proof by assertion
>> is a valid technique and where saying the same thing only louder will
>> very often work.
>
> Admins get away with that all the time.
>
> "Admin XYZ called me names and insulted me, he needs his admin powers
> revoked!" - XYZ: "Ah, but you violated [[WP:3RR]] and [[WP:TLA]] and
> [[WP:YHNCTSMYT]], get lost, EOD."
I'm sorry, but if you think citing Wikipedia policy such as the
three-revert rule (which can and *is* verifiable, look at a users
contribs) is "proof by assertion" you are simply mistaken.  "Proof by
assertion" would be something like: "X is a bad person, because I say
so." being considered a proof that X is indeed a bad person.  Claiming
X did something verifiable, in order to explain to X why e is being
sanctioned for doing it, is nothing even a little like "proof by
assertion".  Please be more careful in your future postings, if you
want people to continue to take you seriously.

> Maybe I think this way because I was treated that way on my very first
> day. Although admittedly I didn't get blocked or anything, I did make a
> good-faith contribution which was, within minutes, deleted (the correct
> action would have been to turn it into a redirect). Not knowing that
> someone consciously deleted it (there was nothing to indicate this, and
> to this day there still isn't anything to indicate this to newbies, so
> the first impression is a technical glitch),
Actually, now there *is* a nice, (hopefully) clear line in the message
that comes up when you go to a redlinked page, that says:
(paraphrasing) "If you expected a page to be here, it may be a database
delay, or it may have been deleted - click *here* to check the deletion
log, and *here* to see the discussion, if there was one."  So, while
this certainly may not have been there when you made your page, and it
certainly may be able to be further clarified or explained (I'd *love*
any suggestions you'd care to make on this subject), there *is* such a
message.  (And once the developers get the "oversight" bit better
arranged, hopefully we can turn the viewing of deleted edit summaries
and revision dates back on, which will make it even more obvious.)

Jesse Weinstein


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On Jul 17, 2006, at 10:13 AM, Timwi wrote:
> Fastfission wrote:
>>
>> I can be annoyed by five users at the same time, all of whom think
>> that I have somehow devoted my time to suppressing their particular
>> version of the truth!
>
> You openly admit that you regularly get into situations involving
> several users saying the same thing about you, without ever considering
> the possibility that this bunch of people who all came to the same
> conclusion about you might actually have a point?
*The* *"thing"* *Is* *Not* *The* *Same*.  You seem to be consistently
misunderstanding this.  Let me try (again) to explain it.

User X makes some edit.  User A objects to it. User X disputes user A's
objection.  User Y make another, unrelated edit (to a different page).
User A also objects to that edit (for a different reason). User Y
disputes user A's objection.

It is true that both user X and user Y have said  "user A's objection
is wrong" - However, they said it *about different objections* !

You claim, in this situation, that both two users have said "the same
thing about" user A, and therefore user A should be concerned that
"several users [are] saying the same thing about" em.  Wrong.  Only
*one* user has objected to each action.

I look forward to your reply.

Jesse Weinstein


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On Jul 17, 2006, at 10:49 AM, Timwi wrote:

> Fastfission wrote:
>>
>> Let's not use the very subjective term "annoyed" and instead consider
>> it as a fact-finding exercise. The question is, if more than one admin
>> has found a user to have done something wrong, does that make it
>> likely that they have done something wrong?
>
> Yes, I do not deny that. Now -- if a user finds an admin to have done
> something wrong, does that make it likely that the admin has done
> something wrong?
Certainly it does.   If no-one has objected to an action, it's more
likely that action is correct than if anyone has.  There - the rest of
your argument has just foundered on the rock of people not behaving as
you predicted.  Sorry.
> Obviously you'll say 'no' because there's only one user
> complaining, and everyone else sides with the admin. But read on...
As I said - sorry - you guessed wrong.

>> If the admins in question get no obvious benefit out of agreeing with
>> one another (i.e. they are not conspiring), then this is a statement
>> about the ability of independent assessments by people who are
>> classified as being "known to be reliable" to arrive at something
>> like the truth.
>
> But we have already established on this mailing list that admins *do*
> conspire, albeit on a very subtle and subconscious level, without
> knowing it. Someone (not me!) gave this analogy with noblemen in the
> Middle Ages, who rarely if ever accused each other of a crime even if
> they knew about such a crime.
Mailing list archive citation?  Or at least a name, or a subject line?
Otherwise I'll have to consider that it *was* "you" you gave this
analogy, with all the lack of support that entails.  In any case,
consider this a specific, direct statement that we have NOT
"established on this mailing list that admins *do* conspire".  Provide
a citation if you wish to claim otherwise.

<snip>
> It is within human nature to perceive agreeing with members of one's
> own
> social class as beneficial, and to make it harder for "lower humans"
> who
> disagree with them to enter their class.
Wait, wait - now you are jumping to claim that admins agree with each
other to prevent people from getting through RfA?  Evidence?  Argument?
  Something other than "proof by assertion"?  Please?

>  Now, why is this the case? Read
> on...
>
>> The question is whether the complaints are valid. Sometimes they are.
>> Often they are not. We need to take care to differentiate between the
>> two, which I generally do on the basis of whether or not admin
>> opinions have been completely one-sided.
>
> A-ha! Doesn't this explain the above effect then? If a majority of
> admins agree with a decision, then the decision is less likely to be
> questioned (and, consequently, the complaining user is taken less
> seriously). Therefore, admins will agree with each other in order to
> reduce the likelihood of being questioned.
>  This is the "benefit of
> agreeing with each other" that you were looking for. :)
Why is this a benefit?  As far as I can see, a lack of questioning is a
detriment to proper functioning, and the benefit of Wikipedia.

>> If all admins come to more-or-less the same conclusion, then the
>> likelihood is the complaint is "not valid" (which can mean a number
>> of things, usually "is not resonant with the way things are done on
>> Wikipedia", which is a relatively non-normative way of putting it).
>
> Now, does "the way things are done on Wikipedia" refer to the spirit of
> the policies, or the behaviour of admins in practice? We all know that
> there are significant differences between those two.
Sigh.  Not this again.  "the way things are done on Wikipedia" means
the practices which typically occur on the website with the DNS address
of http://en.wikipedia.org.  Drop the dead horse, please.

<snip>

> Of course it is easy for you to claim that someone has "absolutely no
> regard for policy XYZ", but surely most of the time it is more likely a
> misunderstanding of the spirit of the policy (by either side!), or just
> complete ignorance of a less obvious policy.
Well, ignorance doesn't fly after the policy has been pointed out, but
I agree with you that misunderstandings are far more common than actual
malice - although we get plenty of that, too.

>  It is, for example, not
> intuitive that we should have a policy on "notability" or
> "verifiability", so why should anyone look that up?
Maybe because someone else has said - "I noticed you made an edit that
didn't agree with our policy on [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] - please
read that page and follow it in any future edits you make.  Thanks for
volunteering your time working on Wikipedia!" (paraphrase of one of our
standard notes to new users).

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image deletions not logged

references:
<e99ja9$v3s$1@sea.gmane.org> <44B89321.6050404@pobox.com>
	<e9gbct$acd$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Timwi wrote:
>>
>>> I just deleted about 10 images or so on English Wikipedia. Only three of
>>> them show up in the deletion log -- maybe because these three had pages
>>> associated with them, while the others may not have.
>> Naturally, you're not going to tell us which images they were so we have no hope
>> of looking them up. Thanks! ;)
>
> I was under the impression that you would know the schema and SQL well
> enough to search the DB for deleted images that have no corresponding
> log entry.
>
> Here is my browser history for that time. Not all of these are affected
> by the bug - in fact, there may be some that I didn't actually end up
> deleting.

The problem images appear to be old files for which there wasn't an image page
present. The file is correctly deleted and appears in the archives, but there's
no archived text record; nor is there a page with those names in the July 2
dump. The logging is done along with the page deletion, so could be failing if
there's nothing to kill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Basic.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Temple_of_Saint_Sava%27s_bells_1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Keira_Knightley_Reclining_%28Medium%29.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:John_Wilkes_Booth%27s_derringer.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Philodromus_placcidus-3.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:H_%2813%29.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:G_plug_1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Fat_Andy.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Fructose_isomers.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Dress_rehersal2.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:E_with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Captain_America.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Ca%27_Rezzonico_1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Bhutan-Jigme_Dorji.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Artemisia_vulgaris1web.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Arrhenatherum_elatius2web.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Arrhenatherum_elatius1web.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Apium_graveolens2.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:200px-Ca%27_Rezzonico.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:125px-Au%2C79.jpg

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>
>It's not so much "inertia resisting the change" as "difficulty
>migrating content to Commons". We don't even discourage people from
>uploading free content to en.wikipedia. Buried in a whole page of
>daunting instructions on the upload page is a note that "if you are
>uploading a file under a free license (not fair use!), consider
>uploading it to the Wikimedia Commons". Another obstacle is that the
>descriptions of all the licences are totally different on Commons.
>
Many of en:'s habitual big uploaders have already switched to
commons, so it's partly a question of how much we want to
encourage smaller-scale uploaders that haven't made the move. It
would be interesting to see the results of a query on who has
uploaded the most free images to en: in the past year or so, and
perhaps ask them their reasons for not using commons instead.

Stan


from_name: Sydney aka FloNight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Persondata?

body:
--- Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would say that most of the very basic data persondata is concerned with is
> largely correct. I have found that simple things like birth and death dates
> are usually correct. However, since this tool is human mediated, it may be a
> good opportunity to verify basic information provided by many of our
> biographies.

Agreed.

Sydney


body:
On 7/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please don't make automated moves.. Commons is not yet as effective
> at dealing with En's copyright problems as en is.
>
> Also, creating dupe accounts isn't so bad.. so long as they are dupes
> of you and not dupes of someone else.

If that's the only concern, wouldn't that be easy to address by only
uploading/moving old Free images? (presumably if a picture's copyright
status hasn't been discovered in a few months, it won't for a long
time, and being on Commons versus en would be a moot issue).

~maru


body:
On 7/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Please don't make automated moves.. Commons is not yet as effective
> > at dealing with En's copyright problems as en is.
> >
> > Also, creating dupe accounts isn't so bad.. so long as they are dupes
> > of you and not dupes of someone else.
>
> If that's the only concern, wouldn't that be easy to address by only
> uploading/moving old Free images? (presumably if a picture's copyright
> status hasn't been discovered in a few months, it won't for a long
> time, and being on Commons versus en would be a moot issue).

Because the number of completely bogus claims of free content on En is
rather large... Commons sets a more strict criteria than en has had
historically.  There are a large number of images on en accepted with
reasonings like "Someone uploaded this, and I assume they weren't
trying to violate copyright law, thus thus is GFDL" which would be
deleted in a moment..

Experience on commons shows that a large number of the 'free' images
imported from other projects are not free.

The move is a great time to reevaluate the claims made, and we lose
that with mass automatic moves...  So what advantage would automatic
moves provide?


body:
On 7/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> >
> >Please don't make automated moves..  Commons is not yet as effective
> >at dealing with En's copyright problems as en is.
> >
> That's why I said "semi-automated". For instance, since I know
> about stamps, my ideal is that I should be able to review the
> PD-stamp category, move all the dubious ones over to fair use for
> later disposal, then give a command to move the remainder. Larger
> amorphous categories could be done in groups, a la FlickLickr.
>
> Also, I would expect that prior to requiring uploads to commons,
> that commons sign up enough additional reviewers and admins to
> deal with the added workload. I know there are a bunch of people
> who would relish commons' "shoot on sight" policy - en: always
> feels bogged down in legalisms by comparison... :-)

Sadily, although common's rules are more restrictive .. their overall
enforcement is far more lax (at least past the initial upload). The
problems with cross language cross project cooperation result in a lot
of difficulty. :(


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
I'm making some changes to MediaWiki's localisation files, to make them
easier to write, and to improve loading speed at runtime. I've often
complained about the fact that MediaWiki's LanguageXx.php files force every
would-be translator to also be a programmer. What I'm doing with this change
is to make it so that in 90% of cases, a LanguageXx.php file won't be
necessary, its function will be replaced by the simpler MessagesXx.php file.

The format of the MessagesXx.php file will look like this:

<?php
$fallback = 'en';
$rtl = false;
$timeBeforeDate = true;
$timeSeparator = ':';
$timeDateSeparator = ', ';
$digitTransformTable = null;
$separatorTransformTable = null;

$namespaceNames = array(
	NS_MEDIA            => 'Media',
	...
);

$quickbarSettings = array( ... );

$skinNames = array( ... );

$mathNames = array( ... );

$dateFormats = array(
	MW_DATE_DEFAULT => 'No preference',
	...
);

$bookstoreList = array( ... );

$weekdayNames = array( ... );

$monthNames = array( ... );
$monthNamesGen = array( ... );

$monthAbbreviations = array( ... );

$magicWords = array(
#   ID                                 CASE  SYNONYMS
	'redirect'               => array( 0,    '#REDIRECT'              ),
	...
);

$messages = array(
	...
);
?>

Note that there are no globals, no classes, and no language code variable
name suffixes. The language code is simply specified by the filename. The
$fallback variable specifies a fallback language which should be used if
anything in the present localisation file is missing. If $fallback is
missing, English will be used.

If the localisation is sufficiently specified by these variables (and any
others we think need to be added), then the LanguageXx.php file will not be
needed. In cases where the language file needs to be kept, due to special
code, all of the customised accessors for the above variables will be
deleted, leaving only the special code.

The contents of the MessagesXx.php files will be cached, if a cache is
available. The modification time of the file will be checked on every
request, so when the file is updated, the cache is immediately invalidated.

I've already done most of the technical work for this change, including
converting three languages as a pilot. Most of what remains is the rote work
of converting all of the language files. I might consider committing what
I've done to a branch, if someone else wants to help out with this.

Also in my working copy at the moment is a scheme to delay the
initialisation of most object global variables, but that's a topic for
another post.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image deletions not logged

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>I just deleted about 10 images or so on English Wikipedia. Only three of
>>them show up in the deletion log -- maybe because these three had pages
>>associated with them, while the others may not have.
>
> Naturally, you're not going to tell us which images they were so we have no hope
> of looking them up. Thanks! ;)

I was under the impression that you would know the schema and SQL well
enough to search the DB for deleted images that have no corresponding
log entry.

Here is my browser history for that time. Not all of these are affected
by the bug - in fact, there may be some that I didn't actually end up
deleting.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TV_in_flightcrop.JPG
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Danish_Fu%C3%83%C2%BE%C3%84%E2%80%A6k_%28long-branch_runes%29.png
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Basic.png
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Temple_of_Saint_Sava%27s_bells_1.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:St._Catherine%27s_College%2C_Cambridge.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:St._Catherine%27s_College%2C_Cambridge.arp.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Keira_Knightley_Reclining_%28Medium%29.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:John_Wilkes_Booth%27s_derringer.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Philodromus_placcidus-3.gif
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H_%2813%29.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:G_plug_1.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fat_Andy.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fructose_isomers.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dress_rehersal2.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:E_with
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Captain_America.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ca%27_Rezzonico_1.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Brouwerijbezoek_017.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Breaking_on_the_Wheel.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bild:Hn_3berimbau.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Asparagus_officinalis2web.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bhutan-Jigme_Dorji.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Asparagus_officinalis1web.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Artemisia_vulgaris1web.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arrhenatherum_elatius2web.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arrhenatherum_elatius1web.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Apium_graveolens2.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Red_Ninja_250%2C_Modified.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:200px-Ca%27_Rezzonico.jpg
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:125px-Au%2C79.jpg

Timwi


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/17/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > That said, I do think there is a personal privacy consideration.  I
> > don't think Wikipedia should have articles about just anyone.  In the
> > case of Peppers I think the privacy argument is overcome because he
> > voluntarily committed an act which put himself into the public
> > spotlight.
>
> Casting all criminals as "people who voluntarily commited acts which
> put themselves into the public spotlight" is not the way we want to be
> going.

And it's not the way that I went.  I don't think any crime is
sufficient to overcome one's right to privacy, at least to some
extent.  I do think the crime Peppers is convicted of is sufficient,
though.

> We should primarily care about what makes the encyclopaedia
> better, but in doing as little harm as possible in the process.
>
Sure, and I think providing information about Brian Peppers does make
the encyclopedia better.  But at the same time I think we have to
consider personal privacy issues.  Both have to be present.  Articles
have to make the encyclopedia better, but they also have to refrain
from violating the privacy rights of the subject.

Anthony


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/17/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> That said, I do think there is a personal privacy consideration.  I
> don't think Wikipedia should have articles about just anyone.  In the
> case of Peppers I think the privacy argument is overcome because he
> voluntarily committed an act which put himself into the public
> spotlight.

Casting all criminals as "people who voluntarily commited acts which
put themselves into the public spotlight" is not the way we want to be
going. We should primarily care about what makes the encyclopaedia
better, but in doing as little harm as possible in the process.

OT: I was irked today when I went to look up OMFGWTFBBQ in Wikipedia,
only to find a redirect to [[Internet slang]], which didn't actually
mention it. Nor did [[List of internet slang]]. In fact there *was* a
useful definition once upon a time, but it got deleted by someone
zealously enforcing WP:NOT. What can I say - the encyclopaedia let me
down on this one.

Steve


from_name: Abigail Brady

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/11/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Much humour involves some kind of offense to a particular group of people.
> It is a very difficult issue, someone will complain regardless of who is
> targeted. I do believe, however, that examples of jokes are necessary to an
> article about jokes (perhaps a couple of audio clips in which famous
> comedians deliver a joke or two). An article about novels will contain the
> names of many novels, this not being the case would strike most as odd.
>
> Are there any extremely widely known offensive jokes such that their
> documentation by us wouldn't be offensive to anyone?

Often with racist jokes we get the same jokes repeated over and over
with different targets.  So in order to document racist jokes we could
just give one of these patterns, with [INSERT NATIONALITY HERE],
perhaps.  Where we are trying to demonstrate playing on /specific/
stereotypes this might be trickier.

--
Abi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>>The claim you are referring to made is that only if users are bad
>>>admins are pissed, not if and only if.
>>
>>I'm sorry, this sentence does not parse grammatically. Please rephrase? :)
>
> I omitted 'being' before made.
> Your (2) is effectively: Only if users are bad admins are pissed

"Only if" is the converse of "if", right? So the above statement means:
"If admins are annoyed [at a user], then that user has been bad". This
is the argument that is often used here to justify discriminating
behaviour against a newbie.

> It seemed to me that you were reading (2) as : If and only if users
> are bad  admins are pissed.

No, I'm not. You are thinking of the converse of the above, which is:

"If a user has been bad, then admins get annoyed at that user"

but I am actually saying that (2) implies that

"If users gets annoyed at the admins, then the admins have been bad"

which is a consequence of (2) and the fact that both users and admins
are human beings.

>>Does it? Are you alleging that all or most annoyed people speak up? I
>>don't think so.
>
> No, I'm claiming that we have a lot of users and that you've failed to
> make any attempt to demonstrate that the level of complaint we are
> seeing is significant.

Okay -- by that argument, invidivual admins are quick to block and ban
users who they are unhappy about, without making any attempt to
demonstrate that the other admins' level of unhappiness about the user
is significant.

>>>I am quite sure that mistakes are made... and that we even have a few
>>>low quality admins. ... But I've seen no information which causes me
>>>to believe that this should be considered a high priority problem
>>
>>You'd rather continue to have this flurry of angry complaints on this
>>mailing list? :)
>
> They don't bother me. You can always unsubscribe if they bother you.

Please don't stray away from the argument. Unsubscribing does not make
them go away -- the users would still get annoyed at the admins, and
would still complain. I am not bothered by the fact that I *see* the
complaints, but about the fact that users are generally unhappy about
the admins and their behaviour towards them.

> How else could I respond?  Even if everything were perfect we'd still
> get complaints...

Didn't you notice that the complaints we receive are almost all
complaining about the same thing (namely, admin abuse)? Didn't you
notice that almost all of them complain that the admins do not follow
the policies they claim to value so much? They are not random complaints
about random things. They are about one very specific issue.

> Now if you actually think that the complaints are evidence of
> something that needs improvment, please provide evidence...

The complaining users have already done that numerous times. All of that
evidence is usually brushed under the rug, and the topic changed to
collecting evidence of that user's own wrong-doing (the "tu quoque"
fallacy). I get the impression that the percentage of people on this
mailing list who take any of those evidence-presenting complaints
seriously is alarmingly low.

Timwi


body:
On 7/17/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On 17 Jul 2006, at 21:37, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > Sadily, although common's rules are more restrictive .. their overall
> > enforcement is far more lax (at least past the initial upload). The
> > problems with cross language cross project cooperation result in a lot
> > of difficulty. :(
>
> Well I feel this is partly because single signon has been discussed for
> years now with as far as I can see no progress at all. And en has
> kept its abysmal image situation going well with no attempt to fix it.
> People like geni keep saying that once (years back) commons had its
> front
> page vandalised. Well en has had copyvio images in its featured
> articles,
> and its "fair use" images are a joke.
>
> If all free images in en were on commons, we would all police it more,
> and with single signon it would be easier, and things could be
> transwikied.
>
> Can we set a timetable for single signon?

I don't know how single signon will address any copyright related problems.
That said, I expect that we'll have single sign on real soon now (tm).

As far as en's image problems... if you think nothing is being done to
fix it, you're simply out of touch.  Compared to a year ago, our image
copyright policy is substantially more clear, more strict, and more
enforced. We have made it far more likely to catch confused uploads,
and we have been fixing a LOT of old problems. There are some
occasional regressions, but we've mostly gotten past the times where
wikipedians would randomly assign tags in order to rescue unlicensed
images. Folks like Carnildo have done and are doing a tremendous
amount of work. We still have a long way to go... but to claim that
there is no improvement is ridiculous.


references:
<e9fbmk$v63$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1153151396.9642.16.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>
	<e9gfhg$q8c$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Tue, 2006-18-07 at 02:57 +1000, Tim Starling wrote:

> > Ugh. That is a lot of tedious rote work. Are the advantages of this new
> > system worth the work and the instability?
>
> Yes. The language files as they stand are very difficult to maintain. There
> are so many ugly hacks, so many designs and programming styles, so many
> complex functions copied and pasted with a minor change. Separating the data
> from the code will pay dividends in the long term. It's only a few days'
> work anyway.

Good, sounds like the right thing, then.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/) -- the free, complete, up-to-date
and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: geni

body:
On 7/13/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> In theory, the number of free-content images on en.wikipedia should be
> close to zero (a few meta-images are acceptable).

That would mean that somewhere along the line we would have to trust
commons though.

--
geni


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)

body:
On 7/17/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There is a general consesus at the Urdu wiki  to remove the Qur'anic verse from the
> Sitenotice. Nobody opposed it. Some Steward should do it now,
> because the admin we contacted and who could
> do it has gone Inactive and refuesd to do it himself.

I've removed the sitenotice.

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<l3lfb2hms38p953ba8ao8hut6ki1f67qag@4ax.com>	<e98l3m$eom$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<2lsfb2l3571cf9hi0s7odcnvc9liqv2glf@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:43:09 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>Oh, and what do you think makes them so determined? Could it be
>>something they genuinely perceive as a wrong? Could it be that they are
>>trying to be genuinely productive, and that from their point of view it
>>is the admins who were "starting a fight"?
>
> I have no idea.  I had a problem today with someone who was absolutely
> determined to add a load of innuendo to a WP:BLP.  He flatly refused
> to engage in Talk, removed questions and attempts at dialogue from his
> Talk page as "trolling", asserted that it was *his* talk page to do
> with as he pleased, and even after a short block he went straight back
> and picked up the edit war again.

I notice that many of these admin's accounts of such events look very
similar. Is it very hard for you to imagine that the other side of the
story looks different? You say he was "absolutely determined to add
[...]" - well, maybe he thought he was adding "the truth" or
"encyclopedic information"? You say he "flatly refused to engage in
talk" - well, maybe he was new and didn't know about talk pages, or
thought you were referring to this User-talk page? --- And what about
all the stuff that you left out of your account, such as the wording of
your messages to him, or the edit summary of the reverts? I don't know
about your specific case, but many admins use words like "vandalism" or
"POV-pushing" very liberally and pretend like it's perfectly within
their rights to do so and to ban anyone who doesn't like it.

> I think people are used to forums and Usenet where proof by assertion
> is a valid technique and where saying the same thing only louder will
> very often work.

Admins get away with that all the time.

"Admin XYZ called me names and insulted me, he needs his admin powers
revoked!" - XYZ: "Ah, but you violated [[WP:3RR]] and [[WP:TLA]] and
[[WP:YHNCTSMYT]], get lost, EOD."

> The idea of sitting down and talking calmly about it often does not
> appear to occur to these people.

Do you think the user's impression of the blocking admin is that of
someone who likes to sit down and talk calmly about it?

>>>There are very few genuinely productive editors with a significant
>>>history of blocks.
>>
>>That's a tautology. Someone who is blocked hardly has any chance to be
>>(and, in most cases, any interest in being) at all productive. What
>>percentage of people that are blocked and never return, would have been
>>genuinely productive if they hadn't been blocked? How can you tell?
>
> SPUI.

There you go, so examples do exist. However, SPUI became well-known on
Wikipedia. I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of unknown users
who would have become productive contributors if they hadn't been
blocked on their very first day. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of the
users that are blocked on their first day decide to never edit Wikipedia
again, and consequently are never even noticed.

Maybe I think this way because I was treated that way on my very first
day. Although admittedly I didn't get blocked or anything, I did make a
good-faith contribution which was, within minutes, deleted (the correct
action would have been to turn it into a redirect). Not knowing that
someone consciously deleted it (there was nothing to indicate this, and
to this day there still isn't anything to indicate this to newbies, so
the first impression is a technical glitch), I recreated it and
subsequently received a warning of sorts.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Adam Lorenz wrote:
> I think that #2 is an invalid argument, and the action should be defended by
> the actual circumstance. If a user is blocked for disruption, and the user
> complains, the admin should defend his/herself by citing contribs, or some
> other valid explanation.

Thank you. I agree, although I believe you are restricting yourself to
actions (such as blocking) that are permitted under certain
circumstances, but not actions which the policies prohibit (e.g.
deleting a page that meets no speedy criteria, protecting a page the
admin is involved in a dispute on, etc.). The relevant admin often
defends the former actions by citing contribs, and then the latter ones
are somehow excused because the only one that complains about them is a
user who has been identified as a trouble-maker of sorts.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Fastfission wrote:
>
> I can be annoyed by five users at the same time, all of whom think
> that I have somehow devoted my time to suppressing their particular
> version of the truth!

You openly admit that you regularly get into situations involving
several users saying the same thing about you, without ever considering
the possibility that this bunch of people who all came to the same
conclusion about you might actually have a point?

Timwi


list: textbook-l

from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject:
[Textbook-l] Give the other projects something to read by helping
	Wikizine

body:
Hi,

About some 8 months ago I started with an attempt to bring news with a
newsletter "Wikizine". I try to bring different types of news like
"Foundation", "Community", "Media" , "Technical news" and so.

So I try to bring the news for the Wikimedia family to the projects.
And that includes Wikibooks. I most say I have no idea of there are
already Wikibook people reading Wikizine, I hope so. If not I hope to
welcome now some soon.

But I am writing this fist of all to ask for your cooperation with
this newsletter. To be able to report news first the news must be
known. "Bulletin board" is one of the pages I look for to find news
about Wikibooks.  I can not say I have discoverd there anything worth
reporting yet.  Maybe I am looking at the wrong page.

But you can sure that if there is something going on in the other
Wikibooks   language editions I will not find out about it.

So I request that if there is news about your project, especially for
the non-English editions, that you would report the news to me, to
Wikizine. Let the  readers of Wikizine know there is more then
Wikipedia.

A way to make it more likely that someone will think about Wikizine is
to put a banner on your userpage or even better on a public page, also
for the non-English Wikinews versions.;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/banners

On the other side I try to get the news downhill to as most of the
projects and especially languages as possible.  Because of piratical
reasons Wikizine can only be in English. But it would be fantastic if
people would be willing to translate the news and share it with there
community.

A total translation of Wikizine is great but also a lot of work. Maybe
only translating the most relevant news can be enough for starting.
You could work together across the different projects in the same
languages. By cross-project cooperation the work of translation can be
shared.

Just only subscribing to Wikizine only is also useful of course. Then
you at least are informed.

Reading Wikizine can by email. Just click here below and follow the
instructions;
mailto:request at wikizine.org?subject=subscribe

Or you can also read Wikizine from the website;
http://www.wikizine.org

Thank you for reading this and I hope to receive some news from Wikibooks!

Greetings,
Walter

http://www.wikizine.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/17/06, Abigail Brady <morwen at evilmagic.org> wrote:
> Often with racist jokes we get the same jokes repeated over and over
> with different targets.  So in order to document racist jokes we could
> just give one of these patterns, with [INSERT NATIONALITY HERE],
> perhaps.  Where we are trying to demonstrate playing on /specific/
> stereotypes this might be trickier.

Hmm, there probably aren't many of those. And even still, it might be
possible to separate the two, thus saying "common traits of races
attacked in racist jokes are as follows: Foobians: big ears, bad table
manners." then later "Jokes about big ears: ......."

Thus, I suspect it is not particularly offensive to say "there exist a
number of jokes, particularly aimed at Jewish, Dutch and Scottish
people, about miserliness". One can then give an example of a joke
like "What did the <nationality> man say to the...?" etc. By
separating the offensive characteristic from the joke, I think the
offensiveness is greatly reduced.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Fastfission wrote:
>
> Let's not use the very subjective term "annoyed" and instead consider
> it as a fact-finding exercise. The question is, if more than one admin
> has found a user to have done something wrong, does that make it
> likely that they have done something wrong?

Yes, I do not deny that. Now -- if a user finds an admin to have done
something wrong, does that make it likely that the admin has done
something wrong? Obviously you'll say 'no' because there's only one user
complaining, and everyone else sides with the admin. But read on...

> If the admins in question get no obvious benefit out of agreeing with
> one another (i.e. they are not conspiring), then this is a statement
> about the ability of independent assessments by people who are
> classified as being "known to be reliable" to arrive at something
> like the truth.

But we have already established on this mailing list that admins *do*
conspire, albeit on a very subtle and subconscious level, without
knowing it. Someone (not me!) gave this analogy with noblemen in the
Middle Ages, who rarely if ever accused each other of a crime even if
they knew about such a crime. If an ordinary citizen were to accuse a
nobleman of anything, all the noblemen (who were "known to be reliable"
and supposedly had "ability of independent assessments") would side with
their fellow nobleman and all come to the same conclusion in his favour.

It is within human nature to perceive agreeing with members of one's own
social class as beneficial, and to make it harder for "lower humans" who
disagree with them to enter their class. Now, why is this the case? Read
on...

> The question is whether the complaints are valid. Sometimes they are.
> Often they are not. We need to take care to differentiate between the
> two, which I generally do on the basis of whether or not admin
> opinions have been completely one-sided.

A-ha! Doesn't this explain the above effect then? If a majority of
admins agree with a decision, then the decision is less likely to be
questioned (and, consequently, the complaining user is taken less
seriously). Therefore, admins will agree with each other in order to
reduce the likelihood of being questioned. This is the "benefit of
agreeing with each other" that you were looking for. :)

> If all admins come to more-or-less the same conclusion, then the
> likelihood is the complaint is "not valid" (which can mean a number
> of things, usually "is not resonant with the way things are done on
> Wikipedia", which is a relatively non-normative way of putting it).

Now, does "the way things are done on Wikipedia" refer to the spirit of
the policies, or the behaviour of admins in practice? We all know that
there are significant differences between those two.

If you mean "the spirit of the policies", then I disagree with you:
admins can very easily come to the conclusion that one of their fellow
admins "did okay" when a more impartial observer (which in reality
doesn't exist) would say the action was clearly beyond the borderline
set out by the policy. Especially when that action becomes more and more
common, more and more admins get away with it, and thus it becomes more
and more accepted.

If you mean "the way admins behave in practice", then you have confirmed
my theory. Several admins come to the same conclusion, /therefore/ you
do the same (and presumably accept and defend their arguments but not
the complaining user's).

>>The complaining users have already done that numerous times. All of that
>>evidence is usually brushed under the rug, and the topic changed to
>>collecting evidence of that user's own wrong-doing (the "tu quoque"
>>fallacy). I get the impression that the percentage of people on this
>>mailing list who take any of those evidence-presenting complaints
>>seriously is alarmingly low.
>
> I try to take them seriously, but most of the time it becomes
> abundantly clear that the complaining user is, at best, trying to use
> technicalities of rules to game the system, or has absolutely no
> regard for any of our core policies.

Such as?

Of course it is easy for you to claim that someone has "absolutely no
regard for policy XYZ", but surely most of the time it is more likely a
misunderstanding of the spirit of the policy (by either side!), or just
complete ignorance of a less obvious policy. It is, for example, not
intuitive that we should have a policy on "notability" or
"verifiability", so why should anyone look that up?

> Again, I think complaints should be evaluated seriously, and admins
> should not uncritically leap to the defense of other admins, but I
> don't find your argument as stated very compelling.

Not very but at least a little? ;-)

Timwi


body:
On 7/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/13/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > In theory, the number of free-content images on en.wikipedia should be
> > > close to zero (a few meta-images are acceptable).
> >
> > That would mean that somewhere along the line we would have to trust
> > commons though.
>
> What's wrong with Commons that we shouldn't upload obviously free En
> content there?

They don't have the same objectives at us. In some cases it results in
the loss of GFDl history and they allowed the main page to be
vandalises.
--
geni


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> OT: I was irked today when I went to look up OMFGWTFBBQ in Wikipedia,
> only to find a redirect to [[Internet slang]], which didn't actually
> mention it. Nor did [[List of internet slang]]. In fact there *was* a
> useful definition once upon a time, but it got deleted by someone
> zealously enforcing WP:NOT. What can I say - the encyclopaedia let me
> down on this one.
>
> Steve

WARNING: topic drift

   Without claiming that we should or should not have such a entry in
those articles, I have for a long time been interested in looking
through the DB dump for redirects to pages that do not contain the term
being redirected to them, or something close.  Its the "or something
close" and the fact that some times this is probably "ok" that makes it
hard to just do this.  In any event I have frequently come across very
bad redirects, some of them POV some of them I think people did just to
avoid having a red link. Is there any sort of redirect auditing being
done?  I can't say I know of a good way to go about it efficiently but
its is worth thinking about.

Dalf