subject: [Wikipedia-l] OneLook

in_reply_to:
<200209291832.g8TIWQi29890@ross.bomis.com> from "koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com"
 at "Sep 29, 2002 11:32:26 am"

body:
> Andre Wrote:
> >> I have found a problem with the Wikipedia entries on Outlook: If one tries
> >> to get a Wikipedia page with a name that is made of more than one words, it
> >> tries to get the page with spaces instead of underscores. Could that be
> >> improved?
> >
> >Sorry, 'Outlook' should be 'OneLook' of course...
>
> I tested it out, and it's still resulting in the right address ... are
> there times when it doesn't?

Well, whenever I try it, things go wrong. For example, when I try to search
"George Bush" on OneLook, the second hit is Wikipedia. If I click on it, it
brings me to
"http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George Bush", which gets interpreted as
[[GeorgeBush]] rather than [[George Bush]].

Andre Engels


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
I see that a couple of people are busy porting Encyclopedia Libre
( http://enciclopedia.us.es/ ) articles to the Spanish Wikipedia. This raises
a /very/ important question;

Which project are we going have our interlanguage links point to?
AstroNomer has already finished translating language-ES.php and wants the
developers to install the new Phase III software for the Spanish Wikipedia on
the Wikipedia server.

This of course would be a slap in the face of the Encyclopedia Libre folks -
many of whom want more cooperation with Wikipedia. But there is a very vocal
few who hate Wikipedia.

What is everybody's preference here? Should we majorly help revive the
Spanish Wikipedia by upgrading their software or should we put our support
behind Encyclopedia Libre. Remember, EL broke away from the Spanish Wikipedia
over a misunderstanding (and they still have slanderous and unfair statements
about Wikipedia on their about page see:
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia+Libre+Universal+en+Espa%F1ol
)?

Encyclopedia Libre currently has more articles and more users/contributors
but they don't seem to have a software development team (just a person or
two). Also many thousands of their "articles" are just templates so their
absence from the Spanish Wikipedia isn't that big of a deal. Also, simplified
logistics is a reason why it makes more sense to keep everything on server(s)
that our developers can access.

However, my gut feeling tells me that we should at least try to work with EL
and then if that doesn't work our fallback plan would be to upgrade the
Spanish Wikipedia and put all of our support behind them. However, if we do
go this route and EL upgrades and we point our interlanguage links there,
then what about all the work that is going on right now at the Spanish
Wikipedia?

I just want to have this decided so that I can start contributing (I'm such a
WIkipediaholic that I could majorly help revive the Spanish Wikipedia by
porting EL material but I don't want to have duplicated effort between two
very similar projects if it can be avoided).

I think this is very important because the project that gets our new
software, inter-language links, support and future inter-language
functionality is probably the project that will endure. I know it will be the
project I contribute to.

Any other thoughts on this?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Image maps

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Q: Is it desirable to have image maps?  Would having image maps in some
 > places (like the element locator maps) be confusing when they are not
 > available in others (such as geographic maps)?

They would be *wonderful* for geographic maps as well.

Some thoughts:

* An image map must never be vital content, so editors need to provide a
second set of links (or an indirect link to a list). Ie, two sets of
things to maintain.

* Like tables, image maps are inherently complex -- shape styles, sets
of coordinates, links, perhaps alt text per link. We can steal the HTML
syntax exactly, or try to come up with something cleaner.

* Image maps are likely to be shared over many articles, either with the
same image or over a group of related images (ie, 58 maps of California,
each with a different county highlighted; 100-odd periodic tables, each
with a different element highlighted). Thus, it _might_ be useful to
have the maps in a magic namespace, which could be linked from the image
description page -- thus, one image map can be cleanly shared over many
almost-identical images, in any articles that link the images.

(Custom style sheets could be similarly treated with a magic namespace,
as I believe has been occasionally suggested.)

Just thoughts...

> It would be neat to have this ability but I'm not sure if it would be
> desirable given our current non-standard image behavior (that is, clicking on
> the image brings you to the image description page).

That's another concern, but something could probably be worked out.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] OneLook

body:
On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 10:05:59PM +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
> > Andre Wrote:
> > >> I have found a problem with the Wikipedia entries on Outlook: If one tries
> > >> to get a Wikipedia page with a name that is made of more than one words, it
> > >> tries to get the page with spaces instead of underscores. Could that be
> > >> improved?
> > >
> > >Sorry, 'Outlook' should be 'OneLook' of course...
> >
> > I tested it out, and it's still resulting in the right address ... are
> > there times when it doesn't?
>
> Well, whenever I try it, things go wrong. For example, when I try to search
> "George Bush" on OneLook, the second hit is Wikipedia. If I click on it, it
> brings me to
> "http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George Bush", which gets interpreted as
> [[GeorgeBush]] rather than [[George Bush]].
>
Some browsers are smart enough to know that blanks are not allowed and encode
it as "+" instead of sending a blank to the server. Other browsers rely on the
web designer to know better than the browser and send the URL "as is".

JeLuF


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

in_reply_to: <B9BB24D0.3FA0%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 09:20:16AM -0400

body:
In general, I think that policy changes should be discussed here
before changes are made to the policy pages.  One reason is that many
newcomers will visit the policy pages to find out what the consensus
is, and so the policy pages should be 'stable' (not permanently fixed,
but stable, changing conservatively over time to reflect emerged
consensus).  We can hash things out here, and then make non-drastic
changes there.

If people want to have a say in policy, the most effective tool is to
subscribe to this list.  This is not particularly burdensome, as a
person could easily set the list to 'nomail' and read the list via the
archives.

I would be supportive of the policy pages making this clear.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A question about "Crown copyright"

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> My question is this: can we use their material, as long as we reproduce
> it accurately and not in a misleading context, and credit it like we
> credit FOLDOC and other sources?  The license does not say anything
> about derivative work.

I don't think we can use it.  Anything we use has to be compatible
with us re-releasing it under the GNU FDL, which means giving people
permission to make derivative works from it if they live up to the
conditions of the license.  As we have no right to make derivative
works of Crown Copyright material, we have no right to authorize
others to do so, either.

--Jimbo


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
> I think this is very important because the project
> that gets our new
> software, inter-language links, support and future
> inter-language
> functionality is probably the project that will
> endure. I know it will be the
> project I contribute to.
>
> Any other thoughts on this?

Since you indicated
quote
> This of course would be a slap in the face of the
> Encyclopedia Libre folks -
> many of whom want more cooperation with Wikipedia.
> But there is a very vocal
> few who hate Wikipedia.
/quote

It seems that the most natural move would be to ask
their community what they think about it. You state
some would like more cooperation, and a few hate
Wikipedia. Well, that's to them to discuss together
maybe and conclude whether they would like more
cooperation, or even coming back to us, or reversly
absolutely not loose their "independance".

Since some of them are busy porting articles from one
to the other encyclopedia, maybe would these even
decide to move back to a *revived* and *updated*
es.wiki.

It sounds as if part of the misunderstanding was
related to .com and Larry being paid, no ? If these
were the most painful issues, these are no more. Of
course, there was maybe more to the disagreement and
maybe it went too far for *any* reconciliation to be
possible.
But, still, maybe the first step would be to ask
whether their feelings changed or not.

About that first page, yup. Make me think of all these
decisions we take one day or another, only to realise
it was maybe the wrong one, not dare admit we changed
our minds, and just keep our feet deeply rooted in the
ground. It looks easier sometimes to follow somebody
we don't agree so much with anymore, rather than
exposing ourselves.

Of course, you need to count on the deep pride of
spanish people when raising the subject, but at least,
if they send you to hell, you'll know what to do next
:-)

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Khendon

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 10:25:00PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> What is everybody's preference here? Should we majorly help revive the
> Spanish Wikipedia by upgrading their software or should we put our support
> behind Encyclopedia Libre. Remember, EL broke away from the Spanish Wikipedia
> over a misunderstanding (and they still have slanderous and unfair statements
> about Wikipedia on their about page see:
> http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia+Libre+Universal+en+Espa%F1ol
> )?

I don't know the history, but looking around there a bit it seems to
me that it'd be futile to try and collaborate with a project run by
people so bitter and twisted...

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:
> Administratively, this is very nice. If they want a change in software,
> configuration, or hardware, they have to do it themselves. Less work
> for us, more control for them. I expect that many active international
> Wikipedias will go that route over time.

I expect and hope for the opposite, a united world community, working
together in peace and harmony for the betterment of all.  I oppose
Balkanization, or the assumption that differences are more important
than similarities.

There are many benefits to working together -- a positive change to
internationalization features will benefit all languages, not just
one.  Going off into separate groups, with separate servers, separate
software is a step away from harmony.

There's nothing wrong with people starting competing projects if they
want.  But that doesn't mean that we should not pursue a strategy of
inclusiveness.

We want input from Spanish speaking people.  That input will be harder
to get if there is a totally separate Spanish organization, and if we
tell Spanish newcomers "go away, there's a Spanish project for you".

I don't think our using their content, or them using ours, is any kind of
insult.  Why should it be?  That's the whole point of the free license.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the mailing list clearly
> feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy pages, so vive la
> revolution!

I don't think it's necessary to lock down the policy pages.  Is there
a problem with ongoing vandalism there?  I don't think so.

At the same time, I think it's wiser to steer towards a policy of
openness and consensus decisionmaking.  Why keep policy proposals
hidden from the mailing list?  Why not refrain from making policy
changes until a consensus is reached, both on the mailing list and on
any relevant talk pages?

It's one thing to say "policy pages should be locked down so only an
authorized elite can edit them".  It's another thing to say "Hey, it's
better to talk about policy changes extensively before making them.
It's more important, the bigger the change.  So don't avoid making
proposals to the mailing list."

In the current case, there's a question about deletions.  There are
many valid points on all sides, many pros and cons to various ways of
handling them.  But there is also consensus that non-destructiveness
is good, that caution is good, that getting abject crap out of the
system is good.

Edit wars on the policy pages won't help much with that, but talking will.

--Jimbo


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] OneLook

body:
> I just tried your example, along with other multi-word
> searches, and they worked fine for me. What browser
> are you using?

As Brion already guessed: Netscape 4 dot something.

Andre Engels


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
As I have written before in
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/003869.html
I favor Enciclopedia Libre, because that's where the action is.

I would ask EL whether they agree that our interlanguage links point to
them, and if they say yes, scrap our Spanish Wikipedia. Of course,
whether they say yes or no, they are always free and welcome to use the
Phase III software and our translation file on their server.

Administratively, this is very nice. If they want a change in software,
configuration, or hardware, they have to do it themselves. Less work
for us, more control for them. I expect that many active international
Wikipedias will go that route over time.

Asking them to return to the American server, or simply importing their
articles to the Spanish Wikipedia, would no doubt both be interpreted
as insulting. (The importing would also require some sort of
acknowledgement and link back per GFDL.)

Axel

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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Image maps

body:
I just looked at the page, and the image is too large for my 800x600
screen. It breaks the layout in the table, so "H" has moved down to
roughly where "Na" is.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Which project are we going have our interlanguage links point to?
>AstroNomer has already finished translating language-ES.php and wants the
>developers to install the new Phase III software for the Spanish Wikipedia on
>the Wikipedia server.
>
>What is everybody's preference here? Should we majorly help revive the
>Spanish Wikipedia by upgrading their software or should we put our support
>behind Encyclopedia Libre.
>
>However, my gut feeling tells me that we should at least try to work with EL
>and then if that doesn't work our fallback plan would be to upgrade the
>Spanish Wikipedia and put all of our support behind them. However, if we do
>go this route and EL upgrades and we point our interlanguage links there,
>then what about all the work that is going on right now at the Spanish
>Wikipedia?
>
>I think this is very important because the project that gets our new
>software, inter-language links, support and future inter-language
>functionality is probably the project that will endure. I know it will be the
>project I contribute to.
>
>Any other thoughts on this?
>
As for software availability, I don't see this as an either/or
proposition.  There should be no particular problem with upgrading the
Spanish Wikipedia without regard to what's happening at EL  The software
can be made available to the EL people if they want it, but integrating
it with what they have is their task.

Clearly our interlanguage links should be to the Spanish Wikipedia, but
nothing would prevent further links to EL where an alternate view of a
subject might be represented.  I also see no problem with either project
copying articles from the other.

There's even something healthy about having more than one active
project, in that if anything happens to one, the other is still there.

If supporting EL were to be considered as a viable first choice, I would
be inclined to ask questions about their long term financial viability.
 What guarantee is there that they will not be a refuge for spamvertising?

Ec


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is not Usenet (was Re: Re: Policy)

body:
On Sat, 2002-09-28 at 17:20, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Saturday 28 September 2002 05:33 am, The Cunctato wrote:
> > This is where you're wrong. In general, policy is decided by
> editing the
> > policy pages. If there's contention, then it moves to the talk pages.
> > Only in the rare case where this is somehow "dangerous" (because the
> > policy has sweeping and immediate consequence) or the process breaks
> > down horribly does it need to go to the mailing list.
>
> Where is this written? Policy has to be decided first before being changed.
> Period. I think you are pretty much alone in your assertion that policy
> can be changed unilaterally and then must be challenged if somebody
> disagrees. This may seem logical to you because you are so accustomed to
> confrontation (being an old Usenet guy) but for others that just want to work
> in harmony under a consistent (yet evolving) set of guidelines, this is not
> the way to do things.

Ignoring the explicit policy (or creatively interpreting it) is
equivalent to making unilateral policy decisions. This isn't about
confrontation. The mailing list is a lot more like Usenet than Wiki
pages are.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Sat, 2002-09-28 at 15:24, Jeroen Heijmans wrote:
> Cunctator wrote:
>
> >>First, those choices are not the only ones; second, your reasoning with #2
> >>is flawed. Your other choices:
> >>
> >>  3. You can simply ignore the policy, as you have done in practice.
> >>
> Why have a policy in the first place, then?

I didn't say that was a good option. But let me ask you; why do you
ignore the explicit policy?

> >
> >  4. You can express your disagreement on the Talk page or on meta or on
> >   your user page or on the mailing list.
> >
> I thought your point was that everybody should just be editing the
> policy if they disagreed ("policy is decided by editing the policy
> pages"), so then this would not be an option.

No. Direct editing should be the first choice; not the only choice. And
you're confusing two different threads here; I was adding to Engels'
list, not delineating my own conception.

> >The flawed reasoning with #2 is simply that changes to a page do not an edit
> >war necessarily make. If that were so, then Wikipedia wouldn't work. A quote
> >from the FAQ: "We assume that the world is full of reasonable people and
> >that collectively they can arrive eventually at a reasonable conclusion,
> >despite the worst efforts of a very few wreckers. It's called optimism."
> >
> There's a big difference between Wikipedia articles and policy pages.
> The articles are about things that we do not have control of. We may
> have opinions about them, but it's been agreed that we try to present
> these opinions neutrally. However, we DO have control over the Wikipedia
> policies, and our own opinions DO count. Even if I'm reasonable, my
> opinion on many issue may be completely different with that of other
> Wikipedians (it frequently is), but there is no NPOV to "neutralise" our
> policies. The only way to change or formulate policy is by discussing it
> first. The policy pages are meant for Wikipedians to use as a reference.
> If I'd just go and change it to my personal opinion, that gives a wrong
> picture (unless that personal opinions happens to be the de facto
> policy) and things could get really messed up.

There is an equivalent to the NPOV, and that is consensus. Your belief
that changing policy to your personal opinion would automatically mess
things up is based on flawed reasoning.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] strange software error

body:
or

Warning:  Failed opening 'GlobalFunctions.php' for
inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/Setup.php on line 9
Fatal error:  Unknown function:  wflocalurl()
 in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/Language.php on line
516

while trying to open the history of a page

--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Strange error:
>
> Warning:
> open(/tmp/sess_9ecc625f94c1103cbc8e9fed033dd472,
> O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23)
> in /usr/local/apache/ htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 7
>
> Warning: Failed opening 'Setup.php' for inclusion
> (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in
> /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 12
>
> Fatal error: Undefined class name 'outputpage' in
> /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 14
>
> Warning:
> open(/tmp/sess_9ecc625f94c1103cbc8e9fed033dd472,
> O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23)
> in Unknown on line 0
>
> Warning: Failed to write session data (files).
> Please verify that the current setting of
> session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in Unknown on
> line 0
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Mon, 2002-09-30 at 11:37, Gareth Owen wrote:
> The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:
>
> > On Sat, 2002-09-28 at 15:24, Jeroen Heijmans wrote:
> > > Cunctator wrote:
>
> > I didn't say that was a good option. But let me ask you; why do you
> > ignore the explicit policy?
>
> Because the bits of "explicit policy" they ignored were declared by fiat, by
> someone with out such authority (i.e. you).

Perhaps that's why, but we'd have to ask him, no?

And we didn't have a policy that said that individuals such as I don't
have the authority to change the policy. In fact, we had the implicit
policy that such individuals did, inasmuch as that's how it has worked
historically, and as the pages aren't locked.

Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the mailing list clearly
feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy pages, so vive la
revolution!


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] strange software error

body:
Strange error:

Warning: open(/tmp/sess_9ecc625f94c1103cbc8e9fed033dd472, O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23) in /usr/local/apache/ htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 7

Warning: Failed opening 'Setup.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 12

Fatal error: Undefined class name 'outputpage' in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 14

Warning: open(/tmp/sess_9ecc625f94c1103cbc8e9fed033dd472, O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in Unknown on line 0


subject: [Wikipedia-l] too many files open

body:
User:octal has a suggestion:

It looks like some of the "too many files open" problems are being caused by the large numbers of session files being used by PHP. Is the site maintaining a session for every anonymous visitor? This might cause the problem. (See www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php for info on custom session handlers, if you need to store so many sessions but the filesystem is not robust enough, you can move session handling into a database).

Either that, or something in the site is dependant on having a lot of concurrent files open. Good luck with wikipedia. -- octal


from_name: James Zitzmann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] OneLook

body:
I have split personalities :) :)

---
Earn free ringtones - go to:
http://www.earnfreeringtones.com/?src=jzcool
James's Domain - Your source for Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, Anime, Manga, and more! http://www.jzcool.net

On Sun, 29 Sep 2002 17:46:58
 Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
>--- James Zitzmann <jzcool at lycos.com> wrote:
>> OneLook can suck the big d.
>>
>
>Welcome back, Jzcool. I hope you're not reverting to
>your original, vandalizing self. :)
>
>Stephen G.
>
>__________________________________________________
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>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> On Sat, 2002-09-28 at 15:24, Jeroen Heijmans wrote:
> > Cunctator wrote:

> I didn't say that was a good option. But let me ask you; why do you
> ignore the explicit policy?

Because the bits of "explicit policy" they ignored were declared by fiat, by
someone with out such authority (i.e. you).
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
--- Khendon <jason at jasonandali.org.uk> wrote:
> I don't know the history, but looking around there a
> bit it seems to
> me that it'd be futile to try and collaborate with a
> project run by
> people so bitter and twisted...

There have been major misunderstandings on both sides.
There are a vocal few who seem to really hate
Wikipedia, but there seem to be others who want to
cooperate.

Stephen G.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Axel Boldt wrote:
> > Administratively, this is very nice. If they want
> a change in software,
> > configuration, or hardware, they have to do it
> themselves. Less work
> > for us, more control for them. I expect that many
> active international
> > Wikipedias will go that route over time.
>
> I expect and hope for the opposite, a united world
> community, working
> together in peace and harmony for the betterment of
> all.  I oppose
> Balkanization, or the assumption that differences
> are more important
> than similarities.
>
> There are many benefits to working together -- a
> positive change to
> internationalization features will benefit all
> languages, not just
> one.  Going off into separate groups, with separate
> servers, separate
> software is a step away from harmony.

A world-wide community doesn't have to use the same
server. Part of the tension we've had with the other
language projects is that they feel the people running
the server haven't been responsive to them. If the
contributors have control over their server, this
problem is eliminated.

We don't need a centralized server to work as one
organization.

Stephen G.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the
> mailing list clearly
> feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy
> pages, so vive la
> revolution!

Silly. The rest of me who subscribes to the list
thinks it is:

a) foolish to lock the policy pages for fear of people
changing them, and

b) foolish to advocate changing them whenever you
disagree with what they say.

In the case of a, I've all ready made my arguments;
check the list archives if you're interested.

As for b, it's always been my understanding the the
policy pages are simply descriptive; actual policy
comes from working on the encyclopedia and discussing
things with your fellow Wikipedians. The policy pages
simply describe the results of that process. Directly
editing those pages in order to *change* policy
negates any possible value of the pages. As Brion
said, they don't define policy, they describe it. Your
idea of editing the policy pages to come to a
consensus, rather than coming to a consensus and then
describing it, is similiar to re-writing your
dictionary to change the meaning of words.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the mailing list clearly
>feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy pages, so vive la
>revolution!

Well, *I* certainly don't think that they need to be locked down.
I don't think that even [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines]]
needs to be locked down -- it's on my watch list, I'll fix it.
We just need to remember to be vigilant for suspicious edits,
like anonymous IDs, new users that we don't recognise, and you
(that is, people that may not know to discuss policy changes).
That should be easy enough; ensure accuracy and NPOV on these pages
just as on encyclop?dia articles.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] OneLook

body:
--- Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de> wrote:
> > I just tried your example, along with other
> multi-word
> > searches, and they worked fine for me. What
> browser
> > are you using?
>
> As Brion already guessed: Netscape 4 dot something.

I've emailed Doug at OneLook and asked if he could
replace the %20's with plus signs.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>Well, if people aren't allowed to edit the pages without review from the
>mailing list--and pretty much everyone who's on the mailing list can
>have (or should have, IMHO) sysop priveleges, then the pages are in
>effect locked down. And if they're in effect locked down, then they
>should be locked down. Otherwise there's a logical disconnect.
>
>When I said "lock down" I meant "prevent unauthorized edits". It doesn't
>matter if that prevention is done through technology or practice--it all
>amounts to the same thing.

Locked down against whom?  Where's the fire?  Aside from vandals, you're the only person I can think of who has changed them to read something which is not policy.

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> How can one edit a policy page without changing the
> policy? (Barring
> pages like Votes for deletion that is a combination
> of
> policy-non-policy).

Ok, I admit it. I'm confused. I'm trying to say that
policy should be changed first, and then the
description should be updated to reflect the change.
You seem to be saying that the description should be
changed first, and then discussed. Your argument
doesn't make sense to me (or most other people, it
seems).

There are lots of ways to edit the policy pages
without changing the policy they describe: correcting
typos and grammar, linking, re-writing for clarity.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Jeroen Heijmans

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>I didn't say that was a good option. But let me ask you; why do you
>ignore the explicit policy?
>
The policy I follow is the "de facto" policy. These are mostly based on
the policy on the pages, but if I see that it is common use to do
something slightly different (and by common I mean it is done by other
sysops), I'll accept it as "de facto" policy. I do occasionally check
for changes on the policy pages, but when these seem to be made by
individuals rather than by consensus or majority vote, I take the same
liberty as the person that singlehandedly updated the policy and ignore it.

>No. Direct editing should be the first choice; not the only choice. And
>you're confusing two different threads here; I was adding to Engels'
>list, not delineating my own conception.
>
OK, from your previous mails it appeared your opinion was that direct
editing was (in your eyes) the only choice - but that's apparently not
what you meant.

>There is an equivalent to the NPOV, and that is consensus. Your belief
>that changing policy to your personal opinion would automatically mess
>things up is based on flawed reasoning.
>
How exactly do we reach consensus by just editing policy pages right away?


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Monday 30 September 2002 09:33 pm, you wrote:
> We don't need a centralized server to work as one
> organization.
>
> Stephen G.

Isn't that the point though? EL is not part of our project. The Spanish
Wikipedia is. Jimbo's position is beggining to gain my favor. It is far
simpler for us to simply upgrade Spanish Wikipedia and for Wikipediaholics
like me and AstroNomer to revitalize the Spanish WIki than it is for us to
deal with a separate project alltogether.

If another language Wikipedia wants to be on its own server then that is
another thing but EL is not a Wikipedia language community.

We should ask them to re-join our community and remove their slander (keeping
their own server or not); if they say yes, then lets point our es: links to
them, but if they say no then let's fire-up the Spanish Wikipedia on Phase
III.

I'm now /not/ in favor of having our inter-language links go to a
non-Wikipedia project at all.

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Mon, 2002-09-30 at 21:19, Toby Bartels wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> >Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the mailing list clearly
> >feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy pages, so vive la
> >revolution!
>
> Well, *I* certainly don't think that they need to be locked down.
> I don't think that even [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines]]
> needs to be locked down -- it's on my watch list, I'll fix it.
> We just need to remember to be vigilant for suspicious edits,
> like anonymous IDs, new users that we don't recognise, and you
> (that is, people that may not know to discuss policy changes).
> That should be easy enough; ensure accuracy and NPOV on these pages
> just as on encyclop?dia articles.

Well, if people aren't allowed to edit the pages without review from the
mailing list--and pretty much everyone who's on the mailing list can
have (or should have, IMHO) sysop priveleges, then the pages are in
effect locked down. And if they're in effect locked down, then they
should be locked down. Otherwise there's a logical disconnect.

When I said "lock down" I meant "prevent unauthorized edits". It doesn't
matter if that prevention is done through technology or practice--it all
amounts to the same thing.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Mon, 2002-09-30 at 21:18, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> --- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the
> > mailing list clearly
> > feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy
> > pages, so vive la
> > revolution!
>
> Silly. The rest of me who subscribes to the list
> thinks it is:
>
> a) foolish to lock the policy pages for fear of people
> changing them, and
>
> b) foolish to advocate changing them whenever you
> disagree with what they say.
>
> In the case of a, I've all ready made my arguments;
> check the list archives if you're interested.
>
> As for b, it's always been my understanding the the
> policy pages are simply descriptive; actual policy
> comes from working on the encyclopedia and discussing
> things with your fellow Wikipedians. The policy pages
> simply describe the results of that process. Directly
> editing those pages in order to *change* policy
> negates any possible value of the pages. As Brion
> said, they don't define policy, they describe it. Your
> idea of editing the policy pages to come to a
> consensus, rather than coming to a consensus and then
> describing it, is similiar to re-writing your
> dictionary to change the meaning of words.

How can one edit a policy page without changing the policy? (Barring
pages like Votes for deletion that is a combination of
policy-non-policy).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Monday 30 September 2002 09:33 pm, you wrote:
> Well, *I* certainly don't think that they need to be locked down.
> I don't think that even [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines]]
> needs to be locked down -- it's on my watch list, I'll fix it.
> We just need to remember to be vigilant for suspicious edits,
> like anonymous IDs, new users that we don't recognise, and you
> (that is, people that may not know to discuss policy changes).
> That should be easy enough; ensure accuracy and NPOV on these pages
> just as on encyclop?dia articles.
>
>
> -- Toby

But they are /not/ encyclopedia articles, or even talk pages for that matter.
Therefore normal rules of editing do not really apply.

At the very least there needs to be boilerplate on those pages mentioning
that they are policy/guidelines/conventions/style guides/rules to consider
etc. and also have statements indicating how each page type should be edited;
policy of course can't be changed by fiat; neither can conventions (although
there should be a bit more wiggle-room here), style guides are somewhat open
to unilateral change (although you should expect protests and reverts) and of
course rules to consider can be edited fairly liberally.

Just some thoughts.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Mon, 2002-09-30 at 23:04, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:.
>
> Locked down against whom?  Where's the fire?  Aside from vandals,
> you're the only person I can think of who has changed them to read
> something which is not policy.

And when was that?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 00:08, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > How can one edit a policy page without changing the
> > policy? (Barring
> > pages like Votes for deletion that is a combination
> > of
> > policy-non-policy).
>
> Ok, I admit it. I'm confused. I'm trying to say that
> policy should be changed first, and then the
> description should be updated to reflect the change.
> You seem to be saying that the description should be
> changed first, and then discussed. Your argument
> doesn't make sense to me (or most other people, it
> seems).

A lot of it comes down to a definition of "policy". What is it? Is it
what people do? Is it what it says on the pages? Is it an admixture of
the two? Is it what the most active contributor to Wikipedia at the time
does? Etc. etc.

What I'm saying is that most changes to policy don't need to be
discussed.

If that assertion is true, then the best meta-policy is to by default
just change the policy.

Does that reduction make more sense?

> There are lots of ways to edit the policy pages
> without changing the policy they describe: correcting
> typos and grammar, linking, re-writing for clarity.

None of those change the policy much (but they do change the
policy--it's not a black and white thing) except for "re-writing for
clarity". One man's clarity is another man's pea soup.


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

body:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.193.88.12

this guy keeps making stupid comments on the OsmosisTwo page (which, as
far as Mav & I can tell was created in error in the first place)
i've checked his edits: his most contentious seems to be on  [[gun
politics]] , butI'm not entirely sure about, being a Brit.

it's close to 2 in the morning here so i'm not entirely sure if he's
harmlessly pratting about, or winding us up on purpose, or practising
for some real hardcore vandalism.

i'm tempted to ban this person, but I could be prejudiced by the silly
little edit war on OsmosisTwo.
this is one to keep a watch on, at least

tarquin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 01:48, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> But they are /not/ encyclopedia articles, or even talk pages for that matter.
> Therefore normal rules of editing do not really apply.
>
> At the very least there needs to be boilerplate on those pages mentioning
> that they are policy/guidelines/conventions/style guides/rules to consider
> etc. and also have statements indicating how each page type should be edited;
> policy of course can't be changed by fiat; neither can conventions (although
> there should be a bit more wiggle-room here), style guides are somewhat open
> to unilateral change (although you should expect protests and reverts) and of
> course rules to consider can be edited fairly liberally.
>
These ideas represent exactly the kind of stultification and
bureaucratization I fear.

To be less vaguely disapproving, I'll say that the fewer rules there
are, the better. And the fewer rules about the rules, even better.

It is *crucial* to recognize that by comparison to the number of
Wikipedians in the future, the collective number of participants on this
mailing list is effectively equivalent to a single person. So policies
that are hashed out on the mailing list right now are little better than
ones done "unilaterally" or "by fiat". And in reality, all policies at
Wikipedia derive from policy decisions made "by fiat" by Jimbo. "By
fiat" isn't a) inherently evil and b) inherently the province of single
editors.

Decisions made by committees aren't much better than decisions made by
trustworthy individuals. In fact, they're often worse.

If you find that reasonable, then the question of trustworthiness
arises, which is another interesting and fruitful discussion.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 01:39, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Monday 30 September 2002 09:33 pm, you wrote:
> > We don't need a centralized server to work as one
> > organization.
> >
> > Stephen G.
>
> Isn't that the point though? EL is not part of our project. The Spanish
> Wikipedia is. Jimbo's position is beggining to gain my favor. It is far
> simpler for us to simply upgrade Spanish Wikipedia and for Wikipediaholics
> like me and AstroNomer to revitalize the Spanish WIki than it is for us to
> deal with a separate project alltogether.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] View and restore deleted pages

body:
On Sun, 2002-09-29 at 02:02, Brion VIBBER wrote:
> I've added a (presently for sysops only) Special:Undelete, which should
> appear as "View and restore deleted pages" in the special pages list. It
> lists the archived deleted pages (the majority of which are pure drivel
> and should be flushed at some point), and you can view the archived
> pages and their histories and optionally restore them to life.

Thanks. This is pretty amazing. Honestly. A few suggestions:

a) Pages with slashes seem to defeat the software.

b) Sorting power! Sort by date of deletion, sort by # of revisions, sort
by article length. Yay!

c) hide the leading ":".

By the way, what happens if you try to restore a page that has been
recreated?

Again, really great.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

in_reply_to: <3D9880A9.8030501@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Mon, Sep 30, 2002 at 09:49:45AM -0700

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> There's even something healthy about having more than one active
> project, in that if anything happens to one, the other is still there.

I think this is true.

> If supporting EL were to be considered as a viable first choice, I would
> be inclined to ask questions about their long term financial viability.
>  What guarantee is there that they will not be a refuge for spamvertising?

Well, financial viability is pretty easy for a wiki encyclopedia, I
think.  There is no need for employees, at least not for the central
mission of the encyclopedia, and so all that's needed is a server and
bandwidth.  Both are getting cheaper all the time.

I'm not sure what you meant by "spamvertising" versus "advertising".
In my mind, the distinction would be between advertising that is kept
clearly separate from the content (banners, for example) versus
advertising that masquerades as content (pseudo-articles touting some
product, for example).  I see little chance of this happening to them.

My concern is that they might take a particular political turn,
abandoning NPOV to write an encyclopedia from a particular political
point of view.  There's nothing wrong with someone doing that, of
course.  I fully expect some motivated Christians to someday take the
wikipedia content and "clean it up" to suit their perspective.

But it's not o.k. for wikipedia, which aims to be NPOV and a sort of
"reference standard" that others can use for such purposes.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> A world-wide community doesn't have to use the same
> server. Part of the tension we've had with the other
> language projects is that they feel the people running
> the server haven't been responsive to them. If the
> contributors have control over their server, this
> problem is eliminated.

Well, I think that happened back when I was a major bottleneck at the
server level.  Currently, we have several people who can do stuff on
the server, which reduces the bottleneck considerably.

> We don't need a centralized server to work as one
> organization.

Right, but we do need one organization to work as one organization.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> How can one edit a policy page without changing the policy? (Barring
> pages like Votes for deletion that is a combination of
> policy-non-policy).

Well, I think what he meant is that _merely_ editing a policy page doesn't
change people's actual views and behaviors.  Only communication and consensus
can do that.

A vandal right now could edit a policy page to say "Alwayz spel
wr0ng."  That wouldn't make it policy.

Similarly, editing the policy page to say "wait a week before
deleting" doesn't _automatically_ make it real-world policy... only a
shared consensus makes it policy.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> What I'm saying is that most changes to policy don't need to be
> discussed.

Oh, but this can't be right.  If policy isn't discussed, and people
don't read the policy pages regularly (and they don't), then the
policy pages don't have a strong impact on existing members.  The
policy pages are there mostly to orient newcomers, and to serve as a
"reference" for the rest of us to remember what some consensus was in
the past.

If you change a policy page today, I might not see it.  (I confess to
not looking at RecentChanges every day.)  Then I'll go on my merry way
doing things the "old way".

The only real policy change comes when a majority or consensus of
participants achieves a change of heart and change of mind on a
subject.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> From my perspective, and perhaps others, EL is part of our project. The
> project of building a universal WikiWiki-based GFDL encyclopedia is what
> I care about.

In a broad sense, this is true.  But they do not consider themselves a
part of our project, nor should we expect them to.  I don't respect
all their reasons for breaking away -- but I do respect what they are
doing... as an independent project.

> And if we all think of the project in these broad terms, then our
> particular implementation will generally win out; embrace and extend.

I think that's right.

> Then again, if you want to do the scutwork of competing with EL instead
> of working them back into the fold, then who am I to stop you? (Answer:
> no-one.) Just seems like there are better things to do.

I'm not sure we can draw such a sharp distinction between "competing
with EL" and "working them back into the fold".

Either _outcome_ would be fine with me: they eventually quit their
project and come "back home" to us, or they continue on their own
separate noble effort with our best wishes.  Linux and FreeBSD,
perhaps.  We can learn from each other, adopt each other's best
practices, and proceed in parallel -- or we can become one big
community.

The main thing that I would be opposed to doing is shutting down
es.wikipedia.com.  I think that effectively says that Spanish speakers
are not welcome in the wikipedia community.  It'd be like Linux
developers saying "Since FreeBSD uses technology X, we refuse to use
it, and if anyone wants to use it, they should go away."

Maybe that's not a perfect analogy.

I think that the main thing is that there be no hostility between us.
We wish them well, even the ones who hate us, to the extent that their
mission involves more than hating us, at least :-).

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

in_reply_to: <3D994DE1.3070709@epost.de>; from magnus.manske@epost.de on Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 09:25:21AM +0200

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> 1. Why can't we just talk to them (EL) in English? I'm pretty sure most
> of the people speak at least limited English (would be hard being on the
> Internet otherwise;) Just say "sorry, my Spanish isn't good enough for
> that".

I have no opposition to that, but I think a part of the problem is
that they are offended by American Imperialism and the like.

> 2. Then, it could either be Jimbo talking to them, which might look
> funny, as he is the big bad company boss himself trying to lure the
> Spanish into his capitalistic trap ;) or Lee, as the author suggesting
> the new software for starters.

Right, well, I am happy to talk to anyone, but I think it's best for
diplomacy for me to just give my blessing to peace talks, and to say
that as far as I'm concerned, they are good people with a good mission
and we'd love to have them back.

> 3. Offer access to the wikipedia.org server for the one running the EL
> server, in a way that he can get a database dump any time. So, if we go
> AOL or M$, the database of the day before would still live free.

That sounds good to me.

> 4. The EL could become the first read-only wikipedia, with the edit
> links pointing to es.wikipedia.org. That would give some ground to
> compromise on.

I think that there are some "points of pride" here, though.  I think
it would be great for them to do that, but they may have enough of a
local culture going on there to want to do it their way.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

body:
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.19
>3.88.12
>
>this guy keeps making stupid comments on the OsmosisTwo page (which, as
>far as Mav & I can tell was created in error in the first place)
>i've checked his edits: his most contentious seems to be on  [[gun
>politics]] , butI'm not entirely sure about, being a Brit.
>
>it's close to 2 in the morning here so i'm not entirely sure if he's
>harmlessly pratting about, or winding us up on purpose, or practising
>for some real hardcore vandalism.
>
>i'm tempted to ban this person, but I could be prejudiced by the silly
>little edit war on OsmosisTwo.
>this is one to keep a watch on, at least
>
>tarquin

It seems personal to you, starting with [[gun politics]]. He was apparently
there trying to create a simpler restatement of the issues that read a bit
easier, at the cost of leaving out some information. A worthy goal, but
rather annoying. Your response, to leave both the wordy list and his new
elegant list in, and the remark, "are you happy now?", seem a bit snappy as
applied to someone who had never edited an article before. I would say this
contributor got off on the wrong foot and things have progressed downhill
from there. Perhaps not focusing on him would do more good than "watching"
him.

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
You Wrote:
>I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within
>an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo
>for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.

I don't like them, personally, and typically move them to talk pages.  As far as I'm concerned, *all* articles on wikipedia are works in progress, so I expect all of them to need expansion in one way or another.  I also think they're a bit jarring.  I guess I'm not postmodernist enough.  :-/

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 00:08, Stephen Gilbert wrote:

> > Ok, I admit it. I'm confused. I'm trying to say
> that
> > policy should be changed first, and then the
> > description should be updated to reflect the
> change.
> > You seem to be saying that the description should
> be
> > changed first, and then discussed. Your argument
> > doesn't make sense to me (or most other people, it
> > seems).
>
> A lot of it comes down to a definition of "policy".
> What is it? Is it
> what people do? Is it what it says on the pages? Is
> it an admixture of
> the two? Is it what the most active contributor to
> Wikipedia at the time
> does? Etc. etc.

I look at Wikipedia policy as an agreement made
between Wikipedians on how to handle various issues.

> What I'm saying is that most changes to policy don't
> need to be
> discussed.

An odd thing to say, if policy is an agreement made
between people.

> If that assertion is true, then the best meta-policy
> is to by default
> just change the policy.
>
> Does that reduction make more sense?

Well, it confirms what I thought you were saying.

> > There are lots of ways to edit the policy pages
> > without changing the policy they describe:
> correcting
> > typos and grammar, linking, re-writing for
> clarity.
>
> None of those change the policy much (but they do
> change the
> policy--it's not a black and white thing)...

No, they change the pages that describe the policy.
The pages don't *define* the policy, so making
corrections and links to the *decription* doesn't
change the policy.

Let's pretent you and I are making an agreement. The
agreement is that I will borrow $20 from you now, and
pay you back $30 at the end of the month. Now, we
write this down so we'll remember:

"The Cunctator agrees to land Stephen Gilbert $20. On
October 31, Stephen will pay him back $30."

Oops, there's a typo. You correct it; "land" becomes
"lend". Has our agreement changed?

> ...except for
> "re-writing for
> clarity". One man's clarity is another man's pea
> soup.

We agree on this, at least. :)

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Maybe the least contentious way to solve the problem is for native English
speakers to write in English, then to have that translated into Spanish,
and for native Spanish speakers to write in Spanish, then to have that
translated into English.  I'm sure we have enough bilingual people who
could help with this.

One thing that's important for us to find out (whether by asking directly,
or some other way) is what needs to be changed before they'll come back.
It's entirely possible that the reason they don't want to rejoin the
project is simply that they (or this "vocal minority" we hear about) find
the idea of being associated with a project hosted on a U.S. server to be
odious--period.  If so, there's not much point in negotiating with that
"vocal minority" in particular.

But the reason could be, instead, that there is still some lingering doubt
that advertising will be started.  That was the most important sticking
point, I thought, that led to the departure in the first place.  In *that*
case, Jimbo could make a statement to the Spanish community (translated,
of course) to the effect that he hereby declares that there will never
ever be advertising on Wikipedia as long as his servers are hosting the
project.  (Of course, he's already said something to that effect a few
times, but it wouldn't hurt to say it again, explicitly as a part of a
kind invitation to come back.)

Other sticking points could be explicitly addressed in like fashion as
part of an invitation to come back.  For example, we will go out of our
way to make sure that Wikipedia generally is not made U.S.-centric--that
it remains fully an *international* encyclopedia.  Another example: if
anyone ever does become an employee of the project, it will have to be a
result of community consensus that there really is a need for it; *no one*
should benefit off the backs of volunteers.  Another: you don't have to
use the Wikipedia name as part of your logo; call yourselves anything you
want.  We can set up es.wikipedia.com so that it points to a more
palatable domain name.  In short, clearly and explicitly (and in Spanish)
offer them everything they could possibly want, and couple that with a
lover's "come back come back!" and we might just get them back.  (I'm not
holding my breath, but it could happen.  We did get the Polish Wikipedia
back into the fold, y'know...though their complaints weren't as hard-felt,
and they never declared themselves separate from the project.)

Two other points you might explain are the benefits of being part of the
more general Wikipedia community (which are not slight), and the fact that
we have no intention of ever removing es.wikipedia.com.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > A world-wide community doesn't have to use the
> same
> > server. Part of the tension we've had with the
> other
> > language projects is that they feel the people
> running
> > the server haven't been responsive to them. If the
> > contributors have control over their server, this
> > problem is eliminated.
>
> Well, I think that happened back when I was a major
> bottleneck at the
> server level.  Currently, we have several people who
> can do stuff on
> the server, which reduces the bottleneck
> considerably.

It wasn't meant as a personal dig. I simply mean that
the people who are most enthusiastic about any given
language project are the people who speak that
language. English speakers are more likely to think of
the English Wikipedia (which is also the parent
project, and the largest) as the most important. Thus,
the English Wikipedia will always have the most
up-to-date software, etc. If the Spanish contributors
have control of their own server, they can perform
their own upgrades without having to go through people
who are not active participants in their sub-project.

Note that agree with you that the various language
projects should use the same software.

> > We don't need a centralized server to work as one
> > organization.
>
> Right, but we do need one organization to work as
> one organization.

Absolutely. That's why I'm enthusiastic and optimistic
about convincing the EL to work under the Wikipedia
name once again.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
--- Khendon <jason at jasonandali.org.uk> wrote:
> I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on
> "metacomments" within
> an article text - "More should be written here",
> "See WikiProject Foo
> for help with editing this page", "Is this
> correct?", and so on.
>
> I'm of the opinion that things like this should
> almost always
> be in the Talk page. Having them in the article
> looks tacky and
> unprofessional. Only things that directly affect
> "customers"
> should be in the article, I'd say.

There's no specific consensus on such meta-comments
(however, you'll have to ask the WikiProject folks
about the "See WikiProject" ones).

In Wikipedia's early days, it was quite common to add
such comments. It now seems to be frowned upon as more
and more people use Wikipedia articles as references.
I usually move them to the talk page.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] [rubenste@ohiou.edu: Re: help?]

body:
I'm forwarding this to wikitech-l so more knowledgeable people might
comment and help Steven.

----- Forwarded message from "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> -----

From: "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 11:59:38 -0400
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Re: help?

Hi,

For the past three days or so, whenever I try to access my "watchlist," I
get this:

Warning: open(/tmp/sess_f0af9a7ae314037cd076e6d2ae285f73, O_RDWR) failed:
Too many open files in system (23) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml
on line 7

Warning: Failed opening 'Setup.php' for inclusion
(include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 12

Fatal error: Undefined class name 'outputpage' in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml on line 14

Warning: open(/tmp/sess_f0af9a7ae314037cd076e6d2ae285f73, O_RDWR) failed:
Too many open files in system (23) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the
current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in Unknown on line 0

Is this a bug in the system, or am I doing something wrong (and remediable)?

Thanks,
Steve
----- End forwarded message -----


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

in_reply_to: <1033489919.3733.2.camel@mercury.mit.edu>; from cunctator@kband.com on Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 12:31:59PM -0400

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Of course I can. But can you see my point, too? Can you see how
> decisions made by a few dozen people is not much different from
> decisions made by one person, in comparison to a population of, say, one
> million, or even ten thousand?

In the abstract, I can see your point.  But, right now, we have only a
few dozen people who care about policy, and we need to make sure to
reach all of them.  When we are ten thousand policy-interested people
in the future, well, we will have to find a mechanism in the future to
accomodate that growth.

Certainly, random bold updating of policy pages is not likely to be an
effective mechanism at that point for the communication of policy
changes.  Nor is talking about it casually in email.

Fortunately, though, we don't have those problems today.  Today, as we
are doing here and now, we talk about policy primarily on the mailing
list.  This has proven to be better, all round, than the alternatives.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

in_reply_to: <1033490092.3733.6.camel@mercury.mit.edu>; from cunctator@kband.com on Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 12:34:52PM -0400

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Sorry. I should have said: "most changes to policy *pages* don't need to
> be discussed *before they are made* (but if they indicate a meaningful
> change to policy, they definitely need to be brought to the attention of
> as many people as possible)."

O.k., then, I think you are right.  Most changes to policy pages will
not be material changes.  Often, they will be changes to reflect a
change in current practices that has been tried and tested over a
period of time.  That is, the policy pages will usually lag actual
consensus.

I'd just suggest that if anyone thinks that changing policy _pages_
actually changes _policy_, they're mistaken.  I don't think the
majority of regular contributors even look at those pages very often.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

body:
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.
>>>19
>>>3.88.12
>>>
>>>this guy keeps making stupid comments on the OsmosisTwo page (which, as
>>>far as Mav & I can tell was created in error in the first place)
>>>i've checked his edits: his most contentious seems to be on  [[gun
>>>politics]] , butI'm not entirely sure about, being a Brit.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>It seems personal to you, starting with [[gun politics]]. He was apparently
>>there trying to create a simpler restatement of the issues that read a bit
>>easier, at the cost of leaving out some information. A worthy goal, but
>>rather annoying. Your response, to leave both the wordy list and his new
>>elegant list in, and the remark, "are you happy now?", seem a bit snappy as
>>applied to someone who had never edited an article before. I would say this
>>contributor got off on the wrong foot and things have progressed downhill
>>from there. Perhaps not focusing on him would do more good than "watching"
>>him.
>>
>I'm inclined to agree in the light of day.
>You should have seen his comments on OsmosisTwo, he kept editing that
>page to say "tarquin is part of the cabal and wants to delete OsmosisTwo".
>Annoying.

And wrong-headed besides...

It's probably not good to characterize him as vermin, however (pest).

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How policy is formed on Wikipedia

body:
Clearly, policy is formed through the give and take between what regular contributors habitually do, and discussions _about_ these contributions. As Stephen pointed out, the "policy pages" are more a reflection of what we all have already come to agreement (or at least consensus) on.

However, there is nothing wrong with letting J. Random User edit any of the policy pages. If their idea is good, the regular crew will likely adopt it. If it's egregiously bad, someone will revert it.

I would prefer, if someone reverts a dumb policy idea, that they copy the deleted text to talk and discuss it. We could also bring the issue, if warranted to the mailing list for further discussion (a la Larry Sanger).

We could even _invite_ the person who started it, to join the mailing list.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> My two cents on the whole discussion:
>
> 1. Why can't we just talk to them (EL) in English? I'm pretty sure
> most of the people speak at least limited English (would be hard being
> on the Internet otherwise;) Just say "sorry, my Spanish isn't good
> enough for that".

That is a very US-centric  attitute (or English-centric, your pick).
There are whole swathes of the internet which don't speak English.
And you've inadvertently demonstrated one of the reasons they split from
the main Wikipedia site.

I'm in favour of some sort of un-forking.
There's no point in a duplication of effort between EL and es:wikipedia.

Personally, I would prefer that thinks with direct links from a
Wikipedia site be *also* called "Wikipedia", or some derivation of it,
such as the Esperanto Vikipedio.
The point was raised that in Spanish, "wiki" is an unnatural foreign
word. Since it's Hawaiian, I would say it's pretty unnatural &
foreign-sounding in English too.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
My two cents on the whole discussion:

1. Why can't we just talk to them (EL) in English? I'm pretty sure most
of the people speak at least limited English (would be hard being on the
Internet otherwise;) Just say "sorry, my Spanish isn't good enough for
that".
2. Then, it could either be Jimbo talking to them, which might look
funny, as he is the big bad company boss himself trying to lure the
Spanish into his capitalistic trap ;) or Lee, as the author suggesting
the new software for starters.
3. Offer access to the wikipedia.org server for the one running the EL
server, in a way that he can get a database dump any time. So, if we go
AOL or M$, the database of the day before would still live free.
4. The EL could become the first read-only wikipedia, with the edit
links pointing to es.wikipedia.org. That would give some ground to
compromise on.

I'm sure all of that has been mentioned before, I just forgot ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
At 02:21 AM 10/1/02 -0400, you wrote:
>On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 01:48, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> > But they are /not/ encyclopedia articles, or even talk pages for that
> matter.
> > Therefore normal rules of editing do not really apply.
> >
> > At the very least there needs to be boilerplate on those pages mentioning
> > that they are policy/guidelines/conventions/style guides/rules to consider
> > etc. and also have statements indicating how each page type should be
> edited;
> > policy of course can't be changed by fiat; neither can conventions
> (although
> > there should be a bit more wiggle-room here), style guides are somewhat
> open
> > to unilateral change (although you should expect protests and reverts)
> and of
> > course rules to consider can be edited fairly liberally.
> >
>These ideas represent exactly the kind of stultification and
>bureaucratization I fear.
>
>To be less vaguely disapproving, I'll say that the fewer rules there
>are, the better. And the fewer rules about the rules, even better.
>
>It is *crucial* to recognize that by comparison to the number of
>Wikipedians in the future, the collective number of participants on this
>mailing list is effectively equivalent to a single person. So policies
>that are hashed out on the mailing list right now are little better than
>ones done "unilaterally" or "by fiat".

No. It's open to anyone who wants to be here, and if people use
informative subject lines, someone can choose to read only the
policy-related messages.

Can you really not see the difference between something one person
does, and something a few dozen discuss?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Khendon

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 09:15:30AM +0100, tarquin wrote:
> >1. Why can't we just talk to them (EL) in English? I'm pretty sure
> >most of the people speak at least limited English (would be hard being
> >on the Internet otherwise;) Just say "sorry, my Spanish isn't good
> >enough for that".
>
> That is a very US-centric  attitute (or English-centric, your pick).
> There are whole swathes of the internet which don't speak English.
> And you've inadvertently demonstrated one of the reasons they split from
> the main Wikipedia site.

Well, *one* of the two groups is going to have to speak the other's
language. Why not use English as the common language?

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
At 09:15 AM 10/1/02 +0100, Tarquin wrote:

>Personally, I would prefer that thinks with direct links from a Wikipedia
>site be *also* called "Wikipedia", or some derivation of it, such as the
>Esperanto Vikipedio.
>The point was raised that in Spanish, "wiki" is an unnatural foreign word.
>Since it's Hawaiian, I would say it's pretty unnatural & foreign-sounding
>in English too.
Not really: the phonemes are plausible in English, and the letters are
letters we
use all the time. In Spanish, "w" and "k" say "this is a foreign word".
Now, if we'd
borrowed from (say) a Mexican language and come up with something like
"Tloucixpedia", that would look and feel un-English.

I wonder if "Huiquipedia" would be more familiar and comfortable to native
speakers of Spanish.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
At 11:21 AM 10/1/02 +0100, Khendon wrote:
>On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 10:29:36AM +0100, tarquin wrote:
> > >>That is a very US-centric  attitute (or English-centric, your pick).
> > >>There are whole swathes of the internet which don't speak English.
> > >>And you've inadvertently demonstrated one of the reasons they split from
> > >>the main Wikipedia site.
> > >
> > >Well, *one* of the two groups is going to have to speak the other's
> > >language. Why not use English as the common language?
> > >
> > Then by the same argument, why not use Spanish?
>
>Because if you have to pick one, it makes sense to pick the one that
>people are most likely to know. There's no bigotry involved, it's
>simple numbers.

It may not be bigotry, but I suspect a certain amount of
English-centrism or simple laziness: it's easy to argue that other people
should use my language, rather than me using theirs, because that
will make my life easier.

>  Or would I be wrong in thinking that the proportion
>of Spanish-speaking people who also speak English is much higher
>than the proportion of English-speaking people who also speak
>Spanish?

I have no idea. But it doesn't matter. In the real world of trying to solve
this, we *know* that the people who started EL are offended by the
English-centric approach. (By sheer numbers I could justify editing
all articles on the assumption that people are female, because a majority
of humans are.) They left because they felt excluded. We want to urge
them to rejoin. Demanding that they use English for a negotiation that
we want and they don't seem to won't accomplish anything useful.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
I think we need to ask ourselves precisely what we want EL to do:

1) Change the name back to Wikipedia or a convenient Spanish version of
that word.

2) Use Phase III software.

3) Provide language links to wikipedia.org.

4) Run off our server.

5) Formally rejoin our project.

You can have some of these without the others. Personally, I think 2 &
4 are the least important; it's up to them to find the best
infrastructure which suits them. 3) is certainly desirable, even in the
absense of all the others. 5) would be very nice and probably implies
3), but 5) does not imply 2) or 4). 1) probably implies 5), but does 5)
imply 1)? In other words, could we live with a member of the Wikipedia
family which calls itself Enciclopedia Libre?

Axel

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

in_reply_to:
<3D98F03A.4040800@planetunreal.com> from tarquin at "Oct 1, 2002
 01:45:46 am"

body:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.193.88.12
>
> this guy keeps making stupid comments on the OsmosisTwo page (which, as
> far as Mav & I can tell was created in error in the first place)
> i've checked his edits: his most contentious seems to be on  [[gun
> politics]] , butI'm not entirely sure about, being a Brit.

Checking his changes, I find that there are indeed some very doubtful ones -
getting into an edit war on [[gun politics]], putting in POV under the claim
of NPOV in [[Bicycling]], and vandalizing other people's comments on
[[Talk:History of the Soviet Union]].

> it's close to 2 in the morning here so i'm not entirely sure if he's
> harmlessly pratting about, or winding us up on purpose, or practising
> for some real hardcore vandalism.

I do get the impression that it's meant quite serious - I think that it's
someone who actually wants to help Wikipedia, but just needs to be taught
the way NPOV is practised around here. That if there is something one does
not agree with, one does not replace it with one's own opinion, but tries
to find a middle road.

> i'm tempted to ban this person, but I could be prejudiced by the silly
> little edit war on OsmosisTwo.
> this is one to keep a watch on, at least

That's for sure. However, banning does not help - the IP is dynamic. The
same person also appears as 128.193.88.28 and 128.193.88.60. Would it be
possible to change the search function for user contributions so that
it is possible to get all user contributions from 128.193.88.anything?

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
I don't like metacomments, especially if they are personalized like "I
will add this later" or "Add the date if you know it", "if you are from
London, join in", etc.

I think that in rare circumstances, they can be useful to the reader
though. When I write about a topic and I know that I omitted a major
aspect of it, because I ran out of time or I don't know enough, then I
sometimes add a metacomment to the article, informing the reader of the
omission. That way, they won't walk away thinking they got the full
story. It's just a matter of  honesty in that case, and it's especially
important if people want to use the article as reference material.

Axel

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Community building and EL

body:
The best way to draw someone into your community is to go out of your way to please them. Shower them with gifts (as Jacob did with Esau). Try to speak to them in their own language, even if your attempts make native toddlers seem eloquent in comparison.

If we English-speaking wikipedians offer free help to those speaking other languages, what's not to like?

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
Khendon wrote:

>On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 09:15:30AM +0100, tarquin wrote:
>
>
>>>1. Why can't we just talk to them (EL) in English? I'm pretty sure
>>>most of the people speak at least limited English (would be hard being
>>>on the Internet otherwise;) Just say "sorry, my Spanish isn't good
>>>enough for that".
>>>
>>>
>>That is a very US-centric  attitute (or English-centric, your pick).
>>There are whole swathes of the internet which don't speak English.
>>And you've inadvertently demonstrated one of the reasons they split from
>>the main Wikipedia site.
>>
>>
>
>Well, *one* of the two groups is going to have to speak the other's
>language. Why not use English as the common language?
>
Then by the same argument, why not use Spanish?
I think it was Brion who suggested we use Esperanto. That would be the
fairest option.

we're *really* not going to encourage them back to the Wikipedia with a
"Brit abroad" attitude.
I get the impression that that is the principal source of tension
between en: and the other language 'pedias.


from_name: Tom Parmenter

body:
Contributors to Wikipedia make policy every time they edit *any*
article, not just policy pages.

If you care about a particular policy page, put it on your watch list.

Truculence notwithstanding, The Cuncator has a point.  What Ed Poor
says here is imminently sensible.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
|Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 09:02:06 -0400
|
|Clearly, policy is formed through the give and take between what
|regular contributors habitually do, and discussions _about_ these
|contributions. As Stephen pointed out, the "policy pages" are more a
|reflection of what we all have already come to agreement (or at least
|consensus) on.
|
|However, there is nothing wrong with letting J. Random User edit any
|of the policy pages. If their idea is good, the regular crew will
|likely adopt it. If it's egregiously bad, someone will revert it.
|
|I would prefer, if someone reverts a dumb policy idea, that they copy
|the deleted text to talk and discuss it. We could also bring the
|issue, if warranted to the mailing list for further discussion (a la
|Larry Sanger).
|
|We could even _invite_ the person who started it, to join the mailing list.
|
|Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Propects for future growth

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> My feeling is that if/when we set up the nonprofit, anyone can donate as
> long as they
> understand that all they get is a tax deduction, if applicable.
>
> I'd be strongly against the Wikipedia being sponsored by *any* religious,
> political,
> or ideological organization--they have agendas that don't match that of
> this project.

I agree with all of this.  We're neutral, like Consumer Reports.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> When I said "lock down" I meant "prevent unauthorized edits". It doesn't
> matter if that prevention is done through technology or practice--it all
> amounts to the same thing.

If, as you have said:
a) Editing policy pages creates policy
b) Those who edit policy pages need not have their edit reviewed by any and
   all interested parties including (gasp) members of the mailing list.

Does it not follow that anyone can create policy by fiat?

Do you not think thats a bad thing, because I'd bet dollars to donuts that
almost everyone else with an interest in wikipedia's success does.
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 10:29:36AM +0100, tarquin wrote:
> >>That is a very US-centric  attitute (or English-centric, your pick).
> >>There are whole swathes of the internet which don't speak English.
> >>And you've inadvertently demonstrated one of the reasons they split from
> >>the main Wikipedia site.
> >
> >Well, *one* of the two groups is going to have to speak the other's
> >language. Why not use English as the common language?
> >
> Then by the same argument, why not use Spanish?

Because if you have to pick one, it makes sense to pick the one that
people are most likely to know. There's no bigotry involved, it's
simple numbers. Or would I be wrong in thinking that the proportion
of Spanish-speaking people who also speak English is much higher
than the proportion of English-speaking people who also speak
Spanish?

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Metacomments

body:
On Tuesday 01 October 2002 06:59 am,  Khendon wrote:
> I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within
> an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo
> for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.
>
> I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always
> be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and
> unprofessional. Only things that directly affect "customers"
> should be in the article, I'd say.

I agree and have already stated my reasons why I think WikiProject tags in
articles are a bad idea at;
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._States

I've also taken the liberty of moving each state, province and department
WikiProject tag to their respective talk pages.

Now the only ones I know of that still exist in their articles are on about a
thousand (at least) of the earlier US county articles imported by Ram-Man.
However, Ram-Man already has this on his ToDo list if anybody would like to
help. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ram-Man

Aside: Could somebody rerun the most active stats again? I'm sure Ram-Man has
leap-froged a couple dozen other users since the numbers were last done.

Hell, in a few months, he might even pass me up (esp. if he switches to
creating articles on each US city after he is done creating articles on each
US county -- madness).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Khendon wrote:
>> Well, *one* of the two groups is going to have to speak the other's
>> language. Why not use English as the common language?
>>
> Then by the same argument, why not use Spanish?

I believe the main reason Spanish-speakers are being suggested is that
English-language negotiation on English-language mailing lists was
spectacularly unsuccessful at preventing the fork. Language in
particular may not be at fault, but general cultural mistrust and
misunderstandings seem to have been.

A bunch of Yankees demanding the Spanish surrender their encyclopedia
isn't going to go anywhere -- we need people who are _part of their wiki
community_ to explain why moving back is a preferable option. (May be
difficult -- they have control over their server, they can upgrade to
the phase III software as easily as we can if they care to download it,
and it's not clear whether they would consider the interlanguage links
and Wikipedia name a significant draw.)

> I think it was Brion who suggested we use Esperanto. That would be the
> fairest option.

Wasn't me, but I've no objection. ;) Certainly by definition all our
people at the Esperanto wiki are polyglots, and a fair chunk of us are
active on other-language wikipedias, so I'd like to hope we can serve as
ambassadors from time to time.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
> In general, I think that policy changes should be discussed here
> before changes are made to the policy pages...

I generally agree, but I'd mention one exception explicitly:
brand new policies for things not previously covered.  For example,
if someone knowledgeable wants to create a policy for, say,
transliteration of Kurdish names, he should just go for it, and
invite discussion afterward.  Likewise, when I added the new image
system, I pretty much created the image policy from my own
preferences with little or no discussion (it's been edited and
expanded since then).

So I think older policies should be treated as /stare decisis/,
and only changed after discussion, but newer ones should be more
freely created and freely edited until /after/ they've settled.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 09:32, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> At 02:21 AM 10/1/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >It is *crucial* to recognize that by comparison to the number of
> >Wikipedians in the future, the collective number of participants on this
> >mailing list is effectively equivalent to a single person. So policies
> >that are hashed out on the mailing list right now are little better than
> >ones done "unilaterally" or "by fiat".
>
> No. It's open to anyone who wants to be here, and if people use
> informative subject lines, someone can choose to read only the
> policy-related messages.
>
> Can you really not see the difference between something one person
> does, and something a few dozen discuss?

Of course I can. But can you see my point, too? Can you see how
decisions made by a few dozen people is not much different from
decisions made by one person, in comparison to a population of, say, one
million, or even ten thousand?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 06:31, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > What I'm saying is that most changes to policy don't need to be
> > discussed.
>
> Oh, but this can't be right.  If policy isn't discussed, and people
> don't read the policy pages regularly (and they don't), then the
> policy pages don't have a strong impact on existing members.  The
> policy pages are there mostly to orient newcomers, and to serve as a
> "reference" for the rest of us to remember what some consensus was in
> the past.

Sorry. I should have said: "most changes to policy *pages* don't need to
be discussed *before they are made* (but if they indicate a meaningful
change to policy, they definitely need to be brought to the attention of
as many people as possible)."

I hope that makes it more clear.

Ed Poor has done a better job of expressing what I'm trying to express.
Maybe it's because he's less truculent.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Can a few hundred Wikipedians make a world-class encyclopedia? Will all of human knowledge fit on Jimbo's server farm? Is there a way to keep such a massive collection free of vandalism yet freely changeable?
>
>Much as I admire the spirit of pure voluntarism, I must say that Larry is right about the need for paid staff. We already have a sponsor for the server and bandwidth, and although the physical expenses might be dropping I haven't heard anyone volunteering to take that burden off of Jimbo's shoulders.
>
>What do we need paid staff to do? Primarily, reach out to the academic and professional community and seek their help. With a modest budget for travel to conferences, or for payments to copyright holders, such a leader could bring in some very high quality material.
>
The presence of paid staff can profoundly affect the nature of a
volunteer organization.  A tendency develops to depend on them for all
sorts of things that people should be doing for themselves.  I've seen
several edit wars where someone has lamented that Larry was no longer
around to settle the argument.  A part of growing up is being able to
find your own way to settle arguments without waiting for a thunderbolt
from Zeus.

Ec.

>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 11:37, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > Of course I can. But can you see my point, too? Can you see how
> > decisions made by a few dozen people is not much different from
> > decisions made by one person, in comparison to a population of, say, one
> > million, or even ten thousand?
>
> Fortunately, though, we don't have those problems today.  Today, as we
> are doing here and now, we talk about policy primarily on the mailing
> list.  This has proven to be better, all round, than the alternatives.
>
The are many variations in action; the WikiProject pages are an
alternative that works well; STG's reformulation of the FAQ pages (which
he announced on the mailing list, but the discussion is on the Talk
page) is a good alternative, etc.

A meta-policy of flexibility is what I'm going for. If it seems I've
been arguing for hiding things from the mailing list, I apologize.
That's not the case.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

body:
On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 05:51:37AM -0700, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.19
> >3.88.12
> >
> It seems personal to you, starting with [[gun politics]]. He was apparently
> there trying to create a simpler restatement of the issues that read a bit
> easier, at the cost of leaving out some information. A worthy goal, but
> rather annoying. Your response, to leave both the wordy list and his new
> elegant list in, and the remark, "are you happy now?", seem a bit snappy as
> applied to someone who had never edited an article before. I would say this
> contributor got off on the wrong foot and things have progressed downhill
> from there. Perhaps not focusing on him would do more good than "watching"
> him.

Contributions like:

   It is duplicitious to claim neutrality on this issue, for to even
   consider competing viewpoints is to grant them a credibility that
   they do not deserve.

don't constitute "worthy but misguided" to my mind...

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wikipedia

body:
On Tuesday 01 October 2002 06:59 am, Vicki  wrote:
> I wonder if "Huiquipedia" would be more familiar and comfortable to native
> speakers of Spanish.

I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but I think you are on the right track.

Now that Wikipedia is at .org instead of .com, at least one vocal EL
contributor doesn't like the fact that the English Wikipedia is at
www.wikipedia.org and the other languages are at xx.wikipedia.org/.com. This
person seems to take this URL organization literally and thinks this means
that the non-English wikipedias are somehow subservient to the English one.
Which is reading /way/ too much in a simple URL.

I'm already on record stating that each wikipedia language community should
eventually be at their own domain which is their language's transliteration
of the word "Wikipedia".

But if this issue turns out to be an intractable one, I vote for moving the
English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org -- such a trivial thing is not worth
arguing much about. Then all www.wikipedia.org would be is just a gateway to
the various projects (I still think this is a waste of a URL but I am willing
to acquiesce).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Can a few hundred Wikipedians make a world-class encyclopedia? Will all of human knowledge fit on Jimbo's server farm? Is there a way to keep such a massive collection free of vandalism yet freely changeable?

We'd like to attract and keep bona fide experts (as opposed to slap-happy amateur enthusiasts such as me). Yet historians and scientists with positions in academia and respectable records in publishing still seem to be staying away in droves. One expert on European history even left the project, because we could not maintain a congenial environment. (I fault myself as well.)

Surely the best writers are not concerned only with money. There might be some way to get an expert to "donate" some of their work, if they hold the copyright themselves or can got their university or publisher to agree. Such donations would be excellent starting points for freely-edited articles. And of course, if the original work is superb a link or mention of it would naturally remain embedded in the wiki article.

Much as I admire the spirit of pure voluntarism, I must say that Larry is right about the need for paid staff. We already have a sponsor for the server and bandwidth, and although the physical expenses might be dropping I haven't heard anyone volunteering to take that burden off of Jimbo's shoulders.

Suppose each of us kicks in, say $10 a month -- or even $50 a month -- towards staff salaries. (It must be clearly settled beforehand what extra privileges subscribers would get: my vote would be for NONE WHATSOEVER.) For example, if twenty of us give $50 a month and fifty of us give $20 a month, and maybe a hundred more give $10 a month, that would be around $3,000 a month. If Jimbo could match that (not that he should, he's already done and is doing plenty) -- we would have $48,000 a year for staff.

What do we need paid staff to do? Primarily, reach out to the academic and professional community and seek their help. With a modest budget for travel to conferences, or for payments to copyright holders, such a leader could bring in some very high quality material.

Ed Poor


body:
On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 13:14, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
<snip call for staff>

This is why we need to set up the non-profit.


body:
My church tried to create a "Unification Encyclopedia" several years ago. It was edited by Andrew Wilson, and was sponsored by one of the many non-profit organizations members of my church have set up (possibly the International Cultural Foundation).

I wonder if it's even worth discussing the possibility of Wikipedia seeking sponsorship from the Unification movement. Of course, editorial independence would have to be guaranteed (no church slant allowed to creep in). I'm talking about a "no strings attached" kind of grant, maybe.

I know people with money -- the question is whether this Wikipedia community could stomach an associaton with "those Moonies".

Ed Poor     <-- member of Unification Church since 1977

-----Original Message-----
From: The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator at kband.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 1:36 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Propects for future growth

On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 13:14, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
<snip call for staff>

This is why we need to set up the non-profit.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
I think the first thing I wrote in Wikipedia was in response to a
metacomment.  They can be obtrusive, but they can also be functional.
Take a look at [[Harmonica]] for some I added just the other day.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within
an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo
for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.

I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always
be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and
unprofessional. Only things that directly affect "customers"
should be in the article, I'd say.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] the OsmosisTwo pest

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=128.19
>>3.88.12
>>
>>this guy keeps making stupid comments on the OsmosisTwo page (which, as
>>far as Mav & I can tell was created in error in the first place)
>>i've checked his edits: his most contentious seems to be on  [[gun
>>politics]] , butI'm not entirely sure about, being a Brit.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>It seems personal to you, starting with [[gun politics]]. He was apparently
>there trying to create a simpler restatement of the issues that read a bit
>easier, at the cost of leaving out some information. A worthy goal, but
>rather annoying. Your response, to leave both the wordy list and his new
>elegant list in, and the remark, "are you happy now?", seem a bit snappy as
>applied to someone who had never edited an article before. I would say this
>contributor got off on the wrong foot and things have progressed downhill
>from there. Perhaps not focusing on him would do more good than "watching"
>him.
>
I'm inclined to agree in the light of day.
You should have seen his comments on OsmosisTwo, he kept editing that
page to say "tarquin is part of the cabal and wants to delete OsmosisTwo".
Annoying.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metacomments

body:
Yeah, if anyone is going to _remove_ metacomments, I hope they edit them enough so that readers of the talk page will know what they refer to:
* this section needs work => the "no-trump" bidding convention needs work
* more should be written here => more should be written on how kids trade Pokemon cards

In general, avoid deletions that destroy information. We want to BUILD.

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
-From: mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk
-I disagree. I don't know about the WikiProject references, but 'is this
-correct?' and 'more should be written about <whatever>' both seem
-valuable to me.
-
-I prefer an article which points out its weaknesses to one which
-glosses them over; I think it's more useful to the reader, as well as
-more encouraging to potential editors. I don't think there's anything
-unprofessional about work in progress.
-
-In general, if someone thinks its worth their while to add something to
-a page, I think it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt, even
-if it's something you wouldn't have added yourself.
-
--M-