from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This question is
> for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
>
> What is your definition of an "expert"?
>

Tough one.  You have people who know a lot about a subject, and then you
have people who have certificates which say they know a lot about a
subject.  Sometimes the two sets intersect. Especially with the set
"people who like to talk hold forth on their areas of perceived
expertise". :)

Seriously, this is what people are still quibbling over at
Wikipedia:Attribution and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.  No-one can agree
a formula whereby people which would allow people whom we would consider
experts in the field of the arts but disbar people we wouldn't consider
experts in the sciences.  The problem is that opinion is fair game in
the arts but not in the sciences.

Steve block

--
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list: commons-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Commons-l] good animated GIF artist needed

body:
2007/1/19, David Gerard <dgerard w gmail.com>:
>
> I am UTTERLY unable to trace the source of this animation to even
> ascertain its copyright status or ask the author to release it:
>
> http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/52702236/8731015
>
> Seeing this was the *first* time I understood how sewing machines do
> what they do.
>
> So. Anyone think they're good enough with drawing and animation to
> create a definiltely free content version? Preferably larger.
>

I'll try to bite it with Orem, maybe we will be able to make some nice
SVG/animation work :)

AJF/WarX
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list: wikien-l

from_name: Nick Wilkins

subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
On 1/19/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> > contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of it.
> > Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting
> Wikipedia
> > articles. Tim . . .
>
>
> Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone
> who
> has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
> doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should be
> deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."
>
> KP

Are said articles sourced?  My experience (obviously, hardly a scientific
study here!) is that few articles with decent sources get nominated on the
grounds of the concept never having been heard of.  Recently I came across a
talk page request for external sources on an Olympics results page because
the requester had never heard of Olympic racewalking.  Perfectly reasonable,
and I wouldn't blame anyone for having their first reaction being thinking
that the page was a hoax--the idea of walking being an Olympic competition
made me boggle the first time I heard of it.

If articles on scientific concepts aren't sourced, it can be nigh impossible
for people to tell the difference between a hoax and an actual concept that
they just haven't heard of before.  Obviously, talk pages or
{{unreferenced}} tags would be my preferred first reaction in such a case,
but seeing the number of articles in the unreferenced category from December
2005 is daunting.

Of course, on the other hand, if referenced articles are getting nominated
because people haven't heard of them, such people should be gently reminded
to, you know, go read the source first.

-- Jonel


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki as a Wikimedia project

body:
Hoi,
Anthere made comments about the OmegaWiki project. I want to make quiet
clear; no organisation is authorised to add itself as a partner to
OmegaWiki. OmegaWiki does have a commission and this commission selects
up to 15 organisations every half year that have proven themselves to be
a partner to the aims of the project.

There is a current list of three organisations:

    * Kennisnet is an organisation that has proven to be a boon to both
      OmegaWiki and the Wikimedia Foundation.
    * University Bamberg does have an active interest and application
      and as a consequence is paying both for development and content
      for OmegaWiki.
    * Knewco is an organisation that has spend probably as much in 2006
      on the development of MediaWiki software as the Wikimedia
      Foundation. I know that more of the added value of Knewco will
      become visible in the near future

 From my point of view as all three organisations are actively involved
in line with the aims are of the OmegaWiki project, and arguably the
aims of the WMF,  they deserve to be acknowledged as such. OmegaWiki is
happy to acknowledge this collaboration. The notion that 99% of all
MediaWiki software development has been paid by the Wikimedia Foundation
is not based on facts. Much of the activity on OmegaWiki has not been
really visible yet. The inward focus of the WMF has not helped in the
current appreciation in what happens in projects outside of the WMF.
OmegaWiki is one project outside of the WMF, there are several more.

MediaWiki is more than what happens inside the WMF.

Thanks,
     GerardM


body:
I was thinking about some important frames in SVG and animated GIF/MPNG :)

AJF/WarX
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from_name: James Forrester

body:
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Look at the editing history of User:Amarkov. An editor who edits
> > NOTHING but deletion debates, apparently in all hard-working
> > sincerity.
>
> A filthy job, but someone has to do it.

Really? I fail to see why any of our deletion systems require anyone
to devote anything approaching the majority of their wiki-time to
them; certainly, not the exclusivity thereof.

Please note that there is one system that does require near-absolute
devotion, namely Arbitration. Ah well. :-)

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
james at wikimedia.org | james at jdforrester.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Anthony schreef:
> On 1/19/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Anthony schreef:
>>
>>> On 1/18/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> When
>>>> Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
>>>> instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
>>>> the dissemination of our Free content.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> When STDs and pregnancy can be prevented by an inexpensive, safe and
>>> effective once a day pill, those people distributing free condoms will
>>> be out of business.
>>>
>>> If Citizendium becomes the next great thing as a fork, then
>>> Citizendium will be disseminating "your" Free content.  If not, then
>>> there's little reason to believe Google would drop Wikipedia, just
>>> move it down to number two.
>>>
>>>
>> When Citizendium becomes "the next great thing", we will have ourselves
>> to blame for it. I believe in the way /we /do our thing. I do not
>> believe that Citizendium will be successful. At the same time, I give
>> them the benefit of the doubt.
>>
>
> Well, good.  At this point I have serious doubts about CZ myself.  But
> I think I understand what you're talking about.  At some point
> something else will come along which is better than Wikipedia.  But at
> that point Google isn't going to save the day just by putting
> Wikipedia at the top of search results.
>
>
>> I do not understand your reference to
>> STDs. I want to learn more about this as I have an interest in those..
>>
>
> My point is, when Wikipedia becomes irrelevant because something
> better comes along, it should be regarded as a victory, not a loss.
> The end-game here is not to run a popular website, it's to freely
> spread knowledge.
>
Citizendium can only be considered "Free knowledge" when it is indeed
Free knowledge. You mention that they may use the CC-by-ND license. Not
only is that license incompatible with the GFDL, being more restrictive,
it will prevent them from using the Wikipedia content as its source.
This is likely to brake the back of their project as I am sure that a
sufficient large group of people will create a class action that
Citizendium cannot win.
>
>> When Wikipedia and Citizendium have more or less the same data, there is
>> no point in having both with the same relevance, just moving it down to
>> number two does therefore not make sense.
>>
>
> If CZ becomes successful without being a fork of Wikipedia (and
> they're apparently going to try), then it *won't* have the same data
> as Wikipedia.  It's unlikely it'll even have "more or less the same
> data".
>
> But thinking about this, I guess it's unclear to me what this has to
> do with Google being important to the dissemination of Free Content.
> Is the "our" part of that important?  Is this about whether or not CZ
> will be Free Content?  I just learned today that they're considering
> CC-by-NC.  I guess if they choose that license it'll matter.  But
> Google doesn't seem to rank Free Content sites any higher than others.
>
Here the law makes all the difference and prevent CZ from using the
Wikipedia content.
>> There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business
>> practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this
>> realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us
>> a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations
>> with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill.
>> Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a
>> consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's
>> search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also
>> something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil".
>>
>
> I'll have to think more about that.  Personally I think Microsoft's
> search engine is crap, but I'm using their OS to write this message,
> so if one is going to have to acknowledge every company which has
> contributed to making Wikipedia possible, I don't think you can ignore
> Microsoft.
>
The fact that anyone uses a Microsoft OS makes no difference to the
quality of their search engine.
>
>> If you want to improve on what Google does, please do.
>>
>
> If I get the time and/or the money, I will.  But in the meantime, I'm
> not going to make them out to be this great company that does no
> wrong.
>
> I mean, if you want to improve on what Microsoft does, please do.  Do
> you see how that statement isn't really helpful?
>
You can improve on Microsoft by not choosing their product as the basis
of your entry to the computerised world. You can have a BSD, Apple,
Linux desktop instead.
>
>> It does not make
>> sense to decry your wish for an alternative where there is none. Google
>> has been a boon to us. In my value system it is good to acknowledge
>> this. I do not begrudge them being one of the most successful companies
>> at this moment in time. Do better than Google and you may make a
>> difference, but I am sure that Google is a moving target.
>>
>>
> And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I
> am a co-owner of both Google and Microsoft.  But I wouldn't make
> either of those two companies out to be worthy of praise.
>
> If Google didn't exist at all, I don't think Wikipedia would be any worse off.
>
There is anecdotal evidence that you are SO wrong.

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Ryzvel at 3mail.com

body:
This is an intriguing question, to which (I suspect) there may be no final answer. Perhap the debate itself is the chief b
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Look at the editing history of User:Amarkov. An editor who edits
> > NOTHING but deletion debates, apparently in all hard-working
> > sincerity.
>
> A filthy job, but someone has to do it.

Really? I fail to see why any of our deletion systems require anyone
to devote anything approaching the majority of their wiki-time to
them; certainly, not the exclusivity thereof.

Please note that there is one system that does require near-absolute
devotion, namely Arbitration. Ah well. :-)

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
james at wikimedia.org | james at jdforrester.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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body:
This is an intriguing question, to which (I suspect) there may be no final answer. Perhap the debate itself is the chief benefit? Tim . . .
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Look at the editing history of User:Amarkov. An editor who edits
> > NOTHING but deletion debates, apparently in all hard-working
> > sincerity.
>
> A filthy job, but someone has to do it.

Really? I fail to see why any of our deletion systems require anyone
to devote anything approaching the majority of their wiki-time to
them; certainly, not the exclusivity thereof.

Please note that there is one system that does require near-absolute
devotion, namely Arbitration. Ah well. :-)

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
james at wikimedia.org | james at jdforrester.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

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from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't aprogramminglanguage,
	but...

body:
On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> If it were implemented in PHP, could then a lookup be done so one
> would only need to give the ISBN and page number, and the rest would
> be added automagically?

Where would we get the data from? Who's going to allow us to query
this stuff at the rate we need it? Sure, we can cache it, but it still
takes time to build up a good cache of titles.

Coincidentally, I just finished the beta version of an extension,
BookInformation, which enhances the output of Special:Booksources with
a cute little box containing the title, author and publisher
corresponding to the ISBN entered, where it exists. Works with Amazon
Web Services right now, but has been coded to allow a number of
possible providers to be supported. (Let me take the opportunity to
thank the guys who shot in and provided translations for Finnish,
Dutch, German and Indonesian within 10 minutes of committing it; if
that's not bloody service, I don't know what is!)

There's no reason we couldn't enhance the citation extension with an
auto-formatter for book/journal/similar references, *but* consider
that to do this, we'd be pulling the format from a message as it is;
so there isn't much benefit over using a template as is done at
present.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

body:
I concur with my Learned Friend. Tim . . .
geni wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Ray Saintonge [mailto:saintonge at telus.net]
>>> I agree in general, but deference to lawyers continues.  "IANAL" appears
>>> far more frequently that any similar phrase for other professions.
>>>
  [snip]
>
> Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
> "I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
> almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.

I think they're more likely to say "Don't try this at home, kids."

It's all about covering your ass, really.

--
Ilmari Karonen

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body: I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of it. Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting Wikipedia articles. Tim . . .


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
Ryzvel at 3mail.com wrote:

>Sounds a bit like the Brittanica! Tim . . .
>On 18/01/07, nunh.huh at mac.com <nunh.huh at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>what do we do when mostly we're right, we're occasionally
>>>
>>>
>>laughably (or harmfully?) wrong
>>
>>
>>Well, when the reporter calls, it might be good to follow-up "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" with "and there are no sources which are completely reliable", and point them towards our <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries>
>>
>>
>"Like the print media, Wikipedia is a *pretty good* source, but it's
>not of such reliability that you can just accept whatever you see
>there without thinking for yourself." How's that?
>
You're asking them to think for themselves?!  =-O

Ec


from_name: Andrew Garrett

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a
	programminglanguage, but...

body:
On 19/01/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:

> There's a solution here. How about we introduce another language
>****that is only available in the Template namespace****,
>specifically for this
> function? Call it Wikisyntax. Wikisyntax is a pure (and simple)
> programming
> language, with no markup. Wikitext is a pure and simple markup language,
> with no code.

No, No, and a thousand times No.

If you want something implemented in a pure programming language
(PHP is debatable in that regard), speak to developers, we will
implement it in PHP as part of MediaWiki. MediaWiki is a piece
of software, not an IDE.

Andrew Garrett
(Werdna)


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

body:
On 1/19/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Yes, except that I don't see it as unhelpful.

Then youtube and flickr are that way. For the time being this project
will continue to care about copyright to an extent greater than
following DMCA requirements.

> At the same time I do not
> believe that we should be posting indisputably protected random material
> for the sole purpose of getting a reaction from those we already know
> will react adversely.  That would be a wilfull violation.
>

On the part of the uploader yes.

> Talking about the images that we want is the path to talking about what
> is allowed.  If we don't want the image in the first place it doesn't
> matter if it's allowed.  Talking about what is allowed in an empirical
> vacuum is a clear path to unrealistic answers.
>

Could you clarify your point here.

--
geni


body:
Steve Block wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>The Renaissance Wikipedian who is not associated with a university has
>>to make do with what he can find.  If all he can find is internet
>>material it will shape and limit his perceptions.  Fact checking should
>>be one of our jobs, but doing that effectively depends on having access
>>to information.
>>
>>
>I have been meaning to ask this. Has it ever been explored that the
>Foundation look at getting some subscriptions to archives and the like
>and allowing a reference team access to those subscriptions to do some
>fact checking?
>
I would be inclined to hold off on any kind of organized fact checking
until the stable version issued is sorted out.  That way we would have a
way of recording which facts have been checked and which have not, and
how much.

Your idea is constructive but I think it only scratches the surface of
the challenge.  A lot of the really useful and important material is
still on paper.  How do we choose the "reference team"?  It would need
to be big enough to handle what is already a massive job.

Ec


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a
 programming	language, but...

body:
Jay R. Ashworth schreef:
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:27:42AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
>
>> Oh yes please. Separate data and code!
>>
>
> Ah, yes; let's return to the days of Fortran 77.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
>
Hoi,
Do you really think that we can safely ignore the lessons of yesteryear ?
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:48:21 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

>What is your definition of an "expert"?

"X", the unknown quantity, plus "spurt", a drip under pressure.

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


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
> on several corporations.
>
I'm not even sure what it means "to bag on" a corporation, so I guess
I'll take your word on it.

> > > This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> > > one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> > > to do next.
> > >
> > Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.
>
> It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
> the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
> being used by typical users.
>
It is praising Google to claim that "Google did a world of good to the
Open Content movement".

Google is in no way a part of the open content movement.  In fact,
much of what they do is directly opposed to the open content movement.
 APIs that can't be used without agreeing to a highly restrictive
terms of service, patents which inhibit others from building upon
their innovative approach to search, tons of content all Copyright (c)
Google with all rights reserved.  They even throw their watermarks and
copyright notices on public domain content trying to claim it as their
own.

Google runs a search engine that is smart enough to put Wikipedia
articles at the top of searches for which a Wikipedia article is one
of the most relevant results.  Whoop-de-do, that's not doing a world
of good to the Open Content movement, that's making a popular search
engine so you can sell lots of ads.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


body:
On 19/01/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> Current templates require you to specify all the information to be
> used in the templates.  The question related to supplying only the
> ISBN and having it come up with the rest of the information from its
> database, as well as formatting it properly.

The kickstart for the post was actually reimplementing
Template:Cite_book or whatever; the ISBN lookup stuff was added later.

Rob Church


body:
On 19/01/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> But that isn't the post you were responding to, and anyway the poster
> brings up a good point.

I didn't say he hadn't!

Do *you* have any solutions to the main problem I pointed out?

Rob Church


subject: [Wikitech-l] Install Question - GD Library

body:
On 19/01/07, Jon Anunson <janunson at design-plus.com> wrote:
> "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please
> try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in."
>
> It's an intermittent problem, during the writing of this post, i succeeded
> in editing a page, and uploading an image, but got session-related errors
> many times.

http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/mediawiki-l/2006-July/013790.html

Rob Church


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] My own Livejournal

body:
"Parker Peters" <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> writes:

> I've been nothing but civil, but I'm the one being put on moderation.
>
> That shows what the groupthink is like around here. Do you all drink the
> same kool-aid too?
>
> Parker

Yes. We can't help it, it is so delicious.

Oh yeah!

--Gwern
Try the cheesecake sometime, it goes great with strawberries.


body:
Ligulem wrote:
> On 19.01.2007 10:27, Andrew Garrett wrote:
> > If you want something implemented in a pure programming language
> > (PHP is debatable in that regard), speak to developers, we will
> > implement it in PHP as part of MediaWiki. MediaWiki is a piece
> > of software, not an IDE.
>
> Would you move http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book into
> MediaWiki then?
>
Taking this seriously, instead of as bait, if you are serious about
this, please post a bugzilla request, instead of hounding individual
developers.

That said, I think that a basic parameterised thing like that
needn't be reimplemented; although it would be perhaps helpful in
performance terms.

Andrew Garrett
(Werdna)


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
geni wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Ray Saintonge [mailto:saintonge at telus.net]
>>> I agree in general, but deference to lawyers continues.  "IANAL" appears
>>> far more frequently that any similar phrase for other professions.
>>>
  [snip]
>
> Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
> "I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
> almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.

I think they're more likely to say "Don't try this at home, kids."

It's all about covering your ass, really.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> How fast of a rate would you need it?  I don't know the answer to
> where the data could be obtained, that's why I asked the initial
> question about whether or not this would be possible.

It'd need to be available at rendering time; if a cache miss occurred,
it would need to be queried there and then. I don't know how fast
people would adopt it or how many such tags would be inserted in a
short period of time, so estimating the worst case is a bit hard.

I'm not sure how "available" such databases would be.

Rob Church


body:
On 1/19/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:

> If the concept is in the sciences and the person is nominating it simply
> because they've never heard of it, how can they tell if the source is
> worthwhile?  I didn't even know what to say to someone who nominated one
> article recently, on a subject the nominator had obviously never heard
> of, on the basis that the nominator questioned how sea levels could
> possibly
> rise if there was less water held in the ice caps, or maybe he/she was
> questioning the amount of the rise.  I don't think having the nominator
> read
> the source would have helped much.  On the other hand, it appears the
> article writer hadn't gotten anywhere near a source, either....
>
> I'm finding a few problems with sources on articles.  People don't realize
> you can't copy entire sentences from the article ("well, I only copied a
> few
> sentence, and never two in a row...."), and that you can't say the article
>
> said something it didn't.  If the article said he started studying singing
> seriously at the age of 10, you can't say he started singing at 10.  Maybe
> it's the Masson/New Yorker method of quoting in the latter case.
>
> How can anyone possibly nominate an article dealing with particle physics
> for deletion, thinking it is a hoax, if they know nothing about quantum
> mechanics?  I personally thought quantum mechanics was a hoax until I
> studied it.  I think if you know nothing about an area, you aren't
> qualified
> to decide to use time resources of other editors by nominating an AfD
> because YOU don't know anything about it.  Why not just ask someone in the
>
> area?  Need a geology editor, go to the geology page, look a bunch of
> edits
> and ask someone.  But don't say, "I don't know anything about the subject,
> so I never heard of most of it, but really never heard of this, so I think
>
> it should be deleted."  It's absurd and wastes time and resources.
>
> Race walking.  Yeah, right.
>
> KP

What, the sea-level can rise?  I don't believe you!  ;-)

But seriously, it sounds as if in that case an unsourced article that needed
plenty of work got improved because it was nominated for deletion.  Which is
the typical result for deserving topics that get nominated, for whatever
reason.  I wouldn't consider that a waste of time.  There may be more
long-run efficient ways of going about improving articles, but none that
gather more immediate results.

Personally, I agree with you on what people *should* do when they come
across an article about something they have never heard about and doubt the
veracity of.  No matter what the subject area.

As for non-experts being able to tell if sources are worthwhile, I'm not
really sure what you're getting at.  What I'm saying is that even nominators
who think "I've never heard of this" is a valid reason for deletion are
typically just reasonable enough to realize that if there is a source,
there's probably ''something'' to the topic.  They are far less likely to
make the nomination in that case.  The article may still be complete crap
based on junk sources, but that is something that requires knowledgeable
editors' eyes in any case and an AfD nomination, regardless of purported
reason, will bring those.

-- Jonel


subject: [WikiEN-l] My own Livejournal

body:
Parker Peters wrote:
> You saw the troubles I was having yourself, and I sent private emails to
> several others explaining things as well, as well as explaining that I was
> specifically NOT replying on-list because I had emailed Jimbo and was
> waiting response before doing something that would cause people to falsely
> accuse me of avoiding moderation.

Yes, I saw the, um, troubles you were having.  That's exactly why I'm
finding it so hard to believe you.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Delirium schreef:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> The biggest error that I see is that people with not enough knowledge
>>> about the law make the policy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>
>
> While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
> backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
> corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
> department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
> Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
> reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
> far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
> building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.
>
> That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
> necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
> caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
> the other hand.
>
> -Mark
Hoi,
It is very nice to look at it from the perspective of a single legal
practice ie the American one. When you look how things are, you have to
acknowledge that the German chapter was taken to court and not the
Foundation. Luckily the German chapter behaved in a proper way and did
well. The point is that your attitude is way too simple. An anti-lawyer
backlash will hurt us where it hurts most; in effect when there is an
issue we need our lawyers and when you think it healthy to consider them
dirt, they will smile and increase the bill.

The notion of having a useful encyclopaedia is not one where it can only
be freely used in the United States. That would be utterly stupid
because it would negate our aims.

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Loss of session data

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

Steve Bennett wrote:
> I keep getting the warning message about "Lost session data" when I go
> to save changes at EN. This was a problem a few months ago, then was
> fixed, but seems to be back. However there's a twist:
>
> 1) I click save (with an edit summary)
> 2) Preview comes up with message "Sorry! We could not process your
> edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still
> doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in." - edt summary box
> still has my summary in it
> 3) I click save
> 4) Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. If you click Save
> again, your edit will be saved without one.
> 5) Save again - works.
>
> On one or two instances, the lost session data error message has
> appeared twice in a row.

If the problem sticks, usually you can work around it by clearing your
browser cookies and logging back in. This will assign you a new session
ID, which hopefully isn't mysteriously broken...

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: Chris McKenna

body:
Generally very good, although it could do with perhaps being slightly more
colourful.

The thread appears to slip back very slightly just as the v-shaped end of
the rotating thing approaches the needle.

Chris

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Artur Fijakowski wrote:

> ''For a taste of thing to come:''
>
> http://sandbox.dbc.wroc.pl/~warx/anim2.gif
>
>
> It has some mistakes and need adding of threads, but I think it would be
> sufficent :)
>
> Any comments before finishing would be nice
>
> AJF/WarX
>

--
Chris 'Awkward' McKenna

cmckenna at sucs.org
www.sucs.org/~cmckenna

The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
but with the heart

Antoine de Saint Exupery


body:
When I say "thread" I do actually mean "material" (doh!)

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Chris McKenna wrote:

> Generally very good, although it could do with perhaps being slightly more
> colourful.
>
> The thread appears to slip back very slightly just as the v-shaped end of
> the rotating thing approaches the needle.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Artur Fijakowski wrote:
>
>> ''For a taste of thing to come:''
>>
>> http://sandbox.dbc.wroc.pl/~warx/anim2.gif
>>
>>
>> It has some mistakes and need adding of threads, but I think it would be
>> sufficent :)
>>
>> Any comments before finishing would be nice
>>
>> AJF/WarX
>>
>
>

--
Chris 'Awkward' McKenna

cmckenna at sucs.org
www.sucs.org/~cmckenna

The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
but with the heart

Antoine de Saint Exupery


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in
> which
> they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.
>
That doesn't take into account exasperated crackpot theorists.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-20

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19480).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  16 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.

Passed 489 of 505 tests (96.83%)... some tests failed!


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l][Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a programming	language , but...

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

Moin,

On Friday 19 January 2007 20:43, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 08:38:02PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Jay R. Ashworth schreef:
> > > On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:27:42AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> > >> Oh yes please. Separate data and code!
> > >
> > > Ah, yes; let's return to the days of Fortran 77.
> >
> > Do you really think that we can safely ignore the lessons of yesteryear
> > ?
>
> No, which is why I pointed out probably the most prominent example of
> why enforcing strict separation between code and data is a bad idea.
>
> *Controlling* interchange between code and data, certainly.

If you have an "interchange" between code and data, then you have a clear
seperation (otherwise they wouldn't need to interchange stuff).

Seperate code and data. Everything else leads to the mess you can see
everyday in HTML+JS, HTML+PHP, Word documents plus macros, etc etc.

I wish people would actually learn something from history for once...

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sat Jan 20 00:27:43 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Get one of my photo posters: http://bloodgate.com/posters
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "I am soo clumsy today." *crash*

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from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

body:
''For a taste of thing to come:''

http://sandbox.dbc.wroc.pl/~warx/anim2.gif

It has some mistakes and need adding of threads, but I think it would be
sufficent :)

Any comments before finishing would be nice

AJF/WarX
-------------- nast?pna cz??? ---------
Za??????cznik HTML zosta??? usuni???ty...
URL:  http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20070120/aa936dac/attachment.htm


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Marc Riddell [mailto:michaeldavid86 at comcast.net]
>Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 06:48 AM
>To: 'Wiki-EN-L (new topics)'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?
>
>Hello all,
>
>I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This question is
>for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
>
>What is your definition of an "expert"?
>
>Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers, simply
>state your own.
>
>Marc Riddell

A expert is someone with either extensive education regarding a subject or substantial experience, or ideally a combination of education and experience. Who is an expert varies with the field. An editor for Rolling Stone for pop culture, a textbook author for economics.

Fred

Fred


body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:

>geni wrote:
>
>
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Ray Saintonge [mailto:saintonge at telus.net]
>>>>I agree in general, but deference to lawyers continues.  "IANAL" appears
>>>>far more frequently that any similar phrase for other professions.
>>>>
>>>>
>  [snip]
>
>
>>Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
>>"I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
>>almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.
>>
>>
>I think they're more likely to say "Don't try this at home, kids."
>
>It's all about covering your ass, really.
>
Yep, and as long as you spend time looking at your own backside is as
long as you don't look forward to new ideas.

Ec


body:
2007/1/20, Chris McKenna <cmckenna w sucs.org>:
>
> When I say "thread" I do actually mean "material" (doh!)

I see it, but it's error of rendering in ImageMagick - gqview doesn't show
this 1px shift - it's only ugly antialiasing (maybe someone knowing better
IM magic will be able to generate animation from source SVGs)

AJF/WarX
-------------- nast?pna cz??? ---------
Za??????cznik HTML zosta??? usuni???ty...
URL:  http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20070120/24df8e8c/attachment.htm


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/19/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Yes, except that I don't see it as unhelpful.
>>
>>
>Then youtube and flickr are that way. For the time being this project
>will continue to care about copyright to an extent greater than
>following DMCA requirements.
>
If you think that youtube and flickr are so much the way to go, by all
means go ahead; I certainly said nothing about them.and whatever their
copyright policy may be.  "Caring" (whatever you mean by that) about
copyright need not imply paranoia that borders on ass-kissing.

>>Talking about the images that we want is the path to talking about what
>>is allowed.  If we don't want the image in the first place it doesn't
>>matter if it's allowed.  Talking about what is allowed in an empirical
>>vacuum is a clear path to unrealistic answers.
>>
>>
>Could you clarify your point here.
>
It means that as long as your talking theoretically about images that
you only hypothesizing your answers have no basis in fact.  Courts like
to reject cases that are based on hypothetical facts.

Ec


body:
Delirium wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The biggest error that I see is that people with not enough knowledge
>>>about the law make the policy.
>>>
>>>
>>Yes.
>>
>>
>While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
>backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
>corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
>department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
>Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
>reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
>far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
>building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.
>
Reckless or not, it has not led to any law suits against the Foundation
itself.  There may have been any number of threats of lawsuits, but so
far the only lawsuit was in Germany and was won.  Risks are often a
major factor in implementing anything really new.

>That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
>necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
>caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
>the other hand.
>
That depends a lot on where you put the limits of "useful and
necessary".  I think that the latitude is much wider than what we have used.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Nofollow back on URL links on en.wikipedia.org articles
	for now

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

Having been requested by Jimmy to do so, and having seen a fun rumor of
a "search engine optimization world championship" contest targeting
WP[1], I've gone ahead and switched rel="nofollow" back onto URLs in
en.wikipedia.org's article namespace.

(Better heuristic and manual flagging tools for URLs would of course be
super; anyone interested in working on integrating such support into
MediaWiki should swing on by the tech channels and give a shout.)

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Globalwarming_awareness2007.2FSEO_world_championship_--_expect_a_spam_onslaught.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 1/19/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>If CZ becomes successful without being a fork of Wikipedia (and
>>>they're apparently going to try), then it *won't* have the same data
>>>as Wikipedia.  It's unlikely it'll even have "more or less the same
>>>data".
>>>
>>>But thinking about this, I guess it's unclear to me what this has to
>>>do with Google being important to the dissemination of Free Content.
>>>Is the "our" part of that important?  Is this about whether or not CZ
>>>will be Free Content?  I just learned today that they're considering
>>>CC-by-NC.  I guess if they choose that license it'll matter.  But
>>>Google doesn't seem to rank Free Content sites any higher than others.
>>>
>>>
>>Here the law makes all the difference and prevent CZ from using the
>>Wikipedia content.
>>
>>
>As of this Saturday, CZ is going to stop using Wikipedia content by
>default, at least on a trial basis.
>
I'm sure that this move will do wonders for their growth.  I only one
year they could be as big and successful as Nupedia.  How they choose to
handle licensing is their problem.  I can't see how starting everything
from scratch will make their work very easy.  It's like shooting oneself
in the foot as a cure for corns.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] My own Livejournal

body:
> I've been nothing but civil, but I'm the one being put on moderation.

There is more to being a good mailing list poster than being civil.


subject: [WikiEN-l] A copy of WP articles

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 1/20/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>
>>http://www.justrec.com/wilderness.html
>>
>>This is just one of several articles on this site that appears to be a
>>direct copy of the WP article. Scouting is another. They claim copyright
>>on the page and do not mention WP. Is this legit?
>>
>>
>When this came up a few months ago, we concluded that it was not
>illegal to falsely claim copyright. It doesn't make their claim valid,
>but it's certainly easier for many sites to simply claim copyright
>over everything appearing on their site than to work out which part of
>that claim would actually be valid.
>
Falsely claiming copyrright is illegal, but prosecutions are not practical.

Claiming copyright over an entire web page is not a false claim.  It
really means "copyright to whatever extent allowable"

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] A copy of WP articles

body:
On 1/20/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> http://www.justrec.com/wilderness.html
>
> This is just one of several articles on this site that appears to be a
> direct copy of the WP article. Scouting is another. They claim copyright
> on the page and do not mention WP. Is this legit?
>
> Brian
> --
>           Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
>                [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
>            Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
>
> This is generaly delt with at :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks

--
geni


from_name: Cool Cat

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[Category:Jews and Judaism by city]],
	[[Category:Jews and Judaism by country]]

body:
[[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 17]]

Care to comment?
   - Cool Cat


from_name: Nina Stratton

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Nofollow back on URL links on en.wikipedia.org
	articles for now

body:
On 1/20/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Having been requested by Jimmy to do so, and having seen a fun rumor of
> a "search engine optimization world championship" contest targeting
> WP[1], I've gone ahead and switched rel="nofollow" back onto URLs in
> en.wikipedia.org's article namespace.
>
> (Better heuristic and manual flagging tools for URLs would of course be
> super; anyone interested in working on integrating such support into
> MediaWiki should swing on by the tech channels and give a shout.)
>
> [1]
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Globalwarming_awareness2007.2FSEO_world_championship_--_expect_a_spam_onslaught
> .

Hi. What did you do? Pretend I'm, like, eight and/or stupid (because on this
I are pretty stoopid).

Nina
"Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and
conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work." - Abdul Kalam


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/20/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I'm sure that this move will do wonders for their growth.

Can't do much worse, there are currently only about 10 active
contributors to Citizendium.

> I only one
> year they could be as big and successful as Nupedia.

It seems to me they've already surpassed Nupedia.  I'm not sure why
you'd make the comparison, though.  Wikipedia and Nupedia *both*
started from scratch (Rambot and FOLDOC aside, anyway).

> How they choose to
> handle licensing is their problem.  I can't see how starting everything
> from scratch will make their work very easy.  It's like shooting oneself
> in the foot as a cure for corns.
>
Personally I'm a big supporter of them starting from scratch.  It
won't make things easy, but it's the only way I can see the quality of
their articles truly surpassing that of Wikipedia.  If an article can
be improved incrementally, then Wikipedia is in the best position to
do that, not Citizendium.

Where I think CZ is going wrong is that they are making this policy
too late and too abruptly.  Mediawiki is not designed for the kind of
writing that facilitates producing a really high quality article.
There's a talk page attached to each article, but that's it.  Nowhere
to store notes from reading materials, nowhere to produce an outline,
nowhere to store detailed information about your sources.  Sure, you
can put this information on the talk page, or you could put it into
the article itself, probably using complicated templates that are only
intuitive to the seasoned pros, but this isn't very convenient, and
such a process hasn't really been adopted anyway.  I suppose also you
could put this information somewhere outside the wiki, but that's
going to cause a serious setback to the ability to collaborate.  None
of this was talked about at CZ.  Instead, Larry announced from very
early on that being a fork was the best way to go, and so all the
plans from there on out about how to proceed assumed that was how it
was going to be.

Maybe taking about CZ in this context is beyond the scope of this
mailing list.  I don't really think so, though, because watching CZ
make mistakes and learn new things is a good exercise.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/20/07, Peter van Londen <londenp at gmail.com> wrote:
> GerardM is not alone.
>
> I do agree, with Gerards view.
> Why this hostility to commerce, I don't understand?
> Let's use them for our purposes in stead of renounce them!
>
If you know anything about me you'd know I'm not at all hostile to
commerce.  There's nothing at all wrong with commerce.  I just don't
think commerce is something to be praised.

I also think it's a joke to say that Google is a proponent of open
content.  Google Video: DRM.  Google Book Search: DRM.  The list of
Google's adoption of policies which go completely against open content
goes on and on.  Maybe they donate to some open source projects.  In
fact, if you want to say that "Google did a world of good to the Open"
SOURCE movement, I won't object.  But the original statement that
touched off my objection was talking about Open Content, not Open
Source.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


body:
On 1/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/20/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Having been requested by Jimmy to do so, and having seen a fun rumor of
> > a "search engine optimization world championship" contest targeting
> > WP[1], I've gone ahead and switched rel="nofollow" back onto URLs in
> > en.wikipedia.org's article namespace.
> >
> > (Better heuristic and manual flagging tools for URLs would of course be
> > super; anyone interested in working on integrating such support into
> > MediaWiki should swing on by the tech channels and give a shout.)
>
> This is a real shame since good external links help to vastly improve
> search :( Oh well, cost of doing business I guess.
>
The search engines are always free to ignore the "nofollow" tag, if
they think that the external links are an overall positive on search
results.  Apparently they don't.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/20/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Commerce is an abstraction. Google a reality. The traffic that we have
> and the resulting relevance that we acquired as a result is largely due
> to Google. This is a reality. As I said earlier, it is relevant to
> appreciate our friends. Microsoft's search engine does not do us any
> favours. This is a reality. Our aims are in bringing information to
> people; that is what Google helps us do. If we had twice the amount of
> content and we did not have the traffic that comes from Google we would
> not be half as good in achieving our goal. Our goal is to get the
> information out, it is not sitting on it and think ourselves great for
> having created such a large body of work.
>
I don't think you're right that 50% of Wikipedia traffic comes as a
result of Google searches ([[Wikipedia:Search_engine_statistics]] says
it's 33%).  Nor do I believe that none of that traffic would have come
to Wikipedia had Google not existed.  Nor do I believe that Google
should be praised simply for giving Wikipedia a fair ranking.  Nor do
I believe that traffic is the sole goal.

> Google does not need to be actively creating Open Content to be
> considered beneficial to the Open Content. As they gave us a fair
> ranking in their search engine we thrived. With your dismissal of Google
> Books you conveniently ignore the controversy that exists because of the
> audacity that Google had in making this tool available. You conveniently
> ignore that many publishers went to court in order to prevent this
> service in the first place. If anything, Google should be applauded for
> services like Google book search, Google scholar.

Don't take my word for it.  Read up on what Brewster Kahle from
Internet Archive had to say about Google Book Search, or find out more
about the Open Content Alliance he co-founded largely to respond to
it.  "They don't want the books to appear in anyone else's search
engine but their own, which is a little peculiar for a company that
says its mission is to make information universally accessible," Kahle
said.

"Google, for instance, is digitizing some great libraries. But their
contracts (which were actually secret contracts with libraries ? which
is bizarre, but anyway, they were secret until they got sued out of
them by some governments) are under such restrictions that they're
pretty useless... the copies that go back to the libraries. Pretty
much Google is trying to set themselves up as the only place to get to
these materials; the only library; the only access. The idea of having
only one company control the library of human knowledge is a
nightmare. I mean this is 1984 ? a book about how bad the world would
be if this really came about, if a few governments' control and
corporations' control on information goes too far."

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to choose sides on this one, and I'm
going with Kahle, not with Google.

> Writers and publishers
> have praised Google because their offerings can now be found and have a
> second lease of commercial life. It is exactly a service like Google
> book search that prevents the monopolistic content of most of the book
> shops to dominate even more. It may be an inconvenient truth, but Google
> does good where it matters. What matters is that information becomes
> available to people and it is not just the Open Content project and
> communities that have a patent on this.
>
> I will confess, I am not really interested in video, but I would not be
> surprised if it turns out that you are wrong on that as well.
>
> So please repeat after me, Google did and does well for us. Google is
> our friend.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> PS .. well do not bother.. just trying to be funny.


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Brion wrote:
> ...having seen a fun rumor of a "search engine optimization
> world championship" contest...

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if that rumor was true.  I have
a high-pagerank website with an unremarkable submission form
(c-faq.com/feedback.html) that usually receives one or two
linkspams per week, but suddenly yesterday and today I've gotten
about a dozen.

> I've gone ahead and switched rel="nofollow" back onto URLs in
> en.wikipedia.org's article namespace.

Good.  That's clearly the right stance for now, dismaying though
it is.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Anthony schreef:
> On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
>> on several corporations.
>>
>>
> I'm not even sure what it means "to bag on" a corporation, so I guess
> I'll take your word on it.
>
>
>>>> This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
>>>> one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
>>>> to do next.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.
>>>
>> It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
>> the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
>> being used by typical users.
>>
>>
> It is praising Google to claim that "Google did a world of good to the
> Open Content movement".
>
> Google is in no way a part of the open content movement.  In fact,
> much of what they do is directly opposed to the open content movement.
>  APIs that can't be used without agreeing to a highly restrictive
> terms of service, patents which inhibit others from building upon
> their innovative approach to search, tons of content all Copyright (c)
> Google with all rights reserved.  They even throw their watermarks and
> copyright notices on public domain content trying to claim it as their
> own.
>
> Google runs a search engine that is smart enough to put Wikipedia
> articles at the top of searches for which a Wikipedia article is one
> of the most relevant results.  Whoop-de-do, that's not doing a world
> of good to the Open Content movement, that's making a popular search
> engine so you can sell lots of ads.
>
> Anthony
Hoi,
The open content movement is not living in a vacuum. When you insists on
everybody to behave like you would see the world and be overly negative
about everyone that is not like that, you must live in a frustrating
world. Google did and does a world of good. It is not an open source
organisation but it has played a crucial role in making us what we are.
It has contributed significantly to Open Source projects. One of their
best policies is that they create their software in such a way that you
can move away from Google if you so choose. If you want to reduce it to
only "they did it for their own reason" fine, but you do not convince me.

In the mean time, the WMF has a problem that is increasingly serious, we
got a million and a bit out of our fund-raiser where we need a million
and a half. Where we could use a million and one more. We predict that
our growth is exponential. In my mind the biggest problem we have is a
culture where other organisations, particular organisations that earn
money are trash talked. Whoop-de-do that is just like it is baby;
freedom of expression. And yes, but it is utterly irresponsible. In the
case of Google, they made us and continue to make us as big as we are,
and your aversion to selling ads does not detract one iota from that.
They did not have to do such a thing. Were they in the pocket of the big
content owners, they would not have done so and consequently we would
not have been the big relevant movement that is changing the way people
look at Open Content and licensing in the first place.

I started this thread because to me it is essential to understand who
our friends are. It is important to understand with whom we share
values. It is important to understand for whom Open Content and Open
Source can become more relevant and why. By engaging our friends and our
could be friends, it is possible to increase the relevancy of what we
do. We increase the potential for the WMF to realise its aims. It is sad
that some choose to have such a narrow negative view on the world that
they destroy opportunities. It is a fact of life that they are part of
our community and it is for that reason that I feel it is necessary to
repeat; Google has been good to us.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:OFFICE actions

body:
I raised this a while back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Western_University was office
protected.  Editors had gathered some well-cited material, Jimbo said
go ahead and rewrite, so we did.  It got hacked back again.  I don't
have a problem with this, as Brad has now old us what the concern was,
and we can work with that.  I do have a problem with a couple of
elements of process:

* The problem was not communicated until after the event, resulting in
another pissed-off phone call to Brad which could have been avoided.

* I was told the new version was not "cleared with foundation" but no
mechanism exists for doing that, else I would have done so.

* Brad (or Danny or Jimbo) does not scale.  People get impatient when
months go by with no explanation of why we cannot say something which
is, or appears to be, verifiably true.  This was a particular problem
with the article on Gregory Lauder-Frost.

So what should be the process for getting foundation approval for a
rewrite where an article subject has made a complaint causing
protection, and how can we ensure that the substance of the complaint
is communicated (to the extent possible without compromising the
various parties)?

Is it possible to facilitate communication direct with the parties
where errors of fact are the problem, to let them know in advance when
changes are to be made?

And where an external source (in this case Bear's Guide) says that two
institutions are run by the same people out of the same address, and
no known sources say otherwise, but the subject insists they are
different, how do we go about validating that?  It's all very well for
them to say they are different, but surely that gets {{fact}}?

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


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> Umm, not if you designed it so the "cache" was big enough.  Then you'd
> only need to perform the lookup once - presumably when the reference
> is first added.

I should clarify that by "cache miss", I meant, "the first use, when
it won't be in the cache" - of course, we wouldn't arbitrarily discard
the cached data; there's no need.

Rob Church


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mathematics university lecture notes - useful to
	anybody?

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Upon cleaning up, my parents discovered some of my (hand-written) lecture
notes that I took down when I studied undergraduate mathematics at Cambridge
University from 1998-2001.
>
> I don't need them anymore. But I didn't want to throw them away in case
they might be useful to someone. Thus, I'm asking here. I'd be willing to
ship them to anyone who in turn would be willing to use > them to improve
Wikipedia and/or Wikibooks. Consider it a donation of sorts.
>
> Is anyone interested? Please only reply if you're serious about using them
to improve Wikipedia or Wikibooks.
>
> Timwi

You don't happen to have any notes on the polar coordinate system,
particularly its history, do you?

Mets501


body:
Nina wrote:
> Hi. What did you do? Pretend I'm, like, eight and/or stupid (because on
> this I are pretty stoopid).

Once upon a time, websites were written and maintained by
individuals, or by relatively small, closely-knit groups of people.

Once upon a time, and indeed even to this day, there has always
been a need to try to figure out how "good" a website is.  Now,
of course, "goodness" is a terribly subjective and multifaceted
concept, so trying to reduce it to a unidimensional metric or
"rank" is a task fraught with peril and ultimately utterly
impossible, but the need is strong enough that people are bound
to try anyway.  One area in which the need is real is: ranking
search results.  It's (comparatively) very easy to write a web
search engine that returns links to every single page where a
user's search terms are mentioned.  It's much, much more
difficult, however, to rig it up so that the user can easily zero
in on the *interesting* or *useful* links first, without having
to wade through all of the hundreds or thousands or millions of
hits which a simpleminded brute-force search engine might yield.

Once upon a time, Larry Page and Sergey Brin had a great idea.
They were trying to get a handle on "goodness" as defined by the
*users* of a page, *not* on the goodness that the authors of a
page wished it had, or might try to assert that it had.  Even
more to the point: Larry and Sergey wanted to rank "goodness"
in terms useful to the people doing the searching, not in terms
useful to the owners of the websites where the hits might (or
might not) be found.  L&S realized that one way to get a handle
on this user-perceived goodness was to look at how many people
linked to a given page.  Simply speaking, to first order, the
more people link to webpage X, the "better" webpage X is, and
the higher webpage X should appear in a list of search results.

As an additional, second-order wrinkle, the founders of
Google realized that not all links are created equal.  Among other
things, links to an unknown site *from* sites that are known to
be "good" count more towards ranking site X's "goodness" than do
links from other, random, unknown or not-so-good sites.

Needless to say, this strategy turned out to work very, very
well.  Google is now very, very successful, and its name has
become literally synonymous with "to do a web search for".

However, fast-forward to today.  There are now "social" websites
which are most assuredly *not* written and maintained by
"individuals or relatively small, closely-knit groups of
people".  Social websites, such as blogs and wikis, are by
definition written and maintained by anybody and everybody out
there on the whole world-wide internet.  And that's a fine,
wonderful, libertarian and egalitarian thing -- except that it
collides head-on with Google's strategy.  The collision wouldn't
matter so much if there weren't social websites with high
pagerank, or if Google and its pagerank algorithm weren't so
successful.  But in a world where Google is far and away the #1
search engine, and where the ever-so-social (or at least
ever-so-wiki) site known as Wikipedia is a top-10 website with
stupefyingly high pagerank, we have the makings of quite a fine
little quandary.

Simply put, Wikipedia is an absolutely irresistible,
boron-neodymium supermagnet for linkspam.  The World Wide Web is
no longer Tim Berners-Lee's theoretically interesting research
lab thingy, it's an unignorable real-world phenomenon.  If you're
a commercial website operator, having high Google pagerank is
money in the bank.  So if you yourself can go in and create links
from a high-pagerank site like Wikipedia to your grotty little
commercial site, well, you'd be a fool not to.

So Google, like virtually all wildly successful and unignorable
real-world phenomena, has had to compromise a bit on its
principles.  Links from high-rank sites contribute higher to a
linked-to site's pagerank, *unless* the high-rank site is openly
editable by anybody, in which case the links probably have to
be ignored.  So Google invented the new HTML link attribute
"nofollow".  (One of the nice things about open, extensible
languages like HTML is that anybody can invent new extensions
like this to it anytime.)  Nofollow means, "don't weight this
link by my site's pagerank when totting up the linked-to
website's pagerank", or indeed, "don't follow this link in order
to tot up pagerank at all".  Google invented this attribute
specifically for high-pagerank social sites such as Wikipedia,
and encourages us to use it on our user-editable external links.

In terms of "what did specifically Brion do to turn on the
"nofollow" attribute for Wikipedia external links?", that
I can't answer.  Probably some propellorhead computer weenie
thing involving "property lists" or "php configuration variables"
or suchlike. :-)


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] WP:OFFICE actions

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
Date: 20-Jan-2007 09:25
Subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:OFFICE actions
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

I raised this a while back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Western_University was office
protected.  Editors had gathered some well-cited material, Jimbo said
go ahead and rewrite, so we did.  It got hacked back again.  I don't
have a problem with this, as Brad has now old us what the concern was,
and we can work with that.  I do have a problem with a couple of
elements of process:

* The problem was not communicated until after the event, resulting in
another pissed-off phone call to Brad which could have been avoided.

* I was told the new version was not "cleared with foundation" but no
mechanism exists for doing that, else I would have done so.

* Brad (or Danny or Jimbo) does not scale.  People get impatient when
months go by with no explanation of why we cannot say something which
is, or appears to be, verifiably true.  This was a particular problem
with the article on Gregory Lauder-Frost.

So what should be the process for getting foundation approval for a
rewrite where an article subject has made a complaint causing
protection, and how can we ensure that the substance of the complaint
is communicated (to the extent possible without compromising the
various parties)?

Is it possible to facilitate communication direct with the parties
where errors of fact are the problem, to let them know in advance when
changes are to be made?

And where an external source (in this case Bear's Guide) says that two
institutions are run by the same people out of the same address, and
no known sources say otherwise, but the subject insists they are
different, how do we go about validating that?  It's all very well for
them to say they are different, but surely that gets {{fact}}?

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

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hang on, what do you think the downside of the nofollow tag is?
> All this change does is make Google not use the fact that we link
> to a site as evidence that it's a good site.

Right.  But some of the sites we link to are good sites, and
do deserve our "vote" in terms of increasing their pagerank.
(But the problem, of course, is that there's no way to
differentiate those external links of ours that have this
quality, versus those that are as-yet-undetected linkspam.)


from_name: Peter van Londen

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
GerardM is not alone.

I do agree, with Gerards view.
Why this hostility to commerce, I don't understand?
Let's use them for our purposes in stead of renounce them!

Kind regards
Londenp

2007/1/20, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen op gmail.com>:
>
> Anthony schreef:
> > On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert op gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
> >> on several corporations.
> >>
> >>
> > I'm not even sure what it means "to bag on" a corporation, so I guess
> > I'll take your word on it.
> >
> >
> >>>> This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> >>>> one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> >>>> to do next.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.
> >>>
> >> It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
> >> the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
> >> being used by typical users.
> >>
> >>
> > It is praising Google to claim that "Google did a world of good to the
> > Open Content movement".
> >
> > Google is in no way a part of the open content movement.  In fact,
> > much of what they do is directly opposed to the open content movement.
> >  APIs that can't be used without agreeing to a highly restrictive
> > terms of service, patents which inhibit others from building upon
> > their innovative approach to search, tons of content all Copyright (c)
> > Google with all rights reserved.  They even throw their watermarks and
> > copyright notices on public domain content trying to claim it as their
> > own.
> >
> > Google runs a search engine that is smart enough to put Wikipedia
> > articles at the top of searches for which a Wikipedia article is one
> > of the most relevant results.  Whoop-de-do, that's not doing a world
> > of good to the Open Content movement, that's making a popular search
> > engine so you can sell lots of ads.
> >
> > Anthony
> Hoi,
> The open content movement is not living in a vacuum. When you insists on
> everybody to behave like you would see the world and be overly negative
> about everyone that is not like that, you must live in a frustrating
> world. Google did and does a world of good. It is not an open source
> organisation but it has played a crucial role in making us what we are.
> It has contributed significantly to Open Source projects. One of their
> best policies is that they create their software in such a way that you
> can move away from Google if you so choose. If you want to reduce it to
> only "they did it for their own reason" fine, but you do not convince me.
>
> In the mean time, the WMF has a problem that is increasingly serious, we
> got a million and a bit out of our fund-raiser where we need a million
> and a half. Where we could use a million and one more. We predict that
> our growth is exponential. In my mind the biggest problem we have is a
> culture where other organisations, particular organisations that earn
> money are trash talked. Whoop-de-do that is just like it is baby;
> freedom of expression. And yes, but it is utterly irresponsible. In the
> case of Google, they made us and continue to make us as big as we are,
> and your aversion to selling ads does not detract one iota from that.
> They did not have to do such a thing. Were they in the pocket of the big
> content owners, they would not have done so and consequently we would
> not have been the big relevant movement that is changing the way people
> look at Open Content and licensing in the first place.
>
> I started this thread because to me it is essential to understand who
> our friends are. It is important to understand with whom we share
> values. It is important to understand for whom Open Content and Open
> Source can become more relevant and why. By engaging our friends and our
> could be friends, it is possible to increase the relevancy of what we
> do. We increase the potential for the WMF to realise its aims. It is sad
> that some choose to have such a narrow negative view on the world that
> they destroy opportunities. It is a fact of life that they are part of
> our community and it is for that reason that I feel it is necessary to
> repeat; Google has been good to us.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
GerardM is not alone.

I do agree, with Gerards view.
Why this hostility to commerce, I don't understand?
Let's use them for our purposes in stead of renounce them!

Kind regards
Londenp

2007/1/20, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
> Anthony schreef:
> > On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
> >> on several corporations.
> >>
> >>
> > I'm not even sure what it means "to bag on" a corporation, so I guess
> > I'll take your word on it.
> >
> >
> >>>> This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> >>>> one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> >>>> to do next.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.
> >>>
> >> It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
> >> the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
> >> being used by typical users.
> >>
> >>
> > It is praising Google to claim that "Google did a world of good to the
> > Open Content movement".
> >
> > Google is in no way a part of the open content movement.  In fact,
> > much of what they do is directly opposed to the open content movement.
> >  APIs that can't be used without agreeing to a highly restrictive
> > terms of service, patents which inhibit others from building upon
> > their innovative approach to search, tons of content all Copyright (c)
> > Google with all rights reserved.  They even throw their watermarks and
> > copyright notices on public domain content trying to claim it as their
> > own.
> >
> > Google runs a search engine that is smart enough to put Wikipedia
> > articles at the top of searches for which a Wikipedia article is one
> > of the most relevant results.  Whoop-de-do, that's not doing a world
> > of good to the Open Content movement, that's making a popular search
> > engine so you can sell lots of ads.
> >
> > Anthony
> Hoi,
> The open content movement is not living in a vacuum. When you insists on
> everybody to behave like you would see the world and be overly negative
> about everyone that is not like that, you must live in a frustrating
> world. Google did and does a world of good. It is not an open source
> organisation but it has played a crucial role in making us what we are.
> It has contributed significantly to Open Source projects. One of their
> best policies is that they create their software in such a way that you
> can move away from Google if you so choose. If you want to reduce it to
> only "they did it for their own reason" fine, but you do not convince me.
>
> In the mean time, the WMF has a problem that is increasingly serious, we
> got a million and a bit out of our fund-raiser where we need a million
> and a half. Where we could use a million and one more. We predict that
> our growth is exponential. In my mind the biggest problem we have is a
> culture where other organisations, particular organisations that earn
> money are trash talked. Whoop-de-do that is just like it is baby;
> freedom of expression. And yes, but it is utterly irresponsible. In the
> case of Google, they made us and continue to make us as big as we are,
> and your aversion to selling ads does not detract one iota from that.
> They did not have to do such a thing. Were they in the pocket of the big
> content owners, they would not have done so and consequently we would
> not have been the big relevant movement that is changing the way people
> look at Open Content and licensing in the first place.
>
> I started this thread because to me it is essential to understand who
> our friends are. It is important to understand with whom we share
> values. It is important to understand for whom Open Content and Open
> Source can become more relevant and why. By engaging our friends and our
> could be friends, it is possible to increase the relevancy of what we
> do. We increase the potential for the WMF to realise its aims. It is sad
> that some choose to have such a narrow negative view on the world that
> they destroy opportunities. It is a fact of life that they are part of
> our community and it is for that reason that I feel it is necessary to
> repeat; Google has been good to us.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: teun spaans

body:
Fair use images can not be removed automatically, as they are intermingled
with the text. It goes ok for most album covers, and book covers, but
sometimes the images are an integral part of the text, or the text refers to
the image.

On 1/18/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> teun spaans wrote:
>
> >So the question is: what do we pursue: the dream of a free content, or a
> >compromise which add some chrome/culture but inhibits the free spreading
> of
> >knowledge?
> >
> >
> I'm not sure it really inhibits the free spread of knowledge in that
> case, since a reuser who prefers not to or can't rely on fair use can
> always distribute the same article with the fair-use pictures
> removed---this can even be done automatically since we tag them as fair
> use.  What *would* inhibit free knowledge in this case is if we used a
> fair-use picture where a free one was available, since in that case we'd
> be forcing this kind of user to remove a picture when we could've
> provided one that they could have kept in.
>
> But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing
> a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while
> the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free
> knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
>
> -Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
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from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 1/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Excuse me? Are you saying that when google uses wikipedia links to
> determine relevance in a search, it's detrimental to the neutrality of
> wikipedia? How exactly would that go?

In a sense, it is exactly that - because it increases the temptation
to add links to Wikipedia, regardless of real relevance to the reader.

That's still the case even if those links do not adjust search engine
results, of course.

-Matthew


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] My own Livejournal

body:
On 19/01/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been nothing but civil, but I'm the one being put on moderation.
>
> That shows what the groupthink is like around here. Do you all drink the
> same kool-aid too?

You're on moderation because you were on moderation on your previous
email address. Nothing more, nothing less. Did you expect to have the
moderation lifted when you started contributing with a different email
address?

~Mark Ryan


body:
On 1/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> To me that is like saying that having a wiki increases the temptation
> for people to vandalise articles.

It most certainly does.  Of course, one can decide that the advantages
outweigh the disadvantages, but that doesn't mean one has to believe
in no disadvantages.

-Matthew


from_name: K P

body:
On 1/19/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If the concept is in the sciences and the person is nominating it simply
> > because they've never heard of it, how can they tell if the source is
> > worthwhile?  I didn't even know what to say to someone who nominated one
> > article recently, on a subject the nominator had obviously never heard
> > of, on the basis that the nominator questioned how sea levels could
> > possibly
> > rise if there was less water held in the ice caps, or maybe he/she was
> > questioning the amount of the rise.  I don't think having the nominator
> > read
> > the source would have helped much.  On the other hand, it appears the
> > article writer hadn't gotten anywhere near a source, either....
> >
> > I'm finding a few problems with sources on articles.  People don't
> realize
> > you can't copy entire sentences from the article ("well, I only copied a
> > few
> > sentence, and never two in a row...."), and that you can't say the
> article
> >
> > said something it didn't.  If the article said he started studying
> singing
> > seriously at the age of 10, you can't say he started singing at
> 10.  Maybe
> > it's the Masson/New Yorker method of quoting in the latter case.
> >
> > How can anyone possibly nominate an article dealing with particle
> physics
> > for deletion, thinking it is a hoax, if they know nothing about quantum
> > mechanics?  I personally thought quantum mechanics was a hoax until I
> > studied it.  I think if you know nothing about an area, you aren't
> > qualified
> > to decide to use time resources of other editors by nominating an AfD
> > because YOU don't know anything about it.  Why not just ask someone in
> the
> >
> > area?  Need a geology editor, go to the geology page, look a bunch of
> > edits
> > and ask someone.  But don't say, "I don't know anything about the
> subject,
> > so I never heard of most of it, but really never heard of this, so I
> think
> >
> > it should be deleted."  It's absurd and wastes time and resources.
> >
> > Race walking.  Yeah, right.
> >
> > KP
>
>
> What, the sea-level can rise?  I don't believe you!  ;-)
>
> But seriously, it sounds as if in that case an unsourced article that
> needed
> plenty of work got improved because it was nominated for deletion.  Which
> is
> the typical result for deserving topics that get nominated, for whatever
> reason.  I wouldn't consider that a waste of time.  There may be more
> long-run efficient ways of going about improving articles, but none that
> gather more immediate results.

Yes, the article did get improved, which it desperately needed.

But AfD is so hostile, and the intention behind deletions is not to get them
improved, and nominators tend to be extreme deletionists, even though there
is no such thing as a deletionist.   The whole area of deletions is just a
cesspool of bad behaviour.  Not always, or even most of the time, and, yes,
one look at the new pages makes one think deletion should be an automatic
default in any quest for quality, but aren't there more civil ways to go
about it?

On the other hand, if you see a crummy article, that you don't have enough
knowledge to correct yourself, its owners will attack you for tagging it in
need of clean-up.  So, maybe you should just nominate crummy articles for
deletion and other editors will fix them up?

And how can someone in the know convince someone that something is an
appropriate article in an encyclopedia againt the primary argument that  "I
was born after the Cold War and Lech Walesa is a nobody to me?"

> Personally, I agree with you on what people *should* do when they come
> across an article about something they have never heard about and doubt
> the
> veracity of.  No matter what the subject area.
>
> As for non-experts being able to tell if sources are worthwhile, I'm not
> really sure what you're getting at.  What I'm saying is that even
> nominators
> who think "I've never heard of this" is a valid reason for deletion are
> typically just reasonable enough to realize that if there is a source,
> there's probably ''something'' to the topic.  They are far less likely to
> make the nomination in that case.  The article may still be complete crap
> based on junk sources, but that is something that requires knowledgeable
> editors' eyes in any case and an AfD nomination, regardless of purported
> reason, will bring those.
>
> -- Jonel

Sometimes what it may amount to "KP is always right, so don't require me to
prove it...."

KP


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mathematics university lecture notes - useful to anybody?

body:
Hi,

Upon cleaning up, my parents discovered some of my (hand-written)
lecture notes that I took down when I studied undergraduate mathematics
at Cambridge University from 1998-2001.

I don't need them anymore. But I didn't want to throw them away in case
they might be useful to someone. Thus, I'm asking here. I'd be willing
to ship them to anyone who in turn would be willing to use them to
improve Wikipedia and/or Wikibooks. Consider it a donation of sorts.

Is anyone interested? Please only reply if you're serious about using
them to improve Wikipedia or Wikibooks.

Timwi


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Expertaphobia

body:
> From: "Nina Stratton" <ninaeliza at gmail.com>
>>>> In the article on Cheesesteak, people were constantly coming in
>>>> with
>>>> pronouncements on what kind of cheese was proper
>> Hell - I always thought it was swiss, philistine that I am.

You and John Kerry.

You _did_ know that's what lost him the election, right?


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is your definition of an "expert"?

body:
The dictionary says: A person with a high degree of skill in or
knowledge of a certain subject.

Perhaps the question you meant to ask is, how do I tell whether or
not a person is an expert?

Here's my personal answer.

1) I regard someone as an expert if they can show me that they can
accurately convey detailed information on a topic directly from
memory, and when needed can remember or quickly rediscover the source
from which they that got that information. Think of a lawyer who
cites a legal decision, or a minister who can literally "cite chapter
and verse."

2) Someone who has done so much valuable work on a topic that he is
cited as a source by many others, either formally (in a print
citation) or informally (someone telling you "go see so-and-so about
that.")


subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversignt. re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
On 20/01/07, Who Cares <bowtothemath at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well, yes, it is true that nobody has to contribute all their wikitime to deletion debates. I do some other projectspace discussion, too, but it is mostly deletion debates. However, if you've seen my prose, you do not want me writing articles. And besides, I don't want to write articles. Editing Wikipedia for me is something enjoyable to do, so I refuse to do something I have no interest in doing. If it makes me a worse contributor to live in projectspace, so be it.
>   And how did I get picked as an example, anyway?

Sorry, I was just using you as an example of a contributor who's most
prominent in deletion discussions, not saying you were a problem case
or whatever.

- d.


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

> 1) I regard someone as an expert if they can show me that they can
> accurately convey detailed information on a topic directly from
> memory, and when needed can remember or quickly rediscover the source
> from which they that got that information. Think of a lawyer who
> cites a legal decision, or a minister who can literally "cite chapter
> and verse."
>
> 2) Someone who has done so much valuable work on a topic that he is
> cited as a source by many others, either formally (in a print
> citation) or informally (someone telling you "go see so-and-so about
> that.")

This is a really great answer.

Completely pointless post, but there you go.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Dan Collins

body:
If anyone is interested in helping to eliminate the spam problem, visit
#wikipedia-spam on irc://irc.freenode.net

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


body:
canvassing.

On 1/19/07, Cool Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 17]]
>
> Care to comment?
>    - Cool Cat
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] A copy of WP articles

body:
On 20/01/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> This is pretty new to me. This site has all its substantial content
> taken from Wikipedia, yet it claims to have copyright on it. I do not
> think that is right. I have flagged it on the appropriate pages on WP and
> I have finally tracked down the details of the site. I will e-mail them
> tomorrow. Right now I'm off to bed having been on the turps.

The copyrights are owned by the contributors. Each and every one would
be able to write to the site asking that the site stop violating their
copyright and falsely claiming copyright - either by taking the
articles down, or by making clear the articles' availability under
GFDL. Preferably the second.

Is the copyright in your work being violated? You can write to them
concerning this. Or call. Or fax., Or all of these.

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> The open content movement is not living in a vacuum. When you insists on
>
>everybody to behave like you would see the world and be overly negative
>about everyone that is not like that, you must live in a frustrating
>world. Google did and does a world of good. It is not an open source
>organisation but it has played a crucial role in making us what we are.
>It has contributed significantly to Open Source projects. One of their
>best policies is that they create their software in such a way that you
>can move away from Google if you so choose. If you want to reduce it to
>only "they did it for their own reason" fine, but you do not convince me.
>
>...
>
>I started this thread because to me it is essential to understand who
>our friends are. It is important to understand with whom we share
>values. It is important to understand for whom Open Content and Open
>Source can become more relevant and why. By engaging our friends and our
>could be friends, it is possible to increase the relevancy of what we
>do. We increase the potential for the WMF to realise its aims. It is sad
>that some choose to have such a narrow negative view on the world that
>they destroy opportunities. It is a fact of life that they are part of
>our community and it is for that reason that I feel it is necessary to
>repeat; Google has been good to us.
>
As critical as I may be of capitalism I have to agree with the main
thrust of Gerard's comments.  Oddly enough these comments are closely
related to my criticisms of those who wanted to import all of
Northwestern University's database of African maps just because we
could.  One can never expect that enforceable rules can be written to
deal with situation.  It is more often a matter of having the vision of
a wider view.

We have already done very well in integrating the efforts of editors
with diametrically opposed and severely conflicting opinions into
articles that progressively approach NPOV.  There is still much more to
do, but at least we are heading in the right direction.  Having advanced
on this front internally, we also need to do so externally.  Wikipedia
is a part of an external community just as much as its editors are a
part of an internal community.  Open Access will bring about its own
collapse unless the members of that club learn to work collaboratively.
As long as some members of the club insist on maximizing their profits
to extreme levels without regard to the effects of such a strategy, and
some others remain dedicated to having everything free-as-in-beer
confrontation is inevitable.  Henry Ford had enough vision to see that
if the workers could not buy his cars his business would not be profitable.

We also need to be ever conscious that we are in uncharted business
territory.  Wikipedia may very well be a top-ten website, but it is also
unique in being the only non-profit in that club.  That's an awesome
place.  There are many people to whom the notion that a nonprofit could
do so well is incomprehensible.  We can't be throwing stones at those
who could be our major collaborators, and we need to allow room for
relatively smaller players to do their thing.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google