from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Try #2: Idea for learning spam filter

body:
On 1/23/06, Aerik <aerik at thesylvans.com> wrote:
> And Michael Keppler <Michael.Keppler at ...> writes:
> > With the list of URLs you can then avoid the mass spamming of a single
> > URL into thousands of articles (as described before)...

> Beautiful suggestion Michael, and that would allow for a finer analysis of
> behaviour too.  So we'd collect three data points, the url, the wiki page being
> edited, and the datetime.

It would be very interesting to see the volume of new unique entries
which this script would pick up. If the number is small enough, it may
be feasible to manually check which links are being blocked.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Google Earth copyright (now that you bring it up)

body:
On 1/23/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/21/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > IOW, if a visual depiction of the character isn't legal, then isn't
> > the entire article, which is a textual depiction of the character,
> > illegal?
> >
> > There's just gotta be some kind of visual depiction of Darth Vader
> > which is legal for distribution in an encyclopedia by anyone anywhere
> > under any terms, at least with regard to copyright law (for all I know
> > discussion of Darth Vader is banned in China
> > or something, so I'm explicitly excepting something like that).
> >
>
> I think it is worth pointing out that copyright law (and trademark law)
> affects text and images (and other forms of media) differently. It is very
> easy to make a copyright-safe version of a textual account; it is very hard
> in most cases to make copyright-safe versions of images or visual-based
> media unless they are themselves based on "basic facts" (i.e. a diagram of
> some physical principle).
>
I don't know that it has to be "basic facts", but certainly when we're
talking about images in an encyclopedia we're talking about
communicating facts.

If a picture really is worth a thousand words, and that's probably not
a bad order of magnitude for the purposes of this statement, then it'd
take about as much work to make a "copyright-safe" version of the same
"size" text or image, at least given the same level of communication
skills in each medium.  Maybe that isn't fair, though, as most people
communicate more effectively with words than with pictures.

> The only way I know of to make "free" versions of copyrighted things would
> be as knock-offs. But that not only wouldn't help our purposes at all, but
> it would itself skate far closer to legal action than a "fair use" claim
> probably would. But that's just a speculation.
>
> FF

Doesn't a [[clean room design]] allow you to make "free" versions of
copyrighted things?  If a textual description of a photograph is
non-infringing, and you give that textual description to a sketch
artist (who's never seen the original), then isn't the sketch likewise
non-infringing?

Maybe the answer is that it's just not possible to come up with a
decent copyright-free textual description of a fictional character
from a copyrighted work.  Will that destroy the quest for a great free
encyclopedia?  Maybe not.  How good is the Britannica article on
[[Darth Vader]]?  Answering my own question and two more as a bonus,
no results in Britannica Online, no results in encyclopedia.com, and
"No results were found for your search in Encarta."  That doesn't mean
Wikipedia can't include an article about Darth Vader, but is a
detailed description, in text *or* image form, really necessary for an
encyclopedia?

I could go either way there.  I guess knowing what Darth Vader looks
like helps me understand all the spoofs.  But at the same time, I'd
just as well thumb my nose at Lucas and not buy in to his dirty
licenses.  C'mon, let's all sing the Free Software Song and substitute
knowledge for software.

When we have enough free [knowledge]
At our call, hackers, at our call,
We'll throw out those dirty licenses
Ever more, hackers, ever more.

Join us now and share the [knowledge];
You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free.

Copyright 1993 Richard Stallman
Verbatim redistribution permitted
if this notice is preserved.

Heh, sorry, I'm in a weird mood tonight.  But seriously, screw Lucas.
If he doesn't want to give us a free photo of Darth Vader, we don't
need to produce a free encyclopedia article about him (Darth Vader,
that is).

Anthony


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Canada

body:
On 1/23/06, Nicholas Moreau <nicholasmoreau at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikimedia Canada/*Wikim?dia Canada* hopes to soon join the international
> organization ranks. Some users, including myself, have started to develop
> the bare basics of what the project would be, and hope that it will soon
> morph into a full-fledged chapter.
>
> Any Canadians on the list are encouraged to join, and anyone that wishes to
> lend their guidance and/or advice to this chapter is greatly welcomed to do
> so.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada

Of course, as chapter coordinator, I stay at your disposal for any
information you might need. We are also in the process of forming a
Chapter committee, which will be here to answer any questions as well.

Best,

Delphine

--
~notafish


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Canada


from_name: Guettarda

subject:
[WikiEN-l] illegel removal By Ragib to try modification of some
	parts

body:
On 1/23/06, joalex <cutejoe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> friends,
> this user  *Ragib* had banned my IP adress since I edited a page.Healleged
> me as  "*vandalism* " even without a sufficient cause.I think he banned me
> because he is in favour of PAKISTAN in which I modified some parts
> according
> to my knowledge.my IP is  *202.56.231.116* and my username is Cutejoe.
> This is a attack on the freedom of press in which I tried to keep
> up.ShameWikipedia Shame, of this unmatured Admin.
> joe
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

This edit, in response to his vandalism warning is blockable:
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ragib&diff=prev&oldid=36389248

These are vandalism
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pakistan&diff=prev&oldid=36388390
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pakistan&diff=prev&oldid=36387433
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pakistan&diff=prev&oldid=36385684

This is borderline vandalism
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pakistan&diff=prev&oldid=36386835

You posted obscenities to his user page after he warned you about
vandalism.  He acted correctly to block you.


from_name: Brock Batsell

body:
Before any administrators with much more important things on their
hands look into this, here are this user's last 3 edits.

http://tinyurl.com/a57h4
http://tinyurl.com/c4swv
http://tinyurl.com/85jya

Regards,
[[User:Bbatsell]]
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from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with crap deletion nominations

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/23/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I like the "crap nominations" part. I have seen people in places like
>>Wikipedia Review saying they intentionally disrupt Wikipedia by
>>nominating a few articles in bad faith every day. Putting a stop to bad
>>faith acts is an action nobody should be opposing, regardless of who is
>>doing it or why. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but
>>the road to a good encyclopedia sure damn ain't paved with bad ones either.
>>
>>John Lee
>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>
>>
>
>
>You belive the people at Wikipedia Review?
>
>--
>geni
>
>
Let's just say that given I've been keeping [[WP:AFD/Old]] backlog free
for a week, I've seen more than my fair share of priceless AfDs.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Untagged image help

body:
On 23/01/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The problem is that it (obviously) isn't compulsary.  There would be no
> untagged images if the upload only worked if you selected a tag.  That said,
> we'd probably end up with spurious tags if we forced tagging...which might
> lead to more problems

Force tag, have a default {{untagged}}, purge everything with this
agressively? Similar to David's article-boilerplate proposal,
really...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] An article rescued simply by changing its subject

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Tony Sidaway stated for the record:
>
>
>
>>Seth Ravin was deleted a second time eventually.  I did a history
>>undelete and started a rewrite that simply changed the subject to
>>TomorrowNow, one of Mr Ravin's more notable companies.  I dropped more
>>material than I added but augmented the article with enough references
>>to make sure it makes [[WP:CORP]].  Then I moved the article over the
>>deleted Seth Ravin article, undeleted the history to comply with GFDL,
>>and hey presto, the article we would have had if someone had simply
>>done this in the first place without all the fuss and bother of a
>>deletion nomination, a deletion review and a second deletion
>>nomination.
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow
>>
>>
>
>Yeah, sure, Tony, but you're being very inconsiderate here.  Think of
>all the people who wouldn't have been able to go to sleep with that warm
>glow of satisfaction that only comes from a day spent deleting other
>people's work.
>
>- --
> Sean Barrett     | Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well.
> sean at epoptic.org |
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>
>iD8DBQFD1OitMAt1wyd9d+URAifaAJ0aPH/fs528C9FPb14ig5nz61S85ACbBpMn
>LRfnyzr7JehK0+7zGcyd0HU=
>=IaIP
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
This sort of sarcasm isn't very conducive to the tense atmosphere
regarding AfD, regardless of how moronic the *fD denizens are. (Full
disclosure: Yes, I am the guy who went "to sleep with that warm glow of
satisfaction" that came from deleting [[Seth Ravin]]. Seriously.
[[TomorrowNow]] is a valid subject; its CEO plainly isn't.)

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>
>>Tony Sidaway stated for the record:
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>Yeah, sure, Tony, but you're being very inconsiderate here.  Think of
>>all the people who wouldn't have been able to go to sleep with that warm
>>glow of satisfaction that only comes from a day spent deleting other
>>people's work.
>>
>>
>
>
>That's a terribly negative way of looking at it. The most
>inconsiderate thing is that there is no process to do what Tony did,
>so therefore the restoration was OUT OF PROCESS! This is an
>unforgivable offence to the community (all praise) and Tony should
>probably be blocked again for the effrontery. Or RFCed again. Or
>something.
>
>
>- d.
>
>
Not when the closing AfD admin encouraged him to commit this out of
process act. :-p

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for comments on [[WP:POL]]

body:
Hi all,
  It seems to me that [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines]] is in a sad
shape. I've posted the following request for comment at the talk page.
So reply there if you feel inclined. :)

--
This page is, IMHO, a bit of a mess. There were (until an hour ago :))
policies and guidelines mixed together down the bottom of the page
(undistinguished from each other), style guidelines in the content
section, and some really dubious guidelines. Meanwhile, most of the
serious, meaty policies aren't even linked.

So I ask: what is this page about? What should it be about? What should
be here? What should not be here?

Tentative answer: It should be a meta-policy for policies and
guidelines. It should explain why we have policies and guidelines. It
should explain what the difference between a policy and a guideline is.
It should give guidelines for creating policies - what should not be
enshrined in policy, what should be a guideline, when a guideline
becomes a policy, and when a policy becomes a pile of crap.

I've seen a few discussions about policy around the place and there is
considerable disagreement about whether policy articles describe or
prescribe, and what that means. Do policies describe what people think
people should do, or do they describe what people actually do. A rather
subtle point, but important: If people break a given rule regularly,
should the policy document the fact?

Lastly, should this page actually attempt to list all the policies and
guidelines? There are already other pages that do that, and that do it
better (notably WP:SR and Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines).

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] interface messages break XHTML

body:
Hello,

I commited in a change which doesn't invoke tidy for interface
messages. That means that every broken interface message (let it be
edit tools or whatever) will break XHTML of whole page. That means
that broken interface messages should better be fixed. This would
have effect on many many pages. There's no need for us to call tidy
for every small snippet that is edited once in a year. What is great! :)

Some of pages will win up to 40% response time.

If anyone becomes especially tired of this change,
$wgAlwaysUseTidy=true;

Domas


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Meta templates and Qif on :en

references:
<dqtq5v$bmn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cbffa3750601211232l4145f438le5ea3d2ef072f74f@mail.gmail.com>
	<dr25i0$heo$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Monday 23 January 2006 09:51, Phil Boswell wrote:
> Take for example the classic {{book reference}}. The simplest possible
> instance is just the title of the book. This can later be embellished with
> the name of the author, possibly with a link to an appropriate article.
> Later additions can include the publisher and ISBN, to distinguish between
> different editions and to enable a reader to find an actual copy.
>
> If you fork this template (and this was actually done before the advent of
> condition "tricksiness"), you have to use a different template every time
> you incrementally improve the accuracy of your citation. Your choice can
> even be affected by the order in which your embellishments are added!

This is exactly the example I wanted to put forward. I try to cite sources
whenever I can, but I haven't used appropriate templates because of this
(there exist/have existed multiple book reference templates: with page
number, without page number, with ISBN, without ISBN...). With one template,
it is much easier and I will likely use it now.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: This is a 'first-timer' - should I have
 missunderstood somehting then please have mercy for me

body:
Michael Laudahn wrote:

> I would prefer the anglo-saxon community dealing with this issue. I have
> tried the german conflict-solving layer already and know that there is
> nothing to be expected.
>
> Over.

Hi

The anglo-saxon community may be primarily found at wikien-l at wikimedia.org.
Otherwise, if you want to talk to germans, please focus on the german
mailing list.
This list may not be the appropriate forum.

Thanks

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Canada

body:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
> Wikimedia Canada/*Wikim?dia Canada* hopes to soon join the international
> organization ranks. Some users, including myself, have started to develop
> the bare basics of what the project would be, and hope that it will soon
> morph into a full-fledged chapter.
>
> Any Canadians on the list are encouraged to join, and anyone that wishes to
> lend their guidance and/or advice to this chapter is greatly welcomed to do
> so.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada
>
> Nick Moreau

Cool Zanimum !
Chapters starting to spread on another continent !

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Canada


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Nathan Russell wrote:
> On 1/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
>>Try #wikipedia.
>
>
> My personal experience of #wikipedia is that it tends to have a lot of
> off-topic socialization, and on-topic discussion tends to be lost in
> the scrolling.
>
> #wikimedia and #wikipedia-en tend to be better.
>
> Nathan aka Pakaran
> _______________________________________________

As a note.... #wikimedia is a channel dedicated to Foundation issues.
Recently, we noticed more and more editors leaking from the #wikipedia
channel and discussing english wikipedia issues on the Foundation channel.

Please, try to avoid doing that generally. And keep discussions in the
channel specifically dedicated. It will be very helpful for all.

Thanks

Ant


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [Flag] Re: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with crap deletion nominations

body:
> Now here we have it thrown up on Deletion Review for no other reason
> than "non-notable, spam is not a CSD criterion."
>
> Well, so what?

Indeed. Speedy deletion is often applied when an article has received a
bunch of deletion votes and no keep votes. I'm actually fine with that,
process wonk though I may be. I also agree that Deletion Review should
focus more on content and less on process than it currently does.

But I still think AfD is basically doing a good job most of the time and
that if its critics would spend half the time they spend complaining about
it on participating in it it would work even better :)

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Michael Laudahn

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] This is a 'first-timer' - should I havemissunderstood
	something then please have mercy for me

body:
I had intended to reach some kind of 'top-level' discussion group which also
is read by people with acess to Jimmy Wales - assuming I cannot reach him
directly. After desciption of the case, this group was pointed out to me by
Wikipedia (through some kind of hotline, though, according to my
impression).

Is my impression wrong that Wikipedia should have a certain interest in
maintaining a similarly high standard at least throughout the western world,
i e refrain from succumbing to corrupt banana republic practices which may
be order of the day in some countries that so far have managed to keep up
appearances to the opposite?

I have made the experience that Google HQ intervenes with their german
affiliate when they have succumbed to pressure from local dignitaries (and
after having been informed accordingly), in the interest of maintaining
their service level throughout. I would advocate for a similar procedure in
the Wikipedia realm, because experience shows that it seems necessary.

So after knowing also the rest of the story, is your recommendation with
regard to the wikien-l at wikimedia.org still valid? Otherwise, what would you
recommend? You can use my personal address, if you prefer.


from_name: Puzzlet Chung

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] "(image) quotation policy" proposed in Korean
	Wikipedia and Commons

body:
User:WonYong, who insisted that the contents of Wikipedia should be
restricted by National Security Law weeks ago (
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043321.html
), claims that copyrighted images can be uploaded to Korean Wikipedia
and Wikimedia Commons,  through "quotation policy."

Some months ago, WonYong wanted to upload image files from South
Korean government, but found that they are copyrighted and not allowed
to be uploaded. Now he came up with a new (proposed) policy that
allows uploading almost any image files. His point is that even
copyrighted images can be _quoted_ in Wikipedia articles, just like
citations in academic articles. He says that he won't no longer need
fair use, which he had proposed in Korean Wikipedia before.

South Korean copyright law states that publicized materials may be
quoted for report, research, or educational purposes, within a
reasonable scope. A bulletin board in the Copyright Discussion and
Arbitration Committee website (http://copyright.or.kr/) answered that
this "quotation" article of the bill is not suitable for writing
encyclopedias.

The problem is that he pushes his policy in not only Korean Wikipedia
but Wikimedia Commons. He says he distrusts copyright.or.kr, and
doubts that other Wikipedians and those in Commons do have "legal
mind."

Ongoing discussion in Wikimedia Commons is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#ALLOW_COPYRIGHTED_IMAGES.21.21

And the diff is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump&diff=1233753&oldid=1233434

Puzzlet Chung


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [HelpDesk-l] Complaint: Service abuse]

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 1/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 1/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't a mirror, is it? I think they got the wrong
>>>address.
>>>
>>>Mgm
>>
>>Encyclopedia Dramatica has nothing to do with us in any way shape or
>>form other than useing the same family of software.
>>
>>
>
> Then how did that message land on our doorstep?
>
>

The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by
the number of people in the group. We are talking about LiveJournal
users here... :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Requests for rollback privileges

body:
On the English language Wikipedia, there is a poll for voting on a
proposal which would grant the rollback privilege to good contributors,
who are not admins.
  --> http://starglade.org/rfr

Other large projects might find the proposal worthy of consideration for
implementation!

Chris (Talrias on en.wikipedia.org)

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for rollback privileges


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requests for rollback privileges


subject: [WikiEN-l] Merkey libels Wikipedians

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> On 1/22/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
>>In case you haven't seen it, the infamous [[Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]]
>>has brought back his (long-offline) site:
>>
>>http://www.merkeylaw.com/
>>
>>(Despite the "law" in the URL, he's not a lawyer, just a highly
>>litigious individual.)
>>
>>
>
>
> Six grandchildren at 45?  Tsk, tsk.
>

Careful, you'll end up on one of his lists :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: joalex

body:
friends,
this user  *Ragib* had banned my IP adress since I edited a page.He alleged
me as  "*vandalism* " even without a sufficient cause.I think he banned me
because he is in favour of PAKISTAN in which I modified some parts according
to my knowledge.my IP is  *202.56.231.116* and my username is Cutejoe.
This is a attack on the freedom of press in which I tried to keep
up.ShameWikipedia Shame, of this unmatured Admin.
joe


from_name: Miguel Andrade

subject:
[Foundation-l] WikiAuthors - disambiguation of author names in
	MEDLINE

body:
I am proposing a Wiki project for the disambiguation of author names
in MEDLINE [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/], an online database
of biomedical literature, which is maintained by the National Library
of Medicine. This resource contains more than 11 million references
and it is used by researchers worldwide.

I am doing this because
(1) ambiguous names (like J. Smith) are a problem for certain analyses
of the database,
(2) the institution developing the database is not considering
approaching this problem in the short term,
(3) name disambiguation can only be carried by the authors or close
colleagues, thus a collaborative project is needed.

See: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiAuthors

I would be glad to have your comments/help.

Thanks,
Miguel Andrade


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom Committee announcement

body:
On 1/24/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.

Hmm I was more thinking along the lines of offering my commiserations.
--
geni


from_name: Jofi

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Semi-protection for all wikis or at least for
	de.wikisource?

body:
I'd like to have semi-protection enabled at de.wikisource. I thought it
would come automatically with new software updates. Will it be enabled
in all wikis some day? Could somebody enable it at de.wikisource? Or am
I able to enable it myself? And if not, will there be a special page for
Bureaucrats to enable extensions some day? Then it wouldn't always be
the busy developers who have to do it.

Jofi
Bureaucrat de.wikisource


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] arbcom election results for dummies

body:
These election announcements, with their talk of "tranches" and
whatnot, are often a little confusing.  Because this can be exploited
for the purpose of increasing fear, uncertainty and doubt about
Wikipedia, I thought I'd reply to a post depicting the election as
"stolen" and Wikipedia as an incipient fascist state on Wikipedia
Review as follows.  I forward it here with minor editing because it's
the clearest explanation of the voting process and the results I've
yet seen.

http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1138056178&page=1#1138066561

Well I'm not sure how much attention you paid to the election process,
or whether you're aware of arbcom's history and function.

Jimbo has always claimed the right to appoint candidates, and regards
the elections as a form of approval or endorsement of potential
candidates. (see Signpost article: Election procedure poll). For the
latest elections, Jimbo made two alternative proposals to the old
method and held a straw poll to let the community indicate their
preference between the old approval voting method and either of the
two alternatives. The first alternative was for Jimbo to propose
candidates and the community to indicate their approval or disappoval
of each one with a 50% vote required to pass. The second alternative
was a hybrid: the community could also put up candidates, with the
same method of voting and the same 50% vote required to pass.

After discussion and straw polling, the second alternative was chosen.

This means that Jimbo effectively had a free choice from all
candidates who made 50% or more in the poll. There were twenty-two
such candidates. You will be pleased that the method was successful in
weeding out candidates without wide community approval: Kelly Martin,
Snowspinner and I are as controversial in the Wikipedia community as
we are here and failed to make the necessary 50% approval.

For the Alpha tranche of four arbcom seats, to be re-elected in 2008,
Jimbo chose the top four candidates by percentage of votes cast for
and against:

New Alpha tranche appointees

    * Filiocht 93%
    * Mindspillage 92%
    * Charles Matthews 89%
    * Morven 88%

Of the four gamma tranche arbcom seats, to be re-elected in 2007,
Raul654 and Neutrality remain and their seats were not up for
re-election this year. The other vacant places went to the two next
highest polling candidates by votes cast:

New Gamma tranche appointees

    * SimonP 87%
    * Dmcdevit 82%

Of the Beta tranche arbcom seats, to be re-elected in 2006, The Epopt
and Theresa Knott remain and their seats were not up for re-election
this year. The two vacant places went to the two next highest polling
candidates by votes cast:

New Beta tranche appointees

    * Sam Korn 78%
    * Mackensen 77%

This completely fulfilled the replenishment of the existing committee
and all eight available places were appointed by Jimbo according to
the approval of the community, as he had promised. Those who got the
highest proportion of the vote got the seats with the longest remainng
terms.

Jimbo then announced the appointment of one additional arbitrator to
each tranche, as allowed by the hybrid proposal, as follows.

And then in the interests of expanding the committee and maintaining
continuity, I'm also making the following appointments (all candidates
met with community approval, percentages listed below):

Additional direct appointees (all approved)

    * Alpha: JamesF 75.42%
    * Gamma: Fred Bauder 73.61%
    * Beta: JayJG 69.75%

On IRC last night, Jimbo explained his thinking on the new appointees:

"Yes, I looked at all the different factors, total number of votes,
percentages but I was also concerned about experience on the arbcom
and so for the 3 new seats, I thought: hmm, reappoint the experienced
who were approved by the community to give continuity."

Fred Bauder, JamesF and JayJG are experienced arbitrators who were all
up for re-election and had all gained well over the 50% approval
threshold. The new seats will be up for re-election according to their
tranche: JayJG in late 2006, Fred Bauder in 2007 and JamesF in 2008.


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

subject: [Flag] Re: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [HelpDesk-l] Complaint: Service abuse]

body:
On 1/23/06 11:20 PM, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
>>> Actually, ED is a Wikipedia fork, much the way the Comixpedia wiki is:
>>> it was set up when a number of articles the founders thought important
>>> were deleted by VfD.
>>
>>
>> ED and Uncyclopedia are two forks which benefit Wikipedia in two ways -
>> they provide a place to blow off steam from Wikipedia and they provide a
>> place for all the random Internet shite and bloggerel which may in some
>> way be interesting to someone but is in no way particularly encyclopedic.
>>
>
> Uncyclopedia is not a fork, it's a parody, and a damn funny one.

Either way, I simply meant "fork" in the broadest general sense of the term,
meaning Wiki users related to Wikipedia but not on Wikipedia. And yes, I
agree it's a damn funny one :)

-FCYTravis


body:
On 1/24/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.

Or offer sympathy. :)

But yes, congratulations.

Garion (just browsed through some arb cases)


from_name: Snowspinner

body:
On Jan 23, 2006, at 8:03 PM, Ilya N. wrote:

> Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.

On the other hand, allow me to be the first to congratulate Kelly and
David on their newfound freedom.

On a more serious note, are we just expanding the size of the
committee, or are we also changing the rules so that the same vote
totals are required? Requiring things to cross three more people's
desks seems to me to do nothing to speed up business. Quite the
opposite. Can we perhaps change to, say, five net support votes
required or a majority, whichever is less?

-Phil


body:
On 1/24/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> New Alpha tranche appointees
>
>     * Filiocht 93%
>     * Mindspillage 92%
>     * Charles Matthews 89%
>     * Morven 88%

I did wounder about this one. Did jimbo ask before giving these people
what is potentialy the short end of the stick?

--
geni


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Untagged image help

body:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:44:33 +0100, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/23/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 23/01/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > The problem is that it (obviously) isn't compulsary.  There would be
>> no
>> > untagged images if the upload only worked if you selected a tag.  That
>> said,
>> > we'd probably end up with spurious tags if we forced tagging...which
>> might
>> > lead to more problems
>>
>> Force tag, have a default {{untagged}}, purge everything with this
>> agressively? Similar to David's article-boilerplate proposal,
>> really...
>>
>>
> That's a really good idea.  Terribly simple.

Yeah, might be an idea to add a seperate required "source" field though.
Unfortunately some people seem to have gotten the impression that as long
as they don't use a "fair use" tag, source is optional. If not then at
least make it impossible to upload an image with a blank "summary" field.
Easy enough to bypass, but at least people can't claim they didn't know it
was required when they come to complain about the image getting deleted.

Another idea, one that would require a lot more developer work than the
above, but possebly save countless maintainance hours down the line is
this:

Make a "upload wizard" type system, one that will walk first time
uploaders though a multi step process and explain everyting carefully in
bite sized chunks across multiple different pages starting with "choose
the right format", moving on to "pick a good descriptive file name", then
"spesify who the copyright holder is and where you got the image" then
give a crash course in copyright law (you know the basics, stuff like
"publicaly available is not the same as public domain", all rights
reserved is the default if nothing is spesified, and "you can't claim
copyright to a copy you made of a copyrighted work", explaining the
difference between free and unfree licenses etc) and force the user to
check a "I understand" box, to move on to the license selection before
finaly allowing them to upload the image. After completing the toturial a
couple of times the user would "graduate" and get the to the normal "all
in one" upload form.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
And this isn't a cabal... how?

-Luigi


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Could an Administrator please look into this
	conflict?

body:
> So at what point does attempting to assert your copyright become "making a
> legal threat"?

Saying "you'll hear from my lawyer" before telling them kindly to
remove it, I imagine.

-Luigi


subject:
[WikiEN-l] illegel removal By Ragib to try modification of some
	parts

body:
On 1/23/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

>
> 2) What is this "freedom of the press" thing you refer to?
>

Freedom to press the revert button?


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Korn

> On 1/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Quite a few people appear to be under the impression that
> > wiki=wikipedia. We get a lot of missdirected messages. Quite a lot
> > about university aplications.
>
> And about joining our football (soccer to the Yanks) academy.

Our B-grade team did pretty good last year, considering. We have some
amazing talent, but the flexible approach to rules is what scuttled us short
of the finals. Only eleven players on the field at any one moment, OK?

As an aside, just how much are these people willing to pay for tuition?

Pete, who can whip up a convincing Wikicademy article at a moment's notice,
complete with ivy-covered halls and photographs of our impressive sporting
facilities


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 1/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did wounder about this one. Did jimbo ask before giving these people
> what is potentialy the short end of the stick?

No.  On the other hand, resignation is always an option ;)

-Matt


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: more low bandwidth user comments

body:
>>>>> "A" == Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> writes:

A> (Apologies to Dan if you get this twice; I'm assuming you're not
A> subscribed to the list...)
Correct.
A> Dan Jacobson wrote:
>> On Talk pages there is a link '+' for adding a comment.
>> Well why don't you spell out with English etc. what you mean instead
>> of just this geekspeak '+'.

A> Have you checked the tooltip on that? Please don't tell me you don't see
A> it, you're using a decent browser...

Well even if everything was working and the user did think of putting
the mouse on top of it or whatever, this single insistence of using a
cryptic code renders the whole page from qualifying for users with
disabilities use to not becoming prejudiced against disabled and older
etc. users.  Therefore your whole project now doesn't pass the 'OK for
disabled users test' so no grant money... anyways, spell out what you
mean by '+', and don't expect images or tooltips etc. to be seen on
PDAs or hardcopy too.

>> OK, and if one clicks on this +, one must download 100+ KB of form,
>> just to add a comment.  Perhaps mostly rarely used accented chars
>> entry help stuff.

A> I'm on 42kbps dialup. I don't have a problem with it.

But it is a shame when it doesn't have to be so big, and there's no
way for the user to configure it not to be so big.

>> When one sees links like Discussion etc. you might as well give an
>> article count, e.g., Discussion (21 items). Mainly if there is no
>> discussion yet, I don't want to click, as I have nothing to say, just
>> want to see others.
>>

A> If you determine a way of distinguishing the exact number of topics on a
A> talk page, please submit your feature to http://www.mediawiki.org/ - not
A> everyone will start a new section for their comment, so section counting
A> won't do it.

Maybe the count of times edited. Or at least show 'No entries yet' vs.
'yes there are entries already'

A> Anyway, the second to last button directly above the edit box gives me
A> the tooltip "Your signature with timestamp" and inserts --~~~~ (this can

Well you should put it next to:
"On talk pages, please sign your comment by typing four tildes (~~~~)."

I do see in the source code
ddButton('/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.png','Your signature
with timestamp','--~~~~','','');

but I don't see it in the rendered version, because 1. I didn't happen
to mouseover wherever it is hidden. 2. I don't download images. (I
assume your site still works without images.) 3. I am reading a 4 day
old copy offline. etc. 4. whatever. Anyway, don't count on tooltips.

A> If you're so desperate for bandwidth that you have to use perl to edit
A> your pages, why don't you just run [[Links (web browser)]] in the
A> simplest mode? No graphics, CSS or JS to download!

But if I use lynx I bet your site will still send the 100KB regardless
of my HTTP headers. Most of the 100KB being wasted in lynx.

>> On all pages there is "Go" "Search". Many don't know what "Go" means...

A> Type the name of an article into the box and hit "Go".

Without an idea of what will happen, users are hesitant to do so.

>> Anyways, hope this gets to wikien-l, where I suppose it is read (as
>> this is the best bug report address I know.)
>>

A> Not the best place (wikitech-l at wikimedia.org /is/), but you could have
A> done a lot worse.

That's the only address I saw for bug reports. OK, setting Reply-to.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions, bogus guidelines

body:
On 1/23/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Anyway, this tangent was fun and slightly educational, but it's worn
> out its welcome on my part :).  Unless you have a particular question
> about what I was trying to say I'm going to just leave my crazy ideas
> about the GFDL as is.

Fine enough by me ;)

I think the best lesson to learn from this is that the GFDL is a
confusing document that doesn't necessarily mean what one thinks it
means, what it should mean, or even possibly what its authors meant it
to mean ...

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Edit warring at [[WP:NPOV]]

body:
I do think, though, regardless of whether his new version is better,
one doesn't rewrite important policy like this.  Better to make a
subpage for the proposed new policy and hack on it there until it's
into shape, let people comment on it, and then replace the policy page
itself if people like the changes ...

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Google Earth copyright (now that you bring it up)

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Matt Brown

> On 1/23/06, Jei <jei at cc.hut.fi> wrote:
> >
> > Interesting. What about pictures of people? - If I put makeup on my
> > face and call it a work of art, and someone takes a picture
> of me in a
> > public place, do my copyrights still apply? Or if I jog
> regularly and
> > spend time shaping and trimming my body, does my unique physique
> > retain it's copyrights in a similar photograph situation?
>
> As with most things legal, the answer is probably 'it
> depends'.  Both of those could probably win in court with a
> good enough lawyer, a poor enough opposing lawyer, and a
> credulous jury.

Which leads me to ponder about how vulnerable WP is to similar
frivolononsense. We do the best we can and someone sues us because their
face is in the "body art" article or something.


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

body:
With what's on the floor right now, good luck to the new Arbbies.

On 1/24/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/24/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.
>
>
> Or offer sympathy. :)
>
> But yes, congratulations.
>
> Garion (just browsed through some arb cases)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

references:
<dr1el4$pda$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<6b397ba40601221841w416f2da0j2b0229e9ff32fcc4@mail.gmail.com>
	<dr1go4$tk5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1e20f1290601221913k7a1564e1u7a8481901cfb9a1d@mail.gmail.com>
	<dr3li1$vq6$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
"It seems sensible to me. Why not?--Jimbo
Wales<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales>19:26, 23 January
2006 (UTC)" from Jimbo's talk page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:JIMBO#IRC_channel_setup_for_admins ... so
Jimbo has approved it. How much one reads into that, though....
_______________________________________________

> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sam Fentress (Asbestos)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
On 1/23/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

>
> I don't think anyone is disputing the desirability of having an admin
> discussion list where non-admins can't post. Non-admins shouldn't be able
> to
> participate in such a list, and the reasons given above go a long way
> towards justifying this.

I think some people are disputing precisely this.  I hate the idea of an
admin-only room, list or anything else. It's written in a dozen places all
over the project: Admins are janitors; admins just get to use a few extra
buttons; admins are not above regular editors; adminship should be no big
deal.

There is nothing that we could discuss that we would need to bad others from
listening to and contributing to. Policy? Nowhere is it written or even
suggested that admins only make policy. Blocking decisions? This is always
open on the wiki and admin decisions are always transparent and open to
accountability. How to use admin buttons? Use a talk page, write an email,
or go to #wikipedia. People we don't like? Edit wars we'd like assistance
on? Notable polls we want our friends voting in? If people need to discuss
any of these things, there are plenty of other venues.

This isn't a trivial matter. Outside of email lists, this is the first time
(as far as I'm aware) that we have any forum designed specifically to hide
from the rest of the community, to discuss things in secret, to set one
group over and above another.

I'm not against an admin-oriented channel: just against a hidden, exclusive,
admin-only channel.

Sam

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: Admin meeting

body:
"Angela" <beesley at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8b722b800601231915x5fa3fbf6pbc33423d675608ff at mail.gmail.com...
> > That looks like a handy tool. Could it be used for *all* of the
> > Wikipedia
> > channels?
> > I can't get to IRC because it's blocked by our firewall, so an HTTP
> > solution
> > would be great.
> It could be used for all channels if it was hosted somewhere more
> reliable. I wouldn't want to risk having a large channel like
> #wikipedia on it right now since it's sharing a server with our
> mailing lists.

How much power does this particular tool require?

Maybe it could be hosted on the tool-server, or maybe there's an older
machine, retired from regular grunt-work, which could be given this task in
its old age :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 1/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Traditionally it is up to the ArbCom to set their own internal rules of
> procedure, but I do absolutely recommend that adding members should not
> _slow down_ the process but rather _speed up_ the process.  Adding
> members without changing the necessary quorum seems reasonable.

One of the changes that I think we'll be seeing is the use of a group
of clerks to both take care of the administrative issues of running
the ArbCom (thereby freeing the Arbitrators to actually arbitrate) and
also to remind the Arbitrators that they have work to do.  The clerks
will be monitoring case progress and poking the Arbitrators when cases
appear to be going stale.  It's hoped that these changes will help
keep the Arbitrators focused on task and get cases processed faster.

Kelly


list: commons-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject:
[Commons-l] "(image) quotation policy" proposed in Korean
	Wikipedia and Commons

body:
Hi wikipedians,

Puzzlet Chung schrieb am 24.01.2006 02:57:
> User:WonYong, who insisted that the contents of Wikipedia should be
> restricted by National Security Law weeks ago (
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043321.html
> ), claims that copyrighted images can be uploaded to Korean Wikipedia
> and Wikimedia Commons,  through "quotation policy."

He will have to accept, that this is highly unwanted and won't be
accepted by us. The discussion should show this to him. If he won't get
this and upload unfree images, he will get blocked.

Bye, avatar.

--
"Um den richtigen Weg zu finden,
musst du suchen so lange du lebst."
1.Buch des Hagakure
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from_name: Tomasz Ganicz

subject:
[Foundation-l] "(image) quotation policy" proposed in Korean
	Wikipedia and Commons

body:
2006/1/24, Puzzlet Chung <puzzlet at gmail.com>:
> User:WonYong, who insisted that the contents of Wikipedia should be
> restricted by National Security Law weeks ago (
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043321.html
> ), claims that copyrighted images can be uploaded to Korean Wikipedia
> and Wikimedia Commons,  through "quotation policy."

In most scientific journals I am writing to it is forbiden to "qoute"
the images in a sense it is proposed in this e-mail. You can qoute the
image just by puting a refrence saying for example "In publication xxx
one can find images of.... [number of reference]" - but to put the
original image in your publication you always need copyright agreement
of the publisher of original work.

> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://www.ceti.pl/kganicz/poli/kontakt.html


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with crap deletion nominations

body:
SCZenz (sczenz at gmail.com) [060124 07:38]:

> I'd suggest that end-running the forum because you disagree with its
> current regular users is an error.  We need to hash out disagreements
> about how things are to be run, even if it's difficult, not form
> separate warring fiefdoms.

I'd suggest backing up and reading the previous discussion. The AFD/DRV
culture is poisonous enough to be causing problems at the Foundation level;
this shit has to stop, and to stop quickly. Leaving it in the hope it will
improve is not an option.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [HelpDesk-l] Complaint: Service abuse]

body:
Mark Wagner (carnildo at gmail.com) [060124 10:07]:

> Actually, ED is a Wikipedia fork, much the way the Comixpedia wiki is:
> it was set up when a number of articles the founders thought important
> were deleted by VfD.

Somehow I don't consider that fork a bad thing. I wonder why that is.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Another AfD example -- a serious proposal to fix it

body:
Phil Boswell (phil.boswell at gmail.com) [060123 22:25]:
> "Kat Walsh" <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote in

> > Perhaps this is what a "deletion cabal" could do: simply make the call
> > to speedy pull a nomination, rather than penalize the nominator. I'd
> > imagine anyone whose nominations were continually getting pulled for
> > being inappropriate would eventually start to think about them more,
> > no penalty necessary.

> I'd think anyone who nominations were getting pulled that often should be
> considered for a WP:POINT time-out...

Well, yes.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dealing with crap deletion nominations

body:
"David Gerard" <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote
in message news:20060123002455.GO27338 at thingy.apana.org.au...
> David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au)
> [060123 10:52]:
[snip]
> [00:46]  <kim_register> Ok, so based on this alone
> [00:46]  <kim_register> normal wikipedia policy should be consensus
> consensus consensus
> [00:46]  <kim_register> large pages can best be split and transcluded
> [00:47]  <kim_register> transcluded sections will survive AFD anyway,
> since
> even those will have like 50 editors or so
> [00:47]  <kim_register> this way we can keep a consistent and coherent
> policy across the entire encyclopedia namespace

Certain editors of my acquaintance will be shitting breeze blocks at this.

They know who they are, and they hate templates (hates them precious!).

Permission to express grim satisfaction at their pained expression as they
squeeze that lump of concrete through their back passage, SAH!
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Snowspinner wrote:
> On a more serious note, are we just expanding the size of the
> committee, or are we also changing the rules so that the same vote
> totals are required? Requiring things to cross three more people's
> desks seems to me to do nothing to speed up business. Quite the
> opposite. Can we perhaps change to, say, five net support votes
> required or a majority, whichever is less?

Traditionally it is up to the ArbCom to set their own internal rules of
procedure, but I do absolutely recommend that adding members should not
_slow down_ the process but rather _speed up_ the process.  Adding
members without changing the necessary quorum seems reasonable.

One thing we know: ArbCom members are dedicated volunteers but they are
of course volunteers and therefore real life has to take precedence at
times -- so ArbCom members often go inactive for periods of time.
Having more members should ensure smoother functioning and fewer times
when we're really beating the bushes to get cases closed.

--Jimbo


body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 1/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I did wounder about this one. Did jimbo ask before giving these people
>>what is potentialy the short end of the stick?
>
>
> No.  On the other hand, resignation is always an option ;)

Yes, and I would have no objection, if it is done quickly, to people
trading seats.


from_name: Puzzlet Chung

subject:
[Commons-l] "(image) quotation policy" proposed in Korean Wikipedia
	and Commons

body:
User:WonYong, who insisted that the contents of Wikipedia should be
restricted by National Security Law weeks ago (
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043321.html
), claims that copyrighted images can be uploaded to Korean Wikipedia
and Wikimedia Commons,  through "quotation policy."

Some months ago, WonYong wanted to upload image files from South
Korean government, but found that they are copyrighted and not allowed
to be uploaded. Now he came up with a new (proposed) policy that
allows uploading almost any image files. His point is that even
copyrighted images can be _quoted_ in Wikipedia articles, just like
citations in academic articles. He says that he won't no longer need
fair use, which he had proposed in Korean Wikipedia before.

South Korean copyright law states that publicized materials may be
quoted for report, research, or educational purposes, within a
reasonable scope. A bulletin board in the Copyright Discussion and
Arbitration Committee website (http://copyright.or.kr/) answered that
this "quotation" article of the bill is not suitable for writing
encyclopedias.

The problem is that he pushes his policy in not only Korean Wikipedia
but Wikimedia Commons. He says he distrusts copyright.or.kr, and
doubts that other Wikipedians and those in Commons do have "legal
mind."

Ongoing discussion in Wikimedia Commons is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#ALLOW_COPYRIGHTED_IMAGES.21.21

And the diff is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump&diff=1233753&oldid=1233434

Puzzlet Chung


subject: [WikiEN-l] Edit warring at [[WP:NPOV]]

body:
That's my point as well.  This page shouldn't just be tinkered with
daily for two months, it's not a minor article.  Changes like that need to
be discussed before they get slapped into the live page.

Kate

On 1/24/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I do think, though, regardless of whether his new version is better,
> one doesn't rewrite important policy like this.  Better to make a
> subpage for the proposed new policy and hack on it there until it's
> into shape, let people comment on it, and then replace the policy page
> itself if people like the changes ...
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] learning languages ...

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Hi, I just wrote a blog entry about learning languages for kids - and of
> course adults could do it that way as well ... I wrote about kids since
> I see that it works with mine (4 years old).
>
> Well it is about using our materials on commons/wiktionary maybe also
> wikipedia to learn (well I have really many more things in mind than
> what is written in that blog, but it does not make sense to write really
> "everything" that would be important - a step by step approach is best I
> suppose).
>
> http://www.wesolveitnet.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=31
>
> I would very much like to know your opinions and maybe there is also
> someone interested in helping out with certain things.

It it worth it to look at Rosetta Stone for a similar system to what you
propose.  It is of course proprietary and can't be extended, and I think
it would be *very* easy for us to *completely* replace them.  As you
point out, some software has to be written, but I do not think it would
be complicated.  And with a standard format, the framework of the
software would be easily adapted to all languages and many many many
more free modules for an endless game of learning.

I would use this for my German studies for sure, if it existed.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Friendship and trust

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> Regarding the Waerth on Dutch Wikipedia, Jimbo came in to say:
>
> "Rather, I have voted because I would prefer to see a different
> approach taken in cases like this, an approach which is less
> confrontational and more about building up friendships and trust among
> good users."
>
> I wonder what kind of approach he would mean here. Could you please expound?

It seems to me that having the same percentage to *become* an admin and
*be removed* as an admin is perplexing.

And I think that many or most of those who voted 'no' on Waerth would
agree with this: Waerth crossed the line on a few occassions but has
been, overall, a very good user, and we can all understand the reasons
for his frustration, even if we don't agree.

I don't know enough of the details of what all has been tried in this
case, but it seems sad to me to have a very good user (a steward, well
trusted internationally, very often a press spokesperson for dutch
wikipedia) desysopped on such a slim process.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> I'm still not convinced #wikipedia-en-admins is a great idea as it
> stands, but it *does* tend to be on-topic more often.

I'm not sure either, but I can tell you one thing it is very very good for.

There are many many times when I need to quietly ask a group of trusted
editors to look at a problematic article -- for example, we get a
complaint from someone fairly obscure, on a topic I know nothing about,
and I look at the article and it is obvious crap.  The channel is
already proving useful in that regard.

--Jimbo


body:
Skyring wrote:

>The notes of commiseration and sympathy ring far too true, and I wonder if
>there is anything that can be done to reduce the stress level on our senior
>magistrates.

It's a burnout-inducing job, for sure. I fully expect some mid-term
draftees to be needed.

>I note that High Court judges have assistants and staffs to help them
>perform their work, and I wonder if something of the same sort could be
>implemented here. Perhaps long-serving admins could be appointed to serve as
>assistants for the ArbCom members, doing research and presenting summaries,
>dealing with correspondence, maintaining and archiving pages and so on - the
>sort of administrative work that requires knowledge and experience, but does
>not intrude on the duties of the members. Or perhaps a senior admin could be
>appointed to each case as an administrative assistant on a rotational basis.

Kelly is putting together some stuff for this (e.g. checklists for
opening and closing cases, neither of which we actually had for 2005
*ahem*). We're also getting a few people to act as clerks making sense
of the incomprehensible spews which so often end up on RFAr;
Snowspinner has done a nice job of this for us in a couple of recent
cases, Ryan Delaney has expressed interest in the job and I'd love to
draft Tony Sidaway for it as well. The mechanical jobs of opening and
closing cases is suitable as well. Obviously this would only be in
cases they're not involved in themselves. Raul654 is putting together
a page on the subject:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Clerk%27s_office

See also that page's talk page.

Clerks aren't particularly privileged except the AC trusts them to
sensibly assess stuff for them. They get write access (but not read)
to the AC list so as to save listadmin time approving their posts.

- d.


body:
Alphax wrote:

>Uncyclopedia is not a fork, it's a parody, and a damn funny one.

I particularly recommend today's front page to our Unix geek readers.
In honour of the current featured article, [[man uncyclopedia]].

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] announce-l and "Wikizine"?

body:
It seems a couple folks took over the abandoned announce-l mailing list a couple
months ago, sending community updates branded as "Wikizine" on it. The domain
name wikizine.org is being used to redirect to the list subscription page, and
some links & an email address at that domain are used.

http://wikizine.org/
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine

Now, having some actual Wikimedia info on a mailing list is pretty cool. :) But
I've got a couple organizational questions I want to toss out to the broader
community:

* It looks like Walter Vermeir owns this wikizine.org domain himself. What's the
status of it? If Walter loses interest will it continue? Who'll be responsible
for renewing it?

* I received a request to make a mailing list for a Romanian-language Wikizine.
Are we going to add more such lists, and if so should we do so under the
'announce' name set or 'wikizine'?

* Some 'marketing' ;) This has been going on for two or three months and I never
noticed. Was I just asleep at the wheel, or are a lot of people missing out who
might be interested?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
It seems a couple folks took over the abandoned announce-l mailing list a couple
months ago, sending community updates branded as "Wikizine" on it. The domain
name wikizine.org is being used to redirect to the list subscription page, and
some links & an email address at that domain are used.

http://wikizine.org/
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine

Now, having some actual Wikimedia info on a mailing list is pretty cool. :) But
I've got a couple organizational questions I want to toss out to the broader
community:

* It looks like Walter Vermeir owns this wikizine.org domain himself. What's the
status of it? If Walter loses interest will it continue? Who'll be responsible
for renewing it?

* I received a request to make a mailing list for a Romanian-language Wikizine.
Are we going to add more such lists, and if so should we do so under the
'announce' name set or 'wikizine'?

* Some 'marketing' ;) This has been going on for two or three months and I never
noticed. Was I just asleep at the wheel, or are a lot of people missing out who
might be interested?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
It seems a couple folks took over the abandoned announce-l mailing list a couple
months ago, sending community updates branded as "Wikizine" on it. The domain
name wikizine.org is being used to redirect to the list subscription page, and
some links & an email address at that domain are used.

http://wikizine.org/
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine

Now, having some actual Wikimedia info on a mailing list is pretty cool. :) But
I've got a couple organizational questions I want to toss out to the broader
community:

* It looks like Walter Vermeir owns this wikizine.org domain himself. What's the
status of it? If Walter loses interest will it continue? Who'll be responsible
for renewing it?

* I received a request to make a mailing list for a Romanian-language Wikizine.
Are we going to add more such lists, and if so should we do so under the
'announce' name set or 'wikizine'?

* Some 'marketing' ;) This has been going on for two or three months and I never
noticed. Was I just asleep at the wheel, or are a lot of people missing out who
might be interested?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
It seems a couple folks took over the abandoned announce-l mailing list a couple
months ago, sending community updates branded as "Wikizine" on it. The domain
name wikizine.org is being used to redirect to the list subscription page, and
some links & an email address at that domain are used.

http://wikizine.org/
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine

Now, having some actual Wikimedia info on a mailing list is pretty cool. :) But
I've got a couple organizational questions I want to toss out to the broader
community:

* It looks like Walter Vermeir owns this wikizine.org domain himself. What's the
status of it? If Walter loses interest will it continue? Who'll be responsible
for renewing it?

* I received a request to make a mailing list for a Romanian-language Wikizine.
Are we going to add more such lists, and if so should we do so under the
'announce' name set or 'wikizine'?

* Some 'marketing' ;) This has been going on for two or three months and I never
noticed. Was I just asleep at the wheel, or are a lot of people missing out who
might be interested?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Jay Converse wrote:

>I think that may be a symptom of the problem that is #wikipedia's general
>unwillingness to be on topic.  People are going to go where they can have a
>serious discussion, whether or not that's the right place for it.

Or follow me from channel to channel wanting to argue Deletion 101 ...
a "discussion" I could probably conduct entirely in macros by now.

I'm still not convinced #wikipedia-en-admins is a great idea as it
stands, but it *does* tend to be on-topic more often.

#wikipedia is officially not an official Wikimedia channel for all
sorts of good reasons ;-)

- d.


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Ban of user "Itake"

body:
This email got rejected from the moderation queue because of some sort
of corruption (or an ill-advised use of Gmail's text formatting
features instead of plain text). The user has kindly re-sent the email
in plain text:

~Mark Ryan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Itake <tchakolli at gmail.com>
Date: 23-Jan-2006 22:53
Subject: Re: Your email to WikiEN-l about your "ban"
To: Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com>

Ok, I don't know what "garbled" text is, was is that I used the gmail
text formatting features? Anyways, here it is again:

Username: Itake
IP: 213.67.50.30.

I was banned by the user "FeloniousMonk" because he felt I violated
wikipedia's civility code even though I was warned several times. Not
only is this untrue, but it is clear that the user in question has a
bias against me because he and I are involved in an ongoing AfD
dispute.

First off, I'd like to say that I did indeed violate the rules in
question. At that time, I wasn't aware that there even existed rules
for civil conduct on wikipedia. I was warned that my behavior was
against the rules.
I replied to the warnings on my talk page. I didn't even edit the AfD
disputes any further, or violate the civil conduct rules again, but
then suddenly I was banned. So user FeloniousMonk is lying. I wasn't
warned several times, I was told I violated it one time and continious
violations would lead to my ban. I didn't continue to violate it, yet
I was banned.

Further, I belive the user FeloniousMonk should have his admin powers
removed. He is quite clearly abusing them. I direct your attention
first to examples of uncivil conduct found on the wikipedia page about
it:

rudeness
judgmental tone in edit summaries ("fixed sloppy spelling," "snipped
rambling crap")
belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another
starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..."
calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel. Even
if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute.
More serious examples include:

Taunting
personal attacks
racial, ethnic, and religious slurs
profanity directed at another contributor
lies
defacing user pages
calling for bans and blocks
First off, the users Feloniousmonk is grouping with fit in on several
of these criteries. Yet he didn't ban them. For example:


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Jay Converse wrote:

>I disagree with this assessment entirely.  I highly doubt the community
>would support secret decision making.  A consensus would be immensely hard
>to reach simply because you and 15 people go "Well we discussed this and we
>have our reasons".  I highly doubt the community would stand for that at
>all.
>
I share Tim's concerns. "Secret decision making" is rarely so explicit
as you suggest.  The "15 people" don't normally issue a manifesto of
their common views that they will defend as an organized group.  Common
unspoken understandings develop as a function of working together.
Certain outlooks begin to make more sense to the point where alternate
suggestions in the wider world seem irrational.  Communities do stand
for it because nobody, including the in-group members,  realizes that
it's happening.

Maintaining democratic structures is an extremely difficult challenge
since most models do not scale very well.  Many people like to make
decisions and have the matter behind them, never to be visited again.
Most decisions in themselves aren't controversial at all; many are based
on conventions where an alternate decision would have worked equally
well.  In North America the basic rule when installing the electrical
wiring for a house is that the wire at ground potential has white
insulation, and the live wire has black insulation.  There is no reason
why the reverse won't work equally well.  People easily accept this rule
when the potential safety problems of a mixed installation are raised.

Of course safety is not always so available as an overriding
consideration.  Sometimes people need to feel that they are a part of a
decision that was effectively made long before they joined.  Most of the
time people will objectively agree with the established consensu.
Consensus needs a temporal as well as a planar dimension.

>I see the channel as a way to quickly get help for administrative duties
>that non-admins can't provide help on.  As a relatively new admin, I run
>into new problems that I can't figure out myself on a semi-frequent basis.
>It'd be nice to have the availability of a dedicated admin group to respond
>in a much more immediate way than talk pages.  I personally happen to prefer
>IRC correspondence to talk page correspondence for quick issues.
>
I don't think that the main effect of this function will be a glorified
help page.

>The one thing that'd immediately turn me off of the idea of this channel is
>if it becomes clear that the person in charge of the inviting won't invite
>you simply for being an admin.  There's a difference between a chat room and
>a clique room.
>
That's an excellent first chink in the armour;  the other objections
easily build from that.  Faction building is alive and well.

Ec

>
>On 1/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
>>The IRC channel #wikipedia-en-admins has now been created, with mode +is,
>>i.e. secret and
>>invite-only. It currently has an access list of 64 people. I am opposed to
>>its existence. To call a
>>forum which admits 800 people "almost public" is bizarre. You admit 800
>>but you exclude thousands of
>>active contributors. Wikipedia has always attempted to encourage newcomers
>>and to assume good faith,
>>but it's a clear violation of that principle to assume that the rest of
>>the world, those 6 billion
>>non-administrators, have nothing useful to contribute to the discussions
>>we wish to undertake.
>>
>>Imagine if you joined Wikipedia today. How would you feel about the
>>formidable barriers against your
>>potential contribution to Wikipedia's decision-making process? How would
>>you feel about having tens
>>of admins declaring new policy, stating their rationale but refusing to
>>enter into discussion with
>>you on equal terms, on the basis that it had already been decided in
>>private?
>>


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't a mirror, is it? I think they got the wrong
>>address.
>>
>>Mgm
>>
>>
>Encyclopedia Dramatica has nothing to do with us in any way shape or
>form other than useing the same family of software.
>
When did EB start operating a wiki? ;-)

Ec


body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>On 1/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Quite a few people appear to be under the impression that
>>>wiki=wikipedia. We get a lot of missdirected messages. Quite a lot
>>>about university aplications.
>>>
>>>
>>And about joining our football (soccer to the Yanks) academy.
>>
>>
>Our B-grade team did pretty good last year, considering. We have some
>amazing talent, but the flexible approach to rules is what scuttled us short
>of the finals. Only eleven players on the field at any one moment, OK?
>
Too bad!  There was a time when a whole English village would turn out
to play against the whole neighboring village  If the wrong balls got
kicked it wqas viewed all as a part of the game.

>As an aside, just how much are these people willing to pay for tuition?
>
Pay????? :-$ ?

>Pete, who can whip up a convincing Wikicademy article at a moment's notice,
>complete with ivy-covered halls and photographs of our impressive sporting
>facilities
>
Hmmm. A moment's notice for what nobody will notice seems like a fair
exchange.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Luigi30 wrote:

>And this isn't a cabal... how?

I <3 the Cabal!

- d.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/23/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> I wonder at what point an image is so downgraded by thumbnailing as to be
> exempt from any challenge to fair use. In the absence of primary images we
> can use with PD or GFDL tags, then there should be some way that we can use
> low-quality images to illustrate an article so that whoever owns the
> high-quality copyright image does not feel that their potential market has
> been targeted. An external link pointing to the original copyright source
> would give readers access to a higher-quality image.
>
> But if quoting some percentage of a published text work for the purpose of
> commentary or reference is acceptable, then surely we can find some
> percentage of an image quality that would be generally acceptable. Is a 100
> by 100 pixel thumbnail of a 1000 by 1000 pixel copyright image acceptable?
> That's only 1% of the original!
>
> I ask because there are some articles that would be well served by even a
> low-quality image, but it is all but impossible to find an image that we can
> use. An example would be in the case of an air disaster, where photographs
> would almost certainly be the property of news agencies.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tenerife_Disaster_Collision_aftermath_27_
> March_1977.png is one example, where the image is scanned in at low
> resolution.
>
> Peter (Skyring)

I really don't see what encyclopedic knowledge a photo of a burning
wing adds to the [[Tenerife disaster]] article.  The computer
generated image of the impact, on the other hand, that's somewhat
informational.

Of course, the computer generated image was apparently ripped off some
website, even though it's perfectly possible for a Wikipedia to
generate it herself.

"It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of works of art
for critical commentary on the work in question, the artistic genre or
technique of the work of art or the school to which the artist belongs
on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United
States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use
under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on
Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement."

Which of those three uses is [[Image:Tenerife collision.jpg]] being used under?

Anthony


body:
And on the eighth day God invented the wheel, and the whole Goddamned
thing started over again. - Wikigenesis 2:3A

:-) Ec

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>I thought this was absolutely priceless...
>
>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: 	[HelpDesk-l] Complaint: Service abuse
>Date: 	Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:49:48 +0000
>From: 	<NAME REMOVED>
>Reply-To: 	Help desk for questions about Wikimedia projects
><helpdesk-l at Wikimedia.org>
>To: 	helpdesk-l at wikimedia.org
>
>Staff members of the world's biggest online encyclopedia,
>
>I am writing this email in complaint to how easy the service can be
>abused by just about anyone on the internet. While in theory it is a
>positive idea to allow people to willingly submit or update articles, it
>gives anyone the power to submit nothing but complete nonsensical,
>biased and generally fictional information that does not reflect on the
>reality of the subject.
>
>Today I was outraged in coming to terms with this when I realized an
>article of interest was willingly changed by someone who was clearly
>closed-minded and totally against the subject:
>http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/FA
>
>You may not know much on the subject, however, I believe that it would
>be fair a proposal to request changing your contribution system to allow
>all contributions to articles to be submitted directly to members of
>staff to review the contributions first, in order to confirm the
>certainty of the article by researching for facts about it online. If
>the contribution is approved, it can then be displayed in the article.
>
>Further, I personally request that you remove the biased, untrue article
>edit and replace it with the much more accurate revision in the
>article's history:
>http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=FA&oldid=47793
><http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=FA&oldid=47793>
>
>Thank you very much for taking the time to read my email of concern, and
>thanks in advance for taking care of the situation in any way possible.
> - A Wikipedia user
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin list--privacy

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/23/06, Jay Converse <supermo0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>How can anyone be selected for discreetness on Wikipedia when essentially
>>every action you take can be looked at later?
>>
>>
>There are other situations where discreetness may be called for.
>Direct emails for example.
>
I support the notion that spammers should be more discreet.

Ec


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] learning languages ...

body:
Hi, I just wrote a blog entry about learning languages for kids - and of
course adults could do it that way as well ... I wrote about kids since
I see that it works with mine (4 years old).

Well it is about using our materials on commons/wiktionary maybe also
wikipedia to learn (well I have really many more things in mind than
what is written in that blog, but it does not make sense to write really
"everything" that would be important - a step by step approach is best I
suppose).

http://www.wesolveitnet.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=31

I would very much like to know your opinions and maybe there is also
someone interested in helping out with certain things.

Thanks!

Best,

Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice: chiama da PC a telefono a tariffe esclusive
http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] learning languages ...


subject: [Wikipedia-l] learning languages ...


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom Committee announcement

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000

> On 1/24/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.
>
>
> Or offer sympathy. :)
>
> But yes, congratulations.
>
> Garion (just browsed through some arb cases)

Congratulations to the appointees. May you be blessed with wisdom, justice
and the good will of the community.

The notes of commiseration and sympathy ring far too true, and I wonder if
there is anything that can be done to reduce the stress level on our senior
magistrates.

I note that High Court judges have assistants and staffs to help them
perform their work, and I wonder if something of the same sort could be
implemented here. Perhaps long-serving admins could be appointed to serve as
assistants for the ArbCom members, doing research and presenting summaries,
dealing with correspondence, maintaining and archiving pages and so on - the
sort of administrative work that requires knowledge and experience, but does
not intrude on the duties of the members. Or perhaps a senior admin could be
appointed to each case as an administrative assistant on a rotational basis.

I say this, knowing that I have been guilty of adding to the stress and
workload of the Arbcom in the past, and for those sins I am heartily sorry.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Anthere wrote:

>By why are you so little using the #wikipedia-en ?

#wikipedia is on-topic enough for me, and I find it amusing (or I
wouldn't bother). I suppose I should log into #wikipedia-en as well.

More generally, I expect no-one's there because no-one's there yet -
it's yet to take off.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>The question is more about how open the archives of such a list should be,
>and there are two main arguments for this. The first is tramsparency of
>process, and the second is that with 800 participants the thing will leak
>anyway.
>
The nature of leaks is such that they only come out as half truths
anyway, thus giving a grossly distorted picture of what really happened.

Ec


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re:Re: Confusing Interwiki Links

body:
On 1/23/06, Dominik Bach <dominik.bach at web.de> wrote:
>
> this works for me. But isn't it a little too technical for the ordinary
> user?
>

Customization features always present a dilemma -- as you are adding more
and more possibilities for a bit more advanced user to tune, you are
complicating the software for an "ordinary user". Yes, you are right, you
could add an option "[x] Make English interwiki bold". Or, you could add
"Make those interwikis bold: [en, de]", which is more flexible, but more
complicated (how should a beginner know that English is en and German is
de?). And then, someone asks "I would rather like to have that in italics,
not bold." So, you add another checkbox, etc. Every further customization
possibility is at the cost of the simplicity and ease of use.

So, _my_ opinion is that this feature would not be used that much it should
be a first-class option available in the GUI. Any user that would want such
behaviour would IMHO be advanced enough not to be scared by a piece of CSS.

But, of course, if you disagree, you are free to fill a feature request in
MediaZilla (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/).

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fastfission

> I think it is worth pointing out that copyright law (and
> trademark law) affects text and images (and other forms of
> media) differently. It is very easy to make a copyright-safe
> version of a textual account; it is very hard in most cases
> to make copyright-safe versions of images or visual-based
> media unless they are themselves based on "basic facts" (i.e.
> a diagram of some physical principle).
>
> The only way I know of to make "free" versions of copyrighted
> things would be as knock-offs. But that not only wouldn't
> help our purposes at all, but it would itself skate far
> closer to legal action than a "fair use" claim probably
> would. But that's just a speculation.

I wonder at what point an image is so downgraded by thumbnailing as to be
exempt from any challenge to fair use. In the absence of primary images we
can use with PD or GFDL tags, then there should be some way that we can use
low-quality images to illustrate an article so that whoever owns the
high-quality copyright image does not feel that their potential market has
been targeted. An external link pointing to the original copyright source
would give readers access to a higher-quality image.

But if quoting some percentage of a published text work for the purpose of
commentary or reference is acceptable, then surely we can find some
percentage of an image quality that would be generally acceptable. Is a 100
by 100 pixel thumbnail of a 1000 by 1000 pixel copyright image acceptable?
That's only 1% of the original!

I ask because there are some articles that would be well served by even a
low-quality image, but it is all but impossible to find an image that we can
use. An example would be in the case of an air disaster, where photographs
would almost certainly be the property of news agencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tenerife_Disaster_Collision_aftermath_27_
March_1977.png is one example, where the image is scanned in at low
resolution.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] arbcom election results for dummies

body:
On 1/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Yes, and I would have no objection, if it is done quickly, to people
> trading seats.

Right now, I'm feeling sucker enough to say I'm up for it.  Ask me
again in a year, of course ...

-Matt


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Could an Administrator please look into
	this	conflict?

body:
Luigi30 wrote:

>>So at what point does attempting to assert your copyright become "making a
>>legal threat"?
>>
>>
>Saying "you'll hear from my lawyer" before telling them kindly to
>remove it, I imagine.
>
I guess we all react to this kind of thing differently.  I don't
interpret legal threats as much of a big deal.  Outlawing them seems a
bit like changing the rules of poker to forbid bluffing.  I prefer to
respond with comments like, "I dare you!" or more simply, " :-P ."  I
refuse to be intimidated by such nonsense.

Ec


body:
Jei wrote:

> Interesting. What about pictures of people? - If I put makeup on my
> face and call it a work of art, and someone takes a picture of me in a
> public place, do my copyrights still apply? Or if I jog regularly and
> spend time
> shaping and trimming my body, does my unique physique retain it's
> copyrights in a similar photograph situation?

It depends on the originality of the makeup, and how distinctive it is.
Could parents be considered as having copyrights in their children? :-)

Ec


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Admin meeting

body:
> That looks like a handy tool. Could it be used for *all* of the Wikipedia
> channels?
>
> I can't get to IRC because it's blocked by our firewall, so an HTTP solution
> would be great.

It could be used for all channels if it was hosted somewhere more
reliable. I wouldn't want to risk having a large channel like
#wikipedia on it right now since it's sharing a server with our
mailing lists.

Angela.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Jay Converse wrote:
>
>
>>I think that may be a symptom of the problem that is #wikipedia's general
>>unwillingness to be on topic.  People are going to go where they can have a
>>serious discussion, whether or not that's the right place for it.
>
>
>
> Or follow me from channel to channel wanting to argue Deletion 101 ...
> a "discussion" I could probably conduct entirely in macros by now.
>
> I'm still not convinced #wikipedia-en-admins is a great idea as it
> stands, but it *does* tend to be on-topic more often.
>
> #wikipedia is officially not an official Wikimedia channel for all
> sorts of good reasons ;-)
>
>
> - d.

By why are you so little using the #wikipedia-en ?

ant


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] "(image) quotation policy"
 proposed in Korean	Wikipedia and Commons

body:
Actually, being a lawyer and a PhD candidate in copyright law, I think
do have "legal mind" :-)

And there are some others on juriwiki-l too :-)

Is copyright.or.kr a governement institution?

Anyway, I know some legal scholars in Korea, and I can contact them to
obtain more precise information. But it will take some time.

I'll follow the link and I forward this to juriwiki-l

Best,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron

Puzzlet Chung wrote:
> User:WonYong, who insisted that the contents of Wikipedia should be
> restricted by National Security Law weeks ago (
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043321.html
> ), claims that copyrighted images can be uploaded to Korean Wikipedia
> and Wikimedia Commons,  through "quotation policy."
>
> Some months ago, WonYong wanted to upload image files from South
> Korean government, but found that they are copyrighted and not allowed
> to be uploaded. Now he came up with a new (proposed) policy that
> allows uploading almost any image files. His point is that even
> copyrighted images can be _quoted_ in Wikipedia articles, just like
> citations in academic articles. He says that he won't no longer need
> fair use, which he had proposed in Korean Wikipedia before.
>
> South Korean copyright law states that publicized materials may be
> quoted for report, research, or educational purposes, within a
> reasonable scope. A bulletin board in the Copyright Discussion and
> Arbitration Committee website (http://copyright.or.kr/) answered that
> this "quotation" article of the bill is not suitable for writing
> encyclopedias.
>
> The problem is that he pushes his policy in not only Korean Wikipedia
> but Wikimedia Commons. He says he distrusts copyright.or.kr, and
> doubts that other Wikipedians and those in Commons do have "legal
> mind."
>
> Ongoing discussion in Wikimedia Commons is here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#ALLOW_COPYRIGHTED_IMAGES.21.21
>
> And the diff is here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump&diff=1233753&oldid=1233434
>
> Puzzlet Chung
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] "(image) quotation policy" proposed in
	Korean	Wikipedia and Commons


subject:
[WikiEN-l] illegel removal By Ragib to try modification of
	someparts

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of joalex

> friends,
> this user  *Ragib* had banned my IP adress since I edited a
> page.He alleged me as  "*vandalism* " even without a
> sufficient cause.I think he banned me because he is in favour
> of PAKISTAN in which I modified some parts according to my
> knowledge.my IP is  *202.56.231.116* and my username is Cutejoe.
> This is a attack on the freedom of press in which I tried to
> keep up.ShameWikipedia Shame, of this unmatured Admin.

Looking at one of your edits to [[Pakistan]] at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pakistan&diff=36388999&oldid=36388
390 you changed the name of the country to "Pakistan_the whore of America",
amongst other controversial and poorly spelt changes.

Despite the strength of your feelings, you really cannot make such edits and
expect to have them stand for more than a few moments. Perhaps you should
discuss your edits first and see if you can gain consensus for them. Waging
an edit war and then seeking support here is not a winning strategy.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Sam Fentress (Asbestos)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
On 1/24/06, Sam Fentress (Asbestos) <asbestos999 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> There is nothing that we could discuss that we would need to ban others
> from listening to and contributing to. Policy? Nowhere is it written or even
> suggested that admins only make policy. Blocking decisions? This is always
> open on the wiki and admin decisions are always transparent and open to
> accountability. How to use admin buttons? Use a talk page, write an email,
> or go to #wikipedia. People we don't like? Edit wars we'd like assistance
> on? Notable polls we want our friends voting in? If people need to discuss
> any of these things, there are plenty of other venues.
>

> This isn't a trivial matter. Outside of email lists, this is the first
> time (as far as I'm aware) that we have any forum designed specifically to
> hide from the rest of the community, to discuss things in secret, to set one
> group over and above another.
>
> I'm not against an admin-oriented channel: just against a hidden,
> exclusive, admin-only channel.
>
> Sam
>

Since no one else has mentioned this, I just thought I'd throw the question
out again: Is there anything that we, as administrators, need to discuss
that we'd need to ban others from listening to and contributing to?

If not, then I don't care about the odd benefit of being able to have "a
quiet word with a group of trusted editors": the idea of a secret, exclusive
channel needs to be thrown out. You can still have your quiet word on a
moderated, on-topic, non-exclusive admin channel.

Sam

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos


from_name: Carlos Thompson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Namespace manager and its potential use

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

> On the Neapolitan wikipedia we have one particularity: it is a language
> without stadardised writing (up to now) and it has local varieties that
> sometimes vary really a lot. Besides that there are regions that are
> attributed to the Neapolitan language group that really "far away" from
> Neapolitan - this means that there are languages (that are not considered
> as such) that are not understandable for us when we hear those people
> talk.
>
> Now as much as I understand the namespace manager could help us in that.
>
> We could create namespaces for:
> *standardised Neapolitan
> *phonetic Neapolitan (at the moment, this would have the majority of
> articles at the moment)
> *language A (attributed to the NAP language group)
> *language B (attributed to the NAP language group)
> etc.
>
> The mainpage would then become a page that leads to the several namespaces
> where the NAMESPACE:Main_page would actually hold the main page of that
> specific namespace and that could be different according to contents etc.

If I understand this correctly, this would also help for languages with
different scripts like Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) which is written in either
Roman or Hebrew script.  With this we could have different namespaces for
each script (orthography), interlink between scripts, etc.

-- Carlos Thompson


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
After we see who is really on board, perhaps we can split up the
cases between two subcommittees.

Fred

On Jan 24, 2006, at 12:14 AM, Snowspinner wrote:

>
> On Jan 23, 2006, at 8:03 PM, Ilya N. wrote:
>
>
>> Allow me to be the first to congratulate the new Arbitrators.
>>
>
> On the other hand, allow me to be the first to congratulate Kelly
> and David on their newfound freedom.
>
> On a more serious note, are we just expanding the size of the
> committee, or are we also changing the rules so that the same vote
> totals are required? Requiring things to cross three more people's
> desks seems to me to do nothing to speed up business. Quite the
> opposite. Can we perhaps change to, say, five net support votes
> required or a majority, whichever is less?
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Friendship and trust

body:
Regarding the Waerth on Dutch Wikipedia, Jimbo came in to say:

"Rather, I have voted because I would prefer to see a different
approach taken in cases like this, an approach which is less
confrontational and more about building up friendships and trust among
good users."

I wonder what kind of approach he would mean here. Could you please expound?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: #wikipedia-en-admins

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>There are many many times when I need to quietly ask a group of trusted
>editors to look at a problematic article -- for example, we get a
>complaint from someone fairly obscure, on a topic I know nothing about,
>and I look at the article and it is obvious crap.  The channel is
>already proving useful in that regard.

There's an obvious security problem here, of course, in that you have
no way of knowing that someone who claims to be a given admin and who
then gets into the channel is actually that admin.

So I wouldn't recommend its use for stuff that *really* has to be kept
to sane insiders, with "admin" as a rough approximation to "sane
insider" ('cos we don't *usually* get admins who are completely
batshit). But it would be useful in that sense as a saner sounding
board than the average day on #wikipedia. OTOH, you could probably get
as good results on #wikimedia in many ways ...

- d.