subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy

body:
On 3/27/07, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunate, I can not discover any procedure how an EDP should be
> written. The resolution doesnt state any procedure of approving by the
> Foundation

Intentionally so. It would not be very scalable to have to approve
every single EDP that is ever developed anywhere. Rather, we need to
rely on volunteers from those communities and their periphery to
inform us. I believe we must assume good faith here; if a project
begins developing an EDP, it implies at least that they are thinking
about the issue.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller


list: wikien-l

from_name: Cary Bass

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Bauer DRV question - history (was
 Wikimedia	Foundation sued)

body:
Michael Bimmler wrote:
> On 3/27/07, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 27, 2007, at 8:21 AM, Cary Bass wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.  They should never be
>>> used as source material in a biography.  They are not news.  A great
>>> portion of this article was derived and sourced from blog entries.
>>> The
>>> history was restored and has been available again for some hours.
>>>
>> I really wish the Office representatives would stop advocating
>> flagrantly bad sourcing practices.
>>
>>
>
> While talking about it: Were the statements made by Cary Bass, WMF
> Volunteers Coordinator or by bastique, Wikipedian? And: Is every
> statement made by bastique through the @wikimedia.org-address an
> official statement by the volunteer coordinator? (I would not use the
> term "office representative" here, rather "foundation-representative")
>
> Michael
>
> Michael
>
These are made by myself individually.  I'm not listed on the WP:OFFICE
page and have never been officially recognized as having OFFICE authority.

I am still a volunteer on the Wikimedia project, still work on External
Correspondence, and I still have feelings as a human being, and still
get insulted just like everyone else.

Cary Bass as Bastique


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] On a lighter note for a change

body:
On 3/26/07, Avi <avi_wiki at yahoo.com> wrote:

>   We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association
>  of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
>
>   PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf

Ahhhh... Darn it, and that article [[Spline (mathematics)]] sources it
to a much more recent derivation than is correct (see [[Spline
(device)]]), though it's sourced.

*bang head on the wall*

We've become a reliable source for a scientific publication.  With
info from a published reliable source.  Which is wrong - it quotes the
origin as recent (WW II aircraft building, as opposed to the correct
shipbuilding origin in the middle ages, which [[Spline (device)]]
alludes to but doesn't go far enough explaining).  And moreso, our
[[Spline (mathematics)]] article lifts several sentences worth of
material from cited source
(http://www.netlib.org/na-digest-html/98/v98n26.html#1) without direct
reference, probably a copyvio.

*bang head on the wall again*

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Omegatron

subject: [WikiEN-l] WMF licensing policy announced

body:
On 3/27/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Shouldn't the policy be reworded to talk about where an exemption doctrine
> can't be made instead of where one exists.
> If things that don't have such a doctrine can be deleted, it kills of
> multiple media for which a fair use rationale can be written if only a
> chance is given.

It should also be reworded to emphasize that the new licensing restrictions
are not generally supported and were not decided by the community, but
mandated in a top-down fashion by Jimbo and the Foundation.  This would
forestall all the stale arguments about promotional photos and fair use
images in which editors mistakenly think that they have a voice in how the
project is run.

Also, what is the effect of the "machine readable format" bit in the text?

Probably that the image copyright templates have machine-readable metadata
added to them so that downstream users can automatically strip out things
like Wikimedia logos and other non-free content that can't be redistributed.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Bauer DRV question - history (was Wikimedia
	Foundation sued)

body:
> >> I don't see any particular problem with that.  The Admins know what they
> >> are doing.
> >
> >
> >
> > ... woah.
> >
> > That's quite the statement.  We've apparently come quite far from the idea
> > that adminship is no big deal.  Not that I have a problem with that, per se,
> > but telling non-admins to trust "the Admins" with policy decisions is
> > something that seems a major departure from previous practice here.
>
> We are talking about very rare cases.  The particular case in question
> is quite remarkable.
>
> We have a choice: WP:OFFICE where actions are carried out by single
> staff members or by me personally (which does not scale, and carries
> with it enormous risks of bias), or relaxing just a little bit and
> trusting the community of admins to oversee each other.
>
> What is NOT a choice is keeping vicious crap up on the site while people
> discuss it.  There's no point to that.

I completely agree, however you should probably have phrased it
better. Only allowing admins to decide on matters like this *is* a
problem, however, it is a lesser problem than that of letter everyone
see potentially libellous content. Saying it wasn't a problem at all
gave people the wrong impression.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool - how to prepare for the onslaught

body:
On 3/26/07, ? Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We should change the tagline for april fools to that!

We should definitely change it to *something*.  :-)

"From Wikipedia, an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of
typewriters"?

What has it been changed to in the past?


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 3/26/07, Avi <avi_wiki at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>   We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association
>>  of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
>>
>>   PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
>>
>
> Ahhhh... Darn it, and that article [[Spline (mathematics)]] sources it
> to a much more recent derivation than is correct (see [[Spline
> (device)]]), though it's sourced.
>
> *bang head on the wall*
>
Yep, the work of scholarship is never done... :-)

But I think that's the real beauty of WP, that it's a giant scratchpad
where we all collect notes on what the different sources are saying,
especially those in specialized areas that haven't talked to anybody
outside the specialty in decades. Even the lowly disambiguation pages
are assemblages of multiple meanings that have never been put together
before.

Stan


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions

body:
On 3/26/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, I have a hard time imagining a situation where it is absolutely
> impossible to purge POV from the bio of an otherwise notable person
> without nuking the article.

But is that the point? If a credible legal threat it made, we might as
well just delete the thing first and ask questions later. No single
article is worth getting sued over - whether the Foundation would win
the case or not.

Steve


from_name: Philip Sandifer

body:
On Mar 27, 2007, at 11:12 AM, geni wrote:

> On 3/27/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/26/07, ? Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> We should change the tagline for april fools to that!
>>
>>
>> We should definitely change it to *something*.  :-)
>
> No thankyou it was anoying enough the last time someone decided to
> mess around with the system messages.

Oh come on, that was hilarious.

A bad idea, and we shouldn't aim to repeat it, but still. I'll bet
dollars to donuts (and I like donuts) that most people who looked at
that laughed.

The issue isn't that these things aren't funny. It's that our main
purpose isn't humor. :)

-Phil


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citation needed flags

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>Thank you for you responses. This case is just one of many I have come
>across where the subject of the Article is reported to have been afflicted
>with "clinical depression". In Kafka's case, the statement I question is
>this: "It is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from clinical depression
>and social anxiety throughout his entire life."
>
>Clinical Depression is a serious mental health condition that requires a
>formal, professional diagnosis. And the Kafka Article is just one of many,
>many I have come across in the encyclopedia where this statement is made
>without citation. This casual use of the term "clinical depression" is not
>fair to the subject, and can be misleading to the reader.
>
Clinical depression is indeed a serious condition among people..  When
it comes to articles "generally agreed" can be just as serious a
condition affecting the article.  Sometimes it may be applicable as in,
"It is generally agreed that Shakespeare is the greatest English writer
of all times,"  but these situations are exceptional.  The expression
should be used with caution, and is subject to challenge.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
On Mar 27, 2007, at 10:15 AM, Cary Bass wrote:

> Blogs as sources are the exception and not the rule, and each needs to
> be considered and weighed before it is used, and not after.  Blogs are
> generally unrelaible and non-notable and should not be used as
> reliable
> sources.

There's no particular logic or use to saying "blogs" here. Virtually
every source needs to be used with care and thought instead of
robotically and reflexively - from peer reviewed journals on down.

-Phil


from_name: Guettarda

subject:
[WikiEN-l] blogs vs websites - (was Bauer DRV question -
	history)

body:
On 3/27/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/27/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <
> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > "Denny Colt" wrote
> >
> > > I am wondering why the 'blog' aspect itself has this dirty Scarlet
> > Letter
> > > connotation...
> >
> > If you want to use a blog as a source, the burden of proof lies with you
> > to substantiate its reliability. The low barriers to access for blogging
> > mean this is the only sane approach.
> >
> > Charles
>
>
> There aren't any high barriers to starting a website either. We should
> treat
> both the same.
>
> Mgm

The issue is self-published sources.  It's really the same if you blog or it
you use a vanity press.  It's the preponderance of blogs that causes them to
be singled out. It's a readily available medium, and anyone can register a
blog and spout off on whatever topic they want.  The main issue is "be
careful with self-published material"...whether it is a blog, a non-blog
webpage, or a book published by a vanity press.

Ian


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 27/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> I know that, and agree about the need for change to RFA, but the point
> remains: our admins are a good bunch, and in some cases (WP:BLP cases in
> particular), restricting things to admins to make a decision is a good
> thing.  Sure, other people can help, and not all good people become
> admins, but the admins do a good job.

This is basically true, yes. And in the present case, Doc glasgow is a
very clueful but uncompromising BLP watcher. I disagree with him in
the present case - for the subject area, the sources are good IMO -
but I wouldn't call his actions *wrong*, which would be quite a
different thing.

- d.


list: foundation-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

body:
Hoi,
The reason why they did not have translated interfaces is because nobody
bothered to set up the message files. The accepted policy of the language
committee requires them.

Please set up these message files so that we can move from here.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/27/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, most of the more successful recently-created Wikis did not have
> translated interfaces until they left the incubator, by which point
> some of them were already relatively large.
>
> Mark
>
> On 27/03/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 27/03/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 2007/3/27, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> > >
> > > > As far as Gerard and I have talked about this issue and I understand
> > > > it, it seems like a sensible policy to me. If you want a new
> language,
> > > > it should not be that difficult to at least prepare the groundwork
> for
> > > > MediaWiki localization before you start. If you cannot even get that
> > > > organized, how are you ever going to write a useful encyclopedia?
> > > >
> > >
> > > What if your interest is in writing an encyclopedia, and not in
> translating
> > > software? If you have 10 people happily writing articles, but none of
> them
> > > having interest in going through all 200+ MediaWiki-pages, does that
> mean
> > > that it can never be an encyclopedia?
> >
> > Exactly. There is a lot of crud in the MediaWiki messages. Even when
> > you start a new wiki in English, how many people go through the
> > messages to localise them and create all the referenced pages such as
> > Project:About? (I sure don't.) As opposed to, how many dive into the
> > exciting project of content creation?
> >
> > Why is localisation so important? The messages will be translated as
> > the wiki progresses. I am not convinced that localisation before
> > launch is more likely to ensure a successful project. Is there some
> > research or some cases that show this?
> >
> > regards,
> > Brianna
> > user:pfctdayelise
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy

body:
On 27/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> What I'd like to see is a total cleanup of all non-free images of
> living people that can be replaced with free content, using the "No
> free image" method as e.g. demonstrated on:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tommi_Hovi&oldid=114878341

I've been doing this whenever I happen across a bio without a picture
at all, though the last one I zapped a promo pic on was [[Charlotte
Church]]. (Famous current TV host? Get a picture!) As it happened,
Heligo and I were on IRC, and Heligo promptly found a CC-by-sa image
on Flickr, so it was imageless for a very short time.

Though that's not going to happen in every case - I doubt anyone's
going to find a free image of [[J. D. Salinger]] any time soon - but
IMO is a principle we could do with being a fair bit harsher on.

> It would also be nice if free content became a more consistent part of
> the featured article candidate process; at least a couple recent
> articles featured on the Main Page had to have their images removed
> because of excessive use of non-free content.

FAC does police this pretty strongly and has done for quite some time.
I recall they were very reluctant to let [[Chuck Palahniuk]] through
until it had a non-promo image (it now has a free image).

- d.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
> Hoi,
> The reason why they did not have translated interfaces is because nobody
> bothered to set up the message files. The accepted policy of the language
> committee requires them.

What is being questioned here is the validity of this policy. Erik stated
that if you cannot get someone to be bothered to set up the message files,
it is reasonable to expect you cannot setup an encyclopedia either. Mark now
answers that it has been done a few times. So that removes one argument.
Apparently, now the reason that it is policy is that the committee has
decided it is. Which is a rather lame reason in an open organization as the
Wikimedia foundation is (I think) hoping to be.

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikireader (was re: Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin,
	March 25, 2007)

references:
<!&!AAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAKZDncDdYTFAhY+6WozrxLzCgAAAEAAAAE975IUYvhdAkSvOA5SdZpsBAAAAAA==@gmail.com>
	<46085410.5040402@anthere.org> <460859F3.4060905@netzero.net>
	<8b722b800703261740g61fd219ah8f7abfca3f6d94d5@mail.gmail.com>
	<004f01c77015$1f0d2dd0$6501a8c0@TitoLap>

body:
On 27/03/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:

> One question: were the de.wp WikiReaders "published" (meaning that they were
> done by a commercial entity and sold to the public) or not? Were the en.wp
> WikiReaders "published" as well, or were they just handed out at Wikimania?
> I ask this because the Version 1.0 Editorial Team is interested in picking
> this up and producing commercially available WikiReaders (and several
> WikiProjects have announced that they're interested in this: WikiProjects
> Military History, LGBT studies and Tropical cyclones, off the top of my
> head. Military History has actually begun work on this at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MILPUB . However, remembering the Lulu Press
> incident, we want to make sure all our ducks are in a row.

How much does the definition of "published" matter here?

(e.g. for legal deposit purposes in Western Australia, "published"
means "three or more copies produced and distributed." Obviously they
miss a huge amount of stuff fitting this criterion ...)

- d.


body:
Hoi,
The new policy does not deal with the mess that exists as a consequence of
not having this policy in the past. Mark's argument is based on things that
happened before the policy came into effect.

Solving the mess is what we do want to address .. so far there have been two
languages provided with their initial messages in MediaWiki... We are
working on a solution for all issues but it does take a lot of work. For one
of the pieces of the puzzle we have been told to wait until Brion has rolled
out single login. We have explicitly asked for some priority because this is
an important issue to us. I have had information from Brion and from within
the board of trustees that our issues do not have priority.

As it does not have priority for the WMF, we are in a state of limbo with
many of these issues. New languages do not have any priority. I would like
to see that the support of languages in MediaWiki does have priority.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On 3/27/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > The reason why they did not have translated interfaces is because nobody
> > bothered to set up the message files. The accepted policy of the
> language
> > committee requires them.
>
>
> What is being questioned here is the validity of this policy. Erik stated
> that if you cannot get someone to be bothered to set up the message files,
> it is reasonable to expect you cannot setup an encyclopedia either. Mark
> now
> answers that it has been done a few times. So that removes one argument.
> Apparently, now the reason that it is policy is that the committee has
> decided it is. Which is a rather lame reason in an open organization as
> the
> Wikimedia foundation is (I think) hoping to be.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/26/07, Kat Walsh <kat at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy,
> available now at:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
>
"All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free
Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the
'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above."

"In addition, with the exception of Wikimedia Commons, each project
community may develop and adopt an EDP."

Am I misreading something, or does this mean that the Wikimedia logos
need to be removed from the Commons?

Anthony


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 3/27/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Nick Wilkins wrote:
> > On 3/26/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I don't see any particular problem with that.  The Admins know what
> they
> >> are doing.
> >
> >
> >
> > ... woah.
> >
> > That's quite the statement.  We've apparently come quite far from the
> idea
> > that adminship is no big deal.  Not that I have a problem with that, per
> se,
> > but telling non-admins to trust "the Admins" with policy decisions is
> > something that seems a major departure from previous practice here.
>
> We are talking about very rare cases.  The particular case in question
> is quite remarkable.
>
> We have a choice: WP:OFFICE where actions are carried out by single
> staff members or by me personally (which does not scale, and carries
> with it enormous risks of bias), or relaxing just a little bit and
> trusting the community of admins to oversee each other.
>
> What is NOT a choice is keeping vicious crap up on the site while people
> discuss it.  There's no point to that.
>
> --Jimbo

In all of this, no one even addressed what was the BLP violation and which
sources are lacking.
Deleting something without doing the legwork is a case of bias. I'd rather
have actions be taken by people who have all the facts than people who claim
there is a BLP violation without clarifying the issue.

Keeping "vicious crap" is an option. Only a handful of admins can now see
it, of which only a handful have the knowledge to determine the reliability
of the sources. If this history remains hidden, I doubt any more than 10
knowledgeable people can see it. I'm all for open discussion, but deletions
should depend on people who have done the research, not on personal opinions
after a cursory glance.

Mgm


body:
On 3/27/07, Dycedarg <darthvader1219 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/27/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> > We are talking about very rare cases.  The particular case in question
> > is quite remarkable.
> >
> > We have a choice: WP:OFFICE where actions are carried out by single
> > staff members or by me personally (which does not scale, and carries
> > with it enormous risks of bias), or relaxing just a little bit and
> > trusting the community of admins to oversee each other.
> >
> > What is NOT a choice is keeping vicious crap up on the site while people
> > discuss it.  There's no point to that.
> >
> > --Jimbo
> >
>
> Do you mean that in this particular instance you don't think the material
> should be undeleted? Because if so, I'd like to point out that you're a
> wee
> bit late. The revision history of the article was restored 10 hours ago.
>
>
> --
>
> Dycedarg

Temp undeletion aids the discussion. It can always be redeleted later.


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] How's the POTD working on Gmail?

body:
On 26/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Last few days' pictures have been fine for me - link displaying at top
> in a useful manner. Has anyone else been getting the message
> displaying without the link?

I actually just inserted another line that says 'Body of email:', so
now it's getting chopped off instead of the link. *grins*

Good to go with comcom RSS etc promo??

cheers
Brianna


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> writes:

> David Gerard wrote:
>> On 27/03/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.
>>>
>>
>>
>> See, this is the sort of rule that if applied without thought
leads to
>> occasional stupid results.
>>
> I'm sorry, David, you are right.  Let me rephrase that.  I've
never seen
> a blog entry that was reliable enough to be used as source
  material.
> These blog entries do not meat WP:RS, and any material derived
from them
> should be eliminated.
>
> Cary.

What about blog posts that later get published? IE, Nick Szabo is
an academic who often writes "blog
posts"<http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/> which later get
published as papers <http://szabo.best.vwh.net/>. Previously, I
had used some of his financial history essays as sources for
starting articles. Should they be deleted now?

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 26/03/07, Denny Colt <wikidenny at gmail.com> wrote:
> Basically any non-admin is now excluded from the DRV after Doc Glasgow
> speedied it unless someone restores the history for us.

...which is the way it always has been in such cases. I'm not sure why
this is seeming to be a new! remarkable! issue!

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


body:
Hoi,
What is required is that some localisation has to have happened. It does not
say full localisation. At this moment it is not possible to localise in the
first place. The notion that a policy should be changed because there is a
current stumbling block is silly.

Get a friendly developer to create some message files. Be part of the
solution.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/27/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, yes, but the policy is written partly by you.
>
> You speak about the policy as if it's written in stone and as if
> criticism of it is illogical because it cannot or will not ever be
> changed.
>
> Please read the last 10 messages on this thread. The consensus so far
> _in this thread_ seems to be that it is illogical to require full
> translation of MediaWiki messages before allowing a new Wikipedia to
> be created.
>
> Then please read the title of this thread, and note that it was posted
> by Arbeo, who is a very respectable person.
>
> Mark
>
> On 27/03/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The new policy does not deal with the mess that exists as a consequence
> of
> > not having this policy in the past. Mark's argument is based on things
> that
> > happened before the policy came into effect.
> >
> > Solving the mess is what we do want to address .. so far there have been
> two
> > languages provided with their initial messages in MediaWiki... We are
> > working on a solution for all issues but it does take a lot of work. For
> one
> > of the pieces of the puzzle we have been told to wait until Brion has
> rolled
> > out single login. We have explicitly asked for some priority because
> this is
> > an important issue to us. I have had information from Brion and from
> within
> > the board of trustees that our issues do not have priority.
> >
> > As it does not have priority for the WMF, we are in a state of limbo
> with
> > many of these issues. New languages do not have any priority. I would
> like
> > to see that the support of languages in MediaWiki does have priority.
> > Thanks,
> >      GerardM
> >
> > On 3/27/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > 2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> > > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > The reason why they did not have translated interfaces is because
> nobody
> > > > bothered to set up the message files. The accepted policy of the
> > > language
> > > > committee requires them.
> > >
> > >
> > > What is being questioned here is the validity of this policy. Erik
> stated
> > > that if you cannot get someone to be bothered to set up the message
> files,
> > > it is reasonable to expect you cannot setup an encyclopedia either.
> Mark
> > > now
> > > answers that it has been done a few times. So that removes one
> argument.
> > > Apparently, now the reason that it is policy is that the committee has
> > > decided it is. Which is a rather lame reason in an open organization
> as
> > > the
> > > Wikimedia foundation is (I think) hoping to be.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Denny Colt wrote:
>  Unfortunately since no one but admins can see the stuff in question
now, any
> non-admins have been unfairly (in violation of policy?) removed from any
> decision making here that is of real value... I "recall" seeing RS on the
> article before it went away, but if someone challenged me on that--what do I
> say? "Sorry, can't see it/confirm"?
>
> Basically any non-admin is now excluded from the DRV after Doc Glasgow
> speedied it unless someone restores the history for us.

I don't see any particular problem with that.  The Admins know what they
are doing.


body:
2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> The new policy does not deal with the mess that exists as a consequence of
> not having this policy in the past. Mark's argument is based on things
> that
> happened before the policy came into effect.

And how are these things 'a mess'? That's what I want to know from you. Why
does this policy exist? What problem does it solve? Apparently  before this
policy was in effect, some Wikipedias were created that would not have been
created in that form had this policy been in effect. What has gone so
terribly wrong in there that you'd rather put the languages on hold than
have that happen again?

Solving the mess is what we do want to address .. so far there have been two
> languages provided with their initial messages in MediaWiki... We are
> working on a solution for all issues but it does take a lot of work. For
> one
> of the pieces of the puzzle we have been told to wait until Brion has
> rolled
> out single login. We have explicitly asked for some priority because this
> is
> an important issue to us. I have had information from Brion and from
> within
> the board of trustees that our issues do not have priority.

And what are those issues you have to work on? Why are they blocking the
creation and implementation of new message files when existing languages
happily live on with their existing message files and MediaWiki namespaces?

As it does not have priority for the WMF, we are in a state of limbo with
> many of these issues. New languages do not have any priority. I would like
> to see that the support of languages in MediaWiki does have priority.

Should not YOU be the one to have a priority with new languages instead of
with putting pressure on other parts of the WMF to do what you want (and is
useful, I certainly agree)?

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


body:
Hoi,
The result would be like it was before that an increasing number of projects
are not supported with a language message file. There are two parts to this
problem; MediaWiki is not only used by Wikipedia and MediaWiki is not only
used by the Wikimedia Foundation. Creating a message file for a language is
a job that does not take long. It needs doing.

Once a new project IS started, a message file HAS to be created. The
difference is that the moment when the message file is created is moved
forward. The difference is that a new language has to be supported like any
other language. It is not acceptable that new languages are getting a
substandard service.

Every language is to be treated equal; at this moment some languages are
more equal then others.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/27/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 27/03/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > What is required is that some localisation has to have happened. It does
> not
> > say full localisation. At this moment it is not possible to localise in
> the
> > first place. The notion that a policy should be changed because there is
> a
> > current stumbling block is silly.
> >
> > Get a friendly developer to create some message files. Be part of the
> > solution.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
>
> That sounds remarkably like "it's not our fault; blame the
> developers". There is nothing technically that means a wiki couldn't
> start with a message file, is there? And the only thing keeping some
> projects from being approved is this lack of a message file? Wouldn't
> common sense say, let the project go ahead for now and the message
> file will happen when the devs get around to it?
>
> regards
> Brianna
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Hoi,
There is nothing holding people back from creating new content for their
language. The only thing that is not happening is that this content is being
created in a new Wikipedia.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On 3/27/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
> > The new policy does not deal with the mess that exists as a consequence
> of
> > not having this policy in the past. Mark's argument is based on things
> > that
> > happened before the policy came into effect.
>
>
> And how are these things 'a mess'? That's what I want to know from you.
> Why
> does this policy exist? What problem does it solve? Apparently  before
> this
> policy was in effect, some Wikipedias were created that would not have
> been
> created in that form had this policy been in effect. What has gone so
> terribly wrong in there that you'd rather put the languages on hold than
> have that happen again?
>
> Solving the mess is what we do want to address .. so far there have been
> two
> > languages provided with their initial messages in MediaWiki... We are
> > working on a solution for all issues but it does take a lot of work. For
> > one
> > of the pieces of the puzzle we have been told to wait until Brion has
> > rolled
> > out single login. We have explicitly asked for some priority because
> this
> > is
> > an important issue to us. I have had information from Brion and from
> > within
> > the board of trustees that our issues do not have priority.
>
>
> And what are those issues you have to work on? Why are they blocking the
> creation and implementation of new message files when existing languages
> happily live on with their existing message files and MediaWiki
> namespaces?
>
> As it does not have priority for the WMF, we are in a state of limbo with
> > many of these issues. New languages do not have any priority. I would
> like
> > to see that the support of languages in MediaWiki does have priority.
>
>
> Should not YOU be the one to have a priority with new languages instead of
> with putting pressure on other parts of the WMF to do what you want (and
> is
> useful, I certainly agree)?
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> The result would be like it was before that an increasing number of
> projects
> are not supported with a language message file. There are two parts to
> this
> problem; MediaWiki is not only used by Wikipedia and MediaWiki is not only
> used by the Wikimedia Foundation. Creating a message file for a language
> is
> a job that does not take long. It needs doing.

But does it need doing before anything else is done?  If people are happy to
work in a strange interface, why not let them? And if they HAVE made an
interface, as you say 2 languages have already been bullied by you into
doing, then why not simply use that? All it takes is someone with SVN access
to upload it, no?

Once a new project IS started, a message file HAS to be created. The
> difference is that the moment when the message file is created is moved
> forward. The difference is that a new language has to be supported like
> any
> other language. It is not acceptable that new languages are getting a
> substandard service.

Apparently it is more acceptable to you to not give it any service at
all....

Every language is to be treated equal; at this moment some languages are
> more equal then others.

And I don't see how you are improving on this situation by not allowing the
languages a place in Wikipedia at all.

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


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
Unfortunate, I can not discover any procedure how an EDP should be
written. The resolution doesnt state any procedure of approving by the
Foundation, as I beleive it was in the proposal. The backside of this
is that it is very well possible that projects will develop EDP's that
are conflicting with law, as many projects do not have sufficient
lawyer capacity (such as nlwiki), especially on US law of course, but
also on local law(s), to determine whether an EDP is conflicting or
not. Further there is no demand that the foundation can check whether
the EDP is as it was meant to. These are points I brought up earlier,
and I am sad that they were left out completely now. I hope very much
that some procedure will be developed anyway to have EDP's approved by
the WMF.

Further I understand from the examples that a project might have
multiple EDP's? (w:en:WP:FU is mentionned as one example, I guess a
project could have more EDP then just FU?)

Lodewijk

2007/3/27, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher op gmail.com>:
> I'm so happy to see the word "educational" survived. :D
>
> cheers
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> On 27/03/07, Kat Walsh <kat op wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy,
> > available now at:
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
> >
> > This policy is intended to reflect the principles in the message
> > posted earlier at
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027547.html
> > and to make the guidelines for acceptable media licenses clearer
> > across all projects.
> >
> > A beginning draft of an FAQ page is on Meta at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_policy_FAQ_draft -- please
> > add your own questions and suggest answers.
> >
> > Please pass this information on to your project communities!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Kat Walsh
> >
> >
> > --
> > Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
> > * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
> > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Unfortunate, I can not discover any procedure how an EDP should be
written. The resolution doesnt state any procedure of approving by the
Foundation, as I beleive it was in the proposal. The backside of this
is that it is very well possible that projects will develop EDP's that
are conflicting with law, as many projects do not have sufficient
lawyer capacity (such as nlwiki), especially on US law of course, but
also on local law(s), to determine whether an EDP is conflicting or
not. Further there is no demand that the foundation can check whether
the EDP is as it was meant to. These are points I brought up earlier,
and I am sad that they were left out completely now. I hope very much
that some procedure will be developed anyway to have EDP's approved by
the WMF.

Further I understand from the examples that a project might have
multiple EDP's? (w:en:WP:FU is mentionned as one example, I guess a
project could have more EDP then just FU?)

Lodewijk

2007/3/27, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>:
> I'm so happy to see the word "educational" survived. :D
>
> cheers
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> On 27/03/07, Kat Walsh <kat at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy,
> > available now at:
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
> >
> > This policy is intended to reflect the principles in the message
> > posted earlier at
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027547.html
> > and to make the guidelines for acceptable media licenses clearer
> > across all projects.
> >
> > A beginning draft of an FAQ page is on Meta at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_policy_FAQ_draft -- please
> > add your own questions and suggest answers.
> >
> > Please pass this information on to your project communities!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Kat Walsh
> >
> >
> > --
> > Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
> > * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
> > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citation needed flags

body:
On 27/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> After you have placed a "citation needed" flag into an Article, is there a
> specific length of time you wait for either the citation to be added, or the
> statement in question to be removed by the person who wrote it, before
> deleting it yourself? The Article in question, BTW, is the one on [[Franz
> Kafka]].

I tend to just leave them. I suppose you could note it on the talk
page and leave it a week at most.

- d.


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>
> Or should I say, the AOW has gotten TOC.
>

The America Online Wiki has gotten Table of Contents?

-Rich


from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
> From: "Jeff Raymond" <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com>

> When the mainstream media consistently uses blogs as reliable
> information for their stories, there's absolutely no reason why we can't
> do the same thing.
>
> -Jeff

It's a question of the "web of trust." My belief is that part of a journalist's skill involves knowing what sources to trust (and in obtaining reliable information from not-fully-reliable sources through various means, such as cross-checking with other not-fully-reliable sources). My belief is also that a journalist measures a blog posting, or anything else, against a large body of background that _he_ has, that _I_ don't have, that _he_ can use to judge the credibility of the source.

Just because the New York Times' source for _a_ story is _a_ blog doesn't mean that _any_ blog has the same reliability as The New York Times.

It's like saying that a "when mainstream surgeons consistently use scalpels as reliable tools for cutting into living flesh, there's no reason why we can't do the same thing."

Of course, if one believes that the existence of bad journalist and bad surgeons implies that journalists and surgeons don't genuinely possess any special skills, then it would follow that anyone can use a blog (or a scalpel) just as safely as a journalist (or a surgeon).

It was Dilbert's pointy-haired boss reasoned that "anything I don't understand must be easy..."


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 3/27/07, Ed Sanders <ejsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with #3 is it gives no clarification as to how narrow the
> limits should be. If I have an article about a film (a copyrighted
> contemporary work) and I upload 30 screenshots, I could argue each one
> "complements" the article, and who's to say that only using 30 of the
> ~200,000 frames of the film isn't within "narrow limits".

Or .... 10 minutes out of two hours? 100,000 times over again.
(http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/google/viacomyoutube31307cmp.html)

Even if the board intended the resolution to be that open ended, keep
in mind that this resolution sets the absolute limit of what will be
tolerated on the Wikimedia servers.

It is not the case that what the resolution forbids is permitted.

We are all still charged with educating people and enforcing sane
policies which uphold our core missions. This resolution is not a free
pass on vigilance.

If the culture on a project is pushing us away from our core mission,
the best solution is NOT to petition the board for a stricter base
requirement (which will no doubt have unintended side effects),
instead you should be making an effort to change the culture.

Many of our users are either completely uninformed or substantially
confused by what "Free" means in the context of our projects
(hopefully this is easier for Frwiki and the like). While this
resolution will, no doubt, help raise awareness, each and every one of
us also have a part to play both internally and externally.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citation needed flags

body:
On 27/03/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wikipedia is full of uncited information.  All of it needs to be cited
> eventually, but the mere fact that something is uncited isn't enough of a
> reason to remove it.

I tend to remove only such statements as appear to be completely
useless, POV or otherwise unencyclopedic. Note on talk page if in
doubt, that should be enough.

- d.


body:
On 27/03/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.

See, this is the sort of rule that if applied without thought leads to
occasional stupid results.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
On 27/03/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
> > On 27/03/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> >> Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.

> > See, this is the sort of rule that if applied without thought leads to
> > occasional stupid results.

> I'm sorry, David, you are right.  Let me rephrase that.  I've never seen
> a blog entry that was reliable enough to be used as source material.
> These blog entries do not meat WP:RS, and any material derived from them
> should be eliminated.

[[Groklaw]] for an example famous to geeks.

The Nielsen-Hayden blog way beats mainstream newspapers for
reliability regarding science fiction. WP:RS is a good idea but its
present state is the product of obsessives unable to tolerate the
concept of editorial judgement being required.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citation needed flags

body:
On 27/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Clinical Depression is a serious mental health condition that requires a
> formal, professional diagnosis. And the Kafka Article is just one of many,
> many I have come across in the encyclopedia where this statement is made
> without citation. This casual use of the term "clinical depression" is not
> fair to the subject, and can be misleading to the reader.

That'd be a {{fact}} tag, note on talk page and leave a week then in
my casual editorial opinion.

- d.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions

body:
BLP? BLB? BAR?

I have to admit, Citizendium does have a point.

The acronymization of Wikipedia has gotten totally out of control.

Or should I say, the AOW has gotten TOC.

On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/25/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> > No, that's why we have BLP. Malicious material may be reverted and
> deleted without limit > by any user.
>
> And if it's deleted for that reason and no other admin restores it then
> fine.
>
> Quoting BLB 3
>
> "Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and
> controversial in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to,
> should delete the article without discussion"
>
> I'm assuming that admins are reasonable people, otherwise they
> shouldn't be admins. Therefore, if admin Foo, speedy deletes a bio
> because he feels that there is no NPOV version to revert to and that
> deletion is reverted by admin BAR, then admin BAR reasonably  believes
> that the bio can be made NPOV.
>
> At this point what would be better, to discuss the deletion "in
> process" or have wheel war with the article being deleted and restored
> over and over again?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 3/27/07, Denny Colt <wikidenny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I am wondering why the 'blog' aspect itself has this dirty Scarlet Letter
> connotation...

Because "blog" is a silly word.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Travis Derouin

subject:
[Wikitech-l] SpecialUpload: why is the output of showSuccess()
	not always shown? / where is the redirect to the new page happening?

body:
I think you have to clear the redirect that updateArticle sets in $wgOut.

$wgOut->redirect(''); // clear the redirect, we want to show a nice
page of images

I had to do something like this for the multiupload extension, which
may be of some use to you:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MultiUpload

On 3/27/07, Andreas R. <newsgroups2005 at geekmail.de> wrote:
> I am writing some code that should allow to upload multiple files (from an
> archive), but for this to work properly showSuccess() should be called
> always to show those files which succeeded and those that didn't (or
> produced warnings)...
> However, in the first case, ie. the last uploaded file didn't exist
> previously, MediaWiki redirects? / shows the Image:... page of that last
> file.
>
> However, I cannot see that case (i.e. case 1.) from the code in
> SpecialUpload.php:
> In function processUpload() we have
>         function processUpload() {
>                 [...]
>                 if( $this->saveUploadedFile( $this->mUploadSaveName,
>                                              $this->mUploadTempName,
>                                              $hasBeenMunged ) ) {
>                         /**
>                          * Update the upload log and create the description
> page
>                          * if it's a new file.
>                          */
>                         $img = Image::newFromName( $this->mUploadSaveName );
>                         $success = $img->recordUpload(
> $this->mUploadOldVersion,
>
> $this->mUploadDescription,
>                                                         $this->mLicense,
>
> $this->mUploadCopyStatus,
>                                                         $this->mUploadSource,
>                                                         $this->mWatchthis );
>
>                         if ( $success ) {
>                                 $this->showSuccess();
>                                 wfRunHooks( 'UploadComplete', array( &$img ) );
>                         } else {
>                                 // Image::recordUpload() fails if the image
> went missing, which is
>                                 // unlikely, hence the lack of a specialised
> message
>                                 $wgOut->showFileNotFoundError(
> $this->mUploadSaveName );
>                         }
>                 }
>         }
> i.e. either we are successful and call showSuccess() or
> showFileNotFoundError(..) on failure. I also looked at the called
> functions, but didn't find any redirects.
>
> So how can I force to save files and also that the output of showSuccess()
> is always shown?
> Any hints would be appreciated.
>
> Regards,
> Andreas
>
> PS: it's a repost (now from gmane web interface) since the original posts
> obviously didn't make it to the newsgroup, although the automatic registration
> mail from gmane server said it would be automatically posted after verification
> of the e-mail address.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
On 3/27/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > On 27/03/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.
> >>
> >
> >
> > See, this is the sort of rule that if applied without thought leads to
> > occasional stupid results.
> >
> I'm sorry, David, you are right.  Let me rephrase that.  I've never seen
> a blog entry that was reliable enough to be used as source material.
> These blog entries do not meat WP:RS, and any material derived from them
> should be eliminated.
>

I believe you mean "meet".

You might want to take a look at http://www.realclimate.org,
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/,
http://www.capitalweather.com/, http://www.juancole.com for a random list of
reliably authoritative blogs off the top of my head. Their posts are
consistently better informed and more accurate than general news reporting.

For example.


from_name: samuli at samulilintula.net

subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy

body:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kat Walsh <kat at wikimedia.org>

> The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy,
> available now at:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

Some one who can, could add a link to this page in the definitions
section: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Images_on_Wikipedia

--
Yst?v?llisin terveisin,
Samuli Lintula


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium to launch this week

body:
On 26/03/07, Matthew Woodcraft <matthew at woodcraft.me.uk> wrote:
> Vee wrote:

> > I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright
> > issues... CZ is a joke.

> It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.

Eh? I understood Wikipedia started with GFDL because Nupedia did.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language

body:
Hola!

> Be however warned that there have been no proposals accepted in the
> last few months.
This is a bit pessimistic :) The normative Byelorussian wikipedia just was
created and substituted the old version, the latter was renamed into
be-x-old.

Many other linguistic versions are growing in the incubator; most of them
only miss a localized interface to become full-grown independent projects.

The one thing that many people miss in the new procedure is that it's not a
popular acclamation as it used to be. The incubator is a place to grow and
to show that a project really has a community and it's capable to grow.

Since the vast majority of "strong" linguistic entities (in terms of
internet presence) have long received a wiki, the newcomers usually are slow
in developing.

I can read basic spanish, so if english is a problem Emmanuel is welcome to
write in spanish :) I won't be able to answer in spanish myself, though.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

>Andre Engels schrieb:
>
>
>>2007/3/27, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>>In short, you are using these languages as a weapon in your fight to get
>>your favorite tool in through the MediaWiki developers - as long as you
>>don't implement my thing, I'm not going to allow any new languages. Firstly,
>>you are not the one to decide what the developers must do first and what
>>later. And second, even if you were, prospective Wikipedians are not the one
>>who should be the victim of your petty fights.
>>
>>I regret that you are on the Wikipedia languages committee when you are
>>willing to sacrifice Wikipedia languages for the, in your opinion, greater
>>good of MediaWiki languages.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
I support the requirement that MediaWiki language files be completed
first before lauch. MediaWiki support has been neglected
by the community and is only given concerns as an afterthought. I guess
people have forgetton that MediaWiki is the foundation
upon which Wikipedia is built. It should have stable and complete
language support for every project.

Try to import an XML dump from the foundation without MediaWiki language
files properly formatted. Many of the dumps will
not work properly since the language files are not available for many of
these projects. This is a reasonable request.

Jeff


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:

>
> I repeat: we are not sacrificing any language, we
> are trying to make
> sure they can survive and grow more easily. Who
> knows me should know
> that I am all for new languages, but it does not
> make sense if the
> communities afterwards have to hassle with thousands
> of issues they were
> not aware of and they don't even know with who to
> talk. These people
> most of the time are simply left alone and that has
> nothing to do with
> "our own little fights".
>

I think this is very important point.  If the new
language committee cannot attract the help of
developers for a language, pre-launch.  There is very,
very little chance the new community will ever get
help from developers to fix issues afterwords.  It is
extremely difficult to get anything implemented on a
small project even when you speak English natively and
know who to contact.  I have personally never actually
succeeded, and am less hopeful each passing month.

I really do sympathize with the communities stuck in
the incubator, but from what has been said here it
seems to be for their own good in the long run.  There
are very serious problems with the lack of developer
resources for anything outside of the largest
Wikipedias.  They will not benefit from going live
now, and having to struggle to attract developer
attention on their own later.

BirgitteSB

____________________________________________________________________________________
We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love
(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.
http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] [LONG] Re: Re:  Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>
> >>It's hard to know what brought on this personal attack.  If there is
> >>anything "subtly misleading" in my posts let him present the facts that
> >>support that.  Otherwise, I can only assume that Charles' statement was
> >>made out of the sheer pleasure of being argumentative.
> >>
> >>Ray
> >>
> >>
> >Went through my Trash folder, results appended (my comments in [ ]).
> >
> >Charles
> >
> Thank you; so now let's go through these one-by-one.
>
> >*We have no need to be strict about notability. [Oh really]

> Notability is mostly subjective, and the occasional non-notable article
> will probably not be noticed because it is non-notable. Nothing
> misleading about that.

It is utterly misleading that WP does not need to be strict about notability. For example, we would be overwhelmed by CV type entries if we did not delete them. 'Occasional not notable article' hardly compares withe daily thousands posted and correctly deleted.

Are we on the same planet?

> >*Having "non-encyclopedic topics" (whatever that means) does not make us a worse encyclopaedia. [Not ?whatever that means?]

> Ditto. Notable and encyclopedic are very similar concepts. Not misleading.

Well, this is chop-logic. "Non-encyclopedic topics" make an _encyclopedia_ worse.

> >*>>Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
> >>>observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.

> >>The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source.

> >Another non-sequitur. [Silly quibble with Thomas Dalrton.]
> >
> No doubt that I have frequently disagreed with Tom. If A is the primary
> source, and B utilizes A that does not make B a primary source. There is
> nothing misleading about a logical analysis of the statements.

Well, it was a useless quibble. While a lab notebook is a 'primary' source, it is not a published source. From WP's point of view only published sources count, as we all know.

> >*Idolatry is not a valid basis for argument.  [Personal attack on Steve Bennett or stevertigo, or someone]

> The response was to stevertigo; Steve Bennett had mad an intermediate
> comment. The comment was in the nature of "If Jimbo says it it must be
> right". "Idolatry" is ad rem since it refers to the statement;
> "idolator" would have been ad hominem. The wording was perhaps a bit
> strong, but strong comments are anything but misleading.

Actually this is part of your continuing sly denigration of Jimbo, suggesting that those who support do not do so this side of claims of infallibility.

> >*I think your response is just another way of saying that you do not know. [Sort of personal attack or sniping at stevertigo]

> I remember writing that, and it was perhaps a tad sarcastic, but since I
> forget what I was responding to, I will not comment at this point about
> whether it was misleading.

It was.

> >*Much of what is said to the media in a first instance (is) off the cuff and not necessarily supported by a broad consensus. [Well, an individual is being interviewed.]

> The media look for sound-bytes, and when people are caught unawares it
> is very easy to say things that have not been thought through. The media
> hate dead air, and people often feel obliged to say something when
> things get too silent. Those who are media savvy will of course do
> better. Nothing misleading in that.

The whole point of interviewing technique is to get people into territory where they are spontaneous rather rehearsed. Misdirection. (I was interviewed at short notice by ABC, BTW.)

> >*Stonewalling is indeed an effective tactic.  The only problem with it is that it pisses people off just as effectively. [Silence is golden, you know. Contradicts the ?off the cuff? comment, too.]

> That was not necessarily in relation to the media. Government officials
> can be very adept at this when they don't want to admit anything. It's a
> part of being media savvy, and the media savvy do not get trapped into
> off-the-cuff remarks. Again, not misleading.

You want it both ways, really

> >*[>Because the topic of Wikipedia's governance and processes of control
> >
> >
> >>are typical fodder for trolls, who are far more interested in hurting
> >>the project than helping it.
> >>
> >>
> >That's like saying that democracy is too precious to be put under the
> >control of the general population. [Oh really. Arguing with stevertigo again. Trolls really do go wild about constitutional definitions.]

> If you say that was in response to stevevertigo I'll believe you; the
> banter does tend to go in series of comments. IIRC the argument had just
> been made in favour of limiting participation in governace discussions
> on the above basis. When you start limiting participation out of a
> prejudged fear that some participants might be trolls my comment is
> perfectly applicable. If there are trolls identify them and deal with
> them individually rather than acting out of fear that they might be
> there. Nothing misleading about that.

Evasive.

> >*>And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the
> >
> >
> >>English Wikipedia at the moment.
> >>
> >>
> >Charles I discovered the hard way that there are limits to monarchy. [He wasn?t  a constitutional monarch, as you know. Seems to be sniping at Jimbo now.]

> There was an intervening comment that lacked the adjective
> "constitutional". Perhaps the allusion was a little sharp, but it was
> not misleading.

Oh, you weren't threatening Jimbo with beheading, then? Some of us might have been misled.

> >*When a process becomes backlogged it is evidently not scaling well. [No.]

> Perhaps it might have been better if I had said "chronically backlogged"
> If the in-box keeps filling up faster than the outbos we need more
> effective processes. Not misleading.

No, backlogged processes on WP are to do with volunteer priorities. They more often indicate that the need is not clearly seen. People redeploy when persuaded the work matters. You are quite wrong about this.

>*>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
> >
> >
> >>suggests that whether or not primary sources can be used depends on
> >>how public the figure is. For non-public figures, it says "material
> >>
> >>
> >>from primary sources should generally not be used," whereas for public
> >>figures it says "material from primary sources should be used with
> >>care" though that is under the heading "Presumption in favor of
> >>privacy".

> >Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants,
> >and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record.  This is an
> >important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial
> >system.  Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material. [Privacy is written into WP:BLP, so this is not the point at all.]

> We evidently are using different interpretations of "privacy". As I see
> it information that is already available to the public is not private.
> You have chosen a different definition. Failure to agree to your
> definition does not make my comments misleading.

The 'living persons' policy is very clearly againt, for example, non-salient inclusions of minor legal involvements. This is what matters.

> >*Being "not supposed to do it" is not a strong enough excuse for not
> >doing it.  One shouldn't become doctrinnaire about sources when an
> >article is just started; that only quashes the inspiration to do
> >something. [Wrong. And somewhat wrong.]

> All that says is that rules should be applied flexibly to suit the
> circumstances. Articles need time to grow, and immediately sourcing
> facts is more importasnt in some areas of knowledge than others. I've
> been consistent in my view so there is nothing misleading about it.

It is misleading to say one should not consider sources in starting an article: of course one should. Absent reliable sources, one shouldn't start the article. The sources don't need all to be in the first draft (we can agree that much).

> >*Fractal systems incorporate a lot of randomness. [Tosh. They may or may not.]

> You can never be sure where new structures will develop. Not misleading.

No, you are just abusing the term 'fractal', which means something quite different.

> >* I do not believe that reliability should be or even can be one of our goals. [Really.]

> Really! Although we should always be ttrying to improve the content, we
> also need to disavow people of reliability. That will encourage them to
> seek additional sources. Not misleading.

You argued a few days ago that schools articles would be useful to parents. Tell me, are parents looking for reliable information or some other kind? You want it both ways, once more. Reliability _is_ one of our goals, and a disclaimer about it doesn't change that. Misdirection.

> >*The queen retains her power by not exercisiing it. [Bad history ? 1973 general election.]
> >
> In which country? There was no UK general election that year. I tried to
> look it up to find out what you were talking about. Once in 55 years
> does not exactly make her a radical interventionist. Nevertheless,
> "using it sparingly" might have been more precise wording, but the
> general tone stands, and is not misleading.

Sorry, I meant 1974. She used precise constitutional powers, to keep Wilson out of 10 Downing Street, while Ted Heath tried to form a coalition. Misleading to say the powers are not used.

> >*A statistical mathematical model should be capable of marginalizing the effect that idiots have on the article. [Or not.]

> Statistics allows for exceptions. When a single vote makes the
> difference between winning and losing the trolls can matter much more
> than if their votes are burid in a larger pattern of voting The idea
> might be radical but it's not misleading.

Statistical ideas are more likely to be gamed than just about any others. Quite misconceived.

> >*The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting Wikipedia in proper perspective means.  They might even have to check their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. [Implication that our coverage suffers from a lack of professionalism. Anyone believe this is helpful?]

> Your implication is not mine. Reporters will be happy with Wikipedia as
> long as they can easily use the material in their work. They still need
> to check their facts. When they don't and the Wikipedia article that
> they use turns out to be one that has been subtly vandalized, they are
> more likely to blame Wikipedia than to take responsibility for their own
> action. This seems to be what happened with the publicity folders for
> Sioux Lookout. If anyone's professionalism is being criticized it's that
> of the reporters. Not at all misleading.

You switch cheerfully from 'putting WP into proper perspective' (reporting about WP) to reporters using WP as a source (something quite other) and then to 'Sioux Lookout', which was PR work not journalism, wasn't it? Quite an intellect mish-mash.

Well, I say it again, IMO you post industrial quantities of this kind of chop-logic and misdirecting stuff to this list.

Charles

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


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/27/07, Ed Sanders <ejsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII
> Only the images on that page which identify a specific part of the game
> being discussed should be sued, as such they would also fall under
> "identifying protected works".
>
What about the copyrighted text which is used?

Anthony


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

body:
There are reliable blogs just like there are unreliable websites. If the
blog is run by a notable indivual in the field of the article, it's notable.

Mgm


body:
And what makes blog entries less reliable than your average website. You're
applying too much of a generalization.
Newspapers are a good example. Generally reliable, but that doesn't mean
they all are.

Mgm


list: textbook-l

from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Textbook-l] [FR] De Wikimédia France et des projets non Wikipédia

body:
Bonjour,

Des critiques sont r?guli?rement faites aux Wikip?diens et ? Wikim?dia
France ? propos du traitement in?gal entre Wikip?dia et les autres projets
francophones, ? savoir Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
Wikisource et Wikiversity. J'aimerais ?claircir un peu les choses.

1. Wikip?dia est c?l?bre, les autres projets pas.

C'est un constat, pas un point de vue. Wikip?dia est le 10e site le plus
visit? en France. Wikip?dia est cit? dans la presse ?crite, des ?missions
lui sont consacr?es ? la radio et on en parle ? la t?l?vision. Pourquoi ?
Parce que le projet int?resse, soul?ve des questions. Et surtout, parce que
le sujet est pol?mique et qu'il fait vendre. Une candidate socialiste
invente un mot qui se retrouve dans l'encyclop?die ? Un /College/ am?ricain
interdit ? ses ?tudiants la citation de Wikip?dia comme source ? Un hoax ?
propos de la mort d'un acteur am?ricain has-been circule gr?ce ? Wikip?dia ?
C'est de l'?v?nementiel. ?a int?resse la m?nag?re de moins de 50 ans. ?a
fait vendre. ?a int?resse les journalistes.

2. Wikip?dia aussi a du mal ? communiquer sur les sujets qui l'int?ressent.

Lorsque l'on souhaite communiquer ? propos de Wikip?dia sur la difficult? de
trouver des images libres, sur la loi DADVSI, sur Gallica qui est peu
coop?rative, sur un projet de loi sur la d?linquance qui interdit ? un
reporter non professionnel de filmer des violences polici?res, vous croyez
qu'on arrive ? se faire entendre ? Ce qui int?resse les journalistes, c'est
le comit? ?ditorial (qui n'existe pas), le comit? d'arbitrage (qui n'est pas
le comit? ?ditorial, non) et les administrateurs (qui ne sont pas non plus
le comit? ?ditorial, non...). Ils veulent savoir si (non, pardon, il veulent
savoir ? que ?) ? Wikip?dia va manger Google ? et que ? le cofondateur de
Wikip?dia lance une encyclop?die valid?e et s?curis?e. ? Le jour o? on a une
affaire Seigenthaler sur Wikibooks, je vous assure que la presse parlera du
projet...

3. Wikim?dia France promeut tous les projets.

Wikim?dia France a pour mission de faire conna?tre et de soutenir les
projets de diffusion libre de la connaissance, notamment les projets
h?berg?s par la Wikimedia Foundation. Et c'est ce qu'elle fait du mieux
qu'elle peut. La liste des pr?sentations faites par les membres de
l'association t?moigne d'un engagement qui ne concerne pas uniquement
Wikip?dia : < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Presentations/fr> L'association
profite des interviews pour tenter de parler des autres projets, mais (cf
1.) ?a n'int?resse pas les journalistes. J'aimerais toutefois que les
efforts faits par les membres pour promouvoir tous les projets soient
reconnus.

4. Une association est le reflet de ses membres.

Et la majorit? des membres de Wikim?dia France sont des Wikip?diens. Si vous
estimez que les efforts qui sont faits pour promouvoir les autres projets ne
sont pas encore suffisants, je vous invite vraiment ? adh?rer ?
l'association pour dynamiser la promotion du projet qui vous tient ? c?ur.
Nous serons ravis de vous y aider. Par contre, refuser de s'impliquer et
critiquer a posteriori, je suis pas d'accord. Quand on d?cide de ne pas
participer ? quelque chose, on assume son choix et on ne vient pas se
plaindre ensuite que c'est mal fait.

5. ? Engagez-vous ! ?

Si vous avez des id?es, des suggestions, des projets pour faire conna?tre et
soutenir les projets francophones, contactez l'association Wikim?dia France
(par exemple sur sa liste de discussion <
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediafr-l>) qui sera ravie
de vous apporter son aide.

--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] [FR] De Wikimédia France et des projets non Wikipédia


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/27/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds good to me! Let's draft a press release - the world's basically
> never heard of Commons.

This is something of a problem yes.

I got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sharedupload altured an
an attempt to increase it's profile at least on en but I doon't think
this will have much of an impact.

Wikipedia spread because people found ti useful and linked to it. At
the present time I'm not sure how likely that is with commons.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions

body:
On 3/27/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> How would you suppose we NPOV the article on a scam artist?
>
> Mgm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Browne

(she's been convicted even under UK law I should be safe)

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimmy Wales foreshadows possible changes to Wikipedia

body:
On 3/27/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> *"One of those tools was an upcoming feature called "stable versions", which
> Wales said would "allow the community to flag particular versions of
> articles as being non-vandalised so that those would be shown to the public
> first in certain high-risk areas".*
>

This has been upcomeing for over a year. At the present the closest to
this are certian templates that have aprox that effect on images.

> *Mr Wales said while many inaccuracies were picked up within minutes, one
> way to avoid them would be to, for particularly vulnerable articles, "make
> sure that new edits perhaps are reviewed by someone in the community before
> they go live".*
>

This is already de-facto the case with GWB and a few other articles.

--
geni


from_name: J.L.W.S. The Special One

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language

body:
Which language? Singlish?

On 3/27/07, Emmanuel Maggiori <emmanuelmaggiori at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, I'm interested in adding a new language go Wikipedia. I would like to know what is what I have to do. Thank you very much.
>
> Emmanuel Maggiori
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Written with passion,
J.L.W.S. The Special One


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia, the encylopedia that anyone can't edit

body:
On 3/27/07, bobolozo <bobolozo at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would it not make more sense for admins to be expected
> to automatically make this sort of semi-protection
> have a time limit, assuming there was no reason to
> believe the article was a permanent vandal magnet?
>

The ability to do this is fairly new and admins tend to take time to adapt.
--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 27/03/07, bobolozo <bobolozo at yahoo.com> wrote:

> We now have about 1500 articles in
> Category:Semi-protected, which new editors and IP
> addresses can't edit.  I picked a few at random, and
> most I checked were entirely uncontroversial articles
> which had briefly had some trouble from an IP address,
> which was over months ago and there was no reason to
> believe it would ever occur again.
> This is in violation of one of our basic principles.
> Would it not make more sense for admins to be expected
> to automatically make this sort of semi-protection
> have a time limit, assuming there was no reason to
> believe the article was a permanent vandal magnet?

Yep. Could do with it defaulting to e.g. a week instead of defaulting
to indefinite.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language

body:
On 27/03/07, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:

> This is a bit pessimistic :) The normative Byelorussian wikipedia just was
> created and substituted the old version, the latter was renamed into
> be-x-old.

Is there any chance you could summarise the byelorussian issue for
those of us who haven't been following it? I've got a query about it
and I don't know where to start looking for details...

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


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions

body:
On 3/27/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh pshaw.
>
> Even ignoring the fact that en's inclusion policies on articles like
> this are a load of crap, it passes the most stringent proposed ones.
> It has multiple non-trivial mentions in reputable sources (SFWA and
> Making Light), the sources are all reputable (her website is a valid
> primary source for information on her). There's a reason it
> overwhelmingly survived an AfD last year.

But is it NPOV?

That's the key concern with biographies of living persons. A BLP can
be impeccably sourced, but if it only presents one side of the
story...

In my experience doing OTRS work from time to time, a large proportion
of problematic BLPs are (fairly) well sourced, but they are
nevertheless not NPOV.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 3/27/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26/03/07, Matthew Woodcraft <matthew at woodcraft.me.uk> wrote:
> > Vee wrote:
>
> > > I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright
> > > issues... CZ is a joke.
>
> > It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.
>
>
> Eh? I understood Wikipedia started with GFDL because Nupedia did.

Nupedia  was intialy under the Nupedia Open Content License.  Text
copyright is delt with through the software for the most part and thus
dispite the debates over [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]] is fairly
simple.

Images are not and on our smaller projects tend to be a complete mess.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language

body:
Is it really so hard for you to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingush_language ?

I thought the job of the Langcom was to facilitate new languages and
help them, not make them do every single little thing on their own,
even the parts you could just as soon do yourself.

Mark

On 27/03/07, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:
> Hoi!
>
> You cannot invent a name for it. It must be a valid ISO 639-3 name (it seems
> to be INH for ingush, but you'll better check it).
>
> The policy for language requests is here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy
>
> You will have to make a request for it on meta and bring in at least some
> native speakers to help. On a total number of ~400K native speakers we will
> obviously not request 100 people, 4-5 people will usually be fine. Once you
> meet the basic requests, to make up an incubator page we will also need some
> details on the cyrillic flavor you need, in case it's not standard.
>
> Feel free to write to me directly in russian if you or other partecipants in
> the project have problems with english.
>
> Berto 'd Sera
> Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tagir Aushev
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:54 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Seems it is one of the most popular question here, but still...
> I would like to create a new language wiki-page.  The Ingush one.
>
> The English page about this language already exists:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingush_language .
>
> As far as I could check the names like "in" and "ing" are still free.
>
> So I would like to request for creation of incubator page for this
> language.  What we (me and people who actually also interesting for that)
> have to do for that?
>
>
>
> Thank you in advance,
>         Tagir.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Keith Old

body:
Folks,

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article featuring an interview with Jimmy
Wales.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/wikipedia-wont-be-so-dicky/2007/03/27/1174761429336.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

It foreshadows changes such as stable versions and credential checking.

*"One of those tools was an upcoming feature called "stable versions", which
Wales said would "allow the community to flag particular versions of
articles as being non-vandalised so that those would be shown to the public
first in certain high-risk areas".*

*This would help to reduce the number of instances where blatant errors have
passed through unchecked, many of which going unnoticed for weeks.*

*One of many to fall victim to false Wikipedia entries is the former
governor-general of Australia, Peter Hollingworth.*

*Mr Hollingworth called in to the ABC radio program Australia Talks last
week, as it was interviewing Mr Wales.*

*"I found an entry on me at one stage which I found offensive and inaccurate
and it had been put on there by someone I had never heard of and I purely by
accident found it when someone else told me that I should check it out," he
said.*

*"Now I fully support the whole idea of the democratisation of knowledge ...
[but there is still] the question how you balance this out with truth and
accuracy."*

*Mr Wales said while many inaccuracies were picked up within minutes, one
way to avoid them would be to, for particularly vulnerable articles, "make
sure that new edits perhaps are reviewed by someone in the community before
they go live".*

*He was considering adding this feature to future versions of Wikipedia, but
stressed that control would remain in the hands of the community.*

*"We are not contemplating any kind of a system where there is going to be
hundreds of editors in a building reviewing what the public's doing - that
model makes no sense for us," he said.*

*The Wikipedia community was also "discussing the possibility of a voluntary
credential verification process" for contributors.*

*Mr Wales would not give specific details on how contributors would be
verified, but the idea arose after revelations this month that one of
Wikipedia's most trusted editors, who claimed to be a professor, was
actually a 24-year-old with no advanced degrees.*

*He said verifying professional credentials for certain contributors would
not be particularly difficult."*

As noted earlier, this misleading content was based on media reports but I
digress.

The other interesting thing is that the photo is from "Wikipedia Commons".

Regards

*Keith Old*


from_name: John Lee

body:
On 3/27/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Shouldn't the policy be reworded to talk about where an exemption doctrine
> can't be made instead of where one exists.
> If things that don't have such a doctrine can be deleted, it kills of
> multiple media for which a fair use rationale can be written if only a
> chance is given.
>
> Also, what is the effect of the "machine readable format" bit in the text?
>
> Mgm

I think it would mean that re-users can strip out any nonfree material with
an automated process, rather than painstakingly going through the material
by hand.

Johnleemk


body:
No, apparently not.

But they insist on keeping these Wikis hostage.

Way to foster friendship and help new Wikis, guys. You've been waiting
a year? Great, we have some more things you've gotta do before you can
get your Wiki!!

l'll bet the dinosaurs became extinct while waiting for their own dino.wp...

Mark

On 27/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/03/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2007/3/27, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>:
>
> > > They will not benefit from going live
> > > now, and having to struggle to attract developer
> > > attention on their own later.
>
> > So instead we don't let them get life, and force them to attract developer
> > attention now when it is even more difficult?
>
>
> Does no-one on the language committee have svn access?
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
On 3/27/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> What I'd like to see is a total cleanup of all non-free images of
> living people that can be replaced with free content, using the "No
> free image" method as e.g. demonstrated on:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tommi_Hovi&oldid=114878341
>

Have you talked to the Devs about this? they may not be too happy
about that spreading across projects (I also can't get the equivalent
system for buildings to work at the moment which suggests the uselang
system has some features I don't know about)

> It would also be nice if free content became a more consistent part of
> the featured article candidate process; at least a couple recent
> articles featured on the Main Page had to have their images removed
> because of excessive use of non-free content.

That was unusual. There are various activities in place that should
reduce the chance of this happening in future.

--
geni


from_name: Casey Brown

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiquote-l

body:
Wikiquote (http://www.wikiquote.org <http://www.wikiquote.org/> ) now has a
mailing list!  (It is the last project to receive one! :))  I just got a
mailing list (Wikiquote-l) created for the Wikiquote project.  You can sign
up for it and read the list information at
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquote-l.  Hopefully, this
will be a mailing list for all the Wikiquote projects where we can talk
about issues related to us all and ask for help on discussions.  Among other
things, we can discuss GFDL and copyright requirements to make sure that we
don't get a Wikiquote closed again.

Cbrown1023


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiquote-l


body:
On 3/27/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I don't see any particular problem with that.  The Admins know what they
> are doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Daniel_Brandt_deletion_wheel_war#Doc_glasgow_deleted_the_article_inappropriately

--
geni


body:
On 27/03/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:

> "From Wikipedia, an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of
> typewriters"?

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone BUSH IS GAY
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL can edit."

- d.


body:
On 3/27/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/26/07, ? Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > We should change the tagline for april fools to that!
>
>
> We should definitely change it to *something*.  :-)

No thankyou it was anoying enough the last time someone decided to
mess around with the system messages.

--
geni


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
On 3/27/07, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 27, 2007, at 8:21 AM, Cary Bass wrote:
>
> > Blog entries are bad sources and BLP violations.  They should never be
> > used as source material in a biography.  They are not news.  A great
> > portion of this article was derived and sourced from blog entries.
> > The
> > history was restored and has been available again for some hours.
>
> I really wish the Office representatives would stop advocating
> flagrantly bad sourcing practices.
>

While talking about it: Were the statements made by Cary Bass, WMF
Volunteers Coordinator or by bastique, Wikipedian? And: Is every
statement made by bastique through the @wikimedia.org-address an
official statement by the volunteer coordinator? (I would not use the
term "office representative" here, rather "foundation-representative")

Michael

Michael


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] blogs vs websites - (was Bauer DRV question
	-	history)

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>The issue is self-published sources.  It's really the same if you blog or it
>you use a vanity press.  It's the preponderance of blogs that causes them to
>be singled out. It's a readily available medium, and anyone can register a
>blog and spout off on whatever topic they want.  The main issue is "be
>careful with self-published material"...whether it is a blog, a non-blog
>webpage, or a book published by a vanity press.
>
Being careful is key.  I have a large number of book(let)s on philately
and postal history.  A significant proportion of these were privately
published by the author out of a genuine interest in the subject, and
there is no question of controversy.  The one that I have in front of me
now was limited printing of 65 copies.  Similar situations arise in
relation to many local histories.  If we waited for professional
historians to review this material we would never be able to use any of it.

Ec


from_name: Florence Devouard

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikireader (was re: Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin,
 March 25, 2007)

body:
Robert Horning wrote:
> Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
>> Except that the Foundation is aware of it, and has been working side by side
>> with Linterweb (the people who will press and sell the Version 0.5 CDs)
>> throughout the entire publication preparation process. It is not run, per
>> se, by WMF, but WMF is, as of even right now, taking steps to see its
>> publication soon.
>>
>> Note that there have been no talks with Linterweb about WikiReaders; there
>> may be, but we're way too early in the WikiReader process to even be
>> thinking about that.
>>
>
> I'm curious about what terms the WMF has on stuff like this (I caught
> the bit about Linterweb after I pressed the "save" button).  The Meta
> page about licensing terms is only suggestions and musings about what
> licensing terms could have between the WMF and 3rd party projects.  I
> guess there is a press release that is being worked on that will explain
> this in further detail near the launch date of the DVD.  And that is
> just in a few days.
>
> --Robert Horning

Yup.

Also, please not that I started this page, so that you guys can easily
check when it is an authorized use or not.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademarks

Ant

PS: just started the page yesterday, so do not get me wrong, many others
are authorized, they just need to be added


subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 3/27/07, Ed Sanders wrote:
>
>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII
>>>
>>>
>>Only the images on that page which identify a specific part of the game
>>being discussed should be sued, as such they would also fall under
>>"identifying protected works".
>>
>>
>What about the copyrighted text which is used?
>
So where does fair use, in the most normal application of the term, end
and questionable fair use begin?

Ec


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Missing Dumps

body:
> > I'll slip that into my updates; updating an RSS .xml file would not be
> > difficult at all.
>
> *-rss.xml files are now slipped into the 'latest' subdirectory with the
> new dumps being generated now.

Cool, there are RSS feeds now up at http://download.wikimedia.org/dawiktionary/latest/
(for example).

Is there any chance maybe of a summary feed ( e.g. http://download.wikimedia.org/wiki-name/index-rss.xml ),
which includes the results for the individual files, including failures? (The current
per-file feeds only update on success I think, but knowing that some of the dumps
failed is useful information if you need 2 or 3 files from the same backup set).

For example, I count around 24 RSS feeds for dawiktionary, one for each of the 24 data
files, plus there's the one md5sum file. That's a lot of feeds, and it could be nice
to have "one feed to rule them all", that showed at a glance all the backup files
generated so far.

The trouble with a combination feed from a reader's perspective, is that they probably
do not want a new entry to be added for every file type (that would result in 24 new
entries, effectively spamming the feed-reader). Maybe something more like
http://download.wikimedia.org/dawiktionary/20070327/ (i.e. a big table, with each row
having the name of the file as a link to download the file, the description, whether
it succeeded or failed, the file size, time it was created, and possibly the MD5dum).

The trouble with that is that some wikis take a long time to backup, and some are really
quick. For example, http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070206/ took around 5 weeks
from start to finish; whereas dawiktionary took 53 seconds to backup. So for enwiki,
an intermediate report of which files are done would be useful, whereas for dawiktionary,
there's probably no point. As a very rough possibility, since the index pages already
include an ETA, maybe if after finishing a file, and if the ETA for the next file is more
than 12 hours into the future, then the index feed gets updated with a new entry showing
the current backup status? (Plus there would have to be an entry added after the last
file finishes). That would give one entry for dawiktionary, and for enwiki's backup from
20070206, it would give:
* one entry after generating oldimage.sql.gz
* one entry 2 days later after generating all-titles-in-ns0.gz
* one entry another 2 days later after generating pages-articles.xml.bz2
* one entry 16 hours later after generating pages-meta-current.xml.bz2
* one entry 3 weeks later after generating pages-meta-history.xml.bz2
* and then one entry a week later after generating pages-meta-history.xml.7z
So that's 6 entries for enwiki, spread out over roughly 5 weeks. And the first one could
be dropped maybe, and then the 5 entries correspond to the files that I suspect are
used most: all-titles, pages-articles, pages-meta-current, and the pages-meta-history files.

Then again, maybe just watching those the 5 RSS feeds for those files, and ignoring
everything else, is the simplest solution :-/

I don't know: maybe a summary feed is practical, maybe it's not. It's certainly more
complicated to describe than I would like :-(  Essentially, it's trying to walk a fine
line of giving people concise and complete and current notifications as quickly as
possible, whilst trying not to overwhelm them with messages.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
"Denny Colt" wrote

> I am wondering why the 'blog' aspect itself has this dirty Scarlet Letter
> connotation...

If you want to use a blog as a source, the burden of proof lies with you to substantiate its reliability. The low barriers to access for blogging mean this is the only sane approach.

Charles

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