from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Desysopping procedure against waerth

body:
A desysopping procedure against me has started on nl:

A brilliant timing btw my sysopstatus will be taken away on my birthday.
As I have said before. If I get desysopped something breaks in me. As I
have always done a lot for the community. It is ironic that on nl: the
trolls can stay, as they do not even get blocked! And the one who is
constantly trying to keep things going looses his modstatus.

I have tried after a year of discussing to finally get a blockpolicy
going on nl: that allows blocks for more than 24 hours. 7 proposals have
been made by 7 users. But no what do they want on nl: they want to
discuss things further. Meanwhile trolls feast on nl: and multiple users
have left already. Also an arbcom has been discussed for over a year.
And everytime someone has a proposal they discuss further and further
and further. NL: has become a discussionforum in which proposals are
discussed, but never ever implemented. I tried to further it by warning
people on their userpages that wikipedia is not a discussionforum. They
responded with a desysoppingprocedure here:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Afzetting_moderators

This is the worst birthday gift after over 2 years of hard work. I
defended nl.wikipedia a number of times over the radio as a
presscontact. everyone said I had done a good job. I now feel stupid
sorry for doing  such a good job. This community doesn't deserve people
who are willing to work hard.

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Desysopping procedure against waerth


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Paying for providing data to customers

body:
GerardM wrote:

>Hoi,
>The American company BellSouth Corp. wants to have organisations pay
>transport fees for the content they deliver over the Internet.
>http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B02432D2D-1EE0-4037-A15F-54B748D6CF26%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=
>
>They have even the affront to say that the Internet end users should
>welcome this.
>
>
I don't think this is going to be as bad as it appears.  They are trying
to charge providers for Quality of Service preferences over other
internet traffic.  In other words, if you have a time-critical download
you can pay Bell South extra money to make sure their network pipeline
will carry your content instead of non-paying customers.  Or for video
delivery to get an extra boost in reliability when being sent over the net.

If this happens I'm sure the Foundation will get some letters describing
the services of Bell South, this is not Bell South saying that Wikipedia
will not be carried on their network unless the Wikimedia Foundation
pays a delivery charge to Bell South customers.  The Wikipedia will come
through just fine, although from time to time you may find that your
connection to Wikipedia content may be still slower than normal from
time to time, and this time your ISP is to blame, not the Wikimedia servers.

When sites like Wikipedia are completely stopped from service, I
guarentee this sort of thing will end and get a host of complaints from
the Bell South customers themselves.

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: visitor stats

body:
Evan Martin wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>>Some nonintrustive statistical logging would probably be useful, but this hasn't
>>happened yet.
>
>
> Could you just log one in 1000 accesses?  Hardly statistical in the
> fancy sense, but you'll end up with megabytes instead of gigabytes and
> you can multiply to get approximations of the actual numbers.

I dont think that can be done with squid :p

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


list: wikien-l

from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> Think of it as a library. We're not burning all these tedious
> administrative documents, nor are we declaring them classified; we're
> just taking them off the public shelves and putting them in the
> storage room in the basement. If people want one, they can ask at the
> desk.
>
The notion of using deletion as a way to "store" stuff long-term gives
me the heebie-jeebies. The name and intent of the process is completely
wrong, for starters. Deletion is supposed to prevent people from
accessing stuff, but we want everyone to be able to see these historical
AfDs when they want to so you're proposing adding a kludgy intermediary
layer to have admins manually undeleting and redeleting this particular
type of article on request. This will be a burden on both the people
wanting to view the AfDs and on the admins, who already have plenty of
demands on their time.

And historically, deleted articles have been permanently purged before -
IIRC the last time was somewhere in 2002. How do we know it won't happen
again? We know that old versions of existing articles aren't going to be
purged because the GFDL probably makes that illegal, but there's nothing
stopping deleted material from going away forever at some point in the
future.
> There isn't anything *wrong* with these administrative documents,
> sure. But they clutter up the shelves, and people keep finding them in
> keyword searches in the catalogue and getting all overexcited (because
> there really isn't anything interesting in 99% of them), and we're
> never *completely* sure that people aren't wandering into the stacks
> and cutting pages out or adding new ones in - they're all loose-leaf -
> so they can go back and quote them later.
>
We should our cataloging and searching methods, then. Deleting them just
to keep them out of sight is analogous to piling them in a dumpster out
back along with all the other trash and hoping the garbage men never
come, not putting them in  a storeroom. Who collects their trash in a
storeroom?


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Too many people have an annoying tendency to use level
2 headers for even one paragraph sections. This
automatically makes horzontal rules show (in most CSS
I guess) and breaks flow for reading. This is annoying
as fuck.

Discuss.

SV

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: visitor stats

body:
Hoi,
Recently we had AOL day. Do we know how relevant the figures from
Alexa are and, do we have a clue how relevant it is on a world scale.
Of particular interest is also what their figures indicate about how
relevant we are in a specific language..

The big suprise to me was the importance of the Russian Wiktionary..

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 1/17/06, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Evan Martin wrote:
> > On 1/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Some nonintrustive statistical logging would probably be useful, but this hasn't
> >>happened yet.
> >
> >
> > Could you just log one in 1000 accesses?  Hardly statistical in the
> > fancy sense, but you'll end up with megabytes instead of gigabytes and
> > you can multiply to get approximations of the actual numbers.
>
> I dont think that can be done with squid :p
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

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

stevertigo stated for the record:

> Too many people have an annoying tendency to use level
> 2 headers for even one paragraph sections. This
> automatically makes horzontal rules show (in most CSS
> I guess) and breaks flow for reading. This is annoying
> as fuck.
>
> Discuss.

Perhaps I'm unusual, but fuck isn't annoying to me.  I kinda like it.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Keep the dream alive:
 sean at epoptic.org | Hit the snooze button.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDzcZPMAt1wyd9d+URArAAAJwOe3uds30AOMplVKYsqKYP38XPiQCfcHhk
PGiVnDjCOmj9GVpUd3gaLrA=
=GgPn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Stephen Bain a ??crit:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28headings%29
>MoS says to start with level 2 headings, not any
other level, which
>makes alot of sense.

It depends on the context. Often the lede is just
a couple paragraph, and the first section is just a
explanatory subsection of the lede rather than a
foundational section in its own right. I just use
level three headers for those sections, sometimes
migrate material from section 1 to the lede if
its elementary. Sometimes its the other way around,
but I generally see more skinny ledes than fat ones.

SV

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> Perhaps I'm unusual, but fuck isn't annoying to me.
> I kinda like it.

And we are all (to one degree or another) familar with

that natural bias.

But 'f***' being the Swiss Army knife of the English
language
(and some others too apparently), I was simply using
the word
for its emphasis --not for its connontations of
conjugality.
Apologies for any ambiguity. ')

SV

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> 2. At the close of all VfD debates, the discussion is deleted.  If there
> is a need to have a stub page left there to guide people to the fact
> that there was a prior debate, then create that stub fresh, with the
> history gone.  In the event it is needed, the history can always be
> resurrected by some admin.
>
> Is there anything wrong with this concept?

Simply useing nofollow tags and not includeing it in the database dump
would be preferable. We try to be as open as posible on wikipedia.
--
geni


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> 2. At the close of all VfD debates, the discussion is deleted.  If there
> is a need to have a stub page left there to guide people to the fact
> that there was a prior debate, then create that stub fresh, with the
> history gone.  In the event it is needed, the history can always be
> resurrected by some admin.
>
> Is there anything wrong with this concept?

How about a blanking, linking to the last version in the history for
archive purposes, then protecting.  This should mean that there won't
be anything to complain about.

--
Sam


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 17/01/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> The broader issue is why we allow Google to pick up any of our talk or
> project pages, where NPOV, NOR, and V don't apply. Can anyone explain
> why we allow that?

It's logistically quite tricky to arrange matters so the spiders
understand the difference between a talk page and a "real" page;
"allowing" isn't the key, it's "why don't we prevent it", and the
answer is "if we tried it probably wouldn't work very well".

Not to stop anyone attempting something, but...

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


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> It is increasingly common that non-notable people write to me after they
> find their own name in Wikipedia via a google search.  They are finding,
> of course, their own AFD entry.

Despite a great deal of adverse comment, certainly on this list, we do seem
stuck with AfD as monolithic, unsegmented, and to a large extent the lowest
common denominator of behaviour.

How about, first, just making AfD for biographies a separate institution?
And secondly, making a policy framework for it?  And thirdly enforcing that
framework more rigorously than for discussion about - well, minor Star Wars
backstory characters or whatever?

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's logistically quite tricky to arrange matters so the spiders
> understand the difference between a talk page and a "real" page;
> "allowing" isn't the key, it's "why don't we prevent it", and the
> answer is "if we tried it probably wouldn't work very well".
>
> Not to stop anyone attempting something, but...

Wouldn't adding

Disallow: /wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion

to http://meta.wikimedia.org/robots.txt do the trick?  I assume the
search engines will treat subpages as directories, as they are
separated by slashes.

Can robots.txt use wildcards?  If it can, we could quite easily
restrict caching of the entire Wikipedia namespace, if we wanted (and
I doubt we would), using:

Disallow: /wiki/Wikipedia:*

--
Sam


from_name: Jonathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Violation in 3RR to block

body:
This is a notice to report User "Cleared as filed" as a violation to
implement a block under WP:3RR. There were no identical reverts
committed. Every diff listed on the notice board do not show identical
changes, under:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Dzonatas

I have seen past notices posted, and every one required that the
reversions be identical. These revisions are far from identical, as they
include attempts to update the text based user comments.
The user that reported the 3RR has in fact made identical reverts with
no attempt to update the text. Cleary, the report was made to frustrate
the situation.

Mediation of the page was in progress. I've tries to follow mediation,
but the other users stayed silent. I invited to discuss the changes, but
the other user reverts to his version and tells me to start from there.
However, there has been an adrous task to somewhat of a consensus with
the text on the page, and the discussion history shows it.

In conclusion, "Cleared as filed" did not take the proper time to
investigate the situation before implementation of a block.

Respectfully,
Jonathan


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
> Now imagine that you are very innocently minding your own business and
> then you discover that this is the top ranked link in google for your
> name. How would you feel?

Yes, *please* let's do something about this and quickly. I'd like to use a
mess I made myself as an example, I think it's fairly typical.

- - -

I find a page for a not-very-well-known writer and drag it to AfD with a
suggestion to delete. My fellow AfD trolls agree and add that the person
probably wrote the article herself - or maybe her boyfriend did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AfD/TB (Created a redirect to avoid
putting the person's name into the mailing list archives and thereby
exasperating the problem.)

Currently this AfD discussion is the #2 English language Google hit for
the person's name, soon it will be the #1 result. Someone searching for
her in that way will immediately find the words "non-notable" attached to
her. That's not good.

Even when we trolls over there are at our best behaviour an AfD discussion
which ends with a biographical article being deleted is always going to
read like rubbing one's eyes with sandpaper to the person involved.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Registering www.wikipedia.se for sv.wikipedia.org

body:
On 17/01/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't agree with this move. I think that Wikipedia.se should be a
> portal with links to the Swedish, Finnish, and Sami Wikipedias because
> they are all languages of Sweden.

This is what was done with wikimedia.org.uk and .co.uk - though,
oddly, not with wikipedia.co.uk and .org.uk, which both redirect to
en.wiki. Their choice of the six languages to list is a little odd,
though - sco. has about 1300 pages, whereas gv. has under 20!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Perhaps the rule I am suggesting could be limited to living persons and
> existing companies, or something like that, but I really don't think
> there's much use at all in these pages unless and until there is a
> second debate.

I'm not sure it would be even technicaly posible. Well over 100 afds a
day. We'd have to cheack through tens of  thousand of afds to find the
ones that talk about living people.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Hermione1980 wrote:
> > The first problems I see are 1. transparency
>
> I see no problem with transparency.  Transparency doesn't mean that we
> are in any way required to carry every little snippet of non-notable
> discussion on things forever.

It pretty much does.

>
> If there's ever any reason anyone needs
> to look at it, then they can look at it.
>

Not without some difficulty.

--
geni


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
> On Jan 17, 2006, at 3:59 PM, Sam Korn wrote:
>
> > Can robots.txt use wildcards?
>
> Not according to the Robots Exclusion Standard, so no.
>
> Regards,
> [[en:User:Bbatsell]]
>

Isn't there something you can put in the head of a html page that
makes search engines not index that page. It would be trivial to
change the mediawiki code to include that in all articles starting
with "Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion", wouldn't it?

The whole blanking it thing and linking to the history, I'm not sure
that would work, wouldn't the robot simply follow the link and index
that page? It would probably be lower in the scores, but it would
still show up in searches.

- Oskar


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
I don't see the need to delete debates and as noted before, it would cause
problems when linking to earlier debates. And it would be harder for newbies
to figure out why "their" article was deleted. The whole point of archiving
the debate is to keep it accessible for people within Wikipedia (including
non-admins).

We should just make sure AFD debates are kept out of google. If we adjust
robots.txt or whatever we need to adjust to manipulate Google bots, we don't
even need to anymore.

Mgm

On 1/17/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 17, 2006, at 3:59 PM, Sam Korn wrote:
>
> > Can robots.txt use wildcards?
>
> Not according to the Robots Exclusion Standard, so no.
>
> Regards,
> [[en:User:Bbatsell]]
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem - alternative proposal

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> So, I bow to the wisdom of others, and suggest this alternative
> (suggested by others):
>
> 1. blank and protect
> 2. leave the history there, but don't call special attention to it (this
> is so the victims don't feel that the blanking is pointless -- any
> wikipedian, even newbies, will know to click on 'history')
> 3. ask brion to see what he can cook up for blocking search spiders from it
>
> --Jimbo

Going over the archives is still going to be a major comitment of
rescorces (unless we give a bot admin powers and people are still not
completely happy about doing that).

--
geni


body:
On 1/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> This would be better as the Wikipedia portal, not Wikimedia one, since
> it's excluding the rest of the projects and saying nothing about the
> Wikimedia UK chapter.

I presume wikimedia.org.uk will become the website of the WMFUK
chapter, not just a portal including it, along the lines of
www.wikimedia.fr

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Hermione1980 wrote:
> > > The first problems I see are 1. transparency
> >
> > I see no problem with transparency.  Transparency doesn't mean that we
> > are in any way required to carry every little snippet of non-notable
> > discussion on things forever.
>
> It pretty much does.

Not to be facetious, but that does depend exactly *how much*
transparency.  I think Jimbo's point is that there is no meaningful
loss in transparency.

> > If there's ever any reason anyone needs
> > to look at it, then they can look at it.
> >
>
> Not without some difficulty.

Again, that is the balance to be struck.

--
Sam


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Cannot change content of navigation bar because
	$wgUseDatabaseMessages=false

body:
The FAQ is wrong. The "correct" procedure, having changed the language
code, is to run the rebuildMessages maintenance script to update the
MediaWiki namespace. I'll correct that now...

Rob Church

On 17/01/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> Jan Vanoverpelt schrieb:
> > Dear,
> >
> > After installation of the Mediawiki-software, I changed the default
> > "English" language into Dutch by changing $wgLanguageCode in
> > localsettings.php AND by setting $wgUseDatabaseMessages=false in
> > defaultsettings.php (the latter had to be done in order to see the changes,
> > like is indicated in the Mediawiki-FAQ).
> >
> > My problem is that because $wgUseDatabaseMessages=false, I cannot display
> > the page "special:allmessages" anymore, neither can I change the content of
> > the navigation bar. As a solution for this problem, the FAQ-answer proposes
> > to run the script rebuildMessages.php in the maintenance-folder. I did this
> > by running an FTP-program, selecting the remote file and pressing "execute"
> > but without any results.
> >
> > Does anyone know how I can fix this problem so I am allowed to see the page
> > special:allmessages and change the content of the navigation bar while I
> > still have my wiki-site in the Dutch language?
> >
> > thanks in advance!
> Have a look on http://en.giswiki.de I made use of
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ#Using_a_wikipage_as_a_source_for_a_navigation_bar
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
>
> -> MediaWiki_FAQ#Using_a_wikipage_as_a_source_for_a_navigation_bar
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Hermione1980 wrote:
> >>
> >>>The first problems I see are 1. transparency
> >>
> >>I see no problem with transparency.  Transparency doesn't mean that we
> >>are in any way required to carry every little snippet of non-notable
> >>discussion on things forever.
> >
> >
> > It pretty much does.
>
> No, it pretty much does not.
>
> Should we do this a few more times, or can we perhaps add some content
> to the discussion?

There is no objective ay to judge the imporance of any internal
debate. Thus we have to keep records of them.~~~~

--
geni


body:
On 1/18/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> "X takes a lot of work" doesn't usually deter someone from taking up the
> challenge and doing it. :-)
>
> --Jimbo

It seems to prevent the clearing of the backlog on WP:CP.

--
geni


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Desysopping procedure against
	waerth

body:
I did make some mistakes but they were to finally get the process about
sensible rules and guidelines on nl: going. They backfired. I requested
to be desysopped:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#User:Waerth

Waerth/Walter

>This is truly sad. I think we need Jimbo to declare that NL will have an arbcom to get things
>going. I would recommend that he appoint you as its first member. De-sysop indeed. Things must be
>very bad on nl if somebody I trust as much as I trust you gets desysoped there.
>
>Maybe you should tell them that I and the board trust you so much that you have read access to the
>foundation PayPal account and can edit the foundation wiki. You have never abused those rights and
>are still very much so trusted.
>
>Everybody on every wiki needs to know that rules *only* exist to serve our goal of creating and
>distributing the best encyclopedia in the world. They should *never* be used as weapons against
>people you happen to not like for whatever reason and they certainly do *not* exist for their own
>sake. That is in fact what the ignore all rules policy is all about.
>
>-- mav
>
>
>--- Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>A desysopping procedure against me has started on nl:
>>
>>A brilliant timing btw my sysopstatus will be taken away on my birthday.
>>As I have said before. If I get desysopped something breaks in me. As I
>>have always done a lot for the community. It is ironic that on nl: the
>>trolls can stay, as they do not even get blocked! And the one who is
>>constantly trying to keep things going looses his modstatus.
>>
>>I have tried after a year of discussing to finally get a blockpolicy
>>going on nl: that allows blocks for more than 24 hours. 7 proposals have
>>been made by 7 users. But no what do they want on nl: they want to
>>discuss things further. Meanwhile trolls feast on nl: and multiple users
>>have left already. Also an arbcom has been discussed for over a year.
>>And everytime someone has a proposal they discuss further and further
>>and further. NL: has become a discussionforum in which proposals are
>>discussed, but never ever implemented. I tried to further it by warning
>>people on their userpages that wikipedia is not a discussionforum. They
>>responded with a desysoppingprocedure here:
>>http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Afzetting_moderators
>>
>>This is the worst birthday gift after over 2 years of hard work. I
>>defended nl.wikipedia a number of times over the radio as a
>>presscontact. everyone said I had done a good job. I now feel stupid
>>sorry for doing  such a good job. This community doesn't deserve people
>>who are willing to work hard.
>>
>>Waerth/Walter
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] mediawiki graphic profiling

body:
Hello,

I uploaded some random profile image at http://dammit.lt/2006/01/18/
mediawiki-graphic-profile/, take a look at big picture of some random
web hit. It shows how inefficient our interwiki handling is, I'm
trying to rewrite it now.

I'm adding 'KCacheGrind' to a list of my favorite desktop
applications, besides TextMate ;-)

Domas


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/18/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 1/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Perhaps the rule I am suggesting could be limited to living persons and
> >> existing companies, or something like that, but I really don't think
> >> there's much use at all in these pages unless and until there is a
> >> second debate.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not sure it would be even technicaly posible. Well over 100 afds a
> > day. We'd have to cheack through tens of  thousand of afds to find the
> > ones that talk about living people.
> >
> We could just put the AfD pages up on AfD to determine whether they fall
> under the guidelines requiring it to be deleted...

AFD is not an article. It's an MFD. Anyway we discussed listing AFDs
for deletion and the answer was no:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Miscellaneous_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency#Nominated_for_deletion

--
geni


body:
On 1/18/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > Going over the archives is still going to be a major comitment of
> > rescorces (unless we give a bot admin powers and people are still not
> > completely happy about doing that).
> >
> A blanking-bot wouldn't require admin powers. Protecting them would, but
> I expect that the vast majority of the blankings would never get
> reverted so we can skip that for the time being on the old pages.
>
> As for server resources, just adjust the bot's speed to whatever level's
> acceptable. There isn't a pressing deadline.

run it early saterday or sunday morning (UTC). Shouldn't be a problem.

--
geni


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Data dumps

body:
I'm doing a test run of the new data dump script on our Korean cluster;
currently jawiki (ja.wikipedia.org) is in progress:
http://amaryllis.yaseo.wikimedia.org/backup/jawiki/20060118/

Any comments on the page layout and information included in the progress page?

A couple notes:

* The file naming has been changed so they include the database name and date.
This should make it easier to figure out what the hell you just downloaded.

* The directory structure is different; the database names are used instead of
the weird mix of sites, languages, and database names which was hard to reliably
get the scripts to run. Each database has subdirectories for each day it was
dumped, plus a 'latest' subdirectory with symbolic links to the files from the
last completed dump.

* I renamed 'pages_current' and 'pages_full' to 'pages-meta-current' and
'pages-meta-history'. In addition to the big explanatory labels, this should
emphasize that these dumps contain metapages such as discussion and user pages,
distancing it from the pages-articles dump.

* I've discontinued 7-Zip compression for the current-versions dumps, since it
doesn't do better than bzip2 for those. They are still generated for the history
dump, where it compresses significantly better (about 3 vs 11 GB for enwiki)

* Upload tarballs are still not included at the moment.

The backup runner script is written in Python, and is in our CVS in the 'backup'
module should anyone feel like laughing at my code.

A few more things need to be fixed up before I start running it on the main
cluster, but it's pretty close! (A list of databases in progress, some locking,
emailing me on error, and finding the prior XML dump to speed dump generation.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060118/be305e4f/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 18/01/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > It pretty much does.
> >
> > No, it pretty much does not.
> >
> > Should we do this a few more times, or can we perhaps add some content
> > to the discussion?
>
> There is no objective ay to judge the imporance of any internal
> debate. Thus we have to keep records of them.~~~~

See, this is the thing. I very much doubt the delete-all-afd theory
was meant to extend to having it a hassle to get at those deleted
pages; the obvious corrolary is to have a policy that, if someone
wants to read the content of an old debate, you undelete it for them
for a day or two.

Think of it as a library. We're not burning all these tedious
administrative documents, nor are we declaring them classified; we're
just taking them off the public shelves and putting them in the
storage room in the basement. If people want one, they can ask at the
desk.

There isn't anything *wrong* with these administrative documents,
sure. But they clutter up the shelves, and people keep finding them in
keyword searches in the catalogue and getting all overexcited (because
there really isn't anything interesting in 99% of them), and we're
never *completely* sure that people aren't wandering into the stacks
and cutting pages out or adding new ones in - they're all loose-leaf -
so they can go back and quote them later.

Switching metaphors for a moment... There are a lot of
freedom-of-information or government-transparency laws in the world. A
lot of them have provisions against governments putting up undue
barriers to access - expensive charges, or classifying everything
"secret", or having "public viewing" of documents for one hour a week
on the third Sunday in March in the National Archives but only if you
know about it and remember the back door is unlocked.

None of them considers "writing to a civil servant and asking for a
copy" to be in any way a barrier to transparency.

(Actually, a few do think so - on grounds of illiteracy. But the
actual "asking a civil servant" part is okay, you just get to do it
verbally)

We are bizzarely, insanely transparent. It's great. But that doesn't
mean we can't reduce our level of public exposure a tiny, tiny smidge
and still be hugely transparent. Not everything done on Wikipedia is
public, remember - we don't display details of checkuser logs, or edit
summaries of deleted material - so it's not like we're starting from
an absolute pinnacle of crystal-clear perfection. We're doing damn
well; even with this change we'd be doing damn well.

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Webhosting sans userboxes

body:
Snowspinner wrote:
> On Jan 16, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:
>
>> "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote in message
>>  news:43CBB7DA.1020102 at gmail.com...
>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Vufors
>>
>>
>> Have a quiet word, enquiring when this data might grace our UFO-
>> related articles :-)
>
> I have left a polite note on the talk page.
>

Alright, now for the message that put me onto this:

Vufors wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a page called:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vufors
>
> When does it become a part of the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, or how do
> place it into the main server - so that it can be searched by others?
>

(Insert plug for joining helpdesk-l here)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060118/f85cb1aa/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] AC elections

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 1/16/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>(Take care what laws of the universe you notice, as the rule may
>>notice you. "On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done is another
>>three jobs" - I got another two yesterday. James F. is currently
>>running at thirty-six.)
>
>
> May I suggest a special edition of BJAODN for the funniest votes?  I
> have a couple to boast...
>

I'm waiting for "Wikipedians who masturbate with their left hand and
other deleted userboxes"...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060118/ac05029e/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unnecessary fork update

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> Well, and the latter point is more of a long-term goal. No bludgeoning
> should take place until we've sorted out a well-organized list of other
> things which would be nice to fix a well.
>
> (Also, I don't know what license the doll-collectors picked, but I bet they
> picked a non-commercial one, which would be incompatible no matter what. I
> suspect most people gravitate or will gravitate towards nc licenses when
> they make-their-own-wiki for semi-obvious reasons.)
>

They realise that they have shot themselves in the foot wrt. getting
their content published anywhere? Many people are requesting hard copies
of Wikipedia - why not (insert name of some other wiki here)? It might
be useful to insert a reference to Eloquence's essay here:

http://intelligentdesigns.net/Licenses/NC

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060118/176619c2/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unnecessary fork update

body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 1/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be
>>changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area.
>>Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project)
>>would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main
>>AFD page if no suitable project existed.
>>
>>Kirill Lokshin
>
>
> Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV
> projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for
> my aproach:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
>
> Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are
> just the ones from the main page).
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060118/92b2e177/attachment.pgp


from_name: Finne Boonen

body:
I would like to add a few comments about the whole mess as a member,
and a sysop of the nl.wp community.  ([[nl:Gebruiker:Henna]])

In recent months, the dutch wikipedia has seen an increase in the
numbers of borderline users, there is only a few sysops that
consistently try to deal with these, these sysops do have a broad
support in keeping them in check though. These borderlineusers are
supporting each other wich puts the nl.wp in a new position learning
to deal with them.

 As a response to the prolbems that blocking these users caused we
have begun to evaluate our blocking procedure, and try to draft a new
one. Several people have written proposals for it. There was supposed
to be a vote about the proposals. Things went haywire when trying to
figure out a way to select 1 proposal.

Chronoglogically:
- dec 19th: Gebruiker:Verrekijker is blocked for legal threats (by Waerth)
- dec 31th: Gebruiker:Verrekijker is unblocked by sysopvote, as the
block was illegal
- jan 3d: A call for new guidelines on blocking registered users is
announced, wich is answered by several proposals
- jan 13th: A discussion on how to vote ends in a vote about more
discussion about the proposals (1)
- jan 15th: Gebruiker:Waerth announces desysop procedures on the
moderators voting for more discussion
- jan 15th: JeroenVrp removes Waerth from presscontact.
- jan 15th: an impromptu vote about Waerth's trustworthiness as
presscontact is organised , 29 vote pro, 7 vote contra. Waerth remains
presscontact
- jan 15th: a desysop for Gebruiker:Waerth is announced by
Gebruiker:Zanaq, recalled because of procedural errors and a bit later
reannounced by Gebruiker:Webboy
- jan 15th: Gebruiker:Waerth apoliges to some sysops  and retracts the
desysop procedures
- jan 16th: Gebruiker:Webboy retracts the desysop procedure
- jan 16th: Gebruiker:Effeietsanders announces to continue with the desysop
- jan 16th: Voting on desysop commences, all discussion aobut the vote
is moved to the talkpage. upon commencing the vote, Effeietsanders
moves hist indictment back to the voting article, Waerths rebuttal
remains in the archieved discussion for the first 2 hours of voting.
-jan 16th: Waerth requests desysop for himself on all projects.
- jan 16th:  the vote at the moment is about 40 to keep Waerth sysop,
and 24 against sysop
-jan 16th: at last count 3 sysops (out of  60ish have gone on
wikibreak), others are considering quiting as sysop.

The nl.wp community has been trying to update the blocking guidelines
for the last year, in this regard the actions of Waerth are
understandable. However most users voting on more discussion wanted to
simplify the final decision, try to combine similar proposals, so that
only a few proposals survive to decide upon, rather then the original
9 (2 where renounced in light of other proposals already).

Finne aka henna (on en:, nl:, is:, commons:, fr:)

On 1/17/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Whatever happened to trusting the community? When cs.wiki... umm...
> well, whatever it was that happened there, the mantra of "Trust Local
> Bureaucrats" was repeated over and over again.
>
> Now that something is amiss at the Dutch Wikipedia, though, we decide
> we must intervene because We Loves Walter?
>
> Can we try to be consistent, here, people? Please?
>
> Mark
>
> On 17/01/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > This is truly sad. I think we need Jimbo to declare that NL will have an arbcom to get things
> > going. I would recommend that he appoint you as its first member. De-sysop indeed. Things must be
> > very bad on nl if somebody I trust as much as I trust you gets desysoped there.
> >
> > Maybe you should tell them that I and the board trust you so much that you have read access to the
> > foundation PayPal account and can edit the foundation wiki. You have never abused those rights and
> > are still very much so trusted.
> >
> > Everybody on every wiki needs to know that rules *only* exist to serve our goal of creating and
> > distributing the best encyclopedia in the world. They should *never* be used as weapons against
> > people you happen to not like for whatever reason and they certainly do *not* exist for their own
> > sake. That is in fact what the ignore all rules policy is all about.
> >
> > -- mav
> >
> >
> > --- Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> >
> > > A desysopping procedure against me has started on nl:
> > >
> > > A brilliant timing btw my sysopstatus will be taken away on my birthday.
> > > As I have said before. If I get desysopped something breaks in me. As I
> > > have always done a lot for the community. It is ironic that on nl: the
> > > trolls can stay, as they do not even get blocked! And the one who is
> > > constantly trying to keep things going looses his modstatus.
> > >
> > > I have tried after a year of discussing to finally get a blockpolicy
> > > going on nl: that allows blocks for more than 24 hours. 7 proposals have
> > > been made by 7 users. But no what do they want on nl: they want to
> > > discuss things further. Meanwhile trolls feast on nl: and multiple users
> > > have left already. Also an arbcom has been discussed for over a year.
> > > And everytime someone has a proposal they discuss further and further
> > > and further. NL: has become a discussionforum in which proposals are
> > > discussed, but never ever implemented. I tried to further it by warning
> > > people on their userpages that wikipedia is not a discussionforum. They
> > > responded with a desysoppingprocedure here:
> > > http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Afzetting_moderators
> > >
> > > This is the worst birthday gift after over 2 years of hard work. I
> > > defended nl.wikipedia a number of times over the radio as a
> > > presscontact. everyone said I had done a good job. I now feel stupid
> > > sorry for doing  such a good job. This community doesn't deserve people
> > > who are willing to work hard.
> > >
> > > Waerth/Walter
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app


from_name: oscar

body:
situation confirmed :-(

On 1/18/06, Finne Boonen <finne at cassia.be> wrote:
>
> I would like to add a few comments about the whole mess as a member,
> and a sysop of the nl.wp community.  ([[nl:Gebruiker:Henna]])
>
> In recent months, the dutch wikipedia has seen an increase in the
> numbers of borderline users, there is only a few sysops that
> consistently try to deal with these, these sysops do have a broad
> support in keeping them in check though. These borderlineusers are
> supporting each other wich puts the nl.wp in a new position learning
> to deal with them.
>
> As a response to the prolbems that blocking these users caused we
> have begun to evaluate our blocking procedure, and try to draft a new
> one. Several people have written proposals for it. There was supposed
> to be a vote about the proposals. Things went haywire when trying to
> figure out a way to select 1 proposal.
>
> Chronoglogically:
> - dec 19th: Gebruiker:Verrekijker is blocked for legal threats (by Waerth)
> - dec 31th: Gebruiker:Verrekijker is unblocked by sysopvote, as the
> block was illegal
> - jan 3d: A call for new guidelines on blocking registered users is
> announced, wich is answered by several proposals
> - jan 13th: A discussion on how to vote ends in a vote about more
> discussion about the proposals (1)
> - jan 15th: Gebruiker:Waerth announces desysop procedures on the
> moderators voting for more discussion
> - jan 15th: JeroenVrp removes Waerth from presscontact.
> - jan 15th: an impromptu vote about Waerth's trustworthiness as
> presscontact is organised , 29 vote pro, 7 vote contra. Waerth remains
> presscontact
> - jan 15th: a desysop for Gebruiker:Waerth is announced by
> Gebruiker:Zanaq, recalled because of procedural errors and a bit later
> reannounced by Gebruiker:Webboy
> - jan 15th: Gebruiker:Waerth apoliges to some sysops  and retracts the
> desysop procedures
> - jan 16th: Gebruiker:Webboy retracts the desysop procedure
> - jan 16th: Gebruiker:Effeietsanders announces to continue with the
> desysop
> - jan 16th: Voting on desysop commences, all discussion aobut the vote
> is moved to the talkpage. upon commencing the vote, Effeietsanders
> moves hist indictment back to the voting article, Waerths rebuttal
> remains in the archieved discussion for the first 2 hours of voting.
> -jan 16th: Waerth requests desysop for himself on all projects.
> - jan 16th:  the vote at the moment is about 40 to keep Waerth sysop,
> and 24 against sysop
> -jan 16th: at last count 3 sysops (out of  60ish have gone on
> wikibreak), others are considering quiting as sysop.
>
>
> The nl.wp community has been trying to update the blocking guidelines
> for the last year, in this regard the actions of Waerth are
> understandable. However most users voting on more discussion wanted to
> simplify the final decision, try to combine similar proposals, so that
> only a few proposals survive to decide upon, rather then the original
> 9 (2 where renounced in light of other proposals already).
>
> Finne aka henna (on en:, nl:, is:, commons:, fr:)
>
> On 1/17/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Whatever happened to trusting the community? When cs.wiki... umm...
> > well, whatever it was that happened there, the mantra of "Trust Local
> > Bureaucrats" was repeated over and over again.
> >
> > Now that something is amiss at the Dutch Wikipedia, though, we decide
> > we must intervene because We Loves Walter?
> >
> > Can we try to be consistent, here, people? Please?
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 17/01/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > This is truly sad. I think we need Jimbo to declare that NL will have
> an arbcom to get things
> > > going. I would recommend that he appoint you as its first member.
> De-sysop indeed. Things must be
> > > very bad on nl if somebody I trust as much as I trust you gets
> desysoped there.
> > >
> > > Maybe you should tell them that I and the board trust you so much that
> you have read access to the
> > > foundation PayPal account and can edit the foundation wiki. You have
> never abused those rights and
> > > are still very much so trusted.
> > >
> > > Everybody on every wiki needs to know that rules *only* exist to serve
> our goal of creating and
> > > distributing the best encyclopedia in the world. They should *never*
> be used as weapons against
> > > people you happen to not like for whatever reason and they certainly
> do *not* exist for their own
> > > sake. That is in fact what the ignore all rules policy is all about.
> > >
> > > -- mav
> > >
> > >
> > > --- Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > A desysopping procedure against me has started on nl:
> > > >
> > > > A brilliant timing btw my sysopstatus will be taken away on my
> birthday.
> > > > As I have said before. If I get desysopped something breaks in me.
> As I
> > > > have always done a lot for the community. It is ironic that on nl:
> the
> > > > trolls can stay, as they do not even get blocked! And the one who is
> > > > constantly trying to keep things going looses his modstatus.
> > > >
> > > > I have tried after a year of discussing to finally get a blockpolicy
> > > > going on nl: that allows blocks for more than 24 hours. 7 proposals
> have
> > > > been made by 7 users. But no what do they want on nl: they want to
> > > > discuss things further. Meanwhile trolls feast on nl: and multiple
> users
> > > > have left already. Also an arbcom has been discussed for over a
> year.
> > > > And everytime someone has a proposal they discuss further and
> further
> > > > and further. NL: has become a discussionforum in which proposals are
> > > > discussed, but never ever implemented. I tried to further it by
> warning
> > > > people on their userpages that wikipedia is not a discussionforum.
> They
> > > > responded with a desysoppingprocedure here:
> > > > http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Afzetting_moderators
> > > >
> > > > This is the worst birthday gift after over 2 years of hard work. I
> > > > defended nl.wikipedia a number of times over the radio as a
> > > > presscontact. everyone said I had done a good job. I now feel stupid
> > > > sorry for doing  such a good job. This community doesn't deserve
> people
> > > > who are willing to work hard.
> > > >
> > > > Waerth/Walter
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________________________
> > > Do You Yahoo!?
> > > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
> unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
> http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
Did you post this information in the Afd discussion or list it on VfU with
this information?  No.

On 1/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Tally, an article about an accounting software company that's been
> going for twenty years and has a number of major companies among its
> clients in its native India, including the Reserve Bank of India and
> the Indian IT giant, Infosys.  And SuperOffice, about a public listed
> company (ticker code SUO on the Oslo Bors) with a turnover of some
> Euro 30m.
>


from_name: Habj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "adminship is no big deal"

body:
This statemant, "adminship is no big deal", originates from enwiki.
Could someone please explain in what circumstances this saying was
worded? I see it used meaning "adminship is no big deal, so you
shouldn't be so careful who to elect for this task" as well as
"adminship is no big deal, so you shouldn't try and find ways to get
rid of admins who are obviously unsuitable for the job".

My guess is: this sentence originates from the truly virgin stage of
wikipedia, where some people wanted to avoid others starting fighting
for admin (or at the time, "sysop") status. Currently, I see no reason
for the remaining of this statements in various places in the
Wikipedia namespace in various wikipedias - none at all.

/Habj


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fair use images on user pages and enforcement

references:
<20060116082830.GP20211@andromeda.dapyr.net>
	<2487477A-0722-4E58-932B-D0B9B911F75E@specialbusservice.com>
	<dqj9et$g3q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<F2C540C7-F5F3-45EF-B070-082C09C64DAF@specialbusservice.com>

body:
On 1/18/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> Not if they were from the same source.

Which you did not state originally, which made your whole argument
rather different.  Without that statement, you were saying that you
believed anyone who had uploaded many fair use images was in breach of
copyright law, no matter the circumstances.

-Matt


body:
What's a lede?

On 1/18/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Stephen Bain a ?crit:
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28headings%29
> >MoS says to start with level 2 headings, not any
> other level, which
> >makes alot of sense.
>
> It depends on the context. Often the lede is just
> a couple paragraph, and the first section is just a
> explanatory subsection of the lede rather than a
> foundational section in its own right. I just use
> level three headers for those sections, sometimes
> migrate material from section 1 to the lede if
> its elementary. Sometimes its the other way around,
> but I generally see more skinny ledes than fat ones.
>
> SV
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Makes it easier to edit. I don't get the horizontal line I guess. I
think the question on headers is whether the subtopic, if expanded,
amount to something.

Fred

On Jan 17, 2006, at 9:07 PM, stevertigo wrote:

> Too many people have an annoying tendency to use level
> 2 headers for even one paragraph sections. This
> automatically makes horzontal rules show (in most CSS
> I guess) and breaks flow for reading. This is annoying
> as fuck.
>
> Discuss.
>
> SV
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
In the early days, when the English Wikipedia more or less was
Wikipedia, there was no procedure for nominating or ratifying
administrators, not were there the specialized duties we are
currently expecting administrators to perform, such as monitoring of
users on probation. Folks would ask on the mailing list and if they
seemed reasonably OK, they were made administrators. I don't remember
any tension about fighting for that status. If you became an
administrator, you could then do more chores. Still true, but the
expectation is sometimes higher.

Yes, it is somewhat outdated, but it remains true in a sense;
administrators are on the same level as everyone else as far as
content is concerned, pointing out that you are an administrator will
not get you far in a content dispute, and carried far enough, will
get you desysopped.  There are occasional lapses and few folks sneak
around a bit, but those who think being an administrator gives them
authority over the most important thing in Wikipedia, content, are
mistaken.

Fred

On Jan 17, 2006, at 9:42 PM, Habj wrote:

> This statemant, "adminship is no big deal", originates from enwiki.
> Could someone please explain in what circumstances this saying was
> worded? I see it used meaning "adminship is no big deal, so you
> shouldn't be so careful who to elect for this task" as well as
> "adminship is no big deal, so you shouldn't try and find ways to get
> rid of admins who are obviously unsuitable for the job".
>
> My guess is: this sentence originates from the truly virgin stage of
> wikipedia, where some people wanted to avoid others starting fighting
> for admin (or at the time, "sysop") status. Currently, I see no reason
> for the remaining of this statements in various places in the
> Wikipedia namespace in various wikipedias - none at all.
>
> /Habj
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Sherool wrote:

> h2{border:0px;}

That may work for me, but most people use monobook.
So its at least practical for me to state "this minor
thing is a bit annoying" and maybe should be tweaked.

Other little niggles which impede reading: Improper
[[WP:HN|hatnotes]], and {{otheruses}} tags would be
better off, like xx:Language tags, in the sidebar or
in a div box, like {{shortcut}}.

Fred wrote:
> Monobook is rather annoying in a number of ways.

The fact that the default (when Im not logged in) is
all white still bugs me a bit.

SV

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: "adminship is no big deal"

body:
On 1/18/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> I have not found the source from that quote. But I have found some postings
> from the early days that are about this is and contain that attitude I think.
>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/2197/
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/3804/
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/2172/
>
> Walter

Interesting.  It looks like Jimbo forgot to create the "sysop" (4)
category and instead gave "sysop" (4) powers to the "community
members" (2).

"Adminship is no big deal" would seem to be talking about (2), where
"anyone can become a community member just by asking".  But actual
admin powers are closer to (4), of "which there might only be 1,
[Jimbo], or a very small number".

But then, this merge seems to have already taken place by the second
post (four months later), which eliminates the distinction and allows
"Old-hand/sysop"s to "be able to do a tiny number of destructive
(irreversible) things, IF we need to have those abilities for some
reason".

The plan from the first post actually seems better, to me.

Anthony


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Paying for providing data to customers

body:
On 1/17/06, Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Seems to me like they're just trying to offer an additional service
> > (faster, more reliable) on top of the ones they already offer.  I
> > don't see the big deal.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> The way these businesses work things, the slippery slope argument is
> *very* applicable. Even if they charge for traffic, and they merely
> impose extra charges on all new services and speeds,  eventually you
> will have no choice but to pay, because bandwidth requirements go ever
> up-  analogously, if someone offered you a totally free 512 bps
> Internet connection, would you take it? What if "paying for premium
> connections" had gotten started when 512 bps were the norm for home
> users?
>
> ~Maru

I don't know about you, but I *already* have no choice but to pay for
Internet access and other telecommunications services, so I really
don't see what the big deal is.  But maybe I'm missing something.

"analogously, if someone offered you a totally free 512 bps Internet
connection, would you take it?"  I'm not sure what the point of this
question is, but if it was an always-on connection hell yeah I'd take
it.  I'd love even just a 1 bps Internet connection just so I could
send a short message to my computer from some other location to
connect for real (or to determine its IP address, or whatever).  But
I'm one of those poor souls who can't currently get DSL.

Anthony


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: AFD courtesy problem

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote in
message news:43CD62A2.30709 at wikia.com...
[snip]
> What I recommend is the following procedure:
> 1. A general meme that it is extremely discourteous without absolute
> positive proof to speculate that the author of some non-notable
> biography is the subject himself or herself.  Yes, it is often true, but
> there is zero gain to us from assuming this rather than assuming the
> opposite.  We really don't care who wrote it: we care if it is worthy
> for inclusion or not.

This is pretty much [[WP:AGF]] and we should surely be doing this already.
Shouldn't we?

> 2. At the close of all VfD debates, the discussion is deleted.  If there
> is a need to have a stub page left there to guide people to the fact
> that there was a prior debate, then create that stub fresh, with the
> history gone.  In the event it is needed, the history can always be
> resurrected by some admin.

Much as I hate to disagree with the God-King, this is a step too far:
deleting the discussion altogether is destroying potentially useful
information.

Why don't we simply adjust the closing instructions so that instead of
prepending the "discussion closed with such-and-such result" notice, whoever
closes the discussion **replaces** it with that notice. Then all the
discussion can be hidden in the history, available to anyone who needs to
check it out.

Whether this fixes the problem of old discussions turning up on Google and
mirrors is a whole new problem: maybe we should consider trying to ensure
that anyone who mirrors Wikipedia updates their mirror regularly.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Cologne Blue on Wikipedia. I use the default skin (Monobook) on
Wikicities and have noticed (and been slightly annoyed at) those
weird lines and boxes though. Monobook is rather annoying in a number
of ways. I guess I like the familiar.

Fred

On Jan 18, 2006, at 7:42 AM, geni wrote:

> On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> Makes it easier to edit. I don't get the horizontal line I guess.
>> Fred
>>
>
> Hmm which skin do you use?
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: James D. Forrester

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

Sam Korn wrote:

> On 1/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This would be better as the Wikipedia portal, not Wikimedia one, since
> > it's excluding the rest of the projects and saying nothing about the
> > Wikimedia UK chapter.
>
> I presume wikimedia.org.uk will become the website of the WMFUK
> chapter, not just a portal including it, along the lines of
> www.wikimedia.fr

That is the intent, yes.

Yours,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDzfoOkn3kUxZyJx0RAmm1AJ9KQAru13SBSblQJep92weF5aj8kQCfYp4V
U4ASk/9o9HjD8E0zMXtiK2k=
=399M
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: AFD courtesy problem

body:
"Haukur ?orgeirsson" <haukurth at hi.is> wrote in
message news:36532.206.165.150.70.1137536847.squirrel at webmail.hi.is...
[snip]
> Currently this AfD discussion is the #2 English language Google hit for
> the person's name, soon it will be the #1 result. Someone searching for
> her in that way will immediately find the words "non-notable" attached to
> her. That's not good.

It happened: #2 on the list is a paragraph on your talk page, presumably in
Icelandic, which might or might not be saying "WTF? She's really famous!
undelete her now!" but I can't tell :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:fb7fdd9c0601172144o7dc169b8r197c752342a4c5ca at mail.gmail.com...
> What's a lede?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_style#Structure

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
Suppose that an image can be considered fair use because it is used
for educational purposes, say in the article Tiananmen Square
protests of 1989 where the image Image:Tianasquare.jpg

is said to be fair use under the following rationale:

The use of this historic photograph in Wikipedia is claimed to be a
fair use of the image under United States copyright law for the
following reasons:
This photograph depicts a non-reproduceable historic event.
The image is used for educational purposes only in a non-profit
encyclopedia.
The image is no larger and of no higher quality than is necessary for
the illustration of an article.
The use of the image on Wikipedia is not expected to decrease the
value of the copyright.

If you put that image on a user page, easy to imagine someone doing
so, the the educational purpose which is the foundation of the fair
use justification, vanishes.

That said, this is a tempest in a teapot in most cases. Except for
rare instances, no one is complaining and there is a lot of bad
feeling as getting after the fair use images on someone's user page
feels like you are getting after them personally.

Fred

On Jan 18, 2006, at 7:55 AM, Fastfission wrote:

> I'm not sure about this. If it is fair use in one instance, it
> should be
> fair use in all instances. I don't think there is a legal
> difference between
> having one fair use magazine cover and having 200, providing each
> use meets
> the fair use standards. In cases where multiple-sources from a single
> copyright holder were held not to be fair use (i.e. Twin Peaks) it was
> because the sum collection of the uses really did take away from
> the use of
> the original source (i.e. was basically a detailed plot abridgment
> and could
> be read without watching the shows). I don't think that's the same
> thing as
> using a large number of completely separate magazine or DVD covers. At
> least, that's my understanding of it.
>
> FF
>
> On 1/18/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 17 Jan 2006, at 17:26, Phil Boswell wrote:
>>
>>> If you were to upload one fair use image per day, complying
>>> properly with
>>> the rules for each one, you would have 365 after a year, having
>>> broken no
>>> laws.
>>>
>>
>> Not if they were from the same source.
>>
>> I can use one sentence of your book as fair use, but if I use them
>> all
>> one at a time its not fair use any more, as I have copied the entire
>> book.
>>
>> Similarly one Playboy magazine cover is probably ok, but the number
>> we have
>> probably isnt.
>>
>> Fair use has to be considered as a whole.
>>
>> Justinc
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tjipke de Vries

body:
An addition to the post of Finne Boonen:

For record: to see the complete picture, add:

Chronologically:
- jan 3d: - Gebruiker:Wearth unblocks 47 blocked users (3 registered users
and 44 anonymous IP's) which were blocked before by other sysops, due to
repeated vandalism. Wearth's Description in the block-log: "omdat ik het
gezanik over machtsmisbruik zat ben en de gemeenschap niets doet om vooruit
te komen mbt blokkeren en alleen zanikt over illegale blokkades deblokkeer
ik iedereen. kan de gemeenschap zelf ondervinden of ze alle trollen wil"
(which roughy translates to: because I am fed up with the whining about
misuse of power and because the community does not want to do anything to
move forward on the issue of blocking and only whines about illegal
blockades I deblock everyone. Now the community can find out if it wants all
trolls).
see:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal%3ALog&type=block&user=Waerth&page=

Until now, Wearth did not make any statements or explanations about this
action AFAIK.

Tjipke de Vries (Tdevries on nl:, en:, de:, commons:, meta:)


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

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

Steve Bennett stated for the record:

> 1) A subject should not become *more notable* by appearing in
> Wikipedia.  {The vanity principle}

The larger and more influential we become (and so better able to confer
notability), the fewer subjects qualify to join our august ranks.

> 2) A subject should not appear in Wikipedia when many more subjects in
> its category or field do not. {The insignificance principle}

Our blind spots must never be filled in.  The more we leave out, the
more we should leave out.

> 3) Imaginary or fictitious subjects have less right to appear in
> Wikipedia than other subjects. {The fancruft principle}

[[Zeus]] has less right to appear than [[Jakob von Uexkull]].

I disagree.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | All life is six-to-five against.
 sean at epoptic.org |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDznKRMAt1wyd9d+URAhSDAJ9IY106qE7PjtEEleoWkBGZvbRikACfUSkq
CCa7NYEpl+s6dI1vgKjvpFA=
=tiS2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
You mischaracterize an ambiguous situation as being totally corrupt.

Fred

On Jan 18, 2006, at 9:10 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> Yes, it is somewhat outdated, but it remains true in a sense;
>> administrators are on the same level as everyone else as far as
>> content is concerned, pointing out that you are an administrator will
>> not get you far in a content dispute, and carried far enough, will
>> get you desysopped.  There are occasional lapses and a few folks
>> sneak
>> around a bit, but those who think being an administrator gives them
>> authority over the most important thing in Wikipedia, content, are
>> mistaken.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>
> I'm amazed sometimes at how often blatently untrue statements like
> this get made.
>
> Admins decide which content gets deleted and which content gets
> undeleted.  They decide when pages are protected and when they are
> unprotected.  While those pages are protected they decide what those
> pages are going to say.  They decide when to block someone for
> violating the three revert rule and when not to block someone for
> violating it.
>
> On very rare occassion an admin does something so ridiculously
> outrageous and out of touch with the POV of the arbitration committee
> that they get reprimanded for it, but there are numerous occassions
> where they influence content and nothing happens at all.
>
> It's very hard to separate power from authority, and in a flat (as
> opposed to hierarchical) system, it's probably impossible.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Adrian Baker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Recent changes feed window size

body:
Adrian Baker wrote:
> I've been fiddling a bit with the (Atom) recent changes feed at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=atom.
> I'm interested in whether a tool like
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CryptoDerk/CDVF could use the feed,
> so that the diff for each edit could be quickly viewed inside the tool, rather
> than linked to externally.
>
> It seems though that the combination of the default window size (50)
> and the apparent refresh rate of the feed in the cache (about 20
> seconds) means that there are changes that will fall through the gap
> once you have more than about ~2.5 changes a second (which seems to
> happen fairly often now). This means right now it's not really usable
> in a tool like CDVF (and perhaps not usable in general).
>
> What are the future plans for this feed? Can it (will it) be feasibly
> maintained in a useful state as the edit rate grows further? No doubt
> there are several approaches that could be taken (steadily increase
> window size, refresh cache more often, split feed out into namespaces,
> ...), but all involve placing greater load on the server.
>
> Adrian

*ping*

Is there somewhere else I should be raising this issue?


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
As further addition:

1. Waerth's warning to people who had voted in favor of the proposal
to lengthen discussion time consisted of the standard warning template
for vandals, with the following text added (translation mine):

Through your behavior in this poll you show that you don't give a damn
about wikipedia. And see wikipedia as something it is not. Namely a
discussion forum. This kind of actions is dangerous for the future of
wikipedia and contrary to her purposes and borders to trolling
behaviour: you deliberately block progress on a subject about which
has been discussed over a year. If you see wikipedia as a discussion
forum and keep frustrating each form of progress on wikipedia I will
have to ask you friendly to look for another place like one of the
millions of discussion forums on the net. If you are a moderator then
you have acted so much against all regulations and guidelines that I
will start a desysopping procedure, which hereby has been announced
the necessary 48 houirs in advance. Removing this warning will lead to
a blocking for an indetermined period of time.

2. Singlehandedly deblocking is apparently considered a quite serious
crime for Dutch sysops. I do not agree, which is one of the reasons I
did not want to remain a sysop (others are serious disagreements on
blocking length, requirements and statements which seem to indicate
that sysops are worth more than other users and my own inflammability)

Nevertheless, I think there IS a crisis on the Dutch Wikipedia that
might require intervention. Only 2 months ago Londenp and I both
resigned after a heavy conflict on the subject of unblocking. And
Errabee has announced a wish to resign too. Adding all together, even
with Waerth and Errabee still be sysops, the Dutch Wikipedia has less
than 1/10 the number of sysops from the English one (64 against 792)
but half as many who resigned or were forced to step down (12 against
23).

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


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to avoid caching of pages with dynamic content

body:
Inside an extension module:
what is the correct way to _disable caching for that specific page_
(example: dynamic integration of  texts from another source, which might
change) ?


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
Habj <sweetadelaide at ...> writes:

> This statemant, "adminship is no big deal", originates from enwiki.
> Could someone please explain in what circumstances this saying was
> worded? I see it used meaning "adminship is no big deal, so you
> shouldn't be so careful who to elect for this task" as well as
> "adminship is no big deal, so you shouldn't try and find ways to get
> rid of admins who are obviously unsuitable for the job".
>
> My guess is: this sentence originates from the truly virgin stage of
> wikipedia, where some people wanted to avoid others starting fighting
> for admin (or at the time, "sysop") status. Currently, I see no reason
> for the remaining of this statements in various places in the
> Wikipedia namespace in various wikipedias - none at all.
>
> /Habj

I have not found the source from that quote. But I have found some postings
from the early days that are about this is and contain that attitude I think.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/2197/
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/3804/
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/2172/

Walter


from_name: Fastfission

body:
I'm not sure about this. If it is fair use in one instance, it should be
fair use in all instances. I don't think there is a legal difference between
having one fair use magazine cover and having 200, providing each use meets
the fair use standards. In cases where multiple-sources from a single
copyright holder were held not to be fair use (i.e. Twin Peaks) it was
because the sum collection of the uses really did take away from the use of
the original source (i.e. was basically a detailed plot abridgment and could
be read without watching the shows). I don't think that's the same thing as
using a large number of completely separate magazine or DVD covers. At
least, that's my understanding of it.

FF

On 1/18/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 17 Jan 2006, at 17:26, Phil Boswell wrote:
> > If you were to upload one fair use image per day, complying
> > properly with
> > the rules for each one, you would have 365 after a year, having
> > broken no
> > laws.
>
> Not if they were from the same source.
>
> I can use one sentence of your book as fair use, but if I use them all
> one at a time its not fair use any more, as I have copied the entire
> book.
>
> Similarly one Playboy magazine cover is probably ok, but the number
> we have
> probably isnt.
>
> Fair use has to be considered as a whole.
>
> Justinc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
Two recent deletion listings.

Tally, an article about an accounting software company that's been
going for twenty years and has a number of major companies among its
clients in its native India, including the Reserve Bank of India and
the Indian IT giant, Infosys.  And SuperOffice, about a public listed
company (ticker code SUO on the Oslo Bors) with a turnover of some
Euro 30m.

Easy keeps?  No, deleted on AfD.

Turns out that the guy who listed them did so to make a point.

I summarily undeleted these articles--articles on such prominent
companies should never have been deleted and the process that deleted
them is clearly broken.

They have been redeleted.  Twice.

I am utterly ashamed of the process and those who have deleted these
good articles in the name of that process.

I have undertaken a bottom-up rewrite of both, but we should not be
deleting such articles and we should not be forced through the silly
pantomime of rewriting in order to keep articles about these companies
on Wikipedia.


from_name: Ben Yates

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
Articles should err on the side of having too many headings and
section breaks, not too few; it makes them much easier to expand
without losing their structure.  At the risk of seeming unfashionably
factionist, I'd point to the Association of Structurist Wikipedians --
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Structurist_Wikipedians

On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > Makes it easier to edit. I don't get the horizontal line I guess.
> > Fred
>
> Hmm which skin do you use?
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Doctored Wikipedia article read out on air by
	conservative talk show host

body:
The "political extremist" being referred to is apparently Mark Levin of WABC-AM.

On 1/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting allegation. Supposedly the scenario is that some political
> extremist edited a Wikipedia page about the Center for Constitutional
> Rights so as to contain slanted editorial from a political website
> opposed to that organisation, then he or another person later read out
> on air, word for word, the contents of the resulting article, preceded
> by the words "This is according to the Wikipedia free encyclopedia on
> the Web. OK? I didn't make this up."
>
> http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1137542140
>
> The edit is there, and there is a link to a political blog site
> purporting to contain a sound recording from the broadcast.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
A lot of it is poker. Folks without a decent hand, raising and
bluffing. I suggest courteous calling: asking for sources,
negotiating, patience, using the dispute resolution process effectively.

Fred

On Jan 18, 2006, at 9:45 AM, Andre Engels wrote:

> 2006/1/18, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>:
>
>> You mischaracterize an ambiguous situation as being totally corrupt.
>>
>
> Which is wrong, but still closer to the truth than your
> characterisation of no sysop power at all.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 17 Jan 2006, at 17:26, Phil Boswell wrote:
> If you were to upload one fair use image per day, complying
> properly with
> the rules for each one, you would have 365 after a year, having
> broken no
> laws.

Not if they were from the same source.

I can use one sentence of your book as fair use, but if I use them all
one at a time its not fair use any more, as I have copied the entire
book.

Similarly one Playboy magazine cover is probably ok, but the number
we have
probably isnt.

Fair use has to be considered as a whole.

Justinc


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>I had on my userpage a photo I took from the top of a lighthouse in
>New Jersey.  Next to it I had an image I created using Google Earth
>which attempted to reproduce that photo.  I had a couple of lines of
>text about how the two were created.
>
If it's articleworthy, put it in an article. If not, why have it
on WP at all? Put it on your own website and reference it.

Stan


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

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

body:
There's one thing that Tony and I violently agree on: The idea that "process
is important" is pernicious and harmful to the creation of an encyclopaedia.

-FCYTravis

On 1/18/06 11:00 AM, "Tony Sidaway" <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/18/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Of course, talking of bogus guidelines that unfortunately have more support
>> than they deserve, Tony was acting in complete violation of
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Process_is_Important
>
> Um, yes. In utter and complete contempt for it. :)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Yes, it is somewhat outdated, but it remains true in a sense;
> administrators are on the same level as everyone else as far as
> content is concerned, pointing out that you are an administrator will
> not get you far in a content dispute, and carried far enough, will
> get you desysopped.  There are occasional lapses and few folks sneak
> around a bit, but those who think being an administrator gives them
> authority over the most important thing in Wikipedia, content, are
> mistaken.
>
> Fred

I'm amazed sometimes at how often blatently untrue statements like
this get made.

Admins decide which content gets deleted and which content gets
undeleted.  They decide when pages are protected and when they are
unprotected.  While those pages are protected they decide what those
pages are going to say.  They decide when to block someone for
violating the three revert rule and when not to block someone for
violating it.

On very rare occassion an admin does something so ridiculously
outrageous and out of touch with the POV of the arbitration committee
that they get reprimanded for it, but there are numerous occassions
where they influence content and nothing happens at all.

It's very hard to separate power from authority, and in a flat (as
opposed to hierarchical) system, it's probably impossible.

Anthony


from_name: Nick Boalch

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>> 2. At the close of all VfD debates, the discussion is deleted.
[...]
>>Is there anything wrong with this concept?
>
> How about a blanking, linking to the last version in the history for
> archive purposes, then protecting.  This should mean that there won't
> be anything to complain about.

This is the approach we've taken in the past when people have written to
info-en@ about gratuitously hurtful AFD records. I don't see any problem
with institutionalising it.

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
On 1/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Did you post this information in the Afd discussion or list it on VfU with
> this information?

No, I put the information in the articles here it belongs and where
anybody could read it.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
On 1/18/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >Two recent deletion listings.
> >
> >Tally, an article about an accounting software company that's been
> >going for twenty years and has a number of major companies among its
> >clients in its native India, including the Reserve Bank of India and
> >the Indian IT giant, Infosys.  And SuperOffice, about a public listed
> >company (ticker code SUO on the Oslo Bors) with a turnover of some
> >Euro 30m.
> >
> >Easy keeps?  No, deleted on AfD.
> >
> >Turns out that the guy who listed them did so to make a point.
> >
> >I summarily undeleted these articles--articles on such prominent
> >companies should never have been deleted and the process that deleted
> >them is clearly broken.
> >
> >They have been redeleted.  Twice.
> >
> >I am utterly ashamed of the process and those who have deleted these
> >good articles in the name of that process.
> >
> >I have undertaken a bottom-up rewrite of both, but we should not be
> >deleting such articles and we should not be forced through the silly
> >pantomime of rewriting in order to keep articles about these companies
> >on Wikipedia.
> >
> >
> I beg to differ. The motive of the original nominator is besides the
> point. There's also the fact that the original articles did not make
> their status clear, so I think a rewrite would be necessary. (By the
> way, I "voted" to delete both articles on the original AfD.)

it doesn't matter how you voted' the articles were *at worst* cleanup
candidates, and obviously nobody in the AfD discussion troubled their
heads with anything resembling research.

I agree that the bad faith nomination doesn't necessarily disqualify
the deletion.  But the nature of the articles did.

I wish I didn't have to go through this ridiculous charade whenever
some well-meaning ignoramuses consigned a good stub article about a
major company to the bin.


body:
Have you read some of the comments on that page's Talk page? They wish
eventually to entirely abolish [[WP:IAR]] "and expunge its history."

The idea that "process is important" inherently puts rules and bureaucracy
above writing an encyclopaedia - and we are here to write an encyclopaedia,
correct? What [[WP:IAR]] states at its root is a principle that is central
to Wikipedia - that is to say, that if you're doing what you believe is
something that will benefit the encyclopaedia, damn the rules and do it
anyway.

The fact that nothing (except image deletions) is permanent on Wikipedia
makes [[WP:IAR]] work. If someone doesn't believe that my [[WP:BOLD]]
invocation of [[WP:IAR]] was proper, they are free to boldly revert it, or
in the case of a deletion, find one of those 700 admins to undelete it, in
which case a discussion can begin.

[[WP:IAR]] at its core, is about the fact that it is more beneficial to the
encyclopaedia to *do* something than to worry about going through five
levels of something Wikipedia is not, namely bureaucracy, before doing it.

Being [[WP:BOLD]], a principle which I think no one would disagree with,
often requires its complement, [[WP:IAR]].

-FCYTravis

On 1/18/06 11:23 AM, "geni" <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/18/06, Travis Mason-Bushman <travis at gpsports-eng.com> wrote:
>> There's one thing that Tony and I violently agree on: The idea that "process
>> is important" is pernicious and harmful to the creation of an encyclopaedia.
>
> Really? We have tens of thousands of editors. Over 700 admins. Imagain
> if they all decided to ignore process on a regular basis.
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


references:
<20060116082830.GP20211@andromeda.dapyr.net>
	<2487477A-0722-4E58-932B-D0B9B911F75E@specialbusservice.com>
	<dqj9et$g3q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<F2C540C7-F5F3-45EF-B070-082C09C64DAF@specialbusservice.com>
	<98dd099a0601180655w6512a5ecpdcf967084f1bb56e@mail.gmail.com>
	<8AF2C0A5-2A8E-445B-A519-6C24A5D0DDA9@specialbusservice.com>

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>
> With magazine covers, if we had say downloaded (made up example; I
> havent
> looked into where they came from) the Official Playboy Magazine Cover
> website
> and stuck them all in wikipedia then we would be liable - we would be
> taking
> advertising revenue from their website thus causing damages.
> Regardless of
> the amount of important critical commentary we make on them.

In theory yes, in practice the fair-use images are still pretty
thinly spread over our 900K+ articles. In my cleaning-out work on
the generic fair-use category I've only seen a handful of articles
that have more than one or two fair-use images, and they tend to be
articles on Pokemon characters and the like, where several stubly
articles have been merged into one (as per a common practice for
fictional characters).

Right now I think we're still in the process of figuring out much
we have and documenting the copyright holders. (The now-deprecated
category of generic fair-use images still has many thousands of
images left in it.) Once that's under control, I think we'll be in
a better position to focus on articles and areas that have excessive
numbers of copyrighted images. It wouldn't hurt to start a discussion
in the fair use wikiproject now, since it will likely take a while
to develop consensus on a good objective standard.

Stan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Desysopping procedure against waerth

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

> Nevertheless, I think there IS a crisis on the Dutch Wikipedia that
> might require intervention.

What kind of intervention do you suggest?

Tjipke de Vries


body:
On 1/18/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> When you pay for Internet access, you pay for the utility of Internet.
> The ISP provides you with access to the Internet. This means that they
> provide you with a SPECIFIC bandwith. What BellSouth is doing is
> essentially not only make you pay but the organisation that is putting
> content on the Internet as well. So they make you pay twice because it
> is obvious that the organisation that is made to pay will increase
> your bill by that amount.
>
> Until this time you pay for a service, a given amount of access to the
> Internet. With this proposal you do not get this service because
> additional tolls have to be paid.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM

I guess I just don't understand what this proposal is all about.  Did
you read some other articles about it other than the one you provided?
 Because the article whose url you gave doesn't really make it clear
what is going on.

Content providers already do pay to put their content on the Internet,
and personally I would think that the proper move would be to shift
costs away from the content providers.

Which is to say, if the proposal really is trying to force content
providers to pay more for providing content I would think the free
market would take care of making sure it never succeeds :).  Even
BellSouth doesn't have *that much* market power.

Anthony


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/18/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I still think (and I don't remember if it was my idea originally or
> > someone else's now :-)) that AfD needs to be in its own namespace and
> > not indexed by Google so it has the added bonus of not making searches
> > in Wikipedia: space useless by cluttering it up with noise.
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with that.

As do I.

--
Sam


body:
It's the concept of the "Process is important" process fetish that I
disagree with. Process is necessary, but as you say, not for its own sake.
Just as there must be a purpose to invoke [[WP:IAR]], there ought to be a
purpose to require the assistance of process.

If the only reason someone can come up with to oppose an action is, "it was
out of process," then the action was probably correct.

-FCYTravis

On 1/18/06 12:01 PM, "Haukur ?orgeirsson" <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> Process is basically a way of facilitating discussion and cooperation in
> this large collaborative project. That's why some of us think it's
> important, not for its own sake.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Suppose that an image can be considered fair use because it is used
> for educational purposes, say in the article Tiananmen Square
> protests of 1989 where the image Image:Tianasquare.jpg
>
> is said to be fair use under the following rationale:
>
> The use of this historic photograph in Wikipedia is claimed to be a
> fair use of the image under United States copyright law for the
> following reasons:
> This photograph depicts a non-reproduceable historic event.
> The image is used for educational purposes only in a non-profit
> encyclopedia.
> The image is no larger and of no higher quality than is necessary for
> the illustration of an article.
> The use of the image on Wikipedia is not expected to decrease the
> value of the copyright.
>
> If you put that image on a user page, easy to imagine someone doing
> so, the the educational purpose which is the foundation of the fair
> use justification, vanishes.
>
It may or may not vanish, depending whether or not you use the image
on that user page for educational purposes.

But anyway, what about the image page itself, i.e.
[[Image:Tianasquare.jpg]]?  Is *that* a use for educational purposes?

Of course, bad example, since Wikipedia has explicit permission to use
that image.

> That said, this is a tempest in a teapot in most cases. Except for
> rare instances, no one is complaining and there is a lot of bad
> feeling as getting after the fair use images on someone's user page
> feels like you are getting after them personally.
>
> Fred