from_name: Prasad J

body:
I checked out WP:DRVU and I found that the following userbox templates
had been deleted:{{User Unamerican}}, {{User independent Iraq}},
{{User USA police state}}, {{User Communist}}. Now after checking some
of the comments on the discussion about {{User Unamerican}},it seems
if a user is {{User Americafan}}-i.e supports America he does not have
a POV, however if he does NOT support America he has a POV. Now
whether a point-of-view is good or bad isn't it (logically speaking)
still a point-of-view? It's small things like this that (despite there
being numerous fair American Wikipedians) make it seem as if Wikipedia
is biased toward the U.S.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Criminals // Category:American Criminals

body:
On 5/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Sometimes I wonder whether categories were ever a good idea to begin
> with.  They were certainly implemented horribly.

I have my own reservations, but mostly because they are used to both
categorise and tag. "Countries in Europe" is a category, in everyday
parlance. "Living person" or "Scientology" are not - they're tags, or
descriptors, or classification codes but you would never browse
"living persons", and you would be hard pressed to define the edges of
what should or shouldn't go into "Scientology".

OTOH, what would be great about categories would be being notified
when new items were added to them - but that doesn't seem to be
possible.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Are these userbox templates NPOV?

body:
Hi Mark,
But then again different people find different things inflammatory. If
I were to add a userbox saying "This user supports the publication of
Prophet Muhammad" cartoons", mainly (perhaps only) Muslims are likely
to find that inflammatory. Again if I added a userbox proclaiming that
"This user supports Iran's nuclear programme", then Americans are
likely to find it offensive. Therefore the issue of what constitutes
inflammatory userboxes becomes subjective. The majority of Wikipedians
are American,therefore anti-U.S userboxes are more likely to be termed
inflammatory. And this issue is not confined only to userboxes-it
happens in articles too-the issue of the article "US-Israeli threats
to attack Iran" is one example.The issue of whether the U.S Navy
intentionally shot down an Iranian passenger jet seems to have been
dismissed (despite a U.S Navy invesigating officer's observations to
the contrary) by the simple,yet effective arguement -America is too
noble to stoop to such a level. It happens all across the Internet
actually. I spent 20 minutes trying to explain to one chatroom user
why the U.S Department of Homeland Security does not have the right to
arrest me (a foreign citizen) for what I say about the war in Iraq!


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/11/06, jf_wikipedia at mac.com <jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:
> I would argue that Categories and Lists in Wikipedia, are incubators
> of POV.

At least with lists you can explain things.  With categories it's
either in or out.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] We need a policy against vote-stacking

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/10/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>> On May 8, 2006, at 11:04 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>>> Because then the judges (closing admins) have discretionary power,
>>>> and in that situation, decisions are made by admin aristocracy, not
>>>> consensus.
>>> Consensus already requires interpretation by admins, who have
>>> discretinary power to ignore it.
>> That power is strictly limited to upholding policy and Office
>> actions. There's a difference between admins interpreting consensus,
>> and abandoning consensus while delegating decision-making power to
>> admins alone. The latter is utterly unacceptable.
>
> As you point out, when consensus conflicts with policy, admins should
> upload policy.

Er... I hope you meant "uphold" policy...

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

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from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the pop culture

body:
Guillaume Paumier wrote:
> On 5/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 5/11/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>The French, sticklers for definite articles, say 'sur Internet', where
>>>we say 'on the Internet'.
>>
>>Yes, I've never quite understood that one.
>
>  for those who can read French, there's a beginning of answer here :
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#Terminologie

For that matter, see also:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:%C3%80_propos#En_fait_c.27est_le_Wikip.C3.A9dia_ou_la_Wikip.C3.A9dia_.3F

The French are weird...

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright status of GPS coordinates

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 5/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>If a collection of facts contains a creative selection or arrangement, it
>>is copyrightable.
>
> The selection or arrangement of those facts is, more precisely.  The
> individual facts themselves are still not protected.

Right.  And as, in this case, we are picking our own selection from the
list and rearranging it completely, I see no reason to assume we'd be
infringing on anyone's copyright.

Even if we were reproducing all the coordinates on the list, I'd still
see no problem as long as we weren't basing our criteria of inclusion
for such coordinates on them being included on that particular list.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Hi Katie,
Might I remind you that Russia, Canada and China are all larger than
the U.S in terms of land area? And America's population is nowhere
near that of China or India. So your arguement about America being
large does have certain loopholes. And as for people being against the
U.S, though Guatanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the war in Iraq do have a
lot to do with it most of it comes from personal experiences. The
following is a conversation that took place between a Muslim classmate
of mine-a 17 year-old A-grade student who is the son of a succesful
executive- (M) and a security guard (US) at O'Hare International
Airport,Chicago.

US:What is the purpose of your visit to the U.S?
M:I'm a tourist.
US:Say "Sir".
M:What?
US:Call me "Sir".What's your name?
M:Abbas, Sir.
<few more questions>
US:Do you agree to a strip-search?
M:What?
US:You gotta say yes.
M:Why?
US:You have to say yes.
M:Then why ask me?
US:Are you trying to resist?Do you have somthing to hide?
M (gets apprehensive as the guard becomes aggressive):No Sir,I have no
objection.

It's things like this that put people off with the U.S.


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload
	by	default	toCommons?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
>
>>No. The idea is to handle the upload from the home wiki, so to speak;
>>the user shouldn't ever need to be directed somewhere on Commons.
>
> Consider that we have four wikis hosted on a separate cluster and may expand
> this as time goes on. They'd need some way to copy the file back up to the
> central cluster etc. Doable, but it's not just a matter of slipping a few
> entries into a second database.
>
> Personally, I'd prefer bouncing them to Commons, and having it bounce them back
> when they're done.

<aol>Sounds good to me.</aol>  I'd suggest that, from a user interface
viewpoint, the best solution would be a simple "Upload to Commons"
checkbox.  For additional frills, add JavaScript to toggle the contents
of the license selector depending on whether the box is checked or not.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

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

Mark Gallagher wrote:
> I agree entirely.  Ben and Greg displayed a remarkable lack of maturity
> in this issue.  I can see how they got a bit carried away after some
> idiot changed "is Christian" to "claims to be Christian", but deliberate
> could-be-perceived-as-vandalism[0], complete with rotating crucifix[1],
> was quite disgusting behaviour for an admin.
...
> [1] I know what Cyde was aiming for: "seeing from all angles", etc.  But
>      the end result was simply offensive.

I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just not
seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or annoying,
but not offensive.

For what it's worth, I guess you could consider this Wikipedian
space-training, because in space, there is no up, and you are liable to
routinely see things from all angles.

That's me, always thinking ahead.  Yup.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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iD8DBQFEY/6mvCEYTv+mBWcRAr/rAJ4kHJuHRCbrcAzYft1cjH9nhQ+/QQCfZlcE
tkSVcMdASkjD1/zYWYEPrfk=
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from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On Fri, 12 May 2006 00:24:54 +0300, you wrote:

>If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.

I, on the other hand, laughed out loud at that.  Quality satire :-)

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


from_name: XaosFluX

subject: [WikiEN-l] NEW CSD:T1 was: What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
> <snip>
> Userboxes are here to stay. Face facts and STOP BEING DISRUPTIVE!
> There is a backlog of more than 15000 articles at WP:CU. Go be useful.
> --Oskar

The very recent changes put in at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CSD#Templates CSD of, "User templates that
express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on
controversial issues, or any other templates which are otherwise divisive or
inflammatory." will require a lot of cleanup if it sticks, hundreds
(thousands?) of  templates meet these new critera.

-- xaosflux


from_name: John Lee

body:
Prasad J wrote:

>I noticed that there exists a userbox template {{User America fan}}-
>to indicate that the concerned user supports the U.S. However, there
>is no such userbox template indicate that the concerned user supports
>any of the other 180-odd countries that make up this Earth, eg. ther
>is no {{User Australia fan}} or {{User Japan fan}}. To indicate that a
>user supports any country other than the U.S, he/she has to create a
>userbox-there is no ready-made template. Why is this (apparent)
>favouritsm being shown toward the U.S. Aren't the other 188 countries
>worthy of having supporters? Also there is another 9/11,memoriam
>userbox template, however there is no Nazi Holocaust Memorial
>template. While we all realise that most Wikipedians (especially the
>powers-that-be) are Americans, this sort of bias is hurtful to us
>non-American Wikipedians. I would have taken this user-template matter
>up with someone on Wikipedia, but when I tried to enquire about a
>possible course of action on IRC, a user asked me (on the basis that I
>was questioning the {{User America fan}} template) whether I was an
>Islamofascist. Needless to say this made me a bit apprehensive, so I'm
>posing this question on the mailing list. Any comments/views would be
>appreciated. Thanks.
>
>PS-No offence intended to American Wikipedians.
>
>
Quoth the cabal line, "{{USER AMERICA FAN}} DIVISIVE SPEEDY NOW HUR HUR
HUR". (If you don't get it, it means that the [[cabal]] considers such
templates wrong and wants them deleted; see [[WP:DRVU]].) Me? I couldn't
care less about userboxes, except for the really blatantly divisive ones.

John


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] OT (was Re: Are these userbox templates NPOV?)

body:
On 5/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Prasad,
>
> > I'm sure Americans get the same treatment in other countries. I
> > suggest you drop by Teheran International Airport sometime-maybe you
> > could carry a U.S flag too. Then get back to me with an account of
> > what they did to you.
>
> Americans don't get that treatment in Australia, a country that likes to
> think her close alliances mean something. I've not experienced Canada,
> New Zealand, the UK, Europe, etc., but I imagine it doesn't happen
> there, either.
>
> The treatment an Australian tourist receives in Los Angeles is in no way
> related to the treatment an American waving the US flag will get in Tehran.
>
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher

I have to agree with Mark here. When I went to England, it was fairly
pleasant- not so much returning ot America (and I'm as Caucasian and
innocous as it gets), even though everything was in order and I was
part of a group!  (Though I got my revenge- I smuggled some English
soil through customs, even though they said not to! Hah!)

~maru


from_name: Phoebe Ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this NPOV?

body:
> It's quite frustrating having a list of three dozen possible print
> sources, and not being able to find a single one of them in a library
> within reasonable driving distance.
>

Don't forget about [[Interlibrary loan]] :) It's always worth asking
your library if they can get something for you.

Re: print versus online - ideally, one would look at both and see if
they agreed or not, and if not why not. What the best and most
appropriate source is really depends on the topic, as well as what one
has available. I agree we need more books, though, along with more
research and cited sources of all kinds.

- phoebe


body:
I'm sure Americans get the same treatment in other countries. I
suggest you drop by Teheran International Airport sometime-maybe you
could carry a U.S flag too. Then get back to me with an account of
what they did to you.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question - illegal publications

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>It is tempting to say, "If its publication IS illegal, then surely no
>one will sue for infringement (since that would require claiming
>authorship, which is illegal)", but that would only apply in the state
>in which it was published, I imagine. Whether a publication is illegal
>or not is probably a national issue -- something illegal in one
>country is not necessarily illegal in the US, and wouldn't affect the
>US handling of the copyright law.
>
A more likely scenario would be to have the publication illegal because
it sought an end to British occupation.  Once the British were gone the
illegality would have ceased.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-12

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 303 of 313 tests (96.81%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 5/11/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at rdrop.com> wrote:
> Well, I guess it had to happen; but why did it need to involve one of my
> favorite tv shows?
>
> I assume you are all familiar with the tv show "Lost", & perhaps with
> Alternative reality games (ARG); if not, we have some articles on Wikipedia
> that do a fair job in explaining them. One item to keep in mind is that
> ARGs depend on the ability to seed clues around the internet to help
> create their fictional world.

Ok, given that this article [[Valenzetti]] doesn't seem to exist
anymore on EN wikipedia, can you explain what all this was about? I'm
not familiar enough with lost, and haven't heard of "ARG"s to be able
to make any sense of your post at all.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Regarding "civility"

body:
On 5/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> For a display of drama-queen-dom too severe even for LiveJournal,
> check out Monicasdude's current userpage: "This user is proud to be a
> target of the Wikipedia Committee of Public Safety".

Forgive me, but I'm not sure why we would take someone whose email was
from "William J. Clinton" and whose username is "monicasdude"
seriously. Not being an admin has some advantages, I guess ;)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Okay.  I'm not a Christian.  In the discussions where I've noted Cyde's
or Gmaxwell's name, I've mostly agreed with them.  I generally support
the idea of CSD T1.  But still...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:User_Christian&action=history

If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wasting Time. The most efficient way :)

body:
On 5/11/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> However, we're more popular than Jesus:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia%2C+jesus&ctab=0&date=all&geo=all
>
> And, more popular than the Beatles too:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia%2C+beatles&ctab=0&date=all&geo=all

Don't you mean bigger than Jesus?

Perhaps that should be the new tagline, after all, "the free
encyclopaedia" is getting a little tired.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Maybe (if I answered that I'd really be giving legal advice).  But if
>>you took 10 different lists of 50 co-ordinates and put them in one
>>list, then picked the 20 or so that you find interesting from that big
>>list (maybe even reducing the number of significant digits in the
>>coordinates first), it might be less likely to be a derivative (I
>>still would feel uncomfortable giving a direct yes or no answer,
>>though).
>>
>>And if 20 different people working independently each pick one
>>co-ordinate, that might not constitute copying or preparation of a
>>derivative.
>>
>>Between copying one and copying the whole list, it's pretty grey area.
>> Even copying the whole list is grey area.
>>
>>
>
>In this case, it's not necessarily a question of "lists" per se. On
>the original website, each monolithic site is a subpage, and has a GPS
>coordinate amongst other info. In the wikipedia article, we have a few
>different sites listed, not as a "list" but sorted by type, with text
>and so forth. I would simply want to add the relevant coordinates (if
>useful) for those sites that we already have listed.
>
>Yeah, it does seem like pretty reasonable research doesn't it. Even if
>they would complain that they went to all the effort of looking up the
>coordinates on a map.
>
In other words the selection was made before the source of GPS
co-ordinates was consulted.  That would point strongly in favour of
public domain information.

Ec


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On 5/11/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Okay.  I'm not a Christian.  In the discussions where I've noted Cyde's
> or Gmaxwell's name, I've mostly agreed with them.  I generally support
> the idea of CSD T1.  But still...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:User_Christian&action=history
>
> If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.
>

Absolutely.  This was not acceptable behavior, as it seems to have
been a bit of personal indulgence that impacted on the appearance of
hundreds of user pages.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikisource-l] Toward compatibility with the
	GNU FDL: delete all Creative Commons works?

body:
Kernigh has started this important thread on wikisource-l. I hope
someone on the Board level follows it and comments on it.

Erik

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: xkernigh at netscape.net <xkernigh at netscape.net>
Date: May 11, 2006 9:55 PM
Subject: [Wikisource-l] Toward compatibility with the GNU FDL: delete
all Creative Commons works?
To: wikisource-l at mail.wikimedia.org

  ** Warning: this email has not been checked for accuracy. I am also
  NOT an expert in copyright law.

I would like all Wikisource subdomains to adopt a common copyright
policy, considering which licenses are allowed and disallowed.
Currently it seems that some licenses are valid on some subdomains
but not others.

On en.wikisource, the current copyright policy
  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Copyright
requires all content to be compatible with the GNU Free
Documentation License. However, maybe some other language
subdomains do not have this policy?

I read from the fr.wikisource copyright policy
  http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Respect_du_copyright
that "La plupart des textes de Wikisource sont du domaine public;
quelques uns peuvent ?tre sous GFDL." (My translation: "The majority
of Wikisource texts are public domain; some are under GFDL.")

However, in the multilingual (oldwikisource) policy
  http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Copyright
in section "Using copyrighted non-textual work from others" it allows
any kind of license. Considering that Wikisource should be a "free
library", I believe that non-free licenses should be disallowed.

Meanwhile, I would like to have the current en.wikisource policy
of GFDL-compatibility enforced better.

Understand what this means.

The FSF maintains a list of free software licenses at
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
and while the GNU General Public License (GPL) is a free software
license, some other free software licenses are compatible with the
GPL, but some are not.

Similarily, some free content licenses are compatible with the
GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), but some are not. This
is where the en.wikisource policy could be clarified: it prohibits
noncommercial licenses, but it does not mention free licenses
that allow commercial use but are incompatible with the GFDL.
However, it does require GFDL-compatibility, thus de jure
en.wikisource already prohibits those incompatible free licenses.

>From what I know, the basic test for GFDL-compatibility is this: can
someone combine content under license X and license GFDL and
release the combination under GFDL? If yes, X is GFDL-compatible;
if no, X is not GFDL-compatible.
  This is analogous to how FSF says that GNU GPL compatibility
  "means you can combine a module which was released under that
  license with a GPL-covered module to make one larger program."
  Because GNU GPL is copyleft, that larger program would be
  under GPL.

The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) is an
example; it is a free [1], copyleft license. Now GFDL is also copyleft.
Because of copyleft, if I modify the work I must use the same license
for my modifications. If I combine CC-BY-SA and GFDL work, I must
release the combo under CC-BY-SA and GFDL simultaneously.
However, each license contradicts the others because of technicalities;
for example GFDL grants the right to add an Invariant Section, but
CC-BY-SA prohibits that. So CC-BY-SA is not GFDL-compatible, and
CC-BY-SA IS AGAINST EN.WIKISOURCE POLICY.
  [1] CC licenses are not Debian-free (they fail Debian Free Software
  Guidelines), see http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

The Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) is a more difficult
example. CC-BY is not copyleft. So when I combine CC-BY and
GFDL works, it is okay if GFDL has some extra rules (like copyleft)
that are not in CC-BY. Thus I have read that CC-BY is one-way
compatible with GFDL. For example, Wikinews picked CC-BY:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2005-September/000329.html

states that "The winner is CC-By 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki.
The license is one-way-compatible with the GFDL."

That email seems wrong to me; compare what FSF says on their list
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
about CC-BY license: "Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License:
This is a non-copyleft free license for artistic works and entertainment
works. Please don't use it for software or documentation, since it
is incompatible with the GNU GPL and with the GNU FDL."

Maybe CC-BY 2.0 is incompatible, but CC-BY 2.5 is compatible?
Actually, my own reading of CC-BY 2.5 suggests that CC-BY 2.5
is incompatible. License is at
  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode
and in clause 4a: "If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice
from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove
from the Derivative Work any credit as required by clause 4(b),
as requested." Clause 4b is the attribution requirement.
In short, an author can use clause 4a to change the requirement
from attribution to nonattribution. This would apply for example
to Wikisource translations of CC-BY works.

But the GFDL requires attribution, and has no equivalent to
CC-BY clause 4a. License it at
  http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and in GFDL section 4, modifications are allowed if "you
release the Modified Version under precisely this License".
Its copyleft, and CC-BY clause 4a contradicts the GFDL.
Thus, (on a minor technicality!) the CC-BY is not
GFDL-compatible, and CC-BY IS AGAINST EN.WIKISOURCE
POLICY.

-- [[en:User:Kernigh]]
   http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Kernigh

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list: wikimedia-l


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On 5/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 12 May 2006 00:24:54 +0300, you wrote:
>
> >If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.
>
> I, on the other hand, laughed out loud at that.  Quality satire :-)
>
> Guy (JzG)

Did you take this attitude when he was pulling all those stupid stunts
on april 1st? This is hardly the first time that Cyde has demonstrated
he is less than total responcible.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Prasad,

> I noticed that there exists a userbox template {{User America fan}}-
> to indicate that the concerned user supports the U.S. However, there
> is no such userbox template indicate that the concerned user supports
> any of the other 180-odd countries that make up this Earth, eg. ther
> is no {{User Australia fan}} or {{User Japan fan}}. To indicate that a
> user supports any country other than the U.S, he/she has to create a
> userbox-there is no ready-made template. Why is this (apparent)
> favouritsm being shown toward the U.S. Aren't the other 188 countries
> worthy of having supporters? Also there is another 9/11,memoriam
> userbox template, however there is no Nazi Holocaust Memorial
> template. While we all realise that most Wikipedians (especially the
> powers-that-be) are Americans, this sort of bias is hurtful to us
> non-American Wikipedians. I would have taken this user-template matter
> up with someone on Wikipedia, but when I tried to enquire about a
> possible course of action on IRC, a user asked me (on the basis that I
> was questioning the {{User America fan}} template) whether I was an
> Islamofascist. Needless to say this made me a bit apprehensive, so I'm
> posing this question on the mailing list. Any comments/views would be
> appreciated. Thanks.

Userboxen are *not* endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikipedia
community in general, or (in some rather peculiar cases) the creators of
the userboxen themselves.  The contents of a userbox should never be
taken as an attempt by Wikipedia to cause offence.

As for why there is a {{User America fan}} but no {{User Japan fan}}
(say), Americans tend to be insecure, and therefore need to reassure
themselves (and other Americans) that they really are as patriotic as
government policy decrees.  The userbox in question was probably created
by an American who was disturbed that his userpage did not sufficiently
affirm his dedication to Mother Columbia, and wished to correct this
appalling state of affairs before the FBI came and took him away.

(I intend no offence towards American Wikipedians, by the way[0].)

> PS-No offence intended to American Wikipedians.

Oh, good.

[0] Is this email the makings of an excellent Uncyclopedia article, or
     just bitter sarcasm more stupid than it is funny?

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/336 - Release Date: 10/05/2006


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 12 May 2006 00:24:54 +0300, you wrote:
>
>>If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.
>
> I, on the other hand, laughed out loud at that.  Quality satire :-)

Oh well, I've substed the template now, so they're free to play with it
as much as they like -- it won't show up on anyone's user page any more.

But still, can anyone honestly say that, if those edits were made by a
new user, they wouldn't be considered blatant vandalism of the
blockable-after-one-warning type?

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
G'day Prasad,

> I checked out WP:DRVU and I found that the following userbox templates
> had been deleted:{{User Unamerican}}, {{User independent Iraq}},
> {{User USA police state}}, {{User Communist}}. Now after checking some
> of the comments on the discussion about {{User Unamerican}},it seems
> if a user is {{User Americafan}}-i.e supports America he does not have
> a POV, however if he does NOT support America he has a POV. Now
> whether a point-of-view is good or bad isn't it (logically speaking)
> still a point-of-view? It's small things like this that (despite there
> being numerous fair American Wikipedians) make it seem as if Wikipedia
> is biased toward the U.S.

Users are allowed a POV, they aren't allowed to express one in articles.

"Divisive or inflammatory" userboxen are being deleted every day; it's
easier to make the case that "I hate X" is divise or inflammatory than
it is to make the same case against "I love X".  That's the reason for
the perceived bias.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/336 - Release Date: 10/05/2006


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On 5/12/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> This past day I have used the "mop" to block over a dozen vandals and
> clean up vandalism.  Guess what I haven't used the "mop" for ...
> anything that could possibly be considered an abuse.
>
> - --
> Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

Stop. Just stop. Enough is enough.

First of, I'm not a christian, I'm an atheist. I also hate userboxes,
I think they're ugly and clmusy, and in the case of CSD T1 userboxes,
they are downright harmful (which is why CSD T1 is really great).

However I don't mind people who are religious, nor do I mind people
who think userboxes are nice. In a democratic society, and in
wikipedia too, the philosopher Jagger got it right: You can't always
get what you want.

Userboxes are here to stay. Face facts and STOP BEING DISRUPTIVE!
There is a backlog of more than 15000 articles at WP:CU. Go be useful.

Also, as userboxes go, this is one of the most sensible ones. It
clearly makes its point and it clearly is NPOV. To say otherwise is
wikilawyering at best and WP:POINT at worst.

--Oskar

PS. I realise upon rereading my mail that it might be construed as if
I were equating belief in christianity with people who like userboxes.
It was not my intention, I have the utmost respect for people of all
faiths (exepts Scientologists, they're just wierd)


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

references:
<4463ABA6.8070703@vyznev.net>	<kre76218okm7c7jclpfuepon77850jihso@4ax.com>
	<4463C24C.40801@vyznev.net>

body:
Ilmari Karonen schrieb:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 12 May 2006 00:24:54 +0300, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.
>>
>>I, on the other hand, laughed out loud at that.  Quality satire :-)
>
> Oh well, I've substed the template now, so they're free to play with it
> as much as they like -- it won't show up on anyone's user page any more.
>
> But still, can anyone honestly say that, if those edits were made by a
> new user, they wouldn't be considered blatant vandalism of the
> blockable-after-one-warning type?

No, they'd still qualify for a good laugh. Just as this dialogue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:84.141.161.182

I'm not an english native speaker, but I see a _fine_ difference between
"I am a christian" and "This user is a christian".

elian
PS: This user is a hypocrite.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
>
> I didn't alter anyone's userpage.  I only altered one single template.
> If you don't want your userpage to change in appearance then keep it in
> your userspace and don't grab all of your content from templates.

You do realize that the same could just as well be said of articles.

Yes, templates are attractive vandalism targets in that they can provide
lots of disruption for very little effort.  That is *not* an excuse for
deliberately disrupting them just to show that you can.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 5/12/06, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I posted here to see if anyone else was concerned about this development -- & so far
> I have been disappointed with the response. If I had wanted to simply delete the
> article, I would have Been Bold & done so; I was hoping that at least one other
> person would admit that this is a problem that can only get worse before it
> gets better -- if it ever does.
>
> Geoff

May not be completely new. We know that something strange went on with
some BBC staff at one point. Yeah it's anouther group trying to upload
false info. However they need us not to delete stuff for the game to
work so they may descide that wikipedia isn't much use to them after
all.
--
geni


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC radio refer listeners to the wikipedia entry on
 the doosra

body:
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>> Aggers has just referred those listeners who wish to know what a doosra
>> is to the wikipedia entry.  He read out the web address in that BBC
>> cricket commentary way, h-t-t-p and so on, which led Giles to comment
> Yes, I wish the developers of the web had gone to more trouble to make
> http:// invisible to users, and to discourage the use of www. etc. And
> I'm also amazed how many companies seem unaware that the www. on the
> front of their names is redundant. Their advertising would be snappier
> with just "tcl.fr" rather than "www.tcl.fr" for instance.
>
Sadly this is not always the case: it is dependent entirely on whether the
address without the "www" has been set up to redirect to that with.

I have often attempted to go to something like "http://example.com" only to
be redirected to a search page where the first item would be
"http://www.example.com".

For the avoidance of doubt, yes I agree it would be much easier if this were
so...having said which, it is not compulsory that the address start with
"www": take "en.wikipedia.org" for example.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Copyright-status-of-GPS-coordinates-t1600735.html#a4357266
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the pop culture

body:
On 5/11/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> I'm running into an increasing number of mentions of Wikipedia in pop-
> cultural contexts these days.  Two recent examples:
>
> In Simpsons Comics #117, there is this exchange:
>
> Lisa: Say, aren't you Hank Scorpio, the criminal mastermind?
>
> Hank: I prefer the term "Entrepreneurial mastermind", but yes, that's
> me.
>
> Lisa: You blackmailed the federal government into giving you control
> of the American east coast.  Now everyone thinks you are dead.
>
> Hank: Aren't you adorable?  We're all about to be shot as escaped
> prisoners, and you're reciting my entry in the Wikipedia.  I hope
> you're proud of her, Homer.  She's great!
>
>
> The other was on a recent Colbert Report on Comedy Central, where
> Colbert was talking about Sigmund Freud, and proudly announced that
> he had prepared for the segment by reading Freud's *entire* Wikipedia
> entry, even the accurate parts.
>
>
> I think Wikipedia has achieved the pop-cultural status of being
> suitable for mention in humorous (and not entirely flattering)
> contexts; it seems to have a connotation something like "I've
> achieved a shallow, superficial, and quite likely inaccurate
> understanding of a subject the lazy way... and I'm damn proud of it!"
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

According to the Yahoo! buzz index, we are currently 4th ahead of Youtube
and behind Mother's Day.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> >In this case, it's not necessarily a question of "lists" per se. On
> >the original website, each monolithic site is a subpage, and has a GPS
> >coordinate amongst other info. In the wikipedia article, we have a few
> >different sites listed, not as a "list" but sorted by type, with text
> >and so forth. I would simply want to add the relevant coordinates (if
> >useful) for those sites that we already have listed.
> >
> >Yeah, it does seem like pretty reasonable research doesn't it. Even if
> >they would complain that they went to all the effort of looking up the
> >coordinates on a map.
> >
> In other words the selection was made before the source of GPS
> co-ordinates was consulted.  That would point strongly in favour of
> public domain information.
>
Sounds right to me.  I was basing my answer on the selection being the
copyrighted aspect.  If the selection has already been made through
some other mechanism which avoids copyright infringement, then the
collection copyright doesn't matter.

Anthony


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Regarding "civility"

body:
I must confess I missed the connection entirely. My proposals in the
arbitration case were just based on his behavior.

Fred

On May 11, 2006, at 4:21 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 5/11/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For a display of drama-queen-dom too severe even for LiveJournal,
>> check out Monicasdude's current userpage: "This user is proud to be a
>> target of the Wikipedia Committee of Public Safety".
>>
>
> Forgive me, but I'm not sure why we would take someone whose email was
> from "William J. Clinton" and whose username is "monicasdude"
> seriously. Not being an admin has some advantages, I guess ;)
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Rob Church

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On 12/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, 12 May 2006 00:24:54 +0300, you wrote:
> >
> > >If this is not disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I don't know what is.
> >
> > I, on the other hand, laughed out loud at that.  Quality satire :-)
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
>
> Did you take this attitude when he was pulling all those stupid stunts
> on april 1st? This is hardly the first time that Cyde has demonstrated
> he is less than total responcible.

I don't think it's wise to pull April 1st into this. We know that
Wikipedia is full of idiots who decided to take the opportunity of the
day's tradition to undo a lot of other people's hard work, even for a
few minutes, in the name of humour. Out-of-control behaviour like that
doesn't help our public relations; it would have been more effective
if one main prank had been sanctioned by the community as a whole.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reporting/dealing with whitewashing/smearing

body:
I think the principles in Wikipedia:Autobiography could be elaborated
on to express a policy. For example, Wal-Mart has recently hired a
team of public relations experts, organized as a response team (a
"war room"). Our article is an obvious target, especially when we
have editors eagerly adding negative information. I think if they
identified themselves and commented on the talk page we could have no
objection. Surreptitiously editing the article, or edit warring would
be very obnoxious. But keep in mind, they are entitled to object
strongly, even to legal redress, in the case of libel.

The more commen public relations effort is to polish up the positive
aspects of a person or business, create a buzz, etc. Often that is
precisely the behavior we see in autobiographical entries by self-
published authors.

Fred

On May 11, 2006, at 6:10 PM, The Cunctator wrote:

> What is the policy (or information about the policy) on dealing
> with/reporting whitewashing or smearing by interested/paid parties? An
> example was
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_Staffer_Edits
> but it
> doesn't seem to be under any category... is there any kind of
> policy? Should
> there be?
>
> I almost don't want to justify the practice with a defense, because
> then it
> sets up a game/conflict for people to "win" at by "beating"
> Wikipedia. But
> it would be foolish to ignore what will be more prevalent as Wikipedia
> grows.
>
> Also, I think it would be good for the community to tackle this,
> because
> otherwise the Foundation and Jimbo will take the lead, and they have a
> necessarily conflict/legal-dispute/panic-mode bias toward the
> issue, since
> they're always on the receiving end of irate phone calls or Ann
> Coulters in
> their face or controversy-seeking journalists. I for one don't
> think the "no
> interested parties" policy idea is very good, but I can see it being
> implemented if a better framework isn't put in place before all
> hell breaks
> loose. An ounce of prevention and all that.
>
> But only an ounce!
>
> Sorry for the rambling if there's already work that's been done on
> this
> issue and I just haven't seen 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
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Baidupedia (the downside to free content?)

body:
"China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a
Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference
site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web
surfers from seeing.   However, entries on Baidupedia, the service
from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the
Chinese Government."

http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19100960%255E1702,00.html

Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock help

body:
Those links were already at September_11%
2C_2001_attacks#Conspiracy_theories but you kept insisting that they
go into the first introductory paragraph. They represent a minority
point of view and while they deserve mention, are not properly
presented in the introduction.

Fred

On May 11, 2006, at 11:18 AM, joetkeck at netscape.net wrote:

> Good day,
>
>   I am attempting to overcome having been, I believe, unfairly blocked
> by User:Tom harrison. I am new to Wikipedia, so am still learning
> proper procedures. I have attempted to provide reference to the 9/11
> Truth Movement on the main 9/11 Wikipedia entry. My additions have
> been
> repeatedly deleted by Mr Harrison and others without sufficient
> explanation. I would like to resolve this matter in a fair manner,
> without my rights as a Wikipedian being unfairly censored. The
> information I was asked to provide is:
>
>  "3rr, evasion with sock" and IP address (68.254.122.199)
>
>  Thank you, Joe
> ___________________________________________________
> Try the New Netscape Mail Today!
> Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List
> http://mail.netscape.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: Cheney Shill

body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

    The more commen public relations effort is to polish up the positive
    aspects of a person or business, create a buzz, etc. Often that is
    precisely the behavior we see in autobiographical entries by self-
    published authors.

The more insidious and deceptive type is to dull the negatives.  This can easily seem like NPOV because it pushes the content further from stating anything at all.  It's similar to blanking or vandalism that replaces the content with a bunch of nonsense, but the point of it is not to stand out.  The main things to look for:
* Use of bigger and more obscure words.
* Making sentences much longer.
* Adding long sentences before and after what they don't want highlighted.
* Adding short, very clear sentences that contradict the negative with lots of sources that, if checked:
** will turn out to be fluff pieces by industry financed publications
** will have meaningless titles or a titles that support their view, but the actual source, if read, supports the negative or has nothing to do with subject at all.
~~~Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do.  Get it on your phone.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] (No subject)

body:
On 5/12/06, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I posted here to see if anyone else was concerned about this development -- & so far
> I have been disappointed with the response. If I had wanted to simply delete the
> article, I would have Been Bold & done so; I was hoping that at least one other
> person would admit that this is a problem that can only get worse before it
> gets better -- if it ever does.

Yes, that is concerning - think it comes under WP:NOT your playground.

Steve


from_name: Mohamed Anwar Sadat

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unfair block

body:
My username - Anwar saadat

  I was unfairly blocked by Nichalp. The reason given for the block is: "stalking, warned repeatedly, reverts without talking; see user's talk page".

  I did not stalk anyone. Please see my contribution log, talk page and archives. I reverted the vandalism of Zora who blanked whole paragraphs, sections and even supporting links without even a pretense of a discussion. Nichalp is a member of India project. So I suspect they ganged up and painted a different picture.

  Please help.

  Regards,
  Sadat

---------------------------------
Love cheap thrills? Enjoy PC-to-Phone  calls to 30+ countries for just 2?/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

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

Ben McIlwain stated for the record:

> I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with it.

This statement is clearly intended to insult and offend.  I recommend
that you conceal your malice a little more effectively, Ben.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There is more stupidity than hydrogen
 sean at epoptic.org | in the universe, and it has a
                  | longer shelf life. --Frank Zappa
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEZLTIMAt1wyd9d+URAuEbAJ9Nikcft68tzgZxMUxDBmf/TGJSwACfaiZw
QVBbUCUHxp3GldZDi+O/DZI=
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from_name: Prasad J

body:
I was merely trying to highlight the blatant racism that not only all
Muslims-irrespective of educational qualification, social standing
etc., but also any Asian of Indo-Aryan descent (who looks like he
might be a Muslim) has to go through at U.S airports. I have so far
not heard of any Caucasian traveller who has to refer to security
personnel at these airports, however non-Caucasian Aryans are made to
address these guards as "Sir". As for Muslims, there is simply no end
to the amount of humiliation they are put through-including being
(discreetly) segregated into a different group ane mointored by
gun-toting police officers. Any attempt at resisting this bigotry will
result in the complaintant being promptly shot.The U.S security guards
have come to the conclusion that we (people of the Indo-Aryan race)
have no other purpose in life except to bomb America. As for Muslims
they (apparently), by virtue of their religion, have forfeited the
right to equality and dignity. Perhaps someone needs to alert the
International Commission on Human Rights about this new development?

PS-The ingenious system of identifying "potential terror threats"
simply by their skin-colour is in place elsewhere in the world in the
world too-including in Australia,NZ,UK ,Canada etc.


from_name: Elliott F. Cable

subject: [Wikitech-l] SoC idea, speed of light again

body:
No, making light go backward involves making the INFORMATION travel
instantly to the destination, then forcing the light itself to travel
from the destination to the starting point. Read the article again (-:

On the peak truly travels backwards.

On May 12, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Rob Church wrote:

> On 12/05/06, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
>> Domas Mituzas wrote:
>>> Can anyone come up with an idea how to adapt this:
>>>
>>> http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/lights-most-exotic-trick-yet-so-fast-
>>> it-goes-backwards-10590.html
>>>
>>> to our distributed clusters?
>>>
>>> Domas
>>
>> Or we can go faster than the speed of light:
>>
>> http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html
>
> According to the article, making light go backwards makes it
> instantaneous, or something. Instantaneous > c^2 et al.
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
> > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> Our thoroughly NPOV article on it seems to indicate that they are in
> breach of GFDL. What damages could we demonstrate though?

Probably none at all; and we're hardly likely to get an injunction of
any sort against them, given the circumstances.

It might still be worth making as loud a fuss as possible about this
-- though not necessarily suing them -- merely for the PR effects.

--
Kirill Lokshin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Block messages

body:
On 5/12/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Also, a little-known and often misunderstood feature of block messages
> is that templates included in them are expanded when the message is
> shown to the blocked user (but not in the block log).  I'm not sure how
> many templates designed for this already exist, since they don't seem to
> be categorized in any way, but at least {{blocked proxy}} has been used
> like this.

{{usernameblock}}, I think?  I've certainly seen it used that way.

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block messages

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>   I note in the previous message that the user was given the block
> message "3rr, evasion with sock" - I wonder, how could any new user
> possibly understand what that means? Wouldn't it be better to use
> plain language, even if it does mean taking slightly longer to block?
> In this case "Repeatedly undoing other people's changes to an article,
> using alternate accounts to get around having their account blocked".
>

New users should get multiple warnings about the 3RR, so they've had ample
opportunity to read or inquire about the 3RR.


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block messages

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>   I note in the previous message that the user was given the block
> message "3rr, evasion with sock" - I wonder, how could any new user
> possibly understand what that means? Wouldn't it be better to use
> plain language, even if it does mean taking slightly longer to block?
> In this case "Repeatedly undoing other people's changes to an article,
> using alternate accounts to get around having their account blocked".

These people know exactly what they've been doing, we don't need to
explain it to them.

Jay.


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

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

Mark Gallagher wrote:
>Ben wrote:
>> I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just not
>> seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
>> know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or annoying,
>> but not offensive.
>
> Mocking the cross?  You can't see what's wrong with that?

I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with it.

And I didn't "mock" it, I just rotated the canvas ninety degrees thrice.

That's the problem with this religious stuff.  It's entirely subjective
and inappropriate for use as, say, a deletion criteria.  Which is
exactly what some people are trying to use it for.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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from_name: Dan Rosenthal

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Cyde brings up a very very good point. What your religion may perceive
as "mocking" and "offensive", my religion, or Cyde's, may not. I'm
sorry but I fail to see how this is different than the Muhammed
Cartoons: the argument there is "omg it's blasphemous and
disrespectful to show muhammed" and here it's "omg it's blashphemous
and disrespectful to make a cross spin around".

-Swatjester

On 5/12/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Gallagher wrote:
> >Ben wrote:
> >> I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just not
> >> seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
> >> know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or annoying,
> >> but not offensive.
> >
> > Mocking the cross?  You can't see what's wrong with that?
>
> I don't worship icons, so no, I really don't see what's wrong with it.
>
> And I didn't "mock" it, I just rotated the canvas ninety degrees thrice.
>
> That's the problem with this religious stuff.  It's entirely subjective
> and inappropriate for use as, say, a deletion criteria.  Which is
> exactly what some people are trying to use it for.
>
> - --
> Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
>
> ~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (MingW32)
>
> iD8DBQFEZKIkvCEYTv+mBWcRAqnvAJ9SSmDglXouLs83sSROz7BBSGyK/gCgkPgO
> MDnJEYQlGA/Z/lqnpDIEMbA=
> =o2wY
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Dan Rosenthal
IWVO National Legislative Director


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 5/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Cunct,
>
> > What is the policy (or information about the policy) on dealing
> > with/reporting whitewashing or smearing by interested/paid parties? An
> > example was
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_Staffer_Edits but
> it
> > doesn't seem to be under any category... is there any kind of policy?
> Should
> > there be?
>
> Good Lord, no.  We have more than enough policy.
>
> However, this could be said to fall under our NPOV principle.  And
> persistently violating NPOV when you know what you're doing is wrong but
> insist on doing it anyway is disruption, which comes under the blocking
> policy.
>
> > I almost don't want to justify the practice with a defense, because then
> it
> > sets up a game/conflict for people to "win" at by "beating" Wikipedia.
> But
> > it would be foolish to ignore what will be more prevalent as Wikipedia
> > grows.
>
> We've dealt with POV-pushing from Scientologists, LaRouchites, physics
> crackpots, right-wing loonies, left-wing loonies, gunzel anoraks, SEO
> proponents, and all kinds of other tragic, deformed souls.  I don't see
> that Congressional staffers are any different.

The difference is not so much in the editing response but the
public-relations response. I.e. when do we contact the company/organization
associated with the editing?

When do we tell the press?

How does one editor notify other editors that there may be a salaried
employee of X editing the article about X or about X's enemy in a
whitewash/smear way? It's not exactly vandalism...


body:
On 5/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> In other words the selection was made before the source of GPS
> co-ordinates was consulted.  That would point strongly in favour of
> public domain information.

Ok, well I have now included some GPS information, and cited the site
as a source. The bigger question is now how to include it in a
non-ugly way. :)

(A further argument against their creative collection idea would be
that apparently people self-select sites to add. That is, random
visitors can add the information - so who would own the copyright
anyway?)

Steve


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
On Fri, 12 May 2006 12:15:34 +0200, you wrote:

>You have to know, that Cyde shows disrespect towards all religions,
>beside his own. His creed is "freedom of speech", he holds publishing
>profanity sacred and blocks editors for "censorship", who try to
>incorporate decency, when in fact he considers their actions
>blasphemous.

Alternate hypothesis: Cyde is unwilling to allow POV pushers (of any
type) to prevail against consensus.

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] New committers and restricted SVN shell

body:
Grace Pastorelly Ruiz wrote:
> i tried to create the branch "mlmw" and i got an error:
>
> svn: Can't create directory '/svnroot/mediawiki/db/transactions/14182-1.txn':
> Permission denied

Sounds like you tried to use an http url; you need to use svn+ssh. See
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Subversion

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
John Lee wrote:

>I think that's what those of us bitching about Jimbo's ostensible
>abandonment of involvement in the wiki have in mind. There's nobody on
>Wikipedia who can absolutely put his or her foot down on something and
>say, "Stop it you f*ckfaces, that's just wrong". Some members of the
>arbcom could theoretically do that, but at the risk of eroding what
>authority and semblance of impartiality they have. IMO, a number of
>major disputes related to the userbox wars, wheel warring, etc. could
>probably have been resolved with less acrimony had Jimbo, Angela or
>someone else with their level of authority stepped in. As things stand,
>there's a lot of confusion and ill-will within the community, still
>breeding and stagnating.
>
>Hopefully this all part of the wiki process, and we'll manage just fine
>without Jimbo. Still, I have my doubts about how much longer we can
>continue to scale the old model.
>
I agree that having someone on hand who can make these decisions is
important.  Obviously Jimbo can't do it all himself, because he can't be
everywhere at once or spend the time needed to fully understand the
specific disputes.  It's not at all a question of the positions that he
supports or what articles he would choose to delete.  When he only
occasionally steps in it makes matters worse because those appearances
are unpredictable, and it leaves offenders with the hope that he will
somehow step in and take their side.

The authority of such a person would be separately determined for each
sister project.  The issue really breaks down to what kind of person
would be suitable to the task.
    1.   The person must have the Jimbo's trust to the extent that Jimbo
will not override his decisions without first discussing the issue
fairly but not necessarily publicly with him.
    2.   The person must have the broad trust of the community even when
he takes unpopular decisions.
    3.   The person must be seen as more a conciliator than one who
insists that there is only one solution for every problem.
    4.   The person must be capable of finding a balance between public
consensus and established policy. There are times when rigid adherence
to policy is completely wrong, and other times when public consensus
fails to consider the broader implications of that consensus.
    5.   The person must accept that he will sometimes make decisions
that will incur hostile responses.
    6.   The person needs to be appointed rather than elected.  The risk
in an election is that it leaves a minority that may not feel
represented by the person.
    7.   Etc.

Ec


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
I'd say there are two different issues here.  One is the Muhummad cartoons -
yes, those are offensive, and they are meant to be offensive.  Whether they
belong in Wikipedia or not is another issue.

Ben's rotating cross may or may not be meant to be offensive - I'll take his
word on it that he didn't mean it to be offensive.  All angles is actually
kind of clever.  And as to an upside down cross being an offense to
Christianity - maybe you should have told that to Peter.  Surely he's a
great offense to Christians everywhere.  After all, we should never trust
the person Jesus selected, the rock upon which he built his church.

For that matter - the cross is meant to be offensive.  It's an instruments
of torture and execution.  Symbol of the rejection and execution of Jesus.
It's supposed to shock you.

Ian


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Ben,
>
>> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>> I agree entirely.  Ben and Greg displayed a remarkable lack of maturity
>>> in this issue.  I can see how they got a bit carried away after some
>>> idiot changed "is Christian" to "claims to be Christian", but deliberate
>>> could-be-perceived-as-vandalism[0], complete with rotating crucifix[1],
>>> was quite disgusting behaviour for an admin.
>> ...
>>
>>> [1] I know what Cyde was aiming for: "seeing from all angles", etc.  But
>>>     the end result was simply offensive.
>> I've heard a lot of people claiming that it's offensive but I'm just not
>> seeing it.  How is it offensive?  All of the Christians I personally
>> know who I've pointed it out to thought it was either funny or annoying,
>> but not offensive.
>
> Mocking the cross?  You can't see what's wrong with that?
>

You have to know, that Cyde shows disrespect towards all religions,
beside his own. His creed is "freedom of speech", he holds publishing
profanity sacred and blocks editors for "censorship", who try to
incorporate decency, when in fact he considers their actions
blasphemous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Goatse.cx&diff=prev&oldid=40192237

--
Raphael


from_name: Steve Block

subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC radio refer listeners to the wikipedia entry on the
 doosra

body:
Aggers has just referred those listeners who wish to know what a doosra
is to the wikipedia entry.  He read out the web address in that BBC
cricket commentary way, h-t-t-p and so on, which led Giles to comment
that it was an awful lot of troub;le, but there you go.  James sent the
suggestion in, I'm not sure if that's one of our James' or not, but
there it is.  A wikipedia mention on Test Match Special, Five Live
Sports Xtra, about 12:17 pm BST.  If there's somewhere where we keep
track of such mentions, someone might want to note it.

Steve Block

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from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the pop culture

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 5/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>I see this all the time too, and I can't understand it, people don't
>>say "I looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica", they say "I
>>looked it up in Encyclopedia Britannica". It's really quite strange
>>that they wouldn't use the same construct for wikipedia..........
>
> But they would say "I looked it up in the encyclopaedia" - maybe they
> think "wiki" is just some weird web term, so it would be like saying
> "I looked it up in the weblopaedia" or something. Rather than
> realising there is *one* Wikipedia. ?

Imagine, decades from now, the fans of other web encyclopaedias saying
things like "those guys are SO arrogant.  What gives them the right to
say that they are *THE* Wikipedia?"

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
Can anyone come up with an idea how to adapt this:

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/lights-most-exotic-trick-yet-so-fast-
it-goes-backwards-10590.html

to our distributed clusters?

Domas


body:
G'day Prasad,

> I'm sure Americans get the same treatment in other countries. I
> suggest you drop by Teheran International Airport sometime-maybe you
> could carry a U.S flag too. Then get back to me with an account of
> what they did to you.

Americans don't get that treatment in Australia, a country that likes to
think her close alliances mean something.  I've not experienced Canada,
New Zealand, the UK, Europe, etc., but I imagine it doesn't happen
there, either.

The treatment an Australian tourist receives in Los Angeles is in no way
related to the treatment an American waving the US flag will get in Tehran.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the pop culture

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Steve,
>
>> On 5/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I see this all the time too, and I can't understand it, people don't
>>> say "I looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica", they say "I
>>> looked it up in Encyclopedia Britannica". It's really quite strange
>>> that they wouldn't use the same construct for wikipedia..........
>> But they would say "I looked it up in the encyclopaedia" - maybe they
>> think "wiki" is just some weird web term, so it would be like saying
>> "I looked it up in the weblopaedia" or something. Rather than
>> realising there is *one* Wikipedia. ?
>
> Imagine, decades from now, the fans of other web encyclopaedias saying
> things like "those guys are SO arrogant.  What gives them the right to
> say that they are *THE* Wikipedia?"
>
>

Because Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation.
We should be defending our trademark as vigorously as possible.

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

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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
>
> If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
> GFDL.

Maybe, technically, maybe.

> And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
Good luck with that.


body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
>
> If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
> GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> Steve block

One problem is that it's *impossible* to follow the GFDL for a
verbatim copy of a Wikipedia article.  The Wikipedia articles
themselves don't even follow the GFDL, as they don't contain any of
the author information.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
G'day Ilmari,

> Ben McIlwain wrote:
>
>>I didn't alter anyone's userpage.  I only altered one single template.
>>If you don't want your userpage to change in appearance then keep it in
>>your userspace and don't grab all of your content from templates.
>
> You do realize that the same could just as well be said of articles.
>
> Yes, templates are attractive vandalism targets in that they can provide
> lots of disruption for very little effort.  That is *not* an excuse for
> deliberately disrupting them just to show that you can.

I agree entirely.  Ben and Greg displayed a remarkable lack of maturity
in this issue.  I can see how they got a bit carried away after some
idiot changed "is Christian" to "claims to be Christian", but deliberate
could-be-perceived-as-vandalism[0], complete with rotating crucifix[1],
was quite disgusting behaviour for an admin.

I'll give Greg a comparative pass on this one, since a) he's not an
admin, b) he's not as controversial as User:Cyde.  However, he *is* a
well-respected and otherwise excellent Wikipedian, and it's just sad to
see him stoop to something like this.

[0] I'll leave the wikilawyering and the "technically, this violates
     section x, paragraph a, subparagraph ii" to someone else, but I've
     got to sneak the word "vandalism" in *somehwere*.

[1] I know what Cyde was aiming for: "seeing from all angles", etc.  But
     the end result was simply offensive.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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body:
On 5/12/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
> > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't hold the copyrights over Wikimedia
> content, it is merely a user that must follow the terms of the GFDL
> like any mirror or fork. Wikimedia could, however, provide financial
> or legal assistance to the authors whose copyright is infringed in a
> lawsuit.
>
That would be fairly hypocritical, though, since Wikimedia itself
doesn't even follow the GFDL.

Anthony


body:
G'day Cunct,

> What is the policy (or information about the policy) on dealing
> with/reporting whitewashing or smearing by interested/paid parties? An
> example was
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_Staffer_Edits but it
> doesn't seem to be under any category... is there any kind of policy? Should
> there be?

Good Lord, no.  We have more than enough policy.

However, this could be said to fall under our NPOV principle.  And
persistently violating NPOV when you know what you're doing is wrong but
insist on doing it anyway is disruption, which comes under the blocking
policy.

> I almost don't want to justify the practice with a defense, because then it
> sets up a game/conflict for people to "win" at by "beating" Wikipedia. But
> it would be foolish to ignore what will be more prevalent as Wikipedia
> grows.

We've dealt with POV-pushing from Scientologists, LaRouchites, physics
crackpots, right-wing loonies, left-wing loonies, gunzel anoraks, SEO
proponents, and all kinds of other tragic, deformed souls.  I don't see
that Congressional staffers are any different.

<snip/>

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock help

body:
It was already in the article further down under 9/11 conspiracy
theories.

Fred

On May 12, 2006, at 12:45 PM, Timwi wrote:

>
>
>>   I am attempting to overcome having been, I believe, unfairly
>> blocked
>> by User:Tom harrison.
>>
>
> It appears that you were blocked because you re-inserted the same two
> sentences more than three times. We have a rule that prohibits this.
>
> However, in your case, I don't understand why your sentence was
> removed
> at all. I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe someone else will
> elaborate.
>
> Here's a link for others to see:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=September_11%
> 2C_2001_attacks&diff=52396066&oldid=52394304
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Russell Blackford

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Independently of the stunt being discussed here, a group of us have chanced
our collective arm that there is now enough consensus, on the talk page and
elsewhere, to alter the wording of T1. T1 is now elaborated and clarified in
a way that expressly allows for speedy deletion of such userboxes. I hope
that the wording will stick but that admins will show some sensitivity, e.g.
transcluding (or whatever the hell that word is) boxes before zapping them.

Under the new wording - if it does stick - the deletion of the User:
Christian template is supportable, but I'm really quite dismayed by the
antics involving it overnight my time. Some people on this list might want
to see the comments being expressed in the deletion review, and to make
comments of their own about what has been done, both by the group involved
with this template and by those of us who thought T1 needed to be changed.

Russell


subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Guettarda wrote:
> Ben's rotating cross may or may not be meant to be offensive - I'll take his
> word on it that he didn't mean it to be offensive.  All angles is actually
> kind of clever.  And as to an upside down cross being an offense to
> Christianity - maybe you should have told that to Peter.  Surely he's a
> great offense to Christians everywhere.  After all, we should never trust
> the person Jesus selected, the rock upon which he built his church.
>
> For that matter - the cross is meant to be offensive.  It's an instruments
> of torture and execution.  Symbol of the rejection and execution of Jesus.
> It's supposed to shock you.

I will agree here.  Personally I find the whole symbol ridiculous.
Especially the really explicit ones with Jesus still on it and the
painted on leaking blood from the Longinus wound and hands and feet.
Why you would want something like that in your house or around your neck
is beyond me.  But I never say anything about it and I don't try to
force other people to get rid of it.  My animated cross is a lot less
explicit than some of the other ones out there.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> "China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a
> Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference
> site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web
> surfers from seeing.   However, entries on Baidupedia, the service
> from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the
> Chinese Government."
>
> http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19100960%255E1702,00.html
>
> Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?

No, but I know this great site which should be able to tell you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Baike

Steve


body:
Err, just a little question: FireFox is rendering all the Chinese
characters as ? - anyone know what I have to do to make them appear? I
don't speak Chinese but it would be prettier...Arabic and Hebrew
characters tend to show up fine. FireFox 1.5.0.3 French btw.

Steve

On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> No, but I know this great site which should be able to tell you:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Baike
>
> Steve
>


body:
On 5/12/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
> > > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
> >
> > Our thoroughly NPOV article on it seems to indicate that they are in
> > breach of GFDL. What damages could we demonstrate though?
>
> Probably none at all; and we're hardly likely to get an injunction of
> any sort against them, given the circumstances.
>
> It might still be worth making as loud a fuss as possible about this
> -- though not necessarily suing them -- merely for the PR effects.
>

http://www.answers.com/baidu

Answers Corporation isn't citing authors.  And right at the bottom of
the page it says "Copyright (c) 2006 Answers Corporation. All rights
reserved."  Wikimedia isn't making a fuss about them.  In fact,
they're making business deals with them.

I think people seem to be missing the point.  Sure, Baidu might be in
technical violation of the GFDL, in which case pretty much every
fork/mirror in the world is in technical violation of it.  I was more
focussed on the fact that "entries on Baidupedia, the service from
Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the
Chinese Government".  This is especially horrible because the real
Wikipedia *isn't accessible in China* to the average internet user who
doesn't jump through a bunch of technical hoops.

Anthony


subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC radio refer listeners to the wikipedia entry on
	the doosra

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Aggers has just referred those listeners who wish to know what a doosra
> is to the wikipedia entry.  He read out the web address in that BBC
> cricket commentary way, h-t-t-p and so on, which led Giles to comment

Yes, I wish the developers of the web had gone to more trouble to make
http:// invisible to users, and to discourage the use of www. etc. And
I'm also amazed how many companies seem unaware that the www. on the
front of their names is redundant. Their advertising would be snappier
with just "tcl.fr" rather than "www.tcl.fr" for instance.

> that it was an awful lot of troub;le, but there you go.  James sent the
> suggestion in, I'm not sure if that's one of our James' or not, but
> there it is.  A wikipedia mention on Test Match Special, Five Live
> Sports Xtra, about 12:17 pm BST.  If there's somewhere where we keep
> track of such mentions, someone might want to note it.

The talk page for the article is usually the place, though personally
I find such mentions a bit tacky.

Steve


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 12/05/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> that it was an awful lot of troub;le, but there you go.  James sent the
> suggestion in, I'm not sure if that's one of our James' or not, but
> there it is.

Come on Forrester, cough to it. You publicity whore. :)

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the pop culture

body:
On 12/05/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Now I'll need a new Official Interpreter.  Any volunteers?

Do we get to twist your words about so they have completely different
meanings and generally put a bit of spin and controversy in your
speeches?

Rob Church


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical
	to	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Shinjiman wrote:
>
>> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="XXX" lang="XXX">
>>
>> The lang (and xml:lang) attribute defined at the HTML tag in some language is
>> not correct and it's supposed to not making this value identical to
>> $wgContLanguageCode.
>>
>
> Incorrect; it *is* supposed to be the value of $wgContLanguageCode, as by
> definition $wgContLanguageCode is the RFC 3066 language code for the language of
> the wiki's content.
>
> A reasonable case might be made that when variant display conversion is engaged,
> the lang attribute should be overridden.
>
>
>> For example there's no such language tag called "simple",
>>
>
> Indeed there's not; that would be "en".
>
> Note that $wgContLanguageCode is not the same as the *domain name* or *interwiki
> identifier*. These are separate issues.
>
>
>> according to ISO639, RFC1766, RFC3066 (R1,R2). Hence for my previous patch
>> that submitted to Bug:5790. The main purpose of the patch is adding a new
>> Language Tag Mapping against the user interface language which using the
>> incorrect language tag.
>>
>
> That would be stupid and useless. Instead, use the correct code to begin with.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Hoi,
The case for the simple wikipedia is indeed obvious. More problematic is
when you want to link a wikipedia that uses a code that will never be
accepted as a language code because it is considered a language family.
Or a code that is used for another language. Or a language where the
code is specific while the wikipedia uses it to indicate a larger
language "continuum". Another issue is that language codes are retired;
this leads to a different interpretation of the meaning of the ku, fa
and several others (this is part of ISO-639-3)

Having meaningful links between the Wikimedia codes for interwikil inks
and language codes is not trivial. For WiktionaryZ we are going to
standardise on ISO-639-3 and have CLEAR codes that identify languages
that are not recognised at present. One consequence is, that the Babel
templates will be the ISO-639-3 codes as well.

RFC 3066 indicates to be reserving tags for subsequent revisions of the
ISO-639 code. ISO-639-3 clearly states that the codes will not be
recycled. It also says that this principle will be maintained for any
future revisions of the code. It is therefore safe to use ISO-639-3.

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wiktionary-l

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] [Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't
	identical to	$wgContLanguageCode


body:
On 5/12/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>  > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  >
> > Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
>  >
>  > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
>  > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
>
> -- Matt

First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email
client attributed to me.

Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the
GFDL is not a good idea.  And frankly, I doubt it would work.

Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I
don't know.  Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the
impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship
of Google.

If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real
Wikipedia to the masses in China, I'd love to help.  Maybe some sort
of network of distributed servers providing https access through
dynamically rotating IP addresses.

Anthony


body:
On 5/12/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>  > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  >
> > Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
>  >
>  > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
>  > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
>
> -- Matt

First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email
client attributed to me.

Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the
GFDL is not a good idea.  And frankly, I doubt it would work.

Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I
don't know.  Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the
impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship
of Google.  From what I know of the situation I'd guess a censored
version of Wikipedia is worse than nothing, because at least with
nothing more people will go through the technical hoops to get around
the firewall.

If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real
Wikipedia to the masses in China (no client-side setup required), I'd
love to help.  Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers
providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

Anthony DiPierro stated for the record:

> On 5/12/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>When did the board give Jimbo the power to pass CSD criteria?
>>
>>The Arbitration Committee decided that he had this power.
>
> The Arb Com doesn't have any right to make such a decision.

Sez who?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There is more stupidity than hydrogen
 sean at epoptic.org | in the universe, and it has a
                  | longer shelf life. --Frank Zappa
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from_name: Plyd

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default
	toCommons?

body:
> <aol>Sounds good to me.</aol>  I'd suggest that, from a user interface
> viewpoint, the best solution would be a simple "Upload to Commons"
> checkbox.  For additional frills, add JavaScript to toggle the contents
> of the license selector depending on whether the box is checked or not.

Or (and?) disable the box in case of non-free licence selected.

Plyd


from_name: Robert Rapplean

subject: [Wikitech-l] Threads: any plans

body:
I've replied to Uwe in private.  If anyone else is interested in the
consensus engine, please let me know and I'll send instructions on how to
check out the wiki.

On 5/12/06, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>
> May be this is off topic, but would it be possible to add Talk Pages,
> a nntp interface, so that they could be displayed with a newsreader?

Is this in relation to the consensus engine, or in regard to Media Wiki?


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Aggers has just referred those listeners who wish to know what a doosra
> is to the wikipedia entry.

Who or what is Aggers?


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen schrieb:
>>
>>But still, can anyone honestly say that, if those edits were made by a
>>new user, they wouldn't be considered blatant vandalism of the
>>blockable-after-one-warning type?
>
> No, they'd still qualify for a good laugh. Just as this dialogue
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:84.141.161.182

Point taken, but you'll note the edit you cited was reverted and the
user was warned about it.  Presumably, had they continued making such
edits, they would've been blocked like any other silly vandal.

They also added a {{spoiler}} tag; not a bloody huge animated GIF.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?

If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?

Steve block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/336 - Release Date: 10/05/06


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 12 May 2006 14:14:05 +0100, you wrote:

>Who or what is Aggers?

A cricket commentator on the wireless - specifically the BBC's Home
Service, m'lud.

[[Jonathan Agnew]] to be precise.  I made a redirect for you :-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] NEW CSD:T1 was: What. The. Fuck??!?

body:
XaosFluX wrote:
>
> The very recent changes put in at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CSD#Templates CSD of, "User templates that
> express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on
> controversial issues, or any other templates which are otherwise divisive or
> inflammatory." will require a lot of cleanup if it sticks, hundreds
> (thousands?) of  templates meet these new critera.

Well, I still have my script ([[User:Ilmari Karonen/userboxes.js]]) and
Pathoschild's page still has his AWB ruleset.  There's no real reason we
can't subst them all.  All we need is a couple of users to help run the
script.  Damn good way to inflate your edit count, too. ;-)

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/12/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/05/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> >
> > Uhm... I'm completely flattered. WTH is the reasoning behind CSD T1? How
> > did that ever pass community concensus? I can't believe more than a
> > handful of people would agree to that! What on Earth is supposed to be
> > harmful about users proclaiming their view on religious or controversial
> > topics?
>
> CSD T1 was decreed from above.
>
So it doesn't really matter unless the admins agree to enforce it.

Anthony


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
> So it doesn't really matter unless the admins agree to enforce it.
>
> Anthony

I don't think you'll have much trouble finding admins to enforce it.

Ryan


from_name: Gallagher Mark George

body:
G'day XaosFlux,

> The very recent changes put in at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CSD#Templates CSD of, "User
> templates that
> express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or
> viewpoints on
> controversial issues, or any other templates which are otherwise
> divisive or
> inflammatory." will require a lot of cleanup if it sticks,
> hundreds
> (thousands?) of  templates meet these new critera.

Has the rot set in to such an extent?  That's sad.

--
MarkGallagher


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

Timwi wrote:
> Uhm... I'm completely flattered. WTH is the reasoning behind CSD T1? How
> did that ever pass community concensus? I can't believe more than a
> handful of people would agree to that! What on Earth is supposed to be
> harmful about users proclaiming their view on religious or controversial
> topics?
>
> I don't get this.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a battleground for social, moral, or
religious issues.  Userbox templates and user templates group
Wikipedians into competing factions.  This infrastructure has been used
in the past to abuse our decision-making policies by vote-stacking.

If you really feel it is necessary to proclaim your religion on your
userpage, you can do it, but you don't need a template to do so.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>> So it doesn't really matter unless the admins agree to enforce it.
>
> I don't think you'll have much trouble finding admins to enforce it.

*EVIL GRIN*

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] OT (was Re: Are these userbox templates NPOV?)

body:
On May 12, 2006, at 11:08 AM, Prasad J wrote:

> As for the "Nazi regime",
> kindly take the time to observe how U.S Marines in Abu Ghraib are
> dragging leashed Muslim men around the place like animals, are using
> attack dogs to torment them, are electrocuting them, and are even
> going so far as to make them form "naked pyramids".

That's the Army there, not the Marines.

> Now these
> activities are eerily reminiscent of what Nazi S.S Guards did to Jews
> in concentration camps. Admittedly, the Nazi atrocities occured on a
> much larger scale but the pain and humiliation suffered by the victims
> is the same.

The Nazis attempted to exterminate or enslave everyone of non-German
descent living in Europe. It's not even the same thing and it makes
you look like a hyperbolic, irrational fanatic for saying so. I don't
support the Administration's policies, but the best way to oppose the
administration is by making rational arguments against their
policies--not by making bad comparisons to the Nazis.

> As to complaints of  prisoners at Guatanamo Bay being put through some
> sort of "sensory deprivation"(again notice the photographs of
> prisoners being blindfolded,earmuffed,gagged,and face-masked) and
> other innovative "interrogation techniques" the spokesperson chose to
> remain silent. So you will forgive me if I draw a few parallels
> between such atrocities and those committed by the Nazis (albeit,as I
> said, on a much,much larger scale).

Yes, because all the Nazis did was put the Jews into sensory
deprivation and ask them questions to try and prevent terrorist attacks.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On 5/12/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sadly this is not always the case: it is dependent entirely on whether the
> address without the "www" has been set up to redirect to that with.

Yes, I know. But it's very often the case, and even for companies that
always advertise with the www.

> For the avoidance of doubt, yes I agree it would be much easier if this were
> so...having said which, it is not compulsory that the address start with
> "www": take "en.wikipedia.org" for example.

Definitely a special case. :) I'm really talking about the millions of
bogstandard company.com sites though.

I actually think as well that companies that attempt to publish sites
that involve slashes would do better to set up redirects and advertise
a version with a fake subdomain: product.company.com rather than
company.com/products/product or something.

But anyway.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/12/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/05/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Rob Church wrote:
> > > On 12/05/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >>Uhm... I'm completely flattered. WTH is the reasoning behind CSD T1? How
> > >>did that ever pass community concensus? I can't believe more than a
> > >>handful of people would agree to that! What on Earth is supposed to be
> > >>harmful about users proclaiming their view on religious or controversial
> > >>topics?
> > >
> > > CSD T1 was decreed from above.
> >
> > By who? I don't see how this is within the competence of anyone other
> > than the community.
>
> Jimbo Wales. I can't find the original addition in history, but it's
> reaffirmed with
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ACriteria_for_speedy_deletion&diff=38415187&oldid=38398379.
>
>
> Rob Church

When did the board give Jimbo the power to pass CSD criteria?

Anthony