from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 29/07/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>The major asset of the project/program/community/foundation is the
>>FDL'ed databases, GPL'ed software, and community of contributors,
>>developers, and other volunteers.
>>
>>A new Foundation could be back up and operating at current levels within
>>a quarter or two with an aggressive public funding drive for hardware.
>>
>>
>
>If a Wikimedia chapter in, say, Sweden were to run servers much like
>the ones in France. Would it be feasible to get these running as
>database servers quickly, in case your scenario were to happen?
>
>So if Wikimedia and its assets were taken down in the US, those in
>other countries could quickly replace them?
>
>
Bottleneck would probably be the professional expertise and effort the
WMF pays for routine reliable staff effort in organizational matters and
for administrator and development support.

Perhaps if the Swedish/X Chapter is organized properly; a management
reserve or emergency operations plan could contracted for and funded in
advance such that sufficient Swedish currency is in Swedish/X financial
accounts (earning appropriate returns relative to required on demand
liquidity) to hire/contract the WMF's technical and administrative staff
to fly to Sweden for a few months and setup and maintain the new servers?

Once the WMF or new equivalent in U.S. was back up and running they
could rehire the technical and administrative staff and reestablish
operations in Florida or equivalent.  To be really efficient the
individual staff contracts could require that all useful tourist photos
be submitted to the commons at the earliest reasonable convenience
prior to receipt of final performance bonus.

Perhaps this could structured in advance as part of the operations
plan.   Setup the independent Swedish
chapter/corporation/foundation/nonprofit in advance with read only
mirror service kept up to date with a periodic database update via .....
what? DVD? Digitial tape?  Backups were still under a gigabye back when
I messed with off-site backups.

Obviously the above is a layman's view of how to structure a reserve
operations capacity for transitional purposes.  The legal beagles and
the Board would have to do the international contracts so it is legally
fullproof.   The technical staff would have to figure an efficient
mirror or startup capacity and how to transfer data reliably and
routinely such that they could flyin and buy more hardware, bandwidth,
install the latest snapshot and have the Swedish site up and operational
in minimun time.

Maybe the WMF could ask for technical proposal and bids from any
associated international chapters with an appropriate non profit
organization in place and pick the best overall deal for the WMF's
donated funds to be expended upon.

The situation is fraught with possibilities.  Probably depends mostly on
what the Board and the WMF staff feel would be useful, reasonable
(responsible cost effective expenditure of donated funds) and airtight
from a legal standpoint.

I still have a hard time envisioning serious legal difficulties
considering the statement of conditions each contributer agrees to prior
to submittal of material and the fact that we now have a paid operations
staff ready and willing to delete alleged offending material or
situations and investigate in detail later.  It would seem like any
serious slander or copyright or other legal issues mostly belong to the
contributor as long as the WMF is careful to respond with due diligence
to complaints and/or particularly to subpoenas and court orders.

I think the above offsite backup would be a reasonable thing to begin
considering at this point even disregarding legal concerns.

I mean the rest of the world does not want Wikimedia projects to be
offline indefinitely just because some terrorist organization with a
collective I.Q. greater than 25 sneaks a few dirty (radioactive dust,
smallpox, EMP, power grid failures, rampaging domestic politicians,
whatever) bombs/incidents into key U.S. cities in the 95% of shipping
containers that are not currently inspected prior to entry into U.S. ports.

Heck, if I want to do some research after hearing rumors from the Media
Moguls about some disaster in Florida (or other key internet hub
location like say New York; California {San Andreas fault}; the Midwest
{Yellowstone Supervolcano}; random super tsanamis or asteroid stikes;
it would suit me just fine if up to date mirrors capable of handling the
full emergency world wide load from me and other gawkers were online
while the WMF Board and staff followed emergency directions to the
nearest interstate evacuation route.

OTOH, some people view a little redundancy in information systems and
emergency preparedness system wide as a complete waste of resources.
Better to just keep a spare Wikipedia DVD, dehydrated dihydrogen oxide,
and last year's portable computer with proper power supply adapter in
the back of your vehicle and forget about kibitzing over jammed comm
systems in the unlikely event of an emergency.

regards,
lazyquasar


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project
 boring to death

body:
Kat Walsh wrote:

>On 7/27/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Silas Snider wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Except when process protects us from (potentially lenghty and costly)
>>>legal proceedings. Without a tag, it is not clear whether we have the
>>>right to even host the image.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>It would be nice if people who put up these claims about protecting us
>>had half a clue about what they are saying.  Such legal proceedings are
>>always possible no matter what we do.  So too is winning the big prize
>>in a national lottery.  If you sign a binding agreement to donate 50% of
>>that prize to WMF when you win it, I would suggest that the Board not
>>make that eventuality a prominent part of its future plans.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>
>I'd like to think I have at least half a clue, having seen loads of
>"you are using my copyrighted material, take it down or else"
>messages. (And then many more "hey, I wrote this press release, and
>you guys called me a copyright violator, take that down immediately."
>You just can't win.)
>
When such a request is made it does need to be investigated.  Sometimes
that claim will be untenable.  A while back we had a complaint from
someone who claimed that a picture of a deposed 1920s Saudi king was
taken from his website.  The king died a few years later in Iraq.  It
could be easily established with reference to Saudi and Iraqi law that
the picture was in the public domain, and that our complainer had no
claim to copyright.  Does it make sense to accede in these baseless
circumstances.  If the person has a sensible case we should take it
down, or if some individual Wikipedian wants to defend the inclusion we
should ask for a formal takedown order with which we will comply.

In your second example we should not be making public accusations that
someone is in fact a copyright violator.  Public discussion of these
situations should only speek of possible copyvios that are under
investigations.  Outright direct accusations could open up a whole
different kettle of problems..  We should also pursue wilful breaches of
licence more aggresively.

>Most of them are just angry and will never actually go to the trouble
>of a lawsuit, sure. Some of them might. Considering the volume, not
>many of them would have to for it to be a huge waste of the limited
>resources of WMF. It's *possible* for people to attempt to sue us for
>all sorts of frivolous things even if we take as much care as
>possible, yes, but it's not the wisest course of action to invite it
>where we don't need to by failing to be responsible.
>
Allowing a person to continue with his frivolous suit is not a failure
of responsibility.  Incurring enormous legal costs on a case that at a
state level would belong in small claims court is not cost effective.
If the suit is for serious money and frivolous, costs would be recoverable.

>However:
>
>In this case, there must be some sort of special case. Purist though I
>generally am, surely there must be some way to hang on to a few
>pictures of deceased editors and tag them appropriately to make their
>status clear. Considering all the copyright issues on the project, it
>would be a happy day if this were the most pressing of them. I would
>be loath for this to be some sort of precedent so that everyone and
>his dog wants an excuse to be a special case, but, well, really, I am
>OK with this particular image.
>
Any dog that actually wrot a Wikipedia article would be a special case. :-)

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: mboverload

subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

body:
There isn't a way to identify live-mirror behaviour?  And why the fuck would
they want to make a live mirror?  How would they do it, Wikipedia is way too
slow for someone to load up every single edit.

On 7/30/06, Jimmy Collins <Jimmy.Collins at web.de> wrote:
>
> Still or again working:
> http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
>
> Cheers Jimmy
>
> > -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Gesendet: 30.07.06 01:41:04
> > An: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block
>
>
> > On Friday 28 July 2006 22:05, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > > $BEDCf(B $BK|B at O:(B wrote:
> > > > I found this page:
> > > >
> > http://ja.andmoretop.info/pacman-online/Special:Recentchanges.html
> > > >
> > > > which is mirroring Wikipedia live, also English
> > version
> >
> > > Killed.
> >
> > Thankyou! But it looks like it is still working :-(. eg
> > also
> > http://en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
> >
> > Also, please note, these domains are also live mirrors,
> > from same people I think:
> >
> > http://ja.comedypage.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > http://ja.feederpolitics.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > http://ja.centraltest.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
> >
> > Replace "ja" with "en" for English.
> >
> > Please block these Parasites!
> >
> > TANAKA
> >
> > --------------------------------------
> > Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
> > http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 7/27/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I think you are all missing Antheres point. Who cares whether it's
>>fair use or not? Do we really have to be so anal about the rules that
>>we will infact bring this to IfD, instead of just quietly ignoring the
>>copyright issue in this very special unique case. We are people, for
>>christs sake, not automatons! Sometimes, process is not that
>>important.
>>
>>
>You are really asking, is it ok for Wikipedia to breach people's
>copyright when the chance of them suing is very slight? I would say
>yes. Most would say no.
>
Although I consider the chance of a suit to be an important factor, it
should never be the only factor.  It should be accompanied by a
rationale based on at least one of  fair use, public domain,
uncopyrightability, etc.

Ec


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 7/27/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In this case, there must be some sort of special case. Purist though I
>>generally am, surely there must be some way to hang on to a few
>>pictures of deceased editors and tag them appropriately to make their
>>status clear. Considering all the copyright issues on the project, it
>>would be a happy day if this were the most pressing of them. I would
>>be loath for this to be some sort of precedent so that everyone and
>>his dog wants an excuse to be a special case, but, well, really, I am
>>OK with this particular image.
>>
>>
>Why don't we come up with a "special case" template? "This image is
>copyrighted, and cannot be used under fair use. However, the Wikipedia
>community has decided that in this special case, it is worth breaching
>the copyright anyway".
>
That wording, especially the last bit, could even make their case for
wilfullness.  ;-) Even a public interest argument would be better than that.

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Reporting & communicatio

body:
Aphaia wrote:
> On 7/29/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Domas Mituzas wrote:
>>
>>>>So we expect you remember other present and important issues clearly,
>>>>including the informally proposed Houserule for Wikimania?
>>>
>>>
>>>I'm rebellious, surely not following that one. :)
>>
>>I missed a step. What is this Houserule ?
>
>
> ah it's a joke. Danny proposed "R35 for alchol" and  certain people
> like our Lithuanian friend don't like it.
>
>
>>As for hardware purchase reports, they have never been as clear as
>>today, since precise purchases are detailed and voted in a resolution.
>>They may all be found on the wikimediafoundation site. Now, just a
>>thought : if you are a visitor not familiar with this website, I wish
>>you good luck to find the resolutions :-) They are very much hidden. It
>>would be nice that someone helps to make them more visible. Perhaps even
>>putting a [[resolutions]] link in the toolbar.
>
>
> Toolbar is one of improvement needed things definitely. It can be
> optimized through MediaWiki:Sidebar only for sysop.

Why do I feel...

Okay, remind me of that issue after Wikimania please :-)

> Other potential addition is "policies" -> Privacy policy & Visual
> guideline. The latter is hardly found too, I'm afraid.
>
> It is fine to know the Board gets reports steadly. As the nect step,
> would the Board be interested in re-releasing some of those reports to
> the Foundation wiki or passing to Comcom as potential materials to the
> foundation wiki? Since 1) it is suggested some of those reports might
> contain things not suitable to be in public, 2) those reports haven't
> been passed to Comcom [even by itself, IIRC]. I think we are rather
> better to bother the Board in this area.

okay. I'll see what we can do. Ant

> Delphine permitted me to reuse her reports on early summer European
> tour as report from Chapter Com (see my meta talk), but it would be
> nicer much newer stuffs could be published.
>
>
>>We got one or two reports of the trademark committee. For obvious
>>reasons, our strategy with regards to brand is not openly published.
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Reporting & communicatio


body:
Anthere wrote:

>But seriously... is there a trend toward deletion of images under gfdl
>when the author name is missing ?
>
>If so, would not you consider adding "fields" of information when
>uploading an image, and making them mandatory. For example, author name,
>date and place of shot etc...
>
>
While there is a reasonable argument that can be made for including the
copyright owner's name, there are times when asking for the name of the
photographer makes no sense.  This was the case when Adam asked a
complete stranger to take his picture in front of a famous building.

The date of the shot should not be viewed as important.  If I have an
otherwise valid picture that I took about 20 years ago I have no idea of
the date.

Ec


body:
geni wrote:

>On 7/28/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>But seriously... is there a trend toward deletion of images under gfdl
>>when the author name is missing ?
>>
>>
>if there isn't a source.
>
>
>>If so, would not you consider adding "fields" of information when
>>uploading an image, and making them mandatory. For example, author name,
>>date and place of shot etc...
>>
>>
>No that makes it too easy to lie.
>
That's a blatant assumption of bad faith.  I prefer to assume that most
people are honest.

Ec


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Avoid people who violate your social norms. Imagine a world without
>copyright -- it wouldn't function all that badly. Some say it would
>function better.
>
Stallman?

Ec


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

body:
It's slow because of jerks like these.

On 30/07/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> There isn't a way to identify live-mirror behaviour?  And why the fuck would
> they want to make a live mirror?  How would they do it, Wikipedia is way too
> slow for someone to load up every single edit.
>
> On 7/30/06, Jimmy Collins <Jimmy.Collins at web.de> wrote:
> >
> > Still or again working:
> > http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
> >
> > Cheers Jimmy
> >
> > > -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> > > Von: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> > > Gesendet: 30.07.06 01:41:04
> > > An: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> > > Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block
> >
> >
> > > On Friday 28 July 2006 22:05, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > > > $BEDCf(B $BK|B at O:(B wrote:
> > > > > I found this page:
> > > > >
> > > http://ja.andmoretop.info/pacman-online/Special:Recentchanges.html
> > > > >
> > > > > which is mirroring Wikipedia live, also English
> > > version
> > >
> > > > Killed.
> > >
> > > Thankyou! But it looks like it is still working :-(. eg
> > > also
> > > http://en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
> > >
> > > Also, please note, these domains are also live mirrors,
> > > from same people I think:
> > >
> > > http://ja.comedypage.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > > http://ja.feederpolitics.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > > http://ja.centraltest.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > > http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
> > >
> > > Replace "ja" with "en" for English.
> > >
> > > Please block these Parasites!
> > >
> > > TANAKA
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------
> > > Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
> > > http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Accented characters (was Re: fancruft)

body:
On 29/07/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm still roughly confused as to why some people are pilloried for
> applying [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)]] to hockey
> players.

Although many letters with diacritics *look* like English letters,
they are not the same. "Anton?n Dvo??k" can't simply be changed into
"Antonin Dvorak" because this would be changing the letters of the
word, so changing the spelling of the word. In this name, changing "?"
would be particularly problematic as the letter is quite distinct from
"r" in several ways (most importantly, pronounciation).
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia and Wikimedia Software Prompt Solution
 to Problem Posed in 2000 by David Brin?

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>Two things:
>* Wikipedia needs publicity badly. As long as many of our projects do
>not cover encyclopaedic and other information well, there are MANY
>projects that are in a genuine need for more contributors and also
>readers. I am sure that the Neapolitan wikipedia would be thrilled to
>bits to have 5 more regular contributors. It would grow the content a
>lot and this in turn would increase the exposure of Neapolitan to many
>people.
>* Coding is done on LiquidThreads. This may help make a proposal like
>yours interesting and relevant.. The publicity we could have: "hey guys,
>we can still innovate".
>Thanks,
>    GerardM
>
>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>Some of you might find this article by David Brin (P,hd in Space Physics
>>& SciFi Author) interesting:
>>http://www.davidbrin.com/disputationarticle1.html
>>
>>He outlines a top down design to try to use the Internet as a
>>collaborative discussion and thinking tool.
>>
>>It seems to me that the Wikimedia software and various projects
>>utilizing some simple rules (NPOV, only one 32K article per subject or
>>title, comprehensive history of revision, and the ever evolving
>>community guidelines) allowed solutions meeting his basic criteria and
>>goals to self organize.
>>
>>As a publicity drive or stunt we might consider inviting him to evaluate
>>how well Wikipedia or some other Wikimedia project meets his proposed
>>requirements for useful Internet sites on his website for his fans.
>>
>>Perhaps a good time (considering that Wikipedia hardly needs publicity
>>drives considering its current success and maturity) would be after a
>>few months of Wikiversity's authorized operation makes it clear that
>>good ideas or material tends to float or stay on the current page of
>>learning/study activities there; just like the best material and
>>presentations drift to the current article or definition on Wikipedia
>>and Wiktionary.
>>
>>I would be very interested in reactions or opinions why or why not
>>Wikipedia currently meets or does not meet his stated goals or criteria
>>for a "Disputation Arena".
>>
>>regards,
>>lazyquasar
>>
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
I might be able to arrange some anouncements from several tribes. These
would be a BIG deal and get the
attention of the Federal Government and Congress (though after the
Congressional Scandal and the abyssmal handling
of the whole congressional aide editing crap, I am not certain Congress
attention will be a good thing).

Wikipedia supporting Language Preservation programs is a huge deal.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 29/07/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:

> The major asset of the project/program/community/foundation is the
> FDL'ed databases, GPL'ed software, and community of contributors,
> developers, and other volunteers.
>
> A new Foundation could be back up and operating at current levels within
> a quarter or two with an aggressive public funding drive for hardware.

If a Wikimedia chapter in, say, Sweden were to run servers much like
the ones in France. Would it be feasible to get these running as
database servers quickly, in case your scenario were to happen?

So if Wikimedia and its assets were taken down in the US, those in
other countries could quickly replace them?
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 29/07/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>And while we're at it, we should either remove [[Image:Wikimedia.png]]
>>from the User namespace or examine why policy allows that one too.
>>Allowing that one in the User namespace is just plain old hypocrisy.
>>
>>
>I entirely agree. I'm guessing a logo is fully copyrighted so that
>others can't use it to masquerade as us? I can't really think of a
>compromise though between copyrighting logos and allowing users to
>display them.
>
>
You're mixing up copyright with trademarks.  It's trademark law that
prevents others from masquerading as us.

Ec


references:
<ea84nf$4c1$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<op.tdgclrfhr18sbe@mainframe.lan>	<71cd4dd90607290714x222db593r8bf1f2faa0e1f9a7@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.tdgvcppwr18sbe@mainframe.lan>

body:
Sherool wrote:

>
>
>Our current policy is that we want our content to be (completely) free
>(wich include the ability to make derivative works) *especialy* in
>comunity space (since all user contributions are supposed to be free
>licensed). Granted this is more for "philosophical" reasons (we are a free
>content project and all that) than practical legal ones, but it *is* the
>current policy, in fact is is one of the 5 pillars of the project wich
>states "(...)Do not submit copyright infringements **or works licensed in
>a way incompatible with the GFDL**." (emphasis mine), and just for the
>record ND licenses are not compatable with the GFDL.
>
Personally, I prefer to be guided by that core policy as if it simply
read, "Respect copyright."  Core policies should be simple and
straigtforward, and adhering to them on that basis makes more common
sense than trying to keep up to date with the whims of the professional
policy writers.

Ec


references:
<ea84nf$4c1$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<op.tdgclrfhr18sbe@mainframe.lan>	<71cd4dd90607290714x222db593r8bf1f2faa0e1f9a7@mail.gmail.com>	<op.tdgvcppwr18sbe@mainframe.lan>
	<71cd4dd90607291344n29bc2777g410545acd4f40b86@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Anthony wrote:

>>You might be interested in trying to breathe som life back
>>info
>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Licensing_for_community_images>.
>>
>>
>
>No, not at all.  Wikipedia politics is not a game I'm good at playing.
>
Aren't you ashamed to be claiming that your time could be better spent
doing something else? ;-)

>>However what I'm trying to say is that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of
>>a handfull of users just desciding that in this one case we will simply
>>ignore a core policy of the project because it doesn't allow them to do
>>what they want to.
>>
>>
>And I completely agree with this part of your argument.  There
>shouldn't be a special exception made just for this case.  If the vast
>majority of people agree that Wikipedia should include this image in
>the Wikipedia namespace, then we should be asking ourselves why, and
>adapting the policy to fit this situation.
>
Okay.  At the same time we could say that it's only a handful of users
who spend their time writing policies.  A few others get involved becaus
the proposed policy affects what they are doing  at that time.  Most of
us would prefer to avoid the mind-fucking experience of policy writing.

Ec


body:
On 30/07/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're not saying "change Dvo??k," we're saying "respect policy."

Because English Wikipedia is so international, and has so many
English-as-a-second-language users, I think we should remain as
international as possible. We should retain non-English spellings as
extensively as possible.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 30/07/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> So forget policy then, right?

Change policy.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Submit review"

body:
How would people feel about a "Submit review" tab that is only shown
to unregistered users, and that would result in a page showing

a) A brief excerpt (~1000 characters) of the article from which the
user clicked "Submit review", and a link to open the whole article in
a separate window

b) A note that we encourage people to directly correct errors, with
further links on how to get started

c) A form with the following elements

    Reviewer's name
    Reviewer's e-mail address
    Reviewer's professional background / affiliation (if any)
    Review text
    [ ] You agree that text of your review may be quoted, copied and
otherwise used
        under the terms of the GNU FDL

The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g.
reviews-l at wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages
would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being
reviewed.

Might such a strategy be a way to bridge the gap between experts and
the larger wiki world? One reason why experts may not want to
participate directly is that they simply do not want to waste their
time arguing with Wikipedians about what is right and wrong --
instead, they feel that their expertise should carry some weight. We
could even put out a press release: "Wikipedia solicits experts
reviews."

With a mailing list, volunteers could look at each submission, and act
upon the ones which are legitimate (perhaps posting excerpts to the
talk page etc.). At the same time, such a system would not undermine
the regular community processes. It would also be easier to use than
talk pages, and encourage providing credentials.

Another advantage of such a solution is that it's almost trivial to
code -- in fact Angela wrote a "Contact us" extension that could be
used as a basis for such a form.

To prevent spam and abuse, e-mail confirmation could be required
before a review is processed. But perhaps it should be tried first
without that.

Thoughts?

Erik


body:
On 30/07/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can you give us some examples of pages that currently follow policy,
> and how they would be named under a proposed change to policy?

I'll refer you to two discussions about the issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions/archive7#Using_diacritics_.28or_national_alphabet.29_in_the_name_of_the_article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_%28use_English%29/Archive_3#Proposal_and_straw_poll_regarding_place_names_with_diacritical_marks

Two good examples are historical. We should use "Hermann G?ring" (not
Goering) and "Napol?on" (not Napoleon).
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Submit review"

body:
On 7/30/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g.
> reviews-l at wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages
> would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being
> reviewed.

I don't think an email list is the right place for reviews to go. They
should end up more tightly integrated in the wiki process.

Steve


body:
On 7/30/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30/07/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So forget policy then, right?
>
> Change policy.

Can you give us some examples of pages that currently follow policy,
and how they would be named under a proposed change to policy?

steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Submit review"

body:
On 7/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/30/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g.
> > reviews-l at wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages
> > would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being
> > reviewed.

> I don't think an email list is the right place for reviews to go. They
> should end up more tightly integrated in the wiki process.

It could be an option:
( ) Append my review to the wiki "discussion page", where Wikipedia
users may respond to it
( ) Send my review by e-mail to a select group of volunteers, who will
look at it and who may respond by e-mail

I for one would prefer to use only e-mail to begin with. Reviewers may
not be comfortable with their personal information being published on
the web, and the point is exactly to take away some of the complexity
of the wiki process and to build a simpler, safer social environment
where they will not have to deal with immature teenagers shouting at
them. Friendly volunteers can instead take care of the incoming
reviews, carefully build a social relationship with the reviewer, and
try to bring them into the wiki proper if it makes sense. People from
.edu domains can be treated with respect, and get the feeling that
they have a special status that elevates them above the unwashed
masses -- when in reality they have no special rights to the content
whatsoever.

Many of the people who we should solicit input from are very familiar
with e-mail. They are not familiar with "talk pages" and "wiki", and
in fact intimidated by it. We should encourage use of the "right way
of doing things", but I think we should also offer an "alternative way
of doing things."

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Submit review"

body:
On 7/30/06, Nathaniel Sheetz <preparing at psu.edu> wrote:
> Why the excerpt?  And how would the length be determined?  Including the
> lead might be good, but there's huge variability in size there.  I'd say
> just include the article title.

I think it would be useful as a reference point, just to make clear
that people are not "reviewing Wikipedia", but a specific article, and
to make it super-easy to load the article again. User interfaces that
we take for granted (highlighted tabs etc.) are not nearly as
intuitive to non-regular computer users.

> Would we require that they check the last box?

Good point, we might actually make the FDL assignment optional and
send the e-mail even if they do not click it.

> I like the email list idea.  Easy to use, somewhat private, less "scary".
> We need to accomodate these people as much as possible, and soliciting
> reviews via email seems like a good way to go.  We would have to make sure
> that we take action quickly, however--asking for feedback and then failing
> to act on it wouldn't do much for our image.  We'd need enough volunteers to
> keep this running smoothly.

Making a lot of noise about this on WP should do the trick, especially
if Jimmy gets behind it. ;-)

> With or without email confirmation, I wonder what the noise to signal ratio
> will be.  Worse than just the normal spam, which is easy to identify, will
> be the cases where malicious folks write something that to the untrained eye
> might pass as expert opinion but in reality is complete bunk.

Well, it's not as bad as letting everyone edit the articles, is it?
;-) If it gets too bad e-mail confirmation should take care of a lot
of junk.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Free Content Definition updates

body:
A while ago I posted here about the Free Content Definition. Our goal
with this definition is to create a stable reference point by which we
can say that a particular work or license is considered "free" (to
use, modify, copy, modify ''and'' copy, etc.).

We're now moving closer towards a 1.0 release to this definition, and
I'd like to invite feedback from all interested parties on some recent
changes I have made to the "unstable" (openly editable) copy:

http://freecontentdefinition.org/index.php?title=Definition/Unstable&diff=2175&oldid=2108

In line with discussions and feedback:
*  I've tried to change the language so it can apply to physical works
like sculptures. For instance, the definition now refers to derivative
works instead of modified versions.
* I've sectioned the page clearly into defining separately what a free
license is and what a free work is. New conditions are now listed to
define free works. For instance, a computer program that is only
available in binary form under CC-BY would not be considered a free
work now.
* I've removed the term "Free Expression" -- it was largely negatively
received in our naming discussion -- and now refer to the definition
only as the Free Content Definition. To compensate, I've listed
several specific terms and specific definitions that can be used in
fields like knowledge, art and software.
* I've made a reference to DRM, and changed a few bits in the preamble.

Please leave comments and suggestions on the talk page.

In case you haven't seen, some volunteers have also started to create
a matrix of free content licenses that meet the definition:
http://freecontentdefinition.org/Licenses

For those who will be there, Mako Hill, the co-initator of the
definition, is going to give a presentation at Wikimania about it:
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:BMH1

When we release a 1.0, I hope that Wikimedia will be one of many
organizations which will use this definition as a reference point for
clarifying what they mean when they say "free content." :-)

Cheers,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Submit review"

body:
On 7/30/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> An email list for this is a *horrible* idea. You're proposing that
> something that could receive hundreds and hundreds of emails a day

Well, that remains to be seen. In any case, as I replied earlier, both
talk page and e-mail list are options, and we could switch between
them, or offer both, as necessary.

> (assuming even a extremely tiny fraction of the 1.25 million articles
> or whatever get reviewed), each one possibly lengthy, and each one
> possibly needing a subject area layman or expert to meaningfully deal
> with, be sent to an extremely obscure mailing list no one in their
> right mind would want to subscribe to or deal with.

Perhaps some people are better at handling large amounts of e-mail
than others? :-)

> What this should be is a nice and easy form for adding a section to a
> talk page.

See my earlier response for the comparative merits of the e-mail approach.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Project Proposal: Wikicat

body:
On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Citations and verifiability are absolutely essential to the credibility
> of Wikipedia and its sister projects.  Nevertheless, a person
> undertaking to substantiate his contributions should not need a
> professional librarianship background to do so.  Any manner of clearly
> identifying the source should be acceptable.

Absolutely. However, we should also make the tools of professional
referencing as easy to use as possible. You're right on that freely
available (not necessarily freely licensed) content will be the first
to be referenced. Thus, it is likely that Wikimedia will become both a
primary beneficiary and driving force of the open access movement.

What is saddening to me is that even better referencing tools and
systematic source checking processes will likely not be sufficient to
deal adequately with the vast amounts of knowledge that is _not_ free
or not even digital. Indeed, already today, I've seen quite a lot of
cases where Wikipedians have reacted with intense frustration to the
citation of sources that they could not verify simply by following a
link.

One of my great hopes is that a broad international coalition of NGOs
will eventually emerge to call for harmonization of copyright terms to
a reasonable length. Perhaps Wikimedia could be part of such a
coalition. If I look at the fantastic work Project Gutenberg is doing
on even the most obscure publications, I cannot begin to imagine the
profound effects on our culture it would have if copyright would last,
say, 14 years, with the option to renew for another 14:
http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright/

Erik


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
Two things:
* Wikipedia needs publicity badly. As long as many of our projects do
not cover encyclopaedic and other information well, there are MANY
projects that are in a genuine need for more contributors and also
readers. I am sure that the Neapolitan wikipedia would be thrilled to
bits to have 5 more regular contributors. It would grow the content a
lot and this in turn would increase the exposure of Neapolitan to many
people.
* Coding is done on LiquidThreads. This may help make a proposal like
yours interesting and relevant.. The publicity we could have: "hey guys,
we can still innovate".
Thanks,
    GerardM

Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Some of you might find this article by David Brin (P,hd in Space Physics
> & SciFi Author) interesting:
> http://www.davidbrin.com/disputationarticle1.html
>
> He outlines a top down design to try to use the Internet as a
> collaborative discussion and thinking tool.
>
> It seems to me that the Wikimedia software and various projects
> utilizing some simple rules (NPOV, only one 32K article per subject or
> title, comprehensive history of revision, and the ever evolving
> community guidelines) allowed solutions meeting his basic criteria and
> goals to self organize.
>
> As a publicity drive or stunt we might consider inviting him to evaluate
> how well Wikipedia or some other Wikimedia project meets his proposed
> requirements for useful Internet sites on his website for his fans.
>
> Perhaps a good time (considering that Wikipedia hardly needs publicity
> drives considering its current success and maturity) would be after a
> few months of Wikiversity's authorized operation makes it clear that
> good ideas or material tends to float or stay on the current page of
> learning/study activities there; just like the best material and
> presentations drift to the current article or definition on Wikipedia
> and Wiktionary.
>
> I would be very interested in reactions or opinions why or why not
> Wikipedia currently meets or does not meet his stated goals or criteria
> for a "Disputation Arena".
>
> regards,
> lazyquasar


from_name: 田中 万太郎

subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

body:
On Friday 28 July 2006 22:05, Brion Vibber wrote:
> ?? ??? wrote:
> > I found this page:
> >
http://ja.andmoretop.info/pacman-online/Special:Recentchanges.html
> >
> > which is mirroring Wikipedia live, also English
version

> Killed.

Thankyou! But it looks like it is still working :-(. eg
also
http://en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html

Also, please note, these domains are also live mirrors,
from same people I think:

http://ja.comedypage.info/Special:Recentchanges
http://ja.feederpolitics.info/Special:Recentchanges
http://ja.centraltest.info/Special:Recentchanges
http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges

Replace "ja" with "en" for English.

Please block these Parasites!

TANAKA

--------------------------------------
Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/


subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> ?? ??? wrote:
> > On Friday 28 July 2006 22:05, Brion Vibber wrote:
> >> ?? ??? wrote:
> >>> I found this page:
> >>>
> >
>
http://ja.andmoretop.info/pacman-online/Special:Recentchanges.html
> >>> which is mirroring Wikipedia live, also English
> > version
> >
> >> Killed.
> >
> > Thankyou! But it looks like it is still working
> :-(. eg
> > also
> >
> http://en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
>
> Killed their new IP.

That was quick, thankyou!

I will watch out for these sites still in case of new IP
changes.

TANAKA

--------------------------------------
Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/


from_name: Jimmy Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

body:
Still or again working:
http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges

Cheers Jimmy

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Gesendet: 30.07.06 01:41:04
> An: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRROR, please block

> On Friday 28 July 2006 22:05, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > $BEDCf(B $BK|B at O:(B wrote:
> > > I found this page:
> > >
> http://ja.andmoretop.info/pacman-online/Special:Recentchanges.html
> > >
> > > which is mirroring Wikipedia live, also English
> version
>
> > Killed.
>
> Thankyou! But it looks like it is still working :-(. eg
> also
> http://en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
>
> Also, please note, these domains are also live mirrors,
> from same people I think:
>
> http://ja.comedypage.info/Special:Recentchanges
> http://ja.feederpolitics.info/Special:Recentchanges
> http://ja.centraltest.info/Special:Recentchanges
> http://ja.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
>
> Replace "ja" with "en" for English.
>
> Please block these Parasites!
>
> TANAKA
>
> --------------------------------------
> Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
> http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] OT: What language would *you* have done it in,
	and why?

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 28, 2006 at 06:39:12PM +0200, Jens Frank wrote:
[...]
>>We actually do this. The diff engine exists as a PHP plugin written in C
>>(or C++, which is nearly the same).
>
>
> . . . aside from the fact that it often exhibits an at least arithmetic
> increase in execution time as compared with straight C.
>
> Sorry, minor, largely pointless quibble.  There's a bit of a language
> execution time debate going on somewhere else that has absorbed me
> recently.  The subject is sorta stuck in my head at the moment.

Through my aborted PhD, I have a couple of years experience writing
highly efficient C++ programs. The aforementioned wikidiff2 extension
does no memory allocation during the computational phase, instead of
substring operations it passes around start and end iterators. There are
no virtual functions. The only remaining performance hit is the need to
pass "this" pointers and dereference them, although that's a feature of
structured C programming as well, and provides a great deal of
flexibility. The performance penalty can be controlled through the
extensive use of inline functions.

There are certain programming styles which are popular in C++, which do
produce a significant performance hit. That's not an issue when your
main goal is to produce high-performance code -- in that case you can
easily avoid the pitfalls, and the remaining optimisation issues are
largely the same as in C.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jonathan Leybovich

subject: [Foundation-l]  Project Proposal: Wikicat

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Citations and verifiability are absolutely essential
to the credibility
> of Wikipedia and its sister projects.  Nevertheless,
a person
> undertaking to substantiate his contributions should
not need a
> professional librarianship background to do so.  Any
manner of clearly
> identifying the source should be acceptable.

Absolutely.  The catalog that is the subject of this
project proposal is distinct, though obviously
quite-interrelated with, the issue of citation.
Whatever will be of most convenience to actual editors
should be supported, though I suspect that ambiguous
citation styles where the user must take an extra step
to disambiguate the work/edition he actually meant
will not be all that popular in practice, in addition
to being more involved to implement within the
software.  But again, we should support whatever is
most useful to users.

> There is also a need to begin referencing the
material that is
> relatively easy to access on line or in other
relatively inexpensive
> sources of public domain material, like CDs sold for
$5.00 each that can
> each easily contain 100 books or more.  In the last
few years this
> material has been produced at a phenomenal rate.
These are available in
> image, ASCII plain Jane or more scholarly
annotatable formats.  We could
> begin by including our own Wikisource material in
the catalogue.

Yes, all these types of items will eventually be
supported by the catalog.  But this will not be
possible during  the bootstrap/read-only phase of the
catalog, where the only data within it will be
imported from other catalogs like the Library of
Congress.  Not only do certain technical pre-reqs need
to be met before Wikicat is made world editable (i.e.
the compeletion of Wikidata), but, as Lars pointed
out, soft pre-reqs need to be met as well,
particularly the creation of cataloging standards and
some sort of training/orientation regime for new editors.

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


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is featured by on the front page
	ofAsahi Shimbun, the leading newspaper in Japan

body:
Hi!
> I've posted a translation of the first page at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tangotango/Asahi . I'll follow up
> soon with the second page.
"A world built on a gentle order that created itself."

I love this phrase. Please add the second page, too.

B?rto


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:

>>>>>A company that leases
>>>>>servers may easily give in to legal challenges or other backhanded
>>>>>threats.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>Can I just clarify for people who may not be aware of such things, but
>there are *two* basic forms of leasing.
>
>One is where the company 'selling' the equipment provides the leasing
>facility, such that the equipment remains the property of that company
>during the lease (basically what has been discussed)
>
>The other is a Finance lease, where you 'buy' the finance separately, use
>that finance to pay the equipment supplier and own the equipment yourself,
>subject to payments to the bank or other provider of the finance.
>
I don't see the latter definition as applicable.  It's a question of why
we would consider leasing in the first place.  The latter is more suited
to companies with a cash flow problem, or where there are tax motivated
considerations.  For us, the underlying motivation is asset protection.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project
	boring to death

body:
On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The date of the shot should not be viewed as important.  If I have an
> otherwise valid picture that I took about 20 years ago I have no idea of
> the date.
>
> Ec

It is nice to know. Likewise it is nice if people inform us when they die.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Jack wrote:

>>>>I'm just not comfortable with leasing period.
>>>>I find Wikipedia to be too important to leave in anyone's hands
>>>>other than the immediate foundation.  A company that leases
>>>>servers may easily give in to legal challenges or other backhanded
>>>>threats.
>>>>-- mboverload
>>>>
>>>>
>>It seems rather far fetched to me that a company with a big leasing
>>contract like this is going to just decide to break its contract and
>>confiscate its servers.
>>
>>
>See "FBI seizes Indymedia servers"
><http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089554894.html>
>
>
Nothing we do can prevent this kind of activity from the American KGB.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Mario Gzuk

subject: [Wikitech-l] Updating wiki text via external SQL

body:
Hi,
I dont know if this is the right place to ask. So please point me in the
right direction if not.

Is it possible to update an article via an sql-statement? What I want to
do:

I have a script wich collects texts from other sources:
e.g. /proc/cpuinfo or texts from external websites.
And I have an article named: computername
Now I want to update the article "computername" with the text from a
local file via SQL in a bash script (or a php script...).

Is it possible? Or are there some solutions for this problem?

thanks for any hints.

greetings mario


subject: [WikiEN-l] Regulation of user pages

body:
On 7/29/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>  It's a
> rather chilling thought that some of the people involved in those edit
> wars might actually be fighting the same battles off-wiki with real guns
> and bombs.
>

Not really our juristiction. Try to encourage them to get pics. We
must have some wikipedians in Haifa. Do we have any chance of getting
them to upload pics of craters?
--
geni


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] diff efficiency

body:
On the subject of diff efficiency, which button is more
expensive, Show Preview or Show Changes?  I have an ultraparanoid
bot which "presses" one or both before actually submitting, and
it occurs to me that it would be marginally easier on the servers
if the bot used the cheaper one first.  (Though of course only
if substantial numbers of its doublechecks failed, which they
typically don't.)


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] So you think you can be a Wikipedia article

body:
On 29/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Both direct and representative democracy have their shortcomings.  A
> truly democratic system should be temporal as well as spatial.  In other
> words there cna be no final determinative vote on almost anything
> because those votes make no allowance for the views of those who have
> not yet joined us.

That was a joke right? You can't just wait forever because someone
"might" come. Policies in the real world have to be made in some
finite timespace. Half of wikipedia's problems may indeed come from
the fact that policies are argued over endlessly, through opinions
like yours that the more argument/time and effort spent, the better
the situation will "possibly be". Ever heard of the concept of
diminishing returns, and/or the concept of negative return on
investment.

Peter Ansell


from_name: John Lyden

body:
On 7/30/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Displaying an Anglicised word because that's how the word is best-known
> amongst English speakers is bonza.  That doesn't mean we need to operate
> with a deliberate bias against those funny little foreign characters
> used by funny little foreigners.
>

That's what I was trying to illustrate with the Dvo??k/Dvorak example.
It's not a bias against using "those funny little foreign characters."
 Like you said, it's how the word is best-known amongst English
speakers. I certainly understand and respect that American isn't
English; when we're writing hockey articles we go by the "first
author's wishes" rule, and maintain the articles with whatever mode of
spelling they decided to use, regardless of whether we use colour or
color.

I also went into this fully aware of what would happen. After two
previous attempts at moves like this, it's been a hailstorm of
criticism and "omg respect foreign characters!!!11!!!1". Really, I
should've known better than to get hip-deep in this shit again.

Like you said, policy is a stick to hit people with. There's been
absolutely no consensus as to this issue. None.

In your own words, we should Do the Right Thing.

Instead, I'm leaving it alone again. Much like the arguments we had
over whether Wayne Gretzky was "the best of all time" or "one of the
best of all time" et al, ad nauseum, I'm exhausted of debating points
with vocal minorities. I hate arguing over Stupid Shit, and this is
the stupidest.

Though I'm partial to the "Everyone does what Mark says" routine. It's
certainly better than "Everyone does what John says" as a decree,
because I'm a heavy handed bastard.

-John

--
John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time..." -Kerouac


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 10:57:09AM +0200, Mario Gzuk wrote:
> Hi,
> I dont know if this is the right place to ask. So please point me in the
> right direction if not.
>
> Is it possible to update an article via an sql-statement? What I want to
> do:
>
> I have a script wich collects texts from other sources:
> e.g. /proc/cpuinfo or texts from external websites.
> And I have an article named: computername
> Now I want to update the article "computername" with the text from a
> local file via SQL in a bash script (or a php script...).
>
> Is it possible? Or are there some solutions for this problem?

It would be possible, but it would be a pain, you'd have to have major
parts of MediaWiki application logic in your code. You have to take care
of MediaWiki's caches, the link tables, recentchanges, etc.

You should use a bot to interact with the wiki, e.g. pywikipediabot
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/

Regards,

	jens


from_name: Stefan Kühn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Artikel ohne Koordinate

body:
Hallo zusammen!

Zahlreiche Artikel in der Wikipedia haben einen Raumbezug aber noch
keine Koordinate. Andererseits kennen sich viele Benutzer in bestimmten
Landstrichen besonders gut aus und wissen aber nicht, dass dort ein
Artikel existiert oder die Koordinate fehlt.

Deshalb hab ich mal eine Liste f?r jedes Land erstellt, die alle derzeit
noch nicht georeferenzierten Artikel (z.B. Berge, Museen, Orte) enth?lt.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Georeferenzierung/Artikel_ohne_Koordinate

Vielen Dank f?r eure Mithilfe beim Abarbeiten der Liste.
Stefan


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Oldak Quill wrote:
>
>
>>On 29/07/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The major asset of the project/program/community/foundation is the
>>>FDL'ed databases, GPL'ed software, and community of contributors,
>>>developers, and other volunteers.
>>>
>>>A new Foundation could be back up and operating at current levels within
>>>a quarter or two with an aggressive public funding drive for hardware.
>>>
>>>
>>If a Wikimedia chapter in, say, Sweden were to run servers much like
>>the ones in France. Would it be feasible to get these running as
>>database servers quickly, in case your scenario were to happen?
>>
>>So if Wikimedia and its assets were taken down in the US, those in
>>other countries could quickly replace them?
>>
>>
>Bottleneck would probably be the professional expertise and effort the
>WMF pays for routine reliable staff effort in organizational matters and
>for administrator and development support.
>
Only if our existing experts are in jail.

>Perhaps if the Swedish/X Chapter is organized properly; a management
>reserve or emergency operations plan could contracted for and funded in
>advance such that sufficient Swedish currency is in Swedish/X financial
>accounts (earning appropriate returns relative to required on demand
>liquidity) to hire/contract the WMF's technical and administrative staff
>to fly to Sweden for a few months and setup and maintain the new servers?
>
Why just Sweden?  Brazil could be another alternative.  More than one
alternative would be even better.

>Once the WMF or new equivalent in U.S. was back up and running they
>could rehire the technical and administrative staff and reestablish
>operations in Florida or equivalent.
>
Going back straightaway into the jaws of the problem is a little risky.

>To be really efficient the
>individual staff contracts could require that all useful tourist photos
>be submitted to the commons at the earliest reasonable convenience
>prior to receipt of final performance bonus.
>
That's just like some companies who believe that they have a say over
what their employees can do in their own homes.

>Perhaps this could structured in advance as part of the operations
>plan.   Setup the independent Swedish
>chapter/corporation/foundation/nonprofit in advance with read only
>mirror service kept up to date with a periodic database update via .....
>what? DVD? Digitial tape?  Backups were still under a gigabye back when
>I messed with off-site backups.
>
Why not multiple distributed backups.

>Obviously the above is a layman's view of how to structure a reserve
>operations capacity for transitional purposes.  The legal beagles and
>the Board would have to do the international contracts so it is legally
>fullproof.   The technical staff would have to figure an efficient
>mirror or startup capacity and how to transfer data reliably and
>routinely such that they could flyin and buy more hardware, bandwidth,
>install the latest snapshot and have the Swedish site up and operational
>in minimun time.
>
>Maybe the WMF could ask for technical proposal and bids from any
>associated international chapters with an appropriate non profit
>organization in place and pick the best overall deal for the WMF's
>donated funds to be expended upon.
>
The direct funding for that back-up facility should ideally come from
sources in that country.

>The situation is fraught with possibilities.  Probably depends mostly on
>what the Board and the WMF staff feel would be useful, reasonable
>(responsible cost effective expenditure of donated funds) and airtight
>from a legal standpoint.
>
There is no such thing as an air tight legal opinion.

>I still have a hard time envisioning serious legal difficulties
>considering the statement of conditions each contributer agrees to prior
>to submittal of material and the fact that we now have a paid operations
>staff ready and willing to delete alleged offending material or
>situations and investigate in detail later.  It would seem like any
>serious slander or copyright or other legal issues mostly belong to the
>contributor as long as the WMF is careful to respond with due diligence
>to complaints and/or particularly to subpoenas and court orders.
>
The circumstances that would trigger a move to servers in an other
country would be highly unusual.  A simple copyright infringement
lawsuit is not likely to get that serious.  Having paid staff working on
search and destroy missions would compromise the argument that they are
only running an ISP.  I have no problem with due dilligence in the
circumstances you describe, but even that should be guided by
even-handedness rather than panic.Complaints clearly need to be
investigated, but immediate deletions based on allegations without
standing should have the investigation precede the deletion.

>I think the above offsite backup would be a reasonable thing to begin
>considering at this point even disregarding legal concerns.
>
These are still Plan-B emergency considerations.

>I mean the rest of the world does not want Wikimedia projects to be
>offline indefinitely just because some terrorist organization with a
>collective I.Q. greater than 25 sneaks a few dirty (radioactive dust,
>smallpox, EMP, power grid failures, rampaging domestic politicians,
>whatever) bombs/incidents into key U.S. cities in the 95% of shipping
>containers that are not currently inspected prior to entry into U.S. ports.
>
True enough, but one has to remember the large number of forces working
to thwart the terrorists by matching their I.Q.  This only proves that
25+25<50.  Emirate ports may be a little more effective than U.S. ones.

>Heck, if I want to do some research after hearing rumors from the Media
>Moguls about some disaster in Florida (or other key internet hub
>location like say New York; California {San Andreas fault}; the Midwest
>{Yellowstone Supervolcano}; random super tsanamis or asteroid stikes;
>it would suit me just fine if up to date mirrors capable of handling the
>full emergency world wide load from me and other gawkers were online
>while the WMF Board and staff followed emergency directions to the
>nearest interstate evacuation route.
>
To think that we will soon have another asteroid to wipe out the
dinosaurs is pure wishful thinking.

>OTOH, some people view a little redundancy in information systems and
>emergency preparedness system wide as a complete waste of resources.
>Better to just keep a spare Wikipedia DVD, dehydrated dihydrogen oxide,
>and last year's portable computer with proper power supply adapter in
>the back of your vehicle and forget about kibitzing over jammed comm
>systems in the unlikely event of an emergency.
>
Wasn't the internet invented in the first place to provide redundancy
for military communications?


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 7/29/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>I'm just not comfortable with leasing period.
> >>>I find Wikipedia to be too important to leave in anyone's hands
> >>>other than the immediate foundation.  A company that leases
> >>>servers may easily give in to legal challenges or other backhanded
> >>>threats.
> >>>-- mboverload
> >
> > It seems rather far fetched to me that a company with a big leasing
> > contract like this is going to just decide to break its contract and
> > confiscate its servers.
> > -- Anthony
>
> See "FBI seizes Indymedia servers"
> <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089554894.html>

Umm, that was the FBI.  They can seize leased servers just the same as
they can seize owned ones.


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>mboverload wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I'm just not comfortable with leasing period.
>>>
>>>I find Wikipedia to be too important to leave in anyone's hands other than
>>>the immediate foundation.  A company that leases servers may easily give in
>>>to legal challenges or other backhanded threats. We'd have to have legal
>>>advice about how this would effect the lawsuit situation and consider what
>>>we would be giving up.
>>>
>>>
>>Leasing does not necesarily mean going through an existing for-profit
>>leasing company.  Many of them would certainly give cause to your
>>discomfort.  A totally new company established for the purpose of
>>leasing back the hardware would do just fine.  Whatever contractual
>>arrangements are made could reflect the values of the community and a
>>break even business plan.
>>
>>
>Considering the efforts that WMF is putting into operating correctly in
>full compliance with Florida and Federal U.S. law; I find it hard to
>believe that our potential legal liabilities are large enough to justify
>complicating our community/corporate structure.
>
I don't believe that the structure should be dumbed down just to satisfy
the fears of people who don't understand corporate structures.  One
should not confuse full compliance with neglecting our legal rights.

>To casual reviewers considering donation this type of thing could look
>like an attempt to siphon money out of the WMF or raise questions why we
>feel it is necessary.
>
Quite the contrary.  Donors in other countries could see this as a
legitimate way of keeping the funds within the country rather than
jeopardizing tax exempt status by exporting funds.

>Consider the absolute worst case, litigation goes against us and WMF is
>forced to liquidate all  assets and cease operations.
>
>The major asset of the project/program/community/foundation is the
>FDL'ed databases, GPL'ed software, and community of contributors,
>developers, and other volunteers.
>
These are not the kind of assets that will be recognized by a court
making a valuation for the purpose of liquidating the liabilities from a
court decision.  Cash in the bank and the servers are marketable.

>A new Foundation could be back up and operating at current levels within
>a quarter or two with an aggressive public funding drive for hardware.
>
>If the legal risks are really so high, perhaps we should seek a
>partnership or understanding with a major university such as Oxford, or
>Yale, or _______ that in the event of legal catastrophe the site could
>be brought back up on their servers until the community had organized a
>new nonprofit to host its projects and acquired and setup new servers
>and bandwidth.
>
>Perhaps the Electronic Frontiers Foundation or SourceForge would be
>interested in some kind of reciprocal agreement?
>
These outside organizations could be looked at, but we can't presume now
how they will evolve between now and then.
Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Alison Wheeler wrote:
>
> >>>>>A company that leases
> >>>>>servers may easily give in to legal challenges or other backhanded
> >>>>>threats.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >Can I just clarify for people who may not be aware of such things, but
> >there are *two* basic forms of leasing.
> >
> >One is where the company 'selling' the equipment provides the leasing
> >facility, such that the equipment remains the property of that company
> >during the lease (basically what has been discussed)
> >
> >The other is a Finance lease, where you 'buy' the finance separately, use
> >that finance to pay the equipment supplier and own the equipment yourself,
> >subject to payments to the bank or other provider of the finance.
> >
> I don't see the latter definition as applicable.  It's a question of why
> we would consider leasing in the first place.  The latter is more suited
> to companies with a cash flow problem, or where there are tax motivated
> considerations.  For us, the underlying motivation is asset protection.
>
What I was initially thinking about was closer to the second, though,
especially in terms of Wikipedia, the two are rather similar, since
Wikipedia doesn't own its own hosting facility in the first place.

The primary motivation, as I said, would be accountability.  To put it
another way, if Wikipedia doesn't have to worry about cash flow, then
it's time to take the donation request off of every page, and there
won't be a need for any fundraisers ever again.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 7/30/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Like you said, policy is a stick to hit people with. There's been
> absolutely no consensus as to this issue. None.

Entirely the issue, I feel, and why there is de facto no fully
functioning policy on this topic.

-Matt


from_name: Tangotango

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is featured by on the front page of
	Asahi Shimbun, the leading newspaper in Japan

body:
>Thanks for the information. I don't suppose you, or someone else who
can understand Japanese, could translate the article for us?
>Oldak Quill

I've posted a translation of the first page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tangotango/Asahi . I'll follow up
soon with the second page.

Hope this helps,

Tangotango
[[User:Tangotango]]


body:
On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >On 7/27/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I think you are all missing Antheres point. Who cares whether it's
> >>fair use or not? Do we really have to be so anal about the rules that
> >>we will infact bring this to IfD, instead of just quietly ignoring the
> >>copyright issue in this very special unique case. We are people, for
> >>christs sake, not automatons! Sometimes, process is not that
> >>important.
> >>
> >>
> >You are really asking, is it ok for Wikipedia to breach people's
> >copyright when the chance of them suing is very slight? I would say
> >yes. Most would say no.
> >
> Although I consider the chance of a suit to be an important factor, it
> should never be the only factor.  It should be accompanied by a
> rationale based on at least one of  fair use, public domain,
> uncopyrightability, etc.
>
A good argument for fair use could probably be made in the vast
majority of the situations when the chance of a lawsuit is very slight
(in article space, anyway, as the use is already non-profit
educational, and if no one is likely to sue the impact on the
potential market for the work is probably small).

Anyway, I think another factor when utilizing this exception is that
the person can't be easily contacted to ask them for permission.  I'm
thinking something like a video shot and released by Osama bin Ladin.
1) It's probably not released under a free license; 2) There's about 0
chance of Osama suing anyone over copyright infringement; and 3) It'd
be really hard to contact bin Ladin to ask him to license his video
under CC-BY or whatever.

Of course, any video shot and released by Osama bin Ladin probably
also falls under fair use.

Anthony


from_name: mboverload

subject: [Wikitech-l] diff efficiency

body:
Show changes has to compare two versions, so I would guess that's the bigger
hog

On 7/30/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> On the subject of diff efficiency, which button is more
> expensive, Show Preview or Show Changes?  I have an ultraparanoid
> bot which "presses" one or both before actually submitting, and
> it occurs to me that it would be marginally easier on the servers
> if the bot used the cheaper one first.  (Though of course only
> if substantial numbers of its doublechecks failed, which they
> typically don't.)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


references:
<ea84nf$4c1$1@sea.gmane.org> <op.tdgclrfhr18sbe@mainframe.lan>
	<71cd4dd90607290714x222db593r8bf1f2faa0e1f9a7@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.tdgvcppwr18sbe@mainframe.lan>
	<71cd4dd90607291344n29bc2777g410545acd4f40b86@mail.gmail.com>
	<54f6f2050607291356t40d556cdy169b9759c23e5d30@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 7/29/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 29/07/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > And while we're at it, we should either remove [[Image:Wikimedia.png]]
> > from the User namespace or examine why policy allows that one too.
> > Allowing that one in the User namespace is just plain old hypocrisy.
>
> I entirely agree. I'm guessing a logo is fully copyrighted so that
> others can't use it to masquerade as us? I can't really think of a
> compromise though between copyrighting logos and allowing users to
> display them.

I believe the logos aren't freely licensed because releasing it under
a free copyright license could be seen as a waiver of the trademark
rights.  Of course the fact that the copyright of most of the logos
were originally held by someone other than Wikimedia would seem to
negate that argument in those situations.  If "The Cuncator" (sorry, I
don't know his name) and/or David Friedland released their logo
designs into the public domain, that couldn't possibly impact
Wikimedia's trademark rights.

Anyway, while I'd love to see the logo released under a free license,
I'd be more willing to accept that it isn't if it was treated under
the same rules.

Anthony


body:
Thanks,
but I dont think that I need so much because the text is pure text
without any markups or links. What I want to do in detail:

Create a article like computers:foo. That will be done by hand.
After that The script should only add some text like:

Compuertname: foo
Blablabla:    bar
etc....

Thats all. So maybe there is a way to do that?

greetings mario

Am Sonntag, den 30.07.2006, 12:03 +0200 schrieb Jens Frank:
> On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 10:57:09AM +0200, Mario Gzuk wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I dont know if this is the right place to ask. So please point me in the
> > right direction if not.
> >
> > Is it possible to update an article via an sql-statement? What I want to
> > do:
> >
> > I have a script wich collects texts from other sources:
> > e.g. /proc/cpuinfo or texts from external websites.
> > And I have an article named: computername
> > Now I want to update the article "computername" with the text from a
> > local file via SQL in a bash script (or a php script...).
> >
> > Is it possible? Or are there some solutions for this problem?
>
> It would be possible, but it would be a pain, you'd have to have major
> parts of MediaWiki application logic in your code. You have to take care
> of MediaWiki's caches, the link tables, recentchanges, etc.
>
> You should use a bot to interact with the wiki, e.g. pywikipediabot
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/
>
> Regards,
>
> 	jens
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Dan Li

body:
If your script is in php and inside MediaWiki, you can just do
  $a = new Article(Title::newFromText('computers:foo'));
  $a->doEdit([text here]);

Otherwise try the bot.

Regards,
  - Dan Li

On 7/30/06, Mario Gzuk <mariogzuk at technikz.de> wrote:
> Thanks,
> but I dont think that I need so much because the text is pure text
> without any markups or links. What I want to do in detail:
>
> Create a article like computers:foo. That will be done by hand.
> After that The script should only add some text like:
>
> Compuertname: foo
> Blablabla:    bar
> etc....
>
> Thats all. So maybe there is a way to do that?
>
> greetings mario
>
>
> Am Sonntag, den 30.07.2006, 12:03 +0200 schrieb Jens Frank:
> > On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 10:57:09AM +0200, Mario Gzuk wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > I dont know if this is the right place to ask. So please point me in the
> > > right direction if not.
> > >
> > > Is it possible to update an article via an sql-statement? What I want to
> > > do:
> > >
> > > I have a script wich collects texts from other sources:
> > > e.g. /proc/cpuinfo or texts from external websites.
> > > And I have an article named: computername
> > > Now I want to update the article "computername" with the text from a
> > > local file via SQL in a bash script (or a php script...).
> > >
> > > Is it possible? Or are there some solutions for this problem?
> >
> > It would be possible, but it would be a pain, you'd have to have major
> > parts of MediaWiki application logic in your code. You have to take care
> > of MediaWiki's caches, the link tables, recentchanges, etc.
> >
> > You should use a bot to interact with the wiki, e.g. pywikipediabot
> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >       jens
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day John,

> I fully understand that. The most common way you see Dvo??k's name
> printed in English is "Dvo??k," fully and diacritically correct.
>
> That said, if the full policy is that the most commonly recognized
> English name for the person or thing addressed in the article is where
> the article should reside, then [[Jaromir Jagr]] is right where it
> belongs.

<snip />

English is not --- any longer --- the twenty-six characters we learn
about in school.  "Caf?" is still "caf?", even if a couple of very silly
people in Millwall insist on pronouncing it "kaiph"; I find it rather
astonishing that there are people who would be very unhappy at the idea
that our article wouldn't spell it "cafe".  "G?ring" is "G?ring",
"Schr?dinger" is "Schr?dinger", etc., etc.

There are words we know best in their Anglicised form, and there are
words (and names) which we don't.  I appreciate your approach --- the
most commonly recognised name, in English --- although I hope *you*
appreciate that English is not just a language spoken in parts of North
America ... and the views of an English-speaking fellow in Poland are
just as important as those of someone who once rang up and complained
because his copy of /TV Guide/ included diacritic marks over the names
of a football player.

Displaying an Anglicised word because that's how the word is best-known
amongst English speakers is bonza.  That doesn't mean we need to operate
with a deliberate bias against those funny little foreign characters
used by funny little foreigners.

> We're not saying "change Dvo??k," we're saying "respect policy."

Fuck policy.  Policy is a stick to hit stupid process wonks with until
they're willing to do the Right Thing.  If policy currently prescribes
the Right Thing, then don't say "respect policy" --- it's senseless when
you could just say "do the Right Thing".  If policy is *wrong*, then
don't say "respect policy", because then you'll be doing the Wrong Thing.

(Well, policy is also useful when the identity of the Right Thing is
ambiguous.  My alternative proposal --- everyone does what Mark
Gallagher says --- hasn't quite caught on the way I hoped it might, so
following policy can be a good compromise.  But we should follow policy
for a good reason, *never* "just because it's policy".)

Cheers,

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


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lists of words

body:
It would appear that lists of words violate the provision that Wikipedia
should not have articles which define individual words, nor should it
include Lists of such definitions. However, we have
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_words ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_slang and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_phrases , among others.
Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. Is this policy still being applied
(in which case, *all* of these articles must be deleted), or not (in which
case the wording of the policy needs to be changed). I have raised the issue
at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Lists_of_Words

I don't know if all of these articles need to be deleted, or whether policy
needs to be modified to reflect reality.  But I think this needs to be
determined in general, not determined piecemeal

Ian


body:
On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 03:23:39PM +0200, Mario Gzuk wrote:
> Thanks,
> but I dont think that I need so much because the text is pure text
> without any markups or links. What I want to do in detail:
>
> Create a article like computers:foo. That will be done by hand.
> After that The script should only add some text like:
>
> Compuertname: foo
> Blablabla:    bar
> etc....
>
> Thats all. So maybe there is a way to do that?

Use the bot. MediaWiki uses caches at several levels and you might get
out of date data if you just change the text of the revision.

Regards,

	jens


body:
I've now translated the second page, and added some information on the
diagrams and screenshots that were published. Here's the link again,
in case you missed it ;) -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tangotango/Asahi

Cheers,

Tangotango

On 30/07/06, Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:
> Hi!
> > I've posted a translation of the first page at
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tangotango/Asahi . I'll follow up
> > soon with the second page.
> "A world built on a gentle order that created itself."
>
> I love this phrase. Please add the second page, too.
>
> B?rto
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Regulation of user pages

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>> I'm annoyed to the userbox controversy being consistently called
>> "Great Userbox War". IT was not a war. Wikipedia is not a battlefield.
>
> It's called sarcasm.  I know it's hard to convey over the Internet, but
> I did honestly expect the Gratuitous Capitalization, not to mention the
> juxtaposition of the words "userbox" and "war", would in this case have
> made it clear enough.  If you have any suggestions for making it even
> more over-the-top, please do tell.
>
> In the fact of it, you are, of course, right.  It's not a war, and
> calling it such is particularly ironic given that we do have actual
> real-world armed conflicts (the Israel/Lebanon one comes to mind, as
> well as the situation in Kosovo) spilling over to Wikipedia.  It's a
> rather chilling thought that some of the people involved in those edit
> wars might actually be fighting the same battles off-wiki with real guns
> and bombs.
>

I can imagine the headlines:

"OSAMA BIN LADEN CAPTURED WHILE EDITING WIKIPEDIA FROM INTERNET CAFE"

--
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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subject: [WikiEN-l] Common sense exceptions to our copyright policy.

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>> geni wrote:
>>> On 7/29/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> This strategy would probably work best if there were a way to lock an
>>>> image so that it can't appear in any article.
>>> there is but useing it to list several thousand problem images would
>>> kill the servers.
>> In fact, both this proposal and the current bad image list could be
>> replaced by a single boolean field in the image table, toggleable by admins.
>
> Actually, thinking about it a bit more, anyone who can bypass the
> quarantine when uploading should presumably also be able to release an
> existing image from the quarantine, assuming it hasn't been explicitly
> protected.
>
> Also, we'd need to decide how to handle images on Commons.
>

Cooperate with Commons?

--
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: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>
>>Oldak Quill wrote:
>>snip
>>
>>

>
>
>>To be really efficient the
>>individual staff contracts could require that all useful tourist photos
>>be submitted to the commons at the earliest reasonable convenience
>>prior to receipt of final performance bonus.
>>
>>
>>
>That's just like some companies who believe that they have a say over
>what their employees can do in their own homes.
>
>
Not at all.   If you pay for an emergency business trip you can define
the business requirements in the contract.   The former employees in
limbo while the presumed legal issues are settled can accept or refuse
the terms and responsibilities cited in the contract.

The above and similar types of issues illustrate why sometime
prenegotiated contracts and prepaid binding options can be a good
idea.   In an emergency one does not wish to be debating details with
critical resources.   After an emergency is resolved one does not wish
to be in middle of vast disagreements between unreasonable nitpickers
and naysayers regarding methods and responsibilities.  Often a formal
review cycle is setup to keep responsible nitpickers and naysayers not
easily satisfied or diverted busy with defining or suggesting
improvements the next emergency contract to placed on option.

>
>
>>Perhaps this could structured in advance as part of the operations
>>plan.   Setup the independent Swedish
>>chapter/corporation/foundation/nonprofit in advance with read only
>>mirror service kept up to date with a periodic database update via .....
>>what? DVD? Digitial tape?  Backups were still under a gigabye back when
>>I messed with off-site backups.
>>
>>
>>
>Why not multiple distributed backups.
>
>
Cash, resources, attention span, etc?   Probably all the usual issues in
a startup organization.    I am not a board member, staff member or a
regular on this list so I really cannot provide details why deficient,
standard, or excellent business practices have or have not been followed
in the past few years.

Typically the path to multiple distributed backups lies through the
first and second offsite facilities or capabilities.

Besides this an issue of how we manage our growth.   Are we a neat
little hobby of occasional benefit to someone too cheap or incapable of
buying real information resources or an indispensable international
information resource consulted or used regularly by diplomats,
government bureaus, and students around the world?

In the first case little backup is required.   A little space can be
leased from a staff employee with some extra room in a tempature
controlled garage or attic and quarterly backups can be taken home.

In the second, a school district outside of the disaster zone might
reasonably expect for its hundred dollar annual donation  the data is
reliably available 365/24/7.   A diplomat might expect that her
government's allied government million dollar annual grant provides
reliable access when she is in middle of critical international
negotiations regarding WTO quotas or estimated troop requirements at
borders..

>
>
>>Obviously the above is a layman's view of how to structure a reserve
>>operations capacity for transitional purposes.  The legal beagles and
>>the Board would have to do the international contracts so it is legally
>>fullproof.   The technical staff would have to figure an efficient
>>mirror or startup capacity and how to transfer data reliably and
>>routinely such that they could flyin and buy more hardware, bandwidth,
>>install the latest snapshot and have the Swedish site up and operational
>>in minimun time.
>>
>>Maybe the WMF could ask for technical proposal and bids from any
>>associated international chapters with an appropriate non profit
>>organization in place and pick the best overall deal for the WMF's
>>donated funds to be expended upon.
>>
>>
>>
>The direct funding for that back-up facility should ideally come from
>sources in that country.
>
>

Why?  Do we currently require all donations spent in the U.S. to come
from the U.S.?

Believe it or not many potential donors, particularly large
institutional ones, will lookover an organization to see if it has more
than a web page or web site before making a large donation.  If it has
mission statement like a herd of intellectuals but an infrastructure
capable of supporting a couple of tree shrews; they will often move on
without dropping any money.

Perhaps we should seek a "freedom grant" from some deep pockets and put
full facilities on each inhabited continent just as soon as they have
adequate international bandwidth to handle the cutover load in case of a
local or remote emergency taken down some of the seven facilities.   Or
we could locate them by active internet pocket.

Technical desgin criteria probably must follow from the funders'
purposes to gain approval.  Are we attempting to demonstrate U.S.
committment to is "atoms for peace" program by disseminating U.S.
nuclear data worldwide or supporting China's entrepreneurial efforts to
build Africa's local economy in pursuit of profits?

>
>
>>The situation is fraught with possibilities.  Probably depends mostly on
>>what the Board and the WMF staff feel would be useful, reasonable
>>(responsible cost effective expenditure of donated funds) and airtight
>>
>>
>>from a legal standpoint.
>
>
>There is no such thing as an air tight legal opinion.
>
>
No but there is such a thing as an excellent legal position.
"Airtight" means you are satisfied you can demonstrate to potential
adversaries they (or their lawyers) do not want the issue in court.
Failing that, a reasonable judge will usually decide in our favor.
Failing that, the supreme court will probably resolve the case in your
favor while making it clear where they intend to take U.S. regulation of
information flows in the near future.   Failing that,  you restructure
you operation to be in compliance with new precedents while deciding
whether to fight on or happily comply with new clarity in application of
U.S. law.

Most people will settle for a reasonable response to legititmate
concerns.   Most judges will decide an obvious case correctly.   If it
is not an obvious case then someone must pioneer new precedent setting
cases.    If we are a neato internet club then we probably do not want
to.   If we are a premier pioneering organization designing the next
century's information flows between all of humanity ..... then we will
probably be involved in some court cases eventually no matter what.
Better start saving some pennies when we can, in our management reserve,
to deal with emergencies.

BTW,  have we started some kind of endowment fund so the WMF will
eventually have stable funding adequate to its position as a premier
provider of all free human information to all of humanity?

>
>
>>I still have a hard time envisioning serious legal difficulties
>>considering the statement of conditions each contributer agrees to prior
>>to submittal of material and the fact that we now have a paid operations
>>staff ready and willing to delete alleged offending material or
>>situations and investigate in detail later.  It would seem like any
>>serious slander or copyright or other legal issues mostly belong to the
>>contributor as long as the WMF is careful to respond with due diligence
>>to complaints and/or particularly to subpoenas and court orders.
>>
>>
>>
>The circumstances that would trigger a move to servers in an other
>country would be highly unusual.  A simple copyright infringement
>lawsuit is not likely to get that serious.  Having paid staff working on
>search and destroy missions would compromise the argument that they are
>only running an ISP.
>
Compromise how?   I am fairly certain that if I contact other large
internet organizations with a legitimate concern regarding
unsubstantiated slanderous material or material demonstrably from a book
or report or essay I wrote or posted to the internet without releasing
rights to the material that the ISP would respond quickly.

If they failed to respond then I simply list them along with whatever
infomation I have about the original offending poster and start tracking
expenses and time while I consider how to find a lawyer.

A lot of U.S. publishers and authors already have lawyers so satisfying
them useful action is underway might be critical to staying out of
court.    Upon establishing to our satisfaction  they are incorrect we
can simply put the material back and file applicable information
regarding our actions; just in case they are truly deluded and take the
thing to court confident they will win the day.

>I have no problem with due dilligence in the
>circumstances you describe, but even that should be guided by
>even-handedness rather than panic.Complaints clearly need to be
>investigated, but immediate deletions based on allegations without
>standing should have the investigation precede the deletion.
>
>
Semantics.   Considering the ease with which we can restore deleted
materials it seems rather irrelevent to me.   Besides, the process
should be designed to satisfy the people with reasonable complaints when
possible.   We are attempting to make friends and influence people by
providing accurate legal free information, not win as many cases in
court annually as possible.

>
>
>>I think the above offsite backup would be a reasonable thing to begin
>>considering at this point even disregarding legal concerns.
>>
>>
>>
>These are still Plan-B emergency considerations.
>
>
Do we have a published Plan-B emergency plan or outline somewhere or is
this best kept tip top secret to prevent harrassment from well informed
malefactors?

> snip

snip

>To think that we will soon have another asteroid to wipe out the
>dinosaurs is pure wishful thinking.
>
>
No.   Recent comet strikes on Jupiter demonstrated nicely that it hits
when gravity tells it to ....  not when alleged sophonts citing multi
million year periods suspected between recent strikes and the
cosmological principle of mediocrity claim that it cannot (anytime soon,
no preparation required in current budget cycle).

>
>
>>OTOH, some people view a little redundancy in information systems and
>>emergency preparedness system wide as a complete waste of resources.
>>Better to just keep a spare Wikipedia DVD, dehydrated dihydrogen oxide,
>>and last year's portable computer with proper power supply adapter in
>>the back of your vehicle and forget about kibitzing over jammed comm
>>systems in the unlikely event of an emergency.
>>
>>
>>
>Wasn't the internet invented in the first place to provide redundancy
>for military communications?
>
>
Yes,  TCP/IP more precisely.   Plus robustness and cost effectiveness
and a few other buzzwords.  Its development was funded by DARPA and
early implemention involved U.S. universities and military
installations.    Its original purpose was to allow U.S. military
computers to be easily and quickly reconnected around communications
hubs vaporized in nuclear strikes by military technicians stringing
phone line point to point.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions