subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote
>
> > Mindspillage is Mindspillage.  We all know and love her.
>
> Is anyone making a book on this? I have assumed all along that Eloquence (Erik) was >favourite, Mindspillage (Kat) was second favourite, and about 8-1 bar these two.

I don't know the constituencies as well as I would like and I don't
know exactly how people are using the voting system.

If they were using it as it was meant to be used then probably
Mindspillage. If it was used the way it was used last year then it
becomes harder to predict.

>From what I do know of the constituencies the en crowd is vital. If
you don't have their active support you are very unlikely to get very
far.

At this stage based on the limited data I have Mindspillage seems to
be the most likely winner.

--
geni


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: sannse

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
Well, as we are talking about this... the person I feel is the best
candidate, and who I have just voted for, is Mindspillage.

She is someone I trust totally, to do the job well and to do it for
everyone in the community.  I have great respect for her, and for her
ability to work with others, effectively and with diplomacy.  This is a
big factor in my decision, the board does not need someone who will go
their own way regardless of the opinions of others.

Mindspillage is smart, hard working, thoughtful, and has a clear
understanding of the foundation and it's future.  I think she is the
ideal candidate.

Regards,

-- sannse

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> It is very very important that everyone vote.
>
> I personally strongly strongly support the candidacies of Oscar and
> Mindspillage.
>
> Oscar is an amazing Dutch Wikipedian with strong support from that
> community but who does not have broad exposure in the English
> Wikipedia... I hope we can change that by introducing him to people.
>
> Mindspillage is Mindspillage.  We all know and love her.  Give her some
> votes.
>
> There are other candidates, some good, but at least some of them are
> entirely unacceptable because they have proven themselves repeatedly
> unable to work well with the community.
>
> Please, everyone, vote... and vote for people who you can know and trust
> and care about as human beings.
>
> I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> community, speak openly of who you trust and why.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Board Elections


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Board Elections


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] I've Kicked the Process Habit

body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 13:55, geni wrote:

> On 9/16/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>> I'd like to see all the rules on a single page, with the extra
>> rule that people should listen to each other and work
>> together to resolve disagreements.
>
>
> See [[Wikipedia:List of policies]]

Thanks - I'd already edited that, but it took
me six months to come across it.

Also this: [[Wikipedia:Simplified_Ruleset]]
which was in my welcoming message.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 13:53, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote
>
>> Mindspillage is Mindspillage.  We all know and love her.
>
> Is anyone making a book on this? I have assumed all along that
> Eloquence (Erik) was favourite, Mindspillage (Kat) was second
> favourite, and about 8-1 bar these two. Of course if I thought that
> was all there was to it, I wouldn't be standing.
>
> I don't suppose Jimbo wants campaigning here on wiki-en. Worth
> pointing out something about the issue that has been raised of
> effectiveness. It's a committee (pas comme tous les autres, but a
> committee); and committees do a lot to level the playing field,
> between age and guile, and youth-beauty-and-enthusiasm.

You were on my yes list as well, partly because
I came across you an a little frequented talk page
of a common friend. In such a big place, it's quite
pleasant to potentially meet someone in Real Life.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 14:13, geni wrote:

> I don't know the constituencies as well as I would like and I don't
> know exactly how people are using the voting system.
>
> If they were using it as it was meant to be used then probably
> Mindspillage. If it was used the way it was used last year then it
> becomes harder to predict.

I was going to raise the question of why we are voting using this
strange system. STV gives much more interesting results and it
prevents one big block getting all the seats, and it also prevents
splitting a vote.


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On 16 Sep 2006, at 08:01, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> > community, speak openly of who you trust and why.
>
> Well, I'll start off then.
>
> One of the candidates I support is Kim Bruning.
> He has been willing to honestly engage in a detailed
> discussion about "free" on Wikipedia and look into my
> suggestions on improving the encyclopaedia with an
> open mind. (Some discussions, for example, on your
> talk page.)
>

I very much endorse this view. Kim Bruning has ever been thoughtful. I
have never seen or heard him step wrong in any substantial matter.

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> I was going to raise the question of why we are voting using this
> strange system. STV gives much more interesting results and it
> prevents one big block getting all the seats, and it also prevents
> splitting a vote.

There is only a single seat. the system we are useing in theory should
elect the least least popular candidate. If everyone acts rationaly
(figure out who you can't stand then vorte for everyone else) then you
should should end up with a canaditate acceptable to the majority even
if they were no ones first choice. Plus it is simple to follow.

--
geni


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Minimum standards for verifiability

body:
????????? ??????? wrote:
> * Our project still very young for such strict rule (Russian Wikipedia
> has more then 100,000 articles)

This seems reasonable to me---en.wikipedia didn't enter a strong
verifiability/citation push until around 1 million articles. Before
that, the focus was on expanding content to a critical mass.

Of course, as a guideline something like this has been used all
along---incredible, surprising, or unlikely statements even in the early
days of Wikipedia had to be backed up with a source, or someone would
remove them.

-Mark


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
Stephen Streater wrote

> I was going to raise the question of why we are voting using this
> strange system.

I don't know, but I suppose allowing the maximum of 'yes' votes could be seen as good for the social glue. The ArbCom elections were on another 'strange' system, maximizing the chance for cattiness and worse; and therefore allowing people on enWP to blow off steam. I can quite see why that is not be applied here.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikilinked dates in ISO-format and anon users

references:
<ee8j29$lsv$1@sea.gmane.org> <45080D9F.8000701@pobox.com>
	<eebmfo$t74$1@sea.gmane.org> <200609141637.53928@bloodgate.com>
	<eebtcs$q1p$1@sea.gmane.org> <45099FF8.7080507@tonal.clara.co.uk>

body:
On 9/14/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> {{date|2006-09-14}} is surely the wiki-way to go: it can then expand to
> <date>2006-09-14</date> for the parser/renderer back end to deal with.

I totally agree with you for the syntax.

Out of curiosity, when I proposed wrapping ISBN's in an {{ISBN|...}}
template this way, no one liked the idea...but I'm not bitter.

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My personal strong feeling is that instead of choosing one appointed
> > member, the board should appoint two, and appoint them as *permanent*,
> > life members of the board . Daniel Mayer and Angela Beesley.
>
> Please, no... I left for a reason. Well, about 10 reasons actually.
> I'm very pleased I won't be doing this in a week's time. :)

Well, indeed I am not endorsing you for getting elected to the
position you hold at the moment (that woud be ridiculous). But an
appointment for a quite different role, the one that the current
appointees have fulfilled quite nicely. Not necessarily being all that
active at all times, but being a safeguard.

> My view on who should be elected is already public, but for those who
> don't read meta, I believe Erik is the only candidate capable of
> having any positive influence within the current Board.

This is a strong statement. And while I can understand how you might
see it that way, your evaluation of the other candidates is perhaps
clouded by the fact that you have not perhaps observed the other
candidates as closely as you have Eric. Personally I reject the notion
that there is any only one candidate or only one person who can act
beneficiently in any one role.

I think your insticts are right, but I don't think your judgement is accurate.

> Later, when
> that Board is expanded and the continuous internal conflicts are
> resolved, I would agree that Mindspillage and Oscar may be good
> candidates in future. I would also trust Steve Dunlop and Juan David
> Ruiz in the role, but right now - Erik is what the Board and
> Foundation needs.

I won't contradict any of what you say, but I think this election
should not be about resolving conflicts internal to the board, but to
work toward making sure that there wouldn't be internal conflicts
within the board. I think it should be up to the electorate to decide
if electing Erik would best ensure a lack of conflict.

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 16 Sep 2006 at 20:32, "Mathias Schindler"
<mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:

> What bothers me most is that Larry's fifth proposal for an
> encyclopedia comes when plan 3 and 4 ("Encyclopedia of Earth" and the
> "Digital Universe Encyclopedia") have not surfaced yet. Larry might or
> might not use the argument that he does not bear responsibility in
> having the EoE miss about three announced dates to be released. During
> the talk, he did not mention those projects a single time (only after
> I specifically asked him about this).

That guy does seem to be creating a lot of "vaporware".  He seems to
be of the school of thought that holds that the way to launch a
project is to first get a lot of "buzz" going about how innovative
it's going to be, and afterward start thinking about actually
launching it someday.  In contrast, Wikipedia got started by actually
getting started... the hype and chitchat came later.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] note to readers interested in Wikipedia/Wikimedia
	in the UK

body:
On 9/16/06, Michael Billington <michael.billington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > We have a UK-based mailing list, wikimediauk-l, for Wikimedia-related
> > topics concerning the UK. It was set up as a discussion list for the
> > prospective Wikimedia UK organisation. I often post UK-related article
> > discussion, media stuff, etc. to it.
>
> Don't most of the chapters have such mailing lists?.
Yes they do. I know for sure, that the german, french, italian, polish
and Swiss chapters do.
Regards
Michael
>I know there's a low
> activity Australian mailing list Wikimediaau-l anyway.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: ROSC Director

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki EMail

body:
How do I get an email address thru Wiki?

Thanks,
     Asher Heimermann
     "I Support A Recall"
     (920) 547-4934
     resourcesofsheboygan at yahoo.com
     aheimermann at netzero.net

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki EMail


from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [Wikitech-l] new window for external links

body:
What has to be done to have external links opened in a new window?

thx, HeinzJ


body:
> >
> > Do you want to tell the foundation that WP:OFFICE and copyright is
> > just process?
>
> No. Do you want to tell me that everybody who uploads images needs to
> become copyright experts?

Depends what they are uploading. Wish to adress the office point.

> Because I'm figuring we can get by pretty
> OK on people who are making a good faith effort to follow fair use

Yeah we tried that. It doesn't work.

> Which is, shockingly, not that hard a concept.

The evidence suggests otherwise. Certianly judgeing by the number of
legal cases there have been over the years.

>
> Geni, it's clear that everybody in this conversation is not worried
> about pissing large numbers of people off, you least of all.

Tu Quoque logical fallacy

> Nothing happens to consensus. Something may happen to mob rule, but
> that's different.
>

Quite a number of our policies were created by consensus.

> No, it really doesn't. It tends to become a tangle of limit cases and
> exceptions for pathological cases. The only thing that makes the
> documentation stay vaguely accurate is the willingness of people to
> follow it without thinking.

Evidences?

> Which isn't what I said I was going to do. IAR is not "cut the
> newbies some slack when they don't know the rules." That's BITE. IAR
> is "Look, try to understand the basic premises, then go ahead and act
> in a manner consistent with them, and odds are it'll work out fine."
> I'm counting on that actually being true. That's not "whatever seemed
> like a good idea at the time." That's "whatever seemed to an admin of
> two years like the thing most consistent with his ever-growing
> knowledge of how Wikipedia works."
>
> I'd say it's a subtle difference, but honestly, it's not.
>

Nice dodge.
--
geni


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
David Mestel wrote:
> If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
> appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.
> Here's why: In some sense, Jimmy's role is to be an impartial
> adjudicator, facilitating to a great extent the views of the
> community, although obviously also keeping the greater good of
> Wikipedia in mind.  In some ways, indeed, one might draw an analogy
> between this and a hypothetical situation where the monarch encouraged
> the electorate to vote one way or the other.  Just my $0.02.

I understand and appreciate this point.  In general, I try not to speak
on such matters.  In this case, though, I think we have a unique
opportunity.

--Jimbo


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] must one be thrust into an edit box upon "empty"
	category?

body:
On my home Wikimedia1.7 copy, I have this Template:C,

[[Category:{{{1}}}]][{{fullurl:Category:{{{1}}}}} {{{1}}}]

usage example
{{c|486.3875}}|{{c|DCS 072}}

What I really would like to do is have something like the ISBN stuff
in Parser.php, for every time a VHF radio frequency is encountered, so
the user wouldn't have to type in {{c|...}}. I dare not hack
Parser.php as months later upon update my brain will be 1000 km. away...

And I use the fullurl because otherwise the user is given the edit box
whereas on my wiki project, I have a thousand categories with members
but no text that I wish should stay that way.

Any tips on easier implementation?


body:
On 9/16/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> You do realize that the number two was picked arbitrarily, right?

You opening title claims you know what process is. Generaly it is not
a good idea to attack something one knows little about.

>And
> that the meaning of it was "I will block after what seems like a fair
> number of warnings," not "I intend to reduce the number of warnings
> required by exactly two," right?

"I'll just zap 'em for 24 hours two warnings early"

Two warnings early would mean zero warnings.

>That I honestly have no idea how
> many warnings are standard, what the available warning templates are,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:TestTemplates

but the pure test lot will work most of the time

> whether we're using {{subst}} these days, or how many fewer (or more)
> warnings I'm likely to give than the norm?
>

subst is standard for a number of reasons and the exact number of
warning is up to the individual athough people should be warned about
blocking before being blocked.

> I mean, you're reading my declaration like it were a policy page or
> something.
>
> -Phil

I'm reading it as if you meant what you said.
--
geni


from_name: Michael Billington

body:
On 9/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We have a UK-based mailing list, wikimediauk-l, for Wikimedia-related
> topics concerning the UK. It was set up as a discussion list for the
> prospective Wikimedia UK organisation. I often post UK-related article
> discussion, media stuff, etc. to it.

Don't most of the chapters have such mailing lists?. I know there's a low
activity Australian mailing list Wikimediaau-l anyway.


from_name: Akash Mehta

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Create new article - module ?

body:
Well, when I want to create an article, I just go to the article URL
(nowadays I even type the name into the box in the Wikipedia FF
toolbar) and start typing in content; I'm sure many other experienced
users do the same. However, I'm sure its helpful for newbies who can't
go around linking to their article all the time.

On 9/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
> >On 15/09/06, Thomas <thomas at klassisk.dk> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>To create a new article in the standard installation I have to create a link
> >>first. Then click on the link to write the article.
> >>I search for a module that enable unexperienced users to create an article
> >>with one click (maybe in the menu)
> >>
> >>
> >See the front page of a Wikinews edition, e.g. http://en.wikinews.org/
> >- you'll see a box which anyone can type a title into and press a
> >button to create the article. This uses the <inputbox> extension - not
> >sure if this is part of the standard MediaWiki distribution.
> >
> I've for a long time considered the need to create a link as a feature.
> It prevents having orphan articles.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Example of a user who should have been banned a long
	time ago

body:
[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Image Upload Education]] anyone? (or does that
break naming conventions?)

On 9/16/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/15/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >   Aksaha,
> >
> > > > OrphanBot's top-50 list.  The "tagbot.log" warnings are about new
> > > > uploads; the "orphanbot.log" warnings are about existing uploads.
> >
> > Quoting Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com>:
> > > Thats certainly a very useful list. Should we get a sysop to run
> > > through them?
> >
> >   I note that there are sysops on that list of worst image offenders, so being a
> > sysop is probably not a good way to judge who should take action on the issue.
> >
> >                    Jkelly
>
> As long as we don't pick a sysop on the list, I think we'll be find.
> I've found that most of you sysop-people are very reasonable and
> moderate, and also don't go around violating copyright. I'm sure we
> could dig someone up.
>
> Hell, much of this isn't sysop work, much of it is simply going around
> and warning users and helping them with adding templates. Then if they
> need to be smacked, you could call in one of the big guns, and let
> them handle the actual deleting/blocking. Hell, I could do that....
>
> --Oskar
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
 will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>>I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
>>never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
>>on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
>It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
>additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
>undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.
>
>
I agree with that (I'm a big proponent of the idea that producing free
content is Wikipedia's main reason for existing), but forking
open-content projects can have both positive and negative effects.  The
best case is where a project splits into two projects that are doing
mostly orthogonal things---serving different needs from a common
starting point.  The worst case is where a project splits into two
projects that are essentially duplicates of each other due to leadership
conflicts (e.g. the emacs/xemacs fiasco).

I'm not sure Citizendium's goals and methods are different enough from
Wikipedia's to make a fork a good thing for free content in general.  I
think the best outcome would be to see them as a prod to Wikipedia to
adopt some of their better methods (if we identify any as such) and
manage to keep the main content-production centralized in the Wikipedia
projects.  From that perspective the main good that could come out of it
is a laboratory of ideas; the worst would be basically two parallel
encyclopedia projects largely doing the same thing with added overhead
from having to constantly copy stuff back and forth and keep efforts
synchronized---or worse, end up with unsynchronized but more or less
equivalent efforts, rather than some sort of sum of the parts.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 18:05, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> It is very very important that everyone vote.
>
> Yes, absolutely.
>
>> I personally strongly strongly support the candidacies of Oscar and
>> Mindspillage.
>
> I think that's a very important, and valuable, statement. I am on the
> record as stating that the majority of any future expanded Board
> should be elected by the community (possibly through a membership
> model, but not necessarily so). However, in that model, sitting Board
> members can provide balance and reason by endorsing particular
> candidacies. Angela has endorsed me, and I think it is vital for you,
> Anthere and Michael to also share your views on the candidates.
>
> I don't think a public, cross-posted mailing list thread is
> necessarily the best way to do so, as it might turn into an exchange
> of negativity. In the future, perhaps each candidate statement should
> have a "slot" for endorsements. That way, Board members and others
> could easily make their opinions known.

I would also like to see a list of endorsements
in the statements.

I think now (by chance perhaps) all the people
I have voted for have posted here. I'm sure there
are some excellent candidates amongst the others,
but I have not had experience of them. Perhaps
with more experience here I will know them,
but in the mean time, I will constrain my votes
to the people I like and know.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> It is very very important that everyone vote.

Yes, absolutely.

> I personally strongly strongly support the candidacies of Oscar and
> Mindspillage.

I think that's a very important, and valuable, statement. I am on the
record as stating that the majority of any future expanded Board
should be elected by the community (possibly through a membership
model, but not necessarily so). However, in that model, sitting Board
members can provide balance and reason by endorsing particular
candidacies. Angela has endorsed me, and I think it is vital for you,
Anthere and Michael to also share your views on the candidates.

I don't think a public, cross-posted mailing list thread is
necessarily the best way to do so, as it might turn into an exchange
of negativity. In the future, perhaps each candidate statement should
have a "slot" for endorsements. That way, Board members and others
could easily make their opinions known.

I for one welcome and encourage questions and comments about my candidacy at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eloquence/Platform_2006

For those who do not wish to vote for me, I support the candidacies of
Arnomane, Mindspillage, AaronSw, and UninvitedCompany. I do not
support Oscar at this point in time; even though he is a very pleasant
and experienced person, I think his skills are primarily in the area
of diplomacy and negotiation, and will be more useful when the Board
is larger and the structures of the Foundation have stabilized.
However, I will probably support him for an expanded Board.

The voting system used in this election, approval voting, allows
anyone to vote for as many candidates as they want, and I would be
pleased to receive the support of you, the reader. I would also be
happy if one of the other candidates listed above won, as I think that
each one of them will do a great job at representing and helping to
run and oversee the Foundation in this critical period of its history.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections


body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 16:45, geni wrote:

>>>
>>> Do you want to tell the foundation that WP:OFFICE and copyright is
>>> just process?
>>
>> No. Do you want to tell me that everybody who uploads images needs to
>> become copyright experts?
>
> Depends what they are uploading. Wish to adress the office point.
>
>> Because I'm figuring we can get by pretty
>> OK on people who are making a good faith effort to follow fair use
>
> Yeah we tried that. It doesn't work.

There is a difference between internal and external
constraints. External constraints, such as copyright
law, are hard constraints and must be enforced.

I think that soft constraints can be more flexible and
adjust with time. It's worth mentioning that with such
a rapidly growing readership, some written consensus
guidelines are important to make sure we're all heading
out in the same direction.

>> Which isn't what I said I was going to do. IAR is not "cut the
>> newbies some slack when they don't know the rules." That's BITE. IAR
>> is "Look, try to understand the basic premises, then go ahead and act
>> in a manner consistent with them, and odds are it'll work out fine."
>> I'm counting on that actually being true. That's not "whatever seemed
>> like a good idea at the time." That's "whatever seemed to an admin of
>> two years like the thing most consistent with his ever-growing
>> knowledge of how Wikipedia works."
>>
>> I'd say it's a subtle difference, but honestly, it's not.
>>
>
>
> Nice dodge.

It is possible to see that the system which Phil is
trying to improve isn't perfect. Just because some
aspects need detailed rules to reflect external
constraints doesn't mean the whole system must
be codified precisely.

I am happy for relatively few people with relevant
experience to point new members in the right
direction from time to time. This allows discussion
and fluidity in the system over long time periods,
while ensuring consistency on small time scales.


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, David Mestel <david.mestel at gmail.com> wrote:
> If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
> appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.
> Here's why: In some sense, Jimmy's role is to be an impartial
> adjudicator, facilitating to a great extent the views of the
> community, although obviously also keeping the greater good of
> Wikipedia in mind.  In some ways, indeed, one might draw an analogy
> between this and a hypothetical situation where the monarch encouraged
> the electorate to vote one way or the other.  Just my $0.02.

I think people are better informed hearing what he has to say on the
subject, just as people are better informed hearing the opinions of
any respected and experienced user.  Granted, he has a bigger pulpit
than most, but I don't see anything inappropriate here.  I don't see
any pressing need for him to appear, or actually be, neutral here and
I'm not sure what would be served by it.


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
 will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
>>late on growth of articles.
>>
>>
>
>>From what little information has been released, I think you're right.
>Taking Wikipedia articles and forking them is in most instances *not*
>a good way to produce the type of quality academic work that Sanger
>expects.  In some instances Wikipedia is already there, of course, but
>where it isn't I just don't see what real work can be saved by
>starting from a Wikipedia article as opposed to starting from scratch.
>
>
Yep.

>Now maybe I'm just misunderstanding Sanger's plan.  If the plan is to
>take Wikipedia articles, and use them as a sort of rough draft for a
>new work, which is written pretty much from scratch, then maybe this
>will succeed.  And if so, I don't think this will hurt Wikipedia in
>any way.  In fact, I think if anything it'll help Wikipedia, as it'll
>allow Wikipedians to focus on places where Wikipedia *hasn't* hit a
>brick wall.
>
>
Sanger's plan is "I'll show you" based on the energy I sense from his
posting and
statements.

>
>
>>Wikipedia has reached critical mass
>>of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds.
>>
>>
>
>The best articles are "good enough" in my mind.  Others are more like
>"barely adequate" but yet they've still hit a brick wall in terms of
>quality (think popular politicians).  Then there's the other 90% or
>more articles, which just haven't had enough eyes on them yet.  This
>is the place where Wikipedia will shine, and Sanger's project will
>hopefully not even bother to venture for the first 5-10 years or more.
>
>
The quality is getting very good. The last dump had far too many tags in
the articles
on neutrality, etc. Which indicates too much disagreement. This means
the work load
is running low and people have too much idle time. The "green plants"
creating the content
have realy dropped in recent months.

>
>
>>Beyond
>>translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
>>and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
>>articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
>>other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
>>create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
>>last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
>>content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
>>growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
>>improving dramatically.
>>
>>Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
>>will fail.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>
>I think there's still potential for a lot of growth in terms of
>numbers of articles left for Wikipedia.  It may have hit a plateau,
>but I'd say it's only a temporary one.
>

I don't think so, need to get some fresh folks on the site, and the
number of admins has
become excessive and may be contributing to this trend. I notice a lot
of folks get run off
before they can put down roots. This needs to be addressed.

>In order to get the *next* 1.4
>million articles Wikipedia is going to have to think about how to open
>itself up more though.  2% of the community creating 98% of the
>content, if it's a true figure, is far too low to meet this goal.  How
>can Wikipedia be more encouraging to those 98% of people?
>

Get rid of abusive and trolling admins and cut back the ability to block and
dissuade new editors. I see too many folks run off the site because of
their
views, not their behavior.

>Maybe Larry
>Sanger's project can help take away some of the people who want
>Wikipedia to be an exclusionary club.
>
>
Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.

Jeff

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


from_name: David Mestel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.
Here's why: In some sense, Jimmy's role is to be an impartial
adjudicator, facilitating to a great extent the views of the
community, although obviously also keeping the greater good of
Wikipedia in mind.  In some ways, indeed, one might draw an analogy
between this and a hypothetical situation where the monarch encouraged
the electorate to vote one way or the other.  Just my $0.02.
--
David


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on main pages

body:
"Nigel Miller"
> We're using Mediawiki at our company, but one gripe with it is that the
> Talk
> pages are separate. Ideally we would like to see a comments section at the
> bottom of the actual pages - with an add comment button.  Nothing fancy
> just a
> list of comments with the username and date in there.
>
> Does anyone know of any extenstion that does this or have any idea how
> easy it
> would be to write one?
>
> Nigel

You can add to each page where you want it:

----
[{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} Edit comments]
[{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|action=edit|section=new}} New comment]

{{ {{TALKPAGENAME}} }}


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Endorsement

body:
> On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>I personally strongly strongly support the candidacies of Oscar and
>Mindspillage.

Angela wrote
"My view on who should be elected is already public, but for those who
don't read meta, I believe Erik is the only candidate capable of
having any positive influence within the current Board."

Erik Moeller wrote and asked:

> I am on the
> record as stating that the majority of any future expanded Board
> should be elected by the community (possibly through a membership
> model, but not necessarily so). However, in that model, sitting Board
> members can provide balance and reason by endorsing particular
> candidacies. Angela has endorsed me, and I think it is vital for you,
> Anthere and Michael to also share your views on the candidates.

My answer

Several people have asked me publicly or privately who I was endorsing.

I have been wondering as early as july whether I would/should publicly
endorse candidates and if so, how I should do it.

After careful thinking, I have decided against providing any public
endorsement.

I believe the board can provide balance either through appointment of
new members, or through the people it chooses to trust to help with
Foundation organisation. The elections rest in editors hands and I trust
  editors to make a good choice themselves.

Last point: even if I had decided to endorse one or several candidates,
it would have been, at latest, on the first day of election. Never three
days before the end of it. I view endorsing candidates in the last few
days of elections as a most inappropriate attempt of manipulation of the
elections outcome.

Florence Devouard


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 19:18, David Mestel wrote:

> If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
> appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.
> Here's why: In some sense, Jimmy's role is to be an impartial
> adjudicator, facilitating to a great extent the views of the
> community, although obviously also keeping the greater good of
> Wikipedia in mind.  In some ways, indeed, one might draw an analogy
> between this and a hypothetical situation where the monarch encouraged
> the electorate to vote one way or the other.  Just my $0.02.

I'd rather have more information than less.
The more people who disucss this election,
the more informed the eventual decision will be.


from_name: Florence Devouard

body:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from
online encyclopedia Wikipedia
Date: 	Sat, 16 Sep 2006 16:14:39 +0200
From: 	Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com>
Reply-To: 	Communications Committee <wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org>
To: 	Communications Committee <wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org>

WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY

September 18, 2006 Monday

INTERNATIONAL

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL

LENGTH: 187 words

Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia
Wikipedia, said Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's founders. Sanger,
dir.-collaborative projects for the Digital University Foundation,
spoke last week at the Wizard of OS (Open Source) Conference in
Berlin. Wikipedia is committed to anonymity; Citizendium will stress
personal responsibility for content, pushing for higher quality, he
said, noting that Wikipedia's anonymity draws troublemakers. On
Citizendium, content will be reviewed by editors who, while
self-selecting, will have to substantiate their expertise. If
Wikipedia had been admitting its problems, Sanger said, "I would have
been much less motivated to go on with Citizendium." Martin Haase, a
Wikipedia board member in Germany, said Wikipedia is working on
quality. Soon, the encyclopedia will have its own means of validation
and some editorial control, he said. Citizendium and Wikipedia can
coexist, Sanger said. His role in Wikipedia was called into question
years ago by fellow Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, spurring Sanger to
quit his position as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia. -- ME

LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2006

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newsletter

Copyright 2006 Warren Publishing, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
_______________________________________________
Wmfcc-l mailing list
Wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l


from_name: George Herbert

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

body:
On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
> this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
> on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.

Larry is far from the only person who thinks that anonymity is
ultimately a net negative for Wikipedia, or that having more experts
openly involved is a good thing.

That said, I hope that you're wrong, but I can see why you might be right.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 16/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> I'd rather have more information than less.
> The more people who disucss this election,
> the more informed the eventual decision will be.

It's a fair point, but I nonetheless feel that my analogy still stands
- if the monarch endorsed one candidate, that would also mean more
people discussing the election.

--
David


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
"David Mestel" wrote

> If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
> appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.

Hmmm - that kind of assumes the GodKing thing of giving out positive and approving messages has to be turned off as soon as there is an election in the offing. And it also kind of assumes that people are better off voting in ignorance of how candidates are seen. There is a point to both, but something on the other side also. (Perhaps I'm feeling a little more relaxed, with an endorsement from someone who actually has a vote - thank you Stephen :-).) The election process goes on for a month, just for this limited filling of one vacancy and I don't think we should really get into the area of wishing an artificial atmosphere to descend when elections are happening. Free speech is a good thing in the public life of an organisation.

This election is not, as far as I can see, a referendum on the current management at Board level. If it were, then it would be quite interesting to know who was endorsed from the Board's side.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> What I do know is that experts have in
> general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that
> is not going to change.

There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all,
and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or
driven away at all.

I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas
where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to
change that.  I haven't figured it out yet.

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 02:32:00 +0100, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>Two warnings is quite possible within process (you can block of test3
>and skip test2). Blocking within one warning is possible but I
>understand that people were complaining that the CVU were using it to
>a degree that people were objecting to.

I think you might be missing the point.  Vandalism is easily
diagnosed, and rarely accidental. ~~~~

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


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki EMail

body:
Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation does not use its domain names for
e-mail (unless you're staff at Wikimedia, I think). Or were you talking
about something else?

On 9/16/06, ROSC Director <resourcesofsheboygan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> How do I get an email address thru Wiki?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>      Asher Heimermann
>      "I Support A Recall"
>      (920) 547-4934
>      resourcesofsheboygan at yahoo.com
>      aheimermann at netzero.net
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki EMail


subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.

Due to the licensing choice of Wikipedia, Citizendium will also be licensed
under the GFDL. Imagine that -- an expert-ran knowledge tank that's usable
under the same license as Wikipedia! That means when they produce a
high-quality piece of something, we can take it and use it on Wikipedia.
Maybe then will we get closer to the 100,000 featured articles that is
currently a pipe dream of the really hopeful.

I hope a cycle of forking between the two projects will result in better
stuff for all.

On 9/16/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> >>I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> >>never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> >>on Wikipedia.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
> >additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any
> serious
> >undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.
> >
> >
> I agree with that (I'm a big proponent of the idea that producing free
> content is Wikipedia's main reason for existing), but forking
> open-content projects can have both positive and negative effects.  The
> best case is where a project splits into two projects that are doing
> mostly orthogonal things---serving different needs from a common
> starting point.  The worst case is where a project splits into two
> projects that are essentially duplicates of each other due to leadership
> conflicts (e.g. the emacs/xemacs fiasco).
>
> I'm not sure Citizendium's goals and methods are different enough from
> Wikipedia's to make a fork a good thing for free content in general.  I
> think the best outcome would be to see them as a prod to Wikipedia to
> adopt some of their better methods (if we identify any as such) and
> manage to keep the main content-production centralized in the Wikipedia
> projects.  From that perspective the main good that could come out of it
> is a laboratory of ideas; the worst would be basically two parallel
> encyclopedia projects largely doing the same thing with added overhead
> from having to constantly copy stuff back and forth and keep efforts
> synchronized---or worse, end up with unsynchronized but more or less
> equivalent efforts, rather than some sort of sum of the parts.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> Although I have been generally opposed to stacking our board with
> insiders simply because we have so much to learn from outside views, I
> wonder what you would think of taking the top N approved people from
> the current election for the board?
>
> Perhaps it's a bit late at this juncture, but it is true that
> multi-winner elections are relieved of some of the (mathematically
> necessary) unfairness of single winner elections.

I have proposed such resolution to the board before wikimania. It has
not been approved.

Anthere


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Copying my answer to the com-com list also here:

Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project. When I said
this, I was thinking of a different "person", or better a company all of
us know well. Ok, it is not them now, but  ...

I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
on Wikipedia.

It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?)  - I mean "Wikipedia" -
the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
advantages must come over).

How's the German stable version thingie going? (That is something I
would like to see on nap.wikipedia as well - for other reasons than on
de - connected to "standard and not standard nap") - Somthing tells me
that this feature together with the co-operation of scientists will be
the solution.

Thanks, Sabine

Florence Devouard schrieb:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	[Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from
> online encyclopedia Wikipedia
> Date: 	Sat, 16 Sep 2006 16:14:39 +0200
> From: 	Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: 	Communications Committee <wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org>
> To: 	Communications Committee <wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org>
>
>
>
> WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
> September 18, 2006 Monday
>
> INTERNATIONAL
>
> SECTION: INTERNATIONAL
>
> LENGTH: 187 words
>
> Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia
> Wikipedia, said Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's founders. Sanger,
> dir.-collaborative projects for the Digital University Foundation,
> spoke last week at the Wizard of OS (Open Source) Conference in
> Berlin. Wikipedia is committed to anonymity; Citizendium will stress
> personal responsibility for content, pushing for higher quality, he
> said, noting that Wikipedia's anonymity draws troublemakers. On
> Citizendium, content will be reviewed by editors who, while
> self-selecting, will have to substantiate their expertise. If
> Wikipedia had been admitting its problems, Sanger said, "I would have
> been much less motivated to go on with Citizendium." Martin Haase, a
> Wikipedia board member in Germany, said Wikipedia is working on
> quality. Soon, the encyclopedia will have its own means of validation
> and some editorial control, he said. Citizendium and Wikipedia can
> coexist, Sanger said. His role in Wikipedia was called into question
> years ago by fellow Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, spurring Sanger to
> quit his position as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia. -- ME
>
> LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2006
>
> LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
>
> PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newsletter
>
>
> Copyright 2006 Warren Publishing, Inc.
> All Rights Reserved
> _______________________________________________
> Wmfcc-l mailing list
> Wmfcc-l at mail.wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Angela

body:
On 9/16/06, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> My personal strong feeling is that instead of choosing one appointed
> member, the board should appoint two, and appoint them as *permanent*,
> life members of the board . Daniel Mayer and Angela Beesley.

Please, no... I left for a reason. Well, about 10 reasons actually.
I'm very pleased I won't be doing this in a week's time. :)

On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> community, speak openly of who you trust and why.

My view on who should be elected is already public, but for those who
don't read meta, I believe Erik is the only candidate capable of
having any positive influence within the current Board. Later, when
that Board is expanded and the continuous internal conflicts are
resolved, I would agree that Mindspillage and Oscar may be good
candidates in future. I would also trust Steve Dunlop and Juan David
Ruiz in the role, but right now - Erik is what the Board and
Foundation needs.

It's very long, but well worth reading if you're serious about your
vote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/Platform_2006

I strongly support this platform and as I said at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/Endorse_2006 I believe
Erik is the best candidate to represent the community in the
development of the Wikimedia Foundation over the coming year. Erik has
shown a continued commitment, not only to Wikipedia but to the
Wikimedia Foundation as a whole. Erik's commitment to the sort of
openness that will ensure the community will have an influence in
ensuring the Foundation meets its goals makes me happy to endorse him
as the person to replace me on the Board.

Angela

--
Angela Beesley
http://a.nge.la


subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board
	Elections

body:
On 9/16/06, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> My personal strong feeling is that instead of choosing one appointed
> member, the board should appoint two, and appoint them as *permanent*,
> life members of the board . Daniel Mayer and Angela Beesley.

Please, no... I left for a reason. Well, about 10 reasons actually.
I'm very pleased I won't be doing this in a week's time. :)

On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> community, speak openly of who you trust and why.

My view on who should be elected is already public, but for those who
don't read meta, I believe Erik is the only candidate capable of
having any positive influence within the current Board. Later, when
that Board is expanded and the continuous internal conflicts are
resolved, I would agree that Mindspillage and Oscar may be good
candidates in future. I would also trust Steve Dunlop and Juan David
Ruiz in the role, but right now - Erik is what the Board and
Foundation needs.

It's very long, but well worth reading if you're serious about your
vote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/Platform_2006

I strongly support this platform and as I said at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/Endorse_2006 I believe
Erik is the best candidate to represent the community in the
development of the Wikimedia Foundation over the coming year. Erik has
shown a continued commitment, not only to Wikipedia but to the
Wikimedia Foundation as a whole. Erik's commitment to the sort of
openness that will ensure the community will have an influence in
ensuring the Foundation meets its goals makes me happy to endorse him
as the person to replace me on the Board.

Angela

--
Angela Beesley
http://a.nge.la
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l]  Wikimedia Board Elections


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
> to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
> the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project. When I said
> this, I was thinking of a different "person", or better a company all of
> us know well. Ok, it is not them now, but  ...
>

Wikinfo did that quite a long time ago.

> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> on Wikipedia.
>

Err we do.

> It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
> the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?)  - I mean "Wikipedia" -
> the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
> advantages must come over).
>

An internet project and you are prepared to risk being seen as
backwards looking. Realisticaly I can't see any other project
atchiveing our critical mass for the time being.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Setting a record straight

body:
On 9/16/06, Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net> wrote:
> I stopped my volunteering on the en.wp project in fall 2004 due to a
> strong disagreement with an ArbCom decision. It was not in any way
> related to Mr Danny Wool, about whom I was only peripherally aware at
> the time. I work with Mr Wool on a daily basis, and we get along
> extremely well professionally.

To those wondering what this about-

A couple of days ago I had a phone conversation with Danny Wool, in
which he pointed out that he's been working very well with Wayne (the
context is not important). I was somewhat surprised by that, because I
had a recollection that Wayne had largely stopped participating in
en.wikipedia.org in part because of disagreements with Danny. I
pointed this out to Danny, who strongly disagreed and said that there
was no such incident. I responded that I may have misremembered. This
is the entire extent of the relevant parts of the conversation.

I don't have access to my logs right now to verify my recollection of
what Wayne had said (it was a long time ago), but it seems most likely
that I did indeed misremember, in which case I apologize for any
misunderstanding. Wayne, I assure you that I have not stated this
impression to anyone besides Danny in a single private conversation.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
Hi,

I was at the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin this weekend where
Larry Sanger has announced his plan to fork (the English edition of)
Wikipedia at an unspecified point in time in the future with
unspecified mechanisms of updating the content from en.wikipedia
automatically. You can read this on wikinews, citizendium.org and some
blogs. It would be pointless to repeat the factual details here for
two reasons:

1. The facts are already outlined in the links above. Read it there
2. The amount of facts itself about the most interesting aspectsis
surprisingly low.

Larry's response to two question I asked leaves me with the impression
that he should have spent more time thinking about the concept itself.
The most critical part are left to a catch22 thing "its only a
proposal".

What bothers me most is that Larry's fifth proposal for an
encyclopedia comes when plan 3 and 4 ("Encyclopedia of Earth" and the
"Digital Universe Encyclopedia") have not surfaced yet. Larry might or
might not use the argument that he does not bear responsibility in
having the EoE miss about three announced dates to be released. During
the talk, he did not mention those projects a single time (only after
I specifically asked him about this).

So we might or might not see a Citizendium some time. We might
discover that Larry is able to find a sponsor for this which may or
may not be the DUF. We might discover that his proposed constable role
is more efficient in enforcing policy and a friendly atmosphere. Or
not. We might be able to discover the Citizendium as a perfect source
of high quality encyclopedic content that can be imported into
Wikipedia. Or not.

It was fun talking with Larry. He is a nice person, insightful and
friendly. He listens, he responds, he is polite. When I mentioned
several first thoughts I had about the Citizendium, he listened to it
carefully and answered honestly. Calling Citizendium a Potemkin town
does explicitly not mean that there is something wrong with Larry. I
would very much like to be proven wrong. Until then, I urge anyone to
focus on the real things that do exist, including its problems and the
attempts of people who are trying to fix them (by fixing them, not by
talking that somebody should do something).

Mathias


body:
On 9/16/06, Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net> wrote:
> I must confess to an extreme level of curiosity; what, pray tell, was
> the context that you would be talking with Danny about our work
> relationship? After all, the board does not directly oversee Danny,
> and I'm merely a volunteer. So I would love to know the context of
> this conversation?

Taking this off-list..
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
> late on growth of articles.

>From what little information has been released, I think you're right.
Taking Wikipedia articles and forking them is in most instances *not*
a good way to produce the type of quality academic work that Sanger
expects.  In some instances Wikipedia is already there, of course, but
where it isn't I just don't see what real work can be saved by
starting from a Wikipedia article as opposed to starting from scratch.

Now maybe I'm just misunderstanding Sanger's plan.  If the plan is to
take Wikipedia articles, and use them as a sort of rough draft for a
new work, which is written pretty much from scratch, then maybe this
will succeed.  And if so, I don't think this will hurt Wikipedia in
any way.  In fact, I think if anything it'll help Wikipedia, as it'll
allow Wikipedians to focus on places where Wikipedia *hasn't* hit a
brick wall.

> Wikipedia has reached critical mass
> of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds.

The best articles are "good enough" in my mind.  Others are more like
"barely adequate" but yet they've still hit a brick wall in terms of
quality (think popular politicians).  Then there's the other 90% or
more articles, which just haven't had enough eyes on them yet.  This
is the place where Wikipedia will shine, and Sanger's project will
hopefully not even bother to venture for the first 5-10 years or more.

> Beyond
> translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
> and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
> articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
> other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
> create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
> last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
> content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
> growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
> improving dramatically.
>
> Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
> will fail.
>
> Jeff

I think there's still potential for a lot of growth in terms of
numbers of articles left for Wikipedia.  It may have hit a plateau,
but I'd say it's only a temporary one.  In order to get the *next* 1.4
million articles Wikipedia is going to have to think about how to open
itself up more though.  2% of the community creating 98% of the
content, if it's a true figure, is far too low to meet this goal.  How
can Wikipedia be more encouraging to those 98% of people?  Maybe Larry
Sanger's project can help take away some of the people who want
Wikipedia to be an exclusionary club.

Anthony


body:
Well if they do things right they'll set their priorities -- focus on core
topics and leave "List of banned episodes of Pok?mon" for another day. (Or
another century.)

On 9/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.
> >
>
> Putting out a press release?
>
> The shear size of wikipedia means that even mentaining it takes a lot
> of resources. The result of this is that forks are unlikely to suceed.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 9/16/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.
>
> Due to the licensing choice of Wikipedia, Citizendium will also be licensed
> under the GFDL. Imagine that -- an expert-ran knowledge tank that's usable
> under the same license as Wikipedia! That means when they produce a
> high-quality piece of something, we can take it and use it on Wikipedia.
> Maybe then will we get closer to the 100,000 featured articles that is
> currently a pipe dream of the really hopeful.
>
> I hope a cycle of forking between the two projects will result in better
> stuff for all.
>
I hope Wikipedia will adopt a policy of adhering to the GFDL which
allows this.  Perhaps most importantly that means listing 5 of the
primary authors along with the title.


body:
On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>

> WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY

Hi Anthere.

What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?). Foundation-l gets archived
publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
I would like you to

1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
2. try not to repeat this.

As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
an optional skill :)

Thanks,
Mathias


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Foundation-l] Minimum standards for verifiability

body:
> there is a discussion on verifiability in the German-speaking Wikipedia.
> There are discussions how freely the German Wikipedia may design its
> policy on verifiability.

2-3 weeks ago translation of English policy
[[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] was not approved in vote by community of
Russian Wikipedia.

It was necessary two third of voices "pro", but the policy has
received only 59%. (Has voted 90 wikipedians)

Reasons of opponents were:

* What is the reputable source? We never shall come to a consensus in this
* great delay in development of the project
* Abusings of deletists
* The rule is evident. We against bureaucracy and rules in text.
* There is no detailed description of practical application
* Our project still very young for such strict rule (Russian Wikipedia
has more then 100,000 articles)
* Disagreement with opposition: Verifiability - True
* It will be possible to remove the majority of existing articles
* Discrepancy of translation (the translation was as much as possible
close to the English text)
* Difference of mentality of participants of the English project and
Russian. We need proper "localised"  text.
* Impossibility to write about simple "household" things, phrases,
internet culture objects etc
* Rules should describe an existing practice, instead of sharply to enter new

I hope, that we shall accept this text even as recommendations (guide,
not policy)

--
Amike kaj kunlabore,
Alexander Sigachov
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:.:Ajvol:.


from_name: Александр Сигачёв


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
David Mestel wrote:
> If I may add my personal opinion, I do not think that it was
> appropriate for Jimmy to declare public support for any candidate.
> Here's why: In some sense, Jimmy's role is to be an impartial
> adjudicator, facilitating to a great extent the views of the
> community, although obviously also keeping the greater good of
> Wikipedia in mind.  In some ways, indeed, one might draw an analogy
> between this and a hypothetical situation where the monarch encouraged
> the electorate to vote one way or the other.  Just my $0.02.

I think it is a crucial information with whom of the candidates the
current board members see themselves able to work with. The impression I
got when I was involved in foundation work was that several board
members don't get along very well with some of the candidates. Everyone
should be able to imagine the consequences.

greetings,
elian


body:
On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
> this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change
>

The average member of wikipedia seems to try and avoid being
identified. Anyway rather a lot of our science articles are written by
people who know the area (you can tell because they tend to be written
in jargon rather than English).

> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
> marketing for the future and not the past.

Yes but your marketing strategy would involve looking back.

--
geni


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] Rob Levin of irc.freenode.net has passed away :-(

body:
On 9/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the
> President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates
> irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a
> summary here:
> http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243

Rob and I go back around ten years.  We first met on #gimp on
irc.gimp.org, where I used to be a regular (as a lead developer on the
GIMP).  I don't remember when I started visiting the Open Projects
servers, exactly, but it couldn't have been much later than 1999 or
2000.  I remember long discussions with him about Advogato's trust
metric (Rob originally became a Master there because of my
certification) around that time.  Later on, Rob more or less recruited
me me to help combat the overt sexism and homophobism in some of Open
Projects' more heavily populated channels, something which I
admittedly did not have much luck with.  I drifted away from open
source (I've been gainfully employed as a Windows administrator for
the past several years) and haven't done any serious development in
the past few years, but I've never managed to stay away from the
freenode servers very long.  Rob was a good friend with whom I have
shared many hours in IRC conversation and many kilobytes of mailed and
blogged discussion (if you can call Advogato a "blog").  He will be
sorely missed.

Kelly


body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>>WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
>
> Hi Anthere.
>
> What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
> shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?).

Oh ?

You mean that's why much of the interesting discussions are right now
taking place on the comcom list where very little people have access ?

Okay. I'll forward them to internal instead.

  Foundation-l gets archived
> publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
> I would like you to
>
> 1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
> copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
> 2. try not to repeat this.

Right. You know where I live, if it is necessary, just tell them I am
the guilty one. They can sue me, I own so little they won't make much :-)

> As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
> an optional skill :)
>
> Thanks,
> Mathias

I think my role as a board member is increasingly becoming extremely
boring and useless... I oscillate between being told to be a nice
girly/pompom girl. And being a watch dog crying wolf. I look forward for
someone else holding this roles with me.


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution?

body:
> Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?

unfortunate, it is absent.

Even "5 pillars" are not the conventional rule (for example, in the
Russian project the fifth item has not been accepted/approved)

On Meta there is only a policy against original researches

See my post about failure of verifiability policy in Russian Wikipedia
in wikipedia maillist.

--
Amike kaj kunlabore,
Alexander Sigachov
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:ajvol


from_name: Александр Сигачёв


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on main pages

body:
On 9/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Could it be added to the skin?  Is there any part of the skin that's
> parsed for wikitext?

Most of the system messages (I assume that's what you meant by skin)
are parsed for wikitext.  I don't see any reason offhand why it
wouldn't be possible to add this to MediaWiki:Copyright or something,
if you were so inclined, although of course oddness would result on
talk pages proper, edit pages, etc. if you picked that message,
anyway.


from_name: Alison Wheeler

body:
On Sat, September 16, 2006 20:25, Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Please keep this stuff private - you want to take a private conversation
> public - nobody is really interersted in private issues here - this is
> the public foundation list.

May I diagree here. I've never met either of the gentlemen concerned but,
given that the initial statements were made on this list then it is only
right and proper that any determination of the facts and conclusions is
also disclosed here in order that nobody is able to make an accusation
without having to back it up.

Alison Wheeler


body:
Please keep this stuff private - you want to take a private conversation
public - nobody is really interersted in private issues here - this is
the public foundation list.

Or are you trying to play games?

Thank you!

Sabine

Amgine schrieb:
>  > Taking this off-list..
>
> No, seriously, I would love to know the answer to this. Why were you
> calling Danny about our professional relationship?
>
> Amgine
>
>
> ?
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


body:
geni schrieb:
>> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
>> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
>> on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
> Err we do.
>
I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change

>
>> It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
>> the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?)  - I mean "Wikipedia" -
>> the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
>> advantages must come over).
>>
>>
>
> An internet project and you are prepared to risk being seen as
> backwards looking. Realisticaly I can't see any other project
> atchiveing our critical mass for the time being.
>
>

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
marketing for the future and not the past.

Thanks, Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
> to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
> the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project.

That's entirely normal in the course of events, and only one of many such
projects; Wikipedia has an open-content license precisely to allow these sorts
of projects.

> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> on Wikipedia.

It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
> > On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> >> What I do know is that experts have in
> >> general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that
> >> is not going to change.
> >
> > There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all,
> > and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or
> > driven away at all.
> >
> > I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas
> > where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to
> > change that.  I haven't figured it out yet.
>
> Well, maybe you are active in area's were this is less of a problem.

Exactly, though I also participate in some problem areas.

What I don't understand, and am still looking for, is a root cause for
why some areas with equally popular and controversial topics have
contentious article editing, and some don't.

The best I can figure is that some sets of people just play better
together in online text-based interaction than other sets, and who
shows up interested in a particular WP article is random luck of the
draw.  That's a terribly unsatisfying answer, though, because it
offers no evident solution other than trying to convince people to
behave better.

> What causes it? In general, the impossibility to keep things at a high
> level quality due to edit wars, POV-pushers, drive-by-editing, good
> intended insertion of non-obvious nonsense, and the basic idea of
> consensus, which often leads to the most watered down version that is
> acceptable to all involved but does not necessarily reflect the current
> state of the knowledge in for example science.

Well, to some degree, there are legitimate reasons for using
consensus: even within experts in the field, there often is not yet
full agreement on the validity of newly developing science or
technology.  Science textbooks seem to either end up with a one-sided
opinion, or have a consensus group rank and represent alternative
theories which haven't yet proven themselves in a particular area.

Wikipedia suffers some from the consensus group including non-experts
who really don't understand the topic (ranging from don't understand
it at all but think they do, to don't understand aspects of the
emerging research though they otherwise have a clue, with many shades
between).  But I don't feel laying blame on the concept of consensus
is fair - even a paid, expert written and reviewed encyclopedia
suffers from having to make this choice between consensus (sometimes
wishy-washy) and sometimes one-sided viewpoint articles.

A really good writer can take a dynamic disagreement about the various
contending ideas and both give all sides a fair treatment and bring
the debate and issues to life in an accessable manner.  The problem
here is that the set of really good popular science/tech/etc writers
is not the same as the set of topic experts, and that a lot of really
good writers seem to despair at some of Wikipedia's process results.

> Finally, Wikipedia
> articles often reflect what is available at the internet (aka that what
> is easily verifiable), but fails to incorporate important work that is
> not directly available to editors, while experts would have access to
> those sources.
>
> As long as Wikipedia has no way to protect the quality of the content in
> a better way, content will deteriorate asymptotically to the level of
> understanding of the the average vandalism fighter unless excperts
> themselves babysit those articles. The higher the quality, especially
> articles about complex subjects written by experts, the more problematic
> it will be to maintain the quality as most vandalism fighters don't have
> the insight to actually judge whether a this-is-obviously-not-vandalism
> change is actually an improvement or not, or worse, whether the
> insertion of nonsense or just plain incorrect information.
>
> But this is inherently Wikipedia, and it will not change.

I've got slightly over a thousand en.WP pages on my watchlist, about
500 articles worth.  Even accounting for overlap, there are plenty
enough active wikipedians on en to watch the important pages.

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


from_name: Bradypus

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>

> It is very very important that everyone vote.
>
> I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> community, speak openly of who you trust and why.

Shouldn't we do that by voting?
This message is a bad idea, except for the first sentence.

Bradipus


from_name: Kim van der Linde

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:

> Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
> to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
 > articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
 > rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
 > on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
 > flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.

As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
1. I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
2. Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.
3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert
the newest version, of basically fall behind.

Your response is based on the premise that Wikipedia will keep the lead,
and that forks are just to feed stuff to Wikipedia. Maybe, but my
prediction will be that some smarter hybrid between general community
involvement and experts guarding quality will in the end replace
Wikipedia. It is just a matter of time. Whether Citizendium will be that
alternative, I do not yet know. What I do know is that experts have in
general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that
is not going to change.

Kim


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Christoph Seydl wrote:

>Well, I found some statements in the English Wikipedia-version, but no
>undoubted source above it. The English-speaking Wikipedia is normatively
>on the same hierarchical level as the German-speaking version.
>
>Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?
>
Saying that we follow the principle of verifiability should be enough.
When you get too specific, we unfortunately have many people who are
determined to take it to extremes at either end of the scale.  Some will
accept the most ephemeral of data as verification, while others will
insist that even the most broadly observed information must '''always'''
show references.

The urgency of verifiability also depends on the nature of the subject
matter.  It is broadly accepted that the biographies of living persons
require documentation, especially if what is said about the person can
have negative overtones.  Verifying details about fictitious characters
is much less urgent.  Another important factor about good verification
is can I go to the source that is mentioned, now or at any time in the
future, and confirm that it says exactly what it is supposed to say.
This need not need to mean that I should be able to find the image
directly on the Net.  I may need to travel to look at the book, or
perhaps it is available by interlibrary loan.

Ec


body:
geni schrieb:
> On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>> I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
>> this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change
>>
>>
>
> The average member of wikipedia seems to try and avoid being
> identified. Anyway rather a lot of our science articles are written by
> people who know the area (you can tell because they tend to be written
> in jargon rather than English).
>
We should then give the aveage member of Wikipedia a reason why it would
make sense to be identified ... future will tell :-)
>
>
>> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
>> marketing for the future and not the past.
>>
>
> Yes but your marketing strategy would involve looking back.
>
>
See it like this: Wikipedia is only what it is today because of its past
- if there hadn't been that handful of people that at the beginning
started to edit just "for fun" and that went ahead even if the project
was not so popular, today it would not be there.

Wikipedia is built of several milestones - and the very beginning must
be there - without a past you don't have a present, without a present
you don't have a future. Everything is connected.

Wikipedia can only be the first freely editable Encyclopaedia if you
consider the past.

So building an image that bases on "the only true one, the only
original" of course is a connection to the past and describes all that
has been achieved by now and tells people where it wants to go in the
future. Many trademarks are built like this - why is Xerox Xerox? Whis
is Mercedes Mercedes? Why is Wikipedia Wikipedia? Because of certain
values, because of their past and will to be there also in future.

You can optimize the values, but you cannot take them away. You can
introduce new developments and you will see that they are always based
on the "original". Certain values may not be touched and these values
were created at the beginning - the so called core values. Being
editable by anyone and openness are two of them as much as I recall.

Ciao, Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Florence Devouard

subject: [Foundation-l] deletion query

body:
Hi Brion,

I made a mistake in posting cp stuff to foundation list.
Could you please delete the mails where the text is please ?

Here are the ones concerned

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/009986.html
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/009989.html
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/009993.html

sorry about that brion

thanks

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] deletion query


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

body:
On 9/16/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2) Their definitions of acceptable material were written with an eye
> towards only a handful of Wikipedia's articles, and render large
> portions of the site functionally un-editable.
>
> The majority of our policies in this area, and [[WP:RS]] is by far
> the worse offender here, were clearly written to provide us needed
> protection against nutjobs on our more pathological articles. They're
> excellent policies for keeping the Israel/Palestine articles sane,
> keeping the LaRouchies and Scientologists at bay, and telling Gene
> Ray that he should take nature's four-sided harmonious time cube
> elsewhere.

Wholly agreed.  WP:RS is written as a club to use on a few
pathological articles to keep the nutjobs out.  The fact is that what
sources are reliable varies from subject to subject.  There is,
seriously, NO way to have a one-size-fits-all policy about this.

I would also suggest, personally, that the consensus behind WP:RS is a
consensus only of those trying to forge the policy.  I suspect there a
lot of editors like myself and yourself who disagree with its
approach, but find the prospect of reforming it in the teeth of
strenuous opposition simply not worth my time.

I don't disagree that sources should be reliable ones.  I disagree
with the idea that reliability can be so rigidly defined, against
common sense.

-Matt (User:Morven)


body:
On 9/16/06, David Mestel <david.mestel at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to disagree with you on the IAR point - I just clicked on the
> "random article" button five times, and not one of the resulting
> articles had a single source.

To be truly valid, though, you'd have to only count articles created
after sourcing became explicitly required.

>I think that our problem may be that,
> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
> order to achieve more...

I've long said that any source is better than none.  With a source,
it's traceable.   I fear that our pages about sourcing and how to do
it are so complicated as to be offputting.   They make it seem that
the only way allowed to source things is to go through a very
complicated procedure - rather than the Wiki way of 'do it the best
you can and other people can neaten it later'.

-Matt


from_name: gwern branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
> 1. I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.

And judging from the current success of Sanger's past endeavours (I'm
thinking of Digital Universe here), you would be wasting your time.
Remember, "the good is the enemy of the best", or better yet, "worse
is better".

> 2. Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
> Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.

'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can
be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.

> 3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
> to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert
> the newest version, of basically fall behind.

If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's
various projects must  expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible
editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or
winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing
content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.

.........
> Kim

--Gwern


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
>> What I do know is that experts have in
>> general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that
>> is not going to change.
>
> There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all,
> and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or
> driven away at all.
>
> I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas
> where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to
> change that.  I haven't figured it out yet.

Well, maybe you are active in area's were this is less of a problem.
What causes it? In general, the impossibility to keep things at a high
level quality due to edit wars, POV-pushers, drive-by-editing, good
intended insertion of non-obvious nonsense, and the basic idea of
consensus, which often leads to the most watered down version that is
acceptable to all involved but does not necessarily reflect the current
state of the knowledge in for example science. Finally, Wikipedia
articles often reflect what is available at the internet (aka that what
is easily verifiable), but fails to incorporate important work that is
not directly available to editors, while experts would have access to
those sources.

As long as Wikipedia has no way to protect the quality of the content in
a better way, content will deteriorate asymptotically to the level of
understanding of the the average vandalism fighter unless excperts
themselves babysit those articles. The higher the quality, especially
articles about complex subjects written by experts, the more problematic
it will be to maintain the quality as most vandalism fighters don't have
the insight to actually judge whether a this-is-obviously-not-vandalism
change is actually an improvement or not, or worse, whether the
insertion of nonsense or just plain incorrect information.

But this is inherently Wikipedia, and it will not change.

Kim

--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
gwern branwen wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
>> As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
>> 1. I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
>
> And judging from the current success of Sanger's past endeavours (I'm
> thinking of Digital Universe here), you would be wasting your time.
> Remember, "the good is the enemy of the best", or better yet, "worse
> is better".

Maybe it does not work, maybe it does, I will see. If it does, it has
the potential to become a much better source for reliable information
than Wikipedia.

>> 2. Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
>> Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.
>
> 'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can
> be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.

Well, that is your interpretation of sound, not mine. Sound content is
dynamic. If I want static content, I go for a paper encyclopaedia. And
dynamic high quality content on Wikipedia deteriorates all the time
unless experts babysit the complex articles. Nice dynamic, sure......

>> 3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
>> to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert
>> the newest version, of basically fall behind.
>
> If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's
> various projects must  expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible
> editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or
> winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing
> content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.

Initially, yes. But that will change as soon as there is a sound
community of editors at Citizendium. The pool of editors might be
smaller, but the vandal fighting also, which results in a lesser need
for editors to babysit the many articles. It probably will also contain
less pseudo-notable stuff, like all pokemon characters and such for
which Wikipedia is and will remain a perfect place. And by the sound of
colleagues around me, they might be way more willing to help out with
less open-to-all-editing initiatives.

Besides that, the contributors have more time to spend on actual content
due to less vandal fighting. Finally, at current, the stream of
information is from Britannica to Wikipedia, not the other way round.

Kim
--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-17

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the
President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates
irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a
summary here:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243

I've only interacted with lilo (his IRC nickname) a few times, but I
have a long time connection to the FreeNode community. About 6 years
ago, when it was still known as openprojects.net, I created a channel
there for a website which I run. It grew very rapidly and then moved
to another network, but I stayed with OpenProjects/FreeNode, where we
started the #wikipedia IRC channel in December 2001.

Back then, it was often only 3 or 4 people who would hang out
occasionally, while I'm now counting 263 people on the channel.  Since
then, the Wikimedia community has created countless other channels on
the FreeNode network, which are invaluable to our commmunity on so
many levels. Every now and then lilo would drop in and see how it
goes.

Rob Levin was very much part of the fabric of FreeNode, and he helped
turn it into a place that is generally pleasant and vibrant, a home
for many, many open source and free content projects.

Fortunately, FreeNode will continue to operate. Truly, this vast
international communication network is a powerful legacy. But lilo had
many more ideas, and the passion and intellect to pursue them. His
passing is a great blow to all who knew him and who worked with him,
and a fatal personal loss for his loved ones.

I will miss him. :.-(
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the
> President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates
> irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a
> summary here:
> http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243
>
> I've only interacted with lilo (his IRC nickname) a few times, but I
> have a long time connection to the FreeNode community. About 6 years
> ago, when it was still known as openprojects.net, I created a channel
> there for a website which I run. It grew very rapidly and then moved
> to another network, but I stayed with OpenProjects/FreeNode, where we
> started the #wikipedia IRC channel in December 2001.
>
> Back then, it was often only 3 or 4 people who would hang out
> occasionally, while I'm now counting 263 people on the channel.  Since
> then, the Wikimedia community has created countless other channels on
> the FreeNode network, which are invaluable to our commmunity on so
> many levels. Every now and then lilo would drop in and see how it
> goes.
>
> Rob Levin was very much part of the fabric of FreeNode, and he helped
> turn it into a place that is generally pleasant and vibrant, a home
> for many, many open source and free content projects.
>
> Fortunately, FreeNode will continue to operate. Truly, this vast
> international communication network is a powerful legacy. But lilo had
> many more ideas, and the passion and intellect to pursue them. His
> passing is a great blow to all who knew him and who worked with him,
> and a fatal personal loss for his loved ones.
>
> I will miss him. :.-(
>
Seconded. A truly sad day for IRC. I'm very saddened.

Filip