from_name: Bill Clark

subject: [Wikitech-l] machine translaton of the articles...

body:
NOTE: I am replying to an older article because it was the most recent
thread I could find in my archives on the topic. I think Jimmy's comments
accurately reflect those of most people's (justified) low opinion of raw
(unaided) machine translation output.

On 8/9/04, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> First, it is important to understand that for the most part, the
> individual
> wikipedia languages are not mere translations.

Perhaps they should be, or more precisely, perhaps there should be a way to
get the English article translated into Urdu, as well as an Urdu version of
the article (with different, Urdu-centric content, as we have now). I'd be
interested in knowing how the French article on Sartre differed from the
English one (for example) but I don't read French.

> Second, machine language translation is typically quite poor.

There are ways to get much, much better machine translation with a little
extra effort from native speakers of the source language. If the words in an
article are part-of-speech (POS) tagged (noun, verb, adjective, preposition,
etc.) then the quality of machine translation of that text improves
dramatically.

I work for the Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania,
where I provide IT support to a group of linguists who create and distribute
the corpora (datasets) used by the researchers (both public and private) who
develop machine translation systems, automatic content-extraction systems,
and a variety of other computational linguistic systems.

If people are interested, I'll look into getting a few articles POS-tagged
(bribe a linguistics grad student with free lunch or something) and run them
through some public (grant-funded, opensource) MT systems to demo the
output. If the output is reasonable enough to offer up on the site as-is, or
with minimal corrections (maybe a few sentences) then I'd think it might be
worth considering.

As a huge (and rapidly growing) collection of GFDL-ed text, the Wikipedia is
a valuable public linguistic resource. If it could also provide a set of
parallel text in several different languages (the human-corrected versions
of machine translated articles) then it would become even more valuable, a
virtual Rosetta Stone for the modern age.

-Bill Clark


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki about every person in the world

body:
Pawe? Dembowski wrote:

>>And just to say: If every specie is notable, then every human is notable, too.
>>
>>
>The existence of every species is verifiable. It's not the case with
>every human.
>
True enough, but this may be discriminatory against citizens of the
Third World.  In the West an entry could read: "John Smith lived at
''this'' address in New York City from 1933 to 1938.  In 1937 his
telephone number was changed from "xxxxx" to "yyyyy".  Source NYC
telephone directories, 1933-1938. :-)

Ec


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2005/11/20, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:

> My criterion is simple: is there enough independantly verifiable
> information available on the person in order to make an article? If
> there is, then the subject is notable. If there isn't, the subject
> isn't notable.

So every webpage is notable? You can get information from the page itself
and from the Internet Archive.

This is also what Wikipedia policy says.

Where? Who made that policy?

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


from_name: John Platt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Preserving GFDL requirements when splitting articles

body:
On 11/19/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> when people save
> text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and
> if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright
> infringement.
> _______________________________________________

 Speaking as someone whose text has been reassigned this way, (Armageddon
2419 A. D. was incorporated into the Buck Rogers article) can't one
reasonably assume that this can and might happen? And won't that make it
harder not just to prove copyright infringement but to even discuss it as
such?


list: wikien-l

from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Interpreting merge votes (was Wikipedia's provable
	anti-expertise bias)

body:
Angela's suggestion is the best way to avoid ludicrous redirect titles
and incompatible merge and delete votes.

Mgm

On 11/20/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, GFDL quite specifically *requires* that if an article is
> > merged into another one, the old title has to be kept as a redirect in
> > order to preserve the edit history.
>
> If the old title is bad, the article can be moved to something else in
> order to keep the history of the merged information. This was what
> done for a lot of "AKFD" articles a while ago since people objected to
> the titles more than the content of those pages. If you want to merge
> [[Poisonous influences of fruit]] into [[Kumquat]], you can move
> [[Poisonous influences of fruit]] to [[Talk:Kumquat/Page history]] and
> delete the redirect from [[Poisonous influences of fruit]] without
> losing anything as long as you cite [[Talk:Kumquat/Page history]]
> somewhere so people can look up the original authors of that part of
> the article.
>
> Angela
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] .eu domains soon

body:
>Our domain applications for wikipedia.eu and wikimedia.eu have been in progress
>for a month but I am not aware of the trademark application status. Apparently
>anybody can still submit applications for those exact same domains? Not
good.

Yes, anyone can take the domain but there are policies.

>
>
>> Because of trademark issues and eu regulations concernig
>> who can apply for .eu, I'm affraid it will be a bit
>> complicated. I hope someone from the foundation can take care
>> of it.
>
>I think our legal dept needs to look at this ASAP. I?ve CCd their list.

>

I think that not only the french foundation should take care about this problem,
but also the others european foundations. When the domanin will be assigned
there are rules that will be followed if there are problems with one foundation,
another will follow in the request.

Ilario


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] .eu domains soon


subject: [Foundation-l] .eu domains soon

body:
These are the rules:

- Phase 1: If you are a holder of a registered community trademark, national
trademark, trademark licensee or a public body you should apply in this phase.

- Phase 2: If you would like to secure your company name or other rights
such as unregistered trademarks, trade names, business identifiers, protected
literary and artistic work or family names you should apply in this phase.

- General launch. (FREE)
In this phase you can apply for any name you like providing you can state
your presence within the European Community.

There will be three phases. Wikipedia should be in the first step.

Ilario

>-- Messaggio originale --
>Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 05:48:55 -0800 (PST)
>From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] .eu domains soon
>To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
>--- Jan Kulveit <jk-wikifound at ks.cz> wrote:
>> the 1st sunrise period for .eu domain registration is going
>> to begin soon - 7 December 2005
>> only domain names which are registred EU community/national
>> trademarks will be registered.
>
>Our domain applications for wikipedia.eu and wikimedia.eu have been in progress
>for a month but I am not aware of the trademark application status. Apparently
>anybody can still submit applications for those exact same domains? Not
good.
>
>
>> Because of trademark issues and eu regulations concernig
>> who can apply for .eu, I'm affraid it will be a bit
>> complicated. I hope someone from the foundation can take care
>> of it.
>
>I think our legal dept needs to look at this ASAP. I?ve CCd their list.

>
>-- mav
>
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] .eu domains soon


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Cleaning up Wikibooks

body:
> Any File wrote:
>
>> This definition is not only , in my opinion, not only cumbersome,
>> but also open a serious question: What is a textbook?
>>

It is a good question, and it seems like the original intent of
Wikibooks was to restrict itself to some form of academia.  Then
again, what that is is open to interpretation: for example, the
English courses at my university requires you to buy six novels and a
short story anthology, as they are "textbooks" in the sense of
required reading material.  Some mathematics courses here, however,
have a required textbook but is almost never used, so we can't really
call it a textbook even though it's required material.  So how a book
is used in any academic context is not part of the definition of a
textbook.

If all else fails, let's look at Wikipedia's article on textbooks: A
'''textbook''' is a [[manual]] of [[instruction]] or a standard
[[book]] in any branch of [[study]].  Let's work off of that and find
a good definition everyone can agree on.

>> Just as an example why a cookbook is not a textbook? In many school
>> cookbook are used as a textbook. Morover they are used in some small
>> lecture course about cooking.

The problem is that any culinary academy's textbooks will talk more
about the techniques of cooking rather than simply be a repository
for recipes.  Even my high school cooking textbook has absolutely
zero recipes, as you were expected to come up with something on your
own.  In comparison, Cookbook in Wikibooks is nothing but a recipe
repository, at least in the eyes of the greater community, even if
there is material on techniques.

> A joke book could be a text book for a writing course or a drama
> course about stand-up comedy
>
>> And should the subject only be limited to normal subject textbook are
>> written about?

When a lot of people think about jokebooks, they think of stuff that
is marketed for children as some form of fiction, not reference
material.  I, for one, have not seen any jokebooks intended for adult
audiences in the same vein (the large majority of them being comics
and other satirical books, not like those Q and A ones for children).

Still, comedy theory, IMO, is something that is learned and not taught.

>> For instance there exist a lot of book about chess (and many of them
>> not only dealt about chess, but are even organized in lesson). Anyway
>> I have never seen a textbook about chess (because chess is not taught
>> at school).
>>
> There have beenany number of self-teaching books about chess.  One
> type has you following a game, and rates you on the move that you
> would make in any given position.  Chess may not be a part of the
> standard curriculum in American high-schools, but there are private
> schools and schools in other countries which consider chess an
> important tool for developping critical thinking.
>

What do we consider a textbook?  Is "DOS for Dummies" a textbook?  Is
"Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" a textbook?  Most of us think of
it as reference material, and very few places I know about actually
use it as teaching material.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Moodle, newgroups for Threading

body:
>>>>> "Brion" == Brion Vibber
<brion at pobox.com> writes:

   Brion> Uwe Brauer wrote:
   >> - Would it be possible that instead of  providing a link to a
   >> discussion  page,   provide a    link  to  a  corresponding
   >> *newsgroup*. That is every   article page should   have its
   >> newsgroup (or mailing list if that would be easier.)

   Brion> I think having several million mailing lists or newsgroups
   Brion> would not be very nice. :)

I doubt it would be that many which would be really used
frequently. It might come down to several thousands (for each language
I must add) Why not? Would it really slow down anything? Any
mailinglist/newgroups are so much more convenient for discussions

Uwe


body:
Bernd Kulawik wrote:

> A) ARGUMENTS FOR A "BIOPEDIA"
>
> A.1) The main reason to start this is: There is a "market" (=
> interest) for something like this - or what do you think why there
> are all these "national Biographies" written - in dozens of volumes
> over decades - like the "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani" or the
> "Deutsche Biographie"? There are generations of people (historians
> and other researchers) working on such projects.  - Some of these
> projects, like a database on historical persons offered by a German
> publishing house (in fact, they only seem to bundle data collected
> from different scientific sources, most of them created with public
> money ...) are very expansive to users: up to 5.000 Euro per year,
> for instance, for the access to about 5.000.000 entries ...
> There is definitely a growing "market" for the (scientific) use of
> databases on persons.

All of these would probably already fit within most Wikipedians' views
of notability.  It is material that should be available for free.
5,000,000 entries is a lot of work.  This alone is more entries than are
already on Wikipedia for all languages combined.

> A.2) In addition, there is a similar "market" for genealogical data
> and research: Recently I read, that genealogy is the second largest
> "hobby horse" in the USA...

Agreed.  Some kind of genealogical skills would probably be needed to
keep it all organized.  The work of the LDS (Mormon) Church alone is
enormous; their genealogical library in Salt Lake City is an impressive
resource, and they have very liberal policies about public access to
this material.  How can our efforts best complement rather than
duplicate their work?

> A.3) Finally, such a project could help to record "oral" tradition by
> and about persons: Only a few years (or, maybe, very few decades)
> before, historians started to realize, that oral history of personal
> memories about a persons ancestor generations could be interesting as
> a "correction" to "official" history - normally written by the
> "winners". And such "data" are not only interesting for historians:
> Only remember the success of such family histories like "Roots" (as a
> book and as a movie - but the book found millions of readers before
> the movie was made ...).

Personal memoirs are indeed important resources.  They give unique
insights, but much of them are completely unverifiable.  No original
resaearch and verifiability policies would need to be modified.

> A.4) If Wikipedia is really about collecting the information and
> knowledge everyone of us can offer - why should it (or rather:
> Biopedia) not be interested in the persons themselves? Many people
> may know something about the law of Gravity, and this information may
> be virtually congruent in most cases - but the interesting different
> views on the world come from personal experience, ... this is the
> reason why people rather read novels, not of telephone books :-))
>
> A.5) Another special useful feature of such a database, IMHO, would
> be the possibility to make records of all the - innocent - people
> murdered by politics in our time who otherwise may have no chance to
> be remembered and find some sort of "justice" just by being
> "recorded" somewhere. - On the other side, personal relationships of
> "mighty" persons could be explained to the public. I know, there are
> already examples of both - databases of holocaust victims as well as
> databases of (US-american) politicians and their relationships to
> corporations, for instance. But they are virtually unknow.
> Wikipedia, with its already incredible strong position in the
> "information market", could help a "Biopedia" to be the first place
> to look for information about such persons.
>
> So, there IS an interest in people, and not only in "important" people.
> By the way - who would like to decide who is "important"? A
> grandfather who fought as a worker for better living conditions in
> his small hometown may be important on the same historical level as
> the capitalist on the other side of the figth, even though there are
> streets named and statues only for this one ...
> It is this chance to make recordings of "normal" people - who might
> be interesting once in the future or who lived a "normal" life - that
> would be a strong support for the idea of a Biopedia.

By developing this as an independent project using MediaWiki software
your own servers it will allow you and those interested in this project
the freedom to develop the policies that you need to make it viable

> B) "BIOPEDIA" AND/OR/INSIDE WIKIPEDIA?
>
> B.1) And I do not see a big problem in "separating" the data related
> to persons from Wikipedia into a "Biopedia" mentioned here.
> After all, persons are not really what is to be expected in an
> encyclopedia at all - I would rather expect it to contain information
> about notions, objects or events - things that could/should be
> learned ... just because "pedia" means that IIRC.
> Technically IMHO it cannot be a "big" problem to  "load" the data
> from an entry in the "Biopedia" into Wikipedia when they are
> requested by a user there. Entries in Wikipedia are connected by
> links - it should be no problem to load "external" documents/entries
> from another source in a "transparent" way like it can be done with
> images already in HTML.
>
> B.2) Then, why not include the Biopedia into Wikipedia - there are
> already thousands of articles on persons? Because - if the Biopedia
> really tries to collect information about living (and dead!) persons,
> it would simply "blow up" the Wikipedia with its potentially billions
> of entries. In fact, I think there should be a more restricted form
> for entries (= biographies) on persons in the Biopedia which could
> allow to reduce the amount of storage needed for a single entry, to
> "pack" the data and to make them searchable in an especially easy way.

If you put your Biopedia under a GFDL licence there should be no problem
in copying material between the two projects.

> C) PROBLEMS?
>
> C.1) The question if a person is "real" is not really a problem IMHO:
> On one side, there may be a lot of people searching in the database
> for "persons" like "James T. Kirk" -- and then be astounished, that
> he was _not_ a living being, but is a fictional character. But there
> is some useful information about this "person" - without any doubt.
> In other cases, the fictional character may have interesting
> relations to "real" persons, e.g. Anna Karenina or Effi Briest.
> On the other hand, there could be entries about historical persons
> that are impossible to verify - it might even not be clear if the
> person really existed (Zarathustra, Lao-Tse ...). But if s/he is of
> importance for other people today, there simply should be an entry.

I did a quick search using the Yahoo! People Search.  It gave me 17
people in the United States with the name "James T. Kirk"

> C.2) Would the "Biopedia" explode because of entries about persons
> like "John Doe", "Schnippi Schnappi", "Hutzli Putzli" etc.? Not
> really. First, there is hardly a chance to stop people when they want
> to create such entries in Wikipedia today. Because nobody could
> really "watch" all the new entries all the time. But these entries
> will "dry out" because of lack of interest - and if they are
> interesting to other people, then they have a right to exist like any
> other entry interesting for a group of persons.
> So, this too, is not really a problem IMHO.

Many of these weird mames DO belong to real people.  They won't dry
out.  They will probably be added in proportion to the more "serious" names.

> C.3) Privacy.
> This is the only real and a VERY BIG problem, that I see. Though
> persons of public interest like polititians, artists, jet-set  people
> ... may not be able to block entries about themselves  -  simply just
> because they ARE of public interest, normal people could  and should
> be able to do that. Therefore, there should be a mechanism  to avoid
> that people create entries about other people without their
> permission. If someone does not want to be listed with personal data,
> there should be no such entry.
> By the way - the same mechanism could be used to reduce the number of
> entries on fictional persons, too :-)

Even with a very conservative policy on privacy the excludible list will
remain very small.  No-one will be able to complain about a shortage of
work.

Ec


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 11/19/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/19/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2005/11/19, Michael Crouch <creidieki at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article
> > > moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place;
> > > feel free to point me elsewhere.
> > >
> > > Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material
> > > from one article removed and put into another article. None of the
> > > documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining
> > > the necessary authorship information.
> > >
> > > I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and
> > > [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit
> > > summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the
> > > GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to
> > > this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without
> > > making sure it was correct.
> >
> >
> > Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but
> > Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to
> > it does not differ much either.
>
> Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save
> text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and
> if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright
> infringement.

I think you'd have a tough time convincing a judge to rule that an ISP
is "guilty of copyright infringment" for simply hosting the content
which you provide for it to host.  Wikipedia isn't following the GFDL,
and it should be, but to say it's committing copyright infringment is
a different story entirely.

There is a difference here between simply hosting your content,
hosting it with modifications, copying it to a different part of
Wikipedia, and copying it to an entirely different project.  The first
is pretty obviously legal.  The second is more questionable, and you
could argue that you have a right to revoke the permission (certainly
upon any violation of the GFDL which is ongoing).  The last two are
even more legally shaky, but there are plenty of arguments that it is
legal even outside the GFDL.

Anthony


from_name: Ilya N.

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Notability of web pages and people;
	and article merging/splitting

body:
Occasionally, such as in the case of [[Google Answers]] there is merit in
keeping them seperate articles. But even though wikipedia is not paper, how
would you even go about linking to Baby Gary's family's page? (using the old
example here)

Would we have a [[List of people]] that takes up more than our current
database by itself?

And how would we verify these people if technically ssn # records (as are
others) are to be held confidential?

On 11/20/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 11/20/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2005/11/20, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
> >
> > > > So every webpage is notable? You can get information from the page
> > > itself
> > > > and from the Internet Archive.
> > >
> > > Only if there is stuff to write about it. If not, it can happily be
> > > merged into a "list of websites" or some such thing.
> >
> >
> > I was talking of web pages, not websites. And how do you decide if
> there's
> > something to write about it?
> >
> > --
> > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
>
> Just because something is notable doesn't mean it has to have its own
> separate article. I'd say most, if not all, information about web
> pages would be better off merged with something else. The way "you
> decide" if there's something to write about it is the same way "you
> decide" whether or not any bit of information improves an article or
> makes it worse, using a wiki.
>
> People, on the other hand, tend to have separate identities from one
> another, and merging generally isn't a good idea. I especially hate
> when one person is redirected to another person, and I don't think
> that should ever be done. "Baby Gary who's 3 months old" might find a
> better home on a page about his family though, at least for a while.
> But please not as a separate section unto itself.
>
> That's another pet peeve I have - when multiple different articles are
> "merged" into a single one in a way that puts each article as a
> separate headline (sometimes even with its own external links and
> other subsections). I guess this is done as a compromise between
> those who want to delete the information and those who want to keep
> it, but it seems like the worst of both worlds.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers (a redirect to [[List of
> Google services and tools]]) is an example of where this disgusting
> technique takes place. I fail to see how this is a better way of
> organizing things. A list should be a list. An article on Google
> services and tools should discuss the relationship of the tools and
> services to one another, and discuss general trends which Google is
> making, not present a bunch of separate articles stuck together on one
> page.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)


from_name: El C

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee members granted checkuser tool

body:
 -------------------------------------
Paid adminship: a non issue
-------------------------------------
Correct, no interest whatsoever (may I speak for everyone?) in the
impractical, backwards idea of a corporate-types, *Right*eous (so-called
non-political) payed admins, bureaucrats and arbitrators idea.
 > *I wasn't talking about people doing what they believe, I was talking
about refusing to consider taking on paid employee's > due to philosophical
or political predispositions. Its rather a non-issue however, since their
doesn't seem to be any interest in the idea. *

 > *Jack (Sam Spade)*
 --------------------------------------------
Trustworthy appeal: higher power
-------------------------------------------
To a higher power: Jimbo's wife (or possibly even the Wikipedia community)!

> > *To Who? *
> >* Jack (Sam Spade) *

>* Jimbo wouldn't have appointed them to the arbcom if he didn't
believe*>* them to be trustworthy. If you believe he was mistaken, dig
up the*>* evidence and appeal his decision.*>**>* --Mgm*

-----------------------------------------------------------
Cite sources? Yes, we can help you with that:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Same in my uni and any uni. I'd also grade lower those students who cite
Wikipedia as I have in the past for other unreliable internet sources (if
they use diffs, though, they'd get bonus marks).
  But of course, students gain insights from Wikipedia articles all the time
without needing to cite them directly, especially when those articles are
carefuly sourced thereby easily leading to more in-depth works, while at the
same time, providing a basic, encyclopedic orientation with the given
material.
  The point is that knowledge (free or otherwise) is far from limited to
manifesting itself in such a linear, rigid way. Good students (not to
mention researchers) are able to adopt creative research methods without
losing their focus, opportunities which Wikipedia offers in abundance.
 As for the "professional" or mildly offensive amateur/wannabe academics,
they also are deep within our midst. As of course are the violently
offensive commies. Now that's a lot of food for thought!

El_C

>* > The academics at my uni think the wikipedia is mildly offensive,
in*>* > the sense that they enjoy being paid to write*>* >
books/journals/whathaveyou, and don't enjoy seeing amateurs giving
it*>* > away for free. Because of this, and our noticable failings,
students*>* > are penalised if they attempt to cite the wikipedia as a
source at my*>* > uni.*>* >*>* > I just now returned from an 8 hour
seminar wherein we were repeatedly*>* > informed that free,
non-governmental information on the internet is*>* > dubious at best,
and should be avoided for anything other than*>* > commercial or
general knowledge queries. Instead, the online*>* > university
database was praised (it includes a subscription to*>* > britannica,
btw ;)*>* >*>* > Jack (Sam Spade)*

>* Well, I'd've gotten penalized for citing Wikipedia too, but I'd
also*>* have gotten penalized for citing Britannica. However, various
features*>* of Wikipedia made it much better as a quick study aid than
the more*>* academically respectable references, and no one was ever
the wiser.*>* And it is good as a study aid -- but most university
students I know*>* *need* to be cautioned that not everything they
read on the internet*>* that looks legit is true. (I love Wikipedia,
and I am an optimist,*>* but, well...)*>**>* -Kat*>*
[[User:Mindspillage]]*>* wannabe academic*>**>* --*>* "There was a
point to this story, but it has temporarily*>* escaped the
chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams*


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Extending Wikipedia with Java-based technology?

body:
Max Voelkel wrote:
>   2.
>   Syntax. We had to extend the syntax slightly to enable annotations
>   of links and data values. Currently we settled down to use
>
>     [[link type::link target|optional alternate label]]
>
>     Sample, on page "London":  ... is in [[located in::England]] ...
>     Renders as:    ... is in England ....  (England = Linked)
>
>   for relations, and for attributes.
>
>     [[attribute type:=data value with unit|optional alternate label]]
>
>     Sample, on page "London": ... rains on [[rain:=234 days/year]] ....
>     Renders as  .... rains on 234 days/year  (nothing linked)
>
Why not make a nice extension, and wrap it in templates?

<semantic_attribute>
key=rain
value=234
unit=days/year
label=sometext
</semantic_attribute>

which can be generated by

{{attribute|rain|234|days/year|sometext}}

The extension can hold a table of default units and labels, in case they
are omitted:

{{attribute|rain|234| | }} uses "unit=days/year" and "label=rains on
VALUE UNIT", because of key "rain".

An extension could also extract the attribute list and display it in the
sidebar, like language links, instead or in addition to displaying them
inline.

Instead of the special link syntax, a similar extension called by
{{linkto|target|type|label}} could be used.

Magnus


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 11/20/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> *'''Merge''' [[Poisonous influences of fruit]] into [[Kumquat]] and
> delete. Good content, but it doesn't stand alone well and it's at a
> misleading title.
>
> I just made that up but I can easily imagine a case where something like
> this would be worth doing. As for whether it's "hijacking" a vote, I'm
> not sure what you mean. If an article got one third "keep" votes, one
> third unqualified "merge" votes, and one third "delete" votes, should it
> be deleted or not?

"Merge and delete" is specifically prohibited as a vote.  It is
legally impossible.

If an article gets one third to keep, one third to merge, and one
third to delete, there is no consensus.  So it is kept as no
consensus, but not as a keep.  However, I would, as an editor,
subsequently merge the former article into the latter, for exactly
your reasons.

Is merging the same as keeping? No, plainly not.  So the vote should
not be enterpreted as such.

--
Sam


subject: [Wikitech-l] [WikiEN-l] Status of article rating feature?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'm tweaking, fixing, and reworking various bits of it (display
> formatting fixes, better code reuse, using revision IDs instead of
> unreliable timestamps in places, etc).
>
> Will try to have it ready to try out tomorrowish.
>
*THANK YOU* (imagine sound of released breath :-)

BTW, I used a combination of revision IDs and timestamps, because you
told me the revision IDs can get out of order through
deleting/undeleting revisions, and I wanted them in correct order no
matter what. If revision IDs suffice, great.

Magnus


body:
On 11/20/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/11/20, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
>
> > My criterion is simple: is there enough independantly verifiable
> > information available on the person in order to make an article? If
> > there is, then the subject is notable. If there isn't, the subject
> > isn't notable.
>
> So every webpage is notable? You can get information from the page itself
> and from the Internet Archive.

Only if there is stuff to write about it.  If not, it can happily be
merged into a "list of websites" or some such thing.

> This is also what Wikipedia policy says.
>
>
> Where? Who made that policy?

Sorry, I was less that clear.  The only reasons Wikipedia policy gives
for deletion are WP:NOT and WP:V.  I am just using the rules as they
stand.

--
Sam


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was How
	didthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >The facts therein can almost always be written into the text of the
> >article.  If they can't, the fact is almost certainly too irrelevant
> >to mention.
> >
> >
> We're not building an encyclopedia of pomposity!

Please find me a piece of trivia that cannot be happily written into
the article but that is worth saying.

--
Sam


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
	Howdidthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
On 11/20/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> That looks like a different premise contributing to our disagreement,
> then, because I'd count that as "keeping" the article and therefore as
> the merge vote being interpreted as "keep". A vote that wasn't
> interpreted as either keep or delete would just be equivalent to a
> "comment" or somesuch.

You're talking from a black and white point of view.  I'm talking from
a greyscale (or perhaps even 24-bit colour) view.  I say merge is
separate from keep.  People who vote "merge" clearly don't mean
"keep", because otherwise *they'd have damn well said it*.  So don't
appropriate votes to suit your point of view.

> > Worl, ideally, if an admin closes '''merge''', she'd either
> >   a) do the merge herself, or
> >   b) tag both articles for merging
> >
> > Perhaps that's too much effort, I dunno.  I'm not an admin.  I know I
> > haven't done very many merges off my own bat, too.
>
> Ideally, sure, but I wouldn't necessarily consider this to be an
> official part of "closing" the AfD. Merging articles is in the same
> class of actions as fixing spellings or reorganizing paragraphs within a
> page, a general editing task that doesn't require the sort of rigid
> officialism that deletion has wound up needing. I've done plenty of
> merges on my own when I stumble across pages that I think need it, and
> ideally pages that needed merging would never be listed on AfD in the
> first place since that's explicitly mentioned in the deletion guidelines
> as something that doesn't warrant AfD.

On the contrary, I think it is entirely the closing admin's duty to
put the merge and mergefrom tages on the pages.  It is only slightly
longer than doing a standard delete or keep, and clearly benefits the
encyclopaedia as a whole.

I agree that pages that need merging don't need AfD, but sometimes AfD
gives pages that need merging.  Are you really going to take the
rules-lawyer approach and say that an AfD cannot give a merge
consensus?  That is what you might call "rigid officialism".

--
Sam


body:
On 11/20/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Sam,
>
> > On 11/19/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>everybody considers a merge vote as a de-facto keep vote, because
> >>thats what the rules say. If they think otherwise they are mistaken.
> >
> > Please cite this rule and tell me which everyone thinks this.  I had
> > thought "everybody" meant that all the members of a community, or at
> > least a very large supermajority.  Once again, I fear you are moulding
> > the facts until they become *your* facts.
> >
> > The rules do *not* say that merge == keep.
>
> I think it depends whether you look at it from a content- or page-based
> POV.  Those who want merges generally want the content kept, so they
> can't be considered fans of deletion.  However, they certainly don't
> want the page kept (indeed, some will even ask for the article to be
> deleted, rather than left as a redirect ... presumably this will involve
> some ultra-complicated wacky history merge thing).
>
> It's not accurate to say that merge == keep *or* that merge == delete.
> Merge == merge.  Fortunately, it's usually the people pushing an
> "inclusionist" or "deletionist" view that take the "merges should be
> reinterpreted" line, and not the closing admins.
>
> In any case, at the end of the day, it's just an article on a website
> (albeit, a super-mega-happy-awesome website).  I'm not going to lose any
> sleep over a page being kept, deleted, merged, BJOADNed, or anything
> else (well, I might get upset if [[Lang Hancock]] is deleted ...).

Well said, Mark.

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654/Raul%27s_laws

Jacqui's law: the longer a user spends time in polls and/or debates,
the more he or she will see each question as a binary of delete or
keep.

--
Sam


body:
On 11/20/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was talking of web pages, not websites. And how do you decide if there's
> something to write about it?

Trying?

--
Sam


body:
On 11/20/05, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> There's plenty of stuff that can be written about non-notable
> websites.
> I wrote this, for example:
> http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/index.php?title=Duck_and_Cover
> but I don't think it should ever be in Wikipedia.

I don't see why it couldn't be, if it can be adequately and externally
sourced and rewritten to an encyclopaedic style.

--
Sam


body:
Bill Clark wrote:

>NOTE: I am replying to an older article because it was the most recent
>thread I could find in my archives on the topic. I think Jimmy's comments
>accurately reflect those of most people's (justified) low opinion of raw
>(unaided) machine translation output.
>
>On 8/9/04, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>>First, it is important to understand that for the most part, the
>>individual
>>wikipedia languages are not mere translations.
>>
>>
>Perhaps they should be, or more precisely, perhaps there should be a way to
>get the English article translated into Urdu, as well as an Urdu version of
>the article (with different, Urdu-centric content, as we have now). I'd be
>interested in knowing how the French article on Sartre differed from the
>English one (for example) but I don't read French.
>
What is notable is the the Sartre and other articles in French and
English are independently written rather than one being the translation
of the other. At first glance the Spanish version appears to be a
translation from English, and It is conceivable that one or more of the
37 other current versions of the Sartre article are translations, but
I'm not in a position to verify that because of my limited knowledge of
these languages. The Urdu version has not yet been written.

Looking at the brief introductory paragraph, and the first biography
paragraph we have in English

> Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (1905
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905>-06-21
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_21> ? 1980
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980>-04-15
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_15>) was a French
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France> existentialist
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism> philosopher
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher>, dramatist
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright>, novelist
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelist> and critic
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_criticism>.

>
>     Early life and thought
>
> Sartre was born in Paris <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> to
> parents Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_officer> of the French Navy
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Navy>, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer,
> cousin of Albert Schweitzer
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer>. When he was 15
> months old, his father died of a fever
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fever> and Anne-Marie raised him with
> help from her father, Charles Schweitzer, who taught Sartre
> mathematics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics> and introduced
> him to classical literature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics> at
> an early age.
>
In French we have

> Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> 21 juin
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_juin> 1905
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905> - Paris 15 avril
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_avril> 1980
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980>) est un philosophe
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophe> et ?crivain fran?ais
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89crivains_Fran%C3%A7ais_Par_Ordre_Alphab%C3%A9tique>.
>
> [
> Biographie
>
> N? ? Paris <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> le 21 juin
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_juin> 1905
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905>, Sartre est orphelin de p?re ?
> deux ans et grandit ? Paris <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris>, dans
> un milieu bourgeois et intellectuel. Il fait ses ?tudes secondaires au
> lyc?e Henri IV <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyc%C3%A9e_Henri_IV>, o?
> il fait la connaissance de Paul Nizan
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nizan>.
>
which translates as

    Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris, June 21, 1905 - Paris, April 15, 1980) is a
    French philosopher and writer

    Biography

    Born in Paris on June 21, 1905, Sartre was paternally orphaned at
    two years old and grew up in Paris, in a bourgeois and intellectual
    environment. His secondary studies were done at the Lyc?e Henri IV,
    where he became acquainted with Paul Nizan

It is interesting to note that reference to the Schweitzer family
appears nowhere in the French article, and Paul Nizan appears nowhere in
the English article!

>>Second, machine language translation is typically quite poor.
>>
>>
>There are ways to get much, much better machine translation with a little
>extra effort from native speakers of the source language. If the words in an
>article are part-of-speech (POS) tagged (noun, verb, adjective, preposition,
>etc.) then the quality of machine translation of that text improves
>dramatically.
>
>
I agree that there are ways to improve machine translations, but it
strikes me as impossible for machines to reconcile the cultural gaps
which may exist between language versions. That requires the
intervention of thinking humans.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] need to work out clear policies on MANDATORY and
	OPTIONAL rules on WP

body:
On 11/20/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:Are we really going to say that a
> naming convention is more important than the community?
>
> If you want to create a credible encyclop?dia and not a semi-literate, semi-credible, semi-accurate joke. YES.
>
>  If you simply want to be in a community, go to a chat room.

I'm not talking about the happiness of the community, I'm talking
about its decisions.

I think you have this debate out of proportion.

--
Sam


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: need to work out clear policies on
	MANDATORYandOPTIONAL

body:
On 11/20/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
>  If WP wants to be taken seriously as a credible sourcebook then it has got to apply credible, objective uniform standards, not make-it-up-as-we-go-along rules that change depending on who votes what way on individual pages that act like semi-independent republics in what they decide.

I think "edit this page" was a pretty bad place to start for
establishing ourselves as a credible sourcebook.  Do you seriously,
seriously think someone would be put off Wikipedia because its article
is entitled C?te d'Ivoire?

Get real.

--
Sam


body:
On 11/20/05, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> Then we're guilty of quite a bit of copyright infringement.

Yes.

--
Sam


body:
Additionally, how would you go about duplicate names?

Let's say we have two John Smiths -- both lived in New York... fine...make a
disambig, right?

Now what if we have 300 of them all across the country...

Disambig pages would get huge!

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee members granted checkuser
	tool

body:
Jack Lynch stated for the record:
> Those who refuse to consider the option of incentive are violently
> objectionable.

Thanks for the warning that you consider violence an acceptable part of
your objection.  I will bear that in mind if I ever make the mistake of
meeting you.

--
  Sean Barrett     | I lost my Internet.
  sean at epoptic.org | Can you send me another one?


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 19 Nov 2005 at 23:37, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/19/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> > If you want to create a credible encyclopdia and not a
> > semi-literate, semi-credible, semi-accurate joke. YES.
>
> This is rather disproportionate, don't you think?  I am rather
> surprised that a little debate of which of two names for a small
> African country should be used, either of which would be quite IMO
> acceptable as an article title, is creating this much heat.  Wikipedia
> will not seem more or less literate, credible or accurate because we
> use [[Cote d'Ivoire]] instead of [[Ivory Coast]], or the other way
> round.

...but it *will* seem less professional and more childish if
outsiders find out about all the silly bickering that has gone on
regarding this name dispute.

--
== 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: Bryan Derksen

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 11/20/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>That looks like a different premise contributing to our disagreement,
>>then, because I'd count that as "keeping" the article and therefore as
>>the merge vote being interpreted as "keep". A vote that wasn't
>>interpreted as either keep or delete would just be equivalent to a
>>"comment" or somesuch.
>>
>>
>You're talking from a black and white point of view.  I'm talking from
>a greyscale (or perhaps even 24-bit colour) view.  I say merge is
>separate from keep.  People who vote "merge" clearly don't mean
>"keep", because otherwise *they'd have damn well said it*.  So don't
>appropriate votes to suit your point of view.
>
>
Yes, I know, I already explicitly said I was seeing this as a black and
white issue. And as I explained, I believe that it fundamentally _is_
black and white; at the end of the day the closing admin will either
press the "delete" link or he won't press the "delete" link. Merge votes
push that decision in the "don't press the delete link" direction, and
so they look more like keep votes than delete votes to me. This isn't an
attempt to "appropriate" them, just pointing out what their actual
effect is. I don't see why this is such a matter of contention.

>I agree that pages that need merging don't need AfD, but sometimes AfD
>gives pages that need merging.  Are you really going to take the
>rules-lawyer approach and say that an AfD cannot give a merge
>consensus?  That is what you might call "rigid officialism".
>
>
When did I ever say that? If an AfD comes along and lots of people
suggest merging the article into some other article, then it would take
a pretty strange interpretation of rules to try to forbid merging the
article after the AfD is done simply because AfD's not supposed to be
used solely to make those decisions. People also suggest things like
"clean up spelling" or "remove the bright purple tables" or whatever,
and those are often good ones too. My point is that if there's an AfD
and lots of people suggest merging the article, that shouldn't be taken
to mean that the article should be _deleted_.


body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 11/20/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>They should be voting "merge and delete", then. If they just vote
>>"merge" then calling that a delete vote is itself putting words into
>>mouths, whereas keeping is the default.
>>
>>
>Merge and delete is not a possible vote.  People should not have to
>vote in such a specific way to prevent vote-hijacking.
>
>
People can vote any way they want.  If people vote that way then it's
possible.  I don't know anything about the "vote-hijacking" jargon that
you are trying to introduce.

Ec


body:
On 20 Nov 2005 at 4:39, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wasn't talking about people doing what they believe, I was talking
> about refusing to consider taking on paid employee's due to
> philosophical or political predispositions. Its rather a non-issue
> however, since their doesn't seem to be any interest in the idea.
[top-posting snipped]

Since when is doing things by volunteer effort rather than by paid
staff "communist" in nature?  Does that make all nonprofit activities
done without pay "communist"?

--
== 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/


body:
2005/11/20, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:

> > So every webpage is notable? You can get information from the page
> itself
> > and from the Internet Archive.
>
> Only if there is stuff to write about it. If not, it can happily be
> merged into a "list of websites" or some such thing.

I was talking of web pages, not websites. And how do you decide if there's
something to write about it?

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


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

body:
> Only if there is stuff to write about it.  If not, it can happily be
> merged into a "list of websites" or some such thing.

There's plenty of stuff that can be written about non-notable
websites.
I wrote this, for example:
http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/index.php?title=Duck_and_Cover
but I don't think it should ever be in Wikipedia.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


subject:
[WikiEN-l] need to work out clear policies onMANDATORYandOPTIONAL
	rules on WP

body:
Tom Cadden wrote:

>Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Francophones are not a signifact part of the english speaking community
>>
>>
>What does that have to do with it?
>
>That is patiently obvious.
>
So now the resolution of the issue depends on who has the greatest patience.

>French language usage does not impact on English users. If something is being targeted at English language users then the concerns of French speakers are irrelevant, as are the concerns of English language speakers when writing in French for French language speakers.
>
>
In a bilingual country each has an influence on the other.

Ec


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Sam,

> On 11/19/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>everybody considers a merge vote as a de-facto keep vote, because
>>thats what the rules say. If they think otherwise they are mistaken.
>
> Please cite this rule and tell me which everyone thinks this.  I had
> thought "everybody" meant that all the members of a community, or at
> least a very large supermajority.  Once again, I fear you are moulding
> the facts until they become *your* facts.
>
> The rules do *not* say that merge == keep.

I think it depends whether you look at it from a content- or page-based
POV.  Those who want merges generally want the content kept, so they
can't be considered fans of deletion.  However, they certainly don't
want the page kept (indeed, some will even ask for the article to be
deleted, rather than left as a redirect ... presumably this will involve
some ultra-complicated wacky history merge thing).

It's not accurate to say that merge == keep *or* that merge == delete.
Merge == merge.  Fortunately, it's usually the people pushing an
"inclusionist" or "deletionist" view that take the "merges should be
reinterpreted" line, and not the closing admins.

In any case, at the end of the day, it's just an article on a website
(albeit, a super-mega-happy-awesome website).  I'm not going to lose any
sleep over a page being kept, deleted, merged, BJOADNed, or anything
else (well, I might get upset if [[Lang Hancock]] is deleted ...).

Cheers,

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.4/175 - Release Date: 18/11/2005


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
	How	didthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>The facts therein can almost always be written into the text of the
>>>article.  If they can't, the fact is almost certainly too irrelevant
>>>to mention.
>>>
>>>
>>We're not building an encyclopedia of pomposity!
>>
>>
>Please find me a piece of trivia that cannot be happily written into
>the article but that is worth saying.
>
Whether a particular trivium is written into the text of an article or
in a separate section at the end is not an issue for me.  If it has been
accepted as worth saying it can be in either place.

Ec


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright

body:
Hi,

Le Wednesday 16 November 2005 23:48, David Newton a ??crit :
> Ray Santionage wrote:
> >>I've recently been in a discussion on the Wikisource website and I
> >>would like some definitive answers about the licence that the text of
> >>Wikisource is under and also about the policy with respect to fair use
> >>on Wikisource. I've posted this question here as there is no dedicated
> >>Wikisource mailing list that I can find.
> >
> >In law there is seldom a definitive answer.  If you are looking for a
> >simple solution it's not going to happen.  If somebody gives you one it
> >is no solution.  Applying GFDL depends on whether that application is
> >necessary.  Public domain, fair use and licenses are applied
> >cumulatively, and not in a mutually exclusive fashion.  When someone
> >puts a copyright notice on a web page or a book it really only means
> >copyright to the extent that it is copyrightable; it clearly does not
> >mean that everything on that page or book is copyright.  It may very
> >well be that the only thing copyright about a page is its general layout
> >and format, and that would be reason enough to add a copyright notice.
> >The public domain or fair use nature of material is not modified by the
> >application of a GFDL statement.  Being in the public domain obviates
> >fair use claims.
>
> I'm not asking for a definitive answer under law of the implications
> that the licence that Wikisource is under entails. I'm asking for a
> definitive answer about what licence the text of Wikisource is under.
> The text of the Wikipedia is under the GFDL, there is no question of
> that. There is a question as to whether Wikisource text must be GFDL,
> GFDL-compatible or public domain, ie the same conditions as apply to
> text posted to the Wikipedia, or whether those restrictions are not in
> place. It is a straightforward question and if there is not a
> straightforward answer we have a serious problem with Wikisource's
> copyright situation.

It is clear that most of the documents in Wikisource are under public domain,
because their copyright has expired. A few new documents are under free
licences (GFDL??or CC) or public domain when the author decided to release
them in that way.

I??think fair use doesn't apply to any document in Wikisource because these are
published in their entirety.

> >When considering the copyrightability of UN resolutions, or all UN
> >documents for that matter, what law do you apply?  Is there a UN
> >Copyright Act?  In the absence of such a law can any UN document be
> >copyright?

I??copy the answer from JB Soufron below:

"Actually, the texts on the website of the UN are copyrighted by the UN as
mentionned on [the copyright notice]. It is forbidden to reproduce these
texts except in the limit mentionned in their [terms of use]. To put it
siply, this basic license allow people to reproduce the texts but not to
modify them, which seems normal since these are legal texts and that
distributing modified versions could induce people in error. I think that
wikisource could make a good use of these texts if they come with a proper
disclaimer. --Soufron 11:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)"

Personally, I??don't see anything useful in copying UN??resolutions on
Wikisource. The UN web site is certainly as much as available Wikisource, so
I don't understand why we should copy anything from it, since we can't modify
anything in these texts anyway.

[cut]
> As for fair use, I have posted in the Scriptorium and the response has
> disappointed me to say the least. The responses that I have received
> have been contrary to the policy of Wikisource as set out at
> [[Wikisource: Copyright]] and they indicate to me that the people
> concerned do not have a deep understanding of copyright law, or if
> they do they choose to ignore those bits of copyright law that they do
> not like. The argument for fair use applying to entire documents in
> incredibly weak, and no account seems to be take of that fact.

Agreed.

> David Newton

Regards,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/20/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>    Brion> Uwe Brauer wrote:
>    >> - Would it be possible that instead of  providing a link to a
>    >> discussion  page,   provide a    link  to  a  corresponding
>    >> *newsgroup*. That is every   article page should   have its
>    >> newsgroup (or mailing list if that would be easier.)
>
>    Brion> I think having several million mailing lists or newsgroups
>    Brion> would not be very nice. :)
>
> I doubt it would be that many which would be really used
> frequently. It might come down to several thousands (for each language
> I must add) Why not? Would it really slow down anything? Any
> mailinglist/newgroups are so much more convenient for discussions

Part of the point is that all pages should have a single talk area
available so that users have a nice consistent way to discuss the
article.  Many pages talks are used infrequently but they are still
used.... a non-wiki talk page would just become a spam trap as users
couldn't remove spam as they do today.   Personally I don't find
mailinglists or newsgroups any more convenient, and I think the wiki
editing practice is much needed by our users.


body:
G'day Bryan,
> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>> It's not accurate to say that merge == keep *or* that merge == delete.
>> Merge == merge.  Fortunately, it's usually the people pushing an
>> "inclusionist" or "deletionist" view that take the "merges should be
>> reinterpreted" line, and not the closing admins.
>
> They do have to interpret it one way or the other, though, since except
> in the rare case of history merges it comes down to a binary decision of
> either pressing the "delete" link or _not_ pressing the "delete" link.
> Merge votes push the result one way or the other, don't they?
>
> Perhaps we're talking at cross-purposes through differing
> interpretations of exactly what is meant by "keeping" an article or
> "deleting" it? It seems like a very black-and-white situation to me.

Worl, ideally, if an admin closes '''merge''', she'd either
   a) do the merge herself, or
   b) tag both articles for merging

Perhaps that's too much effort, I dunno.  I'm not an admin.  I know I
haven't done very many merges off my own bat, too.

With "vote" interpretation, obviously if one "merge vote" was the
difference between keeping and deleting, it'd be a no consensus keep
(er, I hope).  That doesn't mean that "merge" is being interpreted as
"keep", it just means that there's no consensus to delete outright.

Cheers,

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.4/175 - Release Date: 18/11/2005


body:
On 11/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> BTW, I used a combination of revision IDs and timestamps, because you
> told me the revision IDs can get out of order through
> deleting/undeleting revisions, and I wanted them in correct order no
> matter what. If revision IDs suffice, great.

Ee. What happens if we delete a page then restore all but one version?
Do the validates become off by one?


body:
On 11/20/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Websites and webpages are a much different story than people.  I can't
> think of any reason to ever have an entire article about a web page.
> Maybe you could prove me wrong, though.
>
> For websites on the other hand it really depends on how longstanding
> the site is.  But if the site is longstanding enough to have been
> written about in acceptable third-party sources then it's probably big
> enough to include in an encyclopedia.
>
> Duck and Cover is definitely something I'd like to see in Wikipedia.
> I'm not sure how much *could* be said about it that would fall under
> the rules of NPOV, verifiability, and no original research (in fact,
> though it claims to have been made in 1998 Internet Archive only goes
> back to 2004), but assuming the facts in the article could be fact
> checked, I think it should be included (and therefore, it is notable).

I wasn't quite expecting to, but I entirely agree with you here.

--
Sam


body:
On 11/20/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> A merge vote means "merge the content elsewhere and then create a
> redirect".  Someone who votes merge doesn't want the page deleted,
> they want the content merged elsewhere. It's important to understand
> this, because if we copy content and then delete the original article,
> we are violating the GFDL by failing to preserve the edit history.
> Instead, we merge content and create a redirect.
>
> Consequently, there is no need for the closing administrator to count
> "merge" as anything but a keep vote. Someone who votes merge wants the
> article kept, because the article must be kept in order to merge the
> content and comply with the GFDL.
>
> Ryan

How do you know that they want the article kept?  AfD is only binary
because of the polarising forces of the "inclusionists" and
"deletionists".  It needn't be so.  A vote to merge is a vote to
merge.  It may have other results, such as forcing a no-consensus.  It
is not acceptable for anyone to say otherwise.  If someone means
something other than what they write, let them say it.  Don't say "I
know more than you, and merging means letting some information stay,
as does keeping, therefore keeping == merging, therefore I can
enterpret your vote as a 'keep'".

Would you enterpret "Redirect" as a keep?  The information is, after
all, kept in the article history.

--
Sam


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 11/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Max Voelkel wrote:
> >   2.
> >   Syntax. We had to extend the syntax slightly to enable annotations
> >   of links and data values. Currently we settled down to use
> >
> >     [[link type::link target|optional alternate label]]
> >
> >     Sample, on page "London":  ... is in [[located in::England]] ...
> >     Renders as:    ... is in England ....  (England = Linked)
> >
> >   for relations, and for attributes.
> >
> >     [[attribute type:=data value with unit|optional alternate label]]
> >
> >     Sample, on page "London": ... rains on [[rain:=234 days/year]] ....
> >     Renders as  .... rains on 234 days/year  (nothing linked)
> >
> Why not make a nice extension, and wrap it in templates?
>
> <semantic_attribute>
> key=rain
> value=234
> unit=days/year
> label=sometext
> </semantic_attribute>
>
> which can be generated by
>
> {{attribute|rain|234|days/year|sometext}}

In the current parser that would not be possible, you can't pass
template arguments to extensions. Also, if it's inline it's likelier
to get updated.


from_name: Jürgen Herz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikimedia Servers and Organization

body:
Hello,

>> But like all other clusters too, the load is very unequally
>> distributed over the machines. For example the Yahoo! squids showed
>> yf1003 9.39, yf1000 7.60, yf1004 1.60, yf1002 1.44, yf1001 0.73
>> at noon (UTC) today and similar load values (albeit with a different
>> distribution) at other times.
>
> That's just ordinary random variation. The 15 minute load average is much
> more closely clustered than the 1 minute load average.

Oh, indeed. Without switching to load_fifteen it's hard to see in the
cluster overview.

>> Or the Apaches in Florida:
>> 16 Apaches with load around 15, 9 between 1.5 and 2, 8 between 1 and
>> 1.5 and 10 less than 1.
>>
>> Where does this come from, or is this wanted? Wouldn't a more balanced
>> load be better?
>
> The apache load figures are unreliable at the moment because there is a
> number of hung processes on each machine waiting for an NFS share that is
> never going to start working again.

Comparing the servers named in bug 3869 - yes, those are those showing
constantly very high loads.

> The crucial thing to avoid in load balancing is a wide divergence in request
> service time, wide enough to be user-visible. At the moment, we don't seem
> to have that, except in a few special cases. A couple of hundred
> milliseconds divergence is acceptable, it's when you get into the seconds
> that you have a problem.
>
> This is data from the last 24 hours or so:
> [...]
> Humboldt and rose need attention, but I wouldn't worry about the rest.

Hm, yes, that's right.

As I noticed on Friday already all machines CPU usage (user+system) is
only at about 60% in the long time mean. That looks ok.

> This was an intentional part of our architecture. Local squid clusters serve
> local users, this reduces latency due to network round-trip time (RTT). Of
> course, this only makes sense if that network RTT (200ms or so) is greater
> than the local service time due to high load. Hopefully we can fix our squid
> software problems and add more squid hardware to Florida (which is the only
> site where it truly seems to be lacking), and thus maintain this design.
> Spreading load across servers distributed worldwide is cheaper but
> necessarily slower than the alternative of minimising distance between cache
> and user.

The RTT between me (Germany) to knams is the same as to pmtpa (around
60ms) but it's 350ms to yaseo. That's of course a lot higher, but if
they would have the right data available, this would be still a lot
faster than the dozent seconds (if not timing out) the knams Squids need
to deliver pages.

I must admit it's not always slow but if, it is constantly for a longer
time (mostly in the evening hours). But then I can't see noticeable
problems on Ganglia. I mean I know that Wikipedia's servers have to
serve a lot requests and they increased constantly (judging from the
graphs at NOC) but if it's slow there's no higher load, not more
requests or so - strange.
Maybe it's some internal reason like waiting for NFS server or so, but
I'm sure you'll make it work smooth again.

> It might interest you to know that as soon as I came to terms with the fact
> that the knams cluster would be idle at night, I promoted the idea of using
> that idle CPU time for something useful, like non-profit medical research.
> We've now clocked up 966 work units for Folding at Home:
>
> http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=wikimedia%2Eorg

Oh, that's nice indeed. If something hinders a reasonable worldwide
useage, that's surely the right thing to do with the processing power.

>> 3. I read about new machines srv51-70. Where do they come from? Can't
>> see a recent order for them or they are mentioned on
>> [[meta:Wikimedia_servers]].
>
> No idea. I just use the things.

Ah, so it must be great seeing 20 servers disappear suddenly to use. ;-)

J?rgen


body:
On 11/20/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>    Gregory> Part of the point is that all pages should have a single
>    Gregory> talk area available so that users have a nice consistent
>    Gregory> way to discuss the article.  Many pages talks are used
>    Gregory> infrequently but they are still used.... a non-wiki talk
>    Gregory> page would just become a spam trap as users couldn't
>    Gregory> remove spam as they do today.  Personally I don't find
>    Gregory> mailinglists or newsgroups any more convenient, and I
>    Gregory> think the wiki editing practice is much needed by our
>    Gregory> users.
>
> Oops you have not been on wiki-discussion pages say of size 0.2 M,
> which frequent comments. Just to add a comment to check whether I have
> used the wikipedia syntax correctly is not very time consuming (but the small
> delay gives me an excuse to complain).

Sure I've been on large talk pages, thought I generally archive off
the inactive sections once they get that large!

>     - I can write this reply change its  format indenting and the
>       like at will,

You can change the indenting on a wikipage, and someone walking into a
discussion later doesn't need to waste their time seeing 100x
duplication of text as people quote it since there is only one topmost
copy.

>     - and have not to bother whether my reply gets edited

Sorry, but the communities need to remove spam and to refactor and
otherwise focus conversations trumps your paranoia about your comments
being edited.

If we distrust our fellow editors so much that we must worry about
them editing our comments on a system that preserves complete revision
history, then we have already lost and should just give up.

>     - and the  list offer me a reasonable  threading such  that I
>       can find my posting and the relevant answers in an instant.

Whats wrong with searching for your signature or reading in diff mode?

> And these points you don't find convenient?

I don't think any of them are sufficiently compelling or unachievable
with the existing behavior that a change would be justified.


subject: [Wikitech-l] machine translaton of the articles...

body:
On 11/20/05, Bill Clark <wclarkxoom at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> There are ways to get much, much better machine translation with a little
> extra effort from native speakers of the source language. If the words in an
> article are part-of-speech (POS) tagged (noun, verb, adjective, preposition,
> etc.) then the quality of machine translation of that text improves
> dramatically.
[snip]

I've been making a little effort on and off again to improve the
parsability of Wikipedia articles by Link Grammar
(http://bobo.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/). Generally the formal style used
on most articles provides easy material for link grammar to correctly
parse and most of the statements that unparsable are clear grammatical
or spelling mistakes.

Generally the two biggest sources of parse errors which can not be
attributed to an obvious mistake that I've run into using link grammar
is the omission of the serial comma, and subject area verbs which are
not in my dictionary.  I'm not sure why the serial comma isn't
required in the manual of style as it's omission sometimes causes
human readers to incorrectly group objects.

I think that machine readability for Wikipedia should be a long term
goal, even if we do not intend to use it to facilitate translation.
Generally text which is machine parsable without markup also tends to
be more easily readable by human readers who have widely varying
levels of skill. Once we factor in the improvements in searching,
translation, and machine intelligence, the desirability of machine
parsibility becomes more clear.

For example, I've toyed with making my content filtering bot (output
available on freenode irc in #wikipedia-suspectedits) use link grammar
to parse sentences and detect when someone has negated/inverted the
meaning of a sentence. Unfortunately I can't put this into production
on my bot because the machine parsability of Wikipedia is currently
too low, and link-grammar's performance on difficult to parse text is
currently too low.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias

body:
On 11/18/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> They're going to think it's patchy, aren't they?

I'm not so much interested in what they think of it in terms of
"quality" but as an overall resource. For example:

1. Do they get the impression that undergraduate students turn to
Wikipedia as a resource?
2. Does Wikipedia influence student work or thinking for the better or
for the worse?
3. Does Wikipedia ever come up in class discussions? In what contexts?
4. Have they themselves ever looked at Wikipedia? What were their impressions?

...and so forth. "Accuracy" and "quality" are here only one part of a
larger question of how something as increasingly prevalent as
Wikipedia interacts with the academic community and academic model.

> Most academics are remarkably poor at popularization.  They write as
> experts, for experts.  Any technical slip will catch their eye, before all
> the work going into access and presentation.

I think that's an unfair exaggeration. Most academics are also smart
enough to know the difference between technical work and popular work.
They know what is a reasonable expectation for an encyclopedia
article, as compared to a monograph. They have pretty low standards
for the internet as a whole.

In general I think it's a better idea to actually ask academics what
they think rather than just assume for the worst using stereotypes of
the uptight and absent-minded professor. I'd avise against getting too
pulled in into ridiculous ivory tower parodies, especially if our
upcoming Wikimania is receiving so much generous support from a number
of academic communities.

FF


body:
In general citation is aimed not for peppering articles with facts but
for giving specific and hopefully notable references.

In the question you've brought up, I would venture that careful
judgment is the best rule. An author who insists on trying to insert
his own work, which he believes disproves quantum mechanics but hasn't
been taken up much by the wider community, into articles relating to
quantum mechanics should probably be politely encouraged to stop.
(this example is based on an actual case, by the way) It becomes a
violation somewhere in between NOR and NPOV if done in that matter.

On the other hand, if the work is relevant, germane, and the intent is
not seen as overly problematic, I can see no problem with it.

FF

On 11/19/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> My heart is warmed by the pleasent replies. :)
>
> Regrding anti-expert bias, does anyone think verifiable experts should
> be allowed to cite themselves when editing wiki articles relating to
> their skills? I'm not sure what I think, but it seems an important
> question. I can definitely see it being a major step towards a
> citable, peer-reviewed journal level of quality.
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>
> On 11/19/05, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/19/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The academics at my uni think the wikipedia is mildly offensive, in
> > > the sense that they enjoy being paid to write
> > > books/journals/whathaveyou, and don't enjoy seeing amateurs giving it
> > > away for free. Because of this, and our noticable failings, students
> > > are penalised if they attempt to cite the wikipedia as a source at my
> > > uni.
> > >
> > > I just now returned from an 8 hour seminar wherein we were repeatedly
> > > informed that free, non-governmental information on the internet is
> > > dubious at best, and should be avoided for anything other than
> > > commercial or general knowledge queries. Instead, the online
> > > university  database was praised (it includes a subscription to
> > > britannica, btw ;)
> > >
> > > Jack (Sam Spade)
> >
> > Well, I'd've gotten penalized for citing Wikipedia too, but I'd also
> > have gotten penalized for citing Britannica. However, various features
> > of Wikipedia made it much better as a quick study aid than the more
> > academically respectable references, and no one was ever the wiser.
> > And it is good as a study aid -- but most university students I know
> > *need* to be cautioned that not everything they read on the internet
> > that looks legit is true. (I love Wikipedia, and I am an optimist,
> > but, well...)
> >
> > -Kat
> > [[User:Mindspillage]]
> > wannabe academic
> >
> > --
> > "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
> > escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki about every person in the world

body:
On 11/20/05, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Additionally, how would you go about duplicate names?
>
> Let's say we have two John Smiths -- both lived in New York... fine...make a
> disambig, right?
>
> Now what if we have 300 of them all across the country...
>
> Disambig pages would get huge!
>
> --
> ~Ilya N.

Doesn't seem like that big of a problem.  Just start a [[List of
people named John Smith]] and link to that page for the less famous
John Smiths.

Anthony


body:
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The problems won't stop if we are more accurate.  As long as we are
> challenging vested interests our material will always be seen as
> dubious, whether or not it's true.

Are you talking about the vested interests of the academics? I assure
you that most probably care not a bit about Wikipedia and certainly
don't see it as a threat. Wikipedia does not compete with the
interests of academics in any way -- it has a different audience,
different purpose, and entirely different status of "author" than
academic work. They are not incompatible in the slightest -- in an
ideal world, Wikipedia would be parasitic on academic work, as are
other encyclopedias. In the academic ecology, parasitism is actively
enjoyed -- the more you are relied upon, the more status you have.

FF


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Preserving GFDL requirements when splitting articles

body:
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >There is a difference here between simply hosting your content,
> >hosting it with modifications, copying it to a different part of
> >Wikipedia, and copying it to an entirely different project.  The first
> >is pretty obviously legal.  The second is more questionable, and you
> >could argue that you have a right to revoke the permission (certainly
> >upon any violation of the GFDL which is ongoing).  The last two are
> >even more legally shaky, but there are plenty of arguments that it is
> >legal even outside the GFDL.
> >
> Whether these licenses may be revoked is a dubious prospect.  If someone
> revokes the GFDL that he has granted to Wikipedia what is the effect on
> the downstream user who has himself copied the material based on the
> licensing provisions that he found in Wikipedia, and which were
> perfectly valid at the time?   Anything but irrevocable licenses could
> lead to serious absurdities.
>
> Ec

Read clause 9 of the GFDL:  "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or
distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this
License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute
the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights
under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses
terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance."
Wikimedia distributes the Document other than as expressly provided
for under the GFDL, and has already had its rights under the GFDL
terminated.

Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd.  If you want to make
any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.

Anthony


from_name: Bernd Kulawik

body:
Hi,

as someone who normally only reads here I would like to add my thoughts:

I thought about the creation of a Wikipedia collecting data about
every person on Earth a while ago, but never had the time to develop
a special project suggestion. So, here is some sort of short draft:

A) ARGUMENTS FOR A "BIOPEDIA"

A.1) The main reason to start this is: There is a "market" (=
interest) for something like this - or what do you think why there
are all these "national Biographies" written - in dozens of volumes
over decades - like the "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani" or the
"Deutsche Biographie"? There are generations of people (historians
and other researchers) working on such projects.  - Some of these
projects, like a database on historical persons offered by a German
publishing house (in fact, they only seem to bundle data collected
from different scientific sources, most of them created with public
money ...) are very expansive to users: up to 5.000 Euro per year,
for instance, for the access to about 5.000.000 entries ...
There is definitely a growing "market" for the (scientific) use of
databases on persons.

A.2) In addition, there is a similar "market" for genealogical data
and research: Recently I read, that genealogy is the second largest
"hobby horse" in the USA...

A.3) Finally, such a project could help to record "oral" tradition by
and about persons: Only a few years (or, maybe, very few decades)
before, historians started to realize, that oral history of personal
memories about a persons ancestor generations could be interesting as
a "correction" to "official" history - normally written by the
"winners". And such "data" are not only interesting for historians:
Only remember the success of such family histories like "Roots" (as a
book and as a movie - but the book found millions of readers before
the movie was made ...).

A.4) If Wikipedia is really about collecting the information and
knowledge everyone of us can offer - why should it (or rather:
Biopedia) not be interested in the persons themselves? Many people
may know something about the law of Gravity, and this information may
be virtually congruent in most cases - but the interesting different
views on the world come from personal experience, ... this is the
reason why people rather read novels, not of telephone books :-))

A.5) Another special useful feature of such a database, IMHO, would
be the possibility to make records of all the - innocent - people
murdered by politics in our time who otherwise may have no chance to
be remembered and find some sort of "justice" just by being
"recorded" somewhere. - On the other side, personal relationships of
"mighty" persons could be explained to the public. I know, there are
already examples of both - databases of holocaust victims as well as
databases of (US-american) politicians and their relationships to
corporations, for instance. But they are virtually unknow.
Wikipedia, with its already incredible strong position in the
"information market", could help a "Biopedia" to be the first place
to look for information about such persons.

So, there IS an interest in people, and not only in "important" people.
By the way - who would like to decide who is "important"? A
grandfather who fought as a worker for better living conditions in
his small hometown may be important on the same historical level as
the capitalist on the other side of the figth, even though there are
streets named and statues only for this one ...
It is this chance to make recordings of "normal" people - who might
be interesting once in the future or who lived a "normal" life - that
would be a strong support for the idea of a Biopedia.

B) "BIOPEDIA" AND/OR/INSIDE WIKIPEDIA?

B.1) And I do not see a big problem in "separating" the data related
to persons from Wikipedia into a "Biopedia" mentioned here.
After all, persons are not really what is to be expected in an
encyclopedia at all - I would rather expect it to contain information
about notions, objects or events - things that could/should be
learned ... just because "pedia" means that IIRC.
Technically IMHO it cannot be a "big" problem to  "load" the data
from an entry in the "Biopedia" into Wikipedia when they are
requested by a user there. Entries in Wikipedia are connected by
links - it should be no problem to load "external" documents/entries
from another source in a "transparent" way like it can be done with
images already in HTML.

B.2) Then, why not include the Biopedia into Wikipedia - there are
already thousands of articles on persons? Because - if the Biopedia
really tries to collect information about living (and dead!) persons,
it would simply "blow up" the Wikipedia with its potentially billions
of entries. In fact, I think there should be a more restricted form
for entries (= biographies) on persons in the Biopedia which could
allow to reduce the amount of storage needed for a single entry, to
"pack" the data and to make them searchable in an especially easy way.

C) PROBLEMS?

C.1) The question if a person is "real" is not really a problem IMHO:
On one side, there may be a lot of people searching in the database
for "persons" like "James T. Kirk" -- and then be astounished, that
he was _not_ a living being, but is a fictional character. But there
is some useful information about this "person" - without any doubt.
In other cases, the fictional character may have interesting
relations to "real" persons, e.g. Anna Karenina or Effi Briest.
On the other hand, there could be entries about historical persons
that are impossible to verify - it might even not be clear if the
person really existed (Zarathustra, Lao-Tse ...). But if s/he is of
importance for other people today, there simply should be an entry.

C.2) Would the "Biopedia" explode because of entries about persons
like "John Doe", "Schnippi Schnappi", "Hutzli Putzli" etc.? Not
really. First, there is hardly a chance to stop people when they want
to create such entries in Wikipedia today. Because nobody could
really "watch" all the new entries all the time. But these entries
will "dry out" because of lack of interest - and if they are
interesting to other people, then they have a right to exist like any
other entry interesting for a group of persons.
So, this too, is not really a problem IMHO.

C.3) Privacy.
This is the only real and a VERY BIG problem, that I see. Though
persons of public interest like polititians, artists, jet-set
people ... may not be able to block entries about themselves  -
simply just because they ARE of public interest, normal people could
and should be able to do that. Therefore, there should be a mechanism
to avoid that people create entries about other people without their
permission. If someone does not want to be listed with personal data,
there should be no such entry.
By the way - the same mechanism could be used to reduce the number of
entries on fictional persons, too :-)

Uff, ...

So what do you think?

Bernd


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

body:
On 11/19/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Maybe I'm just not as worried about the downstream users  as you.

It's not "me" who cares about whether or not "educational-use only"
restrictions harm downstream use. Honestly, if it were up to me alone
I'd probably allow non-profit and educational-use only images. But
like many things it is probably best that it is not up to me.

My argument was in relation to pre-existing policies -- and fairly
electric-fence ones at that -- which require content re-usability to
include commercial and non-educational usage. If we are going to take
those policies seriously, and the ideals that stand behind them
seriously, I think questioning whether our invocations "fair use" is
within the spirit of that ideal is somewhat overdue.

FF


body:
Ah yes, and I've got good friends who are black... (if I could roll my
eyes through e-mail, I would)

FF

On 11/20/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "Fastfission" wrote
>
> >In general I think it's a better idea to actually ask academics what
> they think rather than just assume for the worst using stereotypes of
> the uptight and absent-minded professor. I'd avise against getting too
> pulled in into ridiculous ivory tower parodies, especially if our
> upcoming Wikimania is receiving so much generous support from a number
> of academic communities.
>
> I was in the thick of academia for fifteen years.  I know of what I speak.
>
> Charles
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
 You're welcome. I post with gmail, I don't usually write my posts in it in
case it crashes on refresh. I usually get the quotes mixed up, copying text
from wordpad into gmail does strange things, apperently (this time with
stars). Good thing I post so infrequently.
>Thank you for your comments, how did you manage to get the quoted text so
mixed up tho? I see your using gmail, as I am...
 >Jack (Sam Spade)
 Material incentive is not a fixed concept, for all times & eternity, even
if at this stage of history, and under any possible system, it needs to
remain the basis for economic activity for a very long time, but not
necessarily the driving force in people's lives. Question, as always, is
consider with whom, how. Regardless, even now, with material gain being
propogated above all other things as part of human nature for all times,
there are still those activities where it is unsuited, and Wikipedia in
general and a payed Wikipedia adminship specifically, clearly falls within
that category.
 El_C
 >Since when is doing things by volunteer effort rather than by paid staff
"communist" in nature? Does that make all nonprofit activities done without
pay "communist"?

>== Dan ==


body:
> Duck and Cover is definitely something I'd like to see in Wikipedia.
> I'm not sure how much *could* be said about it that would fall under
> the rules of NPOV, verifiability, and no original research (in fact,
> though it claims to have been made in 1998 Internet Archive only goes
> back to 2004), but assuming the facts in the article could be fact
> checked, I think it should be included (and therefore, it is notable).
> Anthony

Archive only goes back to 2004 for this url. It has changed its
address a number of times. I still think it's not notable enough,
though :).

--
Ausir


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: crew]

body: (This message removed from archives by request.)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 11/20/05, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Occasionally, such as in the case of [[Google Answers]] there is merit in
> keeping them seperate articles. But even though wikipedia is not paper, how
> would you even go about linking to Baby Gary's family's page? (using the old
> example here)
>
Actually, that's a good question, and I can't really come up with an
adequete answer off the top of my head.  That said, it's really a
problem that could be addressed better when an actual situation comes
into place.  Disambiguation is very ad hoc on Wikipedia, and this is
probably the best way to handle it.

Then again, maybe grouping people by family isn't a good idea at all.

> Would we have a [[List of people]] that takes up more than our current
> database by itself?
>
Eventually, hopefully.

> And how would we verify these people if technically ssn # records (as are
> others) are to be held confidential?
>
Verifiability would be the key stumbling block, and why literally
having a page for every person in the world would be an unreachable
goal.  I'm not sure what you mean when you say that SSN records are
confidential, but I don't think they'd be very good for verifiability
anyway, at least not for living people.  The social security numbers
of people who have died are public domain and available under the
Freedom of Information Act (or for a fee from certain commercial
sources).  Getting a copy of that database would be nice for
Wikisource, and we should certainly add the information to any
relevant wiki page.

> On 11/20/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 11/20/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 2005/11/20, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > > > So every webpage is notable? You can get information from the page
> > > > itself
> > > > > and from the Internet Archive.
> > > >
> > > > Only if there is stuff to write about it. If not, it can happily be
> > > > merged into a "list of websites" or some such thing.
> > >
> > >
> > > I was talking of web pages, not websites. And how do you decide if
> > there's
> > > something to write about it?
> > >
> > > --
> > > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > > ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
> >
> > Just because something is notable doesn't mean it has to have its own
> > separate article. I'd say most, if not all, information about web
> > pages would be better off merged with something else. The way "you
> > decide" if there's something to write about it is the same way "you
> > decide" whether or not any bit of information improves an article or
> > makes it worse, using a wiki.
> >
> > People, on the other hand, tend to have separate identities from one
> > another, and merging generally isn't a good idea. I especially hate
> > when one person is redirected to another person, and I don't think
> > that should ever be done. "Baby Gary who's 3 months old" might find a
> > better home on a page about his family though, at least for a while.
> > But please not as a separate section unto itself.
> >
> > That's another pet peeve I have - when multiple different articles are
> > "merged" into a single one in a way that puts each article as a
> > separate headline (sometimes even with its own external links and
> > other subsections). I guess this is done as a compromise between
> > those who want to delete the information and those who want to keep
> > it, but it seems like the worst of both worlds.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers (a redirect to [[List of
> > Google services and tools]]) is an example of where this disgusting
> > technique takes place. I fail to see how this is a better way of
> > organizing things. A list should be a list. An article on Google
> > services and tools should discuss the relationship of the tools and
> > services to one another, and discuss general trends which Google is
> > making, not present a bunch of separate articles stuck together on one
> > page.
> >
> > Anthony
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~Ilya N.
> http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jtkiefer

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Read clause 9 of the GFDL:  "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or
>distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this
>License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute
>the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights
>under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
>rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses
>terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance."
>Wikimedia distributes the Document other than as expressly provided
>for under the GFDL, and has already had its rights under the GFDL
>terminated.
>
>Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd.  If you want to make
>any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
>
>Anthony
>
>
Under clause 9 aren't we already in breach of the license due to the
fact that many things on wikipedia are multi licensed and despite our
best efforts the licenses don't always match up with each other totally?

-Jtkiefer