subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
On 31/01/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> issue, I'm just reporting.)

As of the time I stopped replying to them, we had had six identical
copy-and-pasted ones today. (I gave them an identical copy-and-pasted
reply.) I assume someone is astroturfing us.

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


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


list: wikien-l

from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] False AfD Nominations

body:
For a start admins shouldn't be afraid to follow concensus rather than the
voting majority. If, for example, someone bolds delete, but indicates
they're happy with a merge, there should be no reason that comment can't be
used to support a merge decision.

In fact I see this happen quite often. People are ambiguous about what they
want, yet they seem to only bold one of the two extremes: keep or delete. As
if any sort of middle way can't be discussed.

Mgm

On 1/31/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 4:48 PM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> > Start by educating admins and make sure that concensus is properly
> > defined
> > as determined by arguments rather than votes. Than people can claim
> > false
> > assertions all they like without them making any difference.
>
> Yes, certainly a miraculous transformation of attitudes surrounding
> AfD would work, but I'm not exactly sure how to implement it.
>
> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu
>
> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
> boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
>
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] A quiet revolution

body:
I never liked the {{deletedpage}} template. It makes links blue when the
article in question doesn't actually exists and seeing bluelinks to
non-existent articles is damn annoying. It might have been unintentional,
but I say we use it to our advantage and cascade protection for salted
articles.

Mgm

On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 31/01/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > It has been discovered that the new system of cascading protection
> > (which protects any element transcluded in a page protected with the
> > cascade bit turned on) allows us to transclude and thus protect a
> > non-existent article.
> > Thus, we can effectively protect a deleted article without using the
> > horrible {{deletedarticle}} template.  Users get a reasonably helpful
> > message telling them why it's not there, and it does not appear on
> > Random, does not appear in mirrors, does not show up at the top of the
> > Google hits (which will please the foiled vanity spammers as well as
> > allowing us to be kind to them).  I can't think of a downside offhand.
>
>
> *pint* to Werdna!
>
> (He's currently running for admin on RFA. There are those voting
> against *because* he's a developer; I would have thought that would
> have led to new features being particularly suited to administration
> of the site. But presumably I am wrong.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] A quiet revolution

body:
On 31/01/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

> > If that was deliberate, I would have called it a surpassingly
> > beautiful hack. But it's serendipitous. That's somehow even *better*.
>
> So dare I ask, what's the oversight on this?  I'm waiting for the first
> day an article is protected that has never been created, in particular.

Well, pre-emptively protecting [[deliberate example redlink]] may be
doable now ;-)

In all seriousness, though, the oversight is that it can easily be
seen what pages are protected in this way - the central "transclusion"
page for these is public, and can be watched easily enough.

(I suppose people can sneakily cascade-protect trivial obscure
subpages with fake transcludes... but, then, they could do
deleted-protected on pages which had never been created under the old
system, too. So no new way of being a dick...)

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
issue, I'm just reporting.)


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 1/31/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/31/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/31/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not an image licensing zealot.
> >
> > Not really relevant. NC images need to be removed and there is no
> > significant opposition to doing so.
> >
> > It would appear that you are afraid of putting your edits where your
> > mouth is. You think images should be manually orphaned. Lets see you
> > do it.
>
>
> Heh.
>
> I double dare you.

Already done it. why do you think the main NC cat is so empty? Or you
could go through my contribs and see how often "rm deleted image"
appears.

Come on I've given you a chance to lead by example or do you have so
little real faith in your beliefs that a few hundred edits is too
much?

Perhaps it is I mean it took me the best part of a week to sort the NC
category so just lets just limit it to the 5 images left in the
Non-commercial use only images category and the first page of Works of
the Philippines government category.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-02-01

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19702).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.

Passed 489 of 507 tests (96.45%)... 18 tests failed!


from_name: George Herbert

subject:
[Foundation-l] We really need to avoid the next
	Microsoft-Wikipedia bad publicity storm

body:
On 2/1/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could the answer be in adding another line just above the save button?
> explaining the idea to the editor and telling him/her that there is a
> conflict of interests and if you wish to add content to the article, add
> it to the talk page instead? and if you have more to say, add a link too.
>
> You don't need super technologies to deliver such a simple message. by
> the way, how could Microsoft's incident be a bad publicity for
> wikipedia? please refer me to the appropriate archived messages if that
> a duplicate question.

How many places to we want to say this, and how enthusiastically?

Referring to en.wikipedia for the sake of argument...

The "Contact Wikipedia" link on the left already goes pretty directly
to [[Wikipedia:Contact us]] to [[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article
problem]] to [[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error
(from enterprise)]].  This chain seems appropriate.  We could clarify
the message on the last page there a bit.

Would having something above or near the edit "Save" button make sense as well?

Would having a "Contact Wikipedia about this article" tab at the top make sense?

A "Contact Wikipedia about this article" tab on the left, in the navbox?

Doing all these things seems silly overkill.  I agree that more
clarification than the one existing path makes sense, though.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 1/31/07 charles.r.matthews wrote:
>
>
>>An argument I have produced before, is that bad language and aggressiveness as
>>a routine form of interaction appeals mostly to the young and male. It happens
>>that males 20 to 25 might be the most significant group here. I think it is
>>also the case that such forms of verbal interaction and self-assertion are
>>likely to put off many other demographic groups. So civility policy is one way
>>of trying to broaden the base of contributors, or to retain people who profile
>>is not a good match to those who think freedom of speech is mostly about the
>>right to be f****** rude all the time.
>>
>>
>Interesting. You know, as I read all of the responses thus far, the one word
>that my eye and brain keep tripping over is "civility" - perhaps I am
>associating it with the word "proper" - and that's a button word for me. The
>only thing I have ever associated with the word civil is disobedience ;-).
>
At its root, ''civilis'', civil relates to the citizen and his role in
society.  It's application appears to range from the practicalities of
the codified state to an idealized form of people knowing almost
intuitively how to get along.  We face that range regularly.  Thus
"civility" becomes a quality in the relationship between the individual
and the common weal..  In Johnson I see "Freedom from barbarity, the
state of being civilized ... Politeness, complaisance, elegance of
behaviour ... Rule of decency, practice of politelness". The duty of
civil disobedience fits well with this.  I suspect that Jefferson would
have approved of that.

You do well to be wary of "proper".  The emphasis there is more on the
individual, hence property and proprietary.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 1/31/07 3:39 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>
>
>>I have no problem with the use of spicy epithets on the mailing list,
>>and would see no reason to be like television and ban the "seven
>>words".  Where I object is with the use of terms as a clear personal
>>attack on someone, but I would still give a person time to cool off
>>before making a big fuss about it.
>>
>>
>It's about intent. Is that intent to harm, or simply to grab your attention
>and make oneself absolutely clear?
>
>Some find George Carlin intolerably offensive - I find him hilarious. Of
>course that may simply be a statement about me :-).
>
He must have done something right to be allowed to play the conductor on
the children's series, "Shining Time Station."

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia
	bad publicity storm

body:
On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 0. I submit that we really do need this.
> 1. Most n00b-friendly interface possible. This is not a big problem.

Remember my proposal a month or two ago for a big friendly "Report a
problem" button that appears to anon readers of articles? That would
then divide up into wizards for different categories of problems like
copy vios or libel or whatever? Is that a good starting point?

Steve


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
On 31/01/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Thursday, February 1, 2007, 12:49:01 AM, David wrote:
>
> > OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> > Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> > Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> > issue, I'm just reporting.)
>
> The main issue is not that it was imposed by the Communists, but
> that nobody wants to use it anymore. It was used before 1989 in
> Moldova, but since, they switched back to Latin, so they're contributing
> to Romanian Wikipedia.

True.

> A small part of Moldova declared its independence and with the help of
> the Russian Army, they have a non-recognized government. A part of the
> schools in this region still use the same textbooks printed 20 years
> ago, in Cyrillic alphabet.

Not entirely true, and full of your own POV.

> This usage is imposed by the region's government (whos human rights
> record is quite bad) and nobody wants to use the alphabet, there or
> elsewhere. An interesting fact on this is that there were *no*
> books or newspapers published in the last 15 years using this alphabet.

The human rights record of the PMR is debatable, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

Also, it's not true that nobody wants to use the alphabet. If they
didn't, they could either: 1) Move to Moldova and send their kids to
schools there so they would learn Latin alphabet 2) Send their kids to
Romanian-medium schools in Transnistria, although their capacity is
limited so this is not necessarily an option 3) Send their kids to
Russian- or Ukrainian-medium schools so that they don't have to use
that alphabet for that language. Parents sending their kids to
Moldovan-medium schools in PMR is equivalent to an explicit
endorsement of the Cyrillic script. May I remind you that the majority
of ethnic Moldavians in PMR support its continued independence?

Regarding books or newspapers, I was pretty sure there was a
small-circulation newspaper in PMR in Moldavian, and I know that the
books of the legal proceedings of the constitutional court of the PMR
are published trilingually.

> The international press usually ignored this subject from this corner
> of the earth, with just a few exceptions:
>
> http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/230766.FR.php?rss=true
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3936991.stm

...much to the contrary, you and yours were up in arms, constantly
citing BBC and CNN articles.

> I have yet to meet a Moldovan who wants to use Cyrillic alphabet in
> Wikipedia -- the people who support Cyrillic Moldovan are almost
> exclusively Russians and Ukrainians, with some Serbians and other
> panslavists.

That's because the one or two that ever came, you scared them away
with your polemics.

> As, such, with no actual native speaker, the Moldovan Wikipedia lived
> exclusively out of transliterations from Romanian Wikipedia.

This is an outright lie. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of the articles
on that WP are original, you know that yourself because one of them
you "corrected".

Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>The problem is that those forums constitute the only mechanisms by
>which nearly all decision-making happens in Wikipedia.  You can't go
>"I'm going to go over to that room there, with these other people, and
>stop listening to the guy shouting into the megaphone".  There's only
>one "room" per topic (or, a small set, of meta-topic rooms plus the
>right one).  If someone's abusing others, their only options short of
>some form of community imposed censorship are to stop participating.
>
This is precisely the situation and lack of consensus that makes most of
those rules meaningless.

>Every forum I have seen people try to build online, without exception,
>has failed and fallen apart if there wasn't a mechanism by which
>abusive contributors could be exiled.  There have also been a fair
>number of places where tin-pot dictators stifle discussion - there's
>no doubt that there's a continuum from undercontrol to overcontrol.
>Wikipedia is operating comfortably in the middle ground, which is in
>my experience and opinion the only place that an online community can
>survive.
>
Yes, and it's difficult to explain what happened to keep it growing long
and strong..  NPOV was only one factor.  So too was the need to face
certain issues of conflicr (like British vs. American English) from the
very beginning.  Unlike the various Yugoslave wikipedias we dealt with
the problem head on with a problem-solving attitude.

Ec


from_name: Daniel Arnold

subject:
[Wikitech-l] interface URLs resolution order (splitted from
	"Major flaws...")

body:
On Thursday 01 February 2007 00:20:31 Brion Vibber wrote:
> > 1)
> > Usually UI interface links (such as "MediaWiki:Mainpage" that defines the
> > URL of the main page) are not localisable by default (pages
> > like "MediaWiki:Mainpag/de" get ignored). However you can whitelist their
> > i18n with "$wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg = array();" individually in
> > LocalSettings.php.
> >
> > 2)
> > In the past maintenance/update.php did copy every UI message from the
> > default language UI message file into the wiki database.
> >
> > On whitelisted UI interface
> > links it even did copy the default language link target into the language
> > sub pages in every language if there wasn't one created by hand before
> > (for example the content of MediaWiki:Mainpage was copied into
> > MediaWiki:Mainpage/de if it was empty). So if there was the link target
> > existing in the default language it was not possible to link people in
> > other languages into non-existant "localised" pages after running
> > maintenance/update.php (side note: this specific behaviour of
> > maintenance/update.php can't have been an accidential not intended side
> > effect).
>
> ... What? I don't understand.
>
> "Link people in other languages into non-existant "localised pages""?

A "non-existant localised page" is a page that does not exist in that language
but people using that language get linked to by the interface.

One example. Click on this link the third link in the "navigation" (ok it is
written in korean ;-) on the left side
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?uselang=ko

It will link you to:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:???_??

This is beeing caused by the korean i18n-file embedded into:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Portal-url/ko

As you can see in:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/MediaWiki:Portal-url/ko
maintenance/update.php did overwrite this in the past with the default
language string "Project:Community Portal" and now did delete this.

> > How to solve that (I don't want the old copy behaviour back as this is a
> > hakish solution)?
> >
> > Change for link target strings (all that now need whitelisting) the
> > interface string resolution order from:
> >
> > Mediawiki:$Message/$language-code
> > ->$language-code-UI-String-File-$Message [further steps left out]
> > to
> > Mediawiki:$Message/$language-code -> Mediawiki:$Message (default
> > language) -> UI-String-File-$Message (default language)
>
> I'm very confused. Can you provide an example?

In the example above the problem was solved by "hiding" the message file
string with copying the default language string into the MediaWiki page for
every language (that's what I meant with the ugly solution).

Now I want the new interface string resolution order for URL strings as this
would solve the problem.

In plain words:
If MediaWiki:Portal-url/ko does not exist in the wiki itself fall back to
MediaWiki:Portal-url for that URL. If that is not existing in the wiki either
fall back to the string defining MediaWiki:Portal-url in the default language
MessageXX.php file (which would be MessageEn.php in the case of Wikimedia
Commons).

> > That way people don't get linked into nowhere on whiletlisted link
> > targets - and of course you also could entirely remove the need for
> > $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg switch in Mediawiki (and you
> > would get rid of one Wikimedia server maintence issue that fills your
> > Bugzilla).
>
> Don't understand.

If you apply the above URL resolution oder change you don't need to disable
i18n for URL-strings by default anymore. Several people including me did bug
you several months until someone of the server admins did apply
$wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg to said URL-strings in Commons (and at least one is
still missing and of course if we create new ones the "bother the server
admins game" starts again). This is time you can spend on something more
important than some Wikimedia Commons people wanting some interface changes
they can't do by themselves...

Arnomane


from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
I am not sure if you were replying to me, for such was not my
meaning--my meaning was that some information beyond directory
information is necessary to justify an encyclopedia article--any
encyclopedia article, and it might be possible to specify what counted
as directory information only, thus indicating that in addition to
such information, something more notable/interesting is needed.

I see this as a clarification of the generic meaning of N.-- as an
alternate way of expressing it. I discuss it with schools because they
seem to be the main subject of disputed criteria controversy on the en
WP at the moment, but there are other subjects  to which it equally
applies.

I see two difficulties with this approach
1/ at the beginning of WP, the decision was deliberately taken to
include certain categories of what amounts to directory information,
such as the towns entered from gazetteers, or numbered roads.
2/ directory information can often be the start of a more substantial
article, and it is perhaps more realistic to accept starting this
way--to which I answer that most often it never does get properly
expanded.

On 1/30/07, Patrick Hall <pathall
@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The task of eliminating particular "non-notable" topics from WP seems
> to me impossible.
>  After all, for any given topic that one contributor may consider
> obviously notable, someone, somewhere, considers it a waste of time.
> (Anarchists might think all articles about politics are pointless, or
> something.)
>
> What might be possible, on the other hand, would be to allow users to
> filter out content that they personally regard as non-notable.
>
> So, those who think Elementary Schools are unimportant could say
> "filter out all changes that match *Elementary School* in the title,"
> or "hide all articles with the category "Pokemon Cards".
>
> (I don't know anything about the implementation details, perhaps it
> would be computationally too demanding. But it must be at least
> possible, since we can already filter out bots, minor changes, etc...)
>
> To me, the idea of going to great efforts to *prevent* people from
> writing about particular topics is a waste of time better spent
> working on topics one is enthusiastic or knowledgeable about.
> Particular obsessions seems unreasonable to me; in an encyclopedia
> that contains 1.5 million articles, surely there are *dozens* of
> topics that any one particular user will find pointless?
>
>
> -Pat
> User:Babbage
>
> --
> Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -pkd
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
Thursday, February 1, 2007, 12:49:01 AM, David wrote:

> OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> issue, I'm just reporting.)

The main issue is not that it was imposed by the Communists, but
that nobody wants to use it anymore. It was used before 1989 in
Moldova, but since, they switched back to Latin, so they're contributing
to Romanian Wikipedia.

A small part of Moldova declared its independence and with the help of
the Russian Army, they have a non-recognized government. A part of the
schools in this region still use the same textbooks printed 20 years
ago, in Cyrillic alphabet.

This usage is imposed by the region's government (whos human rights
record is quite bad) and nobody wants to use the alphabet, there or
elsewhere. An interesting fact on this is that there were *no*
books or newspapers published in the last 15 years using this alphabet.

The international press usually ignored this subject from this corner
of the earth, with just a few exceptions:

http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/230766.FR.php?rss=true
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3936991.stm

I have yet to meet a Moldovan who wants to use Cyrillic alphabet in
Wikipedia -- the people who support Cyrillic Moldovan are almost
exclusively Russians and Ukrainians, with some Serbians and other
panslavists.

As, such, with no actual native speaker, the Moldovan Wikipedia lived
exclusively out of transliterations from Romanian Wikipedia.


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject: [Foundation-l] Vandalism Not Getting Caught soon Enough

body:
On 2/1/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Vandalism seems to be going longer until noticed of late for some
> reason.  I am running accross a larger number of vandalized
> articles in importing dumps from en.wikipedia.org.
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star
>
> http://www.wikipedia/wiki/Stomp_Dance  (look for the word "africa")
>
> are some examples.

Um... Jeff, I believe this is not the right mailing list to post this
to. Try wikipedia-l or wikien-l.

--
?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/31/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>
>> OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
>> Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
>> Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
>> issue, I'm just reporting.)
>>
>
> Not that simple see:
>
> [[Transnistria]]
>

At the very least it's a problematic name.  The Republic of Moldova
decrees that Latin is the official script of Moldovan, while their
breakaway republic of Transnitria decrees that it's Cyrillic.  If we're
hosting one in Cyrillic and giving it the "Moldovan" ISO language code,
we seem to be taking sides in that dispute---and what's more, taking
sides with the unrecognized breakaway republic and against the
internationally recognized nation.  That seems like an awkard position
to be taking.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> I am curious if anybody who is a regular participant on this mailing
> list has ever come across an equivalent peer to Wikipedia (aka
> Britannica or a major website like cnn.com) that would use modern art
> works (I'm defining modern as created by anybody who has died since
> 1924) and publish reproductions of them using fair-use as the only
> justification for their inclusion?
>

Sure, here's some:
A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/05/10/picasso.auction.ap/
(credited as "AP Photo", though it's doubtful the AP owns the copyright)
A 1939 Pablo Picasso painting:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/year.in.review/story/arts/ (credited as
"CNN", again doubtful)

Sometimes it's unclear:
A 1953 Mark Rothko painting:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/11/15/sothebys.auction.reut/
(credited as "Courtesy Sotheby's", but it's unclear whether the
"courtesy" means they were given a copyright license, or, more likely,
are using it under an {{en:promotional}} type fair-use claim)

My general impression is that fair-use images are quite common in
journalism.  I don't know about encyclopedias.  They are fairly common
in educational books---film-studies books frequently make fair use of
low-resolution still shots from films.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] ru.wikt and empty templates

references:
<45BE8B37.7030006@edb.dk> <45BEF4D2.4070907@gmail.com>
	<op.tmzsq6tg2okkek@maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
	<eprq3k$n2$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com> wrote:
>> Useful for checking if a word exists (i.e. spell check).
>
> But spell check presents suggestions for correcting your spelling.

Advanced spell check does, certainly.  Not the kind you'd find in simple
applications, where 'spell check' just highlights the words not in the
dictionary--my IM client has this kind of spell check.  And the more
advanced, the better the suggestions--primitive will go by degree-of-difference,
more advanced will check transpositions and nearby letter keys, better will
compare against the sounds the letters are trying to represent, and common
misspellings.  Just because it's not top-of-the-line doesn't mean it's
nonexistent.

> You'd need some serious AI to *write* original definitions for tens of
> thousands of words, and I'm not confident that a community of 500-some
> can pull off such a huge feat without some outside help (a free-content
> dictionary, for instance).

It'd be silly to expect a bot to compose the entries.  But as you say, there's
nothing to prevent the information from being imported, if free ones can be found.
If they can bot enough to create so many blank templates, they can bot enough to
fill them in.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
I wonder who organized that... I'm sure we can all guess. It's the
same guy who has been searching for any mention of teh Moldavian
Wikipedia he can find online, and "informing" people about it (telling
them that it's a Wikipedia started by a dumb kid from America that was
planned to be deleted until the Russians interfered).

Mark

On 01/02/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> David Monniaux wrote:
>
> >OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> >Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> >Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> >issue, I'm just reporting.)
> >
> In fact, there seems to be an organized campaign, with a form letter.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was  Moldavian)

body:
Hi!

Once this thing will be aver I kind of think that we all miss the MO/RO
flame wars... We will tell children about it in cold winter evenings, when
they will ask us "Hey grandad, what was a wiki like?" jumping out of their
favourite porn hologram player to make silly questions to us "the elder".
:)))))))))))))))

Then our eyes will look somewhere in the distance and we will say "I've seen
things you guys cannot even imagine. I've seen rumenian legions storming the
mailing lists, I've seen the moldovian clone resisting behind its glagolitic
barricades, fluctuating on the verge of alphabetic extinction...". It all
will be SOOO romantic :))))))))))))))))

============================
Bogdan (but names mean nothing here, as MO-RO players are wondefully
interchangeable) wrote:
>The main issue is not that it was imposed by the Communists, but
>that nobody wants to use it anymore.
So what? Do you know many people wishing to speak latin? The question was
about it "being EXACTLY a cyrillic transcritp for rumenian or not". Try and
answer that, instead of serving us the n-th number of your "Pravda". Say
YES/NO/A % VALUE and pleeeeease DO explain why you say so.

> the people who support Cyrillic Moldovan are almost
> exclusively Russians and Ukrainians, with some Serbians
> and other panslavists.
Yeap! And those who oppose it are mainly pan-rumenians :)))) Never heard of
an pan-eskimo giving a damn about this subject LOLOLOL. BTW, FMI shouldn't
people who don't care about you be called pan-NO-nians? :))))))))
===========================

Yeah... I will miss you guys. I used to hate you all, from both sides, but
now that you are going to be terminated for good... I'd say this place will
loose some of its individuality once you're gone. Like Paris with the River
Seine turned into an awful although much needed parking lot...

A question to the pan-NO-nian community: what about adopting an interwiki
MO-RO day, during which all wikipedians from all editions will be requested
to hold ceremonial mock flamewars on this subject? :))))))) Think about it.
Having common roots means a lot to community building :) A MO-RO carnival
day? :)))))))))))))))

Hmm... Bogdan and others, is there any way in which people belonging to the
RO tribe should dress up? MO people will have Stalin's moustache, a Red Army
cap on their heads, eat pork fat as native ukrainians and will speak a funny
fake-rumenian ending all words in -SKI (Bogdanuski, Romaniaski, Moldovoski,
Steauaska, Bucurestska, etc), this is 100% clear. But what about YOUR
political tribe? Please do enlight us, 'cause I'd hate to look unproper in
my RO costume :)))))

Really, I know it's ridicolous, but I'll miss this political crap :)))) The
funny thing about eastern europe is that nobody gives a damn about this
rubbish. People care about money, sex and big cars, that's it. Nationalism
is something that drunk young lads with no women may mention, but no more
than that. Yet those 5 perverted anomalies who do care about nationalism
will ALWAYS make it to our medias. As if the country was nothing but crazy
extremists, ethnic trouble, criminals and/or exported prostitutes.

Pls, read about Eastern Europe in Wikipedia. Even better, come and see it
with your own eyes. It's wonderful people, with a wonderful history, culture
and fantastic places, and as soon as you'll see the real thing you'll find
out that the actual number of MO-ROs is so small that it's not even worth
mentioning them. This much I owe to the normal people of all involved
countries.

And nevertheless... DO adopt the MO-RO interwiki carnaval day. :)))))))
Otherwise I'll organize a campaign to bury under millions of protest emails
the Board, the whole set of romanians and moldavians wikipedians, and YOU
and your girl/boyfriend as individuals :)))))))))))

Your sincerely,
Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Important Issue to Hebrew Wikipedia and Admin
	Abuse

body:
Hi!

> What I am sure I need is a
> hebrew/english ambassador who's nuetral in this conflict,

Yes, I'd look for that, too. It may be wise not to make too detailed descriptions of the related events in the public lists (as this one). This seems to be pretty much of an ego war, so the less people will be exposed as individuals, the higher your chanches to find a decent compromise. It may help you if you for people who are active on both versions and locate a person who as good relational capabilities. BTW... wouldn't it be nice to have a public list of people having such multiple presences?

Pls, just do not start a HE-HE conflict :)))))))) I mean, I'll miss the MO-RO soap opera, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for "release next" :)))))

B?rto ?d S?ra
Personagi dl?ann 2006 p?r l?arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti voj?otri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] First Amendment? - a Problem Mediation to consider

body:
On 2/1/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Looks like this needs to be reviewed. A conclusion should be made based
> upon
> WP policy rather than the US constitution.
>
> Mgm
>
>
> On 1/31/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I see a problem case for our "Mediation Cabal" here:
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-12-08_Beit_Hanoun_November_2006_incident
> >
> > Mediator's result:
> > "Pursuant to the First Amendment, the photos are allowed.
> > Wiki<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikizach>
> > e <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EA>Zach|
> > talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikizach>19:20, 26 January
> > 2007 (UTC)"
> >
> > There are two main problems with this:
> > #1 - the dispute was never about the "First Amendment", but about
> whether
> > the photos and quotations in question were violations of NPOV standards
> > (and
> > for that matter, whether they were genuine or not). This is not looked
> at
> > at
> > all by the mediator's result, nor commented on anywhere by the mediator.
> >
> > #2 - As referenced by another thread on this mailing list, Wikipedia is
> > not
> > bound by the US Constitution nor the First Amendment thereof. Therefore,
> > the
> > "result" of the Mediation has no basis in policy.
> >
> > I find it to be a bad mediation.
> >
> > Parker
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I agree with you, though I haven't reviewed the case yet.

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding policy

body:
On 2/1/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Here is another case of something I mentioned to this mailing list some
> time ago:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timwi&diff=104821425&oldid=104820754
>
> In a nutshell, the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament
> constituencies]] wants to add the parenthesis "(UK Parliament
> constituency)" to all constituency articles, even those that don't have
> ambiguous names and would therefore -- under the general naming
> convention rules -- not have the parenthesis.
>
> These people feel they're completely in the right because they have a
> discussion to link to -- a discussion that took place on the WikiProject
> page. Since such a discussion cannot override a general rule such as the
> Naming Convention, how do I properly respond to this without causing an
> edit war (or move war)?
>
> Timwi

The best thing to do -- if you want to make an issue of it -- would be
to bring the question up on the main NC page and invite the
WikiProject to make their case their.  Having said that, a few points:

- There is nothing inherently less meaningful about a discussion on a
WikiProject page versus a discussion on some other page; both function
as a consensus of participating editors, which isn't really affected
by the page name.
- It's perfectly normal for guidelines -- particularly
one-size-fits-all guidelines -- to have exceptions (even broad ones);
and quite reasonable for WikiProjects to come up with such exceptions.
 The deciding factor is whether what's being proposed makes sense, not
who came up with it.
- Looking over the linked discussion on the WikiProject page, I'm not
convinced that they're actually incorrect in suggesting pre-emptive
disambiguation here.  It's pretty much a decided issue that all
geographic locations will eventually have articles; and if
constituencies are, indeed, named after locations, then delaying
disambiguation until those articles get started -- even though we
*know* that we'll need to disambiguate -- seems rather unnecessarily
bureaucratic.  (If nothing else, the project could easily fit within
the letter of the law here by creating one-liner stubs for the
locations; but I don't think that's something we ought to push.)

Kirill


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
David Monniaux schreef:
> OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> issue, I'm just reporting.)
>
Hoi,
This argument is totally irrelevant. There is no place for politics in
answering the question if a language is used and if so in which way.
What is relevant is that there are people still writing in Cyrillic.
This has been expressed before. On previous occasions we have expressed
quite strongly that political arguments have no place in deciding if a
language in one of its manifestations is used or not. This is the point
of view of the language committee.

Thanks,
    GerardM
    for the language committee


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l]  Moldavian


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] I go away for a few days and all this happens?

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 13:31:23 +0100, "Michael Bimmler"
> <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This means, even if the user is moderated, the list moderators are
>> (probably) likely to approve his mails, if they are not flaming /
>> inappropriate.
>
> All his messages are flaming inappropriate! I have him killfiled,
> mind, but it's obvious that his "leaving" was (as so often) a
> statement that in his mind Wikipedia can't possibly do without him.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Just my opinion, but the repeated posts about his posts are starting to
become quite tiresome.

-Rich


references:
<epskjg$kvm$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<3f797b9a0702010429n36ad8bb2sf739835f50c8ec15@mail.gmail.com>
	<fb7fdd9c0702010433r4bb04cddu6de32ce50d562d9a@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 2/1/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> We never disambiguate pre-emptively (or rather: we shouldn't)
> See [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation]].

Um, fifth-pillar and IAR issues aside, the page doesn't actually say
that.  Indeed, the only real principles there are "Disambiguation in
Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that
occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic"
and "When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate nor add a
link to a disambiguation page".  (Pedantry: note that this doesn't
explicitly require that both articles be created prior to
disambiguating; the only requirement is that the *term* be known to be
ambiguous.)

Kirill


from_name: teun spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I checked three mid 20th century dutch epaper encyclopedias:
kleine oosthoek (about 60.000 articles)
winkler prins pocket encyclopedie (50000 articles)
None of them has something like citaatrecht / fair use mention with the
pictures, at the front of the book series or at the end of the books.
Sesam pocket encyclopedie (100000 articles) is no longer in my possession,
but I had looked this thing up before.

I must note that dutch citaatrecht is much ore limited than US "fair use".
For a book cover the law, reading it strictly, allows you to use it in an
article discussing the cover, but not with an article discussing the book.
The latter however seems to have grown into a habbit, so in Dutch courts
this might be considered an "acquired right", or it may not.

teun

On 1/31/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> teun spaans wrote:
>
> >>I am curious if anybody who is a regular participant on this mailing
> >>list has ever come across an equivalent peer to Wikipedia (aka
> >>Britannica or a major website like cnn.com) that would use modern art
> >>works (I'm defining modern as created by anybody who has died since
> >>1924) and publish reproductions of them using fair-use as the only
> >>justification for their inclusion?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >Not me. I have three paper encyclopedias, none of them mentions anything
> on
> >the source of photographs.
> >
> >
> Encyclopedias sometimes put photo credits on a page that is not
> necessarily adjacent to the article, but on some sort of "credits" page
> that is listed elsewhere.  Encyclopedia Brittanica used to acknowledge
> authorship of its artlces with just the author's initials, and it was
> only in the first volume that even listed the names of the authors.  At
> least this is something to look at before jumping to too much of a
> conclusion.
>
> Also, even if no source was explicitly mentioned, that reference is not
> strictly necessary for a photographic license.
>
> I know this is a tough thing to prove, but one really good example is
> all I'm asking for here.  The rationale for using such images is very
> weak if you can't find a clear example in other published media, proving
> that this is a bleeding edge copyright situation instead of common
> publishing industry practice.  While not perfect for a legal defense, it
> does help if you can show that others who might be peers have done this
> and nobody has cared.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 8:06 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> Wouldn't this be an important part of your professional experience.  A
> psychologist who helps people to find their own solutions is bound to be
> more successful than one who is always giving solutions to the clients.

Yes. The solution is within the person - the way to the solution is within
me ?? I'm the guide. Therapy is that conversation between the hiker and the
guide. And, as the journey progresses, the voice of the guide is heard less
and less as the hiker becomes more confident with the path.

Marc

--
A work of art is the artist's way of sorting out the chaos.


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 2/1/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, groupthink is pretty strong. Discussions on the mailing list only
> sometimes have an affect on the groupthink that takes place on
> Wikipedia. E.g. AfD.

Thus showing that en.wp is now way too big for there to be a single 'group'.

-Matt


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 2/1/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:05:17 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >The problem in groupthink is, problems go unnoticed.  Nobody speaks up or
> >brings the obvious to the groups attention.  Thus an intimidation factor may
> >present.
>
> I don't think that's very likely here - look at the endless discussion
> given to any decision which is even marginally contentious.

Oh, groupthink is pretty strong. Discussions on the mailing list only
sometimes have an affect on the groupthink that takes place on
Wikipedia. E.g. AfD.


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Openness is Censorship - a Spin update


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:05:17 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>The problem in groupthink is, problems go unnoticed.  Nobody speaks up or
>brings the obvious to the groups attention.  Thus an intimidation factor may
>present.

I don't think that's very likely here - look at the endless discussion
given to any decision which is even marginally contentious.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 8:18 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> A significant minority finds the word "dick" offensive because of the
> sexual overtones.

Ah yes, sex and its associated body parts ? the great cultural taboos. Talk
about groupthink!

Sex, sexuality and the conflicts they produce are the single most common
reason persons enter therapy.

Marc

--
The culture's gonna get us before the climate ever does.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] False AfD Nominations

body:
On 01/02/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's another example of a perhaps not false but "bad faith" nom.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
> Articles_for_deletion/List_of_pseudosciences_and_pseudoscientific_concepts
>
> What really smells about this one is that the nominating account,
> "Pizzazz" was created on the same day as the nomination and the only
> thing he did was make the nom in question. I would have no problem
> with promptly closing such noms regardless of the potential
> "deletability" of the article.
>
> If an article is to be destroyed, then let it start with a good faith
> nomination from a real user, not somebody's sock/meat puppet.

...dear god.

You do realise *we make it impossible* for non-account users to list
an article for deletion, right? And that the only way to jump through
all our hoops to, in all honesty and good faith, list an article for
deletion that you have problems with is to go off, create an account,
then do it?

Saying "oh, close first-time noms automatically regardless of merit"
is a stupid idea; it assumes that anyone attempting to contribute to
the project in a certain way is inherently acting in bad-faith, and
acts as though this were a given.

[Virtually the second thing I did on enwp was to list an article for
deletion. If this was the reaction I'd got at the time, I really don't
think I'd have hung around much]

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 8:18 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> I'm sure we all would when the direct opportunity arises, but it takes a
> great deal of maturity and patience.  It takes honest recognition of the
> difference between a newbie and a troublemaker.  The police mentality of
> the vandal hunters and other recent change patrol tends to shoot first
> and ask questions lateer.  I think that many of them attach great
> importance to ridding us of a wide range of troublesome people, but
> their tactics can be extreemely disconcerting for newbies who are really
> trying to make an honest but awkward effort.

I don't think survival of the emotionally fittest should be a working fact
in WP. Perhaps a project, group of interested veterans, or whatever could be
set up for these new, but unseasoned persons to turn to for support.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] A quiet revolution

body:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:41:30 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>So dare I ask, what's the oversight on this?  I'm waiting for the first
>day an article is protected that has never been created, in particular.

Precisely the same as for the old system.  There's even a link to
deletion review on the list page.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] A quiet revolution

body:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:45:34 +0000, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Well, pre-emptively protecting [[deliberate example redlink]] may be
>doable now ;-)

[[Red link]], you mean?  Yup, done :-)

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] False AfD Nominations

body:
On 2/1/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/31/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > For a start admins shouldn't be afraid to follow concensus rather than
> the
> > voting majority. If, for example, someone bolds delete, but indicates
> > they're happy with a merge, there should be no reason that comment can't
> > be
> > used to support a merge decision.
> >
> > In fact I see this happen quite often. People are ambiguous about what
> > they
> > want, yet they seem to only bold one of the two extremes: keep or
> delete.
> > As
> > if any sort of middle way can't be discussed.
> >
> > Mgm
>
>
>
> I'd recommend ignoring any word in bold.  Read and consider what
> commenters
> actually say, rather than what they think they're voting.  If the
> commenter
> has done a good job of making their case, the bold word out front is
> extraneous.  If they're ambiguous, the bold word is harmful and
> misleading.
>
> -- Jonel

It wouldn't hurt to not count votes without any type of argument. At least
if someone sys 'per nom', you know you can discount them if the nominator
turns out to be wrong in their nomination. Let's make "Votes without a
rationale will be discounted by the closing administrator." a standard rule
on xFD.
\
Mgm


from_name: Guettarda

body:
On 2/1/07, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/1/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Looks like this needs to be reviewed. A conclusion should be made based
> > upon
> > WP policy rather than the US constitution.
> >
> > Mgm

It's actually par for the course in MedCab cases.  The MedCab provides for
informal mediation and a forum for discussion.  That's a useful role, but
one that seems to be routinely ignored.  The role of a mediator isn't to
judge the situation, but rather, to get people to talk and listen to
one-another.  So any "conclusion" beyond that made by the participants in
inappropriate, regardless of whether it was based on the US constitution or
Wikipedia policy.  The role of mediation is not to draw conclusions.  That
an informal body, with no selection process, no official standing, and no
oversight, should make "rulings" is mind-boggling.  Especially a body that
seems, half the time, to be staffed by rank newbies who know little about
policy.

>
> >
> > On 1/31/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I see a problem case for our "Mediation Cabal" here:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-12-08_Beit_Hanoun_November_2006_incident
> > >
> > > Mediator's result:
> > > "Pursuant to the First Amendment, the photos are allowed.
> > > Wiki<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikizach>
> > > e <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EA>Zach|
> > > talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikizach>19:20, 26 January
> > > 2007 (UTC)"
> > >
> > > There are two main problems with this:
> > > #1 - the dispute was never about the "First Amendment", but about
> > whether
> > > the photos and quotations in question were violations of NPOV
> standards
> > > (and
> > > for that matter, whether they were genuine or not). This is not looked
> > at
> > > at
> > > all by the mediator's result, nor commented on anywhere by the
> mediator.
> > >
> > > #2 - As referenced by another thread on this mailing list, Wikipedia
> is
> > > not
> > > bound by the US Constitution nor the First Amendment thereof.
> Therefore,
> > > the
> > > "result" of the Mediation has no basis in policy.
> > >
> > > I find it to be a bad mediation.
> > >
> > > Parker
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> I agree with you, though I haven't reviewed the case yet.
>
> --
> ST47
> Editor, en.wikipedia
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On 31/01/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm amazed at everything that happens when I just go away for a few days.

Nobody else is. Despite what you may think, the project does not
revolve around you.

(Now I have to go say a bunch of "Hail Wiki"s as my penance for
responding to a troll.)

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 9:57 AM, Daniel R. Tobias at dan at tobias.name wrote:

> You still have some character set problems with your mail program, as
> seen whenever you try to use an apostrophe and it comes out as a
> question mark in the digest version.

Dan,

I'm told the problem had completely to do with me (what else is new when it
comes to computers). It seems, in some instances, I was using a Mac font
that didn't translate well. I hope the problem has been solved. Please let
me know if it persists.

Thanks,

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> One point which for me makes "Be civil" preferable to "Don't be a dick"
> is that it advocates something that people should be in preference to
> what they should not be.  It has a more positive outlook.

I agree with the positive part, but there's that word "civil" again - I keep
wanting to put the word "defense" right after it :-).

Marc


from_name: Mohamed Magdy

subject:
[Foundation-l] We really need to avoid the next
 Microsoft-Wikipedia bad publicity storm

body:
Could the answer be in adding another line just above the save button?
explaining the idea to the editor and telling him/her that there is a
conflict of interests and if you wish to add content to the article, add
it to the talk page instead? and if you have more to say, add a link too.

You don't need super technologies to deliver such a simple message. by
the way, how could Microsoft's incident be a bad publicity for
wikipedia? please refer me to the appropriate archived messages if that
a duplicate question.

Mohamed Magdy


from_name: Michael Noda

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
On 2/1/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 1/31/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> >
> >> OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
> >> Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
> >> Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
> >> issue, I'm just reporting.)
> >>
> >
> > Not that simple see:
> >
> > [[Transnistria]]
> >
>
> At the very least it's a problematic name.  The Republic of Moldova
> decrees that Latin is the official script of Moldovan, while their
> breakaway republic of Transnitria decrees that it's Cyrillic.  If we're
> hosting one in Cyrillic and giving it the "Moldovan" ISO language code,
> we seem to be taking sides in that dispute---and what's more, taking
> sides with the unrecognized breakaway republic and against the
> internationally recognized nation.  That seems like an awkard position
> to be taking.

Indeed.  I would say that the wiki should probably be taken down
completely while things get straightened out.  What became of the
proposal to make mo: a dual-character set mirror of ro:?


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


subject: [WikiEN-l] False AfD Nominations

body:
On 2/1/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 01/02/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Here's another example of a perhaps not false but "bad faith" nom.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
> >
> Articles_for_deletion/List_of_pseudosciences_and_pseudoscientific_concepts
> >
> > What really smells about this one is that the nominating account,
> > "Pizzazz" was created on the same day as the nomination and the only
> > thing he did was make the nom in question. I would have no problem
> > with promptly closing such noms regardless of the potential
> > "deletability" of the article.
> >
> > If an article is to be destroyed, then let it start with a good faith
> > nomination from a real user, not somebody's sock/meat puppet.
>
> ...dear god.
>
> You do realise *we make it impossible* for non-account users to list
> an article for deletion, right? And that the only way to jump through
> all our hoops to, in all honesty and good faith, list an article for
> deletion that you have problems with is to go off, create an account,
> then do it?
>
> Saying "oh, close first-time noms automatically regardless of merit"
> is a stupid idea; it assumes that anyone attempting to contribute to
> the project in a certain way is inherently acting in bad-faith, and
> acts as though this were a given.
>
> [Virtually the second thing I did on enwp was to list an article for
> deletion. If this was the reaction I'd got at the time, I really don't
> think I'd have hung around much]
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

The idea needs to be refined. First time noms are fine as long as they're
not renoms of something recently closed and as long as the nomination is
based in policy. Bad faith noms are usually either IDONTLIKEIT or they
contain false statements.

Mgm


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 1/31/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Consensus" is what you get when you have a group of people working on
> things, each independently reaching the same conclusion or being convinced
> by evidence.
>
> It morphs into "groupthink" when one of two things happens:
>
> - Someone new arrives with new evidence and is attacked for "going against
> consensus"
>
> - the same "consensus" sits for too long and begins attaining force of
> "law."
>
> Wikipedia has a problem in this regard. The problem relates to WP:OWN as
> well as WP:CIVIL, and is a natural consequence of bowing at the altar of
> "Consensus" to the exclusion of factual accuracy.
>
> The natural progression problem is that the more a small group of editors
> "tunes" an article to whatever standard, the more they feel they "own"
> that
> article, and the more they will actively oppose any other editors (other
> than the group) working on it. Eventually this transforms into groupthink
> and abuse towards newcomers becomes common. The smaller the group is, the
> worse it becomes; the editor who feels himself "creator" of an article,
> and
> therefore feels he has "ownership" of it, is the worst of all, but our
> various POV-pushing cliques on various topics are also good examples; each
> clique has what it calls a "consensus" which is actually a Groupthink, and
> feels fully justified in "Punishing" (with admin tools in many cases)
> anyone
> who is outside of what they inaccurately claim is "consensus."
>
> The same is true of this mailing list. There are a number of "groupthink
> items" that are instantly shouted down whenever addressed, often with
> derisive in-jokes and buzzwords deliberately made and used to make
> outsiders
> feel even more confused and rejected.
>
> It's a general Wikipedia cultural attitude problem.
>
> Parker

This is typically how it works: one dissenter or critical thinker points out
"X job is not being done properly"; the "concensus" interprets this to mean,
"Joe, the member who performs X job, is being attacked".  By cencensus then,
the critical dissenter is marginalized and demonized, while the problem of
the work product -- which is a totally valid criticism exposed by critical
thinking -- is ignored.

nobs01


subject: [WikiEN-l] Survey about paid editing

body:
Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering what the opinions of "influential
> Wikipedians" are regarding
> this MSNBC poll that shows 40% of over a thousand people
> think like I do?
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16795533/

There wasn't a vote for, "Can you phrase the question to be
more misleading?"

"Is it ok to pay people to post or edit Wikipedia content?"
- I'd say it's easy to have wrongly interpreted that to be
a question about whether it's OK for Wikipedia to hire
editors/posters.  If you phrase it as, is it OK for
companies to insert undisclosed ads and PR into articles,
you'll get very different survey results.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Incivility]]

body:
The article [[incivility]] is likely the worst I have started.

Please help a needy page.

Charles

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia case study (GFDL!) from Harvard Business
	School

body:
Congratulations to Harvard. They actually make sense, although the
conclusion is kinda pointless. If you know what happens in advance there's
no point in joining the discussion.

Mgm

On 2/1/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> http://courseware.hbs.edu/public/cases/wikipedia/
>
> The Harvard Business School is famous for its case studies.  Two of its
> professors put out a case study on Wikipedia, and the history of the
> Enterprise 2.0 article (a new term championed by one of the case study
> authors; the article was written by others who use the term).
>
> I have a cameo as the admin who recommends starting a new AfD discussion.
>
> The whole study is released under the GFDL, though it will be available
> for sale via CD as per usual with new case studies.
>
> Don't forget the check out the exhibits, which are fascinating.
>
> --SJ
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
I don't know how long you've been gone, but last week seems to have been
relatively calm.

Mgm

On 1/31/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm amazed.
>
> I'll be writing in-depth responses to a few people shortly, but I'm amazed
> at everything that happens when I just go away for a few days.
>
> Parker
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Keitei

body:
On Feb 1, 2007, at 10:31, Guettarda wrote:

> On 2/1/07, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2/1/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Looks like this needs to be reviewed. A conclusion should be made
>>> based
>>> upon
>>> WP policy rather than the US constitution.
>>>
>>> Mgm
>
>
> It's actually par for the course in MedCab cases.  The MedCab
> provides for
> informal mediation and a forum for discussion.  That's a useful
> role, but
> one that seems to be routinely ignored.  The role of a mediator
> isn't to
> judge the situation, but rather, to get people to talk and listen to
> one-another.  So any "conclusion" beyond that made by the
> participants in
> inappropriate, regardless of whether it was based on the US
> constitution or
> Wikipedia policy.  The role of mediation is not to draw
> conclusions.  That
> an informal body, with no selection process, no official standing,
> and no
> oversight, should make "rulings" is mind-boggling.  Especially a
> body that
> seems, half the time, to be staffed by rank newbies who know little
> about
> policy.

If mediators are acting as judges where they should not, we ask that
you bring it up with the coordinators ([[Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/
Coordinators desk]]). From there, we try to convince said problem
mediators that they have to mediate and not arbitrate, and if that
doesn't work, they will be asked to resign from the case. Repeat
problem mediators are asked not to take cases any longer.

Of course this doesn't ensure that cases won't be total disasters,
but the point is informal, fast, and not heavily regulated. Parties
are encouraged to speak up if they don't think the mediator is
helping though.

--keitei (MedCab coordinator (along with Cowman109))


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] table text is full

body:
I do recall seeing debugging messages printing to stderr when I ran
the script, but they didn't look serious at the time.

One issue I've found is that the default function compressWithConcat
assumes that the text table can do transactions as it is using
dbw->begin and dbw->commit statements. Our text table was initially
created with a version 1.3 of Mediawiki and is still a MyISAM table
(which doesn't support transactions), so if something goes wrong,
there's no opportunity to do a rollback.

I'd suggest at least warning the user of these consequences, or just
use the more basic compressOldPages if InnoDB isn't present:

    $res = $dbr->query("show table status like 'text';");
    if ($row = $dbr->fetchObject($res)) {
        $engine = $row->Engine;
        if ($engine != 'InnoDB') {
            print "Warning the text table is not an InnoDB table,
transactions are not supported\n";
            $dbr->freeResult( $res );
            return;
        }
    }
    $dbr->freeResult( $res );

I've been running compressOld against an original version of the
revisions that had problems, it seems to be working, so it might not
be a reproducible problem based on which revisions are compressed.
I'll look more into it.

Travis

On 1/31/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Travis Derouin wrote:
> > Looking at the structure of things, it looks like the first revision
> > gets stored as a ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob which has all of the
> > revisions compressed into one, and subsequent revisions are replaced
> > with Stubs that point to the initial ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob
> > revision.
> >
> > The problem that I'm having is that there is no initial
> > ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob revision for these problematic histories,
> > all of the revisions are stubs, which looks like the data was lost for
> > these affected pages when I ran compressOld.php.
> >
> > This is not good! We have backups, but it will be a pain to fix. Is
> > the best way to load the old back up into a separate db and then do
> > something like
> >
> > UPDATE current_wiki.text
> >  SET current_wiki.text.old_text = backup_wiki.text.old_text,
> >           current_wiki.text.old_flags = backup_wiki.text_old_text
> >    (assign other relevant fields here)
> > WHERE
> >           current_wiki.text.old_id = backup_wiki.text_old_id
> > AND current_wiki.text.old_id in (BAD TEXT ENTRIES)
>
> Should work, yeah...
>
> > I'm going to try to reproduce what happened to see if I can narrow
> > down the problem.
>
> Great... bugs in that code are not fun. :(
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFFwSKUwRnhpk1wk44RAliGAJ4ue6MWVhRCosAAHVEnU6VRpakaHwCfUR7m
> NQUhoUOV13nhqNUZA7Zh4yw=
> =/YvX
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Dovi Jacobs

subject: [Wikitech-l] Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion

body:
Thanks to the continual help and expertise of User:Sanbeg, Labeled Section
Transclusion is now a full-fledged MediaWiki extension that has been put to use
at external sites.

This extension allows selective transclusion of marked-off sections of text on a
wiki-page. It is a great deal more flexible than <onlyinclude> and <noinclude>, and will allow for many unforseen future uses.

See: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Labeled_Section_Transclusion

Every type of functionality that was requested for this extension has been
implemented, and various small issues have been ironed out over the past few
months.

Labeled Section Transclusion was originally requested as a feature for
Wikisource, and the current extension more than meets Wikisource's needs.
It would be great if it could be applied live at the Wikisource wikis.

Among other things, doing so would allow it to get some heavy-duty testing,
since the uses for this extension might eventually go beyond Wikisource.

Dovi Jacobs

---------------------------------
Finding fabulous fares is fun.
Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains.


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Survey about paid editing

body:
On 2/1/07, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm wondering what the opinions of "influential Wikipedians" are regarding
> this MSNBC poll that shows 40% of over a thousand people think like I do?
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16795533/

My opinion is that the poll provides no protection against ballot-stuffing.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

body:
On 2/1/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you in favor of removing all non-free quotations from Wikipedia?

Quotations should for the most part be in wikiquote

> Are you in favor of removing all non-free content from Wikipedia
> except the Wikimedia logos?

No.

>
> I'm pretty sure it's because a lot of people are indifferent about
> replacing legal non-free images with free ones.

Why do you think that is?

>
> Do you think that deleting huge amounts of such non-free content
> solves this problem?
>

over time

> Does it cause the majority of deleted content to be replaced with free content?
>

over time

> Does it improve the coverage, reliability, neutrality, or relevance of
> the encyclopedia?
>

yup

> Does it improve the net usefulness of the encyclopedia to downstream users?

Impoves it for me and anyone else wanting to use stuff within the UK.

--
geni


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 9:49 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> Not reading policy keeps me
> civil. ;-)

And sane :-)

Marc


body:
Looks like this needs to be reviewed. A conclusion should be made based upon
WP policy rather than the US constitution.

Mgm

On 1/31/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I see a problem case for our "Mediation Cabal" here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-12-08_Beit_Hanoun_November_2006_incident
>
> Mediator's result:
> "Pursuant to the First Amendment, the photos are allowed.
> Wiki<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikizach>
> e <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EA>Zach|
> talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikizach>19:20, 26 January
> 2007 (UTC)"
>
> There are two main problems with this:
> #1 - the dispute was never about the "First Amendment", but about whether
> the photos and quotations in question were violations of NPOV standards
> (and
> for that matter, whether they were genuine or not). This is not looked at
> at
> all by the mediator's result, nor commented on anywhere by the mediator.
>
> #2 - As referenced by another thread on this mailing list, Wikipedia is
> not
> bound by the US Constitution nor the First Amendment thereof. Therefore,
> the
> "result" of the Mediation has no basis in policy.
>
> I find it to be a bad mediation.
>
> Parker
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>I suppose if someone had a note on their user page - "no need to be
>civil here", then it could be an exception to the general rule. I don't
>think there are very many people in that category though. One of the
>interesting aspects of online communication is that body language and
>nonverbal cues seem to be more important than anybody ever realized -
>misunderstandings in online interaction happen far more, and are more
>likely to spiral out of control. For instance, somebody could be saying
>something nasty-sounding in person, but they're smiling and relaxed
>while saying it, so you know they're probably leading up to a sardonic
>joke.
>
The smile is very important when presnting awards for meretricious
service to the community.

>Satire without a smiley face is routinely taken seriously, no
>matter how well-written. People who are good editors, but take other
>people's statement to heart, can get so upset that they no longer want
>to work in WP, and that's certainly a loss to the project. So the
>civility rule is partly about backing down to a level that reduces hurt
>and misunderstandings across a broad range of individuals.
>
The smiley face is often ignored by those determined to be offended.
The obvious hyperbole of statements like, "You ought to be shot for
saying that," tends to be ignored in favour of an impossible litersal
interpretation.

There is also on the net a frequent tendency toward one-dimensionality.
Thus "LOL" is most frequently taken to mean "Lots of Laughs", and in
some circumstances readers will read it as some kind of insult by
laughing at their work.  For others it can mean, "Lots of Luck," in the
same way that one would say, "Break a leg," to someone about to go on
stage.  No-one would seriously take that expression literally.  "Lots of
Luck," can also be used ironically meaning, "I don't believe you can
accomplish that without luck."  When I first encountered the
abbreviation it meant, "Little Old Lady."  Cf [[The Little Old Lady from
Pasadena]].

It's also important to recognize that the same event can have quite a
different cultural impact in different societies.  The now infamous
super-bowl "wardrobe malfunction" outraged some people, but for others
of us it was hilarious that such a trivial event should get such an
overblown reaction.  Here along the border it frequently happens that
the same movie shown with full dialogue on Canadian television will have
offensive words bleeped on US television.  As more countries mix more
different vegetables into the soup the flavours become more nuanced.
Those of us who don't like olives on pizza need to find an accomodation
with those that do, and bulldozing all the olive trees in the world is
not an option.  Things do mean exactly what the user intends.  Alice
understood this, both in Wonderland and in Her Restaurant.  Great works
of art, literature and music will say entirely different things to each
person who experiences them.  We need to guard against obligatory
equation of meanings between the artist and his audience.

Yes, we have lost good editors who got upset with our form of social
darwinism.  I can imagine that this has been especially difficult from
some of our American Wikipedians who have now found a raven or coyote
sitting on the pulpit of their values.  I say this with the utmost
sympathy, for I know that some have adapted well.  In the present world
climate it can't be easy to be an American.

I think we have barely touched the surface of the paradigm shift
implicit in the developments of communications technology.  I've been
reading the book, "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes
Everything," by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.  The authors
mention Wikipedia extensively, along with many of the other well-known
on-line initiatives.  In a paradign shift the shakedown of the old ways
can be brutal.  Intellectual property and economics are only the first
areas to feel the heat.  In the United States Lou Dobbs of CNN is
constantly carrying-on about incompetent politicians, many of whom leave
the impression that the primary duty of an elected politician is to get
re-elected.  Even if you remove the understandably nationalistic tone of
his statements, they remain applicable.  It's only a matter of time
until the denizens of the blogosphere discover that maybe they should
suggest alternatives that are more people friendly than the
constitutional brick that was proposed for the European Union.  Maybe we
don't need countries at all.

>The civility rule is also for one's own self-protection - everything you
>say online is publicly visible and recorded forever.
>
That application is not limited to WP.  Many are there who never learn it.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group

body:
The short answer is that he is one of the best people at analyzing and
understanding how to construct and manage online communities, particularly
wiki projects. IMHO. (But if my claim is true I hope you can see how he
would be a very good person to have on the Wikimedia Advisory Board.)

On 1/30/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> Given that Sunir is probably an OK guy, and even that he contributed
> early in our projects, that still does not demonstrate the added value
> he has over many of the people that are already in our project. What I
> was looking for is what he adds to the equation, what I find that he may
> be a great guy but I do not understand what his added value would be.
> This complementary value is what you look for in people that are
> relevant for the advisory board.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> The Cunctator schreef:
> > On 1/29/07, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> >>>
> >>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
> >>>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know
> >>>>>
> >> Sunir
> >>
> >>>>> Shah.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ec
> >>>>
> >>> Hoi,
> >>> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
> >>> notable ...
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>     GerardM
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
> >> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
> >> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
> >> Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
> >> <
> >>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks
> >>
> >>> .
> >>>
> >> I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
> >> advisory group.
> >>
> >
> >
> > And one of the earliest Wikipedia contributors.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 2/1/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Depending on the context it is my understanding that. individual short
> quotations are de facto free with regards to copyright (not trademark)
> under  every legal system I seen the issue raised under.

Yes, and the mechanism for it is called "fair use" under United States law.

-Matt


body:
On 2/1/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/1/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> You are forgetting de minimis.

Overlooking it in this case, but I doubt you could claim all the
textual quotations in Wikipedia fall under that rule (i.e. not enough
to copyright or insufficient infringement to be tortuous).  Given that
some copyright lawsuits have been over very small amounts of copying,
I wouldn't want to rely solely on de minimis for legality -
fortunately, we don't have to.  Furthermore, explicitly or implicitly,
part of the 'de minimis' calculation is that the copying is so small
as to have little difficulty in using the defense of fair use
successfully.

-Matt


from_name: Timwi

body:
Here is another case of something I mentioned to this mailing list some
time ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timwi&diff=104821425&oldid=104820754

In a nutshell, the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament
constituencies]] wants to add the parenthesis "(UK Parliament
constituency)" to all constituency articles, even those that don't have
ambiguous names and would therefore -- under the general naming
convention rules -- not have the parenthesis.

These people feel they're completely in the right because they have a
discussion to link to -- a discussion that took place on the WikiProject
page. Since such a discussion cannot override a general rule such as the
Naming Convention, how do I properly respond to this without causing an
edit war (or move war)?

Timwi


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm basing this concept of "primary and secondary goals" on the
> wording of the fair use policy page itself.  The way the page is
> currently worded, writing a high-quality encyclopedia is a means to
> the end of creating free content.  This is quite a silly notion, to me
> at least.

That would be quite a silly notion, but nobody is arguing that.

Wikipedia is a Wikimedia Foundation project, and "Wikimedia Foundation is
dedicated to the development and maintenance of online free, open content
encyclopedias, collections of quotations, textbooks and other collections of
documents, information, and other informational databases in all the languages
of the world that will be distributed free of charge to the public under a free
documentation license such as the Free Documentation License written by the
Free Software Foundation Inc. at http://www.fsf.org or similar licensing
scheme, see http://www.wikimedia.org."

The goal includes freedom.

> So we allow non-free content whenever it is encyclopedic, legal and doesn't
> displace equivalent free content.

No, we don't. I refer you to [[WP:FAIR]] for the actual policy.

> I think you mean "It's fruitless to try to reach a consensus about the
> details of any particular policy when a small group of users have
> modified it to suit their ideals and are unwilling to compromise".

No, I mean what I actually said: "It seems fruitless to argue about the details
of any particular policy if we disagree on the purpose of the project."

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html


from_name: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Survey about paid editing

body:
I'm wondering what the opinions of "influential Wikipedians" are regarding
this MSNBC poll that shows 40% of over a thousand people think like I do?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16795533/

Clearly, I'm in the minority, but it's certainly not a small minority.  I
would also love to learn (if it were only possible) what the demographics
are of those who responded "No way" versus those who responded "Sure".  I
would venture a guess that the average age and household income of those
saying "Sure" is higher than those who say "No way".

Also, I'd like to mention here to Guy Chapman that he's either
deleting/ignoring the three civilly-worded e-mails I have sent him, or he's
not getting them whatsoever.  Geni did me a favor and e-mailed Guy, too --
but I've not heard back from either of them.  Guy, care to comment about
whether you're "taking" correspondence at your spamcop address?

--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 09:36:16 +0000, "Earle Martin"
<wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

>> I'm amazed at everything that happens when I just go away for a few days.

>Nobody else is. Despite what you may think, the project does not
>revolve around you.

I thought "Parker" was supposed to be going away for ever?  He was on
moderation for a while, why has the new address not been added to mod
I wonder?

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


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [WikiEN-l] Student Bibliography and Wikipedia

body:
Given the recent hubub about Universities banning Wikipedia, I thought I
would share my own class policy -- not approved by my department or
university in any way. You can also comment on it here:

http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/career/teaching/citing-wikipedia?showcomments=yes

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Bibliography and Wikipedia
Date: Thursday 01 February 2007 11:20
From: Joseph Reagle
To: "Impacts"

Hello everyone, I'll speak more about this in the coming week or so.

[[  http://reagle.org/joseph/2007/impacts/bp-bibliography.html

   Like most professional practice, bibliography can and should be a
   sensible thing. It shouldn't be a technicality or hassle, but integral
   to your work in leading the reader through your scholarly context and
   sources. This is why I provide you with the course readings formatted
   (so you could copy and paste) and structured  (so you can import it
   into a tool like RefWorks). Unfortunately, bibliography is often
   presented to students as a series of technical hurdles without much
   thought given to the role it performs. Listing ones sources can
   perform at least one the following functions: a citation identifies
   the subject of a claim, it substantiates a claim, or it identifies an
   influence. For example, consider the following three sentences:
    1. Lanier (2006) believes Wikipedia is a form of online collectivism.
    2. Because science related articles on Wikipedia are roughly as
       accurate as Britannica (Giles 2005) they should be recommended as
       a reference work.
    3. The notion of an Internet encyclopedia dates back to 1993
       (Wikipedia 2006i; Wilson and Reynard1994 ).

   In the first example, the reference is the subject of the sentence,
   that is all. In the second sentence I am incorporating an external
   authoritative claim into the body of a (hypothetical) argument. In the
   third example, I am documenting the influence of Wikipedia (so as not
   to plagiarize) and substantiating the claim via an external authority
   (a primary source).

   In other classes, you might be restricted from using reference works,
   including the Wikipedia. Instructors might be concerned that Wikipedia
   is not authoritative or reliable. You certainly have to respect the
   policies of other instructors, but I want you to ask in this
   class: what, then, is authoritative? There are many books and articles
   as likely, or more so, to contain nonsense as an encyclopedia. Instead
   of simply excluding a genre of work, we need to be media literate;
   this is an important skill to develop as a scholar and citizen.
   Furthermore, I believe to forbid the citation of a reference work
   contributes to a form of dishonesty posing as pretense. (How does the
   person who only reads original sources find those sources?) Finally,
   some worry that web pages can change and be touched by many. Indeed,
   this is a great opportunity to appreciate that all knowledge is a
   reflection of a society and its time.

   Instead of barring citations of reference works I have a simple
   alternative. Unless vetted by an instructor (e.g., as part of the
   syllabus) a reference article should never be cited alone. As I often
   say, a Wikipedia article is only as reliable as its sources, and those
   should be consulted, carefully considered, and cited in addition to
   Wikipedia. Reference to Web resources should include the date of
   access and the specific version consulted, which Wikipedia articles'
   provide via the "permanent link" in the left sidebar.

   For your midterm assignment on "Failed Predictions" you are required
   to engage a Wikipedia article as the subject of your analysis. You
   should also consider the provenance (source) of the prediction and
   substantiate your analysis with authoritative sources from the
   syllabus and beyond. All of these should be noted in your
   bibliography.

Works Cited

   Giles, J. (2005). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature.
   Retrieved on December 15, 2005 from <
   http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html >

   Lanier, J. (2006). The hazards of the new online collectivism. Edge.
   Retrieved on June 07, 2006 17:18 UTC from <
   http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge183.html >

   Wikipedia (2006i). Interpedia. Wikimedia. Retrieved on October 20,
   2006 17:14 UTC from <
   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interpedia&oldid=73394880 >

   Wilson, D. and Reynard, A. M. (1994). Interpedia frequently asked
   questions and answers. Retrieved on October 27, 2005 from <
   http://groups.google.de/groups?selm=CL9x0u.B4x%40acsu.buffalo.edu&outp
   ut=gplain >

]]

-------------------------------------------------------

--
Regards,          http://www.mit.edu/~reagle/
Joseph Reagle     E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65  BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 1/30/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>on 1/30/07 7:00 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
>>
>>
>>>People who are good editors, but take other
>>>people's statement to heart, can get so upset that they no longer want
>>>to work in WP, and that's certainly a loss to the project. So the
>>>civility rule is partly about backing down to a level that reduces hurt
>>>and misunderstandings across a broad range of individuals.
>>>
>>>
>>Isn't this a rather paternalistic attitude? "We are censoring this for your
>>protection" is the first reason given by powers that would be.
>>
>>
>There's censorship, and then there's a social contract.
>
>Civility should be about the social contract... we agree not to abuse
>each other in the course of discussing things about which we may
>disagree greatly.
>
>If someone shows up who refuses to buy in to the social contract, then
>we can ask them to behave or in extremis to leave.  No forum which is
>a complete anarchy survives.
>
The implicit message in that is that the social contract is written in
stone.  Abiding with the social contract does not mean having to buy
in.  Mature institutions resist change, even good change.
Establishments and vested interests become hardened into place.  That
can make newcomers with fresh ideas unwelcome.  By the same token a
newcomer should not expect that his improvements will be implemented
immediately.  The newcomer needs hope.

It seems a natural tendency in people who have fought hard for some
aspect of the system to do what they can to keep it in place, sometimes
long after its usefulness has been exhausted.  If voting is used to
bring about the feature the winners can easily be content in the feeling
that the issue must never again be revisited; defence becomes a virtue
in its own right. In time the original supporters drift away for
unrelated reasons, and we are left with a rule that has been stripped of
its raison-d'?tre.  Attempts to change such rules can be a daunting
task, if only because such proposals can too easily be ignored and
wander off into some limbo of consciousness.  It would be nice if we
could adopt some policy that says that virtually all decision making
processe remain open perpetually.

Ec


from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian

body:
David Monniaux wrote:

>OTRS has received a request for this wiki to be taken down, stating that
>Moldovian is just Romanian written in cyrillic, in a way imposed by the
>Communists. (I'm not saying this is true, I have no opinion on the
>issue, I'm just reporting.)
>
In fact, there seems to be an organized campaign, with a form letter.


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldavian


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Survey about paid editing

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/1/07, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My opinion is that the poll provides no protection
> against ballot-stuffing.
>
> Sure it does! It probably sets a cookie! You know, a
> cookie! Those
> delicios delicacies that are the ultimate protection
> against everything!

Mmmmm.  Sure you don't want to mention a brand name.  You
know, some taste better.  And pay better too!

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
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with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
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from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
? Firefoxman wrote:
> What is a top post?
>

It's to put your reply above the thing you're replying to. It's partly
an issue of showing consideration for the people you're writing to, and
partly a shibboleth of internet culture. See, for example:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/T/top-post.html

Especially on mailing lists, where you may have hundreds or thousands of
people reading your message, including people just joining, skipping
around, or finding it via search engines, it's considered polite to trim
quoted text down to the minimum needed to follow the conversation. Over
the last few years, the appropriate amount to quote has shrunk some,
probably thanks to ever-growing disks, better threaded mailers, and
web-based mailing list archives allowing people to discover context as
needed.

William