from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.

Here is another example, and I will probably regret mentioning it:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_fe_st/911_love

This woman (please do not name her in the email archives, eh?) had a
policeman come to her home for a noise complaint.  She thought he was
very attractive.  So, a few weeks later, she called 911 to inquire about
him, to ask for his name.  She indicated in the phone call that she did
not know how else to contact him, and gave her phone number and ask them
to have the officer call her or drop by.

Now, if she had stopped for a moment to think about why calling 911
about this was a bad idea, I am sure she could have called the
non-emergency phone number.  (For non-US readers: '911' is what you call
everywhere in the US in case you have an emergency, and they will send
the police, fire department, or ambulance as necessary.)

Instead, she was arrested for abuse of the 911 system.  As far as I can
tell from the story, she did not have malicious intent, it was not even
a prank, it was just a mistaken call to the wrong number, and a "cute"
story.

The AP, in what I must say I personally find to be a lack of
journalistic ethics, chose to publish her full name and distribute the
story to millions of people worldwide.  Our understanding of the story
is not enhanced by knowing her full name.  It is just a funny little
story about someone being stupid.

Fortunately, most AP stories vanish from the net pretty quickly.  This
one will.  The Yahoo link will die in a few months.  But imagine if
someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the (daft, if
you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
Internet, as did Brian Peppers.

Should we therefore have an article?  Let's assume that we can verify
the story easily enough.  (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)

I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.

--Jimbo


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
On 7/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> >Looking further, "To perform or display a work "publicly" means?
> >(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any
> >place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle
> >of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
> >(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of
> >the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means
> >of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of
> >receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or
> >in separate places and at the same time or at different times."
> >
> >Seems 2) fits in closer with what Wikipedia is doing than the
> >definition of "publication".
> >
> I don't doubt that this is a part of US law.  The point really is does
> the Code have the same definition of "publish" (and its related words)
> in the context of copyright law as it does in the context of defamation
> law, or any other branch of law where the definition may be an issue?
>
Well, this thread was talking about the term "publish" in terms of the
GFDL.  I said that there was "a reasonable argument that these works
are in fact not yet published at all" in that context.  You responded
that "If it has been made public it has been published.  The real
question here is _who_ did the publishing."

I don't think it's a given that "it has been published".  I think
there's a reasonable argument that Wikipedia is a joint work of
authorship that is still a work in progress, and that the original
publisher is whoever first takes that content and produces a work
which can legitimately be seen as a single GFDL document.

It's like if RMS and ESR get together and work on a novel.  They
wouldn't have to add a line in the history section every time they
pass a working copy back and forth.  No, they'd finish the novel, put
both their names on it as co-authors, and then publish it as the
original publication.

This doesn't fit nearly as neatly for Wikipedia, but neither does any
other interpretation.

Anthony


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> Jimmy, you might be interested in this:
>
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Peppers

My intervention in the en case was based on there being a proper AfD
result which was being overturned by people who were, in my opinion,
just trolling.  I feared (perhaps unnecessarily) a new wheel war over
it, and stepped in to say, no the AfD stands, let's not go through
repeated recreations and deletions.

This was, remember, just have the pedophile userbox war, and at the
height of the userbox wars, which seem to be on the back burner lately,
probably because the wave of immature newcomers has started to see the
light and/or leave.

If I were voting to delete, I would vote to delete.  But my action in
that case had more to do with me trying to prevent what looked to me
like a brewing edit war.

I also appreciate that it sets an entirely different precedent: that
Wikipedia will not somehow explode in the event that we stop to think
for a few months. :)

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
On 7/14/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> " ...Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
> rental, lease, or lending. But then again, by that definition
> *nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
> court would agree with that...."
>
> Because of the way the GFDL works, ownership is transferred to every person
> that receives it.

Ownership of what?  The ownership of copyright doesn't get
transferred.  Copies of the work don't get transferred.  What gets
transferred?  Bits?

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Hi,

There is one thing I don't really quite understand, and I was wondering
if someone could explain this to me in very simple and easy-to-follow
terms...

Basically, I seem to be making the following two recurring observations:

(1) Users who are unhappy with some admin action or other post to the
     mailing list - sometimes angrily, sometimes rationally, but always
     making explicit that they are annoyed - complaining about what they
     perceive to be "admin abuse".

(2) Admins sometimes defend their actions by using the argument, "If
     you've managed to piss off several admins, chances are you've done
     something wrong."

Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
doing much more significant wrongs?

The only ways out of this dilemma appear to be either to admit that a
larger proportion of users are right in their "cabal" accusations than
is widely assumed, OR... to accept that argument #2 is invalid.

If we accept that argument #2 is invalid, then it must logically follow
that admins getting annoyed is no indication of user behaviour being
wrong. If that is so, then what sort of non-wrong behaviour gets them
pissed off and why?

Timwi


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Ideas for faster MediaWiki startup

body:
Client-side applications are becoming more important. There are plans for
using AJAX, and request rates for machine interfaces such as query.php,
action=raw and Special:Export are growing. These lightweight requests are
often predominantly composed of startup costs. Profiling on Wikimedia
currently gives 47ms for startup, including at least 8ms for extensions.
This is too slow. My ideas for fixing this are as follows:

* Pervasive lazy initialisation. Remove $wgUser, $wgLang and $wgContLang,
replace them with wfGetUser(), wfGetLang() and wfGetContLang(). This brings
them into line with the successful wfGetDB() interface. Simply returning the
variable would be done by those functions, if it doesn't exist, then
execution would pass to the relevant autoloaded module for initialisation.
The same can be done for $wgTitle, $wgParser, $wgOut, $wgMessageCache...
pretty much all the object globals. A version-independent accessor would be
put in ExtensionFunctions.php, to support multi-version extensions. By
deferring everything, we allow lightweight requests to get by without ever
initialising a user object, or loading a language file.

* Cached module registration. Each module provides a module.php in a unique
directory, which sets a $module variable to an array describing its
capabilities. Capabilities would include:

    * Autoloadable classes and their locations
    * Hooks
    * Special pages
    * Magic words
    * Messages
    * Parser elements and functions

The registered callback functions would all be static functions in
autoloaded classes. To register modules at startup, a function will be
called with an array listing the extension directories. This function will
load the module.php files and merge the arrays, creating a master hashtable
of capabilities and their locations. And crucially, this hashtable can be
cached. This reduces average-case module initialisation from tens of lines
of code per module to a single unserialize() for all modules.

The old extension setup files would be kept for backwards compatibility, but
would never be loaded unless the extension explicitly does so when it
obtains control via a hook.

* Bring Wikimedia's configuration cache into the committed codebase, and
extend its abilities. Incorporate settings from DefaultSettings.php into the
SiteConfiguration object, thus allowing them to be cached, avoiding a
DefaultSettings.php load. The bulk of the default LocalSettings.php can be
moved to a separate file, analogous to Wikimedia's InitialiseSettings.php.
Thus in the typical case, all configuration, except programmatic
modifications, will be done by a single unserialize plus a few stat calls.

The general idea is to slash the number of lines of code loaded on startup
to a tiny fraction of what it is now. Any thoughts?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:27:15 -0400, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Seriously... why doesn't someone with access to LexisNexis run a
>> search and see if there are some real sources out there for Peppers?
>> Doubt you'll find much.  --LV
>
>Nada. Ran a general search and then one on Ohio papers specifically.
>Also ran a search in NewsBank's America's Newspaper's database, which
>I find more useful than Lexis/Nexis for searching smaller regional
>newspapers.  Nothing there either.

I couldn't make a more powerful argument for not having an article.

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


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.

I would support deleting an article about the incident you describe
purely on the basis that it falls below even my rather inclusive
"notability" standards, rendering your question moot.

Assuming for purposes of argument that there was reason that this
incident _was_ notable, however, I wouldn't accept an argument for
deletion solely on the basis of "human dignity." Our other policies and
guidelines will ensure that the article ultimately only contains
information that is commonly available anyway. Removing her article from
Wikipedia would do nothing to help "leave her alone" and it would harm
Wikipedia's coverage of a notable event, so IMO it'd be a solid net
negative.

I don't even see what's so undignified about this particular incident
that anyone would argue it on that basis in the first place. Everyone
does boneheaded things from time to time.

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body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:36:34 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>> Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
>> reliable sources.

>Actually, the person who claimed to be the guy's brother and started
>that rumor about the nurse admitted it was a hoax.  I sent you the
>link earlier today.

You're missing the point.  We don't know either way, there are no
reliable sources.  we don't have a court transcript, a report from the
paper, a statement, nothing.

>> The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
>> certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
>> which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
>> enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
>> biography.

>As I've said, I disagree.  I think there are enough neutral sources to
>have a short article, maybe two paragraphs long, which would be far
>better than having nothing.

We disagree here in two fundamental respects.

First, I don't think that there are any sources neutral enough, given
that virtually every source we do have is related to the "who's a
pepper?" thing.  There are no reports unrelated to that, other than
the primary sources (eSORN etc.) and they are monumentally
uninformative.

Second, I think that having a short article ''is'' worse than having
no article, because we have no idea what else the guy has done with
his life.  Maybe he spent his entire childhood rescuing drowning
kittens.  We oimply have no idea.  All we know about him is he pleaded
guilty to an attempted felony, and he looks "kinda weird".  We can
reasonably infer that he is disabled, but even that is probably
original research.  We really know next to nothing about the guy, so
we have no way of presenting a neutral biography.

If someone writing a book on memes goes out and researches properly
and comes back with some actual substance maybe I'd change my mind,
but right now I think that these two facts - conviction and appearance
- do not, between them, constitute sufficient material for a WP:BLP.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:15:02 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
>applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
>doing much more significant wrongs?

No.  Because almost without exception the ones who complain loudly and
bitterly are the ones who are *absolutely determined* that The Truth
(TM) be told about some person, incident or whatever, and they are
kicking back at the janitor who locks them out of the room in which
they are trying to start a fight. That's my experience, anyway.

There are very few genuinely productive editors with a significant
history of blocks.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> [snip]
>
>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>the ones that get annoyed,
>
> If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
> What percentage would signify something of significance?
> What percentage has complained thus far?

You have just undermined my argumentation. The amount of annoyed users
is obviously strictly greater than the amount of annoyed e-mails we
actually see. We actually see an annoyed e-mail from a new user almost
every day. But how many similarly annoyed e-mails do you see from admins?

Timwi


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/14/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>[...]
> >Choosing a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV
> >implications is our policy. See
> >
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Descriptive_names
> >
> Guideline, not policy, but I see the point about descriptive names.
> The loophole I see is that the page assumes the choice of descriptive
> vs proper name is obvious, but if I understand stevertigo's original
> point, WP-manufactured descriptive names would take precedence over
> proper names in many cases.

I actually don't see how the policy/guidelines tell us whether a
military operation name ("Proper noun") would be preferred or
depreciated relative to a descriptive name.  The policy gives
guidelines for how to select in each of those categories, but for some
events (and military operations and wars qualify) selecting between
those options is the problem...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:15:02 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
>>applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
>>doing much more significant wrongs?
>
> No.  Because almost without exception the ones who complain loudly and
> bitterly are the ones who are *absolutely determined* that The Truth
> (TM) be told about some person, incident or whatever, and they are
> kicking back at the janitor who locks them out of the room in which
> they are trying to start a fight. That's my experience, anyway.

Oh, and what do you think makes them so determined? Could it be
something they genuinely perceive as a wrong? Could it be that they are
trying to be genuinely productive, and that from their point of view it
is the admins who were "starting a fight"?

> There are very few genuinely productive editors with a significant
> history of blocks.

That's a tautology. Someone who is blocked hardly has any chance to be
(and, in most cases, any interest in being) at all productive. What
percentage of people that are blocked and never return, would have been
genuinely productive if they hadn't been blocked? How can you tell?

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>>On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>>the ones that get annoyed,
>>
>>If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
>>What percentage would signify something of significance?
>>What percentage has complained thus far?
>
> You have just undermined my argumentation.

Heh, silly typo. I meant to type "underlined", not "undermined"... but
actually, let me replace that with "confirmed". :-)

Timwi


from_name: Sean Whitton

subject:
[Foundation-l] Requests to use the foundations'
	trademarks/logos.

body:
You're absolutely right; as the Internet gets bigger and more and more
content is written, archival services are going to become more
powerful as people want to look for stuff that someone else has
pointed them at - the idea has been around for sometime with search
engine caches and the Wayback Machine, but it will be something
interesting to watch.

I think you're right on just archiving on site in order to avoid
difficulties, but right now they need to have that permission as soon
as possible and understand that they can have it again, which it'd be
good if Brad dealt with for us.

Brad: Have your got a hold of the e-mail, or do you still need it to
be forwarded?

On 14/07/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/07/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/14/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The USA Library of Congress has requested permission to include
> > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> in their collection of
> > > Internet material concerning the crisis in Darfur.
> > >
> > > They wish to
> > > 1. archive the page at regular intervals, and
> > > 2. publish it on their publicly accessible web site.
> > >
> > > They completely reproduce pages for archival purposes: capturing all
> > > identifying site documentation, including URL, trademark, copyright
> > > statement, ownership, publication date
> > > <http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/faq.html>; so the GFDL requirements are
> > > met, but what about the trademark/logo? Who needs to give permission
> > > or refuse?
> > >
> > > WikiMedia OTRS ticket: 2006071110012086
> > > LC Reference: Darfur 88979 CD
> >
> > I remember a similar request from 2004 during the Tsunami (okay, the
> > actual request should have been from january-february 2005) from the
> > US LOC for a collection about this.  Maybe someone is able to find the
> > ticket and how we reacted to this. As far as I am concerned, their
> > request is fine and I consider it a shame that libraries are requested
> > to ask for this to preserve the cultural heritage, no matter if it is
> > on dead trees or on a DVD.
>
> It's the major problem with web archiving - if you get 10% response
> you're lucky. Most have grudgingly accepted they have to go with
> "archive on spec" and take down afterwards if there's a complaint. I
> strongly, strongly suggest we figure out a way to have a blanket
> permissions policy for this sort of thing; it's exactly what we want
> to encourage, though there's generally less need to archive us than
> with most people...
>
> Whilst I remember, the rather cunning trick developed to get around
> permissions (at least for the biggest web archivers, the
> national-level people), is to quietly redefine legal deposit, so that
> the deposit libraries have the right to make and store copies of any
> material published to the web in their jurisdiction. Defining
> "jurisdiction" is fun, of course, but they seem to have knocked
> something together; France is working on theirs, the UK has passed the
> enabling legislation but hasn't put it into force yet, and I think
> Denmark's got it up and running.
>
> (I was lucky enough to attend a one-day conference on internet
> archiving - it was a bit accidental, we hadn't quite realised it was
> directed at the big players - which was remarkably interesting. It's
> going to be a fun field to watch)
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


from_name: Dabljuh

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
First of all, regarding "More heat than light"

You don't fix a broken system by pretending it is not broken.
The biggest problem of Wikipedia as an organization is, that it
is basically immune to criticism. This is never a good thing,
when whoever argues for the change of the man-made system is
removed from the system as a Troll.

I am also opposed to attempts to try to enforce civility
by means of administrative punishment or policy. Because
I consider the strategy to be ultimately counterproductive
regarding the hostility of the process.

You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw
the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore"
because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing
to do.

Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.

Now back on topic

What I am trying to say (with "secular western humanist
philosophy") is that we have methods, such as deductive
reasoning, that allow us to achieve a sort of POV that
can be acceptable to all. What I am saying is that there
is a logical and time tested method in finding a neutral
position on something. It is hard, it takes a lot of work,
and may mean also overcoming one's own biases.

Now, in the process of coming to such a "neutral" position,
mistakes are made and these should be pointed out and the
chain of deductions should be adapted accordingly.

Let me make you an example on something that you said:
"Enlightened people dislike violence"
I love violence. There should be a lot more of it. But
that's just my personal opinion. The objective and
neutral thing to see, is that violence per se is a part of
life, and cannot be deemed morally wrong any more than
gravity or the sunlight.

What can be criticised rightfully however, is actions
of people. If I just established that violence per se
is nothing bad, I must make clear that actual instances
of violence can very well be bad, in such that the reasons
for these instances of violence are bad. So our "enlightened"
fella might say, "Bad reasons for committing violence are bad".

Certainly you would not categorically forbid the use
of violence to the police because you deem violence
inherently bad?

But what's at the core of your argument, what you are saying,
if I understand you correctly (please correct me if I am wrong)
is that there is no such thing as a neutral point of view.
>From that I would conclude, logically, that the policy of
WP:NPOV should be abandoned because there is apparently no
method to actually achieve this NPOV.
(And consensus is strictly not one of them)

There *is* a method to find a neutral position.
Philosophy and logic offer the tools to arrive at it,
such as the Socratic Method and the rules of argument.

I trust that you will go "Hey, that's right" and change
your opinion, because confronted with convincing arguments,
I would do just the same - Its one of the rules ;)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>
>>>On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>>>[snip]
>>>
>>>
>>>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>>>the ones that get annoyed,
>>>
>>>If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
>>>What percentage would signify something of significance?
>>>What percentage has complained thus far?
>>
>>You have just undermined my argumentation. The amount of annoyed users
>>is obviously strictly greater than the amount of annoyed e-mails we
>>actually see. We actually see an annoyed e-mail from a new user almost
>>every day. But how many similarly annoyed e-mails do you see from admins?
>
> I suspect you didn't intend to say what you said, and thus you
> wouldn't enjoy my thanks for admiting your failure.. :)

Heh, yeah, see my other posting :)

> In any case, You're making a significant logical error....   You are claiming:
>
> *Users get angry if admins take action against them
> *admins get pissed if users are bad
> *there are strictly more pissed users than pissed admins
> thus
> *Admins are taking action against good users because otherwise we
> would expect equal numbers of angry users and angry admins.
>
> There are a number of mistakes with this line of reasoning. The most
> important of which is that admins don't always get pissed when users
> do bad...

I don't see how I'm making this assumption. Quite to the contrary, you
now seem to be making the assumption that users always get pissed when
admins do bad against them...

> The claim you are referring to made is that only if users are bad
> admins are pissed, not if and only if.

I'm sorry, this sentence does not parse grammatically. Please rephrase? :)

> Your argument also makes questionable assumptions about the
> probability of an annoyed person speaking up.

Does it? Are you alleging that all or most annoyed people speak up? I
don't think so.

> I am quite sure that mistakes are made... and that we even have a few
> low quality admins. ... But I've seen no information which causes me
> to believe that this should be considered a high priority problem

You'd rather continue to have this flurry of angry complaints on this
mailing list? :)

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e692861c0607141029l23cc4176i88d09ece0bf74f61@mail.gmail.com>	<e98kg6$cbi$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44B7DADA.10404@KillerChihuahua.com>

body:
Puppy wrote:
>
> Perhaps the administrators are selected because they are the type to
> uphold the policies, rather than rail against them. Just a thought.

I wonder whether you posted this in order to defend the admins or to
defend the complaining newbies. It could be interpreted both ways. It
could be interpreted to mean "the administrators are selected to be
those who are true to the principles that we believe underlie a good,
harmonic community" (thereby defending the admins), or it could be
interpreted to mean "the administrators are selected to be those who
will take sides with the established ways of the community, thereby
encouraging the formation of a clique or cabal" (thus defending the
complaining newbie).

Either way, however, this is irrelevant to the thread. My original
posting was not about policies. The spirit of the policies is very
different from the reality of admins' actual behaviour in practice. This
has been observed and stated on this mailing list numerous times, even
by admins. This is about the actual behaviour in practice. My
observation on this mailing list is that the actual behaviour in
practice causes a large amount of editors to become disgruntled.

Timwi


from_name: Sydney aka FloNight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
---- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
> dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.
>
> Here is another example, and I will probably regret mentioning it:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_fe_st/911_love
>
> This woman (please do not name her in the email archives, eh?) had a
> policeman come to her home for a noise complaint.  She thought he was
> very attractive.  So, a few weeks later, she called 911 to inquire about
> him, to ask for his name.  She indicated in the phone call that she did
> not know how else to contact him, and gave her phone number and ask them
> to have the officer call her or drop by.
>
> Now, if she had stopped for a moment to think about why calling 911
> about this was a bad idea, I am sure she could have called the
> non-emergency phone number.  (For non-US readers: '911' is what you call
> everywhere in the US in case you have an emergency, and they will send
> the police, fire department, or ambulance as necessary.)
>
> Instead, she was arrested for abuse of the 911 system.  As far as I can
> tell from the story, she did not have malicious intent, it was not even
> a prank, it was just a mistaken call to the wrong number, and a "cute"
> story.
>
> The AP, in what I must say I personally find to be a lack of
> journalistic ethics, chose to publish her full name and distribute the
> story to millions of people worldwide.  Our understanding of the story
> is not enhanced by knowing her full name.  It is just a funny little
> story about someone being stupid.
>
> Fortunately, most AP stories vanish from the net pretty quickly.  This
> one will.  The Yahoo link will die in a few months.  But imagine if
> someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the (daft, if
> you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
> confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
> her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
> lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
> Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
>
> Should we therefore have an article?  Let's assume that we can verify
> the story easily enough.  (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
> for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)
>
> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>
> --Jimbo

This would be outside of encyclopedic content altogether as far as I am concerned.
Wikipedia is not covering the "police beat."

She may or may not want the article. Some people do want the attention.

If she did not want the information even *in* an article I would be inclined to remove it. This type of thing happens regularly. Why should is women be highlighted.

Wikipedia is NOT EVIL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT_evil

Sydney


subject: [Wikitech-l] Custom left nav per namespace?

body:
As far as I'm aware, it isn't possible with the current codebase. If
you know how, it might not be that hard to write a modification.

On 14/07/06, Mick Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?
>
> Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> the namespace?
>
> Thanks,
> ~mm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/14/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Puppy stated for the record:
> > Dabljuh wrote:
> > (snip)
> >
> >>You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw
> >>the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore"
> >>because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing
> >>to do.
> >>
> >>Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.
> >>
> >
> > What are you comparing to salt reclamation?
> > -KillerChihuahua
>
> Gosh, I didn't realize that it was against Wikipedia policy to pick salt
> at the shore.  Can someone give me a link to the policy page?
>
> Also, I'd like to see raw data from which you obtained your "under 5
> seconds" value.  I'd be very surprised if the time doesn't average over
> a minute.

I like to wait 5 minutes before banning the salt pickers; gives them a
false sense of hope. ;-)

Jay.


from_name: Peter Adams

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tell MW not to share extension's db connection

body:
Hi all -

I'm writing an analytics package for MediaWiki and am running into an
issue where even though my extension creates a separate mysql
connection, MW is catching the DB errors and throwing up its stack
trace.

I'm running php 4.4.2 and MW 1.6.3.

It appears that MW is trying to use the mysql connection that my
extension has established. a quick look at the MW database.php
suggests that this  might be an optimization.

Could anyone provide some guidance on how to best avoid this if you
are writing an extension that needs to make a mysql connection?

Thanks,

-P-

/**
   * Peter Adams  <peter at openwebanalytics.com>
   *
   * Open Web Analytics - the open source web analytics framework.
   *    Blog >>   http://www.openwebanalytics.com/
   *    Wiki >>    http://wiki.openwebanalytics.com
   */


body:
No problem - looking under the hood will probably send you mad anyway ;)

On 14/07/06, Michael Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> > As far as I'm aware, it isn't possible with the current codebase.
>
> I was afraid of that.
> Anybody know if this feature will be included in a future release?
>
> > If
> > you know how, it might not be that hard to write a modification.
>
> Hmmm, unfortunately I don't. I haven't really looked under the
> MediaWiki's hood, and am not terribly familiar with php.
>
> Thanks for the response.
>
> ~mm
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > On 14/07/06, Mick Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?
> > >
> > > Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> > > the namespace?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > ~mm
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >         ?Xyrael
> >                 sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


from_name: Joseph Hiegel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity (warning: verbosity follows...)

body:
I agree with Bryan, but I am happy that Jimbo has made explicit an issue with which we've frequently dealt tangentially (see, e.g., in the [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]] and [[WP:NOT EVIL]] discussions).  Plainly, to my mind, human dignity is an altogether unencyclopedic concern, and, pace Jimbo, I think that, inasmuch as we ought to edit with complete disinterest vis-?-vis the external consequences of our editing, we ought never to comport our encyclopedic work with, as journalists, a [[Journalistic ethics#Harm limitation principle|harm limitation principle]].

  There are, I think, two issues here: (a) whether the community believe there to be anything morally wrong with our creating and maintaining articles apropos of living persons where the notability of those persons is avolitional and where those persons are demonstrably harmed by our having such articles (even where they've not complained to us about that harm) and (b) whether, assuming arguendo that the community does thence appreciate a moral wrong, otherwise encyclopedic concerns militate sufficiently in favor of inclusion that, notwithstanding a moral wrong, we ought to have such articles.

  Even as I recognize that some editors would find there to be something untoward or immoral in our having an article, for example, about [[Brian Peppers]], I think it is far from clear that the majority of frequent contributors think there to be something immoral with our writing articles that certainly harm their subjects where their subjects are arguably non-notable and in any event avolitionally public; I certainly can't comprehend why anyone would think such writing to be immoral, but that's likely because I am an amoral objectivist.

  Were there to be a consensus for the idea that we ought to act to limit harm in view of the nebulous "human dignity", I'd suspect that there'd nevertheless be no abiding consensus toward the proposition that the "human dignity" argument ought always to be dispositive; there are, after all, other encyclopedic concerns to which "human dignity" ought not to be superior.

  As [[WP:POLICY]] makes well clear, the nature of the wiki is such that nothing is immutable; were most frequent contributors, for example, to determine that we should no longer require [[WP:V|verifiability]], it's likely that Wikipedia would (d)evolve in a fashion consistent with community consensus (surely Jimbo would consider whether to jump in at this point, but I think even he would concede that his capabilities to act unilaterally contrary to an evident consensus are somewhat limited and that, in any case, the community would look with strong disfavor on such unilateral action), and so, encyclopedic concerns aside, the community might decide to confer guideline status on the ol' "human dignity" bit.  I seriously doubt that the community would so act, though, and I certainly don't think that a discussion on the mailing list ought to be understood as involving the whole of the community.

  There seems to be, relative to [[WP:OFFICE]] and [[WP:BLP]], an acquiescence to the idea that there are circumstances under which, even where legal and [[WP:V]], [[WP:RS]], and [[WP:NPOV]] issues do not entail, we ought to act to avoid offending subjects, which accession I find wholly ridiculous.  If such accession commands the support of the community, though, it should be codified, but only after a Wiki-wide discussion.

  Cordially,

  Joe Hiegel
  [[User:Jahiegel]]

  ournalistic_ethics#Harm_limitation_principle

Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
  Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity". A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.

I would support deleting an article about the incident you describe
purely on the basis that it falls below even my rather inclusive
"notability" standards, rendering your question moot.

Assuming for purposes of argument that there was reason that this
incident _was_ notable, however, I wouldn't accept an argument for
deletion solely on the basis of "human dignity." Our other policies and
guidelines will ensure that the article ultimately only contains
information that is commonly available anyway. Removing her article from
Wikipedia would do nothing to help "leave her alone" and it would harm
Wikipedia's coverage of a notable event, so IMO it'd be a solid net
negative.

I don't even see what's so undignified about this particular incident
that anyone would argue it on that basis in the first place. Everyone
does boneheaded things from time to time.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
---- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> On Jul 14, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > imagine if
> > someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the
> > (daft, if
> > you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
> > confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
> > her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
> > lived meme
>
> The worst aspect of this is that there is no way to flesh out the
> woman's humanity. It is doubtful any other published information exists.
>
> Fred

Fred,

That is exactly the point that I try to get across when we deal with people that are notable for one small area of there life. WP:BLP trys to deal with this idea of different levels of notability.

Angela, for example, is known for a small area of her life if we go by verifiable, reliable sources. For that reason the information is best covered in another article.

Of course for dignity reasons, it is worse when the only thing that someone is famous for may be one small stupid mistake.

Sydney


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 7/14/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > My intervention in the en case was based on there being a proper AfD
> > result
>
>
> False. The was an AFD result over unrelated content. The only ADF on
> the content resembling what you deleted did not decide to delete. This
> has been explained before.
>
>
> --
> geni

Which AFD? There seem to have been around three.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Brian_Peppers&oldid=28988396

~maru


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
>dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.
>
>Here is another example, and I will probably regret mentioning it:
>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_fe_st/911_love
>
>This woman (please do not name her in the email archives, eh?) had a
>policeman come to her home for a noise complaint.  She thought he was
>very attractive.  So, a few weeks later, she called 911 to inquire about
>him, to ask for his name.  She indicated in the phone call that she did
>not know how else to contact him, and gave her phone number and ask them
>to have the officer call her or drop by.
>
>Now, if she had stopped for a moment to think about why calling 911
>about this was a bad idea, I am sure she could have called the
>non-emergency phone number.  (For non-US readers: '911' is what you call
>everywhere in the US in case you have an emergency, and they will send
>the police, fire department, or ambulance as necessary.)
>
>Instead, she was arrested for abuse of the 911 system.  As far as I can
>tell from the story, she did not have malicious intent, it was not even
>a prank, it was just a mistaken call to the wrong number, and a "cute"
>story.
>
>The AP, in what I must say I personally find to be a lack of
>journalistic ethics, chose to publish her full name and distribute the
>story to millions of people worldwide.  Our understanding of the story
>is not enhanced by knowing her full name.  It is just a funny little
>story about someone being stupid.
>
>Fortunately, most AP stories vanish from the net pretty quickly.  This
>one will.  The Yahoo link will die in a few months.  But imagine if
>someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the (daft, if
>you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
>confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
>her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
>lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
>Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
>
>Should we therefore have an article?  Let's assume that we can verify
>the story easily enough.  (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
>for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)
>
>I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
>For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>
This has already appeared on two separate TV news shows here.  There is
an abiding interest in the general public for this kind of story, but
admittedly the name of the person is not important.  I can accept the
premise that her name should not be mentioned by us, though there are
whole books about the stupidest things ever done, and The Guiness Book
of Records lists strange things without end.  They do name names.

Perhaps an article like [[Stupid things which people have done]] would
satisfy the cravings of those readers.  Few of these incidents would
merit more than a paragraph, but anything there would need to be
verifiable.  If anyone really wants to know the name they could always
track down the reference.

Ec


body:
Jimmy, you might be interested in this:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Peppers

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:39:44 -0500, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I must admit I did wonder who had done the digging around on GLF, and
>why. The article about the incident under discussion is, as I recall,
>from 16 years ago or thereabouts.

As I recall a political opponent pointed out that the statement he had
been cleared on appeal was a lie; William Pietri (an editor for whom I
have the greatest respect and from whom I have never heard anything
remotely resembling an unkind word) did the digging.  The para on the
conviction was as neutral as it could have been.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<l3lfb2hms38p953ba8ao8hut6ki1f67qag@4ax.com>
	<e98l3m$eom$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:43:09 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

>>>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>>the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
>>>applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
>>>doing much more significant wrongs?

>> No.  Because almost without exception the ones who complain loudly and
>> bitterly are the ones who are *absolutely determined* that The Truth
>> (TM) be told about some person, incident or whatever, and they are
>> kicking back at the janitor who locks them out of the room in which
>> they are trying to start a fight. That's my experience, anyway.

>Oh, and what do you think makes them so determined? Could it be
>something they genuinely perceive as a wrong? Could it be that they are
>trying to be genuinely productive, and that from their point of view it
>is the admins who were "starting a fight"?

I have no idea.  I had a problem today with someone who was absolutely
determined to add a load of innuendo to a WP:BLP.  He flatly refused
to engage in Talk, removed questions and attempts at dialogue from his
Talk page as "trolling", asserted that it was *his* talk page to do
with as he pleased, and even after a short block he went straight back
and picked up the edit war again.

I think people are used to forums and Usenet where proof by assertion
is a valid technique and where saying the same thing only louder will
very often work.  Here you can say the same thing *better* (i.e. more
neutrally) but if you absolutely refuse to entertain the possibility
that what you have added to a living person bio is anything other than
a beacon of neutrality, notwithstanding that the subject remains
stubbornly free of any convictions or indictments, then you end up
blocked and mailing the list.  The idea of sitting down and talking
calmly about it often does not appear to occur to these people.

>> There are very few genuinely productive editors with a significant
>> history of blocks.

>That's a tautology. Someone who is blocked hardly has any chance to be
>(and, in most cases, any interest in being) at all productive. What
>percentage of people that are blocked and never return, would have been
>genuinely productive if they hadn't been blocked? How can you tell?

SPUI.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e692861c0607141029l23cc4176i88d09ece0bf74f61@mail.gmail.com>	<e98kg6$cbi$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44B7DADA.10404@KillerChihuahua.com> <e98mt4$kni$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:13:47 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

>> Perhaps the administrators are selected because they are the type to
>> uphold the policies, rather than rail against them. Just a thought.

>I wonder whether you posted this in order to defend the admins or to
>defend the complaining newbies.

"Upholding policies" seems unambiguous to me.

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On 7/14/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think there is some motivation to discredit his political viewpoint.
>
> Fred

Pointless. The monday club has been pretty much insignifcant in
british politics since the Conservative Party seathered links with it.
He doesn't really have any links with the more recently sucessful
parts of the um hard right (say UKIP). As a target he makes no sense.
--
geni


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 7:39 PM, George Herbert wrote:

> On 7/14/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>> Choosing a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV
>>> implications is our policy. See
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>>> Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Descriptive_names
>>>
>>>
>> Guideline, not policy, but I see the point about descriptive names.
>> The loophole I see is that the page assumes the choice of descriptive
>> vs proper name is obvious, but if I understand stevertigo's original
>> point, WP-manufactured descriptive names would take precedence over
>> proper names in many cases.
>>
>
> I actually don't see how the policy/guidelines tell us whether a
> military operation name ("Proper noun") would be preferred or
> depreciated relative to a descriptive name.  The policy gives
> guidelines for how to select in each of those categories, but for some
> events (and military operations and wars qualify) selecting between
> those options is the problem...

The difference is that one does not carry POV implications while the
other does.

Fred


body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 9:10 PM, Joseph Hiegel wrote:

> I agree with Bryan, but I am happy that Jimbo has made explicit an
> issue with which we've frequently dealt tangentially (see, e.g., in
> the [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]] and [[WP:NOT EVIL]] discussions).
> Plainly, to my mind, human dignity is an altogether unencyclopedic
> concern, and, pace Jimbo, I think that, inasmuch as we ought to
> edit with complete disinterest vis-?-vis the external consequences
> of our editing, we ought never to comport our encyclopedic work
> with, as journalists, a [[Journalistic ethics#Harm limitation
> principle|harm limitation principle]].
>
>   There are, I think, two issues here: (a) whether the community
> believe there to be anything morally wrong with our creating and
> maintaining articles apropos of living persons where the notability
> of those persons is avolitional and where those persons are
> demonstrably harmed by our having such articles (even where they've
> not complained to us about that harm) and (b) whether, assuming
> arguendo that the community does thence appreciate a moral wrong,
> otherwise encyclopedic concerns militate sufficiently in favor of
> inclusion that, notwithstanding a moral wrong, we ought to have
> such articles.
>
>   Even as I recognize that some editors would find there to be
> something untoward or immoral in our having an article, for
> example, about [[Brian Peppers]], I think it is far from clear that
> the majority of frequent contributors think there to be something
> immoral with our writing articles that certainly harm their
> subjects where their subjects are arguably non-notable and in any
> event avolitionally public; I certainly can't comprehend why anyone
> would think such writing to be immoral, but that's likely because I
> am an amoral objectivist.
>
>   Were there to be a consensus for the idea that we ought to act to
> limit harm in view of the nebulous "human dignity", I'd suspect
> that there'd nevertheless be no abiding consensus toward the
> proposition that the "human dignity" argument ought always to be
> dispositive; there are, after all, other encyclopedic concerns to
> which "human dignity" ought not to be superior.
>
>   As [[WP:POLICY]] makes well clear, the nature of the wiki is such
> that nothing is immutable; were most frequent contributors, for
> example, to determine that we should no longer require [[WP:V|
> verifiability]], it's likely that Wikipedia would (d)evolve in a
> fashion consistent with community consensus (surely Jimbo would
> consider whether to jump in at this point, but I think even he
> would concede that his capabilities to act unilaterally contrary to
> an evident consensus are somewhat limited and that, in any case,
> the community would look with strong disfavor on such unilateral
> action), and so, encyclopedic concerns aside, the community might
> decide to confer guideline status on the ol' "human dignity" bit.
> I seriously doubt that the community would so act, though, and I
> certainly don't think that a discussion on the mailing list ought
> to be understood as involving the whole of the community.
>
>   There seems to be, relative to [[WP:OFFICE]] and [[WP:BLP]], an
> acquiescence to the idea that there are circumstances under which,
> even where legal and [[WP:V]], [[WP:RS]], and [[WP:NPOV]] issues do
> not entail, we ought to act to avoid offending subjects, which
> accession I find wholly ridiculous.  If such accession commands the
> support of the community, though, it should be codified, but only
> after a Wiki-wide discussion.
>
>   Cordially,
>
>
>   Joe Hiegel
>   [[User:Jahiegel]]
>

Our freedom from litigation is partially due to being responsive to
people who are hurt or offended by articles about them. Seems like a
sound policy compared to the likely consequences of an amoral policy.

Fred

>
>   ournalistic_ethics#Harm_limitation_principle
>
> Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>   Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity". A full explanation
>> would be:
>> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>>
>
> I would support deleting an article about the incident you describe
> purely on the basis that it falls below even my rather inclusive
> "notability" standards, rendering your question moot.
>
> Assuming for purposes of argument that there was reason that this
> incident _was_ notable, however, I wouldn't accept an argument for
> deletion solely on the basis of "human dignity." Our other policies
> and
> guidelines will ensure that the article ultimately only contains
> information that is commonly available anyway. Removing her article
> from
> Wikipedia would do nothing to help "leave her alone" and it would harm
> Wikipedia's coverage of a notable event, so IMO it'd be a solid net
> negative.
>
> I don't even see what's so undignified about this particular incident
> that anyone would argue it on that basis in the first place. Everyone
> does boneheaded things from time to time.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 12 Jul 2006 at 16:54, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> This is in direct opposition to a certain faction with a different read
> on what it means to be the 'sum' of all human knowledge, a read which
> comes closer to a 'data dump' of all human knowledge. :)

Wikipedia: Where Human Knowledge Goes to Take a Dump!

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


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing Wikitext in perl

body:
So, I'm about to head out on a long dark trip in to WebGUI land, and I
hate writing lots of HTML just as much as the next guy.

So my goal is to find a chunk of perl that parses (some subset) of MW
wikitext that I can slide into WebGUI.

1) While I know there are some alternative parsers that already exist,
is there anyone floating around in here with any experience patching
any of the ones written in perl into other code?

2) How much of MWT do they parse?  How much do I really need?  (Yeah, I
know; how the hell do *you* know? :-)

3) Has anyone ever done a (semi-)formal specification of MWT?

4) Am I crazy?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	Fanfic: read enough, and you'll loose your mind.  --me


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
People are arrested all the time for doing stupid stuff.  This may be
interesting, it may be an abuse of police power, but that's all it is.  We
could find plenty worse if we looked.


body:
I wasn't aware the Library of Congress needed copyright permissions.  I was
under the impression they were immune to such things for the sake of
preservation.

Oh and Brad, that's awesome that we can work so closely with them.
Hopefully they will have even more resources to keep our content safe in the
future.

mboverload


from_name: Brad Patrick

body:
Thank you to the several of you who contacted me offlist about this.

Danny, mindspillage, gmaxwell, and I met in DC with the Library of Congress
folks who are responsible for the digital harvesting and web archival
functions.  LoC is a big place, and the folks we met with coordinate a lot
of different elements.

One of the folks pulled out a folder which included a sheaf of the emails
that end up in OTRS.  She passed one over to me and was explaining how the
curatorial folks are interested in including a specific page or set of pages
as part of a discrete topic, etc. and before she was done speaking I had
written at the bottom in large letters in a blue pen, "BLANKET PERMISSION
GRANTED" s/BP and all that.

That there would be a moment's hesitation to cooperate fully with the
Library of Congress is beyond my comprehension.  I only regretted that we
hadn't had an opportunity to meet with them earlier.

Working with LoC will likely be a two-way street.  They have 40 TB (that's
terabytes - 10 million items) of digital collection which is of great
interest to us.  They also are interested in the full archival approach,
given what the projects have become as part of the American internet
phenomenon.  How that will be accomplished is still being discussed and will
involve several different elements within LoC.

Part of the reason I took this job was to be able to sit across the table
from other organizations and do something for the betterment of the
projects.  Largely, such ideas of working together has been stifled by a
simple lack of time and bandwidth from board members and Jimmy.  I'm glad
that we are moving in this direction.

Oh, and we're going to get the whole digital archive of the US Holocaust
Memorial Museum too.  =)  Thanks to Danny Wool.
--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing Wikitext in perl

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

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> So, I'm about to head out on a long dark trip in to WebGUI land, and I
> hate writing lots of HTML just as much as the next guy.

HTML isn't that bad if you properly enforce content seperation from
presentation. I couldn't be bothered to use DocBook for a specification
I was writing, so I did it in XHTML.

> 1) While I know there are some alternative parsers that already exist,
> is there anyone floating around in here with any experience patching
> any of the ones written in perl into other code?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers

> 2) How much of MWT do they parse?  How much do I really need?  (Yeah, I
> know; how the hell do *you* know? :-)

See link above for first question.

I would recommend looking at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext to get a handle of what
you'd need.

> 3) Has anyone ever done a (semi-)formal specification of MWT?

Only the code. ;-) There have been attempts, but there mostly
out-of-date. There's a bug report for this:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7

> 4) Am I crazy?

Yes. A little less so if you're not tackling the full thing.
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from_name: Daniel Marvin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human Dignity

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>But imagine if someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely
the (daft, if
>you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
>confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
>her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
>lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
>Internet, as did Brian Peppers.

>Should we therefore have an article?  Let's assume that we can verify
>the story easily enough.  (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
>for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)

>I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.

As a relative newcomer to the mailing list, after following the "Borderline
Notable Bios (yes, again)" thread for several days, I respectfully believe
that articles like Brian Peppers and the woman named in the AP story have
not place in Wikipedia, and I wish to make a two points in this regard.
First, Wikipedia certainly should not be a sex offender registry, because
all but a handful of states pay good money to maintain online sex offender
registries. Nor should Wikipedia become a police blotter (as Sydney pointed
out).  I doubt it is prudent to allow a felony conviction alone establish
notablility, becuase considering that more than a million people are
currently imprisoned in the United State, just creating and maintaing
articles on all convicted felons would likely consumed vast amount of
Wikipedia editorial resources.

-Danntm


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
Thanks, Brad, for breaking the news to Foundation. I will just ad that it
was a very exciting trip, which will open many new opportunities for all of us,
and I feel fortunate to have been able to participate.

With regard to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I just want to add a quick
note that their remarkable collection includes images, testimonies, videos,
and  audio. They are also compiling an online encyclopedia in seven languages,
and  that material will be there for us to harvest as well, according to  the
terms of the GFDL. They have some amazing material on other genocides  as well,
including Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

I will suggest, however, that people wait a few more days before taking
material from their site, so that our discussions can be formalized in a written
agreement. I hope that this can set a precedent and serve as a model for
future  cooperation with other museums and educational institutions. After all, we
all have the same goal--sharing the sum of human knowledge with all people
who seek it.

Special thanks to Mindspillage who helped me with the  USHMM meeting. It goes
without saying that I am ever grateful to Brad  for coordinating and leading
this amazing effort and to Mindspillage and  NullC for all of their technical
insights and great ideas and advice  before, during, and after these meetings.

Danny


from_name: Alex Schenck

body:
Brad, I must say that this is amazing news! I for one am very happy to hear
this went so well.

I'm sorry that I don't have much else to add, but I just wanted you to know
that some of us do in fact lurk on this mailing list and love to hear very
good news every now and then :-)

-alex

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Linuxbeak
Wikimania 2006 - MIT & Harvard - Staff


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>> The general idea is to slash the number of lines of code loaded on
>> startup to a tiny fraction of what it is now.
>
> Sounds like a good idea.
>
> Tim Starling wrote:
>> Profiling on Wikimedia currently gives 47ms for startup, including at
>>  least 8ms for extensions. This is too slow.
>
> Hmm... it would be a little nicer if we knew precisely what was causing
> that slowdown inside the startup. I know that MediaWiki has built in
> profiling calls, but have you tried a PHP-level profiler like APD yet?

We've used xdebug, but it will only give you a very small sample size, any
more than a few requests and the files get too large to handle. Our own
profiler can average over an arbitrary number of requests at quite a high
sample rate. For a breakdown of Setup.php and CommonSettings.php, see

http://noc.wikimedia.org/cgi-bin/report.py?db=enwiki&sort=name&limit=5000

>> Pervasive lazy initialisation. Remove $wgUser, $wgLang and
>> $wgContLang, replace them with wfGetUser(), wfGetLang() and
>> wfGetContLang(). This brings them into line with the successful
>> wfGetDB() interface. Simply returning the variable would be done by
>> those functions, if it doesn't exist, then execution would pass to
>> the relevant autoloaded module for initialisation. The same can be
>> done for $wgTitle, $wgParser, $wgOut, $wgMessageCache... pretty much
>> all the object globals. A version-independent accessor would be put
>> in ExtensionFunctions.php, to support multi-version extensions. By
>> deferring everything, we allow lightweight requests to get by without
>> ever initialising a user object, or loading a language file.
>
> It's probably a step in the right direction. But maybe it would be a
> better idea if we unified all these global object calls into a Registry
> object? (Perhaps this would be phasing them out that you described here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Writing_a_new_special_page&diff=375972&oldid=375234
> )

Sure, but that would require touching many more lines of code. We've found
extract(unserialize(...)) to be quite fast. A configuration object would be
useful if we wanted to operate on multiple wikis in the course of a single
run, but that's complicated for lots of other reasons. In any case, the
changes I'm proposing would be a useful step towards getting rid of
configuration globals, it's not mutually exclusive.

> Tim Starling wrote:
>> Cached module registration.
>
> When you say "module" you mean, "extension", correct? So, essentially,
> we're finally going to structure the extensions into a much more orderly
> fashion. Sounds good.

A module, by my meaning, can be either part of the core or an extension.
It's not about orderly fashions, it's about speed, and the changes I'm
talking about would potentially have application to the core as well as the
extensions.

> Tim Starling wrote:
>> [on configuration]
>
> I don't know enough about Wikimedia configuration to pass judgment here,
> but that sounds like a lot of code that hasn't been versioned.

The configuration cache is only 35 lines or so. The SiteConfiguration class,
which is checked in, was designed to be easily cached. Still, it would be
nice to get that capability into the main codebase, for improved offsite
performance and easier development.

-- Tim Starling


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] repositories of content

body:
On 14/07/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I just have to say that if this pans out it'll be the best
> accomplishment to date for the foundation.  Great job, and thanks for
> keeping us up to date.

I agree. This sounds like a really fantastic development so thanks a
lot to the WMF team who have pulled it together.

I wonder if it would be a good idea for the Commons to develop a
policy regarding an historical archive, ie. being one, or not, or a
bit of both. At the moment there are no official policies but we kind
of say 'don't rely on us to be a historical archive' because:
- if you upload a blurry picture of your dog that you took on your
mobile phone, there may not a lot of value in that to Wikimedia (also
replace 'dog' with 'genitals' :))
- images may be re-uploaded under a more descriptive name and the
originals deleted (because of bugzilla:709, can't rename/move images -
note I think this is relatively rare, but the flag people in
particular seem to be very anal about name conventions)
- admins are only human, thus make mistakes and sometimes even go
rouge (well, potentially) - although a deleting rampage isn't the same
threat it used to be, thanks to image undeletion

ANYWAY... these are just the reasons why we would never promise to be
a historical archive. But obviously we aim to preserve informative and
unique data and these collections would pass on both points.

regards
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: xaosflux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Admins know better then to complain on the mailing list....?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

<snip>
> every day. But how many similarly annoyed e-mails do you see from admins?
>
> Timwi
</snip>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image deletions not logged

body:
Timwi wrote:
> I just deleted about 10 images or so on English Wikipedia. Only three of
> them show up in the deletion log -- maybe because these three had pages
> associated with them, while the others may not have.

Naturally, you're not going to tell us which images they were so we have no hope
of looking them up. Thanks! ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-15

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 409 of 426 tests (96.01%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/14/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Gosh, I didn't realize that it was against Wikipedia policy to pick salt
> at the shore.  Can someone give me a link to the policy page?
>

It would be a clear violation of WP:POINT. Gandi didn't really want to
pick salt himself. He lived along way from the sea and his level of
education meant a career in that area was unlikely

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
> lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
> Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
>

The Brian Peppers thing appears to have started as an email meme which
probably means adults. The google trends result suggests it has been
going for a bit over a year which is quite a long time for the
internet. It is however less popular than "all your base"

> I would vote

oops

--
geni


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/14/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> > For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>
> It's a combination of factors, I think:
> - Did she actively seek out this publicity, or was it forced on her?
> - Is there an identifiable "cult" surrounding her persona that goes
> beyond narrowly limited demographic or subcultural subsets?
> - Have other publications using reliable processes (not necessarily
> print) picked up the story for some reason other than reprinting it?
> Has it ever transcended the "Offbeat News" section?

Along these lines:
Will anyone care in a year? two years? ten years? one hundred years?

Wikipedia is forever. It is a waste of the project's time when someone
writes an article on something which will be forgotten before the
article matures.

Our behavior should be guided both by ethics and by a practical
dedication to the goals of our project (*Free Content*,
*Encyclopedia*). Articles which represent a breach of ethics should be
deleted just the same as topics which are unencyclopedic.

Jimbos example rests somewhere inbetween... and a decision which
weighs the harms and merits of the coverage should be considered by
the community.


body:
On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> My intervention in the en case was based on there being a proper AfD
> result

False. The was an AFD result over unrelated content. The only ADF on
the content resembling what you deleted did not decide to delete. This
has been explained before.

--
geni


body:
On 7/14/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Our freedom from litigation is partially due to being responsive to
> people who are hurt or offended by articles about them. Seems like a
> sound policy compared to the likely consequences of an amoral policy.

Very true, and well said.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Nada. Ran a general search and then one on Ohio papers specifically.
>> Also ran a search in NewsBank's America's Newspaper's database, which
>> I find more useful than Lexis/Nexis for searching smaller regional
>> newspapers.  Nothing there either.
>
> Kind of what I was figuring.  There have been plenty of mentions of
> other memes in the traditional media, yet none on Peppers.  Seems odd.
>  How are we expexted to write an article on a subject that doesn't
> have corroboration in something other than internet sources?  I mean,
> I know the name Gary Brolsma from offline sources.  I know I have seen
> stuff on the Star Wars Kid and that German yelling kid offline as
> well.  It's hard to believe something "this famous" would have no
> mention in newspapers, etc.  I don't know.  The WP:WEB guideline and
> WP:MEME (proposed) don't really give much help either.  --LV
>

So, since there's no source that isn't "and I read it on the internets",
we can't have an article on him, because it's not verifiable.

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

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from_name: Sebastian Moleski

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
> dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.

Jimbo,

It very much is. There's nothing enyclopedic to write about in these cases.
A certain respect and concern for privacy should be beyond the aims of
Wikipedia. In all seriousness: there's plenty to do in Wikipedia. Adding
articles of such dubious and possibly destructive nature does not belong to
that list.

sebmol


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.

It's a combination of factors, I think:
- Did she actively seek out this publicity, or was it forced on her?
- Is there an identifiable "cult" surrounding her persona that goes
beyond narrowly limited demographic or subcultural subsets?
- Have other publications using reliable processes (not necessarily
print) picked up the story for some reason other than reprinting it?
Has it ever transcended the "Offbeat News" section?

Human dignity is one argument among many that can be applicable in
certain situations. It's not a catch-all.

What I find most important is that our decisions are consistent. The
fact that controversial decisions are closed by a single admin tends
to work against that, because all our admins have very different
standards. A controversial AfD is a game of dice right now.

I'm inclined to believe that a general principle "the more
controversial a decision is, the more people should be involved in
determining its final outcome" would make sense. A quorum among a
small number of admins in controversial cases, and a policy that such
cases need to be documented as precedents, would be one way to achieve
that.

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ronald Chmara

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Campaigns Wikia

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 2:02 AM, Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/7/14, Ronald Chmara <ron at opus1.com>:
>> On Jul 10, 2006, at 9:47 PM, rose.parks at att.net wrote:
>>> Thank you, Andre.
>>>      The message I posted was purposely written with the intention of
>>> saying nothing either positive or negative. And, the main reason for
>>> that is that I am not familiar with the site and have formed no
>>> opinions about it.
>>>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>>> From: "Andre Engels" <andreengels at gmail.com>
>>>> 2006/7/10, Pawe?? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org>:
>>>>>> If you have not visited the site yet, be prepared for Google Ads,
>>>>>> POV entries, and - oh yes - an occassional Wikipedian.
>>>>>> Apologies if this is old news...
>>>>> So? It's not a Wikimedia project, but a private wiki. Not every
>>>>> wiki
>>>>> has to be NPOV and without ads (and wikia is a commercial wiki
>>>>> provider, so they're bound to have ads).
>>>> So? So nothing. Ruth is just warning people who expect to get to
>>>> some
>>>> kind of Wikipedia as to what to actually expect.
>> If I go to google.com, I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to wiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to twiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to emacswiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to pbwiki.com I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to wiki.x.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> If I go to wikia.com I do not expect the wikipedia.
>> Wiki != wikipedia. (NOT(!) equal to (=) wikipedia, for those  who
>> don't
>> know this code syntax)
>> I have no idea why andre thinks  he knows "what to actually expect"
>> from yet another wiki idea... Looks like after viewing the 708 million
>> hits on google for 'wiki', he has concluded that 1,500 wikis out of
>> 708,000,000 hits determine the future of wikipedia.
> What are you talking about? Why are you twisting my and other people's
> words? What the fuck is going on here?

Ruth talked about wikia.com.... and then talked about it as if it was
wikipedia.com. She was twisting dns names, as if "wiki" meant
wikipedia, which wiki certainly does not mean. Wiki means "quick", and
in pacific language families, wikiwiki (a quick version of quick) is
very quick.

Your statement: "who expect to get to some..." based on bizarre dns
names is more FUD, slamming any dns entry that has wiki in the name.

> If this is things work, it's the last time I explain something on this
> list.
> I'm angry.

Taking a ball and going home is not very productive. Feel free to do
so, however, if you cannot collaborate, in a positive way, with the
millions of software developers on the 'net who are just trying to Do
The Right Thing(tm)'

> --
4245 NE Alberta Ct.
Portland, OR 97218
503-282-1370


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Campaigns Wikia

body:
Hi All,

     The last outcome that I expected from my announcement was some angry members. Please remember that "Campaigns Wikia" is a wiki, of course. But, also note the first line of my message, which somehow got lost. This wiki was announced and opened by Jimmy Wales.
     It was this fact that caused me to comment on the differences between Wikipedia, etc. and Campaigns Wikia. Now, google all you want, but you will not find a huge number of wikis initiated by Jimmy Wales.
     Enough said, I think.

                            As Ever,

                              Ruth Ifcher

--

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: rose.parks at att.net
> Hi All,
>
>      After over a year, I found something I would like to post a message about.
> To my great surprise, I have seen no other post on this subject. On July 4,
> 2006, Jimmy Wales opened a new wiki devoted to political topics. You can find it
> at:
>
> http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Campaigns_Wikia
>
> If you have not visited the site yet, be prepared for Google Ads, POV entries,
> and - oh yes - an occassional Wikipedian.
>
> Apologies if this is old news...
>
>                       As Ever,
>
>                          Ruth Ifcher
>
> --
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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from_name: Essjay

subject: [Wikitech-l] Second time this week you've made me smile

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> You. Fucking. Wanker.
>
You. Go. Boy. ;)

If you're gone as long as you expect to be, we will certainly miss you.
I find it refreshing that you say the things nobody else will, and will
miss your witty responses and bluntness-when-necessary. I hope you'll be
back with us sooner than expected.

If you need anything, you know where I am.

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


from_name: Keith Old

body:
On 7/15/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 7/14/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:03:52 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >> All the indications are that this was a technical offence.  It has
> > >> been suggested that he touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
> > >> to gain her attention.  We don't know, because there is virtually no
> > >> source material to work on, and that is why we should not have an
> > >> article.
> >
> > >What indication is there, other than your unsourced "suggestion" which
> > >contradicts all the other evidence, that this was a technical offence?
> > > If Peppers accidently "touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
> > >to gain her attention", then he is not guilty of the offense, and this
> > >story is even more important.
> >
> > Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
> > reliable sources.
> >
> Actually, the person who claimed to be the guy's brother and started
> that rumor about the nurse admitted it was a hoax.  I sent you the
> link earlier today.
>
> > >Yes, right now we can't find any source material to definitively
> > >determine exactly what happened.  The same could be said of a large
> > >number of articles.  But unlike your suggestion, there is plenty of
> > >source material to create a short article on what we *do* know.
> >
> > The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
> > certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
> > which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
> > enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
> > biography.
>
> As I've said, I disagree.  I think there are enough neutral sources to
> have a short article, maybe two paragraphs long, which would be far
> better than having nothing.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
We will have to agree to disagree. I think, at this stage, it has better to
have nothing than  have a couple of paragraphs of text on a person in this
situation.

Regards

Keith Old


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Campaigns Wikia

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 4:16 AM, Cormac Lawler wrote:
> (top posting - context below)
> To Ronald: I think you've misunderstood what Andre said - he was
> simply reinforcing what Ruth had originally said; that on Wikia (a
> non-Wikimedia venture) people may expect something different from what
> they expect of Wikimedia projects, ie no Google ads, NPOV etc.

On a non-wikipedia site, say, hotlesbochicks.com, or
menfuckingfarmanimals.com, or wikia.com, they may see google ads? Maybe
NPOV of pleasure values of donkey anuses?

And this is related to wikipedia, *HOW*?

Wikia allows groups who have a "masturbate to star wars action figure
fetish" groups. Wikipedia nukes such things. At the same time, so what?

They are not WP.

> Please
> re-read the context below - of course, you're right that "wiki" is not
> equal to wikip/media - but that's not what Andre or Ruth were saying

How were they saying otherwise? They thought wikia = wikipedia?

-Bop


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image deletions not logged

body:
Hi,

I just deleted about 10 images or so on English Wikipedia. Only three of
them show up in the deletion log -- maybe because these three had pages
associated with them, while the others may not have. I think this is a
significant bug that needs to be fixed, but I'm too tired to search
MediaZilla for it now. Someone please report it for me, or explain why
it's not a bug :-)

Timwi


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China]]:
	mainspace or not

body:
On 7/15/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> It seems that [[Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China]] was just
> moved to:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
>
> The reason given was the [[Wikipedia:Avoid self-references]] rule.
>
> The article is still linked by six mainspace articles. Should we merge
> the information and remove the links or just move it back?

Wikipedia should avoid gratuitous self-reference, but the blocking of
Wikipedia by China is itself newsworthy/articleworthy, IMO.  We have a
[[Wikipedia]] article, after all - not all self-reference is
forbidden.

-Matt


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
>
>> If you want to achieve functionality of having a custom menu on certain
>> pages, you can always use templates. Personally, I don't think changing
>> the left sidebar is a good idea: most users expect it to stay the same
>> throughout the whole site.
>>
>
> What's the "left sidebar" exactly? The links down the left side
> already do change depending on the page: "user contributions" only
> appears when on a user page, for instance.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
The toolbox changes, but the navagation and search boxes stay the same
(unless you modify them via your .js), right?

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On 7/14/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > I think there is some motivation to discredit his political viewpoint.
>
> Pointless. The monday club has been pretty much insignifcant in
> british politics since the Conservative Party seathered links with it.
> He doesn't really have any links with the more recently sucessful
> parts of the um hard right (say UKIP). As a target he makes no sense.

I do have to agree with Geni here; he's a fairly insignificant figure
nowadays, and frankly his political views manage to discredit
themselves quite well enough without help.    Ed Chilvers and a few
other contributors appear to be politically opposed to him, but Ed at
least appears to be motivated by a desire to not let the hard-right of
the past rewrite their own histories, rather than wishing for a
hatchet job.

I think a bigger motivation has been the behaviour of his supporters
(some or all of whom may be GLF himself; it's hard to tell) who wrote
the articles up originally into such pieces of puff-journalism and
have a habit of viciously laying in to anyone who dares disagree with
them, with such virulence in fact that they have made enemies of quite
a few normally unbiased contributors.

This is human nature; if someone treats you as an enemy and accuses
you of malice and hatred towards them, you will begin to oppose them,
especially after you try and clear up the misunderstanding and get
slapped for your trouble.

The irrationally nasty tend to get articles biased against them -
there are other examples, e.g. Daniel Brandt.  Nobody would have cared
a whit for Brandt had he not behaved as badly as he did.

Legal threats also tend to get Wikipedians worked up; GLF's supporters
took the attitude that they could make legal threats with impunity as
long as the threats were of GLF suing, not the supporters.  In fact,
given that User:Sussexman at least claimed to be a solicitor, it
wouldn't surprise me in the least if the nasty lawyers' letters were
drafted and sent by the same people contributing to Wikipedia on GLF's
behalf.

-Matt


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 7/14/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
>>>For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>>>
>>>
>>It's a combination of factors, I think:
>>- Did she actively seek out this publicity, or was it forced on her?
>>- Is there an identifiable "cult" surrounding her persona that goes
>>beyond narrowly limited demographic or subcultural subsets?
>>- Have other publications using reliable processes (not necessarily
>>print) picked up the story for some reason other than reprinting it?
>>Has it ever transcended the "Offbeat News" section?
>>
>>
>Along these lines:
>Will anyone care in a year? two years? ten years? one hundred years?
>
>Wikipedia is forever. It is a waste of the project's time when someone
>writes an article on something which will be forgotten before the
>article matures.
>
This is clearly a wrong criterion.  It should not be our role to judge
what will or won't be forgotten, or what should or shouldn't be
forgotten.  It may be safe to say that many people whose names were
included in the earlier editions Britannica were edited out in
subsequent editions.  We can at least argue that Wiki is not paper.
Politicians are always doing and saying things that they hope will be
forgotten, and persons with vested interests are often happy with that
state of things.

There is no waste of the project's time here, though the individual
editor may have been wasting his own time.  There is a need to avoid
this tendency to view Wikipedia as something more than what it is.  We
are not professionals, so why should we be pretending that we are
producing a professional product?  Let's quit basing policy simply on
what the neighbours think.

Human dignity is an entirely different criterion that could be viewed as
a derivative of Wikilove.

>Our behavior should be guided both by ethics and by a practical
>dedication to the goals of our project (*Free Content*,
>*Encyclopedia*). Articles which represent a breach of ethics should be
>deleted just the same as topics which are unencyclopedic.
>
The ethical principle is much more sound but let's not confuse it with
"unencyclopedic".  Sometimes who is involved is far less important than
the incident itself, and in this case that may be adequate reason for
omitting the name of the person.  For those who really feel that it is
something important to know they have ample opportunity to track down
the source.

Laying down a set of rules and calling them ethics is not what ethics
are all about, although rules can still be derived from ethical
principles.  I would not think it appropriate for our principles of
human dignity to be guided and defined by what happened with this one
woman.  That would be too shallow.  The real issue is deeper than that.
It could be too that this is an even more important issue for Wikinews.

Some have criticized AP for spreading this story.  They have done it
this way forever.  Of course habit is not a justification.  They mention
names because by failing to do say they risk perpetrating urban myth.
Incidents of this sort can easily grow into such proportions.  Urban
myth can best be controlled by having all the facts available,
verifiable and open.  Newspapers could print the names; radio and TV
stations could report them, and those names would soon be forgotten.
When we review old newspapers or other publications it is often with the
active intent of developing some particular story as opposed to the more
passive intent of repeating whatever random information we happen to
find.  Will people actively search for these oddball incidents in the
wiki database ten years from now when it will be so much bigger?  Or
will they be pleased to just discover it as a random article?

Ec