body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at web.de> schrieb:

> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare the
> whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself? [Translation to
> legalese would be required]

The GFDL really requires that; furthermore, it specifies _where_ in the
document it must be:

"List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement."

Where title page is defined as:

"The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text."

Thus, the GNU/FDL not only requires us to put the 5 main authors on the page, it requires us to
put the last author plus the 5 main authors of the previous version directly under the title of the
page. Calling the whole thing a single document, it means we have to do so on the Main Page
at least.

Andre Engels
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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Contributors list

body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at web.de> schrieb:

> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare the
> whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself? [Translation to
> legalese would be required]

The GFDL really requires that; furthermore, it specifies _where_ in the
document it must be:

"List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement."

Where title page is defined as:

"The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text."

Thus, the GNU/FDL not only requires us to put the 5 main authors on the page, it requires us to
put the last author plus the 5 main authors of the previous version directly under the title of the
page. Calling the whole thing a single document, it means we have to do so on the Main Page
at least.

Andre Engels
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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Contributors list

body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at web.de> schrieb:

> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare the
> whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself? [Translation to
> legalese would be required]

The GFDL really requires that; furthermore, it specifies _where_ in the
document it must be:

"List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement."

Where title page is defined as:

"The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text."

Thus, the GNU/FDL not only requires us to put the 5 main authors on the page, it requires us to
put the last author plus the 5 main authors of the previous version directly under the title of the
page. Calling the whole thing a single document, it means we have to do so on the Main Page
at least.

Andre Engels
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list: wikien-l

from_name: mapellegrini at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Facebook opens for buisness

body:
For those of you who don't frequent the village pump,
I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's
gallery" as Andrewa humerously called it) is open at
[[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's a compilation of pictures of our
contributors.

There had been some discussion before about compiling pictures
of wikipedians, so I decided to be bold and created it. I personally
think it's great being able to associate a face with a username -
it keeps all the different users from blurring together.

I'm interested in hearing what everyone has to say about it.
--Mark Pellegrini (Raul654)


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Graph drawing plugin

body:
Jakob wrote:

> We could easily use the DOT-syntax and
> [http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/ graphviz]
> to create PNG-images or SVG. It's damn powerful and not that complicated!

I really really hate graphviz. It rarely if ever produces any usable
output. The graph is *always* either far too big, or the nodes are too
small to read.

I've seen much better auto-generated graphs, but unfortunately not from
open-source software.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The proliferation of article series boxes

references:
<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>	<p3f090ppnm4vc4f75mp9mmb9hk44224esf@4ax.com>	<4090B346.8010408@web.de>
	<iqn290lns9gfufnjpq4gj1jvucal2mfgas@4ax.com>

body:
Alex Regh wrote:

> BTW, while debating categories is certainly important, we should not ignore
> the box problem that the Wikipedia is having right now!

What problem might that be?


references:
<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>
	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
David Friedland wrote:

> I think series boxes are fine for articles that are in a _series_, but
> for groups of related articles, I think categories are the best
> solution.

How do you define the difference between "article series" and "groups of
related articles"?


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]

body:
Samuel Kennedy wrote:
> So, I can't help but wonder, *is* Bomis somehow associated with the
> United States Marine Corps?

Not in any way at all that I can think of, no.

The accusation seems to run as follows...

Jerk Sauce, which is a blog written by Tim Shell, who manages the
content of Bomis, links to the blogs Command Post and Tim Blair.
Those blogs, in turn, run advertisements from the blogsads.com
syndication agency.  One advertiser for blogads.com is Spirit of
America.

Spirit of America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which raises
money which is used to assist members of the military channel goods to
help local people where they are serving.  A typical example would be
baseball and school supplies for a village in Iraq.

I fail to see how this set of facts could possibly warrant any sort of
disclaimer.  Bomis hosts a blog which links to other blogs, which run
ads for a charity, which assists members of the military.  Even if the
Bomis blog itself directly raised money for the military, which it
absolutely does not, even then no disclosure would be warranted on the
article.

My own philosophical and political convictions are well-known.  Many
Wikipedians will disagree with me on political issues, but no rational
person could conclude that I have in any way sought to impose my POV
on the Wikipedia in anyway.  Indeed, one of the reasons that I so
seldom edit is precisely to eliminate even any appearance of
impropriety in that regard.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Proxy blocker status?

body:
O.k., I've requested that information.

I totally approve of how you did this.  If we have an active issue with
a possible case of abuse, I see nothing wrong with trying to explore the
source of the abuse.  Manually scanning an address now and then to see
if it is an open proxy is valid in self-defense, even at the risk of a
complaint.

In this case, I wrote back to the complainant to ask for those details,
because the accusation was that we were repeatedly scanning him.  Possibly
the mail was just really really late or something, I'll also go back and
check the headers.

--Jimbo

Tim Starling wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >I have gotten a complaint that 207.142.131.228 is or was attempting to
> >use a proxy at 212.185.189.154.  How can that be?
> >
> >It is important that we not probe third parties for open proxies under
> >most circumstances.  It might be appropriate if we are experiencing
> >direct abuse ourselves and we're trying to track down why, but as a
> >matter of routine, it causes us to get complaints which will get us in
> >big trouble with our isp.
> >
> >--Jimbo
>
> The proxy checker has been switched off for three weeks. In that time I
> manually scanned 2 or 3 addresses which were being used by suspected
> sock puppets, but searching my shell command history confirms that that
> address wasn't one of them. So I have no idea what they're talking
> about. The date and time of the suspected proxy scan would be helpful in
> tracking this down.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Unfortunately one type of wheel doesn't fit every car. XML is designed
> to be primarily machine-readable and unambiguous, human-readability and
> ease of authorship is a secondary consideration. I once read an article
> by Tim Berners-Lee (?), saying among other things that users ultimately
> should not see XML except in exceptional circumstances, and that
> automated tools will be created to author it.
>
> Wiki markup, on the other hand, is primarily designed to be easy to
> create and easy to read. Concerns such as the ease of parser design and
> avoiding ambiguity are decidedly secondary.

I agree with this completely.  Now, obviously we should be very
careful about falling into any "reinventing the wheel" syndromes, or
any "not invented here" syndromes, etc.  But wiki markup serves a very
different function from HTML or XML.

--Jimbo


body:
Rick wrote:
> Take a look at something like [[Cleveland metropolitan area]], in
>which there is one line of text and about ten lines of box.  There are
>many articles like that.

That article has now been redirected (not by me, I'm just reporting
onw hat I saw) to Greater Cleveland.

It strikes me, therefore, that the problem with the version you were
talking about is that it was a stub, not anything inherently broken
about the box itself?

--Jimbo


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>

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

> <span>'s only theoretical value is in creating semantically meaningful
> pseudo-tags via class specifications, something which is only useful
> if you also control the global style sheet.

Even withot control users can override upstream settings using
"!important" (IIRC).  Some believe in semantic markup, others do not.

Unfortunately, the WP suffers by the re-inventing wheels syndrom
(instead of switching to XML/SGML now).

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Facebook opens for buisness

body:
Timwi wrote:

> To a non-Wikipedian, [[Wikipedia:Facebook]] reinforces
> the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

And your point is ... ?


from_name: Anthere

body:
I loved it so much when I saw it in Raul subpages, that I made a partial
copy of it. I think it is a great idea that you made a wikipedia page
Raul :-)

Thanks for doing this :-)

We might have to put thumb for the page weight :-(

ant

mapellegrini at comcast.net a ?crit:
> For those of you who don't frequent the village pump,
> I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's
> gallery" as Andrewa humerously called it) is open at
> [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's a compilation of pictures of our
> contributors.
>
> There had been some discussion before about compiling pictures
> of wikipedians, so I decided to be bold and created it. I personally
> think it's great being able to associate a face with a username -
> it keeps all the different users from blurring together.
>
> I'm interested in hearing what everyone has to say about it.
> --Mark Pellegrini (Raul654)


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: The proliferation of article series boxes,
	and other sundries

body:
I personally think that categories and box-style lists should just go
in the See Also as links.

I also think that hyperlinking words within the text gives the
richest content-correlation, and that the list or box models are at
best poor approximations.

I also would like people to consider that once an article is printed
on a piece of paper, the box-lists and categories become completely
useless.

Finally, I wonder whether the edit wars are taking more of a toll
among content-gatherers than on content-organizers. The proliferation
of such schemes as the series-boxes indicates to me that there's more
people doing organizing than people entering original information. I
would suggest that people who are now not interested in adding new
content to articles should go scour the web, libraries, and their
neighborood to beef up articles rather than organize all the flimsy
stubs into a highly polished hierarchy that becomes unwieldy and
forbidding to newscomers.

On an aside: I use XHTML and CSS. It's great for web, sucks for
everything else. I for one recommend wikisyntax over {span} and {div}
and {table} tags. I think ultimately we'll need to be able to have a
converter to TEX or LATEX via DocBook to allow for easy publishing.
This would be much easier to do with just wikisyintax.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
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from_name: fabiform

subject: [Wikitech-l] The bug is out there...

body:
> In both cases (Orphaned articles and Village pump),
> there were three very quick edits by one user --
> apparently repeated clicking of the submit button?

I doubled a page by double clicking on the submit button.  This gave me an edit
conflict with myself.  I was either stupid or there was something about the
edit conflict screen which lead me to believe that the first save was somehow
dodgy and I copied and pasted the whole article from the bottom to the top and
clicked save.

Normally when you're at an edit conflict if you copy everything in the bottom
box and overwrite the top box with it, you wouldn't double the page, you'd
simply overwrite the previous edit.  So I guess someone needs to invesitgate
what it is about an edit conflict with yourself that makes this possible.  By
the way, it only took me two edits, it was the two at precicely the same time
on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Complaints_Commission

Fabi.

__________________________________
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Samuel Kennedy wrote:
>
>>So, I can't help but wonder, *is* Bomis somehow associated with the
>>United States Marine Corps?
>>
>
>Not in any way at all that I can think of, no.
>
>The accusation seems to run as follows...
>
>Jerk Sauce, which is a blog written by Tim Shell, who manages the
>content of Bomis, links to the blogs Command Post and Tim Blair.
>Those blogs, in turn, run advertisements from the blogsads.com
>syndication agency.  One advertiser for blogads.com is Spirit of
>America.
>
>Spirit of America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which raises
>money which is used to assist members of the military channel goods to
>help local people where they are serving.  A typical example would be
>baseball and school supplies for a village in Iraq.
>
Baseball in Iraq????

>I fail to see how this set of facts could possibly warrant any sort of
>disclaimer.  Bomis hosts a blog which links to other blogs, which run
>ads for a charity, which assists members of the military.  Even if the
>Bomis blog itself directly raised money for the military, which it
>absolutely does not, even then no disclosure would be warranted on the
>article.
>
>My own philosophical and political convictions are well-known.  Many
>Wikipedians will disagree with me on political issues, but no rational
>person could conclude that I have in any way sought to impose my POV
>on the Wikipedia in anyway.  Indeed, one of the reasons that I so
>seldom edit is precisely to eliminate even any appearance of
>impropriety in that regard.
>
Speaking from the left, I've always respected the effort that Jimbo has
made to avoid being drawn into these edit conflicts.  Without that the
entire project would have deteriorated into chaos a long time ago..

I haven't tooked at the Fallujah article, though it is probably already
getting more than its share of attention.  Trying to rein in highly POV
positions across a broad range of articles, and a broad range of issues
is ultimately a non-productive endeavour.  I've chosen to limit that
kind of activity to a few articles of my own selection; that's as much
high blood pressure as I can take.  There is always plenty of work to be
done in less conflicted topics.

The difficulty with Jimbo editing articles is not with his opinions, but
the gospel-like quality that some Wikipedians tend to attach to them.

Ec


body:
mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:

> I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's
> gallery" as Andrewa humerously called it) is open at
> [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's a compilation of pictures of our
> contributors.

The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

Timwi

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

I will be very frank with you Timwi, I think your comment is plain irrespectful, and a total dismissal of the variety of contributors to the project.

There are many types of contributors on Wikipedia, and so far, it is a key principle that Wikipedia is open to all participants, whatever their gender, their age, their culture, their level of education.

In case you are not aware, there are many women all over the world, who do not show part of their body, hair, or even face, to people who are not part of their family. That does not mean these women are weirdos. That just mean these women have a different culture from your culture. They are regular women, with the same type of intelligence or wiseness or leadership (to stick to your comment), that any women wearing westernish clothes (such as a bikini, as many french people keep requesting from me).

In my opinion, Wikipedia is not *only* an encyclopedia. We are not here *only* to gather knowledge, and make it available to the larger number of people in the world.
I think we are also here to learn from others, to acknowledge that other opinions exist, that it is best to take them into account, and to respect this diversity. I am convinced that this is a first step for peace, and indeed the first step for all of us to succeed to work together. And boy is it a high step !

If we ever want this encyclopedia to be used all over the world with full trust, such as perhaps in muslim countries, it is best that we collectively show that we are able ourselves to respect all these differences.

Claiming that the picture of a face covered female participant "will reinforce the belief Wikipedia is run/controlled by weidoes", is NOT exactly a step in that direction.

I think you have earned the right to make a couple of edits to one of the following articles on Wikipedia  :-)
* Islam in France
* Ni putes, ni soumises
* Or the article about islamic veil and the law about banning religious signs in France

Anthere

PS : I often have questions about that picture, featured picture, and used in two encyclopedic articles, and no, not an islamic veil.
To make it crystal clear : that was the first personal picture I uploaded on Wikipedia. I did so around february or march 2003, and kept it on my user page for a good couple of months. And yes, the time of upload was deliberate.

---------------------------------
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body:
Timwi wrote:

>  To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces the belief that
> Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

I prefer to be positive and consider that one of our virtues.

Ec

>


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]

body:
Sorry about the "associated the Marines" thing. I may have provoked this
by taking OUT language tending to endorse the view of Bush opponents
that US troops committed atrocities in Fallujah.

Anti-US activists said Americans "opened fire" on unarmed civilians. Two
US colonels said, no, we "shot back" and it's a real shame if any
unarmed Iraqi demonstrators were hit in the crossfire betweend armed
insurgents and occupation forces.

(Wasn't there a movie called Rules of Engagment with a plot EXACTLY like
this? Who says no one watches American movies overseas?)

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick [mailto:giantsrick13 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 8:15 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]

	Several new users with no edit history have suddenly ganged
together at the [[Fallujah]] article, demanding some sort of disclaimer
that Wikipedia/Bomis is somehow associated with the United States Marine
Corps and therefore cannot be neutral in editing such articles as
Fallujah.  It's pretty obvious that they're sock puppets for some
previously-known User (maybe Bird?) with an axe to grind, but the
discussion at [[Talk:Fallujah]] is instructive.

	RickK, who is not involved in the slightest in the article's
editing

  _____

	Do you Yahoo!?
	Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
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body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
> it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
> special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
> LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
> self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
> the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.
>
> Timwi

Huh?  There are one or two which are a little dark, and yes
LordSuryaofShropshire has played around with his photo a bit, but the vast
majority are straight shots.  I think that the facebook illustrates that
there's nothing magical about us as individuals, but that a bunch of disparate
and widely separated (geographically and culturally) people can come together
to do something amazing.

I've become a little obsessive about headgear recently (because of wikipedia),
so I would have to say that the fact that Anthere has chosen a shot of herself
wearing a cheche which (I believe) tells you something of her cultural heritage
probably tells you more about her than if it had been a plain photo - just like
Andrewa's photo shows he plays the drums and Tannin's shows he's a
photographer.

I really can't see that this page makes wikipedia seem more weird than all the
userpages do that these images were harvested from.

Fabi.

__________________________________
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references:
<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>	<p3f090ppnm4vc4f75mp9mmb9hk44224esf@4ax.com>	<4090B346.8010408@web.de>	<iqn290lns9gfufnjpq4gj1jvucal2mfgas@4ax.com>	<c6s3r2$84r$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<6ml490tr85n5llr4mmdopgup135bhuikag@4ax.com>

body:
Alex Regh wrote:

>Hi!
>
>On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:41:10 +0100, Timwi wrote:
>
>>>BTW, while debating categories is certainly important, we should not ignore
>>>the box problem that the Wikipedia is having right now!
>>>
>>What problem might that be?
>>
>I'd say that you might have a look at [[Heteronormativity]] and the debates
>about the boxes in that one; but I think you already know that one.
>
>That is one case of boxes nobody needs, there are several others.
>
Funny, but I interpreted the reference to the "box problem" as relating
to ongoing hardware difficulties. :-)

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]

body:
Samuel Kennedy wrote:

>So, I can't help but wonder, *is* Bomis somehow associated with the
>United States Marine Corps?
>
>
So if Jimbo were the chief Marine Rambo, so what? He doesn't edit that
article (about any article, that is), nor do his employees, AFAIK.

Magnus

>--
>Sam Kennedy
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:14:37 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Fallujah]]
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>
>
>Several new users with no edit history have suddenly ganged together
>at the [[Fallujah]] article, demanding some sort of disclaimer that
>Wikipedia/Bomis is somehow associated with the United States Marine
>Corps and therefore cannot be neutral in editing such articles as
>Fallujah.  It's pretty obvious that they're sock puppets for some
>previously-known User (maybe Bird?) with an axe to grind, but the
>discussion at [[Talk:Fallujah]] is instructive.
>
>
>RickK, who is not involved in the slightest in the article's editing
>
>
>
>
>		________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I also would like to remind people that Wikipedia is not paper.

I am not talking about the upcoming Hardbound MultiVolume Great and
Mighty Encyclopedia Wikipedia of Stupendous and MindBending
Knowledge.

I am talking about the print button on the browser.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Contributors list

body:
Am Donnerstag, 29. April 2004 22:40 schrieb Magnus Manske:

>can't we declare the
>whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself?

We should avoid that in any case. Where it leads to was shown recently: It
allows you to copy the whole Wikipedia naming just 5 authors (say Jimmy,
Larry, Magnus, Anthere and Eloquence). That's absolutely not acceptable for
the thousands of other contributors which don't get credited any longer for
their work. Being the Wikipedia the document, you could even go further and
copy just a single article, declare it to be a modification of the document
"Wikipedia", and name for example Jimmy, Larry, Magnus, Anthere and Eloquence
as authors on an article where they never contributed to.

Uli


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] user styles, rtl, raw text action

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

    BV> You just wouldn't put anything in those pages, the equivalent
    BV> of not setting an optional preference.

I meant on a site-wide basis. Don't worry about it; I'll take a look
at the code and see if I can set up some disabling globals.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Theresa Robinson

body:
> Wow, I see ample opportunity for anxious over-interpretation here.  I have
> just noticed that amongst the mathematically inclined, Axel is looking _up_,
> Michael Hardy is looking _directly into the camera_, and I'm looking _down_.
> Let's not even get into Angela and Anthere's respective choices.

And nobody seems to care that I'm nekkid in mine.  :)

moink


body:
>>>>> "MM" == Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> writes:

    MM> * We already list *all* contributors for the
    MM> page, in the page history.

I agree. However, it's difficult for downstream re-publishers to
distill all the names and IPs from the page history to a reasonable
attribution block. The RDF pages have it now; I just wanted to make it
clear on the article pages, too, so you could print out a page and
photocopy it and comply with licenses that require attribution.

For Wikitravel, we've had a couple of re-publishers who haven't given
attribution. I just wanted to make it easier to comply with our
license, which, by the way, isn't the GFDL.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Contributors list


subject: WYSIWYG (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>)

body:
>>>>> "HDM" == Hr Daniel Mikkelsen <daniel at copyleft.no> writes:

    HDM> To me, wiki markup is just another editor in front of the
    HDM> real content. I expect to see a wysiwyg editor one day as
    HDM> well, and I expect to see the contents stored in XML for ease
    HDM> of access and because databases will offer us more features
    HDM> that way.

I think one of the main principles of wiki is making wiki pages easily
editable by anyone. Pages full of XML or HTML markup don't meet this
requirement.

I think a WYSIWYG editor* should be part of MediaWiki 2.0. There's
some discussion of the problems with it here:

          http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG_editor

The main problem is that in-browser WYSIWYG editors produce HTML,
which would mess things up for people who must or prefer to work with
Wiki markup. We'd need to parse the HTML produced by WYSIWYG editors
back into wiki markup for storage. I think Magnus's recent
HTML-to-wiki converter may be a big step to making this work.

~ESP

* and an SVG whiteboard, too.

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Proxy blocker status?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I have gotten a complaint that 207.142.131.228 is or was attempting to
> use a proxy at 212.185.189.154.  How can that be?
>
> It is important that we not probe third parties for open proxies under
> most circumstances.  It might be appropriate if we are experiencing
> direct abuse ourselves and we're trying to track down why, but as a
> matter of routine, it causes us to get complaints which will get us in
> big trouble with our isp.
>
> --Jimbo

The proxy checker has been switched off for three weeks. In that time I
manually scanned 2 or 3 addresses which were being used by suspected
sock puppets, but searching my shell command history confirms that that
address wasn't one of them. So I have no idea what they're talking
about. The date and time of the suspected proxy scan would be helpful in
tracking this down.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Hunter Peress

subject: [Wikitech-l] short domain name please.

body:
can someone act quickly before an enterprising punk reads this ;-)

just like sourceforge.net has sf.net   we should have wp.org for wikipedia.org

eg:  bittorrent.sourceforge.net ->  bittorrent.sf.net

i dream of :  mail.wp.org
              it.wp.org    ,  ko.wp.org,  en.wp.org  de.wp.org ,  download.wp.org
............

__________________________________
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from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>

body:
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Tim Starling wrote:

> > Wiki markup, on the other hand, is primarily designed to be easy to
> > create and easy to read. Concerns such as the ease of parser design and
> > avoiding ambiguity are decidedly secondary.

> I agree with this completely.  Now, obviously we should be very
> careful about falling into any "reinventing the wheel" syndromes, or
> any "not invented here" syndromes, etc.  But wiki markup serves a very
> different function from HTML or XML.

To me, wiki markup is just another editor in front of the real content. I
expect to see a wysiwyg editor one day as well, and I expect to see the
contents stored in XML for ease of access and because databases will offer us
more features that way.

--
Daniel Mikkelsen
Copyleft Software AS


body:
Rick wrote:

> Take a look at something like [[Cleveland metropolitan area]], in which
> there is one line of text and about ten lines of box.  There are many
> articles like that.

I fail to see how even that matters. There's also ten lines of links at
the top and bottom and a sidebar-menu on the left, and nobody complains
about those being displayed when the article is only one line long.


body:
mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:

> I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's
> gallery" as Andrewa humerously called it) is open at
> [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's a compilation of pictures of our
> contributors.

The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML to wiki(pedia) toy

body:
I hacked a little C++ utility (hereby under GPL, source files attached)
that converts HTML to wiki markup. A few points:
* It should compile on any Windows/*nix system (you might have to turn
off warnings, though)
* Pipe the HMTL in, and get wiki markup out
* Shouldn't touch existing wiki markup
* Keeps HTML if there's no wiki markup defined for it
* Other wiki markup (for other wikis) can be added with only a few lines
of source
* Internally uses a new string class with 32-bit-chars (potential for
unicode there, also it should work with unicode "as is")

Downsides:
* Doesn't check HTML/wiki markup validity (broken HTML will become
broken wiki markup, which might be less bad though)
* Ignores <nowiki> (though I don't think that matters)

Idea: Have a checkbox on the edit page (or maybe on preferences instead)
that says:
"Convert HTML to wiki markup on preview"

Conversion *should* only take place prior to preview, so a human can
make certain nothing's broken.

Magnus
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from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
Well I don't know about you Timwi, but I spend several hours a day working on wikipedia, or wikibooks every day, month in month out for ages now, and I intend on doing it for the foreseeable future. I do this for no payment, and virtually no recognition. Just for the good of mankind.

I am a weirdo!

-----Original Message-----
From: Timwi [mailto:timwi at gmx.net]
Sent: 30 April 2004 14:07
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Facebook opens for buisness

mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:

> I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's
> gallery" as Andrewa humerously called it) is open at
> [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's a compilation of pictures of our
> contributors.

The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

Timwi

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>

references:
<20040427130648.GF7634@narya.grin.hu>
	<c6lsb7$6gt$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4E2296B8-9880-11D8-A3F6-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<sh7jvydwtn.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Unfortunately, the WP suffers by the re-inventing wheels syndrom
> (instead of switching to XML/SGML now).
>

Unfortunately one type of wheel doesn't fit every car. XML is designed
to be primarily machine-readable and unambiguous, human-readability and
ease of authorship is a secondary consideration. I once read an article
by Tim Berners-Lee (?), saying among other things that users ultimately
should not see XML except in exceptional circumstances, and that
automated tools will be created to author it.

Wiki markup, on the other hand, is primarily designed to be easy to
create and easy to read. Concerns such as the ease of parser design and
avoiding ambiguity are decidedly secondary.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Hardware stuff

body:
There've been some changes to the hardware: new disks on zwinger and
suda. If someone's got details, and any knowledge of browne's
situation, an announcement would be welcome.

Currently we're having lots of trouble with the squids.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Timwi wrote

> The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
> it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
> special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
> LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
> self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
> the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.

Or, possibly, has a sense of humour.

Wow, I see ample opportunity for anxious over-interpretation here.  I have
just noticed that amongst the mathematically inclined, Axel is looking _up_,
Michael Hardy is looking _directly into the camera_, and I'm looking _down_.
Let's not even get into Angela and Anthere's respective choices.

By chance I'd just uploaded a snap, which was elsewhere on the Web.  I
thought this was a cool idea when I saw it.

My non-weboholic wife thought the photos were 'interesting', too.

Charles


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Timwi wrote:

> mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:
>
>> I thought I'd let you know that the facebook ("Rogue's gallery" as
>> Andrewa humerously called it) is open at [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. It's
>> a compilation of pictures of our contributors.
>
>
> The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
> it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
> special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
> LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
> self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing
> reinforces the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of
> weirdos.

I was going to put up a picture of me in a tux, but now it's clear
that I need to stage a photo where I'm sitting in a leather-bound
chair in front of a wall of books, wearing a tweed jacket and
smoking a pipe while studying Hesiod's ''Theogony'' in the original
Greek.

That should be enough to counteract at least ten weirdos, although
I'm sure there will be people who will object to the pipe, the
Eurocentrism, the DWM-centrism, the paganism, etc.

:-) :-)

Stan


from_name: Alex Regh

references:
<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>	<p3f090ppnm4vc4f75mp9mmb9hk44224esf@4ax.com>	<4090B346.8010408@web.de>
	<iqn290lns9gfufnjpq4gj1jvucal2mfgas@4ax.com>
	<c6s3r2$84r$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Hi!

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:41:10 +0100, Timwi wrote:

>> BTW, while debating categories is certainly important, we should not ignore
>> the box problem that the Wikipedia is having right now!
>
>What problem might that be?

I'd say that you might have a look at [[Heteronormativity]] and the debates
about the boxes in that one; but I think you already know that one.

That is one case of boxes nobody needs, there are several others.

Alex
--
If you don't go over the top,
you can't see what's on the other side.
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de


body:
You and anthere kind of average out.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Theresa Robinson [mailto:robinst at MIT.EDU]
Sent: 30 April 2004 15:37
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Facebook opens for buisness

> Wow, I see ample opportunity for anxious over-interpretation here.  I
have
> just noticed that amongst the mathematically inclined, Axel is looking
_up_,
> Michael Hardy is looking _directly into the camera_, and I'm looking
_down_.
> Let's not even get into Angela and Anthere's respective choices.

And nobody seems to care that I'm nekkid in mine.  :)

moink
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


references:
<iqn290lns9gfufnjpq4gj1jvucal2mfgas@4ax.com>
	<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org> <c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>
	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<p3f090ppnm4vc4f75mp9mmb9hk44224esf@4ax.com>
	<4090B346.8010408@web.de>
	<iqn290lns9gfufnjpq4gj1jvucal2mfgas@4ax.com>
	<c6s3r2$84r$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040429175850.02666d88@shawmail>

body:
Hi!

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:02:20 -0700, Bryan Derksen wrote:

>There are too many, they're too big and intrusive (especially at the top of
>the article floating in the margin), and the links they provide are often
>either redundant or only marginally relevant?

I agree 100% - remember the example of the Belgian mathematican? If I'd read
that article, for whatever reason, how big are the chances that I also want to
read about, say, Belgian museeums? Or a whatever-machine was named after this
person; do es the reader really need a list of other whatever-machines that
were named after famous mathematicians?

Now there would not be much of a problem if there was only one relevant field
that has a box, unfortunatley, ususally there are several fields to which an
article relates, hence it would most likely aquire several boxes, who would be
fighting for the best positioning into the bargain.

Alex
--
If you don't go over the top,
you can't see what's on the other side.
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de


references:
<c6hjo9$3jr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<c6lq0m$u3i$1@sea.gmane.org>	<BA7860BA-9952-11D8-B797-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>	<c6pab9$90q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<c6s3s8$84r$3@sea.gmane.org> <c6s83j$fpr$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Hi!

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 20:54:11 -0400, David Friedland wrote:

>Another way to consider the so-called "series boxes" might to think of
>them as a sort of "tour" of a group of related articles. I could see
>perhaps formalizing this idea and creating "tours" of different topics.

Would not change the basic problem about too many boxes - boxes announcing
several "guided tours" would not really be an improvement over boxes that
announce lists, projects, or whatever.

Alex
--
If you don't go over the top,
you can't see what's on the other side.
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de


body:
Hi!

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 07:35:20 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Mahan wrote:

>Finally, I wonder whether the edit wars are taking more of a toll
>among content-gatherers than on content-organizers. The proliferation
>of such schemes as the series-boxes indicates to me that there's more
>people doing organizing than people entering original information.

Hm, yes, that too. While the people from project crtical theory spend a lot of
time throwing their box around and defending it, for example, the article on
[[Critical Theory]] is written in a way that leaves most people decidedly
confused about what that is supposed to be in the first place.

Not to mention that I myself had rather spend the time debating about them
confounded things by organising and fillign up a few articles on en:Wikipdeia,
plus that I had to somewhat neglect my duties on de:Wikipdia, too.

Greetings from Cologne,
Alex
--
If you don't go over the top,
you can't see what's on the other side.
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: user styles, rtl, raw text action

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:

>>>>>>"BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>
>     BV> You just wouldn't put anything in those pages, the equivalent
>     BV> of not setting an optional preference.
>
> I meant on a site-wide basis. Don't worry about it; I'll take a look
> at the code and see if I can set up some disabling globals.

I don't understand why one would want to disable this? What harm does it do?


body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

> I also would like people to consider that once an article is printed
> on a piece of paper, the box-lists and categories become completely
> useless.

I also would like to remind people that Wikipedia is not paper. Please
stop comparing it to that. Nobody cares (or should care) about that just
yet because we are not yet actively working on a paper encyclopedia. If
and when we are, this is a concern of the people who work on that, and
nobody else's. And even for them, the {{msg:}} things are extremely
trivial to remove.

On the web, they do not do any harm... of course, as long as it's not
overdone. I quite agree with some of the sentiments brought up that an
article on a Belgian mathematician would look rather silly if it had a
list of all mathematicians as well as another list of all famous
Belgians in it. But who's doing that, anyway? Nobody is seriously
considering creating such boxes because by all measurements of common
sense they would be way too large and there would be way too many of
them. By contrast, the boxes on things like [[Greater Cleveland]] are
perfectly fine.

Timwi


from_name: Rick

body:
Right, there was nothing wrong with the article per se, even as a stub, except for the minimal text and the excessive box.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

Rick wrote:
> Take a look at something like [[Cleveland metropolitan area]], in
>which there is one line of text and about ten lines of box. There are
>many articles like that.

That article has now been redirected (not by me, I'm just reporting
onw hat I saw) to Greater Cleveland.

It strikes me, therefore, that the problem with the version you were
talking about is that it was a stub, not anything inherently broken
about the box itself?

--Jimbo

_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] What is going on?

body:
> I realize that I'm the only one again, but could someone tell me what is
> going on? Why can't I access Wikipedia? Why do I get the message "Server not
> found"? (I thought we had several new and big servers?)

I believe it is temporarily shut down while some data is transferred to a
new place, which should eventually speed things up.  It was sortof
announced today, if you were around at the right time you would be warned,
though not really given an explanation.

moink


subject: [Wikitech-l] Hardware stuff

body:
On Apr 30, 2004, at 14:33, Brion Vibber wrote:
> There've been some changes to the hardware: new disks on zwinger and
> suda. If someone's got details, and any knowledge of browne's
> situation, an announcement would be welcome.
>
> Currently we're having lots of trouble with the squids.

The current situation is:
coronelli serving .236 (en, test, etc)
curly serving .235 (others)

We tried upgrading browne to the latest Red Hat/Rawhide kernel packages
(2.6.5-1.344) to see if that solved the crash problems. It doesn't seem
to have, as it's crashed again. Running memtest86 for a while
(preferably over the weekend at least) might be a good thing to do.

Kernel info and crash log from prior to the upgrade:
http://wikimedia.org/crash.log

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] short domain name please.

body:
"Hunter Peress" <hfastjava at yahoo.com> schrieb:
> can someone act quickly before an enterprising punk reads this ;-)

Sorry, too late. According to whois-information, wp.org is owned by
"Name-4-Sale, Div. of QBX INC"

Andre Engels
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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

>Am Donnerstag, 29. April 2004 22:40 schrieb Magnus Manske:
>
>
>
>>can't we declare the
>>whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself?
>>
>>
>
>We should avoid that in any case. Where it leads to was shown recently: It
>allows you to copy the whole Wikipedia naming just 5 authors (say Jimmy,
>Larry, Magnus, Anthere and Eloquence). That's absolutely not acceptable for
>the thousands of other contributors which don't get credited any longer for
>their work. Being the Wikipedia the document, you could even go further and
>copy just a single article, declare it to be a modification of the document
>"Wikipedia", and name for example Jimmy, Larry, Magnus, Anthere and Eloquence
>as authors on an article where they never contributed to.
>
>Uli
>
The GFDL allows combining of several GFDL documents into a single one,
so whether there is a declaration or not is irrelevant.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] More nonsense

body:
Someone calling themself [[User:Enforcer]], who seems to be the same person who was posting on [[Fallujah]] the nonsense about the Bomis/Wikipedia/US Marine Corps connection, is posting the following on several trolls' Talk pages: ([[User talk:JRR Trollkien]], [[User talk:Pooya]] and [[User talk:Plato]])

Because of your determination in opposing anarchy and vigilantism among Wikipedia leadership, you have been selected as a possible complainant against the Wikimedia Foundation for violations of Florida Statutes Title XXXIII, (Regulation of Trade, Commerce, Investments and Solicitations), Chapter 496 (Solicitation of Funds).
[http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0496/titl0496.htm]
The act requires any charitable organization in the state of Florida, such as the Wikimedia Foundation, to register [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC405.HTM] with that state's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and to disclose
[http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC411.HTM] their activities in annual statements, available to donors and to the public.
Wikipedia Foundation has so far attempted to evade the letter and spirit of Florida law by claiming its published solicitations for editorial contributions and cash donations "is not and should not be considered a solicitation to make a donation." The claim is as false as would be the claim of a panhandler on a sidewalk  rattling coins a tin cup.Wikimedia Foundation, on links provided from every page, solicit readers to contribute editorial content (edit this page) and to "donate if you can afford it." [http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising] That is a solicitation, regardless the pages attempt to say black is white. You can form your own opinions if a claiming a request to "donate if you can afford it" is not a solicitation is accurate and neutral information, as Wikipedia claims to provide.
Florida law states "'Solicitation' means a request, directly or indirectly, for money, property, financial assistance, or any other thing of value on the plea or representation that such money, property, financial assistance, or other thing of value or a portion of it will be used for a charitable or sponsor purpose or will benefit a charitable organization or sponsor. [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC404.HTM]
Florida law states "'Solicitation' includes, but is not limited to, the following methods of requesting or securing the promise, pledge, or grant of money, property, financial assistance, or any other thing of value:
(a) Any oral or written request;
(b) Making any announcement to the press, on radio or television, by telephone or telegraph, or by any other communication device concerning an appeal or campaign by or for any charitable organization or sponsor or for any charitable or sponsor purpose;
(c) Distributing, circulating, posting, or publishing any handbill, written advertisement, or other publication that directly or by implication seeks to obtain any contribution; [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC404.HTM]
Wikipedia Foundation solicits cash donations, in-kind donations of editorial services and in-kind donations of technical services. You may either personally and directly pursue prosecution of Wikipedia Foundation by contacting the Florida Division of Consumer Services of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/complnt.html], and may verify Wikimedia Foundation's lack of compliance at the Division's on-line charitable organizations reporting page [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/gift_givers/search.html]. You may make an on-line complaint to the Division at [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/ccform.html http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/ccform.html]. Thank you for your interest in protecting the integrity of human knowledge, and for whatever interest you might develop in upholding the rule of law regarding charitable contributions, and compliance with the law among rouge on-line charitable organizations.

Kindly,
[[User:Enforcer|Enforcer]]

RickK

---------------------------------
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body:
Well, we don't list *all* contributors for the page.  We only list those
before the "Automated Conversion", for which there were no copy/paste
moves, and for which none of the text was taken from some other public
domain, GFDL, or other source.  And yes, *some* of the contributors
could also be found, maybe, by looking for redirects to that page and
seeing if some of the text which existed before the redirect was made
was copied there, but who wants to do that anyway?

Personally I think the best solution would be a History namespace which
was freely editable, but populated automatically by the software in the
case of standard contibutions.  If you wanted to get fancy, you could
even have a textbox when you submit a modification which says "author"
(pre-filled with your username), and hey while you're at it a checkbox
for "public domain" in which case the history wouldn't be populated at all.

But I haven't coded any of that, and there's a fair chance I never will...

As for 5 "principal authors", really Wikipedia should be listing that
already anyway, so it's tricky there.

 >If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare the
whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself?
Well, 5 "principal authors" need to be on the "title page", which
probably "means the text near the most prominent appearance of the
work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text," unless
you're going to define the whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself.

In any case, someone with authority over this (Jimbo or the board if
there is one yet) should really make a declaration as to what the
"document" is, what the "title page" is, what the "section entitled
history" is, where the "copyright notices" are (or that there are none,
which isn't really compliant with the GFDL), where the "transparent
copy" is (the URL of which should be in the document), etc.  And
remember, all of this (the history, the title page, the copyright
notices) is supposed to be to be contained inside whatever the
"document" is, and the transparent copy thereof.  Of course, the easier
solution (which is far from easy) would be to just abandon the GFDL and
use a simpler existing license or a custom one.

Anthony

Magnus Manske wrote:

> IANAL, but IMHO:
> * We already list *all* contributors for the page, in the page
> history. I'd say that the single click required to see it is
> comparable to turning a page in a printed version, which is not too
> much to ask, under any legal system I know of.
> * If you want to find the main contributors, go ahead and use the diff
> function. By listing them all, we also listed the main editors.
> * The fact that noone *ever* demanded to see his/her name on the
> article page itself indicates to me that there is strong community
> (=contributor) consensus regarding our current practice in that matter.
> * Everybody's free to use their real name as user name, or to write it
> on their user page. The additional click required should be tolerable,
> for reasons stated above.
>
> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare
> the whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself? [Translation to
> legalese would be required]
>
> Magnus
>
>
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> I was just made aware of this thread, and I realise that potentially
>> a legal issue is discussed on wikitech. I would like the opinion of
>> our lawyers on this specific point.
>>
>> So, tel me if I understand well, to comply with the gfdl the best we
>> can  (and we already know it is problematic), what you suggest is to
>> list first the real name contributors, followed by pseudonymes, then
>> by ips. Of course, the number of names is limited. We can expect that
>> on many articles, the number of names will be over 50 or more.
>>
>> I understood the gfdl "normal" requirement is to list the 5 main
>> contributors. We probably know that we can define who the 5 main
>> contributors are. Indeed, unless the number of contributors is below
>> 5, there is no way to report with honesty the legal requirements.
>>
>> This said, if we can't report reality, why would we report a group of
>> contributors more than another ? If a pseudonyme wrote 95% of an
>> article, and 5% officially real names corrected typos, is that really
>> correct to indicate these 5 real names and not the pseudonyme ?
>>
>> I would say it is not. Legally, that is incorrect. From a community
>> view point, that is setting a case which I am not sure is really
>> positive.
>> It think that it would be more correct to make random choice among
>> pseudo or real names, or to choose among the last ones.
>>
>> I will forward this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, since I believe
>> this is more than a technical issue.
>>
>> Evan Prodromou a ?crit:
>>
>>> So, I'd like to add a little block of attribution data to each page
>>> (optional, per-installation; I'm guessing Wikipedia wouldn't use
>>> this). Something along the lines of:
>>>
>>>        This article last edited on April 21, 2004 by Evan Prodromou.
>>>        Based on work by Alice Notaperson, Bob Alsonotaperson, users
>>>        Crankshaft, Deckchair and Eggplant, and anonymous editors.
>>>
>>> For each (distinct) person who's listed in the old table, it'd show
>>> their real name if it's set, or their user name if not. All anonymous
>>> edits would be lumped under "anonymous editors". Contributors would be
>>> listed with real-named folks first, then pseudo'd folks, then
>>> anonymous. There's no particular reason for that; it could be any
>>> other way (although I don't see a big point making it configurable).
>>>
>>> The goal here is to make it easy for redistributors to comply with
>>> license provisions that require author attribution (such as some
>>> Creative Commons licenses), without having to dig through a whole
>>> bunch of history pages.
>>>
>>> Anyhoo, the Metadata.php code already does most of this logic, albeit
>>> for output in RDF format. I'd like to take that stuff and put it in
>>> the Article class, in a method like "getContributors". The method
>>> could then be used both from the attribution code and from the RDF
>>> metadata code.
>>>
>>> getContributors would return an array of arrays, each of which would
>>> contain:
>>>
>>>         0. User ID
>>>         1. User account name
>>>         2. User real name, if set
>>>
>>> Another option would be to create User objects for each entry in the
>>> returned array, but a) I don't think that most of the User object
>>> fields (email, preferences) are needed, and b) I'd be worried about
>>> slingin' around incomplete User objects. So, I think the arrays are
>>> the best bet.
>>>
>>> Does returning an array of arrays seem insane? Would it be wrong to
>>> add this method to Article? If so, where else would it go?
>>>
>>> ~ESP
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] List of contributors and GFDL

body:
Anthere wrote:

>I understood the gfdl "normal" requirement is to list
>the 5 main contributors. We probably know that we can
>define who the 5 main contributors are. Indeed, unless
>the number of contributors is below 5, there is no way
>to report with honesty the legal requirements.
>
>
The exact quote is "at least five of the principal authors of the
Document", which is significantly different from *the* 5 main contributors.

>This said, if we can't report reality, why would we
>report a group of contributors more than another ? If
>a pseudonyme wrote 95% of an article, and 5%
>officially real names corrected typos, is that really
>correct to indicate these 5 real names and not the
>pseudonyme ?
>
>
Depends on the context, but possibly not.  You'd have to somehow say
that at least 5 of those real name people are "principal authors".

>I would say it is not. Legally, that is incorrect.
>>From a community view point, that is setting a case
>which I am not sure is really positive.
>It think that it would be more correct to make random
>choice among pseudo or real names, or to choose among
>the last ones.
>
>
I think an even better solution would be to force users to give their
real name or waive their rights to attribution.   But that's just my
never humble opinion.

~~~~

err, I mean
Anthony


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> IANAL, but IMHO:
> * We already list *all* contributors for the page, in the page
> history. I'd say that the single click required to see it is
> comparable to turning a page in a printed version, which is not too
> much to ask, under any legal system I know of.

I agree.

> * If you want to find the main contributors, go ahead and use the diff
> function. By listing them all, we also listed the main editors.

It has been pointed out (and even illustrated by complaints over McFly's
choices of whom to credit) that identifying "principal authors" is
highly subjective at best. I think this requirement is one of the
silliest things in the GFDL; it might be better if the GFDL just
required a Modified Version to list the same authors as the Title Page
of the original Document, plus the authors of the modifications.

> * The fact that noone *ever* demanded to see his/her name on the
> article page itself indicates to me that there is strong community
> (=contributor) consensus regarding our current practice in that matter.

An excellent point. I have a longer argument to present here, but I
definitely support this approach to the problem.

There are two sections of the GFDL that require author attribution,
section 4B and section 4I - Title Page and History, respectively.
History we provide. Because we are not in printed format (yet), Title
Page should mean "the text near the most prominent appearance of the
work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text." For us,
I take that to be at the top of the article, where it says something like:

Title of article
 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(the latter part meets the requirement of section 4C, that the Title
Page state the name of the publisher)

Section 4B allows the authors to release you from the requirement to
identify five principal authors. Since the title of the article
functions as the Title Page for GFDL purposes, and because we have
never, as far as I know, identified principal authors along with the
title of the article, I would argue that the release applies. Given our
existing practices, we should take the position that all contributors
have implicitly released us from the requirement to list authors on the
Title Page. This would also neatly eliminate the problem of how to
identify "principal authors".

> If the GFDL really requires that list *on the same document* (can't be
> really the same page, think printed version again), can't we declare
> the whole wikipedia as one giant document in itself?

That would be highly counterintuitive. It would also defeat our efforts
to provide a history section, since those are done by article (and
before anybody says it, I would not accept Recent changes as adequate
history for GFDL purposes).

--Michael Snow


from_name: Pedro Fortuny

body:
* Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> [2004-04-30]:
> Timwi wrote
>
> > The idea itself is pretty good, but the page already demonstrates that
> > it doesn't really work because almost everybody is going to try to be
> > special and either distort their image beyond recognition (e.g.
> > LordSuryaofShropshire) or use something that barely even depicts their
> > self (e.g. Anth?re). To a non-Wikipedian, this kind of thing reinforces
> > the belief that Wikipedia is run/controlled by a bunch of weirdos.
>
> Or, possibly, has a sense of humour.
>
> Wow, I see ample opportunity for anxious over-interpretation here.  I have
> just noticed that amongst the mathematically inclined, Axel is looking _up_,
> Michael Hardy is looking _directly into the camera_, and I'm looking _down_.
> Let's not even get into Angela and Anthere's respective choices.
>

I feel myself outed of the mathematically inclined :(. Maybe I am a weirdo :)

> By chance I'd just uploaded a snap, which was elsewhere on the Web.  I
> thought this was a cool idea when I saw it.
>
> My non-weboholic wife thought the photos were 'interesting', too.
>

Well, "interesting" is not necessarily a positive comment ? :)

Pedro.

> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277


body:
> Well, "interesting" is not necessarily a positive comment ? :)
>
> Pedro.

She was positive that 'Morven' wasn't a bloke's name.  I really don't think
I should say anything more ...

Charles


in_reply_to:
<c6tv56$46m$1@sea.gmane.org> (timwi@gmx.net's message of "Fri,
	30 Apr 2004 17:33:30 +0100")

body:
>>>>> "T" == Timwi  <timwi at gmx.net> writes:

    T> I don't understand why one would want to disable this? What
    T> harm does it do?

Do you want to know my reasons, or do you want to convince me not to
disable the feature?

Here's my reasons:

0) Protected pages are evil. Any feature that requires them deserves
   intense scrutiny.

1) Supporting custom-hacked CSS and Javascript is a chore I don't want
   as a site admin.

2) The whole idea encourages a very self-centered culture I don't want
   to support or cultivate. I'd rather contributors submitted ideas to
   improve one of a set of global style sheets that everyone can use,
   than waste community resources diddling with a personal stylesheet
   so the site looks just so, just for them.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikitech-l] update.php

body:
So, I find update.php really useful as a kind of 'make install' for my
local test installation. Is there a way we could leave this
not-disabled?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] wiki down

body:
Some wikis are down. Not en. But fr, ja, ar are.

?

ant


from_name: K Forstner

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is going on?

body:
I realize that I'm the only one again, but could someone tell me what is
going on? Why can't I access Wikipedia? Why do I get the message "Server not
found"? (I thought we had several new and big servers?)

Kurt


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is going on?

body:
> > I realize that I'm the only one again, but could someone tell me what is
> > going on? Why can't I access Wikipedia? Why do I get the message "Server
not
> > found"? (I thought we had several new and big servers?)
>
> I believe it is temporarily shut down while some data is transferred to a
> new place, which should eventually speed things up.  It was sortof
> announced today, if you were around at the right time you would be warned,
> though not really given an explanation.
>
> moink

Well, after a two day break from Wikipedia I was NOT around at the right
time. Come to think of it, I frequently seem to be at the wrong place at the
wrong time :)
Thanks a lot for the information!

Kurt


from_name: Ralesk Ne'vennoyx

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
> The main problem is that in-browser WYSIWYG editors produce HTML,
> which would mess things up for people who must or prefer to work with
> Wiki markup. We'd need to parse the HTML produced by WYSIWYG editors
> back into wiki markup for storage. I think Magnus's recent
> HTML-to-wiki converter may be a big step to making this work.
>
Or program a WYSIWYG editor that produces Wiki markup.

Or introduce Mishoo to Wikipedia and make him turn his HTMLArea into a
WikiArea: http://dynarch.com/mishoo/htmlarea.epl

--
R.


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: The bug is out there...

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

>> Just out of curiosity, if I have two open edit
>> sessions of the same page, and press submit on both in
>> very short succession, what happens?
>
> They'll both save, unless something Terrible happens.

Using Mozilla on GNU/Linux you can "paste" text into the scroll bar
using the middle mouse button: mark the whole text (Alt-A), click into
the edit window and than paste into the scroll bar: the text is
available twice.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] The proliferation of article series boxes

body:
I've been pondering this issue a bit, and briefly looking through
articles on Wikipedia, and I agree series boxes are overused, but think
they are valuable in some places.  The basic crux of the matter seems to
be that they are useful when the article is integrally part of a series,
but are often used to essentially construct series where no actual
series exists, and where things would be better served by a "see also"
box.  This has some point-of-view implicates as well as simply being
irritating, because "claiming" things as part of a particular field or
line of work is often not uncontroversial.  It's also nearly impossible
to do in a clean and universally-agreed-upon way (are articles about the
human mind part of a psychology series or a cognitive science series?)
and clutters up the articles, so is best not done, I think.

Examples where I think a series box is a good idea are the country
history articles, which are broken down into periods.  These are clearly
part of a series, as there is basically one very long article on the
history of the country that is broken down largely for convenience.
[[History of the United States (1789-1861)]], [[History of Poland
(1939-1945)]], and so on.

Here are some where I think it is bad:
* [[National Rifle Association]] -- This should be a stand-alone
article.  If you want to link to other pro- or anti-gun groups, that
should be at the end, in a "see also" section.
* [[Electronic music]] -- Again, this is properly a "see also" matter,
as classification of music genera is hardly as straightforward as the
box implies.
* [[Cultural studies]] -- Arguably large parts of cultural studies
aren't even part of [[critical theory]]; at the very least, it's not a
clear hierarchical relationship.

In short, I think we ought not to use series boxes except in very
isolated cases where there is very clearly an unambiguously actually a
series of articles.  In other cases, the old standby of "see also" links
is much better and makes fewer controversial claims of subject hierarchy.

-Mark


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] More nonsense

body:
Well, we are registered, and we do make annual reports, except that of
course is hasn't been one year yet.  So yes, this is nonsense.

--Jimbo

Rick wrote:

> Someone calling themself [[User:Enforcer]], who seems to be the same person who was posting on [[Fallujah]] the nonsense about the Bomis/Wikipedia/US Marine Corps connection, is posting the following on several trolls' Talk pages: ([[User talk:JRR Trollkien]], [[User talk:Pooya]] and [[User talk:Plato]])
>
> Because of your determination in opposing anarchy and vigilantism among Wikipedia leadership, you have been selected as a possible complainant against the Wikimedia Foundation for violations of Florida Statutes Title XXXIII, (Regulation of Trade, Commerce, Investments and Solicitations), Chapter 496 (Solicitation of Funds).
> [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0496/titl0496.htm]
> The act requires any charitable organization in the state of Florida, such as the Wikimedia Foundation, to register [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC405.HTM] with that state's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and to disclose
> [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC411.HTM] their activities in annual statements, available to donors and to the public.
> Wikipedia Foundation has so far attempted to evade the letter and spirit of Florida law by claiming its published solicitations for editorial contributions and cash donations "is not and should not be considered a solicitation to make a donation." The claim is as false as would be the claim of a panhandler on a sidewalk  rattling coins a tin cup.Wikimedia Foundation, on links provided from every page, solicit readers to contribute editorial content (edit this page) and to "donate if you can afford it." [http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising] That is a solicitation, regardless the pages attempt to say black is white. You can form your own opinions if a claiming a request to "donate if you can afford it" is not a solicitation is accurate and neutral information, as Wikipedia claims to provide.
> Florida law states "'Solicitation' means a request, directly or indirectly, for money, property, financial assistance, or any other thing of value on the plea or representation that such money, property, financial assistance, or other thing of value or a portion of it will be used for a charitable or sponsor purpose or will benefit a charitable organization or sponsor. [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC404.HTM]
> Florida law states "'Solicitation' includes, but is not limited to, the following methods of requesting or securing the promise, pledge, or grant of money, property, financial assistance, or any other thing of value:
> (a) Any oral or written request;
> (b) Making any announcement to the press, on radio or television, by telephone or telegraph, or by any other communication device concerning an appeal or campaign by or for any charitable organization or sponsor or for any charitable or sponsor purpose;
> (c) Distributing, circulating, posting, or publishing any handbill, written advertisement, or other publication that directly or by implication seeks to obtain any contribution; [http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0496/SEC404.HTM]
> Wikipedia Foundation solicits cash donations, in-kind donations of editorial services and in-kind donations of technical services. You may either personally and directly pursue prosecution of Wikipedia Foundation by contacting the Florida Division of Consumer Services of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/complnt.html], and may verify Wikimedia Foundation's lack of compliance at the Division's on-line charitable organizations reporting page [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/gift_givers/search.html]. You may make an on-line complaint to the Division at [http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/ccform.html http://www.800helpfla.com/~cs/ccform.html]. Thank you for your interest in protecting the integrity of human knowledge, and for whatever interest you might develop in upholding the rule of law regarding charitable contributions, and compliance with the law among rouge on-line charitable organizations.
>
> Kindly,
> [[User:Enforcer|Enforcer]]
>
> RickK
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reponse to troll [[The Enforcer]]

body:
One of our frequently banned users is making a variety of legal and
financial accusations that I wanted to respond to early and firmly
lest any of these things take root in any way shape or form as
reflective of reality in any way.

1.  First, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently in full compliance
and more with all legal requirements for filings, etc.  It is my
intention that we remain so, and that indeed, we are proactive about
doing whatever is necessary to go above and beyond what is required of
us in terms of organizational transparency, etc.

I am always eager to hear suggestions for improvement in this regard.

2.  Second, there are no plans of any kind to release a 'for-profit'
version of the Wikipedia, for the separate benefit of me or Bomis or
any other company that I own, control, work for, etc.  We *will* be
working to release Wikipedia on CD-ROM, in paper format, etc., but
these will be projects *of the foundation*, carried out with perfect
consistency with our nonprofit mission.

Such efforts will necessarily and properly involve the work of
for-profit publishers, but of course any contracts entered into will
be to the benefit of the Wikimedia Foundation.

3.  There are no current plans for salaries for anyone.  In the
future, I do intend that as we grow, we will become a large
organization patterned after the National Geographic Society, the
International Red Cross, and so on.  This will eventually necessitate
employees, etc.  But for now, any suggestion that I am personally
trying to get money from Wikipedia is beyond ludicrous.

It is commonly thought that I'm a wealthy person, but I'm not really.
I'm a very committed person who drives a 4 year old Hyundai and lives
in an ordinary middle-class American home in an ordinary neighborhood,
while spending far more in the last 5 years on my dream of a free
encyclopedia than I have on my own salary, none of which, of course,
is derived from Wikipedia in any way.

I do this because it matters to me.  There are lots of ways to spend
money in life, some frivolous, some meaningful.  To me, doing
something meaningful is the best reward.

4.  As of June 1, 2004, I am resigning as CEO of Bomis, and my partner
Tim Shell will take over that role.  This is primarily to reflect the
reality of the situation, which is that I spend virtually all my time
on Wikipedia and non-Bomis work.  But it is also in part to further
emphasize and underscore the fact that the two are unrelated.  Bomis's
ongoing provision of free hosting for the Wikimedia Foundation as a
gesture of appreciation of "giving back" to the free software
community whose software has helped us to do so much is not going to
change.  But that ongoing gift is the only relationship between Bomis
and Wikipedia, period.

5.  One troll has suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to
disclose something about it's relationship to Bomis.  This is a
classic propaganda technique: to demand the disclosure of some shadowy
secrets, with ominous overtones, when there is actually nothing to
disclose.  I am happy to answer any questions that anyone has about
it, but there's not much to say.

While I was a futures and options trader, I founded Bomis partly as a
sideline hobby.  It was eventually successful enough for me to retire
from trading and do it full time.  The company rode through the
dot-com boom with good times and bad, and has always prospered enough
to provide me with a decent living.

I eventually became consumed with the passion to create a free and
freely licensed encyclopedia, and started to spend money on it.  In
the early days, I thought of it as a possible business venture like
RedHat.  Nupedia was an expensive failure, Wikipedia was a big
success.

But through that process, it became apparent that in order for
Wikipedia to achieve it's full potential it needed to be owned by a
non-profit organization.  I promised then to give it all away to the
non-profit organization, and I did.  I did so fully and completely and
with no regrets.  My reward will be a Nobel Peace Prize, ha ha.

Why has Bomis funded Wikipedia?  Because my partners in Bomis shared
my vision and let me do it.  Bomis had servers, technical employees,
etc., and was the original owner of Nupedia/Wikipedia.  The transition
was natural and spontaneous, and that's where things are today.

6.  I have said before that although there are no plans for it at the
current time, and no need for it, it would please me greatly to have
the Wikimedia Foundation grow into a large enough organization that it
would be sensible for me to accept a salary for running it.  If and
when that time comes, of course my compensation will be decided
according to the standard practices for charitable organizations, i.e.
through a vote of the other members of the Board of Directors, and in
accordance with the advice of an independent outside compensation
agency.

----

In short, if anyone has *any* questions or concerns about legal or
financial matters, I ask you to please write to me privately and
express those concerns openly and honestly, so that I can resolve
anything of this sort to everyone's satisfaction.  If, after you've
talked with me privately, you find that you have any remaining issues
that you don't feel I've addressed, then by all means I encourage you
to go public with your complaints.

That's my biggest problem, really, with what this troll is doing.
He's issuing a lot of lies (anonymously of course) and insinuations,
attempting to make a public stink, rather than honestly and simply
raising the issues with me in an appropriate manner.  I don't actually
fear any actual legal action, because in order to file a legal action,
he or she would have to reveal his or her true identity, which would
then enable us to finally take legal action to permanently ban them
from the website, as well as providing an opportunity for me to file a
libel claim against him.

Anyhow, really, I wanted to say all this because I want you you all to
know my keen interest in openness, transparency, fairness, etc.  I
want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that the Wikimedia
Foundation is looked to as a shining example of how a nonprofit should
be run, with tight attention paid to expenses, good stewardship of
donor money, etc.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Reponse to troll [[The Enforcer]]


body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> Section 4B allows the authors to release you from the requirement to
> identify five principal authors. Since the title of the article
> functions as the Title Page for GFDL purposes, and because we have
> never, as far as I know, identified principal authors along with the
> title of the article, I would argue that the release applies. Given
> our existing practices, we should take the position that all
> contributors have implicitly released us from the requirement to list
> authors on the Title Page. This would also neatly eliminate the
> problem of how to identify "principal authors".

I think that's fine, but I presume that the implicit release only
applies to Wikipedia.  That's a problem, because Wikipedia is supposed
to be a free encyclopedia.  Requiring creators of derivatives to
identify and list 5 of the principal authors on the "title page" while
Wikipedia itself doesn't even list them in a convenient form anywhere is
not consistent with this goal of freedom.

It should also be noted that not all content on Wikipedia was submitted
to Wikipedia by the author.  Some of it was copied from a site which
released it under the GFDL.  Yes, this problem is limited in scope, but
it is there.

Anthony


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [alexandre.dulaunoy@ael.be: EU Wikipedia member to
	speech about GNU FDL and Legal at LSM2004]

body:
If there is anyone who would like to speak at this meeting, which I
will be unable to attend, please make a request to me privately

They are looking for someone to speak about the GNU FDL in particular, so
the successful applicant should be able to speak about that.

----- Forwarded message from Alexandre Dulaunoy <alexandre.dulaunoy at ael.be> -----

From: Alexandre Dulaunoy <alexandre.dulaunoy at ael.be>
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 16:43:19 +0200 (CEST)
To: jwales at bomis.com
Subject: EU Wikipedia member to speech about GNU FDL and Legal at LSM2004

Hello Jimmy,

I would like to know if you have found a wikimedia/wikipedia member in
Europe that could talk about the legal part and the GNU FDL to replace
your intervention.

Thanks a lot,

have a nice day,

adulau

--
** Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) **** http://www.foo.be/ **** 0x44E6CBCD
**/ "To  disable the  Internet to  save EMI  and Disney  is  the moral
**/ equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the
**/ livelihood of monastic scribes." Jon Ippolito.

----- End forwarded message -----


body:
My idea would be to have a 'List of Main Authors' on each page, and have
this editable by the users via a separate form, where they can select
to add and remove names. People would usually be shown by their nickname,
IP-numbers taken together as 'anonymous authors'.

Start by making these consists of all non-minor editors if that are 5
or more, all editors otherwise. Create an extra Special Page for the
'pages with most authors' so that we can quickly clean up the pages where
this leads to 40 or 50 names.

To easily spot usage of this feature in unintended ways, let the change
have a clear edit summary on recentchanges (and perhaps also on a
separate logbook) - like "Authorship change. Added: John Doe, Eloquence.
Removed: Jimbo Wales, Michael. After this change 10 authors."

Andre Engels


from_name: Till Westermayer

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Michael,

>Section 4B allows the authors to release you from the requirement
>to identify five principal authors. Since the title of the article
>functions as the Title Page for GFDL purposes, and because we have
>never, as far as I know, identified principal authors along with
>the title of the article, I would argue that the release applies.
>Given our existing practices, we should take the position that all
>contributors have implicitly released us from the requirement to
>list authors on the Title Page. This would also neatly eliminate
>the problem of how to identify "principal authors".

... and for future modifications we could make this release explicit by
stating it on the edit page!

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Contributors list

body:
First, I apology for breaking the thread. Gname is not
working for me for wikipedia-l and foundation-l, and I
know not why.

"A" == Anthere
<anthere9-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
writes:

    A> So, tel me if I understand well, to comply with
the gfdl the
    A> best we can (and we already know it is
problematic), what you
    A> suggest is to list first the real name
contributors, followed
    A> by pseudonymes, then by ips.

OK, so, this feature is on its way with 1.3. I'm less
concerned with
the GFDL than with the Creative Commons
Attribution-style licenses, by
the way, which is what Wikitravel uses.

I'm not sure if this feature will be enabled on any of
the Wikimedia
projects, or how. My main concern is to make it easy
for people
redistributing Wikitravel content to conform to the
attribution
requirements of our license.

------

First thanks for the detailed answer.

I am not sure current editors are requesting to have
the names of authors in the wikipedia page, nor on a
printed page. Why could not the requirements be on a
separate page for the online edition, just by clicking
on a link located at the top of the page ? The author
page could list the last editors and all the others
ones, and that would be a neater list that current
history.

On a printed version, is it best as well, to add 5
names and last authors at the top of articles ? Or
could we just not propose at the end of the
special-for-print page, precisely a list of authors
and the last one.

We should provide the list for legal requirements, but
our names are only important for legal issues, not for
readers. We are not so important individually, as to
be listed at the top of articles, especially since we
know that it is quite subjective to list these 5 names
as five authors.

-----

I understand the proposition to list in order, real
names, pseudonymes and ips. It is much cleaner and
easier to read.

--------

Now, I have another question. Why asking in the
preferences the real name of the editor ? What is that
point of it ?
*If people want to edit under their real name, they
can create an account with their real name. They do
not need two areas, one for a pseudonyme that is their
real name and another for the same real name
*If they do not want to have their name displayed
everywhere, they can have a pseudonyme and place their
real name on their user page
*If they do not want their real name to be displayed
at all, they just have a pseudonyme.

What is the sense to have a pseudonyme to hide a real
name, if the real name is displayed in the
contributors list to an article ?

Why the second field ?

Anthere

__________________________________
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Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
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subject: [Foundation-l] Contributors list


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
>>>>> "AD" == Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> writes:

    AD> Well, we don't list *all* contributors for the page.

This is true: the attribution block only lists those contributors that
the software can figure out contributed. Stuff copy-and-pasted from
other Wiki pages or other sources won't get attribution.

I'd like to correct this in the near future; I think the best way to
handle it is to use field-value pairs:

       http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-value_pairs

...and have a field called, I dunno, "outside contributor" or
something.

    [[outside contributor = Cory Doctorow]]
    [[outside contributor = Lawrence Lessig]]

(The "outside" is just a lame attempt to keep MediaWiki users from
feeling they have to add their name in.) Wiki editors can note
attribution in the body of the page.

But that's going to mean making field-value pairs work in MediaWiki,
which probably won't be a 1.3 feature.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: WYSIWYG

in_reply_to:
<4092DE01.60903@livejournal.com> (Ralesk Ne'vennoyx's message
	of "Sat, 01 May 2004 01:15:13 +0200")

body:
>>>>> "RN" == Ralesk Ne'vennoyx <ralesk at livejournal.com> writes:

    Me> The main problem is that in-browser WYSIWYG editors produce
    Me> HTML,

    RN> Or program a WYSIWYG editor that produces Wiki markup.

That's possible, but the current round of in-browser editors don't let
you switch around the markup produced. They make HTML, period.

    RN> Or introduce Mishoo to Wikipedia and make him turn his
    RN> HTMLArea into a WikiArea:
    RN> http://dynarch.com/mishoo/htmlarea.epl

HtmlArea is one of my favorites, since it smoothes over the
differences between Mozilla's and IE's in-browser editors. I think the
newer epoZ does a good job, too.

There's a lot of ways this could work; I'm thinking it's long-term for
now, though.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Mister E

body:
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040501/714c3b99/attachment.htm


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Better searching

body:
Since Wikipedia's contents is available under GFDL, it is OK to start
mirror websites to display the same contents, and many are doing so.

But does any mirror site provide a search function of their own that
is better than Google or Wikipedia's own?  Is any innovation taking
place in that area?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/


from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [Foundation-l] Registering Wikimedia trademarks

body:
On Apr 28, 2004, at 8:31 PM, Toby Bartels wrote:

> But try marketing /your/ soft drink as "light, crisp, and refreshing".
> If you don't respond to their inevitable order to cease and desist,
> then they'll register their original phrase, sue you, and win!
> (OK, so IANAL, but I'll still bet that they'd win.)

Then (realizing YANAL) is there any risk in waiting until someone truly
pushes the issue to register?

Peter

                               -- ---<>--- --
                     A house without walls cannot fall.
        Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                               -- ---<>--- --


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Registering Wikimedia trademarks

body:
On Apr 29, 2004, at 1:32 AM, Michael Snow wrote:

> Pepsi would probably try all kinds of things to make you stop, but I'm
> much more skeptical about whether they could win a lawsuit. Trademark
> protection is normally denied for terms that are merely descriptive of
> the goods or services involved. I'm not a trademark examiner, but my
> conclusion would be that "light, crisp, and refreshing" are simply
> descriptive terms, so they can't be a trademark.

Sort of like "fair and balanced?"

:)

Peter

                               -- ---<>--- --
                     A house without walls cannot fall.
        Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                               -- ---<>--- --