from_name: Darko Bulatovic

body:
Alex,
I don't think that mailing lists use that much resources. First it is
very trivial to count how much resources mailing list spend
(space,processor time and memory, and bandwidth). I think that one page
on WMF wiki eat more resources in one day than this mailing list in hole
month. And it is very easy to maintain one and to add new one. I think
that this point is marginal.

Darko


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikichix-l] Moderating an open list


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/12/5, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com>:
>
> From what I read below, we are in agreement - yet many women feel it
> would be beneficial to have somewhere to discuss bias where they do not
> have to worry about immediately being attacked for even bringing up the
> bias issue. That is not, as yet, here.
>

I don't see any indication that people get attacked for bringing up the
issue. I don't see much attacking going on, although the discussion isn't as
civil as it should be either - from both sides. But if you see everyone who
has doubts about the extent of sexism in Wikipedia as attacking you for
bringing it forward, you are indeed too thin-skinned. Why not see those as
requests for information instead?

You know what's attacking? Attacking is what I did to my furniture about an
hour ago :-(

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


list: wikien-l

from_name: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
I cannot begin to say how much I hate everything about this WikiChix - there
is no need for it and it will merely cause further problems.

~~~~ Violet/Riga


list: wikitech-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 12/5/06, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> > Well, obviously BigTable depends on GFS, now that I'm looking at
> > it, but
> > it's not a "we could use GFS for GFS'es sake" situation, unless I
> > am missing
> > something.
>
> If BigTable (whatever it is) would be some magic silver bullet,
> Google would not use InnoDB or MySQL or whatever.
>
> > And as I mentioned, BigTable seems not useful as long as our
> > indexes fit in
> > RAM, which I hope is the case.
>
> We have few hundred gigabytes of RAM available in cluster. I hope we
> fit. :)
>

The DB clusters are systems running slave copies of the same master MySQL
databases; what matters is RAM per system (or, per database)....

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


from_name: rfrangi at libero.it

body:
> Besides the opposition from some to having this hosted here, there's also:
>
>    http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Non_discrimination_policy
>
> "The Wikimedia Foundation prohibits discrimination against current or
> prospective users and employees on the basis of race, color, gender, religion,
> national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally
> protected characteristics."
>
> -- Matt

That was my point. I just think that a Foundation that promotes projects "that anyone can edit" should not, in any case, maintain mailing lists "that only a group of people can access". And this holds true for "any" group, regardless of its composition.

That's far from being against WikiChicks or WikiWhaterver.

Roberto (Snowdog)

------------------------------------------------------
Francesco ha perso ben 45 Kg! Scopri come! Clicca qui
http://click.libero.it/webnation05dic06


body:
> That was my point. I just think that a Foundation that promotes projects "that anyone can edit" should not, in any case, maintain mailing lists "that only a group of people can access". And this holds true for "any" group, regardless of its composition.
>
> That's far from being against WikiChicks or WikiWhaterver.
>
> Roberto (Snowdog)
>
>
>
>

Your request to the Mediation-en-l mailing list

    Subscription request

has been rejected by the list moderator.  The moderator gave the
following reason for rejecting your request:

"[No reason given]"

As you can see not all mailing lists are open.

Darko


body:
2006/12/5, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>:

> A person says they are worried about being attacked
> for bringing up an issue and the response is that
> don't know what it means to be "attacked".  That only
>
physical attacks count.  That "worring about being
> attacked" (i.e. feeling intimidated) means she is
> "thin-skined".  Seriously fuck off.
>

That last remark was made jokingly. Unfortunately that's not how it has been
read, I apologize for that. However, I DO think that feeling attacked by the
discussion that has been taking place does mean one is too thin-skinned. And
yes, I'm too thin-skinned too then. But I think it's bad to complain about
attacking in a thread where one has done at least as much attacking as the
others.

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
On 12/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Not quite.  The current climate is that we accept nothing but
> free images.

This is not the case on en.

> Fair use is not free, so we're stamping out fair use.
> Licensed-for-almost-anyone-to-use publicity photos are not free,
> so we're stamping out those, too.  I'm sure magazine covers and
> DVD packages will be next.
>

We've been through magazine covers once already.

> And this isn't necessarily such a bad thing.  Certainly,
> accepting only free images, and upping the incentive to acquire
> free images, by declining to accept nonfree ones in the meantime,
> is a noble goal.
>
> I started this thread talking about publicity photos, but it
> became clear to me that this is not the fundamental issue, and I
> suspect it's not even worth debating publicity photos until the
> fundamental issue is resolved (or changed).
>
> The people campaigning to get rid of all nonfree images have got
> Jimbo's statement to fall back on: it's better for an article to
> have no image at all than to have a nonfree one.  A licensed
> publicity photo of J.D. Salinger is not free, ergo it's better
> for the [[J.D. Salinger]] article to have no image, until such
> time as a free one can be found.
>
> Stated another way, not only does a poorly-composed fan shot of
> an author at a book signing trump a professionally-photographed
> headshot, an imageless article trumps that headshot, too.

Assumeing a fan pic is in fact posible. Clearly it unlikely that there
is going to be a free pic of say [[Stella Rimington]] for the next 50
years.

--
geni


from_name: James Hare

subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
If it's strongly deprecated to the point where people are banned because
they do it, that to me sounds like it's prohibited.

On 12/5/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> "The Cunctator" wrote
>
> > > Missing one important proviso: public relations workers are quite
> > > welcome to edit wikipedia in a personal capacity.  What has been
> > > prohibited is editing Wikipedia on behalf of a paying client.
>
> > I just don't understand why that should be.
>
> It is not prohibited. It is strongly deprecated. See [[Wikipedia:Conflict
> of interest]], a guideline.
>
> Charles
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
> Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Request to mailing list Wikichix-l rejected

body:
Tuesday, December 5, 2006, 4:29:32 PM, Guettarda wrote:

> But the list was organised to avoid a specific problem
> - women feeling uncomfortable posting to this male-dominated list where
> explicitly sexist statements (even if they weren't meant seriously) are left
> unchallenged by a large number of people.

A better solution would be to kick any of the men that behave
like that, not to assume that "all men are chauvinist pigs".


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
On 12/4/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/5/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> > And if we had copied all the articles from EB and hadnt got sued, so you
> > think we would be where we are today? People improve things where
> > there are
> > gaps, and stolen images are not gaps.
>
> Can you steal a promotional image which some B grade hollywood star
> desperately wants everyone to use at any opportunity?

They might want us to use it in the article on them, but can you be
sure they won't object to it being an example image in [[Black
people]]?  And I'd bet they'd *really* object to a crossed-out version
of the image used in an anti-(insert star here) userbox.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
2006/12/5, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>:
>
>
> Seriously fuck off.

And that from the person who talks about people attacking... Fuck off
yourself.

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


from_name: Michael M

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case sensitivity in article headings?

body:
At 17:04 GMT 05/12/2006, Michael M wrote:

I don't know how to open .asc files. Could you help me?

>Steve Bennett wrote:
> > I see that in the last few weeks, [[:en:Template:lowercase]] has been
> > updated to actually display the title in lowercase with a JavaScript
> > hack.
>
>Stolen from Uncyclopedia, of course. (Or did they use a CSS hack?)
>
>--
>Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
>Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
>"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
>Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
2006/12/5, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com>:

> That last remark was made jokingly.

Well, it wasn't fully jokingly. It showed how much I felt being attacked
myself. And how I overreacted. Because I have indeed broken some pieces of
furniture over this discussion. I know I shouldn't, and yet I do. Maybe
fucking off isn't such a bad idea after all. But where should I go then?

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


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Steve Summit wrote

> phoebe wrote:
> > Honestly, I think I am being discriminated against in this community
> > because my patience for endless bickering is thin.

> Hear, hear.  Without belittling your concern, I'm sure you're far
> from the only person who feels this way.

> (The saving grace is that, some if not much of the time, you can
> ignore the endless petty bickering and go off and edit the
> encyclopedia instead.)

Phoebe is of course right. Over the years, UseNet and mailing lists have proved little except who has the debating skills (not right on their side). This sort of contradicts something Solzhenitsyn wrote in 'The First Circle', about how prisoners with a running argument were made by their peers to do it in a threaded discussion on a blackboard; and that shortly it became clear who had won.

Come to think of it, it doesn't really contradict that: the spectators may still see better than the participants. But Steve is also right. WP shows that, where more is involved than mere debate, discussion online need not be so sterile.

Charles

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


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Foundation-l] Gender issues, a short analysis

body:
This was great but you missed where Anthere recounted a number of personally
experienced incidents of harassment.

On 12/5/06, David Koenig <davidkoen at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I have to admit, I'm getting bored by this wikichix discussion...
> The advocates of the new list tell us over and over again that there
> is a problem but none of them has so far given a detailed answer of
> what the problem exactly consists. So I decided to do their homework
> for them and made a short analysis of my home wikipedia, the german
> wikipedia. Maybe this turns the debate into a more constructive one...
>
> ==Gender ratio in the german wikipedia==
>
> Schroer & Hertel, psychologists from Wuerzburg, found a gender ratio of
> 86% to 14% in a voluntary survey among german Wikipedians.
> [
> http://wy2x05.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/publications/pdf/wikipedia_poster_fg_2005.pdf
> ]
>
> I made a different approach today and took the 500 most active
> contributors from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beitragszahlen
> and sorted them by gender, according to my personal knowledge, gender
> revealing user names (male or female prenames) or personal details
> revealed on user pages. Users where no gender could be assigned were
> marked as unknown.
> Came up with a gender ratio even worse, only 5,8% among the 500 could be
> clearly identified as female.
>
> Gender  Number  %
> male    420     84,0
> female  29      5,8
> unknown 50      10,0
>
> ==Admins, Buerocrats, Checkusers==
> Among the 245 administrators of the german Wikipedia, 18 have identified
> themselves as female, a percentage of 7,3, slightly higher than the
> percentage among the 500.
>
> male    227     92,7%
> female  18      7,3%
> Sum     245     100,0%
>
> Both two buerocrats are male, two of the three checkusers are female.
>
> ==Admin candidatures==
> A count of failed and successful admincandidatures (data from 2005 and
> 2006) revealed no great differences among the genders. The rate of
> successful female candidatures is with 64,7% vs. 59,2% slightly higher.
>
>                         Sex                     Sum
>                         male    female  unknown         sum
> unsuccessful    nr.     95             6          6                    107
>                        %        40,8%   35,3%   50,0%    40,8%
> successful      nr.     138            11         6                    155
>                        %        59,2%   64,7%   50,0%    59,2%
>
> Sum                    nr.      233            17        12                    262
>                        %        100,0%  100,0%  100,0%  100,0%
>
> ==User bans==
>
> Four users in user ban votes could be clearly identified as female
> (Statistics based on a summary done by Sebmol). Half of them were banned
> compared to 35/22 among - probably - male users.
>
>                m.   f.      unknown     sum
> no ban  22      2        1      25
> ban            35       2        2      39
> Sum            57       4        3      64
>
> ==Other==
>
> Jury members of the writing contests, m/f
> 1st: 4/1
> 2nd: 4/1 (one male acting as a replacement of an elected woman)
> 3rd: 4/1
> 4th: 5/1
> 5th: 4/2
>
> ==Culture==
>
> Harassment of female users is usually sanctioned by the community.
> Vandals usually ignore the gender of admins they insult (I'm refering
> here to the countless insult accounts like "Admin X is gay", "Admin X
> is fucking Admin Y")
> Unappropriate comments to female users can lead to the loss of admin
> elections (cmp.
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminkandidaturen&oldid=13342694#C.L.C3.B6ser
> where an otherwise well suited candidate lost his elections due to
> comments some female users perceived as sexist)
>
> One case of stalking is known to me, in this case the stalker came
> from outside (acting as anonymous IP), the affected user was provided
> with moral and legal support from other community members.
>
> One other affair worth being mentioned is those of a couple of
> userboxes which were perceived as sexist (example: a picture of a red
> haired porn star with the text like "This user loves the color red",
> "This user loves women", "This user loves blonde women" etc.) Those
> were speedy deleted.
>
> The major gender-related debate concerns the naming conventions.
> German Wikipedia uses the generic masculine form for article titles
> and categories, a rule which was repeatedly put in question. However,
> these debates seem to be driven mostly by male users, female users
> rarely weigh in and if they do, they do on both sides (see
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Namenskonventionen/Binnen-I
> ).
>
> ==Real life and Wikipedia==
>
> Since the issue of childcare has been raised already... Based on IRC
> conversations and real life meetings, this seems to me rather a male
> problem in the german wikipedia. There are much more fathers than
> mothers who have to accomodate their wikipedia activity with the needs
> of their children.
>
> ==Summary==
>
> In sum, female participation in the german wikipedia seems appallingly
> low, however we find a slightly higher ratio of women in "higher"
> ranks like admins, jury members than the overall participation numbers
> would suggest.
> To discover a gender bias in Wikipedia culture more thorough research
> would probably be needed, the here quoted most prominent examples
> rather suggest a high awareness in gender issues and a willingness
> from the community as whole to sanction transgressions.
>
> HTH,
> David
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nazi userboxes

body:
On Tuesday 05 December 2006 05:07, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > Then let us be grateful that neither of us live in those countries. :)
>
> To be honest, I'm not entirely sure where UK (my home country)
> discrimination law stands on the matter... I would support laws
> against discriminating against any political group. If you allow one
> group to be discriminated against, you end up having to allow all
> groups to be discriminated against, which is only a few steps away
> from political leaders throwing their opponents in prison.

There's a huge difference between discrimination done by the government and
discrimination done by private individuals or entities.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Handling unreferenced but likely-valid material

body:
On 05/12/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> > On 12/1/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > > The verifiability policy has never been a hardline policy, but a
> > > guideline and something to aim towards.  When it was first adopted,
> > > nobody thought it meant that we should summarily delete the 80%+ of the
> > > encyclopedia that at the time was unsourced.  Instead what it meant was
> > > that we should begin going through and adding sources to it.
>
> What if a person picks a random article from the 80% of the encyclopedia
> that isn't sourced and says "I'm going to delete this unless someone else
> sources it"?

In my experience, wailing and gnashing of teeth, even when the motive
was a relatively uncontentious one (as opposed to "OMG CRUFT hey look
it's unsourced DELETE"...)

A while back, I went through every single article in
[[Category:Rapists]] and its subcategories, weeding out the
less-notable "he's a sex offender therefore we need an article on him"
cases and trying to get rid of the unsourced or flimsily-sourced ones.

Unfortunately, when you have an article saying "so-and-so is a
rapist", and you cut out all the defamatory-if-untrue material, you
end up with "John Smith (b. 1941) is an American. {{unsourced}}". So
how to deal with these?

I slapped prod on them.

{{subst:prod|This article doesn't contain any sources and is
fundamentally defamatory if untrue; if these claims are removed we
have a meaningless or contentless article which doesn't assert any
notability. If it can't be sourced it should be deleted; so if it
isn't fixed in five days it will be}} (or words to that effect).

I got told I was being disruptive for "not going through normal
processes" because things "didn't work fast enough" for me, and I
should have been using {{fact}} like everyone else. Ho hum.

I still recommend the method for "passively bad" articles - it's as
effective as it gets, assuming one outraged person doesn't go through
your contribs removing all the prod tags because they're upset. AFD
has a tendency to say "keep and cleanup" and then you just have the
same problem sitting there.

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement

body:
Hoi,
As we have rather noisy men and women on the list :) and as gender
issues are very much on the agenda, I thought that the following will
amuse you.. The point; ideally the ratio between the sexes is 50/50. So
let us declare that there are no winners, only participants.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6206084.stm

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] $wgAllowExternalImages and Spam Black list
	extension

body:
On 05/12/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> If we could check the spam blacklist against something a little less
> processed than external links, it might work. Is there any reason why the
> blacklist isn't just compared to the raw Mediawiki text?

Because it opens up several loopholes which allow users to circumvent
the blacklist; this is in fact the reason we switched over to
post-parse information.

Rob Church


body:
> Your request to the Mediation-en-l mailing list
>
>     Subscription request
>
> has been rejected by the list moderator.  The moderator gave the
> following reason for rejecting your request:
>
> "[No reason given]"
>
>
> As you can see not all mailing lists are open.
>
> Darko
>

Well, probably the WMF board has it's own closed mailing-list, as well as OTRS. But to be more precise, I'm not referring to mailing-lists set up for technical purposes, but to mailing-lists open to discussion for specific groups (like "pepole coming from Omicron Persei VII").

If WMF allow this there are 2 choices:
1. allow any request for mailing-lists (like the one for "pepole coming from Omicron Persei IX")

2. decide for every single request. This means set up a commitee that decides who can have a mailing-list and who can't, with all the subsequent discussions because some requests will be dismissed.

Especially in the second case, the WMF will discriminate on race, sex, religion, etc.

Roberto (Snowdog)

------------------------------------------------------
Francesco ha perso ben 45 Kg! Scopri come! Clicca qui
http://click.libero.it/webnation05dic06


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
niht-hr?fn wrote:
> On Dec 5, 2006, at 12:30, Bryan Derksen wrote:
>> Ah, hell. It wasn't even intended to be; my local group of male
>> friends
>> here in real life use the "are you saying I'm fat?" mock-offense thing
>> back and forth quite often between us. The joke was supposed to
>> just be
>> that it was a complete non-sequitur.
>
> Okay, good. I've heard that line used to make fun of women's concerns
> before, so perhaps I was a little quick to respond...

I guess in hindsight it is somewhat appropriate that my line poking fun
at people getting offended as a result of misunderstanding would itself
be misunderstood and cause offence. My bad, hopefully next time I make
an attempt to defuse tension with humour I'll be less clumsy about it.

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from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 38

body:
On Dec 5, 2006, at 3:49 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net>
>
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Puppy wrote:
>> Excellent solution, may I borrow your prod content for my own use?
>
> Yes, but the case I'm worried about is one where the targeted
> article is
> not libelous or about living people, still would have content if the
> questionable material is removed, and actually does have sources,
> but which
> are not referenced in the recommended one-footnote-per-sentence
> way.  The
> policy is letting people use the rules to disrupt by picking any of
> that
> 80% of articles and saying "you'd better source this, now, or I put
> your
> article up for deletion."

Nothing about the verifiability policy requires _inline_ sources.

And please stop asserting 80% of our articles are unsourced, when my
informal check suggests that the number is more like 20%.


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/5/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/5/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Dec 5, 2006, at 11:55, Bryan Derksen wrote:
>>>> What, are you saying I'm fat??
>>> Despite the fact that you're joking, and despite the fact that I'm
>>> not personally offended, that is a sexist remark. I find it
>>> especially inappropriate to make jokes at women's expense in a thread
>>> protesting the idea that women are treated in any way badly on this
>>> list.
>> I didn't get his joke, so I can't say that you're wrong... but I
>> totally don't get the exchange here. What the #$@# does being obese
>> have to do with being female?
>
> Hopefully this will help explain: http://www.mopie.com/0309/15.html

Actually, it had nothing to do with being female at all. It's a stock
phrase from my local group of friends that we use when one of us wants
to pretend he's misunderstood an inoffensive comment as being an insult,
to humorous effect. I only realized that it could be interpreted as a
gender-specific thing after niht-hr?fn's response.

I could have used any insult at all, it's just bad luck that this one
particular insult and one particular thread meshed so poorly. And,
having explained the attempt at humour so thoroughly now, any chance at
salvaging it is long past. Oh well.

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from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement

body:
On 12/5/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> As we have rather noisy men and women on the list :) and as gender
> issues are very much on the agenda, I thought that the following will
> amuse you.. The point; ideally the ratio between the sexes is 50/50. So
> let us declare that there are no winners, only participants.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6206084.stm
>
How do we know that's a woman, and not a man wearing a skirt?

Heh, anyway, I've been trying for a while to get a picture of one of
those "Men Working" signs next to a woman working.  If anyone can get
one of these I'd appreciate a copy :).

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement


body:
On 05/12/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:

> > {{subst:prod|This article doesn't contain any sources and is
> > fundamentally defamatory if untrue; if these claims are removed we
> > have a meaningless or contentless article which doesn't assert any
> > notability. If it can't be sourced it should be deleted; so if it
> > isn't fixed in five days it will be}} (or words to that effect).

> Excellent solution, may I borrow your prod content for my own use?

Lay on, MacDuff. You may want to add a couple of wikilinks in it to
relevant policy pages, and be prepared to argue the toss when people
come complaining...

Oh! Random query. Is it possible for someone to come up with a list of
articles which are in any of the "Living people", "XXX births" and/or
"XXX deaths" categories, but no other categories? IE, people tagged
solely as people and nothing else.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Profoundly bad idea.

body:
James Hare wrote:
> The problem is we've let it slide for so long we now have tens (if not
> hundreds) of thousands of articles that are acceptable by basic editorial
> standards. If only fixing the existing problems (while more and more are
> introduced) was feasible.

But if they're subjects we'll want articles about eventually anyway,
deleting an unsourced version simply punts the work even farther into
the future.

And why do we have to get all of Wikipedia's articles in tip-top shape
at once? As long as there's a steady stream of articles improving their
way ever closer to the top, I don't see the problem with a steady stream
of sub-par articles continuing to be created at the same time. If we
want to publish a DVD version we'd need to pick articles out for it
selectively regardless.

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from_name: Darko Bulatovic

body:
To be Honest,

Lot of Men don't watch how they treat women in communication. Many of
them use sexual connotations in discussion (it is probably that what
Frojd talked in all his books). In that situation is very hard to stay
cool as person feel underestimated, and community must work against
this.  ( I didn't think about anyone particular just general so I don't
say that this is reason for objection of others).

In positive discrimination, I meant that smaller group (in this case
women) have right to chose separate topic that is related to their
interest never less  regarding opinion of majority (in this case
mans).So numbers should not be counted here. This is just a reality that
one (sub)group exist inside community.
 If one topic(mailing list) exist there that is not of concern of some
other group why is should not be there? Because it is not interesting to
majority? I think it is best for community to build inside subgroups
instead that groups build their communication outside of community (e.g.
google groups, yahoo groups,...). That looks to me more like tearing
apart that to build inside community an mailing list - it is more like
reorganization.

I think that this can also encourage other women to participate in WMF
projects, as they will find comfort and help in this sub group-mailing
list.

Also thank you for Idea we will try to use this as model for our
organization.

Darko


from_name: Jim Schuler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On 12/5/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gregory Kohs wrote:
> > Jim Schuler wisely stated:
> >
> >> Might depend on tax law.  If I remember correctly (it's been 15 years
> since
> >> I dealt with this), 501(c) and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt and private
> foundations
> >> can run afoul of the IRS if there is a clear indication of active
> >> discrimination.
> >
> > But then also stated:
> >
> >> In this case, I don't see any evidence of an active policy
> >> of discrimination...
> >
> > There actually *is* a fairly active policy of discrimination that's been
> > carried out for the
> > past few months.
> >
> > Employees of public relations firms are not allowed to edit Wikipedia.
> >
>
> Wrong. Spam and POV hagiographies are banned, *regardless* of who posts
> them.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Missed the point, I see.

Jim
> http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?

body:
If these computers were to be equipped with Windows, they wouldn't be the
$100 laptops, they'd be the $400 laptops.

On 12/5/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> galwaygirl schreef:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I just came across this worrying news item:
> > http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2170209/microsoft-looking-windows-olpc
> >
> > Does anyone know more about this? Is it really true?
> >
> > Galwaygirl
> Hoi,
> There are two sides to this story. The standard hardware that runs the
> OLPC software nicely will not run the Windows software. Consequently
> many of the advantages of using this system go out of the window (pun
> intended) because extra hardware will require more power and it is
> exactly the low power functionality that makes this system shine. The
> only "dark" side that I see, is that as the system can be made to run
> such extended services, it will become more of an object people are
> willing to steal. The bright side is that when it can run Windows, there
> is room for extending the functionality of the hardware. This may make
> the system also more interesting for the western market where the superb
> ability to run with limited power is less relevant.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On 12/5/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:50:25 -0800, "George Herbert"
> <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >What's been banned is a certain class of commercial speech; no publisher,
> >even an "open content" one, is mandated to accept all speech from anyone,
> >and in particular the protections of commercial speech producers are far
> >more easily legally restricted.
>
> Further, the reason it's been banned is precisely because such speech
> is generally *not* in line with the foundation's stated mission, which
> is to provide a verifiably neutral free-content encyclopaedia.
> Arguably we would be more at risk from that interpretation of the tax
> law if we *allowed* such contributions.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Not under US tax law.

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


body:
On 12/5/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 5, 2006, at 3:49 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
>
> > From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net>
> >
> > On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Puppy wrote:
> >> Excellent solution, may I borrow your prod content for my own use?
> >
> > Yes, but the case I'm worried about is one where the targeted
> > article is
> > not libelous or about living people, still would have content if the
> > questionable material is removed, and actually does have sources,
> > but which
> > are not referenced in the recommended one-footnote-per-sentence
> > way.  The
> > policy is letting people use the rules to disrupt by picking any of
> > that
> > 80% of articles and saying "you'd better source this, now, or I put
> > your
> > article up for deletion."
>
> Nothing about the verifiability policy requires _inline_ sources.
>
> And please stop asserting 80% of our articles are unsourced, when my
> informal check suggests that the number is more like 20%.
>
Ah how great random page is for sampling articles...  Here's my 10
article "study":

[[Susan Ruttan]] - external link to IMDB page
[[Gudvangatunnel]] - no sources or external links
[[First Serbian Uprising]] - one broken external link
[[Amador County Arts Council]] - external link to council website
[[Estrume'n'tal]] - external link to homepage and to band info at
gollygeerecords.com
[[Workplace wellness]] - no sources or external links
[[Norman Brown (guitarist)]] - external link to official site
[[Nun (letter)]] - no sources or external links
[[Unfinished portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt]] - no sources or external links
[[Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century]] - ISBN link

40% no sources or external links, 30% one external link, 10% one
broken external link, 10% one ISBN link, 10% two external links.  Of
the working external links, 3 were to primary sources, and 2 were to
secondary sources.

Of course, 10 articles is hardly a scientific sample size.

Anthony


from_name: Corum O' Fallamhain

body:
There is also a technical difficulty in coming up with a women-only mailing
list; unless you're going to ask subscribers to fax you their positive ID,
how would it be possible to prevent males from infiltrating the group?

On 05/12/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
> cohesion wrote:
> > On 12/5/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> I apologize for being unclear. I meant that the posts which protested
> >> the list were largely dismissing any concerns as irrelevant.
> >>
> >
> > I don't think the concerns are irrelevant at all, but I don't see how
> > not allowing me to learn about the concerns will help solve them. In
> > other words, I don't see how blocking this information off in a closed
> > list, which I am not allowed to read because I have the wrong genitals
> > will further the cause of helping us get more woman contributors.
> >
> > Judson
> > [[User:Cohesion]]
> >
> I concur. I also respect that some women feel that having a "safe place"
> to discuss issues would be helpful to them. There has been much ridicule
> on this list, and the en list, concerning the hostile atmosphere towards
> women, which would seem to underscore their concerns. Why bring up an
> issue when a large number of men will respond "There's no problem!
> You're just too sensitive!" and dismiss their concerns?
> -kc-
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
Oldak Quill a ?crit :
> On 05/12/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>>When the majority of men do not recognize the problem and dismiss the
>>issue as "women sensibility", then you need to create a place for women
>>to organize themselves. Sad, but true.
>
>
> Do you have any evidence that the majority of men don't recognise the
> problem and that they are dismissing it as "women sensibility"?

Read this thread and the one on wikien-l.

Regards,

Yann


subject: [WikiEN-l] Profoundly bad idea.

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Speedy_deletion_criterion_for_unsourced_articles

I just don't have the energy to fight.

One of my favorite things about Wikipedia is the sense of self-reliance.

In other words, if there's something that bugs you, fix it.

If Wikipedia is missing an entry, create one.[1]
If Wikipedia's information is incorrect or incomplete, fix it.
If Wikipedia's sourcing is insufficient, add a source.
If Wikipedia's spelling is bad, fix it.

Fix fix fix.

Instead of complain complain complain delete delete delete.

But hey. We're getting near the 7-year life cycle of most such innovative
projects, so I'm expecting the major successful fork pretty soon.

[1] An option now forbidden[2] to most users of Wikipedia
[2] By "forbidden" I mean "put behind a wall of forced registration and yet
another freaking password to remember".


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/12/5, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com>:

> Out of curiosity - would you have said I was "too thin skinned" if you
> thought I was a man?
>

Of course. I rarely let people's gender influence my judgement on Wikipedia,
though it might inadvertedly happen elsewhere, because there's so many
people where I can't be sure of their gender anyway.

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


from_name: James Hare

subject: [WikiEN-l] Profoundly bad idea.

body:
The problem is we've let it slide for so long we now have tens (if not
hundreds) of thousands of articles that are acceptable by basic editorial
standards. If only fixing the existing problems (while more and more are
introduced) was feasible.

On 12/5/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Speedy_deletion_criterion_for_unsourced_articles
>
> I just don't have the energy to fight.
>
> One of my favorite things about Wikipedia is the sense of self-reliance.
>
> In other words, if there's something that bugs you, fix it.
>
> If Wikipedia is missing an entry, create one.[1]
> If Wikipedia's information is incorrect or incomplete, fix it.
> If Wikipedia's sourcing is insufficient, add a source.
> If Wikipedia's spelling is bad, fix it.
>
> Fix fix fix.
>
> Instead of complain complain complain delete delete delete.
>
> But hey. We're getting near the 7-year life cycle of most such innovative
> projects, so I'm expecting the major successful fork pretty soon.
>
>
> [1] An option now forbidden[2] to most users of Wikipedia
> [2] By "forbidden" I mean "put behind a wall of forced registration and
> yet
> another freaking password to remember".
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: commons-l

from_name: Bence Damokos

subject: [Commons-l] Blind move

body:
Hi!
Yeah using a bot is a blind thing, as you don't see the image itself, but
isn't the goal to have all free images in one place? I know, that a cleanup
is necessary of the "free" images, and that having an image hash would speed
up the process of locating duplicates (even duplicates maybe of once deleted
images).

I believe though that trusted users should be given an opportunity to mass
upload files to commons from local wikis. This would be done, by "verifying"
an image on the local wiki by placing a template on it and also adding a
comment in an other language different from that of the wiki itself if
possible, and than have a bot (or any other automated solution) upload the
images tagged this way to commons (first checking if the template was put on
by a trusted user, if this is too server intensive, than just have the admin
protect the original image [I believe the protection status could be checked
more easily, than the history]), and after a batch it would notify admins
(eg. on the CommonsTicker) which images can be deleted, and also references
to which need to be replaced first (the tagging template should include
optional metadate as "new filename", "category", "license" (if different on
local wiki, than on commons), and such.

Anyway, the other idea I have for the Commonshelper, that would need a
configuration change on commons:
1. Allow uploads via URL, but only accept wikipedia / wikimedia domains
2. Have the commonshelper prefill the url box as well as the summary box of
the upload form
3. and an extra for local admins: a delete link for the original image
(maybe with the possibility, that a bot running on the toolserver changes
the references to the old name on the local wiki, to the commons version [is
this something toolserver can actually do?])

Regards,
Bence Damokos

On 12/5/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Artur Fija?kowski wrote:
> > The main problem with moving images using bot is it's blindness...
> >
> > Mentioned user copied some copyvios from pt.wiki licensed as CC-BY-SA
> > because he didn't watch those images, but probably simple move images
> > using linked to license template :(
> >
> > And this thing I want you to remember:
> >
> > Never, never, never do this!
> >
> > We had 2-3 months ago same problem with move of PD images from fr.wiki
> > - wrong PD template (deprecated {{PD}}), no categories, galleries,
> > lots of duplicates of images that were already on commons with other
> > names, overwriting existing images with unrelated content with same
> > name  ...
> >
> > Bot is good and nice toy, but it's very dangerous in unexperienced
> hands...
> >
>
> That's a good point: did they get approval to use the bot? If not, why
> weren't they blocked for running an unauthorised bot?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>
>
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from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 12/5/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> > You think trying to make a joke excuses comments like that?
>
> One problem with open and unmoderated mailing lists is that the
> preferred way to respond to stupid messages or insults is with
> silence.  If everybody who disliked the message would protest,
> like Michael did here, the list would be flooded.  And if any
> single person protests against every stupid message, that person
> might end up dominating the list, like someone who doesn't know
> how to moderate themselves.  (Like those who argue about
> Wikipedias in certain languages that begin with M.)  Open mailing
> lists offer no good way to express sympathy with a protest.
> Instead there is a strong incentive for sensible list members not
> to protest against offensive messages.

There is, I think, a strong argument that notes such as Michael's
should be sent *privately*, rather than to the list.  Certainly on
occasions -- and I think this could be one of them -- it can be useful
to emphasise a remark like this, especially as it is in the context of
the greater discussion.

But generally, if you want to invite someone to deport themselves
better on a mailing list (or indeed on a wiki), it is much more
friendly and likely to get a better response to send them a private
email.

--
Sam


body:
Puppy wrote:
>  I agree on both points - one more strongly than the other, as I am
> still more or less fence-sitting on the idea of the list itself. This
> leaves us back at square one, however - the bias and discomfort women
> are experiencing here.

My one attempt so far at easing tensions exploded rather messily in my
face so I'm kind of reluctant to offer more at the moment. Perhaps
tomorrow if the thread's still running.

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from_name: Carlos

subject: [Foundation-l] New Spanish mailing list?

body:
A. ?zg?r Erdemli wrote:

> Sorry, People are busy with other discussions :)
>
> For any wikimedia project related technical request or enhancement, you can
> use http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org . Just open a new bug and and explain the
> request and submit it. Some techie will reply. :)

Thanks! We'll go there.

Greetings.

--


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

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

Rob Church wrote:
> Someone (Brion, I think) once suggested a repository of nifty scripts
> and stuff. If we made it easy to manage the things, then perhaps we
> could encourage people from all over to dump their custom JavaScript
> thingies into it. Another angle could be to look for cute skin
> customisations, turn these into independent skins, and place them in
> MediaWiki (or at least install them as skins for Wikimedia users)...

That would be a good idea: there's a lot of custom JavaScript floating
around that's just almagated into a huge blob in Monobook.js that really
could use a bit of modularization.

We could theoretically centralize the scripts right now by using a bunch
of document.writelns, although it's not necessarily the most efficient
way. We could "compile" stylesheets by implementing remote transclusion,
but that's risky.

Hm...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFdhB0qTO+fYacSNoRArcmAJ4qDI2kcj5Bw6JeSekyr4+wuyMdAwCeNkET
6pY7vuBxXqghkWSEgUGe0VA=
=oIzg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Anthere

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Anthere,
>
> Any of these lists which are troublesome or sites wikimedia feels are
> too hot to handle are welcome
> at my server complex, if this will assist the foundation. It sounds like
> Angela is taking over this list, however,
> in the future, I am always happy to assist the foundation in hosting
> some of these more controversial
> topics.
>
> Jeff

Thank you Jeff. In this case, I think Angela is handling it well. Ant


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] mwdumper --ouptut=mysql eats utf-8(?)

body:
Hi!

> To rephrase for anyone else who stumbles across this thread:
> $wgDBmysql5 = false means that the tables are created with DEFAULT
> CHARSET=latin1, which isn't especially a problem as long as the
> software atop it (mediawiki) knows that it's actually storing UTF-8.

I wonder if DEFAULT CHARSET=binary would help here.

> But when you use the Java library to speak to MySQL, it notices that
> the table is marked as latin1 and tries to convert your UTF-8 data for
> you while importing.

You can hack around that by specifying connectionEncoding=UTF-8 in
JDBC params, then execute 'SET NAMES latin1', to avoid any
conversions ;-) Oh well, there might be some escaping issues, but
let's assume they don't exist.

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Bogdan Giusca wrote:
>
>>>Subscription request
>>>has been rejected by the list moderator.  The moderator gave the
>>>following reason for rejecting your request:
>>
>>>"Hi Cunctator. We're only accepting women at this time. I suggest you
>>>comment on the existing Wikimedia lists instead. This presence of this
>>>list isn't meant to prevent men commening - which you can still do on
>>>wikien-l etc."
>>
>>Maybe we should have a mailing list just for men, too! And a mailing list
>>for British people where no Americans are allowed! Or a mailing list
>>just for atheists where no Christians would be accepted!
>>
>
>
> ... a mailing list for homosexual African-Americans from planets other
> than earth?

Will be open only if you can find a moderator for it before.

Ant


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?

body:
On 12/5/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If these computers were to be equipped with Windows, they wouldn't be the
> $100 laptops, they'd be the $400 laptops.
>
> On 12/5/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > galwaygirl schreef:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I just came across this worrying news item:
> > >
> http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2170209/microsoft-looking-windows-olpc
> > >
> > > Does anyone know more about this? Is it really true?
> > >
> > > Galwaygirl
> > Hoi,
> > There are two sides to this story. The standard hardware that runs the
> > OLPC software nicely will not run the Windows software. Consequently
> > many of the advantages of using this system go out of the window (pun
> > intended) because extra hardware will require more power and it is
> > exactly the low power functionality that makes this system shine. The
> > only "dark" side that I see, is that as the system can be made to run
> > such extended services, it will become more of an object people are
> > willing to steal. The bright side is that when it can run Windows, there
> > is room for extending the functionality of the hardware. This may make
> > the system also more interesting for the western market where the superb
> > ability to run with limited power is less relevant.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Presumably, if the OLPC project actually agrees to run Windows, Microsoft
would have to have donated it anyway.


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows

body:
On 12/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Uh ???
> But...
> How disappointing if true. And what about the cost of the windows
> licence on top ?
>
> Maybe sj has a clue ?

A cynical person might write ... in the US we say "The first hit is
free".  (a reference to illegal drug use and the addictive effects of
drugs)

...More seriously, illegial software copying in less wealthy nations
is an important part of maintaining the [[network effect]] lock-in for
proprietary software.... Just like the generally lackadaisical
prosecution of non-commercial copyright infringers probably slows the
creation of Free Content and probably facilitates the creation of
unreasonably long copyright terms.

Ultimately, I don't think it will matter..  The commoditization of the
basic software underlying computing is too powerful a force.  But I
wonder what we will say if someday we find that an enhanced copy of
the Wikipedia content has been Zuned
(http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72172-0.html?tw=wn_index_3).

I think it's important to understand that Microsoft is not evil,
Microsoft is simply Microsoft and they will behave according to their
nature so far as the world will allow and reward them. This is why it
is good that our license includes at least a basic amount of
protection from digital restrictions, ... So we are already doing our
little part to ensure the freeness of our work is conserved and that
our work isn't turned into a mechanism for proprietary lock-in.

So long as we are all careful to set the rules correctly I'm confident
Microsoft can contribute productively to the world and be a net force
for good.


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On 12/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Appears to be on mod. I've let through the messages and cleared the moderation.

How long do we have to tolerate the ravings of a banned user on this list?

It's clear that the community does not support his argument, .. and as
far as I can tell all that allowing him to remain on the list is doing
is allowing him to waste everyone's time including his own.

It's also the case that he's violated No Legal Threats several times
now... or do we not care about people who are making legal threats
against the foundation anymore?


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

body:
Nope, this is foundation-l, a general foundation list.

Bryan

On 12/5/06, Erica Flynn <fangaili at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm catching up on this thread and see names like "Matt" and "Jeff".
> Is this a women-only list or not?
> Just curious. I do know a woman who calls herself "Frank", so maybe..
>
> Erica
> (en:wp:Fang Aili)
>
> On 12/5/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> > Anthere,
> >
> > Any of these lists which are troublesome or sites wikimedia feels are
> > too hot to handle are welcome
> > at my server complex, if this will assist the foundation. It sounds like
> > Angela is taking over this list, however,
> > in the future, I am always happy to assist the foundation in hosting
> > some of these more controversial
> > topics.
> >
> > Jeff
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Attack blogs in WP:LIVING articles

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:07:47 -0500, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>> What do you think should be the circumstances under which we link an
>> attack blog from an article on a living individual?

>When the attack blog is mentioned in the article.

OK, and in this case it's not.  What is mentioned is that some
coverage was given in the press to the opposition of Tim Ireland,
including his blog.  For that, we have a source: the press article;
and a link: to Tim Ireland's article.  Take three links into the
shower?  Not me.  Especially when one of them calls the subject a
"dipstick".

However, I am increasingly of the view that this incident is not
really significant.  Can anyone list the MPs who have *not* been
loudly criticised by at least one constituent?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:50:25 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>What's been banned is a certain class of commercial speech; no publisher,
>even an "open content" one, is mandated to accept all speech from anyone,
>and in particular the protections of commercial speech producers are far
>more easily legally restricted.

Further, the reason it's been banned is precisely because such speech
is generally *not* in line with the foundation's stated mission, which
is to provide a verifiably neutral free-content encyclopaedia.
Arguably we would be more at risk from that interpretation of the tax
law if we *allowed* such contributions.

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


body:
I think the problem for most objectors on this list is not the fact
that a seperate list is created, but rather the fact that there is a
problem on the usual lists, and that this will not be solved by
seperating the women to another place.

Bryan

On 12/5/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Jeezzzz over 100 emails today and all of that just because some people
> want a more private mailinglist. Let them have it!!
>
> Why not? If people want a more private place to discuss things they
> should be able to have it, it is a fact of life that people need this
> sometimes no matter if they are (fe)male or red, or white, or black, or
> gay etc. It is sometimes just nicer to be able to talk about things with
> people you share a bond with, it talks easier and keeps the noise away
> usually. It is a human being thing.
>
> If everybody respected eachothers rights and personal space a bit more
> we wouldn't be having these kind of genderissues or racialissues.
>
> Walter
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Robth

subject: [WikiEN-l] Profoundly bad idea.

body:
On 12/5/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fix fix fix.
>
> Instead of complain complain complain delete delete delete.
>
> But hey. We're getting near the 7-year life cycle of most such innovative
> projects, so I'm expecting the major successful fork pretty soon.

The problem is this: the volume of contributions to Wikipedia by
one-time or occasional contributors who "pass-by", as it were, and add
something, is far too great for the community of steady
maintenance-oriented contributors to keep up with "fixing" all of it
as it comes in.  If we're going to place the onus on these steady
contributors to fix all this stuff, then we're going to end up with a
huge pile of stuff waiting to be "fixed" that is broken in very basic
ways; articles with no sources, images without specific enough
information, etc. This is the approach we have taken up till now, and
huge piles of stuff waiting to be fixed is exactly what we have.

The reason this is a problem is that on Wikipedia you get what you
have.  One-time or occasional contributors (and, for that matter, many
if not most fairly regular contributors) don't go read through a bunch
of policies and what-not before they add something, they just add
something that looks like it fits in with the rest of the content.
When I started contributing, I didn't list my sources, because the
Wikipedia articles I had seen while using the site didn't list theirs.
 If you have unsourced articles, "in popular culture" sections
everywhere, and too many and insufficiently labelled fair use images,
people are going to assume that those things are what you want and
give you more of them.  If we are going to improve the net quality of
Wikipedia, and maximize the benefit we receive from the contributions
of people who want to help and base their judgement of how to do so on
the type of content they have observed on the site, then we need to
either clone dedicated Wikipedians to start fixing these things night
and day or somehow cut off the inflow of stuff that needs fixing.
This proposal, with a waiting period intended to encourage the
original contributor to add sources before the article is deleted to
improve the average quality of our content (and thus the average
quality of incoming contributions), strikes me as very well thought
out.

--
Robth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
geni wrote:
> On 12/3/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> 1. [[Template:Replaceable fair use]] says, "If this image is
>> determined to be replaceable within one week from <today>,
>> the image may be deleted by any administrator.  Do not remove
>> this tag."  This leaves me wondering what is supposed to happen
>> if, after a week, the image is not determined to be replaceable.
>>
>
> The administrator dealing with the deletion reads the reasons why it
> is not replaceable and removes the tag.

This actually happened to me.  Rather than discuss the issue, the person
who had applied the tag reapplied the tag with the edit summary "what
part of do not remove this tag do you not understand".  I pointed out I
was an admin removing it because I didn't agree that it met the
criteria, as I noted in my removal edit summary, and that they were
welcome to list it at IFD.  I was then told that I should list it there
because I removed the tag.  At this point another admin speedied it
because it didn't fit his fair use criteria, namely that book covers
aren't fair use in articles on books unless they are first edition
covers or something, and I moved onto something more productive.

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references:
<dfd0b40612041541i79998338yd6781ddc8bd1127a@mail.gmail.com>
	<8sc9n219njj10l4q9b6p9288rkk1j9l5vo@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40612041550x1aa68513g1a7518a3f6691f4a@mail.gmail.com>
	<rvd9n294jidsferhvhnc9s9c8b3nmfu0os@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40612042332g18d6e9d0mfbb29363081a7f58@mail.gmail.com>
	<opnan2dr5j90eu0rf0pq5a9q05r58amko2@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40612050807n38b7b14audc862068aa8c58ab@mail.gmail.com>
	<otkbn2dhnm06vdqul5sp8o4jeqsfdpafgn@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40612051232w4d5418a3obcbb8de215af4020@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 15:32:39 -0500, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>What do you care is someone's called a dipstick? We shouldn't be passing
>value judgments, in the most part.

I'll leave you to field the OTRS complaint then :-)

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


from_name: Puppy

body:
I strongly support this position. The question is, should /this/ be the
list? Its unlikely to happen. If not this list, who would moderate? And
what authority would they have?

And of course, as I've been saying all along, condemning such sexist
comments as you found on Rfa would go a very, very long way.

Christophe Henner wrote:
> Creating a gender-free list isn't a way to solve the problem, it's
> just a way to run from it. Gender bias isn't only on the ml but on
> projects, so what's the next step? Making a gendre free project?
>
> There's a problem, I must say I never noticed it before this thread,
> and since I 've readen this thread, I've looked for bias. And in fact
> I found many, especially in a RfA, where the contributors had comments
> a male would never had...
>
> We are a comunity, and we have comunities problemes. Now it's about
> gender, I'm pragmatic, I don't think it would change in an instant. In
> fact it won't change in wikipedia till it doesn't change in real life.
> It's really sad to say a such thing, but I do think it's true. So, we
> must keep on speaking about this problem, but if female wanna have a
> restricted mailing list, why not, the only thing I'd like is not to
> open it only to female, let everyone be on this list, but ban those
> who make seixsts comments.
>


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 05/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> If there's anything currently in Google which would seriously benefit WMF,
> other than cash, it is likely that we could approach the right people and
> get access to it.  I know some midlevel people to start asking questions of;
> Jimmy and others at the board level probably have more appropriate high
> level contacts.

This is where I confess to embedding some sanity in my otherwise
ignorable message...

Rob Church


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> ??
>

Yeah, I know.  I ran across this myself in an edit summary, and made the
point that people could at least wiki-link to the page if they reference
it in an edit cummary, but whether that is taken on board I don't know.
  I have to say I tend to view this complaints handling system in
outright horror, but I guess it's there for a reason that I've not had
explained or seen discussed as yet.  Seems to operate as something of a
cabal, but as Wikipedia doesn't do cabals, just covens and committees
and God Kings and admins and bureaucrats and stewards and Danny and
Brad, I think it gets by.

 From [[Wikipedia:OTRS]]

In the context of Wikipedia, OTRS is used as a shorthand for the people,
process, and software that surround the handling of email sent through
the various Contact Wikipedia links. The software used for the
processing of such mail is the Open Ticket Request System, which
provides an organized way for multiple people to categorize and respond
to email.

As of July 2006, approximately 200 emails per day are received, about
half of them in English.

In the course of replying to emails, OTRS personnel may edit articles.
Most frequently, such edits involve removal of vandalism or removal of
unsourced derogatory assertions. Less frequently, OTRS personnel handle
copyvio complaints using the standard process, or delete personal
information from article histories.

The contents of emails sent to the OTRS addresses are confidential.

--
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Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.15.9/571 - Release Date: 05/12/06


from_name: Corum O' Fallamhain

body:
I think someone else mentioned this already, but it bears repeating:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Non_discrimination_policy

"The Wikimedia Foundation prohibits discrimination against current or
prospective users and employees on the basis of race, color, gender,
religion,
national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally
protected characteristics."

The rules of this organisation quite simply forbid you or anyone else from
engaging in discriminatory practices. That's really all there is to be said
about establishing a discriminatory mailing list using Wikimedia resources.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Puppy wrote

> This
> leaves us back at square one, however - the bias and discomfort women
> are experiencing here.

Well, OK. A friend-of-a-friend was given the Gollum Prize for Tact by colleagues. Seems he's have been run close by a number of posters here.

Charles

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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Block message

body:
On 05/12/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:

> If it was just something like "was blocked for 1 fortnight or 2
> fortnights", one could start to argue about it.
> But "8.625 fortnights"? Please...

It's one of the GNU tar time units, and the blocking admin need not
set whole numbers as the quantity ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
"The Cunctator" wrote

> > Missing one important proviso: public relations workers are quite
> > welcome to edit wikipedia in a personal capacity.  What has been
> > prohibited is editing Wikipedia on behalf of a paying client.

> I just don't understand why that should be.

It is not prohibited. It is strongly deprecated. See [[Wikipedia:Conflict of interest]], a guideline.

Charles

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body:
 "The Cunctator" wrote

> ??

[[Wikipedia:OTRS]]: "In the context of Wikipedia, OTRS is used as a shorthand for the people, process, and software that surround the handling of email sent through the various Contact Wikipedia links."

> On 12/5/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 15:32:39 -0500, "The Cunctator"
> > <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >What do you care is someone's called a dipstick? We shouldn't be passing
> > >value judgments, in the most part.
> >
> > I'll leave you to field the OTRS complaint then :-)
> >
> > Guy (JzG)

Charles

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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Commons-l] Blind move

body:
2006/12/5, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com>:
>
> Hi!
> Yeah using a bot is a blind thing, as you don't see the image itself, but
> isn't the goal to have all free images in one place?

Not necessarily. In my opinion Commons is there as a repository of *really
free*  *useful* images. Images should be findable - this means having a good
description, having a category or being on a gallery page. Preferably 2 or 3
of those. Any picture that does not have those and also does not have a
*very* descriptive filename is increasing the file count of Commons, but not
its usefulness to the projects, which in my opinion is the first thing that
is of importance.

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Block message

body:
If it was just something like "was blocked for 1 fortnight or 2
fortnights", one could start to argue about it.
But "8.625 fortnights"? Please...
Michael

On 12/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I haven't dived the code, but when did fortnights become part of the
> block length display code?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:168.11.96.2
>
> As amusing as I find that, it seems like a bad UI design choice...
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
I see that in the last few weeks, [[:en:Template:lowercase]] has been
updated to actually display the title in lowercase with a JavaScript
hack. Any word on whether this is the long term solution to the
problem, or whether the proposed magic word[1] will be implemented?
Sorry, I don't know the relevant bug number.

Steve
[1] I think we discussed this maybe a year ago, the idea of letting
articles specify a "display" title. A first-letter-lowercase flag was
the least controversial idea...


body:
On 05/12/06, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I believe Interiot said he stole it from frwiki.

Now, Rory, wiki users don't steal. We don't do "theft" on this mailing
list. We're nice people. We coerce, and bash people over the head with
bricks when they don't do what we want...and if they just so happen to
have something we like, we might lift it from them. But we never
steal. Don't you know that stealing is wrong?

I reckon we should encourage a *lot* more cross-project collaboration.
I'm rather pleased to see that we're having a more diverse bunch of
new committers, who have different regional perspectives on things,
and the i18n team is growing like there's no tomorrow. I guess it's a
side-effect of all this wiki stuff, and I don't think there's anything
wrong with it.

Someone (Brion, I think) once suggested a repository of nifty scripts
and stuff. If we made it easy to manage the things, then perhaps we
could encourage people from all over to dump their custom JavaScript
thingies into it. Another angle could be to look for cute skin
customisations, turn these into independent skins, and place them in
MediaWiki (or at least install them as skins for Wikimedia users)...

Rob Church


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
Wow. I thought having an open but moderated list would be a good way
to go, but now I see it would just be impossible. Why the aggressive
resistance against an additional resource for women? Why is the idea
so threatening? How does it harm anyone? And how can anyone tell,
given its two-second existence?? Why not let it be for six months, and
then we might be able to comment with some substance on what the
effects of its existence actually are?

Women will continue to take part in the existing channels. Gender bias
and discrimination issues will continue to be relevant to the existing
channels. Given these facts, how is an additional channel
segregational?

Credit where credit's due: thanks for your considered and thoughtful
responses goes to GerardM, Yann, Birgette SB, Anthere, Lars, Michael
Snow, and Tim Starling.

"There is no problem." Please. Have another bloody look at some of
responses in the foundation-l and wikien-l threads, and tell me you
seriously can't see why some women might feel uncomfortable
contributing. Tell me again why offering them a gentler introduction
to Wikimedia mailing lists is such a terrible idea.

Were I to even begin responding to each inappropriate comment or
unfounded assumption,  I would soon be doing not much else. And I am
reluctant to develop to reputation as a harpie on women's issues. It
is by far not the issue I am most interested in when it comes to
Wikimedia (but I am interested in a good many things).

Therefore I make a request to considerate and thoughtful men
everywhere, to help call attention to and discourage sexist attitudes
and assumptions expressed in Wikimedia wherever you find them. If you
find yourself hesitating to reply publicly because you don't want to
"feed the trolls", consider sending the author a private reply. We can
use peer pressure to let "bad apples" know that their attitudes are
not shared or welcome. But also consider what message will be
understood by list lurkers, by not replying at all.

Why do I address this call-to-arms to men? Because it's far harder to
be dismissive of a man calling sexism for what it is, and this job
falls to all of us, not just women.

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
"James Hare" wrote

> If it's strongly deprecated to the point where people are banned because
> they do it, that to me sounds like it's prohibited.

It's strongly deprecated for good reasons. What is a paid editor going to do in an edit war? You see, it's all fine editing WP, until someone disagrees with you. Smart people on the wiki then act _very carefully_, knowing that one's reputation is on the line.

Relatively smart paid editors will take everything they can get as their due, and make great difficulties about any concessions. They are being hired-gun POV pushers, in that. Non-smart paid editors will just bluster and bludgeon their way, until they are clearly in breach of policy. At best therefore we get a partisan editor of an unpopular type; at worst a typical 'ideologue'.

The chances of getting a really good wiki-literate paid editor seem very low, in fact. There are plenty of people, apparently, who think that reading a few policy pages and being able to wikilawyer about them gives one the basics of the WP culture. They are so wrong about that.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
"George Herbert" wrote

> Greg Kohs sent me a private reply in which he indicated that his
> public replies were not getting through.  If a listadmin blocked him
> from posting to the list, can someone tell him so affirmatively?

I've read his mails here. He promised to go away. But, hey, he's forgiven us all.

Charles

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from_name: Angela

body:
I'm not willing to fight about so I'll move the list to Wikia, but
it's quite upsetting that despite the clear need for this list,
Wikimedia are not willing to support it. Perhaps the old Wikimedia
WikiChix list can be made into an open but moderated one.

Angela.

On 12/5/06, florencedevouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It seems best for the peace of the community that the Wikichix-l list is
> not hosted on Wikimedia servers.
> Could you move it to another place please Angela ? A Yahoo Group maybe ?
>
> Please receive my apologies.
>
> Ant


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Non-commercial images

body:
On 12/5/06, Peter van Londen <londenp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Question 3: Is it possible that you can license the text with GFDL and
> license the accompanying images with non-free-enough licenses at the same
> time.
>
> I think this is an issue that should be decided by the board, as this is an
> issue for all wikimedia-projects.

Not really. To a large extent proejects are free to chose their own
copyright with the de-facto standard being that they much be no more
liberal than en.wikipedia.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Non-commercial images


from_name: Luna

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion patrol

body:
If this is an isolated incident, it's probably easier to deal with it by
leaving the particular admin a polite note explaining the misunderstanding,
or by working through deletion review (WP:DRV). Unless you're trying to get
at some greater trend or history of bad decisions. I know I've made a few
mistakes, but once they're pointed out to me, I'm usually willing to correct
them, or at least request/accept review from the community.

Just a thought,
-Luna

On 12/5/06, David Boothroyd <david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I agree with this. A few days ago I created [[338171]]. Being rather
> bored at the time I gave a facetious edit summary which claimed the
> article was all about the number 338,171. It was swiftly tagged with
> a speedy delete tag, and then deleted (despite me having quickly put
> a {{hangon}}).
>
> The article was actually a redirect to T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of
> Arabia"). Wanting privacy, in later life Lawrence re-enlisted in the
> RAF as an Aircraftsman (equivalent of Private in the Army), and was
> given 338171 as his service number. He often signed himself "338171
> A/C Shaw", prompting Noel Coward to ask him "May I call you 338?".
>
> It was quite obvious on reading the article that it was actually a
> redirect. If the admin had checked the article to which it was
> redirected he would have found the reason explained there. So while
> it's legitimate to claim to have been misled by the edit summary,
> that really doesn't justify mistakenly speedying a perfectly good
> redirect. I appreciate that speedy deletion patrollers are often
> overworked but overwork is not an excuse for lack of common sense.
> --
> David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
> david at election.demon.co.uk (home)
> dboothroyd at westminster.gov.uk (council)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?

body:
On 12/5/06, galwaygirl <user.galwaygirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just came across this worrying news item:

I fail to see any worring elements. If mircosoft are comitting
resources to something it is likely they want it to succeed. Microsoft
have a quite a historic record of getting what they want.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 05/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some of us have differing cultural backgrounds and whats obvious to
> you may not be obvious to me... For example, as someone who's
> relationship has with western culture is weak at times (haven't owned
> a TV for the last decade, last show I 'watched' was probably Macgyver)
> I didn't at all see how the "are you saying I'm fat" thing could be at
> all taken as a remotely sexist comment until The Cunctator kicked me
> those links. Now I at least have some inkling.
>
> Or another example, I can't fully understand the comments on this
> thread about women and men being fundamentally different. But enough
> information was given that I can understand how differences in my
> background might bring me to different conclusions.
>
> In my life I interact with many men and women, some people are good at
> social/organizational issues and some are good at other things. It's
> been my experience that while there are more women with skillset A
> than skillset B, that doesn't imply that there are no women who are
> better at B than most men.  I interact with a number of very technical
> women and a number of very social men. So I find in my life that it's
> more important to understand how individual people approach an issue
> than it is to know what gender they are...
>
> I say that not to imply that the claim that 'woman and men will not be
> equal' was wrong, but only to point out that my background is
> obviously different and it will bring me to different conclusions.
>
> It is not always important to know who is "right" and who is "wrong",
> but it is almost always important that we all understand each other.
>
> So in the interest of understanding each other, please make an extra
> effort to explain your positions and to have patience with those of us
> who just don't get it as easily as you do. I know I fail at this
> myself sometimes... and I apologise for that.
>
> If any of the problems you were faced with were truly simple, they
> would be solved already. It will take all of us to solve the hard
> problems which remain.
>
> ... And please consider carefully before concluding that your concerns
> are being simply dismissed.

Thanks for the well-considered, eloquent addition to this discussion.
I have problems understanding comments concerning "fundamental"
differences between men and women (also due to my upbringing and
background) and I'm sure others have a problem understanding my
position. Your post is appreciated.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
Just a thought, but it seems to me that there's a good deal of confusion as
to the purpose of this new group -- is the group intended as a private
retreat, or an outreach group? In the one case, it might be wise to exclude
men to achieve a very particular atmosphere and population of users. In the
latter case, doing so seems a self-defeating step, as it probably deprives
the group of people who might be very active or helpful contributors by
making what seems to me to be an unnecessarily antagonistic opening move.

Personally, I would have liked to listen to and explore these issues, but I
find that my request to even lurk on the mailing list has been rejected.
Makes it hard to be enthusiastic about the group when their first action is
to explicitly exclude 90% or more of the Wikipedia community from even
tangental participation on the sole basis of gender.

I'm trying to avoid any judgemental language, here. I'm just a bit confused;
perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of the group.

-Luna

On 12/5/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> One of my deep sorrow and worriness on this mailinglist is I need to
> bear full of swears and sexism even if subtle if I would like to
> follow the discussion. It makes me feel there no serious discussion
> without mocking is possible. A discusssion place without such people,
> heuristically males, could be a solution for such discouragement.
>
>
> On 12/6/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2006/12/5, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com>:
> >
> > > That last remark was made jokingly.
> >
> >
> > Well, it wasn't fully jokingly. It showed how much I felt being attacked
> > myself. And how I overreacted. Because I have indeed broken some pieces
> of
> > furniture over this discussion. I know I shouldn't, and yet I do. Maybe
> > fucking off isn't such a bad idea after all. But where should I go then?
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
>   Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
>   * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On 05/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg Kohs sent me a private reply in which he indicated that his
> public replies were not getting through.  If a listadmin blocked him
> from posting to the list, can someone tell him so affirmatively?

Appears to be on mod. I've let through the messages and cleared the moderation.

- d.


from_name: Peter van Londen

subject: [Foundation-l] Non-commercial images

body:
Dear all,

My first post on this list.

We have once again a debate on the dutch wikipedia about licenses of
images.
This one particular is non-commercial. The debate is about if images that
can only be used non-commercially are compatible with the GFDL-license of
the wikipedia.

Based on this post about Resolutions about images from Anthere (8/16/06)
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-August/009230.html in
which is stated that
1) Non commercial and non-derivative: resolution dropped: to be expected,
recommendations publiced by blogs from Jimbo
2) Fair use to be forbidden for use in Wikipedia: resolution dropped,
because there was no vote.

Question 1: Jimbo will you make recommendations on the NCND-subject as was
mentioned?

Based on this answer from Eloquence/Erik Moeller:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-August/009231.html.
Erik disagreed.

Question 2: Erik will you bring this issue up in a board meeting, now you
are part of the board?

In my opinion licenses of images should be compatible with the license of
the Wikipedia. But there is some doubt...

Question 3: Is it possible that you can license the text with GFDL and
license the accompanying images with non-free-enough licenses at the same
time.

I think this is an issue that should be decided by the board, as this is an
issue for all wikimedia-projects.

Kind regards
Londenp


subject: [Foundation-l] Non-commercial images


body:
On 05/12/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Credit where credit's due: thanks for your considered and thoughtful
> > responses goes to GerardM, Yann, Birgette SB, Anthere, Lars, Michael
> > Snow, and Tim Starling.
>
> So these all the people that agreed with you? And, by thinly-veiled
> implication, any other response was ill-considered and unthoughtful?

Sigh. No. Many other users, men and women, supported the concept and I
agree with them, but I didn't put their names here. Let me underline
now "thoughtful". I found these people's posts considered and
eloquent. Mailing lists in general could do with more of this. I
choose to highlight positive behaviour that I would like to encourage.
Sorry this is so objectionable.

 One potential product of WikiChix that I would like to
> read is a list of suggestions as to how WikiBlokes can act, or not act, in
> order to make Wikipedia more female-friendly.

This HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux is interesting reading, as a
starting point:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/index.html

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


body:
I very much doubt that it will be possible to successfully mantain a
female-only mailing list. Since this is the internet and anonymous by
nature, positively identifying the gender of a would-be subscriber will be
very difficult. How can you ensure that males will not sign up to your
mailing list? The only way that you could know for sure is if men started
posting sexist comments on the ML (which would nullify what is ostensibly
the whole point).


from_name: David Koenig

body:
I have to admit, I'm getting bored by this wikichix discussion...
The advocates of the new list tell us over and over again that there
is a problem but none of them has so far given a detailed answer of
what the problem exactly consists. So I decided to do their homework
for them and made a short analysis of my home wikipedia, the german
wikipedia. Maybe this turns the debate into a more constructive one...

==Gender ratio in the german wikipedia==

Schroer & Hertel, psychologists from Wuerzburg, found a gender ratio of
86% to 14% in a voluntary survey among german Wikipedians.
[http://wy2x05.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/publications/pdf/wikipedia_poster_fg_2005.pdf]

I made a different approach today and took the 500 most active
contributors from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beitragszahlen
and sorted them by gender, according to my personal knowledge, gender
revealing user names (male or female prenames) or personal details
revealed on user pages. Users where no gender could be assigned were
marked as unknown.
Came up with a gender ratio even worse, only 5,8% among the 500 could be
clearly identified as female.

Gender	Number	%
male	420	84,0
female	29	5,8
unknown	50	10,0

==Admins, Buerocrats, Checkusers==
Among the 245 administrators of the german Wikipedia, 18 have identified
themselves as female, a percentage of 7,3, slightly higher than the
percentage among the 500.

male	227	92,7%
female	18	7,3%
Sum	245	100,0%

Both two buerocrats are male, two of the three checkusers are female.

==Admin candidatures==
A count of failed and successful admincandidatures (data from 2005 and
2006) revealed no great differences among the genders. The rate of
successful female candidatures is with 64,7% vs. 59,2% slightly higher.

 	 	 	Sex			Sum
			male	female	unknown		sum
unsuccessful	nr.	95	       6	  6	               107
		       %	40,8%	35,3%	50,0%	 40,8%
successful	nr.	138	       11	  6	               155
		       %	59,2%	64,7%	50,0%	 59,2%
Sum		       nr.	233	       17	 12	               262
		       %	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

==User bans==

Four users in user ban votes could be clearly identified as female
(Statistics based on a summary done by Sebmol). Half of them were banned
compared to 35/22 among - probably - male users.

	       m.   f.      unknown	sum
no ban	22	2	 1      25
ban	       35	2	 2      39
Sum	       57	4  	 3      64

==Other==

Jury members of the writing contests, m/f
1st: 4/1
2nd: 4/1 (one male acting as a replacement of an elected woman)
3rd: 4/1
4th: 5/1
5th: 4/2

==Culture==

Harassment of female users is usually sanctioned by the community.
Vandals usually ignore the gender of admins they insult (I'm refering
here to the countless insult accounts like "Admin X is gay", "Admin X
is fucking Admin Y")
Unappropriate comments to female users can lead to the loss of admin
elections (cmp.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminkandidaturen&oldid=13342694#C.L.C3.B6ser
where an otherwise well suited candidate lost his elections due to
comments some female users perceived as sexist)

One case of stalking is known to me, in this case the stalker came
from outside (acting as anonymous IP), the affected user was provided
with moral and legal support from other community members.

One other affair worth being mentioned is those of a couple of
userboxes which were perceived as sexist (example: a picture of a red
haired porn star with the text like "This user loves the color red",
"This user loves women", "This user loves blonde women" etc.) Those
were speedy deleted.

The major gender-related debate concerns the naming conventions.
German Wikipedia uses the generic masculine form for article titles
and categories, a rule which was repeatedly put in question. However,
these debates seem to be driven mostly by male users, female users
rarely weigh in and if they do, they do on both sides (see
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Namenskonventionen/Binnen-I).

==Real life and Wikipedia==

Since the issue of childcare has been raised already... Based on IRC
conversations and real life meetings, this seems to me rather a male
problem in the german wikipedia. There are much more fathers than
mothers who have to accomodate their wikipedia activity with the needs
of their children.

==Summary==

In sum, female participation in the german wikipedia seems appallingly
low, however we find a slightly higher ratio of women in "higher"
ranks like admins, jury members than the overall participation numbers
would suggest.
To discover a gender bias in Wikipedia culture more thorough research
would probably be needed, the here quoted most prominent examples
rather suggest a high awareness in gender issues and a willingness
from the community as whole to sanction transgressions.

HTH,
David


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 12/5/06, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Men, just imagine a sec, you found a project really great, you help at
> it. more than 80% are female. Every day you can read some little
> "meaningless" sexist sentence. The day you ask for responsabilities,
> we ask you to provide double work. And when you point that there's a
> sexism problem... you have sexist jokes? What would you do?

I'd start a mailing list where only men were allowed.

Anthony


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:14:44 -0500, "Gregory Kohs"
<thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:

>Again, see the case of [[Arch Coal]].  Nobody paid or received any
>compensation for the authorship of that article.  Still, Jimmy Wales deleted
>it and banned the original author.

Quite right too, it was spam.  The replacement was enormously better,
though I say so myself :-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 14:16:53 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>Greg Kohs sent me a private reply in which he indicated that his
>public replies were not getting through.  If a listadmin blocked him
>from posting to the list, can someone tell him so affirmatively?

Perhaps it's best they aren't, he accused me of bigotry.

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


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> > Yes, but the case I'm worried about is one where the targeted
> > article is
> > not libelous or about living people, still would have content if the
> > questionable material is removed, and actually does have sources,
> > but which
> > are not referenced in the recommended one-footnote-per-sentence
> > way.  The
> > policy is letting people use the rules to disrupt by picking any of
> > that
> > 80% of articles and saying "you'd better source this, now, or I put
> > your
> > article up for deletion."
> Nothing about the verifiability policy requires _inline_ sources.

But that's how it normally is interpreted.

[[Video game crash of 1983]] has gotten even stranger.  The user wishing to
delete the article has *admitted that the material he's asking for sources
for is correct*, and still wants to delete the article unless people provide
him with sources for individual statements.

(And the same user, on another article about another subject, objected to
someone else's request for individual citations on the grounds that the
request for sources was just being used as a "blunt instrument" and that the
information was already well-known to someone like him knowledgeable in the
field!)

There's a difference between saying "we should source articles" and "we should
give users the power to force others to source articles".  It's so much easier
to tell people to do something than to do it yourself that this often
just amounts to legalized disruption.


from_name: galwaygirl

subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?

body:
Hi,

I just came across this worrying news item:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2170209/microsoft-looking-windows-olpc

Does anyone know more about this? Is it really true?

Galwaygirl


subject: [Foundation-l] OLPC & Windows?


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement

body:
Gerard Meijssen schreef:
> Hoi,
> As we have rather noisy men and women on the list :) and as gender
> issues are very much on the agenda, I thought that the following will
> amuse you.. The point; ideally the ratio between the sexes is 50/50. So
> let us declare that there are no winners, only participants.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6206084.stm
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM

In Slovenia I have seen 2 types of traffic bords to warn for childeren
crossing the street;

- one with a boy first holding a girl by the hand
- and one with a girl first holding a boy by the hand

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


subject: [Foundation-l] For your amusement