subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: We have a problem (was: Stable version now with
	cache)

body:
On 12/22/05, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> I think we could use a dedicated mailing-list where only devs / sysadmin
> would be able to post (rest will be heavily moderated). Then when
> someone do something important, he can send an email to that list and
> will be sure everyone will know about it. The server admin log on
> wikitech is just about that, but for the farm only.

I tried setting up a developer-only IRC channel some time ago
(#mediawiki-dev), it didn't work out at the time, for reasons that
became obvious to me at a later point (the people who know what I'm
talking about, well, know what I'm talking about:).

The reason I think it would be a good idea to have an open development
channel that would be moderated (people would basically get +v if they
contributed something more valuable than "how do I set my sidebar
items" to the discussion) is that it would avoid a lot of the entropy
we get from user support questions that drown out real development
discussion in #mediawiki. I think it's commendable that people are
interested in helping end users with their
in-the-manual-you-could-have-found-it-with-two-minutes-of-searching-on-google-or-meta
questions, I'm just not were interested in it, and I'm sure there are
others that feel the same.

Anyway getting back to your suggestion, I sort-of-agree, we have
private-l for well, private stuff:) and then we have the zoo at
wikitech-l, one would think that there needs to be some middle ground,
however I haven't seen it working out in practice, if we take
#mediawiki and #wikimedia-tech for example a lot of the discussion
that "should" be in one channel ends up in the other, and more often
than not people just crosspost their support questions to all the
forums rather than picking the appropriate one, if this is to be done
it needs, as you suggested, to be moderated.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] "Fair Use does not apply to DSM material or any
	other APA/APPI content." um, wtf?

body:
Phoebe Ayers wrote:

>On 12/21/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Any File wrote:
>>
>>
>>>David Gerard wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>  [Response re: DSM-IV-TR criteria (all identifiers removed,
>>>>original forwarded to permissions at wikipedia.org):
>>>>
>>>>  We are inclined to deny Wikipedia permission to use our
>>>>content as we do not allow anyone to alter our material and we do not
>>>>want our material posted online. I can assure you that we have
>>>>complete rights to our material and Fair Use does not apply to DSM
>>>>material or any other APA/APPI content.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>They want to keep for themselves they right of seling the definitions
>>>and the right of chaning them.
>>>
>>>I know that copyright apply only to intellectual right, not to facts.
>>>I can not proibits people to publish that 14-Carbonuim-14 or
>>>230-Thorium are radioactives.
>>>
>>>
>But these aren't hard and fast "facts" of physical science; they're
>interpretations.
>
Definitions are neither facts nor interpretations.  They are a priori
statements intended to insure that we are all talking about the same
thing.  They can neither be proven, disproven or observed..

>Though I don't think it's right, I can see their point in
>not wanting their content reproduced freely on Wikipedia; they are in the
>business of selling definitions, and the DSM-IV online from the APPI costs
>between $300-400 for individuals. For libraries the price is undoubtedly
>many, many hundreds of dollars more. If we got after it and posted fair use
>snippets of the majority of the definitions in the work, the APPI would
>probably lose money, as well as their editorial control.
>
It would probably be impractical for us to take anything but the
definitions from thes works, but I do note that the quoted comments say
"we do not allow anyone to alter our material".  The GFDL does allow
alterations, but also allows invariable sections.  We allow the
downstream user to do what he will with the material, with no
declaration of invariant sections.  Wouldn't it make more sense to have
all quotations declared invariant.

>>>If they claim that these definitions are covered by copyright rights
>>>they are claming that they are ficticious, just like a text of a novel
>>>is.
>>>
>>>
>>Copyrighting a definition that has the purpose of standardising a
>>concept across an industry doesn't make sense.  That would force those
>>who are not members of their cabal to define the term differently, and
>>thus effectively defining a different disorder.  The resultant ambiguity
>>would seem contrary to public policy in health care.
>>
>>
>I think the idea is probably to make everyone part of their cabal, not to
>standardize the industry.
>
Withoiut standardized definitions for psychiatric disorders you end up
with Scientology.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> It would probably be impractical for us to take anything but the
> definitions from thes works, but I do note that the quoted comments say
> "we do not allow anyone to alter our material".  The GFDL does allow
> alterations, but also allows invariable sections.  We allow the
> downstream user to do what he will with the material, with no
> declaration of invariant sections.  Wouldn't it make more sense to have
> all quotations declared invariant.

Can't do it. Invariant Sections are a subset of Secondary Sections under
the GFDL: see definitions below. Basically, it's for acknowledgements,
legal disclaimers, etc. If, say, the quotations were all in a separate
appendix, never in an entry page itself, and were considered not to
"fall directly within" "the Document's overall subject" - highly
unlikely for any Wikimedia project I can think of - then it could be
declared Invariant. However, this would require every downstream user to
republish the quotations appendix in full in every derivative work, no
matter what it is.

 From the GFDL's definitions section:
(see [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License]])

A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a
textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any
mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are
designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that
says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does
not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be
designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant
Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then
there are none.

(end quote)

-- Jake Nelson


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Assign icons to non-visual uploads

body:
On 12/23/05, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On a private wiki we've allowed uploads of various files, like mp3. When
> you view the image page, however, you see a nice blank square. Ogg,
> however, seems to be associated with a nice icon in Wikimedia projects.
> Two questions:
>
> 1. How do you assign icons to file types

See png files in skins/

> 2. How would you stop these files from being displayed gallery style in
> Category listings?

See DefaultSettings.php


list: wikien-l

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Please remove user data and talk pages from database
	dumps!

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem here.
> You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?

It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the Nazipedia
did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:

I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.

On the Nazipedia, it would say:

I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.

(I'm aware that's not actually what they named it, but I don't recall
what they called it.)

I contribute to Wikipedia under my real name, with my city of residence
and certain current volunteer positions I hold listed.

If someone Googled me, they'd see an entry that made it look like I was
an active contributor - an administrator, which many people not familiar
with Wikipedia might assume meant a site founder/high-ranking person -
to a Nazi project and proud of it.

Next thing you know, it'd be "political party officer secretly Nazi
activist" on the news. Now, I'd have a legitimate claim of defamation
and/or libel against someone, but I'd rather not go through all the work
entailed in suing someone for it after the fact, and I shouldn't have to
hide who I am on Wikipedia to prevent it.

The primary Wikipedia data dump for setting up mirror sites should not
contain User: or User_talk: namespace pages, and ideally not Wikipedia:
or any of the various Talk: namespaces. Usernames in page histories
could be changed, say, to "Wikipedia" or "Wikipedian #000110" or
something similar.

In some ways, this would be very handy for some other Wikis, who want
the article content and such, but would see all the rest as random cruft
they'd have to slog through deleting. How many downstream users want 5
zillion AFD history entries clogging up their DB?

The User:, Wikipedia:, and *_talk: namespaces could go in a second dump
for actual Wikipedia backups, theoretically... in practice I see two
dumps being an icky amount of work, of course.

(Sidenote: some people have a template they put on their userpages,
about how this is a Wikipedia user page, if you see it anywhere else,
it's not valid, etc... problem is, that's subject to the same search &
replace as anything else with "Wikipedia" in it, and furthermore, most
people don't subst: the template, meaning that if the downstreamer just
deletes or changes that template, it goes away...)

-- Jake Nelson


from_name: Philip Sandifer

body:
On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:

> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
>> here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
>> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
>
> It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
> Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
>
> I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
>
> On the Nazipedia, it would say:
>
> I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.

Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.

-Phil Sandifer


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Withoiut standardized definitions for psychiatric disorders you end up
> with Scientology.

This is an obvious logical fallacy.  Scientologists do oppose modern
psychiatry, but this does not imply that all opponents of modern
psychiatry are Scientologists.  In fact, consensus opinion among PhD
holders in psychology is that the DSM is for the most part wrongheaded;
the American Psychological Association has published several volumes
collecting such criticism.

-Mark


body:
Jake Nelson wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> It would probably be impractical for us to take anything but the
>> definitions from thes works, but I do note that the quoted comments
>> say "we do not allow anyone to alter our material".  The GFDL does
>> allow alterations, but also allows invariable sections.  We allow the
>> downstream user to do what he will with the material, with no
>> declaration of invariant sections.  Wouldn't it make more sense to
>> have all quotations declared invariant.
>
>
> Can't do it. Invariant Sections are a subset of Secondary Sections
> under the GFDL: see definitions below. Basically, it's for
> acknowledgements, legal disclaimers, etc. If, say, the quotations were
> all in a separate appendix, never in an entry page itself, and were
> considered not to "fall directly within" "the Document's overall
> subject" - highly unlikely for any Wikimedia project I can think of -
> then it could be declared Invariant. However, this would require every
> downstream user to republish the quotations appendix in full in every
> derivative work, no matter what it is.
>
> From the GFDL's definitions section:
> (see [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License]])
>
> A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
> the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
> publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall
> subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall
> directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in
> part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain
> any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
> connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
> commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.
>
> The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
> are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
> that says that the Document is released under this License. If a
> section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not
> allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero
> Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant
> Sections then there are none.
>
> (end quote)

The quotations do hava a historical connection with the subject matter.
Non-distortion of quoted material could also be viewed as an ethical
position..  The "Secondary Section" part of the above could be read such
that a relationshio is only required for front matter.  (The verb is
"deals" not "deal".)  It may be a little awkward but  each quote could
be arganized so as to be a separate appendix.

Ec


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 12/23/05, Tupsharru Tupsharru <one_known_as_tupsharru at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I once registered as a user of Wikipedia, and I know that anything I write there *may* be copied and re-used according to the GFDL. However, I did not sign up for the Pornopedia, Nazipe dia or Spamopedia.

While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem here.
You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 8 Fund Drive Report

body:
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_8
-------------------------------------------------------------

==Friday 23 December==
A total of 359 donations were made through PayPal on Day 8, yielding the equivalent of $6,811.27
USD. The average donation that day was $18.97. While this is both the lowest daily total and the
lowest average donation so far in the drive, it was not unexpected; a great many people were very
busy getting ready for Christmas that day.

Moneybookers donations rose by about $140, bringing that total to $687.85. Mail donations
increased by $625, our largest daily increase in mail donations in the drive so far, bringing that
total to $720. I'm still waiting for the first Dexia updates to arrive in the mail. Once they
arrive, I'll update each of the daily reports to reflect those daily totals.

:Total donated on Day 8: '''$7671.27'''
:Grand total at end of day: '''$93,418.67'''

Breakdown of Day 8 PayPal donations:
 AUD     197.99    (148.59 USD)
 CAD 	142.46    (117.23 USD)
 EUR 	1,912.28  (2,322.83 USD)
 GBP 	178.50 	  (320.10 USD)
 JPY 	30,883.00 (279.03 USD)
 USD 	3,623.49
 Total 	6,811.27 USD

Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-23/report/

==Special thanks to large donors==
The largest donation this day was $200.00 USD and was made by Barry Langdon-Lassagne. There were
also many donors who gave the equivalent of about $100 or more (listed in no particular order);
Romary Daval, Domas Mituzas, KENGO Nakajima, Alan Rhodes, Lutz Kayser, Peter Hare, and seven
anonymous donations.

:Note: While large donations are great, it should be noted that about 70% of all the money donated
to the Wikimedia Foundation comes from donations that are the equivalent of $50 or less and the
average donation is about $25.

==Selected donor comments==
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.

:Full listing at: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-23/detail/

*"An eminently worthy undertaking" by Craig Glennie
*"Longue vie au libre partage des connaissances!" by Philippe Teuwen
*"I don't know how we got on without Wikipedia. Please don't cave it to pressure groups." by
anonymous
*"This donation to Wikipedia is in memory of McRae Family, Ottawa,Ontario,Canada" by Craig McRae
*"Poursuivez votre labeur fantastique" by anonymous
*"The best reference that ever existed" by David Kirkpatrick
*"I'm very grateful to Wikimedia. Because of it I can do research very quick. I am living with
Wikimedia whenever I have free time during the day" by Tam Nguyen
*"Wissen ist Macht! Keep up the great work!" by Andr? He?ling
*"I donate for a clean and proven Wikipedia" by anonymous
*"Merry Christmas and many Greetings from Austria to Wikipedia" by Manfred Halver
*"Wikipedia's open/free nature is really what allows it to thrive. I think a service like this
would not be possible if it weren't for Free Software. Please consider donating to at www.fsf.org"
by Pol Danilov
*"Wikipedia ist der wahre Geist des Webs! Weiter so!" by Peter K?ller
*"I hope you guys realize what a huge effect you have on the Internet community, and we the users
truly appreciate the immense work you put in. LONG LIVE WIKIPEDIA!" by Edwin Choi
*"I will be giving more as money comes in (chrismas is a costly time)" by anonymous
*"Por plibonigado de Vikipedio." by Gokhan San
*"In honor of my Godparents Lucy, John, Theresa and Ron...Happy Christmas!" by Josh Courteau
*"This project has saved me much more than this in time, convenience and useful knowledge. I'll be
*paying another visit here soon enough." by Stephen Allen
*"in honor of Aaron Kuntz" by anonymous
*"gracias a vosotros" by Raul Aguaviva
*"Best..website..ever." by anonymous
*"naturally..." by KENGO Nakajima

Some of my personal favorites:
*"Use the site so much, would be criminal not to!" by Jack Hynes
*"You changed my life, guys. I am sorry I can only contribute with such a modest amount." by
anonymous
*"The greatest progress of mankind in the last 5 years." by Michael Young
*"let us be even more successful than Britannica" by anonymous
*"My bonus check, with love." by Jeffrey Friedlander
*"Rock on, Wikipedia. Rock on." by anonymous
*"No comment." by anonymous

-- Daniel Mayer

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Day 8 Fund Drive Report


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 8 Fund Drive Report


from_name: Blackcap

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
On 12/24/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:  The proposals I have
difficulty with are as follows:-

>
>     3.2.2 Sources demanded  2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded sources
> [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8] gives 80,000 hits.
> He also removed any reference to occupation.
>
>
>   and
>     3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV  3) Viriditas (talk
> ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that Wikipedia is a
> cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus. Masking of POV editing
> under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding sources is inappropriate
>
>
>   Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important that the
> onus is on the editor inserting information into an article to provide a
> source. It's easy to add information - but time-consuming to check it's
> veracity (particularly if you don't know where it's come from).
>
>
>   Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to ask
> for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way of NPOV'ing
> articles is to make sure everything in them is properly sourced.
>

I'm reluctant to post on this one, as I don't know that much about the case.
The first proposal you mention I strongly disagree with; currently it has
two in support and two opposing, so I don't know if it'll pass. The second,
though, I think is problematic, but more O.K. Note that it doesn't say: "citing
NPOV and sources is inappropriate." The key words are "Masking of POV edits
under the guise...is inappropriate." That I agree with. Pretending to be
NPOV and being POV is a problem.

The thing I have a problem with on that one is that it sounds a bit like the
ArbCom is deciding what's NPOV and what's not as a decree (note that I
haven't read the full case, so I will retract that statement readily and
immediately if that's not what's happening). I don't know, though, maybe it
was just crystal clear POV-pushing.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
My thought (I wrote these) was that they were harassing him. Of
course he has to provide sources, but so do they. If their purpose is
to strongly resist any edit which offends their point of view they
don't feel they need to bother to look the subject up. They can play
the "provide sources" game. Note that when Xed finally came up with
some sources they deleted them, not good enough. These folks were
engaged in game playing. To Viriditas's credit, he kept looking and
found a really good reference that substantially improved the article.

Fred

On Dec 24, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Jon wrote:

> I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that
> are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia
> has reliable, sourced information.
>
>   They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision
>
>   The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-
>
>     3.2.2 Sources demanded  2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded
> sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8]
> gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.
>
>
>   and
>     3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV  3) Viriditas
> (talk ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that
> Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus.
> Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding
> sources is inappropriate
>
>
>   Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important
> that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an
> article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but
> time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't
> know where it's come from).
>
>
>   Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to
> ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way
> of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly
> sourced.
>
>
>   Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the
> balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with
> trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a
> controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because
> other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for
> others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst
> dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his
> edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has
> already found against their position.
>
>
>   Yours concernedly
>
>   Jon
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just
> 8p a photo.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
It's definitely not crystal clear. What they are doing is pretty
subtle. Xed was also going too far. That confuses things.

Fred

On Dec 24, 2005, at 10:36 AM, Blackcap wrote:

> I'm reluctant to post on this one, as I don't know that much about
> the case.
> The first proposal you mention I strongly disagree with; currently
> it has
> two in support and two opposing, so I don't know if it'll pass. The
> second,
> though, I think is problematic, but more O.K. Note that it doesn't
> say: "citing
> NPOV and sources is inappropriate." The key words are "Masking of
> POV edits
> under the guise...is inappropriate." That I agree with. Pretending
> to be
> NPOV and being POV is a problem.
>
> The thing I have a problem with on that one is that it sounds a bit
> like the
> ArbCom is deciding what's NPOV and what's not as a decree (note that I
> haven't read the full case, so I will retract that statement
> readily and
> immediately if that's not what's happening). I don't know, though,
> maybe it
> was just crystal clear POV-pushing.


from_name: Jack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Digital Universe

body:
> Pity. If they had a compatible license, $10m of investment using free
> content could get somewhere useful. And producing free content.
> -- Justin Cormack

Reply to a query of how the non-subscription material on DU will be licenced:

> It will be some form of creative commons license. We are still
> mulling over various possible versions,
> -- Bernard Haisch

--
User:Jeandr?


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] CNN today

body:
Wikipedia - NOW ENDORSED BY CNN! ;)

On 12/24/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> To my surprise, the segment Inside, Outside on CNN"s show In the Money
> did  a
> segment on Wikipedia. Overall, it was rather positive. They did make some
> jokes about the Seigenthaler incident, but one of the two commentators
> noted to
> the anchor that it was corrected and that Wikipedia was the victim of a
> prank.  The anchor said that everyone, including CNN, uses Wikipedia, and
> they
> decided  that it was a necessary Internet phenomenon. They also said that
> Wikipedia is  striving for greater accuracy, and mentioned the fundraising
> drive,
> which they  said was to help improve quality.
>
> While they were not 100 percent accurate, it was, overall, a very positive
> spin on us.
>
> I wonder how we can use this to our advantage. I also wonder if we can
> get  a
> copy.
>
> Danny
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] CNN today

body:
To my surprise, the segment Inside, Outside on CNN"s show In the Money did  a
segment on Wikipedia. Overall, it was rather positive. They did make some
jokes about the Seigenthaler incident, but one of the two commentators noted to
the anchor that it was corrected and that Wikipedia was the victim of a
prank.  The anchor said that everyone, including CNN, uses Wikipedia, and they
decided  that it was a necessary Internet phenomenon. They also said that
Wikipedia is  striving for greater accuracy, and mentioned the fundraising drive,
which they  said was to help improve quality.

While they were not 100 percent accurate, it was, overall, a very positive
spin on us.

I wonder how we can use this to our advantage. I also wonder if we can get  a
copy.

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] CNN today


subject: [Wikipedia-l] CNN today


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Biographical data

body:
Sounds like a very good idea to me ...

-Matt


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] GFDL violation in the Wikimedia database dumps

body:
Dariusz Siedlecki wrote:
> The GFDL license states:
>
> B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
>    responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
>    Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
>    Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
>    unless they release you from this requirement.
>
> Now, you see - in the current database dumps, which are used on most
> of the Wikipedia mirrors (both online and offline), there's only the
> very last contributor.
>
> Wouldn't it be wiser to add the authors of the article, even if their
> revisions should stay empty?

We provide the complete data dumps, with the complete history as per the
license. You can also fetch smaller subsets of the data for convenience, but
it's all there in the same place.

If you redistribute subsets of the data yourself without the full data, it's up
to you to comply with the license.

If there's something specific we could or should do to make this easier, first
run it by our legal team at juriwiki-l to see what they think is actually
needed. I'm not going to play license lawyer...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] off on holiday next Wed

body:
Enjoy your holiday. I'll try to check it as often as possible.

~Mark Ryan

On 23/12/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> For New Year, I'm off to a seaside resort in North Yorkshire in the
> middle of the bloody winter, because I am obviously insane.
>
> I'm leaving Wednesday morning and return the following Wednesday
> evening. In the meantime, I won't be at the wikien-l mod queue, I
> won't be checkusering and I won't be beating trolls about the head or
> advocating such (except as a general principle, but you know that).
>
> wikien-l mods, be sure someone checks the queue daily!
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/24/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> The GFDL license states:
>
> B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
>    responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
>    Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
>    Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
>    unless they release you from this requirement.
>
> Now, you see - in the current database dumps, which are used on most
> of the Wikipedia mirrors (both online and offline), there's only the
> very last contributor.
>
> Wouldn't it be wiser to add the authors of the article, even if their
> revisions should stay empty?

We provide all of the authors in the _full dumps. It is your
responsibility to download the attribution if you want it. The GFDL
obligates us to provide it, and we have fulfilled that obligation we
are not required to shove it down your throat if you do not wish to
download it.

Your complaint implies that someone could not distribute a GFDLed book
on the web in page-per-chapter form because only the title page has
attribution, clearly this can not be the case.

As far as the mirrors, if they are failing to conform to the GFDL, you
should take up that issue with them and not with Wikimedia.


from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia has reliable, sourced information.

  They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision

  The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-

    3.2.2 Sources demanded  2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8] gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.

  and
    3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV  3) Viriditas (talk ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus. Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding sources is inappropriate

  Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't know where it's come from).

  Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly sourced.

  Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has already found against their position.

  Yours concernedly

  Jon

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Biographical data

body:
Hi all.

One of the interesting projects on de.wiki is the idea of Personendata
- basically, a set of standard biographical details, appended to
individual articles. Name, other common names, a few words of
description, date/place of birth, date/place of death. The sort of
thing you would find on a disambiguation page, basically.

This is implemented in quite a clever way - the CSS is set up in such
a way that the "{{Personendaten}}" template isn't shown, so whilst it
remains in the page text it's invisible to the casual reader; it's
stored at the bottom of the page along with categories and interwikis
and other "housekeeping" text, to avoid editors tripping over it.

Very nice. So what does it do? It allows all sorts of applications -
see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Paper-JV2 - and I'm sure
you can think of others. Build it, and they will come. One of the
smart ideas there was to tie it into the Deutsche Bibliotek authority
records (the files cataloguers use to keep authors uniquely
identified), meaning that deeplinking to works by that person is
relatively easy.

[[User:Kaldari]] has started experimenting with adding this to
articles on en: - there's only about a dozen as yet, but the idea has
promise. It's certainly a lot easier than our clumsier work with
categories, and would probably help with finding duplicate articles.

There's a page up at [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] going over the details;
any comments or suggestions would probably be appreciated.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Brandt wishes to release personal details of all
	Wikipedia admins

body:
God *dammit*. This kind of stuff is why I have an entirely separate e-mail,
etc. for Wikipedia and Wikipedia only. This is truly going too far. Aren't
we considered, under U.S. privacy laws at lease, to be private citizens,
making this illegal? Not that I've studied the laws, but that's what I seem
to recall.

On 12/24/05, Violet/Riga <violetriga at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
>
> http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1134797879&page=1)
> Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every Wikipedia admin, expanding the
> Hivemind page (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include
> all
> such details.
>
> To quote that post:
>
> *I've identified about four or five new ones in just the last couple of
> days. There are 613 active admins on Wikipedia's current list. I'd like to
> do them all. But it would take a long time. To do a reasonably thorough
> search can require an hour or so. Maybe what's needed is a description of
> how to do it -- a flow chart.
>
> For example, besides Google, Yahoo, and MSN, you cannot forget Google
> Groups. One guy I identified was found using his real name on Usenet back
> in
> 1994, but ever since 1995 was only using his screen name.
>
> Many old-timers have left a trail of breadcrumbs on the Internet, and that
> probably includes about half of the current admins.
>
> Putting together a project like this would be a very strong statement
> against letting anonymous Wikipedian admins play games with biographies of
> living persons. It would even make the newbies reluctant to wikifiddle
> with
> biographies.*
>
>
> I think this is starting to go too far now.
>
> ~~~~ Violet/Riga
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Magic_quotes patch

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

I figure that if I give a heads up here, the right people will find out
about it.

I have filed and patched a bug concerning magic_quotes cleaning of array
keys. http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4381 Please commit
it to CVS! Thanks.

P.S. If you want the functions to be commented, I can add documentation.
Didn't think it would very useful though.

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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iD8DBQFDrdXqqTO+fYacSNoRAsy2AJ4oDVU/LkZYWhO81oj/WYcAUu980QCfVb3l
/wfR/iRSNjU+st/RuJIaF/o=
=8AJL
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
I'm comfortable with the proposed findings. There is a problem with
dragging Veriditas in, less of a problem with bringing Jayjg in. But
that is because Snowspinner didn't adequately investigate the
transaction. When you look at the whole transaction, there were 4
users involved, not just one bad apple, however cranky he may be.

Fred

On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:23 PM, Jon wrote:

> Fred
>
>   Thanks for your comments.
>
>   If the problem is as you say it is (and I haven't read the
> details of the case myself), then the problem seems not to be that
> sources were asked for (even though a google search might have
> found some quickly), but rather:
>
>   (i) When they were provided, due consideration wasn't given to them.
>
>   (ii) That sources weren't provided by those asking for the other
> side to provide them.
>
>
>
>   I deliberately use "due consideration" in (i) as after due
> consideration the conclusion may be that the source is crap (as
> David Gerard has said).
>
>
>   I'd also argue strongly that if a google search could have found
> reliable sources quickly, it is still the job of the editor adding
> the information to do the work to find them. After all, the first
> 10 or so links in google might be, on closer examination, totally
> unsuitable as references.
>
>
>   Could you give consideration to rewording the proposed Finding of
> Fact and Remedy to better target the mischief you believe is there?
>
>
> Many thanks
>
>   Jon
>
> Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>   My thought (I wrote these) was that they were harassing him. Of
> course he has to provide sources, but so do they. If their purpose is
> to strongly resist any edit which offends their point of view they
> don't feel they need to bother to look the subject up. They can play
> the "provide sources" game. Note that when Xed finally came up with
> some sources they deleted them, not good enough. These folks were
> engaged in game playing. To Viriditas's credit, he kept looking and
> found a really good reference that substantially improved the article.
>
> Fred
>
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Jon wrote:
>
>
>> I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that
>> are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia
>> has reliable, sourced information.
>>
>> They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision
>>
>> The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-
>>
>> 3.2.2 Sources demanded 2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded
>> sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8]
>> gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.
>>
>>
>> and
>> 3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV 3) Viriditas
>> (talk ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that
>> Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus.
>> Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding
>> sources is inappropriate
>>
>>
>> Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important
>> that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an
>> article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but
>> time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't
>> know where it's come from).
>>
>>
>> Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to
>> ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way
>> of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly
>> sourced.
>>
>>
>> Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the
>> balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with
>> trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a
>> controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because
>> other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for
>> others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst
>> dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his
>> edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has
>> already found against their position.
>>
>>
>> Yours concernedly
>>
>> Jon
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just
>> 8p a photo.
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>   Play Santa's Celebrity Xmas Party, an exclusive game from Yahoo!
> _______________________________________________
> 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: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> My thought (I wrote these) was that they were harassing him. Of  course
> he has to provide sources, but so do they. If their purpose is  to
> strongly resist any edit which offends their point of view they  don't
> feel they need to bother to look the subject up. They can play  the
> "provide sources" game. Note that when Xed finally came up with  some
> sources they deleted them, not good enough. These folks were  engaged in
> game playing. To Viriditas's credit, he kept looking and  found a really
> good reference that substantially improved the article.

1. It's still creating sticks for idiots to wield in future. Wording bad
enough to be worse than nothing at all.

2. If someone supplies a completely shit source that's not good enough.
There's been just a little discussion on this topic on wikien-l of late.

- d.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On 12/24/05, Violet/Riga <violetriga at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1134797879&page=1)
> Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every Wikipedia admin, expanding the
> Hivemind page (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include all
> such details.
> I think this is starting to go too far now.

I agree with Violet that this has gone too far. One admin (not someone
named by Brandt) recently received a personal threat in a phone call
from someone he had taken action against on Wikipedia. It shows that
being named has the potential to be dangerous.

Brandt also seemed to threaten to publish someone's photograph today
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Daniel_Brandt&diff=prev&oldid=32627068
and has talked about people's employment prospects being affected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Daniel_Brandt&diff=prev&oldid=32623911

The other problem is that not all the personal details he's published
so far are accurate. Mistaken identity can have an effect on someone's
life too, whether it's the admin's or the real-life person they've
been wrongly identified as.

It's hard to know what to do about it. I'd like to see a version of
the page that is vaguely acceptable to Brandt protected from any
editing for a few weeks until the heat has gone out of the situation.
As things stand, the article's being edited constantly, leading to
lots of discussion on the talk page and on other websites, which in
turn leads to more editing. Maybe if people got bored and wandered
off, it'd be possible to reach a more considered solution without
compromising our policies. However, I know lots of people would see
that as giving in to Brandt, and I respect that position too.

Sarah


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
"David Gerard" wrote

> 1. It's still creating sticks for idiots to wield in future. Wording bad
> enough to be worse than nothing at all.

I think Fred has a point.  There are plenty, plenty people out there editing
WP, and not bad folk, who will insist that policy makes wiki a rule-based
game.  Rather than defining a style book within which one should comfortably
write.  This particular case resonates with me.

Charles


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

body:
On Saturday 24 December 2005 19:26, Violet/Riga wrote:
> According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
> http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=displ
>ay&thread=1134797879&page=1) Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every
> Wikipedia admin, expanding the Hivemind page
> (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include all such details.

Wow.

WikiTerrorism.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
Fred

  Thanks for your comments.

  If the problem is as you say it is (and I haven't read the details of the case myself), then the problem seems not to be that sources were asked for (even though a google search might have found some quickly), but rather:

  (i) When they were provided, due consideration wasn't given to them.

  (ii) That sources weren't provided by those asking for the other side to provide them.

  I deliberately use "due consideration" in (i) as after due consideration the conclusion may be that the source is crap (as David Gerard has said).

  I'd also argue strongly that if a google search could have found reliable sources quickly, it is still the job of the editor adding the information to do the work to find them. After all, the first 10 or so links in google might be, on closer examination, totally unsuitable as references.

  Could you give consideration to rewording the proposed Finding of Fact and Remedy to better target the mischief you believe is there?

Many thanks

  Jon

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
  My thought (I wrote these) was that they were harassing him. Of
course he has to provide sources, but so do they. If their purpose is
to strongly resist any edit which offends their point of view they
don't feel they need to bother to look the subject up. They can play
the "provide sources" game. Note that when Xed finally came up with
some sources they deleted them, not good enough. These folks were
engaged in game playing. To Viriditas's credit, he kept looking and
found a really good reference that substantially improved the article.

Fred

On Dec 24, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Jon wrote:

> I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that
> are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia
> has reliable, sourced information.
>
> They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision
>
> The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-
>
> 3.2.2 Sources demanded 2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded
> sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8]
> gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.
>
>
> and
> 3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV 3) Viriditas
> (talk ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that
> Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus.
> Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding
> sources is inappropriate
>
>
> Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important
> that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an
> article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but
> time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't
> know where it's come from).
>
>
> Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to
> ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way
> of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly
> sourced.
>
>
> Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the
> balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with
> trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a
> controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because
> other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for
> others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst
> dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his
> edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has
> already found against their position.
>
>
> Yours concernedly
>
> Jon
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just
> 8p a photo.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

---------------------------------
  Play Santa's Celebrity Xmas Party, an exclusive game from Yahoo!


body:
Brandt's "point" seems to be that if Wikipedia can write about him
even though he doesn't want us to, we have to accept his being able to
write about us in the same fashion.

-Matt


body:
On 12/24/05, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe too harsh and simplistic, but why not simply ban him from wikipedia.
> Especially after reading the edits you just pointed out. Maybe HE will get
> bored with wikipedia then. :)

He's been blocked already, Garion. He just returns with open proxies.

Sarah


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 12/24/05, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, did not know that. I just saw the edits you pointed out from the account
> Daniel Brandt. That account doesn't seem to be blocked. But yes, if he just
> returns with through open proxy, then bannning is pointless. Unfortunately.

Well, not entirely; it helps us identify open proxies. :)

Kelly


body:
On 12/24/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> And it's arguably a fair point. But it's not what he's doing. He's
> "outing" people who have not identified themselves or been written
> about by third parties, and he's including material about them without
> checking that his sources are credible or that he's got the right
> person. We don't do that.

I think he believes we do.  In his mind, we are to blame for
everything, including malicious people who place falsehoods here -
while we ourselves do NOT consider those people part of the project,
but rather misguided if not its enemies.

In other words, he considers just the POSSIBILITY of defamation /
inaccuracy enough to condemn Wikipedia.

Witness his frankly insane belief that we should not have an article
about anyone, of any level of fame, who does not want one.

-Matt


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

body:
The GFDL license states:

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

Now, you see - in the current database dumps, which are used on most
of the Wikipedia mirrors (both online and offline), there's only the
very last contributor.

Wouldn't it be wiser to add the authors of the article, even if their
revisions should stay empty?

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 9 Fund Drive Report

body:
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_9
-------------------------------------------------------------
==Saturday 24 December==
A total of 264 donations were made through PayPal on '''Day 9''', yielding the equivalent of
$8948.90 USD. The average donation that day was $33.90. This is an increase of $2137.63 over Day 8
and is also the highest average donation so far in the drive. Most notably, we passed the $100,000
milestone on this day!

MoneyBookers donations rose by $46.73 that day, bringing that total to $734.58. The Wikimedia
office was closed on Saturday, so there are no new mail donations to report. Hopefully, the first
Dexia updates will arrive in my mail box on Tuesday (Monday is a federally-observed holiday). Once
they arrive, I'll update each of the daily reports to reflect those daily totals.

:Total donated on Day 8: '''$8995.63'''
:Grand total at end of day: '''$101,006.45'''

Breakdown of Day 9 PayPal donations:
 AUD    164.50     (123.46 USD)
 CAD 	444.22     (365.55 USD)
 EUR 	1,591.07   (1,932.66 USD)
 GBP 	275.95 	   (494.86 USD)
 JPY 	104,248.00 (941.88 USD)
 USD 	5,090.49
 Total 	8,948.90 USD

Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-24/report/

==Special thanks to those who gave large donations==
The largest donation this day was $1000 and was made by Jeff Moe. There were also many donors who
gave the equivalent of about $100 or more (listed in no particular order); Luis Cavique Santos,
Kazuhisa Ueyama, James Sweeney, Mike Blaszczak, Katsuji Ishikawa, Kenneth Truelove and 15
anonymous donors.

:<small>Note: While large donations are great, it should be noted that about 70% of all the money
donated to the Wikimedia Foundation comes from donations that are the equivalent of $50 or less
and the average donation is about $25.</small>

==Selected donor comments==
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.

:Full listing at: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-24/detail/

*"grazie per lo sforzo" by anonymous
*"I've saved a lot of money here that I might have spent on out-of-date reference books printed on
dead trees." by anonymous
*"I firmly believe that Wikipedia deserves the support of all of its users." by M Dunsky
*"Wenn man schon in der Hauptsache kostenfreie Dienstleistungen nutzt, sollte man auch den Anstand
besitzen, etwas zu bezahlen, vor allem wenn finanzielle Unterst?tzung dringend gebraucht wird." by
anonymous
*"Grateful for the wealth of information so brilliantly put together. A great idea and sincere
hopes for continuing development; hence the donation" by anonymous
*"For Mark Fox" by anonymous
*"Thank you. You have helped so many with their coursework and assignments. Always a guarantee to
find updated, easy to understand and informative stuff on Wikipedia." by anonymous
*"Wikipedia is an example of cooperation, participation and innovation. Keep information free!" by
Damon Ramsey
*"The best thing I ever saw on the net" by Maarten Braakhekke
*"頑張って欲しい" by kazuhisa Ueyama
*"Knowledge guarantees Freedom" by anonymous
*"Wish the Wikimedia Foundation another successful year in 06. BTW thank you for the Christmas
card." by Eric Bouse
*"Wikipedia is what the internet was made for. Here's a little donation to help the people who
make it possible :D" by George Kettleborough
*"zur weiterentwicklung" by Thomas Junge
*"Wikipedia: my reference work of choice! Thanks, everybody!" by anonymous
*"An indispensable resource, an elegant site, no advertisements, and a worthy cause." by anonymous
*"Keep the change" by anonymous

Some of my personal favorites:
*"You are a great resource, for the people, of the people and by the people. And in fact, I got a
crucial pointer in my research from one of your articles. Thank you." by anonymous
*"I can't think of a better project to donate to!" by anonymous
*"for freedom of knowledge and privilege of education for everyone" by Christoph Wagner
*"I wear my Wikipedia t-shirt with pride!" by anonymous
*"So much to learn, so little time..." by anonymous
*"Are you hiring?" by Mike Blaszczak

-- Daniel Mayer

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


subject: [Foundation-l] Day 9 Fund Drive Report


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 9 Fund Drive Report


from_name: Brock Batsell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Brandt wishes to release personal details of
	all	Wikipedia admins

body:
Garion1000 wrote:
> Ah, did not know that. I just saw the edits you pointed out from the account
> Daniel Brandt. That account doesn't seem to be blocked. But yes, if he just
> returns with through open proxy, then bannning is pointless. Unfortunately.
>
His account was unblocked on December 16, 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User:Daniel%20Brandt

--
Regards,
[[:en:User:Bbatsell]]


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
The real issue, of course, is that Xed did not come up with sources for his
claims; instead, he reverted the request for citations multiple times, then
finally inserted links to articles which mentioned none of the contentious
claims for which cites were being asked in the first place.  Some of the
findings even point this out.  The fact that broad Google searches produce
tens of thousands of results is irrelevant, since none of them actually
support the claims being made, and it's certainly not my "responsibility" to
provide evidence for claims which are, in fact, false.  As for "harassment",
it was obviously Xed who was harassing, since he was simply following me
from article to article and reverting me to versions of articles which
contained clearly absurd POV.

The only "game" going on is the "provide bogus sources when asked for cites
and hope no-one bothers to actually read what the links say game, followed
by the cry "no matter what I do they delete my sources" game.

Jay.

On 12/24/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> My thought (I wrote these) was that they were harassing him. Of
> course he has to provide sources, but so do they. If their purpose is
> to strongly resist any edit which offends their point of view they
> don't feel they need to bother to look the subject up. They can play
> the "provide sources" game. Note that when Xed finally came up with
> some sources they deleted them, not good enough. These folks were
> engaged in game playing. To Viriditas's credit, he kept looking and
> found a really good reference that substantially improved the article.
>
> Fred
>
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Jon wrote:
>
> > I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that
> > are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia
> > has reliable, sourced information.
> >
> >   They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> > Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision
> >
> >   The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-
> >
> >     3.2.2 Sources demanded  2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded
> > sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8]
> > gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.
> >
> >
> >   and
> >     3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV  3) Viriditas
> > (talk ? contribs) and Jayjg (talk ? contribs) are reminded that
> > Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus.
> > Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding
> > sources is inappropriate
> >
> >
> >   Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important
> > that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an
> > article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but
> > time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't
> > know where it's come from).
> >
> >
> >   Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to
> > ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way
> > of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly
> > sourced.
> >
> >
> >   Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the
> > balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with
> > trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a
> > controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because
> > other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for
> > others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst
> > dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his
> > edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has
> > already found against their position.
> >
> >
> >   Yours concernedly
> >
> >   Jon
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just
> > 8p a photo.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 12/24/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brandt's "point" seems to be that if Wikipedia can write about him
> even though he doesn't want us to, we have to accept his being able to
> write about us in the same fashion.

And it's arguably a fair point. But it's not what he's doing. He's
"outing" people who have not identified themselves or been written
about by third parties, and he's including material about them without
checking that his sources are credible or that he's got the right
person. We don't do that.

Sarah


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Violet/Riga wrote:

>According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
>http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1134797879&page=1)
>Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every Wikipedia admin, expanding the
>Hivemind page (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include all
>such details.
>
It's *so* tempting to help him out by slipping him some additional
information anonymously, such as credit card numbers - *somebody
else's* credit card numbers, heh-heh-heh.

Stan the Evil-Overlord-in-Training


body:
Violet/Riga wrote:

>According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
>http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1134797879&page=1)
>Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every Wikipedia admin, expanding the
>Hivemind page (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include all
>such details.
>
BTW, his enemies list looked like a pretty distinguished crowd,
so I sent him mail asking to be added to it, along with where I
live so he would get more excited.

Stan


from_name: Blackcap

subject: [WikiEN-l] A simple vandalism analysis tool

body: Nice job, Tony.


from_name: Ilya N.

body:
Being a minor, I think I have a sort of special situation here especially in
the US.

If he even thinks about outing me I think I will have to encourage
someone else who was outed to pursue legal
action [as it is supposedly a sound basis] and I will fully support them.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
Jon wrote:

> I'd also argue strongly that if a google search could have found
> reliable sources quickly, it is still the job of the editor adding
> the information to do the work to find them. After all, the first 10
> or so links in google might be, on closer examination, totally
> unsuitable as references.

Damn right it is.

- d.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: CNN today

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com schreef:
[cut]

>
> I wonder how we can use this to our advantage. I also wonder if we can get  a
> copy.
>
> Danny

I wonder of the know that Wikipedia is almost as big regarding web
traffic as cnn.com and most likely be bigger very soon.

http://tinyurl.com/at7sw

You should ask CNN of you can get permission to put a copy of it online
for Wikimedia.

Other Wikipedias can do that also. I am doing that for the dutch
Wikipedia. When there is a radio interview with a Wikipedian or only
about WikipediaNL I try to get permission for the use of that audio
recording. Until now the responds is very good. The like Wikipedia and
give easy permission. That is fun to have, especialy some years later.

Wikipedias can also collect paper clippings about there project from
there local news papers. When you are somewhere telling about Wikipedia
it is nice that you can show that.

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia PUNT be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? Zorg dan dat je niet achter een proxy zit.
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Stemmen_voor_bug_550_via_Bugzilla


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating

body:
> I had a quick look at this article & found it is a solid, useful piece,
> the kind of work I've been looking for to add to [[Wikipedia:Good articles]].
> I think it is just as important to recognize that spending 50 hours to
> create, say, 25 solid & useful articles is just as valid as spending 50
> hours to create one Featured Article. Considering the number of articles,
> spending the time on more articles may be more worthy of praise.
>
> Some of us are having trouble explaining that to a group at
> [[Wikipedia talk:Good articles]]. Or maybe they are just afraid that as
> it stands, saying that something like [[Lang Hancock]] is a Good Article
> is arbitrary & therefore bad -- without acknowledging that for the most
> part, everything on Wikipedia is arbitrary. (Although it helps in the
> long run if you can articulate a reason for your actions.)
>
> Geoff
>
We already have a lot of articles and a lot of them are substandard. I
think spending time fixing, updating and generally improving articles
is better spent than creating new ones (especially ones that end up on
AFD or spark huge rows). But hey, everyone is entitled an opinion. As
long as you are one of those that seek out gaps in our coverage that
no one disputes needs to be covered. I can think of a few, then
creation is a good cause.

Mgm


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki?

body:
> I'll do both.  This is ludicrous.  It's a wiki.

I believe you may be incorrect on this point. WP is a project to
develop an encyclopaedia. It looks a lot like a wiki, but I don't know
if you can say "its a wiki" to prove a point. c2.com is a wiki. WP is
an encyclopaedia and does whatever quality control is necessary.

Steve


from_name: Violet/Riga

body:
According to a thread at the Wikipedia Review forum (
http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1134797879&page=1)
Daniel Brandt is wishing to name every Wikipedia admin, expanding the
Hivemind page (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html) to include all
such details.

To quote that post:

*I've identified about four or five new ones in just the last couple of
days. There are 613 active admins on Wikipedia's current list. I'd like to
do them all. But it would take a long time. To do a reasonably thorough
search can require an hour or so. Maybe what's needed is a description of
how to do it -- a flow chart.

For example, besides Google, Yahoo, and MSN, you cannot forget Google
Groups. One guy I identified was found using his real name on Usenet back in
1994, but ever since 1995 was only using his screen name.

Many old-timers have left a trail of breadcrumbs on the Internet, and that
probably includes about half of the current admins.

Putting together a project like this would be a very strong statement
against letting anonymous Wikipedian admins play games with biographies of
living persons. It would even make the newbies reluctant to wikifiddle with
biographies.*

I think this is starting to go too far now.

~~~~ Violet/Riga


from_name: SCZenz

body:
It seems to find no vandalism earlier than February 2004 in any of the
very high visibility articles I checked.  Was there a change in
Wikipedia custom and/or rollback functionality at that time, or is
something going wrong with your counter?

In any case, good work.

SCZenz

On 12/24/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> My vandalism analysis tool, which uses a simple but powerful
> methodology developed by Brian0918, analyses edit summaries on
> articles to spot probable vandalism reverts by recognising the summary
> patterns of standard rollbacks, and edits labelled "rvv", "rv v" or
> "rvc".  It was developed for English Wikipedia but probably has
> applications beyond that, and the methods developed here have obvious
> utility beyond the recognition and reporting of vandalism.
>
> You can visit it here:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/
>
> Please try to break it, and tell me what happened.  There is a link to
> a discussion page for that purpose.
>
> The rationale is that, while vandalism is difficult to recognise
> electronically, a pretty easy and reasonably reliable way to track
> vandalism on a popular wiki article is to examine  edit summaries and
> count the proportion of them that indicate that the editors apparently
> believed themselves to be reverting vandalism.
>
> A highly experimental adaptation of this script to recognise (only)
> rollbacks on the German Wikipedia is here:
>
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/cgi-bin/vandalismus.cgi
>
>
> The text of the latter CGI script is currently in English, although it
> is analyzing German text.  As I know nothing about
> internationalization I have no idea whether it will always perform
> correctly if UTF-8 multibyte characters (such as o-umlaut) are
> entered.
>
> This simple test seems to suggest that it does work:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/cgi-bin/vandalismus.cgi?article=K?ln
>
> Wikipedia is an international project and I welcome any and all
> testing input on this.
>
> Presently I don't know of any edit summary patterns that
> non-administrators on the German Wikipedia use to indicate that
> they're reverting what we on English Wikipedia would recognise as
> simple vandalism--as I'm unfamiliar with their practises I'm not even
> certain that they draw the same distinctions that we do on English
> Wikipedia between intentional and overt disruptive edits (simple
> vandalism) and more subtle vandalism or trolling.
>
> Any help on this that German speakers can offer would be most welcome.
>
> Although I address the German Wikipedia prominently because its
> community is highly advanced and well organized, its content
> comparable to that of the English Wikipedia, and (not least) Deutsche
> Wikipedia hosts the tool server, I would also love to produce useful
> tools for as many languages as possible--the skills I learn can be put
> to use in tools of more general use than the current one.  The scripts
> I write can easily be internationalized.  I cannot write good German
> (whenever I try, native German speakers beg me to stop!) but I can
> write good French and reasonable Spanish.  I am particularly
> interested in Chinese, Indian languages, and Russian.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 12/25/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> It's hard to know what to do about it. I'd like to see a version of
> the page that is vaguely acceptable to Brandt protected from any
> editing for a few weeks until the heat has gone out of the situation.
> As things stand, the article's being edited constantly, leading to
> lots of discussion on the talk page and on other websites, which in
> turn leads to more editing. Maybe if people got bored and wandered
> off, it'd be possible to reach a more considered solution without
> compromising our policies. However, I know lots of people would see
> that as giving in to Brandt, and I respect that position too.

Maybe too harsh and simplistic, but why not simply ban him from wikipedia.
Especially after reading the edits you just pointed out. Maybe HE will get
bored with wikipedia then. :)

Mind you, I don't know the whole story behind it (although I assume it's a
long one), but this really seems to be getting out of hand.

Garion


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 12/25/05, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>  WP is an encyclopaedia and does whatever quality control is necessary.

I think I can go along with that.  What upset me at the time was that
the editor experience of legitimate editors of that article was being
very seriously degraded for no apparent good reason.  Vandalism
continued to rise.  It has fallen since, though I'm not convinced that
the rise and fall can be attributed to the application and removal of
the NOEDITSECTION directive (which has been absent from the article
now for four or five days).  Rather, I think that the NOEDITSECTION
was an imposition that disproportionately hit legitimate editors of
the  article, while delivering no measurable reduction of vandalism in
the face of a sustained campaign of vandalism by a particular person
or group--the kind of campaign that I know from experience can be
ignored, because it has little of no effect on the ability of good
faith editors to continue their work.

That the article sufffered its worst week of vandalism during the
period of the NOEDITSECTION is a correlation where I truly believe it
would be inappropriate at this stage to make a definitive assignment
of which was cause and which was effect.  However I still see
absolutely no coherent elucidation of a mechanism by which this
directive could be expected to reduce vandalism in the first place--so
it's failure was hugely unsurprising.

I've more to say but I'll put it into a more general post which will
go to a number of mailing lists.


body:
On 12/25/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/24/05, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe too harsh and simplistic, but why not simply ban him from
> wikipedia.
> > Especially after reading the edits you just pointed out. Maybe HE will
> get
> > bored with wikipedia then. :)
>
> He's been blocked already, Garion. He just returns with open proxies.
>
> Sarah

Ah, did not know that. I just saw the edits you pointed out from the account
Daniel Brandt. That account doesn't seem to be blocked. But yes, if he just
returns with through open proxy, then bannning is pointless. Unfortunately.

Garion


body:
My vandalism analysis tool, which uses a simple but powerful
methodology developed by Brian0918, analyses edit summaries on
articles to spot probable vandalism reverts by recognising the summary
patterns of standard rollbacks, and edits labelled "rvv", "rv v" or
"rvc".  It was developed for English Wikipedia but probably has
applications beyond that, and the methods developed here have obvious
utility beyond the recognition and reporting of vandalism.

You can visit it here:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/

Please try to break it, and tell me what happened.  There is a link to
a discussion page for that purpose.

The rationale is that, while vandalism is difficult to recognise
electronically, a pretty easy and reasonably reliable way to track
vandalism on a popular wiki article is to examine  edit summaries and
count the proportion of them that indicate that the editors apparently
believed themselves to be reverting vandalism.

A highly experimental adaptation of this script to recognise (only)
rollbacks on the German Wikipedia is here:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/cgi-bin/vandalismus.cgi

The text of the latter CGI script is currently in English, although it
is analyzing German text.  As I know nothing about
internationalization I have no idea whether it will always perform
correctly if UTF-8 multibyte characters (such as o-umlaut) are
entered.

This simple test seems to suggest that it does work:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/cgi-bin/vandalismus.cgi?article=K?ln

Wikipedia is an international project and I welcome any and all
testing input on this.

Presently I don't know of any edit summary patterns that
non-administrators on the German Wikipedia use to indicate that
they're reverting what we on English Wikipedia would recognise as
simple vandalism--as I'm unfamiliar with their practises I'm not even
certain that they draw the same distinctions that we do on English
Wikipedia between intentional and overt disruptive edits (simple
vandalism) and more subtle vandalism or trolling.

Any help on this that German speakers can offer would be most welcome.

Although I address the German Wikipedia prominently because its
community is highly advanced and well organized, its content
comparable to that of the English Wikipedia, and (not least) Deutsche
Wikipedia hosts the tool server, I would also love to produce useful
tools for as many languages as possible--the skills I learn can be put
to use in tools of more general use than the current one.  The scripts
I write can easily be internationalized.  I cannot write good German
(whenever I try, native German speakers beg me to stop!) but I can
write good French and reasonable Spanish.  I am particularly
interested in Chinese, Indian languages, and Russian.


body:
On 12/25/05, Violet/Riga <violetriga at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think this is starting to go too far now.
>

If you're taking this bozo seriously, it's definitely going too far.
Ignore the fucker.


subject: [WikiEN-l] off on holiday next Wed

body:
On 12/23/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> For New Year, I'm off to a seaside resort in North Yorkshire in the
> middle of the bloody winter, because I am obviously insane.

I bet it's Whitby!  You know you should try to avoid giving such
obvious clues to your status.  You're obviously one of these chaps who
go all gooey if a chap cuts his thumb, and view a pretty young lady in
a see-through nightie as a jolly good meal and a chance to hang upside
down from the ceiling chirping bloodily and disconcerting the other
hotel guests.

Enjoy your time away, don't bite until you see their blood donation
service cards.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] RefBot blocked by Admin with no email

body:
SEWilco is not permitted to run that bot.

Fred

On Dec 23, 2005, at 9:04 AM, Ref Bot wrote:

> User:Refbot has been erroneously blocked while being set up by
> User:Curps, who has no email address and can not be contacted by
> blocked/autoblocked user.  Perhaps those with no email address
> should not be using features which require email addresses.  Reason
> given is possible impersonator of User:SEWilcoBot, but Curps also
> reverted a change to SEWilcoBot's user page which showed that
> functionality was being transferred to RefBot and thus there was no
> such behavior to impersonate.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://
> search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Digital Universe

body:
On 24 Dec 2005, at 11:05, Jack wrote:

>> Pity. If they had a compatible license, $10m of investment using free
>> content could get somewhere useful. And producing free content.
>> -- Justin Cormack
>
> Reply to a query of how the non-subscription material on DU will be
> licenced:
>
>> It will be some form of creative commons license. We are still
>> mulling over various possible versions,
>> -- Bernard Haisch

Hmmm, so its going to be free but incompatible with wikipedia.
Apparently.

Compatible with Commons though.

Justinc


from_name: Martin Osterman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Happy Holidays

body:
Hey everyone,

I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone here a Merry Christmas (or Happy
Holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas).  I know it's been a busy time
for everyone, so I hope that these wishes find everyone in good spirits!

--Martin Osterman


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Digital Universe

body:
On 12/25/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:

> >> It will be some form of creative commons license. We are still
> >> mulling over various possible versions,
> >> -- Bernard Haisch
>
> Hmmm, so its going to be free but incompatible with wikipedia.
> Apparently.

If it is a -nc CC license, I would not consider it free...

Mathias


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Deleted history view permissions

body:
A couple months ago the software got tweaked to display history info
(but not contained text) of deleted revisions to any and all random
visitors. In the last few weeks we've gotten a rash of complaints
about edits being made with private, embarrassing, vandalistic,
libelous, etc stuff in the edit summaries etc, and of course deleting
the revisions from the wiki still shows them to everybody.

For the moment I'm shutting off this ability (restoring the pre-August
behavior) until we get more fine-grained revision deletion / scrubbing
in place. I've added a permission key to control it, 'deletedhistory',
so if there's a need to turn it back on this can just be added to the
'*' pseudogroup in the config to restore the previous behavior.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
It's really quite simple. If he doesn't want to have an article
written about him, he shouldn't have put himself in the spotlight. I'd
be happy with someone removing unsourced "facts" from his bio, but he
is a public figure and he can't force us to delete his bio.

Mgm


body:
That's what the mailing list is for.

On 12/23/05, Ref Bot <refbot_noreply at hotmail.com> wrote:
> User:Refbot has been erroneously blocked while being set up by User:Curps,
> who has no email address and can not be contacted by blocked/autoblocked
> user.  Perhaps those with no email address should not be using features
> which require email addresses.  Reason given is possible impersonator of
> User:SEWilcoBot, but Curps also reverted a change to SEWilcoBot's user page
> which showed that functionality was being transferred to RefBot and thus
> there was no such behavior to impersonate.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
> http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
But that is just you and me and all the rest of the world's opinion.
Israel has annexed East Jerusalem.

Fred

On Dec 25, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> That Jerusalem was occupied by Isreal and Jordan from 1947 to 1967,
> and by Israel ever since the Six Day War, is a historical fact that
> should not be removed from an article.
> _______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
No, they involved that.

Fred

On Dec 25, 2005, at 12:49 PM, jayjg wrote:

> On 12/25/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> That Jerusalem was occupied by Isreal and Jordan from 1947 to 1967,
>> and by Israel ever since the Six Day War, is a historical fact that
>> should not be removed from an article.
>>
>
>
> Neither the dispute nor the finding were about that.
>
> Jay.
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Biographical data

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>Hi all.
>
>One of the interesting projects on de.wiki is the idea of Personendata
>- basically, a set of standard biographical details, appended to
>individual articles. Name, other common names, a few words of
>description, date/place of birth, date/place of death. The sort of
>thing you would find on a disambiguation page, basically.
>
>This is implemented in quite a clever way - the CSS is set up in such
>a way that the "{{Personendaten}}" template isn't shown, so whilst it
>remains in the page text it's invisible to the casual reader; it's
>stored at the bottom of the page along with categories and interwikis
>and other "housekeeping" text, to avoid editors tripping over it.
>
>Very nice. So what does it do? It allows all sorts of applications -
>see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Paper-JV2 - and I'm sure
>you can think of others. Build it, and they will come. One of the
>smart ideas there was to tie it into the Deutsche Bibliotek authority
>records (the files cataloguers use to keep authors uniquely
>identified), meaning that deeplinking to works by that person is
>relatively easy.
>
>[[User:Kaldari]] has started experimenting with adding this to
>articles on en: - there's only about a dozen as yet, but the idea has
>promise. It's certainly a lot easier than our clumsier work with
>categories, and would probably help with finding duplicate articles.
>
>There's a page up at [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] going over the details;
>any comments or suggestions would probably be appreciated.
>
I think that the idea is interesting and useful.  From the Wiktionary
pespective, where I have been trying to promote the sourcing of
information, it would certainly be helpful to provide the personendata
information for any author that is quoted.  Each quotation should
identify the source of that quotation, and in developing one of these I
like to include a link to the Wikipedia article about the author.  This
I do whether or not such an article exists.  For many authors,
especially contemporary ones or ones that were identified in the 1913
Webster,  it does not.  Given the kind of work that I am doing, it would
lead me too far astray to put together a real article about the person,
but I could easily add some of the personen data that I acquire in the
process of tracking down the quotation.

My biggest criticism of it at this point is that it's only available to
the geeks who use a monobook skin and know how to edit it.  I'm not
going to stop using the classic skin, and I have no intention of
learning how to edit a css.  I'm sure there are many other non-techies
in the latter group that would be kept away from the feature because of
that.  A simple toggle in the user preferences would make a lot more sense.

The one thing that I wouild make clear about the contents is that one
can add years when an author flourished.  For some authors we anly know
the years when they wrote, and know nothing of their lives before or
after the time during which they wrote.  Perhaps our German colleagues
have already thought of that.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/24/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The GFDL license states:
>>
>> B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
>>    responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
>>    Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
>>    Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
>>    unless they release you from this requirement.
>>
>> Now, you see - in the current database dumps, which are used on most
>> of the Wikipedia mirrors (both online and offline), there's only the
>> very last contributor.
>>
>> Wouldn't it be wiser to add the authors of the article, even if their
>> revisions should stay empty?
>>
>
> We provide all of the authors in the _full dumps. It is your
> responsibility to download the attribution if you want it. The GFDL
> obligates us to provide it, and we have fulfilled that obligation we
> are not required to shove it down your throat if you do not wish to
> download it.
>
> Your complaint implies that someone could not distribute a GFDLed book
> on the web in page-per-chapter form because only the title page has
> attribution, clearly this can not be the case.
>
For practical purposes, we should consider offereing a dump that contains
* articles
* templates (which are needed for many articles)
* a list of all author names
That would contain everything needed to generate GFDL-compliant,
complete articles, but still be much smaller than the full dumps.

We could put this information in the "articles" dump (slightly larger
download for everyone) or create a new dump type (more memory and
processor power needed to create and offer it).

Magnus


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/25/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> For practical purposes, we should consider offereing a dump that contains
> * articles
> * templates (which are needed for many articles)
> * a list of all author names
> That would contain everything needed to generate GFDL-compliant,
> complete articles, but still be much smaller than the full dumps.
>
> We could put this information in the "articles" dump (slightly larger
> download for everyone) or create a new dump type (more memory and
> processor power needed to create and offer it).

That is likely not enough, because you couldn't discover the principal
authors that way... a great many republication worthy articles are
almost entirely written by one or two people. But more importantly, a
mere list of names would not appear to be enough to satisify the
GFDL's requirement to 'Preserve the section Entitled "History"'.

It would be preferable to only include templates which are used in the
main namespace, although that would further complicate the dumping
process.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Divine_Intervention_%28film%
29&diff=next&oldid=27078698

Fred

On Dec 25, 2005, at 1:03 PM, jayjg wrote:

> Not really; no edit wars about that, no complaints in Talk: about
> that, no
> sources "removed" regarding that.  The alleged issue is removal of
> "sources"
> regarding the movie and the Academy of Motion Pictures.
>
> Jay.
>
> On 12/25/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> No, they involved that.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Dec 25, 2005, at 12:49 PM, jayjg wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 12/25/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> That Jerusalem was occupied by Isreal and Jordan from 1947 to 1967,
>>>> and by Israel ever since the Six Day War, is a historical fact that
>>>> should not be removed from an article.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Neither the dispute nor the finding were about that.
>>>
>>> Jay.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
The proposed decision says that if you are just using a request for
sources as a tactic in POV edit warring it will not necessarily be
taken at face value.

Fred

On Dec 25, 2005, at 1:42 PM, <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> The proposed decision sends a message that editors have to be careful
> when asking for sources, which is the opposite of the one many of us
> are trying to get across.
>
> Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] off on holiday next Wed

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 12/23/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>For New Year, I'm off to a seaside resort in North Yorkshire in the
>>middle of the bloody winter, because I am obviously insane.
>>
>>
>I bet it's Whitby!  You know you should try to avoid giving such
>obvious clues to your status.  You're obviously one of these chaps who
>go all gooey if a chap cuts his thumb, and view a pretty young lady in
>a see-through nightie as a jolly good meal and a chance to hang upside
>down from the ceiling chirping bloodily and disconcerting the other
>hotel guests.
>
>Enjoy your time away, don't bite until you see their blood donation
>service cards.
>
You make it sound like he's going to "Carry On" just like in the movies.

Ec


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
On 12/24/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia has reliable, sourced information ...
>
> ... I think it is fundamentally important that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't know where it's come from).

I agree with Jon. The problem with the proposed ruling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision#Viriditas_and_Jayjg_reminded_regarding_NPOV
is that it reprimands two editors because they asked for sources from
an inveterate POV-pusher, which is exactly what they should have done.
The policy is [[WP:V]], which says: (1) the burden of evidence lies
with the editor who adds the material (in this case Xed and an anon);
(2) one reason to ask for sources is if the edit is overly vague (it
was) and if the editor has a history of making inaccurate claims (Xed
does); and (3) any material not sourced may be removed by any editor.

Jay and Viriditas were asking for sources for some wild claims
inserted by an anon and supported by Xed, including that the film
Divine Intervention had not been nominated for an Academy Award
because of a "vigorous campaign by Zionist activists to bar the movie
..." There was no evidence at all of any "Zionist" campaign. There's a
good ABC News article about the controversy, which was basically a
series of misunderstandings combined with a lack of insight into the
Palestinian situation.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79485&page=1

One of the proposed findings of fact says that: "After Xed restored,
Jayjg demanded sources despite the fact that a simple Google search
gives 80,000 hits ..." But the Google search cited was for "'Divine
Intervention' academy".
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=+%22Divine+Intervention%22+academy&btnG=Search
That search tells us nothing about what credible sources were saying
about the controversy, unless the ruling means Jay and Viriditas
should have looked through the 80,000 entries for sources themselves,
on behalf of Xed. But that's not what [[WP:V]] says. Yes, it would be
ideal if every editor would search for sources for other people's
edits, including the ones they think are wrong, but in reality no one
has the time to do that, which is why the policy is clear that the
burden of evidence always lies with the person who makes the edit.

The proposed decision sends a message that editors have to be careful
when asking for sources, which is the opposite of the one many of us
are trying to get across.

Sarah


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 12/25/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Ref Bot wrote:
>
> > User:Refbot has been erroneously blocked while being set up by
> > User:Curps, who has no email address and can not be contacted by
> > blocked/autoblocked user.  Perhaps those with no email address should
> > not be using features which require email addresses.  Reason given is
> > possible impersonator of User:SEWilcoBot, but Curps also reverted a
> > change to SEWilcoBot's user page which showed that functionality was
> > being transferred to RefBot and thus there was no such behavior to
> > impersonate.
>
>
> I blocked RefBot indefinitely as an attempt by SEWilco to evade ArbCom
> restrictions, and SEWilco for 48 hours for trying to game his ArbCom
> restrictions. Go away and stop trying to game the system. Merry Christmas.
>
>
> - d.

There's something wrong with SEWilco; read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SEWilco#Temporarily_blocked_RefBot

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

body:
On 12/25/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That Jerusalem was occupied by Isreal and Jordan from 1947 to 1967,
> and by Israel ever since the Six Day War, is a historical fact that
> should not be removed from an article.

Neither the dispute nor the finding were about that.

Jay.