subject: [Foundation-l] London meet: Wikimedia UK discussion

body:
Well, that was fairly productive. "Let's go down the pub and
start a charity!" JDF has the notes, the below is from memory:

JDForrester has registered wikimedia.org.uk. VampWillow has
set up any number of charitable companies, so will be starting
on the paperwork for this one.

The mission will be nicely open-ended. VW will write something
that should get rubber-stamped by the Charity Commissioner.

Once it's got charitable status, people in England and Wales will
certainly be able to make tax-deductible donations to it. People
in Scotland and Northern Ireland *probably* will.

Angela mentioned we can set up a UK Wikimedia mailing list.

What we spend the money on ... servers are a possibility. Kate
had made some noises about coming to London, but didn't. cc'd to
Kate: what would be good technically to buy in the UK?

James, anything I missed above that's in the notes?

Oh, and our London readers might want to pop down to Maplin in
Tottenham Court Road, who had WD Caviar 160GB/8MB hard disks
for ?60 and might still have some.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard


list: foundation-l

from_name: VampWillow

body:
Was quite a fun way to spend an afternoon, wasn't it ;-)

> JDForrester has registered wikimedia.org.uk

:: notes that the referenced link for portal doesn't permit access ::

> that should get rubber-stamped by the Charity Commissioner.

There is *nothing* that will get rubber-stamped, but I shall try to make
something likely to produce a path of least resistance

> Oh, and our London readers might want to pop down to Maplin in

I went in the one opposite the pub; note that they aren't always WD (mine
is Hitachi). One couldn't choose manufacturer.

For the record, btw, I have now created myself a second ident on en:wp
under my 'real name' (well, personal name and initial of family name). I'm
not intending at the moment to switch idents, but it means that I can use
a WP ident that won't cause me problems in a 'public' sense.

vW


from_name: Kate Turner

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: London meet: Wikimedia UK discussion

body:
David Gerard wrote in gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation:
[ ... comments from discussion about UK foundation ... ]

this sounds quite positive.  i think i noted on the relvant meta page that
i'd be interested in helping, although charities/business isn't something i
have a great deap of experience with...

> Kate: what would be good technically to buy in the UK?

non-US purchasing decisions/planning are a bit up in the air at the moment
as we work out what we're doing with various EU offers (Belnet,
Kennisnet, ...).  the ideal situation would be if we could purchase
equipment in the UK (using UK funds) and ship it to other places in the EU
(initally likely to be Holland or France, but could be elsewhere).  would
this be possible under UK charity law?  moving funds back to the US is
unlikely to be required, even if it were allowed.

i am reluctant at the moment to suggest buying any kind of service within
the UK wrt. hosting, hardware &c.  particularly until we have a production
off-site cluster and know what we need to do, we're unlikely to make good
use of it, and it's not going to be worth the cost. even then it remains to
be seen whether a large number of seperate clusters is worth the
administrative effort.

do we have any idea what sort of money we're looking at from UK donations?

> - d.

kate.

(subscribed to foundation-l, so please don't cc me on replies.)


body:
Kate Turner wrote:
> David Gerard wrote in gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation:

> this sounds quite positive.  i think i noted on the relvant meta page that
> i'd be interested in helping, although charities/business isn't something i
> have a great deap of experience with...

That's why VW is doing the paperwork, 'cos she does ;-)

With a suitable mission statement we should be able to fit in almost any
activity that would reasonably advance Wikimedia and/or its contents.

>>Kate: what would be good technically to buy in the UK?

> non-US purchasing decisions/planning are a bit up in the air at the moment
> as we work out what we're doing with various EU offers (Belnet,
> Kennisnet, ...).  the ideal situation would be if we could purchase
> equipment in the UK (using UK funds) and ship it to other places in the EU
> (initally likely to be Holland or France, but could be elsewhere).  would
> this be possible under UK charity law?  moving funds back to the US is
> unlikely to be required, even if it were allowed.

No idea! VW?

> i am reluctant at the moment to suggest buying any kind of service within
> the UK wrt. hosting, hardware &c.  particularly until we have a production
> off-site cluster and know what we need to do, we're unlikely to make good
> use of it, and it's not going to be worth the cost. even then it remains to
> be seen whether a large number of seperate clusters is worth the
> administrative effort.

Yeah. We thought the answer might be "nothing right this moment".

> do we have any idea what sort of money we're looking at from UK donations?

Presumably some fraction of what was donated in GB pounds last fund drive.
There were about GBP3623 (before PayPal fees) last fund drive. I have no
idea how much of that people would prefer to send direct to the UK
organisation than directly, though I'm sure deductibility would be a
tremendous encouragement.

That said, I'm sure there are lots of things we'll be able to spend money
on that aren't hardware or bandwidth.

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: zhengzhu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different alphabets for the same language

body:
> At http://zh.wikipedia.org/ you'll notice three additional tabs at the
> right-hand of the top tab bar: "???" for unconverted display, "??"
> for simplified conversion, and "??" for traditional conversion. These
> conversions don't change the source text or alter editing; it's for
> rendered page display and user interface only.

The implementation also supports a markup that allows manually
specifying the conversion of a specific word/phrase in situations
where the mapping table is not sufficient. For example, -{zh-cn:foo;
zh-tw:bar}- will show up as "foo" when "??"(Simplified Chinese) is
selected, and "bar" when "??"(Traditional Chinese) is selected;
-{foo}- will show up as "foo" no matter what language variant is
selected (this should be sufficient for things like quotes, math,
etc). There is also a way of customizing the mapping table through a
page in the MediaWiki: namespace.

--
zhengzhu


list: wikien-l

from_name: Kat Walsh

subject:
[WikiEN-l] A minor bit of getting the word out (in which no one is
	blocked, nor accused of stirring trouble)

body:
I was interviewing for graduate assistantships this afternoon and in
the course of discussion mentioned writing articles on Wikipedia
(actually, a few to which I've been the near-sole contributor were in
my portfolio, too). One of the committee seemed very enthusiastic
about it; he asked me about a few topics, including the proposed plans
for article validation, and recommended that the rest of the committee
(five or six others) take a look at the project. (I wasn't quite bold
enough to ask if he had a user account!)

I was pleased (and not a little surprised!) at the generally positive
reaction from the ones who weren't familiar with it. Points scored
there for me and for Wikipedia, I think.

-Kat
[[User:Mindspillage]]

--
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

body:
On Friday 25. March 2005. 17:58, monk at zoomcon.com wrote:
>   Belarusian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_language)
>   has now two quite widely used alphabet versions - Cyrillics and Latin
>   (actually, it also has Arabic alphabet, but it is too rarely used).

I have to say that this is not true at all. For example, Google search on
"???" (which means "yes", a fairly common word) on .by domain returns 571,000
hits, while search on "tak" returns 6,110 hits, of which not all are in
Belarusian. About one percent of use is not "widely used" by any standard, I
wouldn't even say that it is rarely used.

>   For now, be: wikipedia uses Cyrillics. But we really need Latin
>   version for those, who prefers to use this alphabet. We have strict
>   bidirectional rules to transform any text between Cyrillics <-> Latin.

I also have to say that this is even less true. Nowhere on the Belarusian
Wikipedia have I found that anyone needs Latin version of it, there's no vote
on the main page about it, noone has ever asked about it on ??'???, or
anywhere else where I looked. Possibly "we" doesn't mean "Wikipedia users",
but then I'd be interested to know who are "we" who need Latin version of
Belarusian Wikipedia.


body:
On Saturday 26. March 2005. 22:52, Brion Vibber wrote:
> zhengzhu wrote:
> > If the conversion between Cyrillics and Latin is strictly one-to-one,
> > then it should be fairly simple to support that, since most related
> > code is already written. All we need is probably a mapping table
> > between the Cyrillics and the Latin alphabet. If you can put the table
> > somewhere, I can probably implement it and put up a test site fairly
> > quickly. But since I have no knowledge with those languages, I can be
> > wrong.
>
> The last time this was brought up, I seem to recall that the conversion
> is _not_ perfect; foreign words and names of either Latin or
> Cyrillic-spelling origin may not use the generic conversions. Also if
> you're quoting eg foreign-language text, math, or programming code (all
> likely to come up in an encyclopedia) it's going to be harder; it'd be
> necessary to be able to specify non-convertible text.

You remember correctly :) Basically, conversion from Cyrillc to Latin alphabet
is possible and easy to do; but conversion from Latin to Cyrillic is
impossible task. It would thus be possible to create a static Wikipedia
mirror in Latin alphabet, if there would be any need for it; but making it
editable and importing results back into Cyrillic would not work and only
create problems.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power

body:
>From: Andy Roberts <aroberts at gmail.com>
>On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged
> > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them.
> >
>In that case why does the automatic block message suggest  that any
>objection may be directed to this list?
>
>" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may
>discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list"
>
>
>Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not?

As I understand it, that is to provide a means for block editors to get the
attention of other adminstrators, since they are no longer able to post.

Jay.


body:
>From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>

>David Gerard wrote:
>>JAY JG wrote:
>>>Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged
>>>admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them.
>>
>>HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one.
>
>Unreachable for anyone who's been blocked.  Without WikiEN-l people
>could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins.

There's been no evidence of "disappearing" being carried out by "unscupulous
admins", and in any event controversial blockings can be brought to the
attention of WikiEN-l, but WikiEN-l is not an investigatory body.

Jay.


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
On Saturday, March 26, 2005 8:44 PM, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
wrote:

> Well, that was fairly productive. "Let's go down the pub and
> start a charity!"

Yeah. Was quite productive at being fun. Not so sure about Things Done (tm),
however. ;-)

> JDF has the notes, the below is from memory:
>
> JDForrester has registered wikimedia.org.uk.

... And wikimedia.co.uk. Both just have silly little things on them right
now. Will get on with uploading the portal, suitably modified.

... <time passes> ...

Done. Of course, the portal is more suited to wikipedia.org.uk (more on that
later), but it's a start. We'll probably eventually want a wiki on
wikimedia.org.uk, though.

Anyone who want to put up the portal somewhere, note that it's in UTF-8.

For the record ('cos I think that, beforehand, I'd just stated this in IRC),
*@wikimedia.{org|co}.uk all gets auto-forwarded to board at wikimedia.org right
now. Obviously this situation will, err, improve in future. I hope.

Also, wikipedia.co.uk is owned by Bomis (/not/ the Foundation, which is
probably just a blip), and redirects to en.wikipedia.org (tsk, we Britons
speak more than just that one language); however, wikipedia.org.uk is owned
by one "Chris Brooking", whose name I don't recognise, though that also
redirects to en, so I'm not wholly worried. Will try to find a contact for
him and sort that out.

Of course we'll need to transfer the domains to Wikimedia UK as and when
that's a going concern, so it may not be worth the hassle of transferring
the 2/3/4 domains to someone else first.

> VampWillow has
> set up any number of charitable companies, so will be starting
> on the paperwork for this one.

And truly wonderful she is, too.

> The mission will be nicely open-ended. VW will write something
> that should get rubber-stamped by the Charity Commissioner.

The blurb at the bottom of the Foundation's business cards is "A registered
non-profit corporation dedicated to encouraging the growth and development
of free-content, multilingual, wiki-based information and learning
projects.", which I cobbled together from a few sources and nabbled a bit.
Something similar but expanded might be suitable for our "mission
statement".

> Once it's got charitable status, people in England and Wales will
> certainly be able to make tax-deductible donations to it. People
> in Scotland and Northern Ireland *probably* will.

S and NI will get tax-deductable status, deffo, it's just that Wikimedia UK
won't have to run under NI law, nor S law, but E&W law.

> Angela mentioned we can set up a UK Wikimedia mailing list.

Looking forwards to it. Yet another bloody list. :-)

> What we spend the money on ... servers are a possibility. Kate
> had made some noises about coming to London, but didn't. cc'd to
> Kate: what would be good technically to buy in the UK?

Note that, to avoid, err, 'complications', the idea is to rent the servers
from the Foundation (possibly at slightly implausible rates; we need Brion
and Jamesday managing them, rather than just "a computer", so the Foundation
will charge us a set-up fee and monthly rental, or something).

> James, anything I missed above that's in the notes?

Not really. Oh, yes, the other cunning wheeze we had whereby we can donate
to the Foundation without donating is for Wikimedia UK to have "affliated
membership" of the Wikimedia Foundation, costing some nominal amount ($1k?,
etc.).

> Oh, and our London readers might want to pop down to Maplin in
> Tottenham Court Road, who had WD Caviar 160GB/8MB hard disks
> for ?60 and might still have some.

Gah, forgot about this one, then we went off for dinner. Bother.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


body:
>From: actionforum at comcast.net
> > >On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote:
> > > > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of
>alleged
> > > > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them.
> > > >
> > >In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any
> > >objection may be directed to this list?
> > >
> > >" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may
> > >discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list"
> > >
> > >
> > >Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not?
> >
> > As I understand it, that is to provide a means for blocked editors to
>get the
> > attention of other administrators, since they are no longer able to
>post.
> >
> > Jay.
>
>I was unaware of any listing of admins or their email addresses or who
>Jimbo was when I was blocked for the first and only time.  I only knew that
>the block was incorrect, and the email address for this list was the
>easiest find, because it was referenced in the block process.  There should
>be a general list like this that a user can be referred to, because like
>myself, his only experience at communicating with the wiki community may
>have been talk pages, so he may have felt disenfranchised by the block.
>Individual email addresses are not a good first line alternative because
>who knows how soon they will be checked.
>
>           -- Silverback

Right.  And that particular editor now had the attention of the list.  It
seemed other list members wanted the parties in question to now start
presenting their evidence before the list, in preparation for who knows
what.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power

body:
> > I have heard this line of argument a few times now from people
> > advocating some form of quick and easy de-adminship without resorting to
> > arbitration. In general, I think we already readily give adminship to
> > those who are nominated, and anyone who has a close call on their first
> > try will normally pass overwhelmingly after waiting a month or two. I
> > invite anyone who believes the argument above to point me to a case
> > where having an easier de-adminship process would have made the
> > difference in the success of an adminship nomination.
> >
> > We could be more generous in seeking out candidates and making
> > nominations, of course, but that's a different matter. There are many
> > good users out there who are just waiting for a nomination.
> >
> > --Michael Snow
>
>The process of getting an adminship is currently political, and religious,
>with confession of past offenses, absolution by votes, self promotion of
>past accomplishments and back slapping by cronies.   It some ways it is a
>bit unseemly.   It should be automatic and an opportunity to serve rather
>than for status.  Many serve just as well or better within editing
>privileges, although many admins make invaluable contributions to the
>community and should feel a sense of accomplishment.
>
>           -- Silverback

Unsurprisingly, non-admins (particularly those who have had run-ins with
admins) complain regularly that it is too hard to become an admin, that the
de-adminning process is non-functional and instead needs to become almost
automatic at the first hint of controversy, and that this has resulted in
Wikipedia being inundated with rogue admins who spend most of their time
oppressing and violating the rights of simple, hard-working Wikipedians.

I suppose, to be fair, I must also note that it is generally the hundreds of
admins who feel that these kinds of charges are gross exaggerations at best.

Jay.


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content

body:
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:02:07 -0500, steven l. rubenstein
<rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:

> Okay Tom, what do you think we should do, if someone refuses over the
> course of several weeks to provide a source for a claim that some editors
> say is inaccurate or simply false?

No question about it. If after long dicussion no source is provided,
it should be deleted.

--
Peter in Christchurch


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent
	developments such as SARS and nanotechnology

body:
--- Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
>   March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
>
> New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts
> Coverage of People, Science & Changing World
>
> CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles
> spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at
> the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005.
>
> Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial
> number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology
> and computer crime.
>
> There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of
> predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet.

LOL - I wrote the first Wikipedia version more than two years ago. It is now a
pretty darn good article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event

> Several notable people receive their own entries for the first time,
> including U.S. Senator John Kerry, novelist and Nobel laureate J.M.
> Coetzee, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and philosopher John Rawls. Socrates is the
> subject of a lengthy new treatment that reflects the latest scholarship
> on the Greek philosopher.

John Kerry! Wow - these people are really with it, aren't they. And Yo-Yo Ma
has been a very important person much longer than before the last EB update.

> According to editor Dale Hoiberg, the revisions are part of an effort to
> keep the Britannica on the cutting edge of knowledge and world
> developments at a time when the demand for reliable information is
> greater than ever.

And they will be up to date for how long? Two weeks, maybe.

I did take pity on them by buying Britannica Concise for my Palm Pilot. They
really meant it when they called it concise though - all entries are as large
or smaller than our lead sections.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A friendly Wired Article

body:
Rick a ?crit:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Quite a good article
>>
>>But also exactly the article which makes the world
>>believe this is an
>>english project, run by english editors.
>>
>>Not exactly the kind of rumors all of us appreciate.
>>
>>
>>Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: TL at pipeline.com [mailto:TL at pipeline.com]
>>>Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:22 PM
>>>To: Poor, Edmund W
>>>Subject: article of interest
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html
>
>>>I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this article but me, by
>>
>>now. I feel like I
>>
>>>just got a big pat on the back for my 3 1/2 years
>>
>>of work! This writer
>>
>>>is very friendly and has captured the essence of
>>
>>Wikipedia much, MUCH
>>
>>>better than anyone else heretofore. I just wish
>>
>>his article was GFDL'd
>>
>>>so I could incorporate all his descriptions.
>>>
>>>Uncle Ed
>>>
>>>P.S. A non-Wikipedian sent me the URL
>>
>
> You mean the parts that talk about the Wikipedias in
> 75 languages, and how the millionth article was in the
> Hebrew Wikipedia?
>
> RickK

I mean... you know... a concept called NPOV, which tries to represent
fairly the facts. In an encyclopedic article, that might have involved
balancing the amount of text used to describe one part of the reality
and the amount of text used to describe the other part of the reality.

Such as talking only of the english encyclopedia, during all the
article, while talking of the other languages in one line. I do not
think it is balanced. And I do not think people reading this article
will keep in mind this information. And when people asking us for
presentation tell me "why on earth would a french person represent and
make presentation of wikipedia ???", I know that such comments comes
from articles such as danny's one, which propagate a selected truth.

Articles such as danny one are good, but they have a serious pov stamp
on them.

So, all I can say is "long live wikipedia which is able to be fair and
neutral".


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> >From: Andy Roberts
> >On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote:
> > > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged
> > > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them.
> > >
> >In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any
> >objection may be directed to this list?
> >
> >" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may
> >discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list"
> >
> >
> >Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not?
>
> As I understand it, that is to provide a means for block editors to get the
> attention of other adminstrators, since they are no longer able to post.
>
> Jay.

I was unaware of any listing of admins or their email addresses or who Jimbo was when I was blocked for the first and only time.  I only knew that the block was incorrect, and the email address for this list was the easiest find, because it was referenced in the block process.  There should be a general list like this that a user can be referred to, because like myself, his only experience at communicating with the wiki community may have been talk pages, so he may have felt disenfranchised by the block.  Individual email addresses are not a good first line alternative because who knows how soon they will be checked.

          -- Silverback


body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> Thomas Haws wrote:
>
> >Silverback, you couldn't have said it better about adminship. If we were more
> effective at removing admins we could be more generous about installing them.
> >
> >
> I have heard this line of argument a few times now from people
> advocating some form of quick and easy de-adminship without resorting to
> arbitration. In general, I think we already readily give adminship to
> those who are nominated, and anyone who has a close call on their first
> try will normally pass overwhelmingly after waiting a month or two. I
> invite anyone who believes the argument above to point me to a case
> where having an easier de-adminship process would have made the
> difference in the success of an adminship nomination.
>
> We could be more generous in seeking out candidates and making
> nominations, of course, but that's a different matter. There are many
> good users out there who are just waiting for a nomination.
>
> --Michael Snow

The process of getting an adminship is currently political, and religious, with confession of past offenses, absolution by votes, self promotion of past accomplishments and back slapping by cronies.   It some ways it is a bit unseemly.   It should be automatic and an opportunity to serve rather than for status.  Many serve just as well or better within editing privileges, although many admins make invaluable contributions to the community and should feel a sense of accomplishment.

          -- Silverback


subject: [Foundation-l] german wikiquotes

body:
Hi

The board has received a mail concerning the german wikiquote.
The issue has been ongoing for ... a very long time now.... but to
summarize it,

''By the german law, every cite is normaly copyrighted.''

In the past, Erich K?stner allready claimed against people quoting him
with success. The only way out of this problem would be, to cite them
all in a context about every cite - in the moment we still have only
less then the half with an source, so this would also be impossible. I
dunno how much is the chance, to get claimed. Maybe someone is
translation the "Rechtsgutachten" from the german wikimedia e.V. for a
solution. (Quotes from poesie, books or small lyrics are high difficult,
quotes from Dieter Bohlen are less in trouble)''

This is reported by Michael Diederich.

Michael is wondering what to do, in particular since a german editor is
asking that the whole wikiquote be deleted.

Any suggestion to help on the topic ?

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] german wikiquotes


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent
	developments such ...

body:
Yes, we are way ahead of Britannica in many areas, but, to be realistic,
just as we have many excellent articles that they simply don't have, they also
have many articles that we don't. Of course, we are in a better situation,
because we can easily fill in the gaps.

I therefore encourage people to take a look at [[Wikipedia:2004  Encyclopedia
topics]]. Make redirects if we have the articles, and see what  articles they
have that you can fill in. Start with a sub, or even a substub. It  is bound
to grow. Let's make sure we have everything they have and more.

Danny


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IBM releases history flow tool

body:
On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 01:59:30 +0100, Erik Zachte <e.p.zachte at chello.nl> wrote:
> > once we confirm that a few thousand people using this to
> > suck out WP histories won't thrash the servers.
>
> The charts are beautiful. yet I think it would be overdone to generate them
> on demand for every article.
> After you've seen a few you've seen them all. They give a general impression
> of how fluid popular and/or contested articles are, but are too crowded for
> detailed analysis.

I don't agree. They could be used to check whether significant
portions of the article have been deleted, to see whether a an article
is basically one person's work or patched up from different authors,
and to faster get a list of the 'main authors' than can be gotten
through the history.

I would thus want this to be available for all articles with certain
properties (more than 3 authors or more than 10 revisions, for
example, or maybe simply all articles), updated if the last request is
more than one week old. It would be even better if we had enough
machines to have a backup of the database (updated weekly) on one or
two machines, which then could be used for information like this,
searching, maintenance page, the more difficult special pages, and
perhaps even direct SQL queries.

Andre Engels


from_name: monk at zoomcon.com

body:
Hello zhengzhu,

Saturday, March 26, 2005, 9:19:32 PM, you wrote:

> You can take a look at LanguageZh.php, which implements most stuff
> related to the Chinese conversion system.
thanks, I'll look at it.

> If the conversion between Cyrillics and Latin is strictly one-to-one,
> then it should be fairly simple to support that, since most related
> code is already written. All we need is probably a mapping table
> between the Cyrillics and the Latin alphabet.
I'll send you private mail.

>  If you can put the table
> somewhere, I can probably implement it and put up a test site fairly
> quickly. But since I have no knowledge with those languages, I can be
> wrong.
Ok. It is great. The only problem is with latin names, interwiki links
and so on. I'm not sure how to handle it. May be converter from
Cyrillics to Latin should put some tags around originally latin
strings; so Latin to Cyrillics converter will know what not to
translate.

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


from_name: Rick

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling,
	porn and other potential hazardous sites"

body:
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia
> regulars being blocked...
>
> Mgm

I hope if they are, that they raise a big stink.  With
newspapers involved.

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 134

body:
JAY JG wrote:
>>From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>>>JAY JG wrote:
>>
>>>>>>Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged
>>>>>>admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them.
>>
>>>>
>>>>HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one.
>
>>Unreachable for anyone who's been blocked.  Without WikiEN-l people
>>could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins.
>
>There's been no evidence of "disappearing" being carried out by "unscupulous
>admins", and in any event controversial blockings can be brought to the
>attention of WikiEN-l, but WikiEN-l is not an investigatory body.

1.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (except in the case
where the observer is omniscient over the system).

2.  WikiEN-l is the starting point for an investigation, and a venue of
recourse for discussing investigations gone wrong.  It is, de facto,
whatever it is at the time people write to it.

3.  Unless a forum is created elsewhere and publicized, it's the only
place blocked users can go, and they can only go there if they happen
across the directions to it, and can manage to understand the subscription
process (which ain't exactly a slam-dunk).

--Blair


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica?

One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50
albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993,
1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004).

Someone send them a copy of "the clutrain manifesto."

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:45:55 +0100, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
>   March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
>
> New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts
> Coverage of People, Science & Changing World
>
> CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles
> spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at
> the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005.
>
> Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial
> number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology
> and computer crime.
>
> There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of
> predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet.
>
> Several notable people receive their own entries for the first time,
> including U.S. Senator John Kerry, novelist and Nobel laureate J.M.
> Coetzee, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and philosopher John Rawls. Socrates is the
> subject of a lengthy new treatment that reflects the latest scholarship
> on the Greek philosopher.
>
> There are fresh, new articles on German literature, the Vietnam War and
> democracy. The cultural impact of the Great Depression is presented in a
> new article by the noted historian Richard Pells.
>
> As they have in recent years, the editors have again revised entries
> related to the evolving post-9/11 world, the fight against terrorism and
> the Iraq war. Articles in other areas, such as eugenics, electronics,
> evolution, Catholicism and the entries on a number of countries have
> undergone substantial revision.
>
> According to editor Dale Hoiberg, the revisions are part of an effort to
> keep the Britannica on the cutting edge of knowledge and world
> developments at a time when the demand for reliable information is
> greater than ever.
>
> "The world is awash in misinformation," said Hoiberg. "We continue to
> revise and improve the encyclopedia because people need a place to go
> for the right answers."
>
> Schools, libraries and universities interested in the 2005 Britannica
> may call (800) 621-3900 or go to www.eb.com. Consumers may call (800)
> 323-1229 or go to www.britannica.com.
>
> Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. has been a leader in reference and
> education publishing since 1768. The company is known for the 32-volume
> Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 26-volume Compton's by Britannica and its
> pioneering work in electronic publishing. Its many digital products
> include Britannica Online School Edition. Recently published printed
> products include My First Britannica, Britannica Discovery Library and
> the Britannica World Atlas. Britannica makes its headquarters in
> Chicago. More information is at http://www.britannica.com.
>
> Contacts
>
> Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
> Tom Panelas, 312-347-7309
> tpanelas at us.britannica.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sj

subject: [Foundation-l] Submit to the Quarto!

body:
Hello all,

The third Wikimedia Quarto is coming out next month, and we need your
input.   Please submit ideas and short (1 paragraph) abstracts to
newsletter--at--wikimedia.org over the coming week.  Or you can start
writing your submission on the draft page on meta:
     http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Draft

Translators:  Please distribute this note to your local projects.  See also
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WQ/2/Release_message

When you submit an abstract, you will get feedback about how long to
make the piece, and for what deadline.  General timeline:
    * Short abstracts of submissions : by Friday, April 1
    * Draft submissions : by Friday, April 8
    * Translations start : April 18

Don't forget to submit memories of Wikipedias past for the special Retro report!
You can see the first two editions of the Quarto on the foundation site:
     http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Quarto

As always, feedback and design ideas are welcome.  If you're
interested in working on production of this and future Quartos, see
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Team

+sj+


subject: [Foundation-l] Submit to the Quarto!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Submit to the Quarto!


subject: [WikiEN-l] International Writing Contest

body:
There is an international writing contest going on on the German,
Dutch, and Polish wikipedias.  In the spirit of international harmony,
I started a sister contest on En: as well.  Please nominate articles
and other content which was created or expanded this month, and which
you think is particularly well-written:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_writing_contest

Cheers,
   SJ


from_name: Matt R

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:220.233.86.223#We_now_have_to_block_Wikipedia

Amusing, but I thought I'd let people know. An anon has claimed, "I am in
charge of 25K plus internet users in Australia and have decided to block the
Wikipedia site through our routers." His reasons include a legal need to
protect his customers from the net (yes, folks, WP is that sinister...).

(The background to this is that this user was blocked a couple of weeks back
for posting a user's personal information and insinuating threats (legal and
otherwise) in a dispute about the [[Potter's House Christian Fellowship]]
article. Presumably sour grapes -- and bluff, in all likelihood.)

Matt
-- [[User:Matt Crypto]]

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions

body:
Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia is
not. They mirror Wikipedia content, and MediaWiki renders these
Commons-based Wikipedia pages in a way that is not in compliance. Is this
not hypocritical? If Wikimedia fixed its software, then Answers.com would be
in compliance.


from_name: Chitu Okoli

body:
Hi Ben,

Thanks so much! That's exactly what I needed.

Regards,
Chitu

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org
Sent: March 25, 2005 9:10 PM
To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 48

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

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:36:03 -0600
From: "Ben Brockert" <ben at mepotelco.net>
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Viewing full wiki source of featured article
	archives
To: a developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <200503251436.AA3224830102 at mail.mepotelco.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

>Could anyone please tell me how to view the wiki source of an
>entire month's archive, rather than article by article?

You'll need to copy those template inclusion lines somewhere else, and put
subst: in front of each.

Like this:
{{subst:Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benjamin Mountfort}}

You could do that in the sandbox, or on a sub page of your user space. After
you've saved it like that, the text will be substituted into the page,
rather than included via the template mechanism.

It makes a very long page, so you should dump it as you get what you need. I
did it in the sandbox for the page you mentiond, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&oldid=11516044

Ben


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Long-term: Wiki import/export format

body:
Problems: The frequently-changing database schema in which the wiki
information is stored makes it difficult to maintain data across
upgrades (requiring conversion scripts), offers no easy backup
functionality, makes it difficult to access the data with other tools,
and is generally fragile.

Proposed solution: Let's create a standardized file format (probably
something XML-ish) for storing the information contained in a wiki.
All the text, revisions, meta-data, and so on would be stored in a
well-defined format, so that, for example, upgrading the wiki software
(from any version to any other--no need to do one at a time!) could
be done by exporting the wiki into this format and then importing it
into the new installation.  The export format would be publishable
and easier to use for other applications, would be a simple file
system for which commonly-available backup tools could be used.  A
periodic export/import would serve to clean the database of any
reference errors and fragmentation.  Tools could be created to work
with the new format to create subsets, mirrors, and so on.

I already have some idea of what is needed, but I solicit input.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


body:
> Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and
> Wikipedia at least includes a link.
>
> Christiaan

I just think you're trying to fix the wrong problem. We're saying "we made
mistakes in the content we made available to you, but if you don't fix them
we're going to slap you with a letter on copyright violation."


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling,
 porn and other potential hazardous sites"

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked...
>
> Mgm

Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites?


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked...

Mgm

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:43:49 +0100 (BST), Matt R
<matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:220.233.86.223#We_now_have_to_block_Wikipedia
>
> Amusing, but I thought I'd let people know. An anon has claimed, "I am in
> charge of 25K plus internet users in Australia and have decided to block the
> Wikipedia site through our routers." His reasons include a legal need to
> protect his customers from the net (yes, folks, WP is that sinister...).
>
> (The background to this is that this user was blocked a couple of weeks back
> for posting a user's personal information and insinuating threats (legal and
> otherwise) in a dispute about the [[Potter's House Christian Fellowship]]
> article. Presumably sour grapes -- and bluff, in all likelihood.)
>
> Matt
> -- [[User:Matt Crypto]]
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Problems: The frequently-changing database schema in which the wiki
> information is stored makes it difficult to maintain data across
> upgrades (requiring conversion scripts), offers no easy backup
> functionality, makes it difficult to access the data with other tools,
> and is generally fragile.
>
> Proposed solution: Let's create a standardized file format (probably
> something XML-ish) for storing the information contained in a wiki.
> All the text, revisions, meta-data, and so on would be stored in a
> well-defined format, so that, for example, upgrading the wiki software
> (from any version to any other--no need to do one at a time!) could
> be done by exporting the wiki into this format and then importing it
> into the new installation.  The export format would be publishable
> and easier to use for other applications, would be a simple file
> system for which commonly-available backup tools could be used.

See Special:Export and Special:Import.

I'd like to transition our public backups to this format at some point.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: GerardM

subject:
[Foundation-l] Positive discrimination related to smaller
	communities and projects

body:
Hoi,
Every now and again, there is this issue that has an impact on
multiple communities. These communities can be in the same project (eg
different languages within Wikipedia), they can be  communities in
different projects (wiktionary / wikiquote) and they can be
communities that do a different thing in (consumers, editors and
developers).

We try to resolve issues by consensus. Sometimes issues are dedided by
power. When a community wants a feature in the Mediawiki software and
there is noone willing to program it, it does not happen. In the
tradition of free software and free content, you can do it yourself or
find / pay someone to do it for you.

When things are to be decided by a vote we start to have another
issue: size. When two distinct communities have opposite views, the
larger community prevails as it is bigger. This leads to situations
that are "democratic". It is also something that leads to
underrepresentation of these smaller projects or is detrimental to the
evolution of the projects. Wikipedia is the biggest of the projects.
English is the biggest community in all of the projects.

Consequently issues with languages like Farsi, Arabic or Hebrew are
not resolved. Positive discrimination of projects like wikibooks or
wikispecies to give them features that serve their need are not or are
not seen to be considered.

I think that given our size as an organisation, we are in a position
to do things specifically for the smaller projects and communities.
This is not democratic but is will boost the potential of these
projects and communities.

As we are in the "business" of providing free information to all, I
think we would further our aims most when, from an organisational
point of view, a disproportional amount of resources were invested in
nurturing the smaller projects and communities.

My question is: is this something we are willing to consider. If we
agree that this is something to consider, what can we do to make this
a reality ??

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
> See Special:Export and Special:Import.
> I'd like to transition our public backups to this format at some point.

A non-standardized undocumented XML format is not really much better
than the database; the purpose of the exercise is standardization, for
now and the long term.  Also, It needs to deal with such issues as
properly recording the context of the data, the user database (with
its attendant privacy issues), standardization of the wiki syntax
itself, and other issues.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

body:
I sent them the following message via
http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp

To whom it concerns,

I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from Wikipedia.org
used on Answers.com

I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on
Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as
crediting authors):
http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images

 From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are
uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than
directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the
relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the
Wikipedia page.

So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was
uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added
directly to its Wikipedia page):
http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg

However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that
matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons
page):
http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08-14.jpg
The info of which you will find by following the link on the page above
to:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08
-14.jpg

This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as
we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not
have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons,
we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in a
technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions.

I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this process
but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this issue at their
end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue at their end,
meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image info from
Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second example above).

I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia
emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me.

Thanks for your time,
Christiaan Briggs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan

On 25 Mar 2005, at 7:22 pm, Anthere wrote:

> Can you gently write them on the topic then ?
>
> Ant
>
>
> Christiaan Briggs a ?crit:
>> That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they
>> achieve that isn't it?
>> Christiaan
>> On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote:
>>> Nod.
>>> This is probably the key of the problem.
>>> Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by
>>> wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has
>>> already been raised many times unfortunately.
>>>
>>> It is certainly an issue to fix in the future.
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ?
>>>
>>> Ant
>>>
>>> Christiaan Briggs a ?crit:
>>>
>>>> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you
>>>> click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to
>>>> Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is
>>>> not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its
>>>> page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is
>>>> simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the
>>>> link to the Commons page).
>>>> At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the
>>>> corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the
>>>> technical issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on
>>>> an image in Wikipedia the description of the image should be on
>>>> that page. A couple of ways of achieving this might be to link
>>>> directly to the image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the
>>>> text from Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there
>>>> are probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine
>>>> we'd be doing it already.
>>>> Christiaan
>>>> Anthere wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no
>>>>> where is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link
>>>>> available.
>>>>>
>>>>> We should mention this to Jimbo
>>>>>
>>>>> Ant
>>>>>
>>>>> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow
>>>>>>> GFDL or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from
>>>>>>> Wikipedia, such as crediting authors:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Christiaan
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't
>>>>>> they following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to
>>>>>> start with?
>>>>>> Mgm


body:
Jack Lutz wrote:

> Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia
> is not. They mirror Wikipedia content, and MediaWiki renders these
> Commons-based Wikipedia pages in a way that is not in compliance. Is
> this not hypocritical? If Wikimedia fixed its software, then
> Answers.com would be in compliance.

Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and
Wikipedia at least includes a link.

Christiaan


body:
Jack Lutz wrote:

> Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia
> is not.

By the way this isn't strictly true. Replace "only" with "partly" and
it would be more accurate.

Christiaan


subject: [Wikitech-l] revision table change in HEAD

body:
revision and text now use separate row ID numbers in HEAD. A revision
row refers to text.old_id with its rev_text_id key; this allows text
revisions to be stored independently of a given revision.

* Operations that change only metadata can be put in the page history
without storing a new text record. I've done this for page move as a
start. (It might be good to also add a marker field for metadata-only
changes so they can be shown distinctly in the history.)

* In theory, reverts could do the same, referring to the prior text
record without saving a new copy.

* The storage backend can number text objects using its own scheme; if
necessary text object IDs can be reassigned during batch recompression.

If you're running a 1.5 test wiki, you'll have to run the update.php to
add the field. (Manually, maintenance/archive/patch-rev_text_id.sql)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>>See Special:Export and Special:Import.
>>I'd like to transition our public backups to this format at some point.
>
> A non-standardized undocumented XML format is not really much better
> than the database; the purpose of the exercise is standardization, for
> now and the long term.

Well in the meantime, we've got actual work to do, data to move, and a
format already in use for it. It's even got an XML schema definition. ;)
http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.1.xsd

(Semantic web my ass! XML is meaningless; just a container format. :P)

> Also, It needs to deal with such issues as
> properly recording the context of the data, the user database (with
> its attendant privacy issues),

That might be needed in addition, perhaps, but does not supercede the
existing requirements to shuffle page and revision data around.

 > standardization of the wiki syntax
> itself, and other issues.

Now, that's a whole nother issue...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

body:
Anthere wrote:
> * or we agree that no local projects should be submitted to the
> editorial choices made by other projects and redirections between
> projects should be cancelled
> * or we find a filtering solution, so that certain images not welcome to
> other projects may not be redirected.

I'm not sure of the technical solution which will be best, but I think
it is clear that editorial standards may very well properly vary to an
extent in different languages.  The simplest possible example that
doesn't give rise to questions about "censorship" is that already we
have different standards on "fair use" for different languages,
standards which vary based on the laws of countries which speak those
languages.

> In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be
> the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the
> multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a
> viable solution for all of us.

The thing we want to avoid is giving a "green light" to excessive
sensitivity to local cultures in a way that conflicts with our NPOV
policy.  I don't personally think this is a big risk, but it does
merit our consideration of course.

--Jimbo


from_name: Kate Turner

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling,
	porn and other potential hazardous sites"

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english:

> Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites?

http://news.com.com/Utah+governor+signs+Net-porn+bill/2100-1028_3-5629067.html?tag=nefd.top

kate.


body:
GerardM wrote:
> As part of the Wikidata implementation we will have a shot at
> importing and exporting data using formats like XML. There are already
> some people interesting in helping out with this. Exporting the
> current wiki data in XML could be part of that effort, It would be a
> good thing to combine things as we propably do not want to publish XML
> in too many ways,

XML by itself doesn't provide any structure. What sort of XML schema is
used on WikiData's import/export or which method you use to pull the old
freeform text entries in the first place are relatively minor details;
the hard part is making structure out of the text, and there's not
really a good generation solution. That's going to be very specific to
the task (converting Wiktionary to a structured database).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Jack Lutz wrote:

>> Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and
>> Wikipedia at least includes a link.
>>
>> Christiaan
>
> I just think you're trying to fix the wrong problem. We're saying "we
> made mistakes in the content we made available to you, but if you
> don't fix them we're going to slap you with a letter on copyright
> violation."

Um, no, that's not what I said to them at all.

Christiaan


from_name: Amgine

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Positive discrimination related to smaller
	communities and projects

body:
In wikinews there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the
unresponsiveness of the mediawiki team to issues considered critical to
the project. This has now become a discussion regarding a fork of both
hardware and software, and contributors are actively working toward
doing so. I don't think this is the best choice, but it is beginning to
look like the only choice.

Amgine


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call on
> all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.

Simple. Let's get rid of interwiki redirects altogether. They have *always*
been more trouble than they are worth due to transporting readers to another
wiki without any obvious way for them to know, nor any obvious way to revert
the redirect.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/


from_name: Nathan Russell

body:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 21:43:18 +0100, Pete/Pcb21
<pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> > I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked...
> >
> > Mgm
>
> Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites?

Only the ones that want to get bad publicity and go out of business.
If this anon is in a position to block a site as common as Wikipedia,
he needs to think about whether he is more valuable to his employer
than the customers are.

Pak


body:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:41:51 +0100, Kate Turner
<keturner at livejournal.com> wrote:
> Pete/Pcb21 wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english:
>
> > Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites?
>
> http://news.com.com/Utah+governor+signs+Net-porn+bill/2100-1028_3-5629067.html?tag=nefd.top
>
> kate.

I think the proper question is "do ISPs really block gampling, porn,
etc sites because those sites annoyed an employee."

This is not likely to become an issue for anyone, ever.  The anon is
bluffing.  Did we worry for the community when Michael started talking
about killing sysops, or when Khranus said he was going to put a lot
of money into setting up a competing site?

Pakaran


subject:
National chapters (was Re: [Foundation-l] UK Wikimedia Foundation
	notes)

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Things to watch out for: local foundations being used for nationalist
> POV-pushing.

This is one of the reasons it is so important to work very hard from
the start to make sure that chapter organizers understand that they
are not taking control of a particular language wikipedia.

Chapters are going to be a major part of what we're doing going
forward, and we have to be *extremely* careful *now* to make wise
decisions that lead to global harmony rather than nationalist rivalry.

For example, support *through* local chapters for servers is a great
idea, but it is *not* a great idea if we get into a situation where we
are supporting different languages differently based on the political
situation internally due to some chapters raising more money than
others, etc.

All chapters are expected to support the *global* goals of the
foundation.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Long-term: Wiki import/export format

body:
> > (Semantic web my ass! XML is meaningless; just a container format. :P)
>
> As long as you try to derive the XML from the current wiki markup, it is
> surely meaningless because it is layout driven.  Let us use a well
> defined schema and you will get the semantic web for free.
>
> As people add "categories" we could also add semantic markup step by
> step.

I don't think we should muck with the wikitext itself; that should
simply be a piece of string data, perhaps in a CDATA section, and
the semantics inside that is a matter for another standard entirely.
I do, however, want to make sure that the format is extensible in
being able to add new kinds of metadata without breaking anything.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


body:
On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 17:51 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> It sounds so easy.  But would you accept this procedure if it requires
> that Wikipedia is unavailable or read-only for one hour? for one day?
> for one week?  The conversion time should be a design requirement.
> ...
> Not converting the database is the fastest way to cut conversion time.
> Perhaps you can live with the legacy format?  Consider it.

A properly written export shouldn't need to have exclusive access to the
database at all.  The only thing that would need that is a complete
reinstall and import, which is only one application of the format and
should be needed very rarely (switching to a wholly new hardware or
software base, for example).  In those few cases (maybe once every few
years or so), Wikipedia being uneditable for a few days would not be
such a terrible thing--better than it being down completely because the
servers are overwhelmed.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] german wikiquotes

body:
Aphaia wrote:

>Well we Japanese Wikiquotians have the same problem; no cite without
>context is legally allowed.
>
>On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 09:45:30 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Any suggestion to help on the topic ?
>>
>>
>If de.wp would like to have those quotes  survive, in my opinion, give
>them context; describe how those quotes would be esteemed, in what
>context they have been quoted, what context they had originally, and
>so on and so on.
>
>Perhaps they woudl get a sort of commentary and then the problem is if
>it would be what they want to have (personally I don't like it -I
>prefer a reciprocity of quotation with minimum commentary and that is
>one of reason Japanese Wikiquote hasn't chosen this way).
>
What EXACTLY does the law in these countries say?  Are there any
references to how the courts in these countries have interpreted such
laws? Someone said that books of famous quotations are sold in Germany.
How could that be in a country with such a strict law about quotations?

Laws may very well restrict our activities, but there should be no
obligation to interpret them in the most restrictive way.  When a
particular law gives a ridiculous result, that is the time to see if
there are legal arguments available for interpretations that are more
favorable.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] german wikiquotes


body:
On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 11:05 -0500, Edward Z. Yang wrote:

> Surely there are other features one could be working on.
> Although I'm not saying that any feature that won't be used
> in the Wikipedia project is useless, I think that we should
> definitely prioritize.

Fortunately we have Brion for that :-)  Seriously, though,
different people have different talents and concerns, and not
everyone is best used in the same way.  There are lots of
programmers and sysadmins better better than me who can keep
things running, but I've always had my eye on the long term.
A project like ours needs vision as much as it needs code.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


body:
On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 19:51 +0300, Yaroslav Fedevych wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2005 at 06:12:10PM +0200, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> >
> > Of course, you must use a database system designed for holding XML data
> > ;)  If we start using XML properly we can give up on many a lot hacks.
> > We will also save resources because the set of allowed tags is limited
> > and their usage is well-defined :)
> >
>
> BTW, I hate to type articles in XML, it sucks for that purpose badly.
> Structured text is the thing to go for, but XML... Arrrrgggghhh!!!!

Believe me, no one is suggesting such an evil thing. Wikitext syntax
is too complex already--it needs to be simplified, not made worse.
We're talking about under-the-hood functionality here, not user
interface.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
It really depends on the Wikipedia.

If you go on en: to "Langue fran?aise" it is very likely you would
like the French article on the topic. However, even in this case a
redirect may not be suitable.

In the case of, for example, nn: and no:, and in the case of user
pages, it is sometimes a useful feature.

Mark

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:34:01 +0200 (MEST), Alfio Puglisi
<puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >Simple. Let's get rid of interwiki redirects altogether. They have *always*
> >been more trouble than they are worth due to transporting readers to another
> >wiki without any obvious way for them to know, nor any obvious way to revert
> >the redirect.
>
> I must confess that I didn't even know that interwiki redirects were
> possible. Are they actually used for some purpose?
>
> Alfio
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
Anthere wrote:

> When editors start to complain noisily over and over and over that the
> pornographic pictures of the english wikipedia are spilling over their
> project, then there is a problem. And I think it is normal that I
> report it, because I think it is understandable that people are upset
> and ask that a solution is brought.
>
> Add that this is done by a bot and at high speed, and add that it is
> NOT easy to revert a redirect to another project, and you have the
> seed of a crisis boiling.
>
> When porn images were linked many times in the english project, due to
> vandalism, it resulted in some solution being proposed : no direct
> linking allowed (granted, there was also the issue of the copyright).
>
> When wrong images are uploaded at high speed by anonymous editor, the
> solution is to allow image upload only to log-in editors.
>
> These two solutions do not allow to entirely prevent vandalism, but
> they allow to slow down the speed of it.
>
> Now, we have several projects, such as the french, the dutch, the
> spanish ones, which are victims of vandalism spree by a bot, which
> redirect pages to the english pornography. It is a vandalism difficult
> to revert. It is time consuming. And it is very upsetting to editors.
>
> The question is "is it okay that several editors spent several hours
> running to remove pornographic images from other editors talk page or
> their main page ?"; Is it the best way to use people time ? what value
> do you give to people time when they spent 1 hour cleaning up the mess
> of a 5mn bot ?
>
> Dunno, but when editors leave me a spanish desperate message on my
> talk page, when I see calls on the french pump to go for deletion of
> the english image, I just think there IS a problem.
>
> I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call
> on all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.

The big risk when dealing with these problematic infantile behaviours is
to have a solution that is worse than the problems.  Some people like
the feature of hiding edits by bots from Recent Changes, but that
creates a drift away from the acceptance of a collective responsibility
for dealing with vandalism.

Those of us who have been around for a while realize that this kind of
vandalism is an unfortunate fact of life.  Some of these people who
complain the loudest also need to accept a degree of responsibility for
dealing with the problem to whatever extent their technical access permits.

The other side of the technical solution approach is that most such
solutions also restrict the activities of many more well-intentioned
users.  When there is garbage on a street of the community the fastest
way to get rid of it is not by standing around and complaining to the
government, but by the people themselves going out to clean the garbage
themselves.  If someone picks up the scrap of paper that he finds on the
street and puts it into the trash that little problem is over.  If,
instead, he reports it to the authorities they will generate another 20
pieces of scrap paper to make sure that everyone is informed about the
problem

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
Agreed.  Make an interwiki redirect say "the page you want is [here]"
without automatic redirection.  It's needed almost never, save when
trying to play with a visitor's mind.

SJ

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 06:53:47 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call on
> > all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.
>
> Simple. Let's get rid of interwiki redirects altogether. They have *always*
> been more trouble than they are worth due to transporting readers to another
> wiki without any obvious way for them to know, nor any obvious way to revert
> the redirect.
>
> -- mav
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


from_name: Adam Julius Angel

subject: [Wikitech-l] create an article with this title ?

body:
Hello, i need some help please ....
how to edit the search result page into the same one like the org. wiki
search result page
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=search&go=Go)
with google search and especially create an article with this title or ..... ?

thank you,
adam


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
>
>>Proposed solution: Let's create a standardized file format (probably
>>something XML-ish) for storing the information contained in a wiki.
>>All the text, revisions, meta-data, and so on would be stored in a
>>well-defined format, so that, for example, upgrading the wiki software
>>(from any version to any other--no need to do one at a time!) could
>>be done by exporting the wiki into this format and then importing it
>>into the new installation.  The export format would be publishable
>>
>>
>
>It sounds so easy.  But would you accept this procedure if it requires
>that Wikipedia is unavailable or read-only for one hour? for one day?
>for one week?  The conversion time should be a design requirement.
>
Of course we've had unplanned downtime that has lasted for more than an
hour.  Then too en:wikipedia has so far resisted converting to Unicode. :-)

Ec


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind
	recent	developments such as SARS and nanotechnology

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica?
>
>One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50
>albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993,
>1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004).
>
Well, I'm sure in 1987 they wrote a stub, but then it was posted
on EB's equivalent of VfD as "not significant, only one Grammy".
Next year it would have been "nobody really cares about the cello"
and deleted again, then the third re-creation would have been
speedy-deleted with "obvious nonsense, name was clearly made up
by a troll".

So you see, they're just being extra careful to make sure that
someone is *truly* significant before including them.

Alternate theory: one has to have a source, right? So they waited
for the TV movie to come out, so they could use it as reference,
instead of that unreliable WP.

:-)

Stan


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Yaroslav Fedevych wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2005 at 05:51:20PM +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> What about having it (*not* necessarily XML) as an option and being
> customizable? Not every Mediawiki-powered site is that large and some
> of them in fact may require something like that.

Surely there are other features one could be working on. Although I'm
not saying that any feature that won't be used in the Wikipedia project
is useless, I think that we should definitely prioritize.

My two cents.

- --
Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Why are sr:, hr: and bs: still separate wikis, despite the languages being
> barely different than British and American? (And Cantonese still hasn't got
> a wiki ...)
>
> (I can guess the answers: they're called separate languages for obvious
> local political reasons, and the participants have no interest in merging
> them.)

I think it's a bit worse than that on our part.  I think it just
happened by accident historically, and they have all continued forward
in a state of general neglect.  I would strongly support a merger of
these to whatever extent is practical.  (There is a problem of script
for 2 of the 3, as I recall, and I don't know how if there's a simple
machine solution.)

--Jimbo


body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 11:05 -0500, Edward Z. Yang wrote:
>
>
>>Surely there are other features one could be working on.
>>Although I'm not saying that any feature that won't be used
>>in the Wikipedia project is useless, I think that we should
>>definitely prioritize.
>>
>>
>Fortunately we have Brion for that :-)  Seriously, though,
>different people have different talents and concerns, and not
>everyone is best used in the same way.  There are lots of
>programmers and sysadmins better better than me who can keep
>things running, but I've always had my eye on the long term.
>A project like ours needs vision as much as it needs code.
>
For the luddites among us the ways of the developers are mysterious.
Brion has always been quick to answer technical concerns, even if it's
just to say, "Your idea is impossible."  A luddite needs to accept such
an answer when faced with the even less desirable alternative of
learning something.  Brion communicates well, but when he is the only
one doing it one quickly gets the misimpression that we have a one-man
development staff.  Communication with the masses is important, and if
there were more doing it perhaps the suggestion of a fork that has come
from Wikinews would not be happening.

There has been much talk about XML, but it would be sheer pretence to
suggest that I understand.any of it.  Nevertheless I will presume to
speak as democratically unelected representative of the luddites.  Many
of us are happy to carry on with our familiar wiki markup and feel a
great sense of unease with the kind of rampant innovationism that has
recently been characterized by the use of templates.  The question that
this boils down to is, "How will adopting XML affect the average user?"

Ec


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

body:
(English) Wikinews suffers from three main problems that are related
to the software we use.

1) MediaWiki is not a good CMS, in the traditional sense -- it does
not easily support workflows, and depends on humans to adhere to a
well-defined process.
2) MediaWiki does not support RSS feeds. Today's news junkies depend
on RSS to read their news: our ability offer them these feeds is near
zero.
3) MediaWiki does not support dynamic listing. If I tag a news story
as Category:Canada and Category:Elections, there is no way currently
for the system to automatically publish this list to a dated list of
stories about Canada, or Elections, or Elections in Canada. In other
words, MediaWiki doesn't allow for server-side views on data that are
unions of categories.

The combination of these three factors to varying degrees has a
profound effect on our ability to scale.

 -Not having a CMS, we have to teach every user how to follow our
process -- losing quite a bit of time on the effort.
- Not having configurable, high-quality RSS feeds means that bloggers
and news pundits won't readily access our content.
- Not having dynamic lists means that for every story that we write,
we have to edit at _least_ five other pages -- or as many as 20. This
leads us to lose a significant amount of time and effort, or delivers
inconsistent results if not everyone follows the process, or delivers
an incomplete news site if we follow a simpler process.

Wikinews and our current active contributors have shown that we can
put together about 20 stories a day on a somewhat sustained basis. I
think that we are very near our limit, however, and that further
growth is unsustainable, due to the limitations of the software.
Unlike Wikipedia where you can edit a story and have someone link to
it tomorrow, or three weeks from now, on Wikinews all the links have
to be in place at the right time -- or face irrelevance.

There are other need-to-have features, of course -- but these are the
ones that will likely determine the survival and growth of the project
in the long-term, and ones that are serious enough changes from the
current state of MediaWiki to warrant this discussion.

We have made strides in resolving this. Bugzilla bug# 1411 has had an
extension implemented that will partially solve our Dynamic List
problem, but was shot down by developers as unacceptable (though I
suspect it's quite acceptable to a smaller site like Wikinews, even if
unacceptable to a large site like en.wikipedia). We have tried putting
together external RSS feeds, but with only limited success.

I am ready to make a more detailed proposal regarding the specific
work that needs to get done, but I am glad that Gerard started the
discussion in the meanwhile. Wikinews (and probably other projects)
needs certain software changes to grow. In the current environment,
there is a catch-22 -- we have to grow big enough to be important to
developers to have big changes made to the software, but we need these
changes made to grow. Not all of these changes are even useful in
Wikipedia. Not all of these changes _should_ or _could_ even be used
in Wikipedia.

Amgine brought up hardware or software forking. The discussions (held
mainly informally, on IRC) focused on perhaps donating hardware to the
Foundation to run Wikinews on separate servers at the current
datacenter: allowing us to experiment in ways that the current
development and release process might not be happy with.  The software
discussion, likewise, faced the fact that we either have to have
someone on our team become a core developer, or we have to find
alternate software on which to run Wikinews -- or get enough support
from the Foundation to make the changes we need.

Sorry to be so verbose, but I want to chime in to explain our state of
things more fully.

-ilya
 (n:User:IlyaHaykinson)

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:55:37 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Amgine a ?crit:
> > In wikinews there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the
> > unresponsiveness of the mediawiki team to issues considered critical to
> > the project. This has now become a discussion regarding a fork of both
> > hardware and software, and contributors are actively working toward
> > doing so. I don't think this is the best choice, but it is beginning to
> > look like the only choice.
> >
> > Amgine
>
> I do not think finding hardware to host a project this size would be
> very problematic in the short run, but who would take care of it ? And
> mostly, if you think the current team is unresponsive to current
> wikinews software needs, who do you think will take care of modifying
> the MediaWiki software outside of the current team ? Is it perceived it
> would be more efficient to have a software fork or even to use another
> software ?
>
> Incidently, though I often heard of some software features for the
> wiktionary and species project, which features are necessary to wikinews
> and where has this been discussed ?
>
> Ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> David wrote:
>
>> There are some en:Wikipedia: space pages that are now redirects to the
>> equivalent on meta: . That's all I can think of.
>
> I confess I have in the distant past used the feature for both cases
> you two describe. However I came to realize that the downsides
> outweigh the ups (even without this annoying new trend in vandalism),
> and strongly support turning off the feature.
>
> Minimal "soft redirects" that say "this page is now on meta", or
> "please see my user page on en" are definitely to be prefered.

I admit to my own sense of annoyance when I want to see what an
otherwise unknown and perhaps questionable user is up to on Wiktionary
or Wikisource, and I'm redirected to another project.  I can find a
workaround to see his list of edits in the project that concerns me, but
it's still annoying.

I don't mind posting to his user page on the other project, but if I'm
asking a question that affects Wiktionary I would prefer for his
response to me to be on Wiktionary.

Ec


from_name: Jason Trickey

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn
	and other potential hazardous sites"

body:
>MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
>>I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked...
>>Mgm
>
>Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites?

In Australia, it's both a yes and a no.

See here, http://libertus.net/censor/netcensor.html

He sounds like nothing more than a disgruntled user with an axe to grind.
My access to Wikipedia is fine, and yes, I'd be making noise if it ever
went away.

Cheers,

-j


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
Or a better analogy I think, is asking the authorities to ban paper.
Without paper, there can be no scrap paper!

Mark

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:13:59 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> > When editors start to complain noisily over and over and over that the
> > pornographic pictures of the english wikipedia are spilling over their
> > project, then there is a problem. And I think it is normal that I
> > report it, because I think it is understandable that people are upset
> > and ask that a solution is brought.
> >
> > Add that this is done by a bot and at high speed, and add that it is
> > NOT easy to revert a redirect to another project, and you have the
> > seed of a crisis boiling.
> >
> > When porn images were linked many times in the english project, due to
> > vandalism, it resulted in some solution being proposed : no direct
> > linking allowed (granted, there was also the issue of the copyright).
> >
> > When wrong images are uploaded at high speed by anonymous editor, the
> > solution is to allow image upload only to log-in editors.
> >
> > These two solutions do not allow to entirely prevent vandalism, but
> > they allow to slow down the speed of it.
> >
> > Now, we have several projects, such as the french, the dutch, the
> > spanish ones, which are victims of vandalism spree by a bot, which
> > redirect pages to the english pornography. It is a vandalism difficult
> > to revert. It is time consuming. And it is very upsetting to editors.
> >
> > The question is "is it okay that several editors spent several hours
> > running to remove pornographic images from other editors talk page or
> > their main page ?"; Is it the best way to use people time ? what value
> > do you give to people time when they spent 1 hour cleaning up the mess
> > of a 5mn bot ?
> >
> > Dunno, but when editors leave me a spanish desperate message on my
> > talk page, when I see calls on the french pump to go for deletion of
> > the english image, I just think there IS a problem.
> >
> > I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call
> > on all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.
>
> The big risk when dealing with these problematic infantile behaviours is
> to have a solution that is worse than the problems.  Some people like
> the feature of hiding edits by bots from Recent Changes, but that
> creates a drift away from the acceptance of a collective responsibility
> for dealing with vandalism.
>
> Those of us who have been around for a while realize that this kind of
> vandalism is an unfortunate fact of life.  Some of these people who
> complain the loudest also need to accept a degree of responsibility for
> dealing with the problem to whatever extent their technical access permits.
>
> The other side of the technical solution approach is that most such
> solutions also restrict the activities of many more well-intentioned
> users.  When there is garbage on a street of the community the fastest
> way to get rid of it is not by standing around and complaining to the
> government, but by the people themselves going out to clean the garbage
> themselves.  If someone picks up the scrap of paper that he finds on the
> street and puts it into the trash that little problem is over.  If,
> instead, he reports it to the authorities they will generate another 20
> pieces of scrap paper to make sure that everyone is informed about the
> problem
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years
	behind	recent	developments such as SARS and nanotechnology

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
>> Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica?
>>
>> One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50
>> albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993,
>> 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004).
>
> Well, I'm sure in 1987 they wrote a stub, but then it was posted
> on EB's equivalent of VfD as "not significant, only one Grammy".
> Next year it would have been "nobody really cares about the cello"
> and deleted again, then the third re-creation would have been
> speedy-deleted with "obvious nonsense, name was clearly made up
> by a troll".

If in their youth they had understood the "Power of Yo" as described by
the Smothers Brothers they would not have made this error.

Ec


from_name: David Benbennick

body:
It seems to me that answers.com doesn't even obey the license
conditions for non-Commons images.  For example, using
[http://www.answers.com/topic/erf-png] requires attribution to
[[:en:User:Cyp]], which is absent.  (It would have sufficed to include
the "File history" section from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Erf.png].)

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:32:18 +0100, Christiaan Briggs
<christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are
> uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than
> directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the
> relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the
> Wikipedia page.


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050329 02:15]:
>
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Things to watch out for: local foundations being used for nationalist
>>>POV-pushing.
>>>
>>>
>>This is one of the reasons it is so important to work very hard from
>>the start to make sure that chapter organizers understand that they
>>are not taking control of a particular language wikipedia.
>>
>>
>One that springs to mind: ownership of essential servers would need to stay
>with the central Foundation, not with local chapters.
>
The key thing in that is what we mean by "essential".  The argument for
servers and organizations in other countries has nothing to language.  I
do not support for a moment the idea that Canada, or Belgium or
Switzerland ahould have separate legal organizations.  Tax relief and
risk management are certainly more important issues.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

body:
I would like to raise a little issue.

It is currently possible to do redirection from all projects to one
project image.

I'll give you a nice example.

Imagine you connect yourself to wikipedia, and get a bright orange
message "You have a message".

You click on it... and find yourself facing the autofellatio image.

You would love to vote for its deletion (you do not support such an
image on your project), but unfortunately, the image is on another
wikipedia, where maybe you do not have an account, and actually you have
no idea if this image is welcome or not welcome on the other pedia and
actually you may not even have the right to vote for its deletion.

If you are lucky enough, you quickly find the way to cancel the
redirect. Maybe not.

-------

Many months ago, we made it impossible to link to external images,
because we were fighting to avoid the goatse.

Now, several wikipedias are dirtied by the pornographic images available
on the english wikipedia.

So, I suggest that
* either we all agree to share common images, since they can impact us
and in this case, I would like that a common vote is held to decide the
deletion of this image from the english wikipedia
* or we agree that no local projects should be submitted to the
editorial choices made by other projects and redirections between
projects should be cancelled
* or we find a filtering solution, so that certain images not welcome to
other projects may not be redirected.

In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be
the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the
multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a
viable solution for all of us.

Ant


body:
Hoi,
As part of the Wikidata implementation we will have a shot at
importing and exporting data using formats like XML. There are already
some people interesting in helping out with this. Exporting the
current wiki data in XML could be part of that effort, It would be a
good thing to combine things as we propably do not want to publish XML
in too many ways,

Thanks,
    GerardM

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:53:33 -0800, Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> wrote:
> Problems: The frequently-changing database schema in which the wiki
> information is stored makes it difficult to maintain data across
> upgrades (requiring conversion scripts), offers no easy backup
> functionality, makes it difficult to access the data with other tools,
> and is generally fragile.
>
> Proposed solution: Let's create a standardized file format (probably
> something XML-ish) for storing the information contained in a wiki.
> All the text, revisions, meta-data, and so on would be stored in a
> well-defined format, so that, for example, upgrading the wiki software
> (from any version to any other--no need to do one at a time!) could
> be done by exporting the wiki into this format and then importing it
> into the new installation.  The export format would be publishable
> and easier to use for other applications, would be a simple file
> system for which commonly-available backup tools could be used.  A
> periodic export/import would serve to clean the database of any
> reference errors and fragmentation.  Tools could be created to work
> with the new format to create subsets, mirrors, and so on.
>
> I already have some idea of what is needed, but I solicit input.
>
> --
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
> <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Do we have a partnership with Ourmedia?

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/03/ourmedia_offers.html
>
> A story on the Podcasting News website describes Wikipedia as one of the
> "partners in the effort" to launch the Ourmedia project. Is this true? I
> realize that Angela is one of their advisors, but I hadn't heard that
> there was any kind of official partnership. Is there some kind of
> ongoing discussion that the community doesn't know about, or are people
> just being sloppy about the nature of the connection?

I complained very strongly to them about it before they launched their
site publicly, and so I really don't know what else to say about it.
It is not my style to speak ill of people, so I think I'll just say
nothing at all.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Autofellatio

body:
--- Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> I must confess that I didn't even know that interwiki redirects were
> possible. Are they actually used for some purpose?

IIRC, that feature was created as a hack by Brion that never was polished into
a proper feature. This was during a big push to move Sep11 biographies of
non-notable people who died in that event to the Sep11wiki. Interwiki redirects
were created so as to not break links from search engines and other websites.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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from_name: Karl Eichwalder

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

> really a good generation solution. That's going to be very specific to
> the task (converting Wiktionary to a structured database).

The obvious choice for wiktionary would be trimmed version of the TEI
dictionary module.  The resulting XML you could store in a database
system like idzebra (indexdata.dk).

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

body:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:54:17 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be
> the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the
> multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a
> viable solution for all of us.

It IS the choice of the project. If you don't want the image on your
project, don't add a link to it. And yes, people can add the link
again, but then, they can upload the image again too, or re-insert a
copyright violation, or whatever. I don't see the problem.

Andre Engels


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

> (Semantic web my ass! XML is meaningless; just a container format. :P)

As long as you try to derive the XML from the current wiki markup, it is
surely meaningless because it is layout driven.  Let us use a well
defined schema and you will get the semantic web for free.

As people add "categories" we could also add semantic markup step by
step.

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C