subject: [WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

body:
On 2/27/07, T P <t0m0p0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> topic to the audience.  People look up articles in an encyclopedia because
> they are already interested in the subject, it's not like a magazine where
> you come across the topic randomly.

Bulldust.

Steve


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

body:
On 2/28/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) Needs a citation
> 2) Would be nice if it had a citation
> 3) Doesn't need a citation.
>
> Remove all of #1 that lacks a citation.

Rather than remove it, can't we just step up our highlighting of
uncited material? I, as a reader, would rather see "The late[1] John
Smith was a member of the Nazi party." with a big red underline or
something indicating that it lacks a source, than not see it at all.

Steve
[1] For living people we should still err on the side of not defaming them.


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot edit rates

references:
<445562e00702191954vd25b5cetb23c303addcf8073@mail.gmail.com>
	<6faf39c90702211055w381e93f4pa8f55dcdc84a38bc@mail.gmail.com>
	<eri7c8$t6d$1@sea.gmane.org> <ern1iu$mpr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<7c2a12e20702231042l7bb31e9bs3926850788e0dc22@mail.gmail.com>
	<erqptf$n0k$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<6faf39c90702242333w3aa9e585h3ec62a299ebd98fc@mail.gmail.com>
	<errsio$19a$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<6faf39c90702250353pecbc6dybe9ff81af9b5814b@mail.gmail.com>
	<00fc01c75966$46e88bd0$6401a8c0@TitoLap>

body:
On 2/26/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> From my experience, for every ten Special:Contributions requests made, eight
> or nine are just to find out the raw edit count, and the rest are used to
> find namespace distributions, edit summary and minor edit usage. So,
> displaying user_editcount on Special:Contributions will cause scrape
> requests to take a substantial hit...

Sounds like there is a major desire to see some edit count stats. How
about a special page, "Special:Editstats" that would just show the
edit count, and in some future incarnation, could show all the other
stats that people are obviously clamoring for?

Incidentally, I tend to hit Special:Contributions quite a lot ? it's
sort of my "home page" on WP. It's where I go first, and where I
return to most frequently, to see if anything has happened to any of
the pages I edited most recently. If it's such a heavy drain on
resources, perhaps I should reconsider my behaviour.

Steve


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
John Lee wrote:

>And as for the latest Paris
>fashions, we have an article for every year of the Oscars - why not an
>article for every year of a Paris fashion show, as long as the sources are
>there?
>
Absolutely.  I personally make a point of being fashion unconscious, but
I know that there are others that are interested in such things.  An
article or articles that chronical these annual changes could serve very
well in helping to understand how the fashion industry works.  How do
they manage in their marketting strategies to convince people to pay
outrageous prices for new clothes when the old ones are still perfectly
wearable.

Imagine an open source fashion industry!  Anybody could have original
designer clothing by building drawings on a web site.  The drawings are
interpreted by someone who can sew, and the finished product is sent to
you within a few days. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Works cited in Wikipedia

body:
On 2/28/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not quite that simple. If there are a standard set of references on
> Pokemon once you have used them on one article you can probably use
> them on all the others.

Yeah, and there is nothing wrong inherently wrong with this. But
either of two things can happen:
* The references are added by hand each time, meaning each article has
slightly different references, or the same ones cited differently, for
no apparent reason.
* The references are put in a template which is used on every article,
whether or not any information from a specific source was actually
used on the article.

We still lack decent tools for referencing.

Steve


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tim Noah addresses the notion of notability
 in	another Slate article

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> There are a couple of things that I think can be be done to address
> in a positive way the concerns raised in Tim Noah's articles:
>
> (1) Develop better, more comprehensive notability standards for more
> topics.

I'll refrain from responding to the entirety of your otherwise good
ideas, but this, in particular, comes with some rather large opposition.
  There is a strong group who would prefer a one-size-fits-all
"notability" guideline with lots of exceptions, instead of clear,
subject-specific ones.  We need more subject-specific "notability"
guidelines if we're going to rely on "notability" for inclusion, but
it's not going to be easy.

-Jeff


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Jeff Raymond wrote:
> Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>
>> (1) Develop better, more comprehensive notability standards for more
>> topics.
>>
>
> I'll refrain from responding to the entirety of your otherwise good
> ideas, but this, in particular, comes with some rather large opposition.
>   There is a strong group who would prefer a one-size-fits-all
> "notability" guideline with lots of exceptions, instead of clear,
> subject-specific ones.  We need more subject-specific "notability"
> guidelines if we're going to rely on "notability" for inclusion, but
> it's not going to be easy.
>

Aside from the opposing camps, isn't there also some inherent mismatch
between universal notability and context-specific notability?

I think of notability as a container of a certain size, roughly the size
of one ideal human's head. Anything that's universally notable is
something that is worthy of being noted by one optimally bright and
broadly interested person.

But as soon as you go for context-specific guidelines, you change focus.
If one ideal human were to focus on discipline X, how much would be
worthy of their attention then? With a container of the same size and a
smaller topic, more will inevitably fit. The number of notable academics
is larger than the number of notable people who happen to be academics.
The number of notable buildings in the world is much smaller than the
sum of notable buildings in each notable locale.

So wouldn't every new subject-specific guideline be inevitably seen by
one-size-fits-all types as another lowering of the standard, a breach
through which ten thousand non-notable items will flow?

Curiously,

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Expert: Wikipedia Won't Go Away,
 So Learn How to Use It

body:
Frederick "FN" Noronha wrote:

>Mark, very interesting comments. Just out of curiosity -- are you an
>information scientist, librarian, academic, or none of the above? :-)
>FN
>
>PS: I don't mean to be poking fun. Just curious to know how different
>segments would see this issue. BTW, I'm a journalist, in India (Goa).
>
>On 27/02/07, Delirium wrote:
>
>
>>It certainly
>>isn't how I, or anyone else I know, uses or would recommend using
>>Wikipedia. You resort to a paid professional *after* Wikipedia, not
>>*before*.  Wikipedia is particularly good as a first glance, giving you
>>search terms you might not have heard of, pointeres to other related
>>topics, and in good articles an overview of the subject.  And I'd argue
>>that unless people know what they're doing, a search of LexisNexis or
>>ProQuest (or Google Scholar) is likely to be much worse than browsing
>>the Wikipedia article as a first resource.  A good Wikipedia article
>>puts all these sources in context, and so is infinitely better than the
>>raw listing of sources as a first reference.  These databases are giant
>>archives of primary sources, *not* generally reviewed, interrelated, or
>>usefully commented upon.  Honestly this part, especially with its focus
>>on paid professionals and pay-access archives, strikes me as a bit of
>>turf defense.
>>
A lot too depends on how central the Wikipedia information is to your
central thesis.  Thus if you are writing about the 20th century
literature in Portuguese India, the Wikipedia article may be an adequate
one for establishing the historical background.

Mark's point is well taken.  Not everyone is suited to detailed
methodical research, and interpretation of raw information.  The maxim
that because you pay for something it must be of better quality is
fallacious.  Perhaps they only magnify the false sense of security.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tim Noah addresses the notion of notability in
	another Slate article

body:
On 2/27/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> *Not my intent, but also not my concern. I continue to believe that
> Wikipedia should stop putting on airs about legitimacy

We do what?

>and repeal its notability standard.

Well, yes. We have to do something. Our current approach to notability
is pretty much what you would get if you asked a committee to come up
with 5 suggestions and chose the worst one.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Presentation to readers

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 27/02/07, darthvader1219 at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>>On 2/26/07, William Pietri wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Another possibility that occurs to me. Could we do a little stylesheet
>>>and JavaScript magic to hide the specific warning templates unless
>>>people click on something in the {{notverygood}} box? That would let us
>>>keep them as part of the main article, but make them invisible to casual
>>>readers. Further magic would make them by default available to logged-in
>>>editors.
>>>
>>>
>>I really like the idea of hiding the specific warning templates in the
>>{{notverygood}} box at the top of the article. It could work similarly
>>to {{Template:WikiProjectBanners}}.
>>It would have some standard message concerning how the article is not quite
>>up to par, with all the specifics hidden inside it. It would be far more
>>visually attractive for those articles that have three or four maintenance
>>templates at the top, but would still keep those templates on the main
>>article page.
>>
>>
>
>Hmm. I like it.
>
>"The Wikipedia community has identified issues with the quality of
>this article; [click here] to show more specific details or [see the
>talk page] for discussion regarding the issue"
>
>First link brings a dropdown as with the banners template; second
>takes you to talk. If you were particularly clever, "the quality"
>could be changed on the fly to reflect the specific tagging...
>
I think basically that our software has not kept up with the kind of
innovation that has been suggested in messages like this.  Our current
developers are doing what they can, but keeping the site operational
needs to be a priority.  I can imagine all manner of schemes for
evaluating the worth of an article, but I'm totally incapable of coming
to terms with the software needed to make it happen.  Such conceptually
simple ideas as single login, improved search functions, and stable
version have all been kicking around for a while, and I often wonder
whether it's the technology or the politics that is holding these ideas up.

Ec


from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 2/28/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think we should work more on pointing people to relevant rules before they
> post their first article.

That's exactly what I had in mind when I created

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Your_first_article&oldid=3952885

in June of 2004. The intention was to produce a _single_ article that would warn people off the most common mistakes before posting their first article, instead of hoping they would find their way through a thicket of multiple policy and advice pages.

For a long time it was very conspicuously linked in the article-creation template (the text that appears above the edit box when you create an article). That text still links to it, and judging from the amount of vandalism it gets people must still be looking at it, but its now buried in a thicket of multiple policy and advice pages.

I have no idea whether WP:YFA has any useful effect. (I know it was way too long when I wrote it, and it hasn't gotten any shorter!)


subject: [WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:

>I think we need to distinguish among three tiers of information.
>
>1) Needs a citation
>2) Would be nice if it had a citation
>3) Doesn't need a citation.
>
>Remove all of #1 that lacks a citation. Leave #2 and #3 alone, adding
>them if you have them handy. But it's non-essential.
>
Good! ... as long as people are smart enough to understand that applying
these tiers to one piece of information is not itself a green light for
applying it to the whole article.

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] mwdumper does not work

references:
<45E468E5.1000004@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<e92136380702271008t5f2c18b2o94659d4921c648ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<45E46C09.5000507@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<e92136380702271010j6dfb266ar6fedc71b81462c1d@mail.gmail.com>
	<45E46CBB.7010201@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<45E4988E.9010207@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<1172614612.9560.12.camel@localhost.localdomain>
	<45E4AD4B.3000608@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<1172634334.9560.25.camel@localhost.localdomain>

body:
On 28/02/07, David A. Desrosiers <desrod at gnu-designs.com> wrote:

> In either case, I see two possible outcomes:
>         1. You're doing something wrong, and blaming the distribution
>         for it

Jeff is a technically competent user, so if he's getting results like
this then there's probably room for improvement in the instructions at
least.

(I remember rewriting large chunks of the FreeBSD install procedure
just based on installing 1.4.0 on my home box ... there's *always*
little quirks and they're worth noting.)

- d.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> I suggest: throw out notability and stick to verifiability. (And not a
> universal WP:RS, which clearly suffers the same problem in practice.)
>
We've had this discussion before, actually. Things like traffic
violations, locations of stop signs, and owners of real estate are
verifiable, because they're (usually) part of the public record. But
very few people would argue that those should be part of WP; I would say
that it goes against our intuition of what is a summary of human
knowledge, vs the entirety, which we might be more inclined to call a
"library".

Stan


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia timesearch

body:
http://www.timesearch.info/wikipedia

HistoryWorld have just launched an interactive timeline of world
history with each event linking to the appropriate article in
Wikipedia.

It was suggested to me that many Wikipedians would find it useful, so
I'm passing it on in case you do. :)

Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] JuryBot (was: Scott McCloud on Wikipedia)

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Part of the problem from my perspective is figuring out what to do in
> some of these tasks.  [...] When I come back to one
> of these tasks after an absence, it takes concerted effort to navigate
> the web of rules and templates and informal policies. [...] On the
> topic of bots but with a slightly different intent, some
> automation of drudgery would help make this work more appealing.

Is it possible to encode more of this knowledge in tools, not just bots?
I just recently started using [[WP:TWINKLE]], and having drop-down menus
of the various warnings and templates has definitely helped me be more
precise and situation-appropriate. Are there similar things available
for admins?

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 2/26/07 10:45 PM, geni wrote:
>
>
>>I'm saying that if you want a situation where the maintenance side
>>continues to remain in any way shape or form under control you cannot
>>afford to follow any course that would result in the loss of the
>>hyperactive admins.
>>
>>
>Geni,
>
>I a stumbling over - and struggling with - the use of the term,
>"hyperactive" here. In my line of work hyperactivity in a person is a
>disorder, and something to be corrected because it is harming the person. I
>am not being facetious. Please clear this up for me in the context of WP.
>
Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that the disorder is relevant to our
context.  Can ADHD be channeled into productive activity rather than
suppressed?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 2/28/07 8:39 AM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>> Well, kind of the idea of creating a new class of users involved with the
>> English WP was to create a new "top" so we wouldn't need to rely on the
>> mandate coming from Jimbo who, I think, is a bit isolated from the things
>> that go on in WP on a daily basis.
>>
>
> John,
>
> I just don't see how a group can lead - without a group leader.
>

Maybe we're getting a little off topic, but it works pretty well for me.
I started and still participate a couple of cooperatives with no formal
leadership structure. When somebody gets a bee in their bonnet, they
might lead the charge on something. Or they might form a small cabal
that makes something happen. There's no leadership in the conventional
sense, just a bunch of people who have enough respect they can get
something done when it matters.

Which, honestly, was always how I'd assumed that Wikipedia worked.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia timesearch

body:
Nifty! Thanks for sharing.

Angela wrote:
> http://www.timesearch.info/wikipedia
>
> HistoryWorld have just launched an interactive timeline of world
> history with each event linking to the appropriate article in
> Wikipedia.
>
> It was suggested to me that many Wikipedians would find it useful, so
> I'm passing it on in case you do. :)
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> Volunteers are stroppy buggers. They do *ridiculous* amounts of work,
> though. As long as they want to.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
Translation request from American - what is a "stroppy bugger", please?


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Hm, true. But our present notability guidelines suffer from (a) their
> original purpose (as an excuse) (b) arbitrary numerical cutoffs.
> There's something important being missed: what precisely are we
> talking about?
>
I think everybody does have a intuitive notion of notability, but the
intuition isn't very precise, and it's different for different people.

The print encyclopedias make it easier for themselves in two ways:
physical size, so if you only have so many pages, you just pick the N
most important topics, and the editor-in-chief, whose personal
preju^Wintuition will be the tie-breaker for any hard choices. We've
taken away both of those convenient but capricious criteria, and are now
faced with deriving "notability" from first principles.

I don't have any answers, but I think people are slowly and painfully
converging on something like meaningful criteria. Verifiability is a
factor, amount of verifiable information is a factor, size and
open-endedness of subject space is a factor. Per-project seems less
troublesome than WP-wide, not least because the notability discussion is
built on shared knowledge.

Stan


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
Who would decide what to redirect and what to unredirect? Admins? What
stops non-admins from doing it? I like the idea, but I think it would
be very difficult to manage.


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tim Noah addresses the notion of notability in
 another Slate article

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> But our present notability guidelines suffer from (a) their
> original purpose (as an excuse) (b) arbitrary numerical cutoffs.
> There's something important being missed: what precisely are we
> talking about?

The reason why anyone would bother wanting to read the article in
question. Well, that's what I'm trying to convey whenever I use the
words "notable" or "notability".

Even then, my concerns can often be satisfied simply by rewriting the
article's opening paragraph. For example, if an article begins with
"Linus Torvalds is a Finnish computer programmer", that sentence would
greatly tempt me to nominate the article for deletion on the basis that
Torvalds was not notable. However, I know something about computers, so
I know that hypothetical opening sentence should be rewritten as "Linus
Torvalds created and manages the development of the Linux operating system."

I'll admit that biographies are the low-hanging fruit in this exercise;
when one begins to consider articles about ideas, literature, groups and
businesses & so on that it gets more difficult or separate the notable
from the cruft. Still, if an article has a strong lead paragraph that
explains the significance of its subject in a few sentences, notability
should not be an issue. It's when the writing is bad (or the requirements
of NPOV or attribution force the opening to be undeniably uninformative) --
or someone is attempting to slip in yet another example of vanity, PR or
other garbage -- that the issue of "notability" is raised.

But I'm probably unique in this usage.

Geoff


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] RTL-lang messages in a multilingual wiki

body:
On 2/28/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> ..... shall I open a bug report, then?

That would be a good idea.


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
teun spaans wrote:
> I still havent read any good argument for allowing fair use, except that the
> english wiki is using it en masse. Which sounds like a very strange
> argument, it is like saying: it is forbidden to spit, but as everyone spits,
> we allow it. If everyone would be indulging in PAs on the english wiki,
> would we allow them too
I fail to see what the problem is with very narrow categories of image
types that may not be strictly available under a FLOSS license.  I would
count among those types of images that are reasonable applications of
fair use would include:

* Official government seals and symbols, including flags
* Official government documents such as passports, stamps, currency,
banknotes, etc.
* Corporate Logos and trademarks, where their usage is directly tied to
content specifically about that organization

All of these sorts of images are routinely used by major publishers
under fair-use provisions, where formal permission is not usually
granted by the various corporations and government entities.  All of
these sorts of images, however, have been banned on Commons.  I'm not
here to change commons policies, but these sorts of images can make or
break some Wikibooks or Wikipedia articles, and I have seen all of these
used in commercial encyclopedias as well.  Imagine what a book about
stamps would be like if you couldn't show the actual stamp.

It should be noted that all of these kind of images do fall under some
sort of perpetual protections where copyright as it is usually defined
doesn't normally apply.  And unless the company goes bankrupt or the
government of the country whose symbols you are showing ceases to exist
due to warfare or cataclismic disaster, they will never ever be free in
the FLOSS sense of the term.  Perhaps a *very* enlightened group might
grant logos under the GFDL or something similar, but look even to the
WMF to see how likely that would be.  The only "free" logo I know of is
the GNU Gnu of the FSF and I'm not even sure about that.

Another very legitimate application of fair use is to quote text
verbatium, provided you distinguish it somehow (such as put it in block
quote area or use quotation marks) and cite the source as a
bibliographic reference.  This is indeed fair use rationale in nearly
every case where it is used, and one of the reasons explicitly why the
fair-use doctrine was codified into the United States Code.  There are
extreme cases of textual quotation that does go over the top as well,
but generally it is obvious enough when that happens that most people
can come to a concensus and say "let's chop this quote down" or rework
the lengthy quotation.

The problem is that happens with photographs and rendered graphical
images is that the rationale for fair use is very, very weak, and
unfortunately the current internet user culture is such that most people
think that once you have "obtained" an image, that you own it and have
unlimited reproduction privileges on it.  We all know this (at least on
this list) to be a completely incorrect viewpoint, but the academic
standards for including images just havn't been pushed into our heads to
the same degree that similar duplication of textual material would have,
even if we have a strong respect of copyright as a general philosophy.
Modern textbooks, magazines, and newspapers hardly help either when it
seems as though large portions of the content are displayed in photo,
charts, and other graphical images.  Some children's textbooks in
America have so many photos that you start to wonder where the actual
content of the textbook itself might be found.  It is no wonder that a
Wikipedian upon looking at a well developed article that would otherwise
be a feature article candidate looks empty and missing something when
there are no images to be used with the text.  Most of the project users
have grown up with the multi-media barrage in daily life and simply
expect it to be there.

I support severe limitation on the use of fair-use material within
Wikimedia projects, but I think that a complete and total ban is simply
too much.  There are legitimate applications of fair use, and the
question that really confronts us is to define just how tight we want to
draw that line.  Unfortunately, with the diversity of people
participating in these projects (especially Wikipedia), it seems very
unlikely that you are going to come to a general agreement about where
that line ought to be drawn even by those who might want to put some
strong limitations on fair use content.


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

body:
The New Yorker recently added an editor's note to an article they
published in July:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

This has been noted by Nicholas Carr and Stephen Dubner (of
Freakonomics), and I imagine it will be picked up by others:

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/02/never_trust_an.php
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/02/28/wikipedia-oops/

This is the editor's note:

    The July 31, 2006, piece on Wikipedia, ?Know It All,? by Stacy
    Schiff, contained an interview with a Wikipedia site administrator
    and contributor called Essjay, whose responsibilities included
    handling disagreements about the accuracy of the site?s articles and
    taking action against users who violate site policy. He was
    described in the piece as ?a tenured professor of religion at a
    private university? with ?a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon
    law.?

    Essjay was recommended to Ms. Schiff as a source by a member of
    Wikipedia?s management team because of his respected position within
    the Wikipedia community. He was willing to describe his work as a
    Wikipedia administrator but would not identify himself other than by
    confirming the biographical details that appeared on his user page.
    At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay?s
    real name. Essjay?s entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a
    user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia admin-istrators and
    contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from
    those he had ruled against online. Essjay now says that his real
    name is Ryan Jordan, that he is twenty-four and holds no advanced
    degrees, and that he has never taught. He was recently hired by
    Wikia?a for-profit company affiliated with Wikipedia?as a ?community
    manager?; he continues to hold his Wikipedia positions. He did not
    answer a message we sent to him; Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of
    Wikia and of Wikipedia, said of Essjay?s invented persona, ?I regard
    it as a pseudonym and I don?t really have a problem with it.?

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 2/28/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > Notability means there is likely to be enough verifiable material
> > about a subject from enough different sources to write about it in a
> > NPOV manner without resorting to original research.
>
> No it doesn't.  At least that's not what's being pushed, and it's
> CERTAINLY not what's occurring in practice.

It is the only way that notability guidelines SHOULD work, however.

Notability guidelines, IMO, should be guidelines for inclusion, not
exclusion; in other words, if it passes this test, then of course we
keep it, no need to re-debate it.  They should be speedy-keep
guidelines.

They cannot be authoritative, and thus an article's failure to meet
their standards should simply mean that more discussion is required.

-Matt


from_name: Keith Old

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an oligarchy
	to a democarcy

body:
G'day folks,

Nature has published an article on studies on Wikipedia editing patterns.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/070226-6.html

I have added some highlights of the article:

*Highly edited*

Instead, there is an abnormally high number of very highly edited entries.
The researchers say this is just what is expected if the number of new edits
to an article is proportional to the number of previous edits. In other
words, edits attract more edits. The disproportionately highly edited
articles, the researchers say, are those that deal with very topical issues.

And does this increased attention make them better? So it seems. Although
the quality of an entry is not easy to assess automatically, Wilkinson and
Huberman assume that those articles selected as the 'best' by the Wikipedia
user community are indeed in some sense superior. These, they say, are more
highly edited, and by a greater number of users, than the less visible
entries.

Who is making these edits, though? Some have claimed that Wikipedia articles
don't truly draw on the collective wisdom of its users, but are put together
mostly by a small, select ?lite, including the system's administrators.
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has admitted that he spends "a lot of time
listening to four or five hundred" top users.

Aniket Kittur of the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-workers
have set out to discover who really does the
editing2<http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/070226-6.html#B2>.
They have looked at 4.7 million pages from the English-language Wikipedia,
subjected to a total of about 58 million revisions, to see who was making
the changes, and how.

The results were striking. In effect, the Wiki community has mutated since
2001 from an oligarchy to a democracy. The percentage of edits made by the
Wikipedia '?lite' of administrators increased steadily up to 2004, when it
reached around 50%. But since then it has steadily declined, and is now just
10% (and falling).

*Weight of numbers*

Even though the edits made by this ?lite are generally more substantial than
those made by the masses, their overall influence has clearly waned.
Wikipedia is now dominated by users who are much more numerous than the
elite but individually less active. Kittur and colleagues compare this to
the rise of a powerful bourgeoisie within an oligarchic society.

It concludes:

This diversification of contributors is beneficial, Ofer Arazy and
colleagues at the University of Alberta in Canada have
found3<http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/070226-6.html#B3>.
In 2005, when *Nature*'s news team arranged for expert comparisons between
articles in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica online, the experts found
only a moderate excess of errors in the Wikipedia
articles4<http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/070226-6.html#B4>.
(The idea that the two sources were broadly similar was vigorously
challenged by the Encyclopaedia Britannica; see
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html and
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060327/full/440582b.html.) Arazy's team says
that of the 42 Wikipedia entries assessed in the article, the number of
errors decreased as the number of different editors increased.

The main lesson for tapping effectively into the 'wisdom of crowds', then,
is that the crowd should be diverse. In fact, in 2004 Lu Hong and Scott Page
of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor showed that a problem-solving
team selected at random from a diverse collection of individuals will
usually perform better than a team made up of those who individually perform
best ? because the latter tend to be too similar, and so draw on too narrow
a range of options5<http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/070226-6.html#B5>.
For crowds, wisdom depends on variety.

Regards

*Keith Old*

**


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 28/02/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/26/07 10:14 PM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:

> > At least we can reduce the possible points of failure,
> > without resorting to Jimbo.

> As far as the overall culture of the Wikipedia Community is concerned,
> nothing is going to change until a recognition that it needs to change - and
> a mandate to fix it - comes from the top. Without that it is all merely
> theory to be debated.

Mandates from the top sometimes don't work that well in practice. The
community has told Jimbo to get knotted before ...

These are volunteers. Volunteer motivation is a tricky one. Best thing
to do is to think in terms of herding cats - you need to work out the
local equivalent of tuna.

- d.


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject: [Wikitech-l] article get section count?

body:
On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:08:26 -0500, Travis Derouin wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Is there a function that already exists in the codebase that returns
> the # of sections in an article? I can't seem to find it.

The problem is that there are two syntaxes for sections.  The parser
determines the number of sections by converting wiki sections to HTML
syntax, then counting the HTML sections.

So the most accurate count is available at that stage of the parsing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

body:
On 28/02/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Sometimes a proposed introduction rewrite to be more accessible to the
> layperson will receive some resistance from people who know more about
> the subject because it ends up being imprecise.  Compromises
> occasionally get hammered out, usually consisting of an introductory
> sentence or two that uses the word "informally" to signal that this
> isn't technically the correct definition, but more of a hand-wavy
> intuition about the subject.  I think that can be done for more
> articles, but it's kind of a slow process, and the mathematicians do
> have a point that we don't want to write inaccurate pop-math either.

The "In [subject]," introductory phrase can act as a suitable warning.
If an article starts "In computer science," that's enough fair warning
to the non-technical reader.

I'm a big fan of good intros. The intro section of an article should
be a concise summary article in itself. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lead_section .

- d.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki Looks "Fat" in IE 6/7!! HELP

body:
On 2/28/07, Liang Chen <bigreat at gmail.com> wrote:
> HI,
>    I don't know why my Mediawiki 1.9.3 looks "fat" in IE 6/7, but in
> Firefox is just all right.
>   All the tables separated. Attached picture, please help.

IE is rendering your page in quirks mode for some reason.  This is
almost certainly the cause of the problem.

On 2/28/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> Try making the logo smaller. It may be forcing the resize.

Not possible due to the way the layout is written.


from_name: sigmaman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
Just curious, what makes the GFDL different from CC's Sharealike license, in
general terms? Is the GDFL more restrictive? If you could point me to some
sort of resource, I'd be happy to research myself, but I haven't been able
to locate a lof about the GFDL, except for some elements relating to
printing manuals, and, of course, Wikipedia.

Thanks,
Sigmaman

On 2/27/07, sigmaman <sigmaman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I understand the choice issue regarding this type of dual license.
> Basically, what I was trying to say is that you limit the commercial
> interoperability with other CC licenses.
>
> Thank you for helping me clear it up! ;-)
>
> Sigmaman
>
> On 2/27/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 27/02/07, sigmaman <sigmaman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi everyone!
> > >
> > > This is the first time I have responded to a thread. I am curious..
> > how
> > > common is dual licensing using the GDFL + (CC) license? Using the GFDL
> > and
> > > CC-BY-NC-SA seems to be kind of a neat idea, for at least some uses.
> > You
> > > could severly limit commercial uses with such a combo, while serving
> > > Wikipedia needs and demands. It's just a neat idea that I have not
> > come
> > > across!
> >
> > Well, you couldn't limit commercial uses any more than they were
> > limited simply by GFDL licensing. Remember that CC-NC plus GFDL
> > doesn't give you a combination of the both, just a choice. (in other
> > words, you end up with easier use for noncommercial, or commercial
> > only-if-they-use-GFDL, not some kind of GFDL-NC)
> >
> > --
> > - Andrew Gray
> >   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Hrm... I was thinking perhaps I was missing some subtlety, but
apparently not.  thanks much -

-kc-

Angela wrote:
> On 2/28/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
>> Translation request from American - what is a "stroppy bugger", please?
>>
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stroppy : ornery, fractious,
> belligerent, or obstreperous, and hence difficult to deal with
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bugger : an insulting term for a person or thing
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 28/02/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/28/07 7:28 AM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:

> > Mandates from the top sometimes don't work that well in practice. The
> > community has told Jimbo to get knotted before ...
> > These are volunteers. Volunteer motivation is a tricky one. Best thing
> > to do is to think in terms of herding cats - you need to work out the
> > local equivalent of tuna.

> I hear ya. It is just that it's been my experience with any type of
> organization that motivation for any type of major change must come from
> (and include) that person at the top. On their own, enough people need to
> feel there is a problem before any work toward change can begin. In my work
> as a psychotherapist, it is not my role to convince you that you have pain -
> I can only help you to relieve it.

We're basically agreeing, I think. The psychopathology of
organisations is a fascinating area!

Volunteers are stroppy buggers. They do *ridiculous* amounts of work,
though. As long as they want to.

- d.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
Unfortunately, articles like that are usually reposted instead of reverted,
so making reverting non-obvious won't help. Also, with the amount of
non-notable coming in, this method could result in a lot of clutter. An
empty page already says something that was previously there could have been
deleted and goes on to point a reader in the right direction. So we're
basically telling them already.

In my experience shoving rules in people's faces won't help. They will
continue to ignore them.
Take for example [[WP:AFC]]: Despite the wizard, non-notable entries and
spam are still posted
and  despite the notice at the top of the page [[WP:HD]] and similar desks
still get inappropriate questions that belong elsewhere.

I think we should work more on pointing people to relevant rules before they
post their first article.

Mgm


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 28/02/07, Sage Ross <sage.ross at yale.edu> wrote:
> On 2/27/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It would be more of a community-building exercise (as cheesy as that
> sounds) than an attempt to impose outsider (with respect to AfD)
> ideas.  Considering that you (geni) are the most forthright defender
> of the current deletion system, you seem to have a very low opinion of
> those who participate in it.  I'd like to think that Wikipedians who
> are far enough into WP culture to be AfD regulars would be more likely
> than the average editor to have internalized AGF.
>

Its a shame that these same wikipedians felt AGF to be so
"internalised" that they felt it necessary to lower its status so they
could deal with vandals without any reference to AGF and still stay
within their own self-made "laws" when people challenge them in other
decisions.

Peter Ansell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 2/28/07 2:42 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>
>> Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that the disorder is relevant to our
>> context.  Can ADHD be channeled into productive activity rather than
>> suppressed?
>>
>
> Are you really serious with this question?
>

It's not an unreasonable question.

Some people argue that ADHD is an adaptive trait, just not in the modern
context. And as Jameson shows pretty well in "Touched with Fire:
Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament," even things that
we clearly consider maladaptive can be channeled into outlets with
substantial societal value, even when they are personally harmful.
Another good example is Temple Grandin, a high-functioning autistic
whose substantial successes are rooted directly in her autism. And in my
own field, top-performing computer people are notoriously quirky.

I would be unsurprised to learn that a disproportionate share of
Wikipedia contribution comes from people with traits considered
diagnosable by what the Aspberger's community somewhat sneeringly refer
to as "neurotypicals". And not in spite of their differences, but
because of them.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 28/02/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, a small committee would surely be more effective than total anarchy -
> which is sort of what we have now. Criticisms of group leadership would be
> applicable if we asked the admins to lead - that's simply ridiculous - but a
> small committee, perhaps akin to the arbcom, would be better, IMO. Every CEO
> needs a COO, CTO, etc. after all.

This is sorta what happens now. Experienced people with a clue show
it. (This is how they get sucked into various Foundation functionary
jobs and projects. In any volunteer organisation, the reward for a job
well done is another three jobs.)

- d.


from_name: George Herbert

references:
<mailman.48635.1172656406.11809.wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
	<74EB3510-400F-44B2-8B89-138D5B16A195@prwatch.org>
	<45E5A340.9010407@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<ddrbu257gehhi01m47k666pave2ql5ink5@4ax.com>
	<1968.69.21.252.114.1172696808.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<90sbu29t2bu79ct80si0uic2g9cpkk0nai@4ax.com>
	<1991.69.21.252.114.1172697290.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
On 2/28/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:06:48 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
> > <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> Having subject specific notability guidelines which
> >>> aim to act as exceptions to canonical policy was never a terribly good
> >>> idea.
> >
> >>Not that they ever did that.  Ever.
> >
> > A school is notable if it is a school.  Oh, right.
>
> Okay, with one or two exceptions.

This is the problem with the existing policy.  There will be multiple
non-trivial independent publications describing any school in
existence in the United States.  There are school directories, school
guides, every local newspaper has extensive school coverage, and for
most schools, one of the many thousands of people they've graduated
over the years has reached the level of national importance required
to have a mainstream news article list "and they went to so-and-so
grade school".  For every student, there are 1 or 2 parents who care
significantly about the school, and parents of prospective students,
and many alumni.

"A school is notable if it's a school" is shorthand for "We're not
going to make you dig for the specific example detailed citations for
it", in the same sense that "If the band's released two major record
label albums then we aren't going to make you dig for additional
notability information".

There are alternate interpretations.  The problem is, that the actual
policy guidelines are weak enough that there's no definitive argument
to be made from precedent or policy as to whether Guy's interpretation
or my interpretation is more correct, if either.

If the guidelines don't establish enough framework for there to be a
right answer to the "what are reliable independent sources" in a
domain-specific sense, then they're not useful enough.  We clearly
don't have that agreement here - I have my opinion, Guy has his, and I
have no justifyable reason to presume that mine is a more correct
right answer in the greater scheme of things.

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


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 28/02/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I'd like to propose a simple approach to dealing with article subjects
> of questionable notability, which may represent a solution to many of
> the conflicts surrounding such articles. I apologize if this has been
> debated before; if so, please point me to the relevant
> thread(s)/page(s).
>
> Our policy is simple: We demand reliable evidence for the notability
> of a subject. While the scope of such evidence will certainly continue
> to evolve, the principle is not negotiable.
>
> We delete articles that fail to establish notability. Deletion hides
> revisions from everyone but admins, a very small percentage of our
> user base. Importantly, it even hides them from the authors of the
> article.

I've always been particularly uncomfortable with using "notability" as
a justification for deletion. It's such a flimsy, changeable notion:
an editor declares an article "non-notable" if they have either not
heard of it, or have little interested in the subject. When you take a
Wikipedia with largely English-speaking editors based in the US and
Europe, notability ends up skewing our coverage. For example, a
relatively obscure cable network show airing in the US will be
"notable" to his group of people, but wouldn't be notable to a group
of Chinese-speaking editors from the PRC. It doesn't really seem to
matter if the article is of potential interest to a particular culture
or that it will be of interest to future readers. It also doesn't seem
to matter that disk space is cheap and that it would be better to side
with caution and keep the article rather than dump it.

Since Wikipedia is a global, multilingual project we should set our
threshold for notability low. A subject that generally isn't notable
to editors in our main demographics should still get an article. I'm
not sure how we should prevent notability having too much influence in
the future.

Your solution makes for a good compromise (and perhaps makes
"notability" workable). It honours the notion enough to remove article
status from some subjects which may not deserve an article, but not
enough to get rid of articles which are of potential interest to some.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
On 2/28/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> This reminds me of an idea I had that might not be feasible. Make a
> commons-like project for fair use pictures that all wikipedias can use and
> disable local uploads at all wikipedias. That way, only absolutely must fair
> use pictures will be accepted (logos, stamps, pictures of historical events
> that are unreplaceable, etc.) and there won't be fair use pictures of living
> people and of other things for which fair use isn't a must. That way you
> won't have all the inconsistencies with, for example, Spanish Wikipedia
> users asking why en can use fair use pictures of, say, music albums while
> they can't because they have local uploading disabled and only upload to
> commons. This way you'd also get people who are knowledgeable in the area of
> fair use and policies regarding fair use on wikipedia taking care of
> pictures rather than different people having different views on different
> projects. This way you'd also have one central fair use policy that is
> consistent amongst all the projects which will take care of the whining as I
> mentioned above and will also make sure that fair use that isn't really a
> must isn't in use on other projects (from my personal experience, this is
> what is going on on the Hebrew Wikipedia which currently has, IMHO, the most
> lax fair use policies out of any other project). Of course the problem is
> that you'd have to find people willing to monitor such a project, which you
> might not find as readily available as people for a project such as commons
> that deals with free content and there's also the hassle of starting up a
> new project (which some may deem unnecessary).
>
> -Yonatan
>
> On 2/28/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> >
> > teun spaans wrote:
> > > I still havent read any good argument for allowing fair use, except that
> > the
> > > english wiki is using it en masse. Which sounds like a very strange
> > > argument, it is like saying: it is forbidden to spit, but as everyone
> > spits,
> > > we allow it. If everyone would be indulging in PAs on the english wiki,
> > > would we allow them too
> > I fail to see what the problem is with very narrow categories of image
> > types that may not be strictly available under a FLOSS license.  I would
> > count among those types of images that are reasonable applications of
> > fair use would include:
> >
> > * Official government seals and symbols, including flags
> > * Official government documents such as passports, stamps, currency,
> > banknotes, etc.
> > * Corporate Logos and trademarks, where their usage is directly tied to
> > content specifically about that organization
> >
> > All of these sorts of images are routinely used by major publishers
> > under fair-use provisions, where formal permission is not usually
> > granted by the various corporations and government entities.  All of
> > these sorts of images, however, have been banned on Commons.  I'm not
> > here to change commons policies, but these sorts of images can make or
> > break some Wikibooks or Wikipedia articles, and I have seen all of these
> > used in commercial encyclopedias as well.  Imagine what a book about
> > stamps would be like if you couldn't show the actual stamp.
> >
> > It should be noted that all of these kind of images do fall under some
> > sort of perpetual protections where copyright as it is usually defined
> > doesn't normally apply.  And unless the company goes bankrupt or the
> > government of the country whose symbols you are showing ceases to exist
> > due to warfare or cataclismic disaster, they will never ever be free in
> > the FLOSS sense of the term.  Perhaps a *very* enlightened group might
> > grant logos under the GFDL or something similar, but look even to the
> > WMF to see how likely that would be.  The only "free" logo I know of is
> > the GNU Gnu of the FSF and I'm not even sure about that.
> >
> > Another very legitimate application of fair use is to quote text
> > verbatium, provided you distinguish it somehow (such as put it in block
> > quote area or use quotation marks) and cite the source as a
> > bibliographic reference.  This is indeed fair use rationale in nearly
> > every case where it is used, and one of the reasons explicitly why the
> > fair-use doctrine was codified into the United States Code.  There are
> > extreme cases of textual quotation that does go over the top as well,
> > but generally it is obvious enough when that happens that most people
> > can come to a concensus and say "let's chop this quote down" or rework
> > the lengthy quotation.
> >
> > The problem is that happens with photographs and rendered graphical
> > images is that the rationale for fair use is very, very weak, and
> > unfortunately the current internet user culture is such that most people
> > think that once you have "obtained" an image, that you own it and have
> > unlimited reproduction privileges on it.  We all know this (at least on
> > this list) to be a completely incorrect viewpoint, but the academic
> > standards for including images just havn't been pushed into our heads to
> > the same degree that similar duplication of textual material would have,
> > even if we have a strong respect of copyright as a general philosophy.
> > Modern textbooks, magazines, and newspapers hardly help either when it
> > seems as though large portions of the content are displayed in photo,
> > charts, and other graphical images.  Some children's textbooks in
> > America have so many photos that you start to wonder where the actual
> > content of the textbook itself might be found.  It is no wonder that a
> > Wikipedian upon looking at a well developed article that would otherwise
> > be a feature article candidate looks empty and missing something when
> > there are no images to be used with the text.  Most of the project users
> > have grown up with the multi-media barrage in daily life and simply
> > expect it to be there.
> >
> > I support severe limitation on the use of fair-use material within
> > Wikimedia projects, but I think that a complete and total ban is simply
> > too much.  There are legitimate applications of fair use, and the
> > question that really confronts us is to define just how tight we want to
> > draw that line.  Unfortunately, with the diversity of people
> > participating in these projects (especially Wikipedia), it seems very
> > unlikely that you are going to come to a general agreement about where
> > that line ought to be drawn even by those who might want to put some
> > strong limitations on fair use content.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Except that it can't be done for the same reason fair use can't be
applied to commons files and thus not allowed.
Fair use doesn't allow hosting an image as part of a larger collection
itself, only within the context. So english wikipedia has them as part
of the encyclopedia. Commons not, since commons by itself has no
context to sustain the fair use defense


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 2/28/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/28/07 8:39 AM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Well, kind of the idea of creating a new class of users involved with the
> > English WP was to create a new "top" so we wouldn't need to rely on the
> > mandate coming from Jimbo who, I think, is a bit isolated from the things
> > that go on in WP on a daily basis.
>
> John,
>
> I just don't see how a group can lead - without a group leader.

It doesn't have to be leader-singular in the appointive sense.  People
who are leaders in some sense just rise to the top; participation in
WP:AN, WP:ANI, these mailing lists, policy discussions at the Village
Pump, etc.

A rough consensus democracy can evolve among such leaders if they play
nicely together and feel empowered to do things.  Someone will
probably end up as more equal than the rest, but that doesn't have to
be a formal executive power position, it can be consensus-leader soft
power.

This is not a necessary or natural evolution of empowered leader
groups, though.  Some are dysfunctional or just don't rise to that
level of leadership due to personal or organizational issues.

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


list: commons-l

from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Commons-l] recent legal issues in France

body:
Two legal changes in France, one working for us, one against us:

1) Wartime copyright extensions

Before 1995, the normal duration of copyright in France was 50 years
after the death of the author, or after publication in the case of
collective or anonymous works. However, there were special extensions
meant to compensate the world wars. Due to European "harmonization" of
laws, the normal duration was extended to 70 years (following Germany, I
think). The lingering question was whether the war extensions still
applied. The French Court of Cassation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Cassation> said they didn't (at
least in the case where extensions didn't start to elapse before 1995,
but those who did will be over in 2009 or so). A yet unsolved question
is the case of the 30 year extensions for authors killed in action (the
only major author that comes to mind is Antoine de Saint Exup?ry
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry>, of /Little
Prince/ fame).

Wikimedia France is having its counsel investigate the exact
implications of this evolution. In any case, it seems that the situation
is better for us.

For the curious, the relevant articles are in the Code of intellectual
property, L123-1, -8, -9 and -10, and in rulings 280 and 281 of the
Court of Cassation, first civil chamber, for 2007.

2) Repression of 'happy slapping'

The French parliament has just passed a law aimed at preventing
delinquence. Among a gazillion of measures on diverse issues more or
less related to delinquence, the Senate passed an amendment aimed at
repressing 'happy slapping'. 'Happy slapping' is basically youngsters
beating up people, filming the scene with cell phones, and broadcasting
the movie in order to humiliate the victim.

Unfortunately, the wording of the amendment was broad, and basically
criminalized against filming or broadcasting the film of certain kinds
of violences, unless one does so for gathering evidence for legal
proceedings, or as part of the normal work of a *profession* whose goal
is to inform the public.

In short, they have outlawed normal citizens (not professional
journalists) video reporting on certain kinds of violences. This could
prove a problem for Wikipedia, Commons and Wikinews contributors; for
instance, if reporting on police violence.

Wikimedia France contacted officials, who claimed that this was not the
intent; the only target was happy slapping, and that if we had called
them earlier they would have the amendment altered.

Now, several good things can still happen :
* The opposition has had the law sent for constitutional review. It is
possible that this article will get constitutional "reservations of
interpretation" that will clarify the situation of non professionals.
* The government will perhaps clarify the issue; that is, make it clear
that the intent of this article is not to punish non professionals
reporting on events with a goal to inform the public.
* Even if the law is accepted as is, prosecutors may get orders not to
enforce it against non professionals who merely meant to inform.
* Judges may also decide the same, if they feel there is a superior need
of freedom of speech.

Finally, do not forget that there are legislative elections 3 months
away or so, and this law may go 'pschitt' if the current opposition wins.

In any case, I don't expect actual prosecution of "citizen journalists",
though I envision as a credible possibility that overzealous police may
want to get rid of undesirable reporters using this law. Even if you are
prosecuted or sentenced in the end,  being taken into police custody is
intimidating enough.

Wikimedia France tries to get informed on that issue.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] recent legal issues in France


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
William Pietri wrote:

> So wouldn't every new subject-specific guideline be inevitably seen by
> one-size-fits-all types as another lowering of the standard, a breach
> through which ten thousand non-notable items will flow?

Yes.  The problem, of course, is that those pushing for the
one-size-fits-all are generally the deletionist types, and furthermore see
no value in saying that something is "notable" without fitting that
criteria.

I mean, I don't want to use strong offensive language to describe the
mentality, but it's all that comes across.  The list I gave earlier this
week is an excellent example of where a one-size-fits-all mentality fails
in terms of filmmaking:

1) The "one-size-fits-all" mentality says that a film is only "notable" if
numerous items have "noted" it specifically as the subject of its pieces.

2) The "subject specific" mentality says that not ALL films are inherently
notable, but certain aspects of a film, based on various possibilities
including attention, who's making it, if it wins awards, distribution,
etc, make a film "notable."

My two personal examples involve b-movie style exploitation films, "Mom
and Dad" and "She Shoulda Said No."  Most people in group #1 agree that
both of these films are "notable," based on their importance to the genre
and the attention they recieved, none of it reaching specific "is the
subject" standard.  Generally speaking, every person in group #2 will
agree that both films are "notable" due to awards, distribution,
associations, etc.

Now, what's the problem here?  Group one is totally willing to make an
exception for something it "knows" is "notable" there, but will not make
that exception for something of similar "notability" in other areas, such
as a business or a person or a musician, often meaning that otherwise
useful "notable" information fails to get included.  Group two knows that
a line in the sand is pretty much the best way to keep the crap out while
including necessary (and perhaps important) information.  They also know
that some marginal information ''may'' get in, but it's a small price to
pay for the breadth of information it provides.

Does group two's approach always work?  Well, no - see our AfDs/DRVs on
[[Emmalina]] or [[Gregory Kohs]] for more recent examples (both of which,
BTW, meet BOTH standards).  But, generally speaking, it HAS worked, and
has worked fine until group one decided that their way was best and
started pushing it more.  Not that anything was necessarily broken, but
hey.

So now, a "notability" situation that was workable, but tenuous and
recieved a minority of complaints, is being overburdened by an
underthought, unrepresentative entity that's causing more problems than
it's worth - we're the laughingstock of internet communities, we get
criticised in the mainstream for our inconsistencies, and few who aren't
involved truly understand it anyway (and, judging by many AfD/DRV
comments, there's a significant chunk of people who ARE involved who truly
understand it).

With the exception of people, in which there's a historical pool of tens
of billions, at worst we end up with a working finite pool of possible
articles, of which a very small percentage ever meet the standard to
become an article, and that's even if anyone bothers to make them to begin
with (for instance, unless I decide to heavily contribute again, I can
provide a list of 100 articles that are unlikely to be made before the end
of 2007.  No one - literally - has shown any interest in the specific
areas in the year plus I've been working on them, and Wikipedia's star
can't get much higher).  The worries that you state - "ten thousand
non-notable items will flow" - is completely unfounded, unlikely, and
possibly impossible.  Unless, of course, someone believes that an
unreviewed film mentioned in a couple books and two newspaper articles,
never as "the subject", is "non-notable."  In that case, perhaps one has
to wonder if they have the best interests of the project at heart.

-Jeff


body:
geni wrote:

> Notability means there is likely to be enough verifiable material
> about a subject from enough different sources to write about it in a
> NPOV manner without resorting to original research.

No it doesn't.  At least that's not what's being pushed, and it's
CERTAINLY not what's occurring in practice.

-Jeff


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

In my line of work hyperactivity in a person is a
>> disorder, and something to be corrected because it is harming the person.

on 2/28/07 2:42 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>>
> Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that the disorder is relevant to our
> context.  Can ADHD be channeled into productive activity rather than
> suppressed?
>
Ray

Are you really serious with this question?

Marc


from_name: Platonides

body:
Liang Chen wrote:
> HI,
>   I don't know why my Mediawiki 1.9.3 looks "fat" in IE 6/7, but in
> Firefox is just all right.
>  All the tables separated. Attached picture, please help.

Mailman removed the image. Post in the web and send the link instead.

Can you provide the site page? Have you removed any IE related CSS files?


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a democarcy

body:
On 2/28/07, T P <t0m0p0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/07, Sage Ross <sage.ross at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> > If someone comes up with the equation for that based on the paper's
> > data, then we could do some measurements on the mechanisms by which
> > edits beget edit.  The important question is, do edits really beget
> > edits, or is the correlation between number of new edits and number of
> > total edits simply an artifact of Wikipedia's overall exponential
> > growth coupled with the relationship between article age and article
> > popularity (i.e., more important articles are created earlier).
>
>
> I know that an edit to something on my watchlist draws my attention and, in
> the course of checking the edit, I may see other things that need fixing.
> This is a wholly unscientific observation, of course.

I agree that the Watchlist is likely the main vector through which
edits become known to others and acted upon. Also don't discount the
nudges people leave on Talk pages of others to explicitly notify
others of a Wikiproject or set of edits.

I do take some issue with the analysis of the paper. Rather than say
oligarchy becomes democracy, I think it's more accurate to say small
democracy scaled up to become big democracy, and the power curve
followed. There was never a "rule by a few" in the strict sense of an
oligarchy. Even right from the start when Wikipedia got Slashdotted in
2001, it was welcoming newcomers to take up whatever role they
identified themselves for.

This also shows the complete inadequacy of using "system of
government" metaphors for trying to describe the dynamics of a
peer-production environment. It's as useful as using kilograms to
measure brightness.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translating the Five pillars

body:
I meant, a foundation with a different agenda. The point of the WP
Foundation is that it is totally independent.

It is however true that any organization accepting tax-free status is
accepting a subsidy fro the government. But this is true of all
educational and charitable activity in the US--even the Scientologists
have tax-free status.  The one relevant burden this status imposes on
an organization is that it cannot engage in political activity--as a
result some advocacy groups do not ask for it. I do not consider this
a burden on WP--if anything, not being able to do  politics is a plus,
preventing the Foundation from going along some unacceptable paths.

In some other countries where this status is accorded much more
narrowly, or as a special provision for a particular organization,
then it would compromise the foundation. If in a given country it
meant actual government control, or a real danger of this, then it
would be  unacceptable.

DGG

On 2/26/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/02/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I simply do not know whether I would accept a WP operated by an
> > educational foundation of some sort--or conceivably even a  government
> > educational agency.
>
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is an educational charity, isn't it?
> Wikimedia UK certainly aims to be. (one day.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> I strongly disagree.  The primary notability criterion is mainly the
> work of Uncle G, and is in my view an excellent and well-reasoned
> test.

Except when it excludes obviously "notable" people, places, and things,
requires an unrealistic test, and misunderstands "notability."  Aside from
those things, it's quite excellent.

-Jeff


references:
<mailman.48635.1172656406.11809.wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
	<74EB3510-400F-44B2-8B89-138D5B16A195@prwatch.org>
	<45E5A340.9010407@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<ddrbu257gehhi01m47k666pave2ql5ink5@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> No, there is a group who favour a single objective notability
> guidelines with subject-specific definitions of what constitutes a
> reliable source.  Having subject specific notability guidelines which
> aim to act as exceptions to canonical policy was never a terribly good
> idea.

Not that they ever did that.  Ever.

-Jeff


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>   "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of at least one
>    substantial or multiple, non-trivial published works from sources
>    that are reliable and independent of the subject and of each other.
>
> All we need to do now is define what constitutes a reliable source for
> different content areas.

And what constitutes "multiple."  And "substantial."  And "non-trivial."
And "independent."

Like I said before - a film "notable" enough to be added to the United
States Film Registry fails to meet this guideline.  Massive failure.

> The subject-specific guidelines often boil down to "this is an area
> where impassioned fans of the subject think Wikipedia should be a
> directory, and where it is therefore acceptable to draw the entire
> content of the article from primary sources".

Oh, come on Guy.  That's a huge straw man, and one I've never seriously
seen presented.  The subject-specific guidelines say "This is what
actually makes something 'notable'."  Nothing more, nothing less.

-Jeff


references:
<mailman.48635.1172656406.11809.wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
	<74EB3510-400F-44B2-8B89-138D5B16A195@prwatch.org>
	<45E5A340.9010407@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<ddrbu257gehhi01m47k666pave2ql5ink5@4ax.com>
	<1968.69.21.252.114.1172696808.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<90sbu29t2bu79ct80si0uic2g9cpkk0nai@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:06:48 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
> <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>>> Having subject specific notability guidelines which
>>> aim to act as exceptions to canonical policy was never a terribly good
>>> idea.
>
>>Not that they ever did that.  Ever.
>
> A school is notable if it is a school.  Oh, right.

Okay, with one or two exceptions.

-Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 2/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> And I thought someone just claimed notability was reasons for
> instant-keep, not reasons to delete.

That was me - and I was stating the way I thought things SHOULD be,
not the way they are currently applied.

-Matt


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
On 2/28/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >     He was
> >     described in the piece as "a tenured professor of religion at a
> >     private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon
> >     law."
>
> Where did those claims come from? I haven't seem them anywhere before.

Right here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Essjay&oldid=65266249


body:
On 2/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It is the only way that notability guidelines SHOULD work, however.
> > Notability guidelines, IMO, should be guidelines for inclusion, not
> > exclusion; in other words, if it passes this test, then of course we
> > keep it, no need to re-debate it.  They should be speedy-keep
> > guidelines.
> > They cannot be authoritative, and thus an article's failure to meet
> > their standards should simply mean that more discussion is required.
>
>
> I suggest you read AFD for a bit, then. This is all a nice idea, but
> is the precise opposite of how they are used in practice and the use
> they were in fact created on Wikipedia for.

Oh, indeed.  This was in the if-I-were-god-king-for-a-day mode.

-Matt


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] A new way of image uploading. Sort of

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:59:42PM +0000, geni wrote:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet
>>
>>be sure to click the image to look around the stuff behind it (mostly
>>a new separate image upload page but there are other things)
>
> The logo is nice and easy to understand. But after clicking it, I arrive
> at a page that has 4 lines of text in 4 different sizes. The average
> user will read the biggest text first, and that's a text ending in
> "click here". The next thing I get after "clicking here" is a "Not logged
> in" message - without a returnto link taking me back to the image
> upload.

Agreed, it was awful.  I tried to make it a little better by putting it
in a pretty box, fixing the (lack of) vertical whitespace and reducing
it to only three different font sizes.  The text remains the same.

It could still be a lot better.  I know we have Wikipedians who are
really good at this stuff, can we find one and let them have at it?

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
> Start with an open system (but limited to notability) & let it evolve
> -- some "soft deletes" should probably go through AfD, just like some
> merge & redirects should, while others could be done immediately after
> the article appears.

I predict lots of edit wars as the people "deleting" the article will
have no authority. Reposting deleted material without a good reason at
the moment is clearly wrong, as it was deleted by an admin (who are
considered trustworthy). If it can be deleted by anyone (including
people who have no reason beyond AGF to be considered trustworthy), it
will be like any other edit - ie. anyone can revert it (upto 3RR).
With reposting at the moment, the default is to assume the admin was
right, and that works quite well. With this idea, the default being to
assume the random person that decided to soft delete it is right seems
unfounded.

To summarise: If anyone can delete, we can't justifiably stop anyone
from undeleting.

Counter argument: This is similar to the "PROD will never work because
the article creator will always remove the PROD tag" argument, which
has proven to be wrong, so perhaps this argument will also prove to be
wrong and people will respect the soft deletions. I'm not sure the
benefit over speedy deletions is significant, though...


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Presentation to readers

body:
On 2/26/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> And then the mass of other stuff - {{npov}}, {{unverified}},
> {{notability}}, etc could all move to the talk page.

This addresses a certain pet peeve of mine. I'm reading an article,
the link to the talk page is blue so I go there to see what's being
said about the article and the only thing there is a project template.
This would become a bigger problem if talk pages become peppered with
a metric assload of "plumbing" templates.

I know this is probably not possible with the current software but it
would be nice to have a separate link color for talk pages without
user comments. That way the link to a talk page would only be blue if
there is actual "talk" there.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
On 2/28/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Sage Ross wrote:
> > But if this suspension of AfD isn't driven by a specific reform
> > agenda, but merely a discussion aimed at increasing the uniformity and
> > predictability of the deletion process (in light of the waves of
> > negative press for the last few months), it might be possible to avoid
> > most of the potential backlash.
>
> Perhaps another way to lessen the backlash while still motivating
> discussion and change would be to put temporary moratoriums on
> particular subject areas? In this case, for example, we could say "no
> more webcomic-related AfDs for a month while we work on a better policy
> to handle the subject area".
>
> That way the people who fret about the dire consequences of not deleting
> marginal articles as fast as possible won't feel quite so panicked by
> the prospect of stuff accumulating for a month, and after the month was
> over it'd be easier to survey the new arrivals that went unAfDed in the
> meantime. Heck, it might allow time for articles that would normally be
> deleted to improve to the point where they survive even without major
> policy changes. That by itself would be useful.

Random idea to throw into pot:

We use AFD right now to cover a whole lot of different reasons by
which one might want to delete an article.

Possible improvement: Develop separate processes for each reason one
might have for deleting an article.

Some ideas along these lines:

Unreferenced and thought to be unreliable - something like Prod, with
a longer timeout, see if anyone will come along and provide suitable
refs, else it goes.  Soft deletion (can be restored if someone comes
along with good refs)

Notability - still a sticking point.

(and so on)

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


from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
On 2/18/07, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:
>
> Unless you do THIS, it's no point for the both of you to come back here
> with
> this issue.
>
> Wait a second, B?rto.

What you tell me is that you, as a Language
Committee<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Langcom>member and on its
behalf, waive the Committee's competence in initiating a
solution to a problem concerning one of the Wikimedia Foundation fundamental
principles <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars>, Neutral
Point of View <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>?
Basically, what you want is that a certain wikipedian X sensitise an entire
admin structure (ro.wiki ) so that they ask you (the LC) to allow them to
regulate themselves in a way that the LC might deem correct. And all this
over a domain that falls directly under the competence of the Board of
Trustees - Wikipedia's pillar, Neutral Point of View. That's an interesting
stance.

Now, let us go back to context <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context>.

The circumstances surrounding the Moldovan
Wikipedia<http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B0%D3%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8D>are
more interesting than they look like: again,
mo.wiki does *not* contain a distinct linguistic entity (no matter what ISO
says). Instead it has content that represents a transliteration of the
Romanian <http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagina_principal%C4%83> linguistic
entity.

At this point, by the mere hosting of *this content* on *this domain* the
Wikimedia Foundation makes a political statement, and specifically (the
following is a quotation): "the Moldovian people were somehow a distinctly
different people from Romanians before WWII and were liberated from Romania
by the USSR."

The Foundation also states that Moldovan is a linguistic entity distinct
from the Romanian linguistic entity. This is equivalent to stating that
Moldovans and Romanians represent two distinct nations. In this specific
case, the confusion between language and nationality is inevitable: all this
Moldovan language/linguistic entity stuff is pure politics taken directly
from the Central
Committee's<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Committee_of_the_CPSU>office.
But that's nothing.

By hosting mo.wiki, the Wikimedia Foundation keeps perfectly in line with
the ideology promoted by the Soviet authorities of the
MASSR<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldavian_Autonomous_Soviet_Socialist_Republic>beginning
with 1924. At that moment a
script <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet> - not even a
language as such - was invented and a new name was conferred to the Romanian
language. The Foundation also holds for linguistic reality (if it might be
called so and as opposed to a political reality) what happened in 1938 in
MASSR and beginning with 1944 in
MSSR<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldavian_SSR>,
when - at the latter date - all of a sudden the entire population of the
re-annexed Bessarabia started to speak Moldovan (please consider
this<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Moldovan_language#Beginnings_of_the_Moldovan_language>article).
But that's history.

More interesting is the position of the Wikimedia Foundation towards
nowadays politics. Actually, the Foundation keeps perfectly in line with the
ideology promoted by the Party of
Communists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_Communists_of_the_Republic_of_Moldova>governing
Moldova and the Transnistrian
authorities <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Transnistria>, and -
specifically - with their efforts to affirm and prove the existence of
a Moldovan
language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language> and of a Moldovan
nation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovenism> (no linguistic entity
notion exists at that level). However, the funniest thing about all this is
the Moldovan Wiktionary <http://mo.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page>: in case
the project un-freezes, the Foundation will de facto support the linguist
and politician Vasile Stati <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasile_Stati> in
his efforts to create/develop a Moldovan-Romanian
dictionary<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan-Romanian_dictionary>.
The circumstances are as follows: both dictionaries - Wikimedia's and
Stati's - have appeared after a ten-fifteen years of vacuum in the field -
Moldovan--any-other-language dictionaries. And this is to stress one point:
it is absurd to translate Moldovan; you can do this only with the help of a
Romanian--any-other-language dictionary.

If this is what the Wikimedia Foundation wants to promote.. Well, this is a
choice of the Board. However, know that this is exactly what the Foundation
is promoting at the moment.

If this clear case of biased Point Of View of an entire Wikipedia is not
enough an incentive for the LC/WMF to do something about the situation, I
don't know what else could be. And here I am not talking about the feelings
of the Romanians or Moldovans, nor about the position of the Moldovan
Community, nor about the feelings of the Moldovan community, nor about _my_
reasons for wanting a change. I am talking about something supposed to be
sacred for the Foundation: Neutral Point of
View<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>.

At this moment - even though frozen - the Board of Trustees tolerates a
Wikipedia that is openly against one of its fundamental pillars. You "want
to deliver a service [..] in all possible linguistic entities". I am most
definitely for this. Still, taking into consideration the context, you can
readily stop promoting a Neutral Point of View on the Moldovan Wikipedia. If
the Board, now through its Language Committee, decides to continue to ignore
the existence of a politically biased Wikipedia, again, it's a choice. But
then, the NPOV principle is of no use around there.

[On a side note: considering a Romanian linguistic entity with three
different writing systems may be my point of view, but it has one advantage:
it is apolitical. And it considers the situation from a
linguistic/historical perspective, and not a political one].

....
Now I'll pass to petty arguments that don't deserve much of your or my
attention, but just for their sake..

>tired of bogus voting made by calling up on meta
>everyone's cousins, sisters and pet dogs.
For the pet dogs I most definitely agree. But then, why didn't you, on meta,
impose conditions for voting (like 400 edits somewhere)? I recall that it
was on meta simply because you asked for legitimacy.

>It's all people that NEVER ever
>edited a single line on a wiki and simply enjoy wasting our time.
Have you personally verified the "never" part? Even the lines that I've
never contributed? And the books that Roberth has not contributed? And many
other's non-existent contributions? Again, what makes you think that I
_enjoy_ doing all this?

>and never even cared to tell the
>Romanians about your will to turn their edition upside down, right??????
Wrong. On two points: this ain't the first time this is discussed and I do
not want to turn the Romanian Wikipedia upside down.

First of all, I am not suggesting anything radically new. This ain't the
first time this alternative is proposed. It was under discussion on this
list back in 2005 (please consider the Re: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan
Wikipedia<http://www.nabble.com/Re%253A-Moldovan-Wikipedia-tf1266140.html>thread
and especially the
contribution<http://www.nabble.com/Re%253A-Moldovan-Wikipedia-tf1266140.html#a3362441>of
Matt Brown). Ronline - on behalf of the Romanian Wikipedia - wasn't
too
enthusiastic about this (consider the above thread for his arguments). It
would be up to the LC to decide whether the WMF wants a politically biased
Wikipedia or a compromise solution (that, by definition, should not please
entirely each and every one).

Secondly, I do not want to turn the Romanian Wikipedia upside down. I want
the issue around the Moldovan Wikipedia to be solved. You refuse deletion. I
suggested, better said repeated an alternative solution. I see not one
reason why I should have contacted the Romanian structure before repeating
to the LC an already existing alternative solution proposal.

>1) You don't have time to ask ISO why there's a MO code
I don't. You are not the only one having important issues to attend to in
real life. Mine are getting less time than they deserve. And I have no
intent what-so-ever to get into a parallel most-of-the-time fruitless debate
over the same tiring issue. If ISO cares about the position of Moldovans and
Romanians - natives - on this issue, they can simply browse the wikipedia-l
archives.

>"good patriots" in your perception
Please explain me what does this mean in my perception, and maybe I'll get
the point.

>2) You do not have the time to ask the Romanians whether they want you in
or not,
It's useless to ask the Romanian structure anything on this matter unless
there is a decision from the Board. They'd be an infinite times more
reticent than you are. And such a change is made at a Board of Trustees
level, not at an Admin structure one.

>3) You gracefully DO have the time to flood this list in order to impose
>your will over the Romanian community.
Romanian admins have not stepped down into this current discussion. I am not
imposing anything over them. You may call this flooding. I would call this
having a *discussion*, a normal and *somewhat constructive* discussion.

> your open arrogance about it.
Where do you find "aggressively assertive" my _reasoning_ and arguments?

>YOU have all those online forms and international campaigns.
I don't give a damn about them. I care that Wikipedia represent correctly my
country.

>let us know how many Romanian F* OFFs you get as an answer.
Is this an official statement issued on behalf of the Language Committee?

>I am serious and deadly upset, take my word on it.
Now, B?rto. I ain't sure who should be upset. You over my presenting the
LC/Board with an alternative solution to a problem. Me over your
hardly-constructive attitude and arrogance (this ain't no attack; simply
take a look at the number of aggressive assertions - Oxford American
dictionary - you have made during this last discussion). Or the Moldovan and
Romanian communities over the open rigidity from the part of the Board and
over a decent period on an issue concerning Wikipedia's principles.

And to finish, a citation: "Support - Mainly on the basis that Wikimedia
projects should always have NPOV standards, and merely having a language
that by itself is expressing a POV should not be allowed to exist. I get the
arguments about the Russian occupation of Romania, together with the Russian
occupation of East Prussia (still under Russian control). It surprises me
that anybody takes seriously political disinformation arguments from a
government that no longer exists. Keeping this project expresses support for
a clear POV for what scholarly research suggests is merely a variant of an
established language. My support for this is similar to opposition of the
pt-br.wikipedia --Roberth 18:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)."

Regards,
Liviu


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 28/02/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> If the policy on notability is clear -- which it should be -- then
> there shouldn't be much edit warring. If it isn't clear, then
> obviously people will start to wiki-lawyer that article so-and-so
> meets the policy. But that is going to happen one way or another.

See, that's the problem. It isn't clear. The notability guidelines
tend to arbitrary numerical cutoffs for the sake of having arbitrary
numerical cutoffs, rather than because doing so clearly follows from
NPOV, NOR and verifiability. "Notability" doesn't in fact follow from
any of these. Having "notability" rules is itself controversial.

- d.


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

references:
<fbad4e140702280428y29e90d1dqce261249271b38a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<C20AED18.1D54%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<fbad4e140702280533x6edd060fs57ae64e20db68b1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<45E5B30C.5010209@KillerChihuahua.com>

body:
On 2/28/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> Translation request from American - what is a "stroppy bugger", please?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stroppy : ornery, fractious,
belligerent, or obstreperous, and hence difficult to deal with

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bugger : an insulting term for a person or thing

Angela


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>When speaking of original research we always need to remember why such a
>rule arose: to prevent the more loony ideas from having a podium.
>Articles on current events need to be layered.  For some of the of the
>basic information such as who invaded, and on what date newspaper
>reports are as reliable as anything.  People are anxious to find out
>more about these things as they happen, and government sources and big
>news media often leave the impression that they are biased.  If we put
>up early information that is questionable it's easier for us to admit we
>were wrong and make the necessary corrections than it is for governments
>and big media.
>
I agree for current events, but the older something gets, and the more
secondary sources become available, the less necessary or wise this
becomes, I think.  It would be a mistake to cite 1940s newspaper reports
even for dates of World War II events, because some of the newspapers
may have reported incorrect information---much sounder is to cite a
recent book on the subject, which will have read all those newspaper
records, compared them to each other and other information, and produced
a more reliable summary we can use.  For current events we're basically
doing that job ourselves, by comparing multiple sources, watching for
updates, corrections, and retractions, and so on.

-Mark


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Geoffrey Burling wrote:

>David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>>But our present notability guidelines suffer from (a) their
>>original purpose (as an excuse) (b) arbitrary numerical cutoffs.
>>There's something important being missed: what precisely are we
>>talking about?
>>
>>
>The reason why anyone would bother wanting to read the article in
>question. Well, that's what I'm trying to convey whenever I use the
>words "notable" or "notability".
>
>Even then, my concerns can often be satisfied simply by rewriting the
>article's opening paragraph. For example, if an article begins with
>"Linus Torvalds is a Finnish computer programmer", that sentence would
>greatly tempt me to nominate the article for deletion on the basis that
>Torvalds was not notable. However, I know something about computers, so
>I know that hypothetical opening sentence should be rewritten as "Linus
>Torvalds created and manages the development of the Linux operating system."
>
That sentence could be changed to "Linus Torvalds is a notable Finnish
computer programmer".  That would give us an assertion of notability.
Another possibility would be to shrink wrap the notability assertion.
Before saving the article you would need to check a box affirming that
you are asserting the notability of the article.  If it works with
software packages it should work for us. :'(

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 2/28/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Who would decide what to redirect and what to unredirect? Admins? What
> stops non-admins from doing it? I like the idea, but I think it would
> be very difficult to manage.

Start with an open system (but limited to notability) & let it evolve
-- some "soft deletes" should probably go through AfD, just like some
merge & redirects should, while others could be done immediately after
the article appears.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


body:
On 2/28/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >     He was
> >     described in the piece as "a tenured professor of religion at a
> >     private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon
> >     law."
>
> Where did those claims come from? I haven't seem them anywhere before.

My mistake, here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Essjay/History1&direction=next&oldid=13506363


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
On 2/28/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my experience shoving rules in people's faces won't help. They will
> continue to ignore them.
...
> I think we should work more on pointing people to relevant rules before they
> post their first article.

Which one is it?

I agree with your first statement, but under the soft deletion system,
policy violations would be managed like they always are. A user
reverting a soft del redirect without cause is no different from a
user reposting deleted material without cause. The difference is that
anyone can help with the deletion part, unbalancing the current
asymmetry (anyone can post a non-notable bio, only the small number of
users who are admins can remove it).
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

body:
> If anyone can edit, we can't justifiably stop anyone from vandalizing
> articles? ;-)

Vandalism is, by definition, done in bad faith. We can justify
stopping bad faith acts. Reverting a soft deletion by someone with no
more authority than yourself is not necessarily a bad faith act.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

body:
Sage Ross wrote:
> But if this suspension of AfD isn't driven by a specific reform
> agenda, but merely a discussion aimed at increasing the uniformity and
> predictability of the deletion process (in light of the waves of
> negative press for the last few months), it might be possible to avoid
> most of the potential backlash.

Perhaps another way to lessen the backlash while still motivating
discussion and change would be to put temporary moratoriums on
particular subject areas? In this case, for example, we could say "no
more webcomic-related AfDs for a month while we work on a better policy
to handle the subject area".

That way the people who fret about the dire consequences of not deleting
marginal articles as fast as possible won't feel quite so panicked by
the prospect of stuff accumulating for a month, and after the month was
over it'd be easier to survey the new arrivals that went unAfDed in the
meantime. Heck, it might allow time for articles that would normally be
deleted to improve to the point where they survive even without major
policy changes. That by itself would be useful.