subject: [Foundation-l] And blocked again

body:
Walter van Kalken (walter at vankalken.net) [050216 03:03]:

> >Unfortunately, open proxies in this manner constitute a public problem on
> >the Internet. Wikipedia blocks them on sight because they are primarily
> >used for abuse.
> >If you HAVE to use that proxy if you want to use that ISP, at this stage
> >it's up to you to get them to run their systems competently.

> If they constituted a problem on all wikipedia's they were blocked on
> all wiki's it is clear you do not know the situation in other countries.

They're permanently blocked on first abuse on en:, so I'm not surprised
that ja: treats them similarly.

> The provider will laugh. If I cancel my contract I have to pay 150
> dollars and loose my 20% discount on my telephone lines. I do not have
> this kind of money. This is food for 3 weeks for me!!!

Unfortunately, this looks more like a bad purchase on your part than a
reason to open Wikipedia to abuse.

> Japanese
> wikipedia should not block them. I am not a vandal. I wrote over 500
> articles on nl. I started nl.wikinews partly. I contributed articles in
> other languages and you give me this bull??????

If the proxy was unbanned but then banned again, it strikes me that it was
more likely done because of abuse by others than as any sort of personal
attack on you, which is what you appear to be treating it as.

It still seems truly weird that they would run their proxy server as an
open public sewer, but force you to use it. Have you even asked them about
this? It's more likely to be an effective move in resolving the problem.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] And blocked again


list: wikien-l

from_name: NSK

subject: top posting (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user)

body:
On Wednesday 16 February 2005 00:38, the Epopt of Boskone wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be better to top-post...?
> > --
> > NSK
> > http://portal.wikinerds.org
>
>  +-------------+
>
>  | Do Not Feed |
>  |  the Troll  |
>
>  +-------------+

I hope that all list participants see that I asked a simple question and I
received a very damaging accusation from this user.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Skyring

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Writing about sexual topics responsibly is not
	censorship

body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:14:47 -0800, Nicholas Knight
<nknight at runawaynet.com> wrote:
> Many people
> are going to be far more comfortable reading a description -- even
> detailed -- of a sexual act than seeing a photograph of it.

True, but the porn industry targets the small number remaining who
prefer things the other way around, and they seem to do OK in terms of
Porsches and plasma screens.

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:12:32 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger said:
> >
> > Trying to reach out to the censorious by dropping the nekkid pixx0r is
> > a waste of time.  They *don't care* if we have nekkid pixx0r or not;
> > our evil is obvious in that we don't parrot their party line about
> > whatever hot-button issue they fuss about.
> >
>
> Hear hear!  I couldn't have put it better myself.
>
> Let's not kid ourselves that Wikipedia will ever be suitable for schools.
> My son says his school blocked access to *any* site whose contents could
> be altered in realtime by people other than the site owners--that includes
> forums as well as Wikis. I can see their point and I think they're being
> very sensible.
> The grundies, on the other hand, are not going to be satisfied.  The best
> we can do is limit the damage by admitting that no public Wiki can ever be
> considered child-safe.  The kids will still come and read Wikipedia, and
> learn from it, but they'll do so with the thrill of transgression.  This
> is not a bad thing.  Wikis are, or should be, powerful weapons against
> ignorance.  It's as well that we should not appease our natural enemies.

This problem is easily solved by producing Stikipedia.org as a static
site drawn from Wikipedia but containing "sticky" articles that are
the "last good state". If an article is edited, those articles need to
be recertified in some fashion. Images (or potentially offensive text)
could also be subject to special handling - maybe you have to register
as an adult to see it or click on a warning button or something.

That way schools and parents could block Wikipedia with its graphic
images, disturbing text, edit wars and vandalism, but depend upon
Stikipedia. And, frankly, I'm not really sure I want millions of
schoolchildren having edit access to Wikipedia, showing off by
replacing an article on Constitutional History of the United States
with "Billy is a poo poo head". Most kids wouldn't dream of doing
this, but there's always one...

In fact, as I understand it, a third party could do this today.
Register a site name, grab hold of the contents of Wikipedia, and put
it all up for public consumption as a static site.

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:35:55 -0500, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:

> Allow me to present an edited version, prepared for the purpose of
> supporting the opposing view:
>
> "How do you decide you _don't want_ to see the image before knowing what
> the image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have no idea
> what it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they _do_ want to
> see a photograph of it. If the image is removed from the page, you've
> removed that choice from them."

Autofellatio isn't that common a word. One might reasonably expect
poorly-informed car lovers to wind up there, though I suspect they
wouldn't be disappointed on arrival.
--
Peter in Canberra


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] On the blocking of anonymous proxies

body:
Charles Podles wrote:
> An anonymous user posted the following on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy :
>
> == Blocking anonymizer's proxies is unconstitutional ==
>
> *'''The right to anonymous free speech is protected by the 1st
> amendment of the US constitution.'''

"Congress shall make no law..."

Unless I missed something, we still aren't Congress.

> *'''Anonymity--the ability to conceal one's identity while
> communicating--enables the expression of  political ideas and the
> practice of religious belief without fear of intimidation or public
> retaliation.'''

This is certainly true enough, and something that we ought to respect
as much as we feasibly can.

> I kindly request Wikipedia editors to re-open the debate about the
> right of the people to contribute to Wikipedia while protecting their
> rights to free speech, and to curb sysop powers to utilize blocking
> policies.

That's a reasonable request.  Please let's not get lost in a very
confused constitutional claim, though.

When I visited the EFF in San Francisco last week, I met with the
people working on Tor, their anonymous browsing project.  They were
(slightly) sympathetic to our concerns and open to ideas.

--Jimbo

--
"Pianosa is een Italie" - first words of 50,000th article on nl.wikipedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] On the blocking of anonymous proxies


subject: >>: Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked again

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> He also left an abusive note on my en: talk page. Apparently he considers
> me personally responsible for the policy on ja:. I'm not inclined to
> attempt rational explanation with the abusive.

I'll vouch for both Waerth and David here.  Good people, both of them
among my favorites in wikipedia.

Waerth was just really frustrated, and David just responded to that.

I doubt very much if either of them will be mad for long. :-)


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Are forks such a bad idea?  It would solve the child-safe problem.  The
> adult Wikipedia could possibly also drop a lot of the trivia that are
> mostly of interest to children.  TV show episode guides, comics, games and
> the like.  Presumably article and history information could still be
> interchanged.

Can you think of any more ways to be insulting to adults whose interests
differ from your own?


from_name: Anders Wegge Jakobsen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: top posting (was Re: Re: new user)

body:
"NSK" == NSK  <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> writes:

> On Wednesday 16 February 2005 00:38, the Epopt of Boskone wrote:
>> > Wouldn't it be better to top-post...?
>> > --
>> > NSK
>> > http://portal.wikinerds.org
>>
>> +-------------+
>>
>> | Do Not Feed |
>> |  the Troll  |
>>
>> +-------------+

> I hope that all list participants see that I asked a simple question
> and I received a very damaging accusation from this user.

 All list participants also saw the trolling. Thus the "accusation" is
entirely in place.

--
/Wegge <http://wiki.wegge.dk/>
<http://wiki.wegge.dk/Folk_jeg_ignorerer_p%C3%A5_usenet>
mailto:awegge at gmail.com - Invitationer p? FCFS basis


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Bill Konrad said:
> It's a bit of a  broad exageration to claim ALL editors would have to
> bowlderize ALL of their  edits.

No, it's absolutely true.  Just one goes and vandalizes the article on the
American Revolution, on one day, and you'll have school governors freaking
out.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] External Authentication - Hacking IP Address

body:
I have such a patch for loadFromSession() see
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360 Auto-login /
Auto-account-creation by hostname for intranet MediaWikis. The patch
code itself has not yet been uploaded but is rather short.

Brion and Marcus: let me know, if you are interested - pls .study for
this the text on the bugzilla; then I would revisited my code and upload
the patch as a diff.
Tom

Brion Vibber schrieb:

> Marcus Kazmierczak wrote:
>
>> We are currently using a single sign on system
>> which sets the HTTP_AUTH variable via an Apache
>> plugin.  I have a requirement to tie this into
>> the MediaWiki tool.  Plus I need to have auto
>> login, since the users all must be authenticated
>> before accessing the wiki tool.
>>
>> After trying unsuccessfully to use the AuthPlugin.php
>> piece, I came up with a hack which appears to work.
>
>
> I'd rather you suggest necessary changes to AuthPlugin so we can support
> this cleanly. Adding a callback hook for authentication checks when no
> session is open would likely be appropriate. This would probably be
> called from User::loadFromSession() in place of calling the default User
> constructor.
>
> Can you confirm these problems, or have you worked around them somehow?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
My "table" looks like
hostaname|name|emailaddress

"hostname" as seen by a gethostbyaddr() command in Setup.php
"name" in UTF-8(preferred) or ISO-88859-1 according to the coding of
your wiki.
"emailaddress" for the user with accoutnanme "name"

Example:
MA12345|Marcus Kazmierczak|marcus at mkaz.com
(one entry per line, character encoding must correspond to wiki
encoding; use command "iconv -f xxxxx -t yyyyyy" if needed to convert
the file once)

The IP address of the user is translated to the hostname (here: MA12345)
which is for example your staff identity code in a company. Then my
auto-login  / auto-create logs you immediately into your account (or
creates it) with account name (=wiki user account) "Marcus Kazmierczak"
- if no valid cookie for the corresponding userid is detected from the
session.

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360 Auto-login /
Auto-account-creation by hostname for intranet MediaWikis

Marcus Kazmierczak schrieb:

> Depending on how the user/lookup table works, I
> could tie that to an environment variable set by
> Apache which stores the username.
>
> A modification also to the AuthPlugin.php page can
> use that username to query a database which stores
> real name, e-mail address, etc...


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Import question

body:
Forwarded from Foundation-l:

--- jellings <jellings at gmail.com> wrote:

> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:02:24 -0500
> From: jellings <jellings at gmail.com>
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Import question
>
> Hi
>
> Sorry in advance if this is the wrong list to post this to.
>
> I would like to know about importing csv files into an existing wiki.
>
> I have tried to find the documentation for doing so but have not had
> much luck.
>
> If anyone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate
> it.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> john

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
Andre Engels (andreengels at gmail.com) [050216 04:55]:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:23:41 -0500, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:

> > Perhaps the problem is that you haven't effectively explained why the
> > suggestions you've been given aren't useful.

> As if that wasn't clear from the onset. It was to me. Basically, he
> was being told, "Change the policy of some big firm you are a little
> customer to, because Wikipedia isn't going to change its policy."

I have seen no sign from him that he has even attempted this.

> > > It is better for me to quit wikipedia and you are to blame.

> > I disagree with that, even though you weren't talking to me.  Keep in
> > mind that you can get more done by being nice than by offending the very
> > people you're asking for help.

> Maybe being nice is also better than offending the very people you are
> supposed to be helping. I found David's posts at least as offending as
> Waerth's reaction to them.

I was attempting to explain why it was probably happening, and why open
proxies are often open sewers. I'm sorry you find that so offensive.
Perhaps you could explain in more detail, off-list if appropriate.

- d.


body:
sannse (sannse at tiscali.co.uk) [050216 04:13]:

> I don't know what the solution is, except for ja. being asked to change
> their policy here.  I don't see why the blocking system cannot be told
> to ignore this particular set (although I don't know the technicalities
> of course).  Note that these blocks are *not* in response to vandalism -
> proxies are blocked automatically even if no bad edits have come from
> that address.

Ah, that bit I didn't know about. I understand en: used to do this but
stopped when proxy owners complained.

>  Waerth is an excellent contributor, active in foundation
> issues as well as local issues, it's a real shame to see him distressed
> by this problem.

He also left an abusive note on my en: talk page. Apparently he considers
me personally responsible for the policy on ja:. I'm not inclined to
attempt rational explanation with the abusive.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Import question

body:
--- jellings <jellings at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> Sorry in advance if this is the wrong list to post this to.
>
> I would like to know about importing csv files into an existing wiki.
>
> I have tried to find the documentation for doing so but have not had
> much luck.
>
> If anyone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate
> it.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> john

John,

I've forwarded your question to the wikitech mailing list
(<wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>). That's probably the best place for this
kind of question.

However, I'm not sure you've given enough information for a good
answer. What are you trying to import? What information is in the CSV
fields?

-Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [Foundation-l] Import question


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
> I hope that all list participants see that I asked a simple question and I
> received a very damaging accusation from this user.

Your simple question comes up on mailing lists regularly. It usually
sparks a huge pointless debate about the relative merits of top verses
bottom posting. Sometimes the debate gets ugly because outlook express
top posts and there are implications that OE users are thick and
therefore can be taken the piss out of or called rude. This usually
upsets them and much merriment is had ;-|

It's clear now that you asked your question without knowing this. The
Epopt was simply trying to stop the debate from occurring.

<mrs merton> Lets have a heated debate

macs - overpriced, chunk of rubbish made for idiots  or stylish sleek
machine that prefers working to crashing?

microsoft - are they really all that bad?

What's the best operating system and are all the rest a load of crap?

</mrsmerton>

Note to the Epopt: Can II have a better troll sign? The one you did
for NSK was a bit crap. Also google uses a proportional font so can
you do it in Helvetica?


from_name: Arno M

subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
"Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
recommending it to most of the people I currently
recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
children, given my work in a high school).  You can
call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
let you), but those are the cold hard facts."

I agree with these sentiments, James.

I won't go into details, but I went through the experience of being called
a Nazi for opposing a porn link once, and the culprit even got the backing of
some sysops for doing that.

I agree also with what you said about Nick Berg in another post.
I know that it was debated at length here, but the decision to have
and retain that graphic photo of his severed head and links to sites
showing his murder is something I label a disgrace. In addition to its
unsuitable for minors nature, this decision would also have suited the
objectives of the terrorists who wanted this to be shown throughout the
world. It is not an encycopedia's task to do PR for terrorists, especially
ones who are as ruthless as these.

--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Theresa Knott" wrote

<snip>
> ... outlook express
> top posts and there are implications that OE users are thick ...

Oi!  Malign my intelligence all you like.  I have OE and never once have I
top-posted.  We should all edit posts down to the part to which we are
replying, and there's an end to it.

Charles


body:
I would like to _close_ the discussion for this subject on this
mailinglist wikitech-l now.

Interested developers can please add their names as "CC" to the mailing
list of bugzilla enhancement entry
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1360 where I upload a
description and a flowchart as PNG image.

Tom


subject: [WikiEN-l] New User

body:
"It is certainly more on topic than an extensive thread about trivialities such as
autofellatio."

Sorry, Ray, I don't agree.

Incidentally, "SGT Walter" seems to have moved on. Perhaps we can stop talking about him
on the grounds that it's an expired topic.
--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK, naughty pictures, and how better to flame me

body:
James Rosenzweig a ?crit:

> Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
> I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
> it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
> won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
> recommending it to most of the people I currently
> recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
> children, given my work in a high school).  You can
> call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
> names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
> let you), but those are the cold hard facts.
>
> And I have to be honest: I will probably not choose to
> introduce my students to Wikipedia with a class
> project (as I had hoped to do) if the photos are
> displayed inline.  Too many questions to have to
> answer to administrators (real-life school ones)
> about.  Again, you can call us censorious or
> narrow-minded or anything you like, but as long as I
> want to call myself employed, I'll have to live that
> way.  I don't know if you think Wikipedia will lose
> much by my ceasing to advocate it to every man, woman,
> and child I talk to.  I'll let you decide for
> yourself: certainly I don't think it's much of a
> threat in strictly numerical terms (it won't affect
> Wikipedia's pocketbook or editor population by more
> than a few hundred bucks or a few editors either
> direction)!  But it's the reality of the situation,
> and I think all the talk about browsers, etc.
> (frankly, I think 90%+ of our reader population either
> doesn't know how to shut off photos or considers it
> too great a hassle for WP to be worthwhile, but that's
> unsubstantiated guesswork) ignores the truth of the
> situation.
>
> Noble principles are fine and all that, but even the
> most remarkably open free speech laws recognize that
> there are some kinds of speech not suitable to all
> occasions.  Now go ahead and yell at me -- if you want
> ammo, I use IE and subscribe to Christian moral and
> ethical principles.  I'm sure someone can make use of
> those against me. :-)
>
> All my best to all of you, who keep my inbox full and
> my brain moving.  I wish you good fortune this cold
> February,
>
> James W. Rosenzweig

Nod, I entirely agree with you as well.
I am currently in contact with some people to try to see what we could
do in schools (this would be in Burkina Faso for example). They are
thinking of "certified" version on cd rom. And when they mean
"certified", they do not really mean validation, they mean "leaving
aside content inapropriate for kids".

I cannot really blame them. I do not let my kids freely read the
encyclopedia as well. Our project is great, and I have no fear with
regards to a clitoris picture personnaly, but would not want to stumble
on a severed head, or even worse goatse.

Call me freaking mother, but still, it is hard fact.

Wikipedia with such multimedia ressource is just not for kids. I
proposed several months ago that we move toward filtering system (a
parent system to exclude display of certain pictures). Some people have
already worked something on meta on the topic. I am still interested.
If only, this could be unabled in school.
Right now, with no filter, making a second version with no shocking
pictures would just take too much time for anyone.
So, unless there is a filtering system which might be unable, I will
myself discorage use of wikipedia in schools.

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: And blocked again

body:
David Gerard a ?crit:
> Walter van Kalken (walter at vankalken.net) [050216 02:09]:
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>>>If the ISP in question really is running an open proxy server, then Walter
>>>needs to bring it to their attention that this is leaving an abuse-machine
>>>wide open, just as if it were an open email relay being used by spammers.
>>
>
>>This is not my responsibility. Wikipedia is an open project and it
>>should be open for anyone.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, open proxies in this manner constitute a public problem on
> the Internet. Wikipedia blocks them on sight because they are primarily
> used for abuse.
>
> If you HAVE to use that proxy if you want to use that ISP, at this stage
> it's up to you to get them to run their systems competently.
>
>
> - d.

Excuse me ?

I do not think such comments are very helpful.

We know the power of users of internet lines in front of their isps, it
is non existent, we should not expect Waerth to be able to fix this
anytime soon.

On the other hand, WE, as an international project, insist on being open
to everyone editing. If we claim to be open, we need to just be,
regardless of the inconveniences.

In 4 years, we have shown that security could be ensured by a good
community, in a much more efficient and positive way that any barrier.
Giving up using community strength to fight vandals and replacing it by
physical barriers, is somehow just giving up the concept which made our
success. Till now, we have used human strength. And it works. Why should
Ja fail to go on using human strength ?

I do not think japanese editors should block ips preemptively, to
protect themselves, just in case there might be some abuse, and
consequently block good editors. It is very very very wrong.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: And blocked again


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
the Epopt of Boskone wrote:
>>I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi
>>regime with Soviet Russia.
>
>
> I have to agree with Zoney here: few would consider them equivalent.
> Soviet Russia was directly responsible for an order of magnitude more
> deaths than the Nazis, and indirectly responsible for two orders of
> magnitude more.
>
>
>>I would think the Hammer and Sickle is not as immediately abhorrant a
>>symbol (although admittedly I am not in the US).
>
>
> I have to disagree with Zoney here.  Despite the best efforts of
> [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt|Uncle Frank]] to rehabilitate the image of
> his buddy [[Joseph Stalin|Uncle Joe]] here in the United States,
> I, at least, find the Soviets far more abhorrent than the Nazis.
>
>
>>Zoney

Excuse me from seeming ignorant here, but I was under the impression
that the Nazi's committed as a willing and coordinated group, while
Stalin was really the reason why millions died.

TBSDY


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: We should not not abide by personal and secret
	decisions

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
>
> An Arbcom ruling is binding. Any admin who tries to enforce an arbcom
> ruling is not violating admin authority. I am not familiar with you
> case Robert, but _if_ the ruling was unfair then i would advise you to
> appeal. Drop a note on the requests for arbitration page explaining
> the circumstances, and why you think the descision was unfair and I
> for one will take a look.
>
> Theresa
>

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if RK is blocked, how is he going
to do that?

TBSDY


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: >>: Re: And blocked again

body:
In any cases Aphaia, thanks a lot for your trying to help and being a
confort for Waerth. It is great you can help communication with japanese
editors. Especially after your recent problems over there. Ja is a quite
faraway community and it is very hard for any of us to understand how
things are going on there and how we could discuss all this with
editors. Do you have suggestions ?

Ant

Aphaia a ?crit:
> Hi, all,
>
> I am sorry Waerth has been frustrated specially his continuously
> blocking on Japanese Wikipedia.
>
> And it is a shame Japanese Wikipedia community hasn't react his
> complaint rapidly. Some reactions were occured; his message in English
> was translated into Japanese soon after, I responded him as a current
> Embassy member of Japanese projects, though I am now quitting my
> activities on Japanese Wikipedia because of sexual harassment (not
> within the site but in a forum where many bad people enjoy malicious
> gosshiping. Even sysops participants are this gossiping, criticize and
> personal attack which will be archived - but it is a bit digression in
> this thread). And some Wikipedians came to #wikimedia presumably for
> discussing this matter with Waerth and others. Those reactions were
> very clumsy and awkward but I hope it is the beginning of improvement,
> not their last attempt.
>
> But I have to point out Japanese Wikipedia lack administrative issues
> in general. I assume no one will join the discussion on this matter
> except some users. We can't change their attitude instantly. So I ask
> Walter to be patient as much as possible for him. A dormant project
> like Japanese Wikipedia can't react to things if they are so of urgent
> and importance.
>
> I am sorry bad atmosphere on this thread. Honestly I am still thinking
> it would be better
> for Walter to mail his complaint to his ISP, even if it is clear for
> him they will ignore him.
> I think still it is better and necessary for us. Then after he can
> complaint to Ja policy again.
> He said it would be useless, but I think, if he once tries and be
> ignored, we would have
> different impression and reaction.
>
> And at last, I am very sorry none of the member of this list and
> Japanese Wikipedia has replied Waerth neither in the list nor on the
> Wikipedia.
>


from_name: Aphaia

body:
Hi, all,

I am sorry Waerth has been frustrated specially his continuously
blocking on Japanese Wikipedia.

And it is a shame Japanese Wikipedia community hasn't react his
complaint rapidly. Some reactions were occured; his message in English
was translated into Japanese soon after, I responded him as a current
Embassy member of Japanese projects, though I am now quitting my
activities on Japanese Wikipedia because of sexual harassment (not
within the site but in a forum where many bad people enjoy malicious
gosshiping. Even sysops participants are this gossiping, criticize and
personal attack which will be archived - but it is a bit digression in
this thread). And some Wikipedians came to #wikimedia presumably for
discussing this matter with Waerth and others. Those reactions were
very clumsy and awkward but I hope it is the beginning of improvement,
not their last attempt.

But I have to point out Japanese Wikipedia lack administrative issues
in general. I assume no one will join the discussion on this matter
except some users. We can't change their attitude instantly. So I ask
Walter to be patient as much as possible for him. A dormant project
like Japanese Wikipedia can't react to things if they are so of urgent
and importance.

I am sorry bad atmosphere on this thread. Honestly I am still thinking
it would be better
for Walter to mail his complaint to his ISP, even if it is clear for
him they will ignore him.
I think still it is better and necessary for us. Then after he can
complaint to Ja policy again.
He said it would be useless, but I think, if he once tries and be
ignored, we would have
different impression and reaction.

And at last, I am very sorry none of the member of this list and
Japanese Wikipedia has replied Waerth neither in the list nor on the
Wikipedia.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) [050216 08:40]:
> Theresa Knott wrote:

> >An Arbcom ruling is binding. Any admin who tries to enforce an arbcom
> >ruling is not violating admin authority. I am not familiar with you
> >case Robert, but _if_ the ruling was unfair then i would advise you to
> >appeal. Drop a note on the requests for arbitration page explaining
> >the circumstances, and why you think the descision was unfair and I
> >for one will take a look.

> Not to put too fine a point on it, but if RK is blocked, how is he going
> to do that?

RK isn't blocked - but if he were, [[Wikipedia:Arbitration policy]] notes
that people blocked from editing can email an ArbCom member to file an
appeal. (Probably best to check which ones are active at the time.)

- d.


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Jim Trodel <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:

> The question is not one of Censorship but of Editorial Control and
> are
> the photos, etc helping us meet our mission - which is to become an
> trusted encyclopedic source of information.

Then don't filter/censor/self-censor/editorialize and:
* Let grown ups decide for themselves
* Stay NPOV
* Help in creating the "Approved articles for under 17 audiences" (or
whatever it is in your jurisdiction)

NPOV requires us to not suppress the views of the minority just to
please the majority. NPOV also requires us to not discriminate
against non-US, non-English speaking, non-Christian, non-White, and
non-Republican views (I almost wrote fascist... sigh).

An encyclopedia is an exposition, a knowledge book, of mankind's
experience on this planet. All subjects are by definition required.
Leaving some out for a purpose means we will have failed at making a
good encyclopedia.

Just as mankind's experiences can be joyous and gleeful, so can they
be shocking and senseless. Just as men and women can treat each other
with brotherly love and parental care, so can they treat each other
with disdain and depravity.

I for one make no judgement one way or another. In one country, some
things are allowed, even encouraged, and others frowned upon, in bad
taste, even illegal. In another country, the reverse is true. Am I so
high and mighty that I can tell my neighbors right from wrong on the
land of their fathers and grandfathers? I think not.

==Grownups==
Have you seen the internet lately? Crime, corruption, fud, sex,
violence, greed, lies, deaths and gruesome deaths vie for attention
with the Grammys. Yet there is also beauty, love, and friendship.
Part of what makes a person mature is the ability to filter the good
from the bad. If there was no sin, there would be no need for grace.

And when I want information on sexually transmitted diseases and S&M,
I want wikipedia to be complete. Incompleteness is worse than
useless.

==Kids==
Just like the internet is not a place for american suburban 8 year
olds, so is wikipedia. I have no problem with people telling parents
to be leery of letting their kids into wikipedia.

Teens grow up and discover wikipedia and they become adults
real-fast. But they would become adults anyway, and hopefully
wikipedia will give them a broad and balanced view of the world,
rather than the narrow and bigoted view they glean from their school
so-called friends.

Young children have different needs. I would not put an 8-year old on
wikipdedia if I was not sitting with then with my hand on the mouse.

But remember that not all children need this type of parenting. There
are boys and girl prostitutes in many countries that are just 11 and
12. I suggest that these children, if they ever get access to
wikipedia, will really need the information that is in the adult
version.

Finally,

Unless we allow everything, we will just not be trusted. Want to know
about the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades? Go to wikipedia. Want to know
about the Rwandan Genocide? Go to wikipedia.
Did you know that Shanghai has the largest seaport in the world? Yes,
you guessed it, from Wikipedia.

If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: RK, naughty pictures, and how better to flame
 me

body:
Anthere wrote:

> I am currently in contact with some people to try to see what we could
> do in schools (this would be in Burkina Faso for example). They are
> thinking of "certified" version on cd rom. And when they mean
> "certified", they do not really mean validation, they mean "leaving
> aside content inapropriate for kids".

Has Benin ever come under consideration?  Its unusually high level of
press freedom for Africa (see
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/freedom_of_press.htm ) suggests
that they might be more open to a product like ours.  Does anyone have
any contacts there?

> Wikipedia with such multimedia ressource is just not for kids. I
> proposed several months ago that we move toward filtering system (a
> parent system to exclude display of certain pictures). Some people
> have already worked something on meta on the topic. I am still
> interested.
> If only, this could be unabled in school.
> Right now, with no filter, making a second version with no shocking
> pictures would just take too much time for anyone.
> So, unless there is a filtering system which might be unable, I will
> myself discorage use of wikipedia in schools.

Couldn't the category system be used as the basis for a filtering
system.  Thus something like [[Category:XXX]] could be applied to an
article with a strongly objectionable picture that could be filtered out.


body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:

> ...
> Pretty soon, no matter what we do, *noone* is going to recommend
> Wikipedia.
> ...

I wouldn't be so sure. You might see company executives, legislators,
lawyers, doctors, elected officials, newspaper editors-in-chief still
quite interested in telling their peers.

And geeks. Don't forget the 600,000,000 geeks out there. (1 in 10,
roughly)

=====
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818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: pinco

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Alex Y. Kwan

body:
Hi, Alex Y. Kwan,
I would be very grateful to you if you could help me having a look at:
http://eo.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mi_amas_vin and writing in the original
scripting the chinese (cantonese) sentences :)

Obviously, everyone is asked to contribute... but in the page itself!

Thanks a lot,
Nino

--
http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidariet? per la Tanzania)
http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again

body:
Or Alexis, or Alexandra. Although in recent times it may just be
"Alex", especially in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Mark

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:11:41 +0800, MilchFlasche??
<robertus0617 at gmail.com> wrote:
> So "Alex" could be "Alexandria"? :wink:
>
>
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:44:17 +0800, Alex Y. Kwan <litalex at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Felix Wan wrote:
> > > Someone signed on Meta.  There are some support beside opposition in the
> > > mailing list.  Alex Kwan on this list edited my introduction to the test
> > > site: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-WP/zh-yue > with an anonymous
> > > IP.  We can expect him to contribute more when he is back from vacation.
> >
> > I am back and *cough* am female.
> >
> > > People may still disagree, but at least that will be better than arguments
> > > without any backup.
> >
> > Yep.
> >
> > little Alex
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> --
> 2005, make signs happen!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Jim Trodel <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:

> I enjoyed your essay (and you may be surprised that I agree with
> most
> of it). Unfortunately it addresses an argument that I am not
> making:

No, your question is a subset of the greater question I answered: Can
NPOV and Censorship abide in the same body of work?

Thanks for saying you enjoyed it. I went over it twice to remove
egregious typos. ;)

> ...
> The question remains:
> **************
> Why is the compromise, i.e. "To not include the image inline but
> make
> it accessible by a link" not considered reasonable?
> **************

Because unless all photos are shown through links, the ones that are
will be "flagged", essentially singled out as potentially offensive
to a group or groups. Should the Jack Daniels logo be linked then,
seeing as it might be quite offensive to a billion muslims? This will
only reinforce the notion that wikipedia editors are biased. And
that's Not Good for our NPOV aims.

> ...
> Hopefully if such children get access to wikipedia they will find
> out
> about child slavery and support organizations that want to help
> them
> them get out of bondage. And even more hopefully, wikipedia will be
> part of spreading knowledge (and the associated freedom that comes
> from acting on knowledge) in such a way that 11 and 12 your old
> prostitutes don't exist.

Are you saying it's bad that 11 and 12 year old prostitutes exist?
The practice had been around for thousands of years, is alive and
well today, and will most likely go on for quite some time. Are you
inserting a personal value judgment? On this list, fine. Keep it out
of the WP though.

I am not saying what my morality dictates. It is not relevent to the
creating of the encyclopedia.

> ...
> And what of the mistrust that comes from looking up a topic you
> have
> heard of and are not quite sure what it means (although you can
> guess)
> and immediately seeing a very graphic image.

There is a link. [[Autofellatio]]. There. Happy?

Want more images? Google them.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else
> is
> > missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
> > encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
>
> What information is lost if we don't include the image?

What information is lost in a surgery manual if the images are
removed?

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to that image

body:
--- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to read about a sexual
> or
> > otherwise explicit subject without seeing explicit images of it.
> I am
> > quite interested to know what exactly autofellatio is, if it
> really is
> > possible and what proportion of the population are able - but I'm
> really
> > not interested in seeing an image of it.  And if I am, I'll turn
> of
> > safe-search on google and search for images there.
> >
> > The argument that I can turn off images on my browser seems a bad
> one to
> > me - for a start, many people don't know how to do this (never
> > underestimate the non-techyness of the general user).  It's also
> > inconvenient to have to switch images on and off for different
> pages
> > (especially as I use tabs).  And for the general reader, why
> would they
> > /expect/ to have to turn images off when reading a general
> encyclopaedia?
> >
> > --sannse
>
> Thank you, sannse.
>
> Really, I think we could do with some intervention from Jimbo on
> this
> issue.  I'm a rabid leftie, and one reason I chose to study law was
> because I detest censorship. Yet, at the same time, I utterly
> refuse
> to have to put vile censorship software on my own computer to avoid
> seeing inline what shouldn't be there in the first place. I could
> really care less about some of the more minor ones, such as
> [[Clitoris]], but I'm on record as saying that the day [[Goatse]]
> and
> similar articles receive according pictures is the day that I leave
> Wikipedia and demand that every trace of my involvement on this
> site
> be removed. I love this site, but I would no longer want to be
> personally associated with such a place.
>
> -- ambi

Calm down ambi. You of all people should not get upset about all
this, since this is your field of professional study.

Besides you home page, you may not demand that all traces of your
involvment be removed. You willfully released your contributions in
the GNU Free Documentation License. It's out of your hands. You
should have thought about that before contributing. (It's at the
bottom of every edit page, and you are a law student after all).

Stomping you foot may work in a bar with cute guys. Most of use are
neither cute or in a bar.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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from_name: jellings

subject: [Foundation-l] Import question

body:
Hi

Sorry in advance if this is the wrong list to post this to.

I would like to know about importing csv files into an existing wiki.
I have tried to find the documentation for doing so but have not had
much luck.

If anyone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

--
john


subject: [Foundation-l] Import question


from_name: Bill Konrad

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Bill Konrad said:
>> It's a bit of a  broad exageration to claim ALL editors would have to
>> bowlderize ALL of their  edits.
>
> No, it's absolutely true.  Just one goes and vandalizes the article on the
> American Revolution, on one day, and you'll have school governors freaking
> out.

Huh? What does the ever-present problem with vandalism have to do with
placing images potentially offensive to many behind a link instead of inline
(or what you seem to characterize as "bowlderizing")?

Whether some articles might contain offensive vandalism for a short time is
a very different matter from what is accepted as appropriate content by the
community (and by extension by the MediaWiki foundation). Both may pose
problems to school administrators and parents regarding the suitability of
Wikipedia for children, but the vast majority of vandalism is not much
different from what is scrawled on bathroom walls or heard in the
schoolyard. Given that most such vandalism is quickly removed, it is of an
entirely different nature than more or less permanent content sanctioned by
the community.

Bkonrad


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan

body:
Tietew wrote:
> In past, most of wikimedia projects had blocked open proxies
> automatically using MediaWiki feature.
> cf. [[User:Proxy blocker]]
>
> I don't know why and when the feature is disabled. Could anyone
> explain or show a pointer for discussion about it?

When we do port scans on thousands of hosts a day, other peoples'
internet providers complain to our hosting provider, and we risk being
shut down.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan

body:
Tietew wrote:
> In past, most of wikimedia projects had blocked open proxies
> automatically using MediaWiki feature.
> cf. [[User:Proxy blocker]]
>
> I don't know why and when the feature is disabled. Could anyone
> explain or show a pointer for discussion about it?

When we do port scans on thousands of hosts a day, other peoples'
internet providers complain to our hosting provider, and we risk being
shut down.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan

body:
Tietew wrote:
> In past, most of wikimedia projects had blocked open proxies
> automatically using MediaWiki feature.
> cf. [[User:Proxy blocker]]
>
> I don't know why and when the feature is disabled. Could anyone
> explain or show a pointer for discussion about it?

When we do port scans on thousands of hosts a day, other peoples'
internet providers complain to our hosting provider, and we risk being
shut down.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan

body:
Tietew wrote:
> In past, most of wikimedia projects had blocked open proxies
> automatically using MediaWiki feature.
> cf. [[User:Proxy blocker]]
>
> I don't know why and when the feature is disabled. Could anyone
> explain or show a pointer for discussion about it?

When we do port scans on thousands of hosts a day, other peoples'
internet providers complain to our hosting provider, and we risk being
shut down.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
--- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> I agree that we shouldn't be displaying links to the beheadings.
> We've
> done it in around six articles. One of the websites we give the URL
> for (though not as a live link) is the ogrish site, which also
> shows
> young women having sex with horses. The fact that we have to crawl
> into the gutter to find these videos ought to tell us something. I
> wish we'd show more maturity as a community when it comes to stuff
> like this.

To some people, such "gutter" is everyday life. They too have a need
for  an informative and complete encyclopedia.

Why do you think so many 19 year old american soldiers coming back
from iraq are fubared in the head? Because they went from lily-white
to scaping the bottom of the human barrel in 2 weeks.

If all wikipedia ever does is help war survivors cope, that will be
reason enough to have built it.

Note: FUBAR, from wikipedia: A slang acronym which can mean "Fucked
Up Beyond All Recognition" and/or or "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair".

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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body:
--- sannse <sannse at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>
> > Stomping you foot may work in a bar with cute guys. Most of use
> are
> > neither cute or in a bar.
>
> If you have to resort to pathetic, sexist put-downs, to respond to
> valid
> concerns... then you really are loosing the argument - and all of
> my
> respect.

You're right, and I apologise.

=====
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818.943.1850 cell
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from_name: MPerel

body:
<chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Stomping you foot may work in a bar with cute guys. Most of use are
> neither cute or in a bar.

Oh please!  What a demeaning, dismissive, sexist statement!

Miri


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK, naughty pictures, and how better to flame me

body:
James Rosenzweig (jwrosenzweig at yahoo.com) [050216 09:36]:

> Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
> I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
> it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
> won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
> recommending it to most of the people I currently
> recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
> children, given my work in a high school).  You can
> call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
> names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
> let you), but those are the cold hard facts.

What other classes of photos would you require be links rather than inline
in this case, and would the planned option to have images as either links
or inline be of use in this context?

- d.


body:
--- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> Really, I think we could do with some intervention from Jimbo on
> this
> issue.  I'm a rabid leftie, and one reason I chose to study law was
> because I detest censorship. Yet, at the same time, I utterly
> refuse
> to have to put vile censorship software on my own computer to avoid
> seeing inline what shouldn't be there in the first place. I could
> really care less about some of the more minor ones, such as
> [[Clitoris]], but I'm on record as saying that the day [[Goatse]]
> and
> similar articles receive according pictures is the day that I leave
> Wikipedia and demand that every trace of my involvement on this
> site
> be removed. I love this site, but I would no longer want to be
> personally associated with such a place.

To address the point "what shouldn't be there in the first place":

I suggest that the current conflict resolution process is not
adequate to meet the challenge posed by such image insertion.

I personally don't care for the photo, but, as has been said on this
list, the general wiki process would, in time, rectify the situation.

I think that to meet the need of many people, the media (photo,
whatever) itself needs to be tagged as potentially offensive, and
replaced with an image indicating that the linked media is deemed
offensive, but where such image is clickable to reach the linked
image.

Finally, there needs to be a formal process for complaint, which
would result in the media being image-linked upon receipt of the
complaint, and a formal process similar to arbcom set up to decide on
media inclusion, alternative media, and so on.

Currently these efforts take place all over wikipedia and in lists
and IRC and plenty of people take cheap shots at each other.

This would satisfy the casual browser, like me, as well as those who
wish greater depth of knowledge, like me.

Again, Ambi, I apologize for the bar reference.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > To some people, such "gutter" is everyday life. They too have a
> need
> > for  an informative and complete encyclopedia.
> >
> > Why do you think so many 19 year old american soldiers coming
> back
> > from iraq are fubared in the head? Because they went from
> lily-white
> > to scaping the bottom of the human barrel in 2 weeks.
>
> Can you provide evidence for this claim?

Find a vet and ask him.

>
> > If all wikipedia ever does is help war survivors cope, that will
> be
> > reason enough to have built it.
>
> Can you provide evidence that this is posible?

Can you provide evidence that it cannot?

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> Christopher Mahan a ?crit:
> > --- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>If some information is missing, then people will wonder what
> else
> >>
> >>is
> >>
> >>>missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
> >>>encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
> >>
> >>What information is lost if we don't include the image?
> >
> >
> > What information is lost in a surgery manual if the images are
> > removed?
>
> Sorry, REAL information would be a movie.

Yeah, and those exist. Movies are hard to include in a manual ;)

> As far as this picture is concerned, I am not exactly sure what the
> guy
> is doing... Maybe trying to lick a wound ?

I noticed that too. He's not even good at it. Besides, like jimbo
said, it's most likely copyvio.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Update of download.wikimedia.org/archives/de/

body:
Jochen Magnus wrote:
> Sorry for my bothersome insisting on this topic:
>
> When will be an database update for the german wikipedia be available?

Since last week. Did you check the list archives before asking your
question?

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-February/027602.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: xml wiki representation

body:
Pedro Medeiros wrote:
> Speaking of which, why have a flex/bison parser? Wouldn't it be better
> if mediawiki created XML pages directly, like an "atom feed" or "rss"
> button? Mediawiki already carries a HTML engine for rendering wikitext
> to HTML, wouldn't it be easy to, with little modification, make it
> output XML (or even Docbook/XML) instead of HTML?

Our present "parser" is a hack with a series of regexps and other
horrors, whose steps often stomp on each other and produce hard to fix
errors. It's not something to be emulated; rather it is our greatest
shame. Currently we cannot guarantee that XHTML output will be
well-formed, so changing it to a custom XML format would be a waste of
time, as it would not be transformable.

A character-by-character parser that can go from the beginning to the
end and churn something out that's guaranteed to be well-formed should
be less error-prone and easier to maintain. Whether flex/bison is the
best route I cannot say, but it's worth exploring.

Having this parser output an internal XML format instead of XHTML
directly means a) we can maintain semantic information that would be
lost in HTML and b) we can keep the base _parser_ separate from the code
that does things like check for page existence, format the URLs for
local links, and perhaps template transclusions. This allows
transformation to other formats (XHTML, DocBook?) with less crap than eg
trying to rewrite all the HTML into DocBook.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Jim Trodel <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:

> The question is not one of Censorship but of
> Editorial Control and are
> the photos, etc helping us meet our mission - which
> is to become an
> trusted encyclopedic source of information.
>

Absolutely, this is not censorship.

Wikipedia image policy 'suggests' discussing
objectionable images before adding. This wasn't done
for the autofellatio image.

When someone wanted to delete the image they were
asked to get a consensus for deletion. This was a
mistake (IMO). And allowed a minority vote to keep the
image.

Jimbo intervened and changed it. Now there is a vote
on  consensus to add or link, more in line with the
existing policy (IMO).

Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Profanity
policies seem to be working amazingly well,
considering how simple, vague and open to
interpretation they are.

Just because the community decides not to use an
objectionable image doesn't mean we are censoring.

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from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: top posting (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user)

body:
NSK said:

> and when the quote is too long

If the quote is too long, it should be trimmed.  Only quote enough to
provide context for your statement; the earlier emails are all archived
and can be consulted by those curious about the full content.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >From: Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com>
>
> >An encyclopedia is an exposition, a knowledge book, of mankind's
> >experience on this planet. All subjects are by definition
> required.
>
> All *encyclopedic* subjects.  What I ate for lunch is also part of
> mankind's
> experience on this planet, but it should not be recorded in
> Wikipedia.

What you ate for lunch is of little interest to anyone except maybe
your health care provider, and then not much at that. But what
50,000,000 people ate for lunch would be very encyclopedic.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: Fwd: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to that image

body:
--- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I think that to meet the need of many people, the media (photo,
> > whatever) itself needs to be tagged as potentially offensive,
and
> > replaced with an image indicating that the linked media is
deemed
> > offensive, but where such image is clickable to reach the
linked
> > image.
>
> If you're saying what I think you're saying, this could be quite
 a
> workable solution. As long as offensive images don't appear
> instantly
> to the casual reader, I have no issue with their presence.

 I hope you are hearing what I was trying to say.

 Please somebody out there make a mockup of this image, the "Image
 reported as offensive being investigated click here for more
 information" image.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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from_name: Zoney

body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 23:29:39 +0200, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
> Wouldn't it be better to top-post, so that we won't be required to downscroll
> pages of text just to read a paragraph? (alternatively, wouldn't it be better
> to quote just a line or two?)
>
> Anyone knows how to make KMail display my signature properly in topposting?
>
> --
> NSK
> http://portal.wikinerds.org

I find gmail very useful for the large amounts of thread-based email
conservations that an email list gets. It keeps messages in their own
threads (by and large), displays all messages in the thread when you
call it up (but already read messages are collapsed by default, one
click expands them). Any messages in a thread can be
expanded/collapsed. Quoted text is by default hidden (a click expands
it). Generally it's just nicely designed - better than Thunderbird
(which I use for personal/work mail) for long thread-based
conversations.

Although you can bottom post or top post - the nicest thing is that it
doesn't matter so much whether someone top/bottom posts to you, and it
doesn't even matter if they quote the WHOLE conversation!

I wouldn't use gmail for other stuff though, as all mail is scanned
(in theory just for ad placement). Ads are not distracting, as they
are just text, and in a long conversation, usually only at the end
rather than the side. Plus I like to possess my own mail where
personal and work stuff is concerned. I can't imagine having all my
personal mail stuck on a  webmail account!!!

Oh, and with gmail, it's great for keeping/searching back through old
threads. There's no adverse side-effects to keeping every message. I
haven't particularly used it for this list, but one of my other
mailing lists (Irish railway news in fact) is full of interesting and
useful information that I might want to find later.

Zoney

P.S. Disclaimers: No I don't work for Google, I don't think they are
great just because I like gmail, I'm not necessarily in favour of
their advertising methods (though it's a good way to make money), and
so on.

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top posting

body:
Is it better to leave your computer on 24/7 or shut it down when you won't be using it for a while?

Does the Spirit proceed from the Father or from the Father _and_ the Son?

Is it acceptible to split an infinitive?

Did Neil Armstrong say "That's one small step for man" or "That's one small step for _a_ man?"

Do you see a greater portion of your face in the mirror on a compact when you hold it further a way from you?

Should toilet paper be installed so the loose end hangs toward you or away from you?

Will a tray of ice cubes freeze faster if you fill it with cold water or hot water?

There, _that_ should clog up this list for a day or so.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
On 2/16/05 9:39 AM, "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> David Gerard said:
>> Christopher Mahan (chris_mahan at yahoo.com) [050216 14:27]:
>>> --- Arno M <redgum46 at lycos.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> It is not an encycopedia's task to do PR for terrorists,
>>>> especially
>>>> ones who are as ruthless as these.
>>
>>> Then Auschwitz pics are out of the question, right?
>>
>>
>> I don't know if anyone's working on code for the inline vs link user
>> option, but it would probably beat the fork that appears to be coming
>> on the issue.
>
> Are forks such a bad idea?  It would solve the child-safe problem.  The
> adult Wikipedia could possibly also drop a lot of the trivia that are
> mostly of interest to children.  TV show episode guides, comics, games and
> the like.  Presumably article and history information could still be
> interchanged.

Yeah, television, comics, games -- trivia for children. Boo, popular and low
culture. Why won't everyone realize that the only things they should be
thinking about are Handelian overtures and eating brussels sprouts?

I adore Handel and good fresh brussels sprouts, but really. Contemporary and
popular art and culture are not trivia for children.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: RK, naughty pictures, and how better to flame
	me

body:
On 2/16/05 2:13 AM, "Anthere" <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> James Rosenzweig a ?crit:
>
>> Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
>> I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
>> it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
>> won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
>> recommending it to most of the people I currently
>> recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
>> children, given my work in a high school).  You can
>> call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
>> names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
>> let you), but those are the cold hard facts.
>>

Ooh! If Wikipedia decides as a community it will not display explicit photos
of sexual acts, then I won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
recommending it to most of the people I currently recommend it to.

Pretty soon, no matter what we do, *noone* is going to recommend Wikipedia.

Pretty much all we have to do for filtering is to take advantage of the
categorization schema. This does not need to be a big deal.


from_name: Jim Trodel

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
The question is not one of Censorship but of Editorial Control and are
the photos, etc helping us meet our mission - which is to become an
trusted encyclopedic source of information.

Two thoughts:
1) The assumption that adults would not be offended by seeing this
photo inline is naive - just because I want to learn about something
doesn't mean I want to see it performed (whether that be autofellatio
or beheadings or whatever) - in fact IMHO wanting to learn about
something by going to an encylopedia should imply that a scholarly or
educational view of the subject is desired - for a Mass Media
interpretation - one would just use google (or their favorite search
engine). And if one really wanted to see it - use an image search.

2) Students *should* have access to educational articles of this type.
I have a distinct memory of looking up "fellatio" in a dictionary at
my school library. I had no stomach for asking my mom or dad what the
word meant - and I didn't trust my fellow students enough to take them
at their word. I didn't need a picture to understand (though I may
have wanted one).

=Summary=
I have been using wikipedia for some time (though I only recently
started actively editing) and am concerned that the mission to provide
a repository of generally accessible information is being changed so
that it won't be generally acceptable (and thus not accessible
either). The great thing about a web based encyclopedia is that with
one click can provide additional information about a subject (or see a
picture of it, etc) for those that want it. These arguments about
using your browser correctly, accusations of censorship, etc miss the
point and the mission of wikipedia.

Like James, I have been recommeding wikipedia to many (though in my
case it is adults aged 30-70 with most in the 50-70 range*). If we
can't come to a concensus that includes a 1) generally acceptable
standard with 2) links to the additional (possibly offensive
material), I won't be able to keep making that recommendation.

==QUESTION==
Why is the compromise offered by those that find such material
offensive, i.e. "To not include it inline but make it accessible by a
link" not considered a reasonable?

Jim (trodel at gmail.com) [[User:Tr?del]]

*These are generally intelligent people who usually already have a
computer but they have heard of spyware, viruses, porn, etc. and are
not sure they want to make the transition to "always on" access to the
internet. "Won't people be able to snoop into my computer?" is a
typical question. Currently, I setup firefox, install spyware
protection software, install a web-meeting software so if they have a
problem they can call me and I can help, and setup bookmarks based on
their interest, which currently always include wikipedia.

> "Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
> I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
> it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
> won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
> recommending it to most of the people I currently
> recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
> children, given my work in a high school).  You can
> call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
> names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
> let you), but those are the cold hard facts."
>
> I agree with these sentiments, James.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:

> For my part, I think this sort of stuff devalues Wikipedia.

Your opinion is taken into consideration.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> Please, no bar graphs.

This is a serious conversation. You are not allowed to make me laugh
out loud. I'm at work for Pete's sake!

;)

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Bill Konrad said:
>>
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>> Bill Konrad said:
>>>> It's a bit of a  broad exageration to claim ALL editors would have to
>>>> bowlderize ALL of their  edits.
>>>
>>> No, it's absolutely true.  Just one goes and vandalizes the article on
>>> the American Revolution, on one day, and you'll have school governors
>>> freaking out.
>>
>> Huh? What does the ever-present problem with vandalism have to do with
>> placing images potentially offensive to many behind a link instead of
>> inline  (or what you seem to characterize as "bowlderizing")?
>
> Both of them are unacceptable for classroom materials.  Getting the well
> behaved users to politely bowdlerize their contributions in order to fly
> under the school board radar would not solve the problem because the
> presence of badly behaved users and casual vandals will still produce an
> environment too unpredictable for classroom use.
>>
>> Both may pose  problems to school administrators and
>> parents regarding the suitability of  Wikipedia for children, but the
>> vast majority of vandalism is not much  different from what is scrawled
>> on bathroom walls or heard in the  schoolyard.
>
> Those actions are also subject to sanction in schools.
>
>
>> Given that most such
>> vandalism is quickly removed, it is of an  entirely different nature
>> than more or less permanent content sanctioned by  the community.
>
> Absolutely.  The two are distinct problems, but both render live Wikis and
> other volatile web environments unsuitable for use in schools.
> Using a filtered Wiki is much more sensible.

But still don't see how anything you said here validates your earlier
assertion that all editors would have to bowlderize all their edits.

Bkonrad


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 19, Issue 87

body:
--- "Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:

> ...
> If an image has no educational or encyclopedic content, then it
> doesn't
> belong on Wikipedia at all, regardless of whether it offends
> people.

Agreed.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] new user

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 12:46:50PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>JAY JG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In case people here aren't aware, when neo-Nazis use the number "88"
>>>it is code for "Heil Hitler", "H" being the 8th letter of the alphabet.
>>>
>>>
>>Such a usage on their part is wasted if their potential audience does
>>not know that.
>>
>>
>It's a sign of recognition to other neo-Nazis.  It doesn't have to be
>recognized by the general public to be effective.
>
>Compare the [[ichthus]] or [[rainbow flag]] or the various code-words,
>hand-grips, and whatnot of secret societies.
>
>For other numerical examples, compare 420, 93, 42, 23, or 17.
>
Regretably, I'm not familiar with the numerical codes. Has anyone
written an article on these in general?  Without this thread my tendency
would have been to associate the number "88" with piano players. :-)

Ec


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pre-emptive humiliation (aka "You're full of @$%^@%")

body:
I just had to de-lurk to talk about this:

Some user named His Own Rectum (probably a neo-Nazi) pops up and starts
editing. Then an admin comes along, notes that the user is full of @#%
and that the username breaks a taboo so he ...

Wait for it....

...blocks His Own Rectum.

ROTFLMAO with tears in my eyes!

Uncle Ed

P.S. This really happened, check the logs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] new user

body:
On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 12:46:50PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> JAY JG wrote:
> >In case people here aren't aware, when neo-Nazis use the number "88"
> >it is code for "Heil Hitler", "H" being the 8th letter of the alphabet.
>
> Such a usage on their part is wasted if their potential audience does
> not know that.

It's a sign of recognition to other neo-Nazis.  It doesn't have to be
recognized by the general public to be effective.

Compare the [[ichthus]] or [[rainbow flag]] or the various code-words,
hand-grips, and whatnot of secret societies.

For other numerical examples, compare 420, 93, 42, 23, or 17.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Agreed.
>
>
> Which is why it is od that no one has anaged to give a direct
> answer
> to my question about what information the picture adds to the
> article.

Someone did. The photo shows that it is actually possible to perform
this act.
A line-dawing would not.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Update of download.wikimedia.org/archives/de/

references:
<cuvghe$7ko$1@sea.gmane.org> <42139159.9000406@pobox.com>
	<cv074g$pkj$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Jochen Magnus wrote:
>>> When will be a database update for the german wikipedia be available?
>>
>> Since last week. Did you check the list archives before asking your
>> question?
>
> the german dump is from Feb 3. Our mirror robot (and me to) checks the
> download page daily for updates and this 13 day old file is our last
> update source.

What's wrong with the Feb 9 dump? Can you provide more information please?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Bill Konrad said:
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> [...]
>>>
>>> Absolutely.  The two are distinct problems, but both render live Wikis
>>> and other volatile web environments unsuitable for use in schools.
>>> Using a filtered Wiki is much more sensible.
>>
>> But still don't see how anything you said here validates your earlier
>> assertion that all editors would have to bowlderize all their edits.
>>
> Do you deny that it's true?  Would an encyclopedia containing entries for
> Dirty Sanchez and Donkey punch *really* be acceptable for classroom use?
> Would not all edits by all users have to conform to standards acceptable
> in a classroom environment?

Do I deny the assertion that ALL editors would have to bowlderize ALL their
edits? Yes, it is a false proposition on the face of it. I just made an edit
to an article which was in no way "bowlderized". Hundreds of editors make
thousands of edits every day in which there is no consideration of
bowlderization whatsoever.

Bkonrad


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
JAY JG wrote:

> That's an odd argument.  It reminds me of the argument some people
> make when they say women who wear "provocative" clothing are "asking
> for it."

But that argument should not be dismissed so lightly as some kind of
blame-the-victim tactic.  I've had similar questions come up in a
parent-teacher discussion about highschool dress codes.  Teenage girls
tend to respond very much to peer pressure in fashion trends.  Burying
their heads in the sand on this subject tends to leave their but ends
invitingly in the air.  They often have no idea about the messages they
are sending.

If this provocation leads to a "rape" the law may very well succeed in
punishing the "rapist", but it does nothing to get the "victim" to
accept her share of the responsibility for her actions.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Skyring wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:14:49 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Are you proposing an article listing the specific lunch details of
>>50,000,000 individuals?
>>
>>
>Can we get some feedback on this, please?
>
I really don't want to bring up my lunch. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
>>>
>>>
>>>missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
>>>encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
>>>
>>>
>>What information is lost if we don't include the image?
>>
>>
>What information is lost in a surgery manual if the images are
>removed?
>
The subject picture seemed to have body parts in the wrong place.  It is
conceivable in this instance that the possibility of autofellatio may
have been possible as the product of surgical alteration.  The
information missing from the picture is the evidence of the surgery.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 11:09:16AM -0500, Jim Trodel wrote:
> 1) The assumption that adults would not be offended by seeing this
> photo inline is naive - just because I want to learn about something
> doesn't mean I want to see it performed (whether that be autofellatio
> or beheadings or whatever) - in fact IMHO wanting to learn about
> something by going to an encylopedia should imply that a scholarly or
> educational view of the subject is desired - for a Mass Media
> interpretation - one would just use google (or their favorite search
> engine). And if one really wanted to see it - use an image search.

Who is assuming that adults would not, or should not, be offended?  I
expect that adults will be offended by many things they see and read on
Wikipedia.  Thankfully, offense has never killed anyone, and mentally
healthy human beings are capable of functioning reasonably happily
whilst being aware that there exist many, many things in the world which
offend them.

For what it's worth, I don't think this fuss is really about
autofellatio, any more than it was about clitorises (clitorides?) when
the fuss was over the article [[Clitoris]].  Badly-chosen images are
easily replaced within the normal Wikipedia editing process, and the
abuse of Wikipedia to troll with "shock-site" images is readily defeated
within that process as well, as you can see in action on the talk page
[[Talk:Goatse.cx]].

Rather, the issue here seems to me to be whether Wikipedia needs some
kind of rules under which people's work will be deleted or hidden away
on the grounds of being "offensive".  I hold that it does not; indeed,
that such rules would harm the project.  Existing ad-hoc practices work
just fine for selecting the work that should be included, on the basis
of accuracy, style, neutrality, copyright, and other such rules.

> 2) Students *should* have access to educational articles of this type.
> I have a distinct memory of looking up "fellatio" in a dictionary at
> my school library. I had no stomach for asking my mom or dad what the
> word meant - and I didn't trust my fellow students enough to take them
> at their word. I didn't need a picture to understand (though I may
> have wanted one).

In holding that students should have access (presumably via Wikipedia)
to definitions and descriptions of fellatio, you've already placed this
ideal of Wikipedia where it would be blocked by censorware and other
processes that seek to "protect" children from "indecency".

The presence or absence of images would not, then, control whether
Wikipedia were accessible to those students.

> ==QUESTION==
> Why is the compromise offered by those that find such material
> offensive, i.e. "To not include it inline but make it accessible by a
> link" not considered a reasonable?

Offense is not a good criterion on which to judge whether material
should be presented in an encyclopedia.  If it were, we would be unable
to cover adequately any number of subjects which offend people.

Luckily for the easily-offended, many of the images (and pieces of text)
which they deem the most egregious examples of "offensive" content also
fail good criteria for inclusion in an encyclopedia.  And, on those
grounds, those materials already do get replaced or removed in the
normal process of Wikipedia editing.

The current images on [[Clitoris]], for instance, seem to strike many
people as "less offensive" than the ones which started the brouhaha
there.  However, the replacement was justifiable based on encyclopedic
standards rather than solely on standards of offense which would have
led to the eradication of any images there.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Has Benin ever come under consideration?  Its unusually high level of
> press freedom for Africa (see
> http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/freedom_of_press.htm ) suggests
> that they might be more open to a product like ours.  Does anyone have
> any contacts there?

I think, regardless of the level of press freedom, parents won't be very
happy about certain things in their schools.  Even famously liberal
western Europeans might not like their school-age children to encounter
a photograph of autofellatio while at school...

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
I enjoyed your essay (and you may be surprised that I agree with most
of it). Unfortunately it addresses an argument that I am not making:
i.e. that we should not include certain subject matter (though I do
think that [[Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion]] shows that we can come to
a concensus and standards for even making that difficult decision).

As to the subject matter at hand, and the compromised proposed by
those who object to the image. The question remains:
**************
Why is the compromise, i.e. "To not include the image inline but make
it accessible by a link" not considered reasonable?
**************

> But remember that not all children need this type of parenting. There
> are boys and girl prostitutes in many countries that are just 11 and
> 12. I suggest that these children, if they ever get access to
> wikipedia, will really need the information that is in the adult
> version.
>
Hopefully if such children get access to wikipedia they will find out
about child slavery and support organizations that want to help them
them get out of bondage. And even more hopefully, wikipedia will be
part of spreading knowledge (and the associated freedom that comes
from acting on knowledge) in such a way that 11 and 12 your old
prostitutes don't exist.

> Unless we allow everything, we will just not be trusted. Want to know
> about the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades? Go to wikipedia. Want to know
> about the Rwandan Genocide? Go to wikipedia.
> Did you know that Shanghai has the largest seaport in the world? Yes,
> you guessed it, from Wikipedia.
>
> If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
> missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
> encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.

And what of the mistrust that comes from looking up a topic you have
heard of and are not quite sure what it means (although you can guess)
and immediately seeing a very graphic image.

Jim (trodel at gmail.com) [[User:Trodel]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fwd: [Foundation-l] Import question

body:
jellings wrote:
> To clarify on my original post:
>
> I have a text file of dictionary terms - word, definition plus another
> file of word, synonyms - since I already have it in this format it
> would be a lot easier to import it.

Take a look at maintenance/importUseModWiki.php and change the importer
part to read from your format.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Reinhardt Wiewe

subject: [Wikitech-l] after saving a page an empty page is shown

body:
Hall?,
I coud see / experience  in the past that after saving a page an empty page
was shown.
Todays morning the problem gets more and more persinstent. Edit does not
help and it can take minutes at [[:en:]] or [[:eo:]] to acces, reedit,
display the page.
Is this reported already to bugzilla?
Regards Reinhardt


references:
<cuq5bq$5ps$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cuvv0r$r95$1@sea.gmane.org>	<42139357.8080305@pobox.com>
	<cv0a3t$4v3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Pedro Medeiros wrote:
> A proof-of-concept implementation might be a good thing to have around.
> But if I may, I can't see how, for instance, a simple flex/bison parser
> could adequately parse a set of varying extension languages, like the
> one used in <math> tags, into valid XML (In this case, MathML, I guess).

It wouldn't be expected to; that would be passed off to the extension in
a subsequent stage. (Have you checked the mailing list archives for past
discussion on this topic?)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni wrote:

>>If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
>>missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
>>encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
>>
>>
>
>What information is lost if we don't include the image?
>
>
Well, the information the image provides would be lost, I suppose.
However, generally people aren't suggesting we don't include the images
at all, but merely include them as links, so it would seem to be
impossible for any information to be lost---exactly the same information
will be present, just navigable in a different manner.  Sort of like how
old-style books that had figure plates instead of inline figures (due to
the printing methods used) did not have less information, merely
information in a different order.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
I don't see how technical reasons should drive the decision then if
the proposed compromise is reasonable - why not just let it stand that
way until the finer controls become available.

The accusation that those that feel such an image should not be inline
in the article are trying to create "bowdlerpedia" is just too much -
and is just as out of line as if I had accused those wanting to keep
the image in of trying to create pornopedia.

Discussing and deciding where the line should be is what will make
wikipedia a generally acceptable and accessible encylopdia.

Most encyclopedia's include images or topics that some may object to
but that is the nature of an encyclopedia but they will accept that is
the trade off with something that tries to cover everything. However,
at the very least - this autofellation images, and the goats image
should be out, and maybe other things should be out too.

The argument that nothing should be out will IMHO result in such bad
publicity that our mission will be frustrated.

Jim

> > ==QUESTION=Why is the compromise offered by those that find such
> > material offensive, i.e. "To not include it inline but make it
> > accessible by a link" not considered a reasonable?
> >
> I don't know anyone who doesn't think it's reasonable.  Inlining is far
> better, however, for technical reasons that I outlined earlier.
> Hopefully it will be generally possible in a not-too-distant future
> version of Wikipedia to let the user control what he sees using
> server-side controls instead of his browser controls; I do not expect this
> to appease those who seem to want a bowdlerpedia, however.

Jim (trodel at gmail.com) [[User:Trodel]]


from_name: NSK

body:
On Wednesday 16 February 2005 09:52, Theresa Knott wrote:
> because outlook express top posts

Eh, I work on GNU/Linux and I use KMail. Obviously I don't want people to
associate me with OE in any way.

I think, however, that the best solution is to post below the quoted message
when the quote is a few lines, and when the quote is too long then it would
be better to top-post, with a short a summary ("X said that... I disagree
because...").

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


body:
jellings wrote:

> To clarify on my original post:
>
> I have a text file of dictionary terms - word, definition plus another
> file of word, synonyms - since I already have it in this format it
> would be a lot easier to import it.
>
> I CAN reformat the file, but to enter it manually would take too long
> (there are over 20,000 entries in the dictionary file alone, more in
> the synonyms).
>
> I do not have a complete understanding of the database schema so the
> answer may be obvious to others; any insight would be helpful.

Now that you have clarified your intention it is evident that this is a
Wiktionary matter.

This might be raised in [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour]], but I suspect that
it would not receive a warm reception.  While the words which are not
yet in Wiktionary might be welcomed there would remain the question of
how do you propose to reconcile your contributions with the words that
we already have.  To the extent that any upload may be possible it
should also be done at a rate that is slow enough to allow others to ask
questions about each of your contributions.  Perhaps by first entering a
small sample of your files you could develop the confidence of the
Wiktionary community that your contributions are acceptable.

Ec (en:Wiktionary sysop)


body:
Nicholas Knight (nknight at runawaynet.com) [050216 11:58]:
> the Epopt of Boskone wrote:

> > +-------------+
> > | Do Not Feed |
> > |  the Troll  |
> > +-------------+
> >       ||
> >      _||_

> Who is this guy, and can someone please block him?

[[user:The Epopt]], and no.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
> No, your question is a subset of the greater question I answered: Can
> NPOV and Censorship abide in the same body of work?
>
OK so the bigger issue is: Requiring some images to be a link IS in
itself incompatible with NPOV?

I disagree - having different levels of availability but having all
information available is NPOV in fact it shows respect to those
cultures and is a better NPOV because wikipedia isn't pushing the
"everyone should see everything" POV.

> > Why is the compromise, i.e. "To not include the image inline but
> > make it accessible by a link" not considered reasonable?
> > **************
>
> Because unless all photos are shown through links, the ones that are
> will be "flagged", essentially singled out as potentially offensive
> to a group or groups. Should the Jack Daniels logo be linked then,
> seeing as it might be quite offensive to a billion muslims? This will
> only reinforce the notion that wikipedia editors are biased. And
> that's Not Good for our NPOV aims.
>
Why not - as has been stated - no information is lost - and is not
that showing sensitivity towards other cultures - I don't see how
having respect for certain cultures is pushing a point of view. If
someone made that argument on the Jack Daniels page then I woul

> Are you saying it's bad that 11 and 12 year old prostitutes exist?
> The practice had been around for thousands of years, is alive and
> well today, and will most likely go on for quite some time. Are you
> inserting a personal value judgment? On this list, fine. Keep it out
> of the WP though.
>
> I am not saying what my morality dictates. It is not relevent to the
> creating of the encyclopedia.
>
Yep - I am saying that - and slavery and pre-teen prostitition are
*BAD* and IMHO evil. And images of 11 and 12 year old prostitutes
performing their services would be out of bounds on wikipedia. This is
not pushing POV, this is being a human. And I am glad to see that
[[Sex tourism]] includes a link on law enforcement targetting this
practice.

> There is a link. [[Autofellatio]]. There. Happy?
Exactly - and thanks though once is enough for me.

Jim (trodel at gmail.com) [[User:Trodel]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> Christopher Mahan said:
> >
> >  Besides, like jimbo
> > said, it's most likely copyvio.
> >
> I wrote to the webmaster of a site that Cantus claimed was the
> copyright
> holder of the picture.  No reply yet.  Our user specifically
> licensed this
> one under GFDL and said he produced it; I see no reason to doubt
> that he
> is the photographer or the copyright holder. Do you?

Yes, and you too, that's why you're checking.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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