from_name: steve v

subject: [WikiEN-l] Public Domain in occupied Iraq

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> I don't know whether this is better characterized as
> irrational or
> incoherent. There is no suggestion that President
> Hussein was the
> personal copyright holder for the photograph. Your
> ramblings have
> nothing to do with copyright. It doesn't seem right
> to want to punish
> all the citixens of a country just because you don't
> like its former
> president.

Well, whats not to like? Its odd that you raise the
issue of "punishment" when I was simply alluding to a
major discrepancy in your claimed notion of what Iraqi
law actually is.

According to the current Coalition-instituted "Iraqi
law," Coalition soldiers can shoot whomever they
please and by law must be released from custody. An
"irrational" argument would be to claim (as you do)
that a military occupied country that has essentially
instituted extremely low value thresholds for the
protection of its own people, should somehow be
regarded for its IP "rights." *That* seems rather
irrational to me. In a case where no doubt the
photographer might want to remain anonymous, and yet
have their photograph published anyway (presumably
just to 'get the word out').

If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
claim of "official duties" would stand in court. AIUI,
according to military law rulings, those soldiers were
not performing "official" duties. :) Would we need to
go visit the photographers in prison to inquire if
they want to release them under PD-GNU-CC?

SV
"Do you have a model release for that photo?"

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:>
>>7.   If pre-occupation Iraqi law would provide
> >>protection for this
> >>photograph, it should be recognized for a period
> of
> >>at least 25 years
> >>after the date of first publication.  There is
> ample
> >>time before we need
> >>to determine whether that period of time should be
> >>longer.
> >>
> >>

> > steve v wrote:
> >Really? This is interesting, because Saddam law
> might
> >have ruled it illegal to drive tanks over his
> statues,
> >and take pictures of him in his underwear. Current
> >"law" in Iraq doesnt seem to hold those "rights"
> >inviolate. Theres a similar issue with Nazi-era
> >photographs, etc. Does Germany claim Deutchland?
> for
> >anything Fuhrer??
> >
> >

> I don't know whether this is better characterized as
> irrational or
> incoherent. There is no suggestion that President
> Hussein was the
> personal copyright holder for the photograph. Your
> ramblings have
> nothing to do with copyright. It doesn't seem right
> to want to punish
> all the citixens of a country just because you don't
> like its former
> president.
>
> Ec

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

body:
Again, because Bavaria doesnt have any nukes, we dont
really have to listen to it's griping about what it
owns and what it doesn't.

;)
SV

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> I've heard of that case.  It determined that the
> book (Mein Kampf) was still
> copyright protected, but did not recognize Bavaria
> as the owner.
>
> Ec

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Taking your eyes off the ball

body:
Worldtraveller wrote:

>Ouch!  Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy?
>
>
>
I think his point is that what is "interesting" is as much a property of
the reader as it is of the subject material; perhaps moreso. One could
say that "interest is in the eyes of the beholder".

- Ryan


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 10/3/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Worldtraveller wrote:
>
> >Ouch!  Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy?
> >
> >
> >
> I think his point is that what is "interesting" is as much a property of
> the reader as it is of the subject material; perhaps moreso. One could
> say that "interest is in the eyes of the beholder".

Indeed.  And we shouldn't stop people from writing about what
interests them, regardless of how niche it might be, as long as it's
something that somebody else might find interesting or useful.  About
the only exception I would draw to this are geneaologies and memorials
to lost pets, the former because the stock wiki format isn't as useful
as a system expressly designed for geneaologies, and the latter
because they're just strange.

Kelly


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Michael Turley wrote:

>Honestly, my memory sucks right now.  I'm not trying to be flippant:
>Isn't there a famous traffic circle or two worthy of featured article
>status in London, England?  Perhaps one in Paris, France or Rome,
>Italy as well?

Birmingham. [[Spaghetti Junction (England)]].

- d.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 10/3/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>My point is that far too often, it's not "someone else" doing the
>>writing. Hence the use of the word vanity.
>>
>>
>
>If this is true in general of non-notability deletion listings of articles
>about comics, bands, schools and whatnot, it's news to me. Are you
>absolutely *sure* that non-notability deletions on Wikipedia are usually
>simply because the person writing the article is not a third party but is
>someone associated with their production, operation or distribution? Because
>that's what you seem to be saying.
>
>
>
Even if there was a notability requirement there'd still be a lot of
this arguing going on. I don't get involved in VfDs often, usually only
when an article I've got watchlisted gets nominated, but one I'm
currently arguing is a good counterexample; the article about the guy in
the US National Guard who changed his name to Optimus Prime. The only
reason that's been put forward for deleting his article is that he isn't
notable aside from his unusual name. Well, why can't having an unusual
name be notable? I certainly consider it notable enough to have had the
thing watchlisted for over a year now.

Anyway, I actually think that the current policy is a great approach, if
people would just pay attention to what was already there. In my poking
around with the policies in arguing this case I noticed that not only is
"non-notability" not a criteria for deletion, but it's explicitly listed
in the policy as something that shouldn't be dealt with by VfD. Under
the title "*Problems that don't require deletion*" is the entry:

Problem:
Such a minor branch of a subject that it doesn't deserve an article
Solution:
Merge he useful content into a more comprehensive article and redirect

So really, most of these "non-notability" issues shouldn't ever be
brought to VfD in the first place - just merge them into main articles,
like that traffic circle case from a few days back, and let the wiki
process determine whether the merge was adequate or not. If peoples'
beef is really with the _information_ being in Wikipedia, that's also
something that can be sorted out via the wiki process - articles get
trimmed and streamlined and split into sub-articles all the time without
going through a voting process.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Taking your eyes off the ball

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>I dont find the featured article process very interesting. There are
>lots of articles that are of that quality
>but I dont feel any real incentive to nominate. And quite a few of
>the FAs are not very good. Articles that I
>care about are getting better, much better and thats more important
>to me. What are FAs for? What percentage
>of articles do you expect to be FAs?

Seconded. There's lots of really good articles, but the actual FAC
process is a *stupid* amount of work to *expect* anyone to go through
in my direct experience. I don't see how it can scale as Raul expects
it to.

(This may be an interesting side-effect of the article rating feature:
seeing what articles are actually rated highly by the readers and
seeing if they can get just that little bit of polish.)

- d.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>>AFD had a near unanimous concensus that the article should be deleted.
>>I don't have anything against merging content during the discussion, but if
>>the consensus is to delete such a merge must be undone.

>What vandal would do that?
>Obviously, unless a merger prohibition was specifically mentioned in the
>deletion request it should not apply.

Even then I don't see how it can apply. AFD is not the Editor in
Chief, deciding article content on that level. The idea of a mechanism
wherein five AFD regulars can vote that any content not ever be
included in a given article should be treated as binding is so utterly
stupid I hardly have words for it.

- d.


body:
Michael Turley wrote:

>I had no prior interest in [[Sigurd Syr]] before contributing to the
>article on him.  What I did have an interest in, was improving
>Wikipedia, and making an apology to User:Briangotts, and he selected
>[[Sigurd Syr]] as my assignment when I offered to make a referenced,
>content contributing, good faith edit to an article of his choice.

Heh. One of my favourite articles I've mostly written is [[Gifford
Pinchot]]. Not that it's a fantastic article. But someone (I forget
who) on IRC said "hey, this needs working on. There's some reference
links on the talk page. Go for it." So I spent half an hour using the
reference links to write the article. Without having bothered to do
that, I'd never have known that the term "conservation" as applied to
forests and so forth was invented by a Republican.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What Readers Say on Inclusion

body:
Philip Sandifer wrote:

>
> Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think
> this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers
> think.

It's an interesting point-counterpoint issue, because although Wikipedia
is about providing what the readers want, many readers aren't at all
concerned with the overall health of the project-- they are only
concerned with whether it helps with their homework, or Livejournal
debate or whatever.

I think most deletionists who are upset about people writing articles
about themselves get upset because after putting in all this work to
improve the project, someone coming in and writing an article about his
band is seen as an appropriation of the work of others. Wikipedia is
popular because of the work people put in to improve it, and that means
that anyone using it to do self-promotion is to be (rightfully) shunned.
Yes, the information about your garage band might be true, but that
doesn't mean it's okay for you to use Wikipedia as your own personal
vehicle to superstardom. We only want contributions from people who want
to improve the encyclopedia; not people who want to use it to advance
their own interests.

Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are
only interested in th quality of the articles they are actually
searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with quality?
No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.

- Ryan


body:
At least yours is a reasonable view, and not merely a
ninnyish fear of being sued.

SV

--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/3/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we
> could
> > have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
> > were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
> > domain -- which assumed that the
> models/photographer's
> > claim of "official duties" would stand in court.
>
>
>
> They probably weren't public domain. However there
> may be a strong public
> interest argument for displaying those photographs.
> I'm not sure whether it
> would be wise to have an official policy on that (it
> would almost certainly
> be abused) but it's a good thing to bear in mind
> when considering the
> appropriateness of important photographs from
> unknown sources.
>
> The public interest argument might work better for
> wikinews. I'm not sure
> whether it would fly as well on the Wikipedia site.
> However Wikipedia has
> recently become noted for the speed and reliability
> of its coverage of
> current events, so it's obviously not in the same
> position that, say,
> Britannica might be if it carried Abu Ghraib
> photographs without permission.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, so the above is purely
> speculative.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] More RFC abuse in the deletion wars

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Snowspinner_2

Fantastic. This one's going to run and run. Who's going to delete
VFD^H^H^H AFD this time and get [[Image:Ed_Poor_barnstar.svg]] (The Ed
Poor Crazy Bastard^W^WAudacious Action Barnstar) on their userpage?

- d.


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
On 10/3/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:

> > Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation
> > scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives.  That carries no
> > deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles
> > below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
> >
>
> Good idea.

I also think this is a good idea.

I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes,
but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what
would develop.  This could be a very good use indeed.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quasi-vanity and quasi-advertising

body:
One of the characteristics of being a fan is that one has a sort of illusory
personal connection to the object of one's admiration. Let's suppose,
hypothetically, that I were a fan of Arlo Guthrie. I would feel almost as if
Arlo Guthrie were a close friend.

Now, suppose I were to insert an fawning article on his latest album, "Live
in Sydney," pointing out the neutral and objectively true encyclopedic fact
that it's terrific and everyone should buy one or two copies. Hypothetically.
For only twenty-seven hypothetical U. S. dollars.

I don't get a cut of the profits, and I'm not hired by Rising Son Records to
promote this album, so I can say truthfully that it is not advertising.

But, it sort of is. Because even though I don't get _money_ out of the deal,
I do get the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm helping my close friend Arlo. (Even
though he's not really my friend). And that I'm validating my fandom by
increasing the number of fans.

So, it's deliberate _promotion._

It's not vanity, because Arlo Guthrie didn't write the article himself.

But, it sort of is, because a close friend of Arlo wrote the article. Or,
someone who has the illusion of being a close friend of Arlo wrote the
article.

Of course, wanting to "help" or promote the topic area on which one is
writing is probably the commonest motivation for writing articles for
Wikipedia, and up to a point it's legitimate.

I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in
which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of
the reader."


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
On 10/3/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> > I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes,
> > but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what
> > would develop.  This could be a very good use indeed.
> >
>
> Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
> - -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
> rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?

Deletion should never be an automatic process.  I've seen far too many
articles "saved" while on AfD to support that.

Further, it is the existence of "poor quality" or nonexistent articles
that gets us new editors.  If all of the articles we allow the public
to view are near perfect, few will join.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Philip Sandifer

body:
I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit
Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should
be deleted.

I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit
agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they
agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the
possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who
basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.

In any case - no one I talked to mentioned notability as a reason to
delete. All of them, upon being specifically asked about notability,
generally took a "whatever" approach to it, with several specifically
saying, "No, if the article isn't lies, it should definitely be
included no matter how trivial the topic." Other views included "If
the topic is mentioned in another article, and that mention wasn't
created specifically to make an excuse to have an article, it should
be included" (The closest thing to a deletionist position I got) and
"If someone cares enough to create it, it should probably not be
deleted, even though that someone might be being an idiot."

Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think
this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers
think. Most of the people expressing their opinions on this inclusion/
exclusion debate are editors. Most of us, in fact, are very jaded
editors. And we are an incredible minority among the people who load
en.wikipedia.org every day. And we should bear that in mind - because
after a bit of talking to readers, I think people really do want us
to try to be a place where you can find any piece of knowledge or
fact. To a degree, actually, that's even beyond what I think is
important to achieve (Although I still would rather leave in garage
bands than exclude notable but obscure topics, and I still don't care
enough to delete garage bands myself).

-Snowspinner


from_name: Jim Redmond

subject:
Borrowing a phrase (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Quasi-vanity and
	quasi-advertising)

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Hagiographic fan writing
>
oh, I am SO using that phrase in an edit summary.

Jim Redmond
[[User:Jredmond]]


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>
>Apart from the problem of unnecessarily redefining a word in English
>as a jargon term of quite different meaning, I really don't see how
>this will lead to *less* subjectivity and contentiousness.
>
>
Well, all natural language is inherently vague, so this objection could
arise for absolutely any definition of absolutely any word in English.
This is also a major problem in legal jurisprudece, for example in
Constitutional interpretation. I think the consensus is more or less
that what's important is that the social conventions match up with how
the word is used in the individual instance. In the case given, the
definition would be dictating the substance of the social convention --
so, as long as everyone agrees that they understand what the definition
means and that they'll abide by it, I don't think there is much of a
problem here.

- Ryan


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 03/10/05, Jei <jei at cc.hut.fi> wrote:

> This "average user" peer review could be better directed and generate more
> feedback and improvements if the articles were instead randomly chosen
> from the new stock. The probability that the random visitor would
> contribute to them would be greater and the average "image" we give,
> would reflect the actual truth of what an average wikipedia contribution
> has to offer. A dip in our image perhaps, but also a rapid rise in
> contributions?

We have this, sort of - Did You Know on the mainpage. It's a short
exposure - only maybe six hours - and it's not as well known as it
might be, but it gets interesting short-but-decent articles out onto
the main page for traffic.

There are limitations to this - it will only take articles of a
minimum standard, though not a well defined one ("readable, not too
short"), and it only uses new articles... but it does do it.

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


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] Fwd: Google Alert - wikibooks

body:
More wikibooks articles ...

Google Alert for: *wikibooks*

*Wikibooks* Take on
Textbooks<http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=68380&cat_id=643>
Techtree.com <http://Techtree.com> - Mumbai,India
*Wikibooks*, sister project to Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia that can
be accessed and edited by anyone, has been introduced. *...*

*Wikibooks* takes on textbook industry | CNET
News.com<http://news.com.com/Wikibooks+takes+on+textbook+industry/2100-1025_3-5884291.html>
*Wikibooks* takes on textbook industry | Project aims to create open-ended
curriculum
that would offer a free, licensable alternative to traditional textbooks *
...*

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog:
*Wikibooks*<http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/000812.html>
*Wikibooks*. Research, learning and scholarly communication, Social
networking,
ebooks and other e-resources *...* *Wikibooks* is one of the Wikimedia
family. *...*

AnandTech News: *Wikibooks* takes on textbook
industry<http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=24981>
*Wikibooks* takes on textbook industry *...* at the Wikimedia Foundation
have anything
to say about it, you could have another way to go--the *Wikibooks* project.
*...*

USC Digital Connections Weblog:
*wikibooks*<http://weblogs.usc.edu/ccp/archives/2005/09/wikibooks.html>
*wikibooks*. If you found yourself needing an old biology textbook and
couldn't
locate your battered copy from college, you'd have a few options. *...*

Shore Communications Inc.: Commentary - Weblogs - Shore News
*...*<http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2005/09/wikibooks-welcome-open-source.html>
*Wikibooks* Welcome Open-Source Textbooks to the Web *...* *Wikibooks* would
in effect
become a "generic brand" competing against major text publishing houses, *
...*

*Wikibooks* Project Takes on Publishers. Wait! That's Me |
Kairosnews<http://kairosnews.org/node/4443>
http://news.com.com/*Wikibooks*
+takes+on+textbook+industry/2100-1025_3-5884291.
*...* *Wikibooks* won't replace entirely the pedagogical tool known as a
textbook *...*

------------------------------
This as it happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.

Remove <http://www.google.com/alerts/remove?s=f814769cb8fea635&hl=en> this
alert.
Create <http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en> another alert.
Manage <http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?hl=en> your alerts.


subject: [WikiEN-l] brian0918 and tom radulovich

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> shivraj singh wrote:
>
>> Dear Wikipedia,
>>  Brian has blocked me from editing and Tom has been
>> reverting my edits.  Tom's knowledge of rajput history
>> is very shallow and when I corrected him he wants to
>> create a new page with my edits instead of the rajput
>> main page itself.   I have given a list of more then 2 dozen books which
>> are my sources and Tom has not given any sources.  It
>> seems that he is relying on the internet for his data
>> or atbest(this is my guess because he has not provide
>> any bibliography) some disputed historians like Ms
>> Romila Thapar from India.
>
>
> In your opinion, what did you do which caused brian0918 to block you?

You might want to have a look at the bottom of this page for some more
discussion about the matter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard

-Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
>I see both extremes as very BAD. Ferries may not appear notable to a
>random individual, but if they're the longest running one on a certain
>route, no one will doubt it needs inclusion. Animals, cities,
>scientists, and historical events are covered in regular
>encyclopedias, so we need to cover them too.

I see no reason any given field needs an *arbitrary* cutoff for the
sake of having a cutoff. If we can achieve actual completeness in some
area (e.g. articles on US towns), why the hell shouldn't we?

>When people fight for the inclusion of websites and webcomics (for
>example) it's more of a vanity issue. It may be verifiable and
>presented in an NPOV manner, but the fact they're trying to get a
>comic/site with a tiny audience into a general purpose encyclopedia is
>POV too, an attempt at promotion.

Surely third-party verifiability takes care of this one. If someone
else cares to write something verifiable about it, it should get in.

- d.


from_name: ABCD

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
On 10/3/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >* Actually, I just checked, and even deleted articles are already included
> >in search.
> >
> This is a bigger problem that has effects on more than just the deletion
> process.  It only adds to the need for a more sophisticated search
> process, a request that our developpers are certainly aware of.
>
> I often search single words in Wiktionary, but the problem could be
> bigger in a much larger project such as en:Wikipedia.  The results give
> me not only deleted articles but deleted versions of articles that still
> exist.  I can't imagine that coming up with all this makes life any
> easier on the servers.  For single word searches I can have 500 hits
> when in reality only 50 of them still contain the word.  Those 50 are
> scattered throughout the entire list rather than featured at the top of
> the list.  Such an exaggerated historical search may be useful for some
> people but they should need to check a box before they get it.
>

What's happening is that an old index is being searched, not the
current article content (which would take longer/bring down the
servers more often).  Therefore, if an article is still in that index,
then it would be found by a search, even if it has already been
deleted

ABCD


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On Oct 3, 2005, at 12:20 PM, grm_wnr wrote:

> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>
>> So really, most of these "non-notability" issues shouldn't ever be
>> brought to VfD in the first place - just merge them into main
>> articles, like that traffic circle case from a few days back, and
>> let the wiki process determine whether the merge was adequate or
>> not. If peoples' beef is really with the _information_ being in
>> Wikipedia, that's also something that can be sorted out via the
>> wiki process - articles get trimmed and streamlined and split into
>> sub-articles all the time without going through a voting process.
>>
>
> That's so true it isn't even funny. It also makes one think if it
> really would be all that bad if AfD was just shut down for a month
> like David Gerard proposed.  I personally think that merging an
> article isn't all that more complicated than setting up an AfD, if
> you see setting up an AfD as more than writing "nn v -~~~~". Your
> mileage may vary, of course.
>

One of the things I found in my hunt through AfDs for invalid
nominations and speedies was that there was a very, very small
portion of the 117 articles I looked through that needed to be there.
15 or so should have been slam dunk keeps, or at least merges.
Another good chunk were speedies. An equally large chunk, however,
were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.

Which is to say, the number of articles on a day that actually need
to go to AfD on a day is incredibly small. In reality, only probably
five or six articles a day need out and out deletion debates. Which
would in turn help AfD stop being a vote and start being a discussion.

But apparently moving in this direction gets you RfCed with an
intention of being taken to the arbcom, so there's some logistical
problems to work out, it seems.

-Snowspinner


list: foundation-l

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimania-planning-l] Re: [Wikimania-l]
	Wikimania 2006 - shortlist chat - 20.00 UTC Sunday 2 Oct.-
	#wikimania on freenode

body:
On 10/1/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Meeting to decide of the three shortlisted city will take place Sunday
2nd October 2005 in the #wikimania irc channel on freenode at 20.00
UTC.

Did anyone think to create a log of this meeting or save it in some form?

Cormac


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimentaries and multimedia collaboration

body:
On 10/1/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/26/05, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for pointing this out, Sj. I talked about a Wikimentary and the
> > logistics thereof at Wikimania with Rory O'Connor (Globalvision) - but
> > I'm just wondering, where has the talk taken place since then?
> > Privately? Or on-wiki/list (commons-l)..?
>
> Aha!  Was it you who put the bug in his ear?  Once Wikimentary gets
> added to the OED, etymologists will want to know.

Sadly, I can't claim this one, but I think it was just fresh in his
mind when we had our discussion :-)

>Talk has largely
> been by email and phone with Rory, as part of an older discussion of
> how progress with their own short documentary is coming.  I've
> transcribed the relevant parts of all private conversations to that
> meta-page, so you can see there hasn't been all that much talk yet.
>
> I'm trying to get Rory to edit wikis directly, but it's difficult.   --Sj
>

Ok, thanks. I think it is up to us to really show what a wiki can do
in this respect - and then we'll have Rory hooked, line and sinker ;-)

Cormac


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 03/10/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >I see both extremes as very BAD. Ferries may not appear notable to a
> >random individual, but if they're the longest running one on a certain
> >route, no one will doubt it needs inclusion. Animals, cities,
> >scientists, and historical events are covered in regular
> >encyclopedias, so we need to cover them too.
>
> I see no reason any given field needs an *arbitrary* cutoff for the
> sake of having a cutoff. If we can achieve actual completeness in some
> area (e.g. articles on US towns), why the hell shouldn't we?

And we're slowly inching towards making this coverage elsewhere -
wikipedia-l had some discussion about "internationalising" the various
rambot-like projects. It's not impossible, with the growing
accessibility of census data, open geographical databases and the
like, that we'll be able to have that level of coverage for all of the
West within five years or so.

It's surprising how many fields we can achieve completeness in. There
are obvious things - biographies of all US presidents, say, or Nobel
prizewinners, lists of all countries, articles on all known moons,
that sort of thing.

But given time, I expect to see an article covering every ship
commissioned into the US or UK navies, for example - the framework is
there, and people are slowly working on it. We currently have articles
on every national election in the UK, Canada, and the US - and I
suspect many others will follow. We have a framework in place for
creating biographies for everyone returned by those elections. We have
an article on every single manned spaceflight back to 1960, and I
wouldn't be surprised to find one for every unmanned one in a few
years time. We have the framework for articles on every major visible
star, and indeed for every single named asteroid. That's quite a
handful of very specialised reference works we'll have swallowed up
and hardly noticed, and just mentioning the areas I've seen enough of
to feel safe commenting on.

And nary an inclusion debate in the lot.

On the matter of completeness... a while back I bought a 1907 copy of
Chambers' Biographical Dictionary, a massive collection of - well,
{{bio-stub}}s. Repeatedly looking in it at random has so far turned up
exactly two people who we didn't have articles already, and both of
them we had as redlinks.

I figure that says something.

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
It's true that Wikipedia isn't paper, but it's not a general
knowledgebase or random collection of facts either. Things need to be
put in context.

I see both extremes as very BAD. Ferries may not appear notable to a
random individual, but if they're the longest running one on a certain
route, no one will doubt it needs inclusion. Animals, cities,
scientists, and historical events are covered in regular
encyclopedias, so we need to cover them too.

When people fight for the inclusion of websites and webcomics (for
example) it's more of a vanity issue. It may be verifiable and
presented in an NPOV manner, but the fact they're trying to get a
comic/site with a tiny audience into a general purpose encyclopedia is
POV too, an attempt at promotion.

--Mgm


body:
The main problem with decent articles is that most of them fail to
cite sources, which makes them hard to verify.

I don't see the FA process as a problem. They aspire to a high
standard which is a good thing in my opinion. If people are interested
enough to expand a subject, it doesn't need to be on the front page,
they'll surf across it themselves.

--Mgm
[[Wikipedia:Article rescue contest]]
(Help fix deletion candidates to a decent or even featured level!)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
> >When people fight for the inclusion of websites and webcomics (for
> >example) it's more of a vanity issue. It may be verifiable and
> >presented in an NPOV manner, but the fact they're trying to get a
> >comic/site with a tiny audience into a general purpose encyclopedia is
> >POV too, an attempt at promotion.
>
>
> Surely third-party verifiability takes care of this one. If someone
> else cares to write something verifiable about it, it should get in.
>
My point is that far too often, it's not "someone else" doing the
writing. Hence the use of the word vanity. We can be the most complete
encyclopedia in the world without taking all of the incoming drivel.
If there wasn't cut-offs then we could list all scientists (they're
mostly listed on their university website or publication) it wouldn't
be vanity because they didn't write it themselves, but if the
scientist in question hasn't done any noted research we would only
sooth their ego. If we didn't draw a line near professors, should PhDs
be included, and if those are included we might as well start on
students...

Cut-offs are a healthy thing. There may be exceptions to the rule, but
when sufficient information is included in an article it's easy to
establish something needs inclusion.

A band may not have done any tours, no albums or charted hits out and
not have any notable members or awards, but if they appear on Oprah
most people would agree they deserve an article regardless of
[[WP:MUSIC]] regardless of missing the WP:MUSIC guidelines.

It only gets problematic if people fail to provide enough information
in the first place. You can't expect AFD voters to spend more than 10
minutes of research on their argument. In such a case simply expanding
and providing such info to the voters is much more productive than
arguing against deletion.

--Mgm


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 10

body:
On Mon, 3 Oct 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
> > > unsourced statements a blockable offence.
> >
> > Trying to figure out if a source exists or not is going to be fun.
>
>
>
> I have the phone number of my local library.
>
An even easier solution: the holdings of the Library of Congress is
accessible from the Internet. I would expect that the same could be said
for the British Library, the Biblioteque Nationale (sp?) in Paris, &
the equivalents in Germany, Italy, Japan, & Australia. (However, funding
for such useful projects always seem to be lacking.)

Any citation from a source that cannot be found at one of those sites
is considered invalid; & considering that, by law, a copy of every book
printed in the US or the UK ends up at the respective national library,
one would have to work hard to find a reliable source not in one of
those catalogs.[*]

Using the guideline of [[Assume good faith]], we would assume all
quotations or citations are reasonably accurate. However, if it can
be shown that a given contributor is falsifying their citation of sources
(e.g., claiming Sir Frank Stenton wrote on page 276 of his _Anglo-Saxon
England_ that "Bill Clinton is a weenie"), then we toss him to the ArbCom.
Or to a rabid pack of hyenas. Whichever happens to be in the worse mood
at the moment.

A policy like that ought to keep things simple & easy -- while not
preventing anyone from back-checking citations.

Geoff

[*] ISTR someone mentioning that it is not uncommon for most important
works in at least one field -- railroad history -- to be published by
the author & often not listed in these catalogs. I'd be happy to
include some or all college, public or private libraries with online
catalogs to solve this problem -- but there *needs* to be some easy way
to verify that the work cited does exist.


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [Wikipedia-l] FYI:Is the Wikipedia Neutral? (a draft)

body:
[Sorry for the resend, screwed up the headers when I sent this on Friday.]

For your review and or comment! :)

[[ http://reagle.org/joseph/2005/06/neutrality.html

     * Is the Wikipedia Neutral? - an (early draft) extension of A Case
       of Mutual Aid: Wikipedia, Politeness, and Perspective Taking to
       tease apart what is meant by something being neutral, and is it
       the right term to describe Wikipedia efforts:

     Claims of neutrality and accusations of bias are common themes of
     contemporary discourse about the media, government, education, and
     technology. In this essay I extend earlier work on the
     collaborative culture of Wikipedia (an on-line and free
     encyclopedia) to specifically focus on the fundamental but often
     misunderstood notion of neutrality.... This essay is inspired by
     earlier debates on neutrality of technical standards, literature on
     bias in technical systems, my present fascination with this
     Wikipedia norm and a change in my belief that while an important
     concept, the label of neutrality was an unfortunate coinage in the
     Wikipedia context.

]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On Oct 3, 2005, at 2:03 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>> If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
>> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> I do think these should be handled outside AfD, but I wouldn't make
> them
> speediable because an unverified article can be verified by
> research. I've
> suggested a copyvio-like process for this--list for a couple of
> weeks to
> give people a chance to verify, then delete if still unverified.
>
>

This is an even better idea.

-Snowspinner


from_name: Worldtraveller

body:
Ouch!  Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy?  I
do try to write articles that are interesting for people who might only
have a passing interest in astronomy but it's easy for a scientist to
forget what's interesting to people not in the field.  That's partly why I
sought peer review for Herbig-Haro object, because I was half afraid I was
going to spend lots of time on something no-one would be interested in.
Astrocruft, if you like.  Please tell me if I'm heading that way!

The general point is that for many featured articles, only one person
might be interested in writing about a subject, but its appeal should be
broad based if it really represents the best of Wikipedia.  I'm not
particularly fussed about architects in colonial New Zealand, for example,
but Giano's articles on Benjamin Mountfort etc are interesting enough to
keep me reading right through.

WT

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Norton [mailto:wxprojects at comcast.net]
Sent: 03 October 2005 11:32 AM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Taking your eyes off the ball

I would argue that featured articles that, say, Worldtraveller, writes
(mostly dealing with advanced astronomy stuff)  are about as
interesting as watching paint dry - but they are obviously GOOD
articles - and that's the point. The whole "it's only interesting to
the author" argument is nonsense because its such a relative thing.

Thanks,
Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On Oct 3, 2005, at 2:28 PM, geni wrote:

> On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> An equally large chunk, however,
>> were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
>> watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
>> advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
>> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
>>
>
> Come up with a solid defintion of verifiable
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Information that is checkable through a source that is both
reasonably accessible and reasonably likely to be around in a decade.
Internet sources are maximally accessible and kind of minimally
permanent, though it depends on the website - the higher the Alexa
ranking of the site that hosts the information, in general the more
likely it is to survive, if for no other reason than that archive.org
is likely to preserve it. Random Geocities pages and the like - not
enough for verifiability.

Print media through a reputable press is pretty much always enough -
newspapers, magazines, etc. A decent rule of thumb for print would be
"Is there likely a university library in America that's holding onto
this?" If yes, it's enough.

-Snowspinner


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >When people fight for the inclusion of websites and webcomics (for
> > >example) it's more of a vanity issue. It may be verifiable and
> > >presented in an NPOV manner, but the fact they're trying to get a
> > >comic/site with a tiny audience into a general purpose encyclopedia is
> > >POV too, an attempt at promotion.
> >
> >
> > Surely third-party verifiability takes care of this one. If someone
> > else cares to write something verifiable about it, it should get in.
> >
> My point is that far too often, it's not "someone else" doing the
> writing. Hence the use of the word vanity.

If this is true in general of non-notability deletion listings of articles
about comics, bands, schools and whatnot, it's news to me. Are you
absolutely *sure* that non-notability deletions on Wikipedia are usually
simply because the person writing the article is not a third party but is
someone associated with their production, operation or distribution? Because
that's what you seem to be saying.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Becoming more encyclopedia-like: 1: Encephalon's
	comments

body:
On 10/3/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
> How did the deletion period get reduced from 7 to 5 days. That seems
> far too short, especially considering that many other deletions still
> require 7 days. A _minimum_ of a week seems most appropriate.

An interesting observation. Actually I had no idea that it was ever longer.
I wonder if it was reduced as the old double-transclusion version of VfD
became unwieldy. If so, in theory it could be changed back, or even doubled.

But in practice the maximum lag time for an article (days between nomination
and deletion) is eight days at the moment, and it has been much longer at
times.

And from closing debates, my experience is that articles that don't get much
attention in the first day or two aren't likely to get more over the current
five day period. But if neglected listings (say four people or fewer in five
days of discussion) are then relisted they tend to get more attention. So
extending lag time would probably have minimal benefit and other methods of
improving exposure are available and are fairly commonly used.


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject:
[Foundation-l] Authoring on wikijunior : providing
	private	information.

body:
As far as I understood this is not mandatory information but only
recommended stuff.

One fact is that identification of the author and of his year of death
is very important for copyright law since his work will fall into public
domain 70 years after he died.

But there is nothing mandatory in these informations !

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal
CERSA-CNRS PARIS 2

Anthere wrote:
> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
>
>> Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the
>> first
>> of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
>>
>> This message has worried many of us:
>>
>> "According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted
>> work, you
>> must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and
>> the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also
>> suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born,
>> for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and
>> if you
>> know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How
>> exactly we are going to collect this information for users and
>> contributors
>> of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting
>> little ride. Please add comments in the discussion
>> page<http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=edit>if
>>
>> you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is
>> moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going
>> to be
>> required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."
>>
>> (sample of the pages in question:
>> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)
>>
>> We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides
>> their
>> name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no
>> matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info,
>> like
>> their birth year, and we should respect that.
>>
>> Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include
>> everyone's
>> info.
>>
>> Nick/Zanimum
>
>
> ??????
>
> Can you cite this piece of law ?
> Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect
> this one ?
> If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?
>
> I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will
> provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our
> project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put
> that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book
> by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
>
>
> Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
>
> Anthere
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 10/2/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> The thing is - let's face it - we have all the bases covered. We already
> have
> articles on more-or-less all the topics you would expect in a traditional
> encyclopedia. The big job from now on is going to be improving those
> articles
> into something better. It's easy to write a stub; it's hard to write a
> comprehensive, well referenced article (which is what we *should* be aiming
> for,
> not medeocrity).
>

I think you're dead wrong when you suggest that Wikipedia already has
sufficient topic coverage.  Even just comparing article titles to the
other encyclopedias makes it obvious that a lot is missing.  Looking
at the list of requested articles does as well.  And then there's the
fact that the world is always changing.  I just added a new article
today on something which didn't even exist a few months ago - the
[[Open Content Alliance]].

But the reason I'm writing is to respond to your second point.  Yes,
it's much easier for most people to write a stub than to write a
comprehensive, well referenced article.  And yes, some of this won't
ever go away.  But I think this also points to a weak point in the
Mediawiki software.  Adding references is a major pain in the ass, and
once those references are added it's usually not at all clear what
parts of the article are referenced and what parts aren't, so the same
work gets done over and over again.  Finally, even though there are in
theory rules that people should be adding references whenever they add
substantial text to the wiki, these rules are not at all enforced.

Maybe a really simple addition to the wiki could be made to help this
- an optional field in addition to the comments field to list
source(s) for your edit.  Just a free text field, which you could
leave blank if you really want to, which would be accessible to people
who want to fact-check a contribution.  Eventually we might be able to
figure out how to get the software to tie the reference to the
contributed text, but just adding the field would be a good start and
less than a day's worth of coding.

Personally I agree that the featured articles candidates system, as it
is currently implemented, is not very useful.  But you yourself were
the one complaining about not enough articles getting through the
process.  Do you think this is because there is a dearth of good,
comprehensive articles in the encyclopedia, or do you think it's
because the process of FAC doesn't scale properly?

> -Mark
>
Anthony


list: wikitech-l

from_name: FlaBot

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LatexDoc.php - extensions unter Win XP ?

body:
Thanks ..

I changed

// Run LaTeX
#$cmd = $command . ' -interaction=batchmode -quiet '.'\input ' .
wfEscapeShellArg( "$fn.tex" ) . ' 2>&1';

to
$cmd = $command . ' -interaction=batchmode -quiet '.wfEscapeShellArg(
"$fn.tex" );

now it works.

Greetings


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes off the
	ball

body:
If you think they're too slow maybe you need to learn a little
patience.  What's the rush?
Ec

Ryan W. (Merovingian) wrote:

>I can see that; it's not that I think the standards are too tough, more like the process is too slow.
>
>
>>From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes off the
>>	ball
>>
>>On 10/2/05, Ryan W. (Merovingian) <bigwiki at earthling.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Blargh, I don't know.  I was talking more about AfD, though.
>>>
>>>Nevertheless, the FAC process needs to go faster.  Look at last
>>>week: we gained four and >lost three FAs.  That comes out to a
>>>total gain of one.  This is unacceptable.
>>>
>>>
>>The standards for a FA are increaseing.
>>
>>


body:
On 10/3/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
> have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
> were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
> domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
> claim of "official duties" would stand in court.

They probably weren't public domain. However there may be a strong public
interest argument for displaying those photographs. I'm not sure whether it
would be wise to have an official policy on that (it would almost certainly
be abused) but it's a good thing to bear in mind when considering the
appropriateness of important photographs from unknown sources.

The public interest argument might work better for wikinews. I'm not sure
whether it would fly as well on the Wikipedia site. However Wikipedia has
recently become noted for the speed and reliability of its coverage of
current events, so it's obviously not in the same position that, say,
Britannica might be if it carried Abu Ghraib photographs without permission.

I'm not a lawyer, so the above is purely speculative.


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Anyone have any good ideas of how better to encourage people to cite
>>sources?
>>
>>
>Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
>unsourced statements a blockable offence.
>
Great idea!

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another RFC on the deletion wars

body:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Snowspinner_2

I wish to apologise for and retract calling this "RFC abuse" in the
original subject line. That implies Blackcat's action in bringing the
RFC was in bad faith, which I don't think is the case. I do think he's
*dead wrong*, however, and that twenty people working in concert to
violate the deletion policy is not somehow less bad than just one
doing so.

- d.


body:
dpbsmith wrote:

>I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in
>which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of
>the reader."

Apart from the problem of unnecessarily redefining a word in English
as a jargon term of quite different meaning, I really don't see how
this will lead to *less* subjectivity and contentiousness.

Hagiographic fan writing is a problem to deal with at editorial level.
It is *not* something the deletion process can reasonably be twisted
to deal with.

- d.


from_name: steve v

subject: [WikiEN-l] Do 3RR rules favor the contributer or the deletionist?

body:
I dont know. Im being RFAR'ed for pretty much the same
thing. Depends on who whines on IRC first.

SV

--- actionforum at comcast.net wrote:

> Wikien-l,
> I have just been blocked for an alleged 3RR
> violation at Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
> I thought the rules favored the contributor, since
> the first edit doesn't count as a revert, but in
> this case it appears the first edit is being counted
> as a revert so the deletionist is getting the final
> say.
> While my first edit is adding text that I have
> previously proposed, it is two days later and to a
> new version of the article.  The text had previously
> been opposed but on unconvincing, rather spurious
> grounds that I have responded to in good faith on
> the talk page and in the edit summaries.  I think
> this article is heading for two versions because
> csloat is trying to rally a clique, but in the
> meantime I am curious about this technical issue of
> how edits/reverts are counted.  I would not have
> knowingly violated 3RR, apologies if I am wrong.
>             -- thanx for your consideration,
>
> Silverback
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
team reverting your rewrites.

SV

--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to
> avoiding this kind of hassle.
> Don't edit war.
>
> Simple.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
On 03/10/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

> I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in
> which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of
> the reader."

Redefine "reader" as "project", and there's the rub - that definition
holds for *everything*.

Adding a link to your site to a relevant article? That (usually) helps
the encyclopedia. Adding a link to your site to every page in seven
categories? That's spam; the benefits to you strongly outweigh those
to the encyclopedia.

Editing a political article because it has a garbled description of
the beliefs you subscribe to? Helps us, benefits the encyclopedia.
Rewriting a political article to support your personal beliefs? It's
done for your benefit not ours, so it's not good.

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


body:
--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've dealt with stuff like that. You know there are
> talk pages, RfCs, all
> kinds of stuff. And oodles of very reasonable
> editors around to make sure
> extreme stuff doesn't go unchallenged. So there's no
> need to edit war.

Even the oodles of reasonable editors avoid certain
topics like the plague. Le Vietnam War for one.

SV

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Jeff Willis

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 20

body:
> Message: 11
> Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 21:00:00 -0600
> From: Jeff Willis <simsgenius069 at gmail.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 11
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> Hi, everyone. Not sure exactly how this works yet, but I'll learn. :-) I'm new to the mailing list, so hi, everyone!


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
There are far more left-wing than right-wing editors on WP, so surely
you can put together a posse if that's what it's come to.

Stan

steve v wrote:

>Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
>team reverting your rewrites.
>
>SV
>
>--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to
>>avoiding this kind of hassle.
>>Don't edit war.
>>
>>Simple.
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dump status

body:
Jeremy Dunck wrote:
> On 10/1/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>Nyenyec N wrote:
>>
>>>What's the status of the database dumps?
>>>Editor's in HuWiki are eagerly awaiting the next stats update. :)
>>
>>Currently testing more improvements to the dump system to speed it up,
>>will launch another dump this weekend.
>
>
> Looks like en died; I can't imagine 20051002_pages_current.xml.bz2 is
> really 1.7 G.

Indeed, somebody physically re-racked one of the secondary cluster
database servers while it was being used for backups, and I had to
restart some of them. It'll be a while before en's done.

I've whipped up a little more documentation here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

Could stand to merge the how-to bits from
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Importing_a_Wikipedia_database_dump_into_MediaWiki

Please comment... :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051003/1108c939/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes off the ball

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> The deletionist's anomaly is that he is often nominating articles that
> are outside of his interests.  If a candidate article comes up in his
> own field of interest he is in a better position to improve it.  I
> don't have a lot of interest in rock bands, so apart from a very few
> very big names none of them are notable to me.  Taking that further,
> even if I were interested in such music how could I possibly evaluate
> the local scene in some other large city.  Of course, if I participate
> in the vote I expect my vote to be counted even if I have no idea WTF
> I'm talking about.  If it's a matter of rock bands (and similarly for
> other subjects), perhaps a vote should have less value if the person
> has done no editing in that subject area.
>
> Ec

This is an idea I've been toying with myself - giving the parts of the
community concerned with a topic (WikiProjects, basically) more autonomy
in their respective fields. We already do that in some ways -
[[WP:MUSIC]], [[WP:SFD]]. Of course, this could lead to a certain
"inbreeding" / "groupthink" mentality.

grm_wnr


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't get involved in VfDs often, usually only
>>when an article I've got watchlisted gets nominated, but one I'm
>>currently arguing is a good counterexample; the article about the guy in
>>the US National Guard who changed his name to Optimus Prime. The only
>>reason that's been put forward for deleting his article is that he isn't
>>notable aside from his unusual name. Well, why can't having an unusual
>>name be notable? I certainly consider it notable enough to have had the
>>thing watchlisted for over a year now.
>>
>>
<snip>

>It's certainly worth an article a few months back I came across an
>article on a Scandinavian kid who'd been called B (or something
>similar by their parents) but the government wouldn't allow it. Their
>alternative wasn't much better. The fact unusual names are quite
>uncommon makes any such name officially recognized by a country's
>government quite notable. What was their argument for it not being
>notable?
>
>
The debate's over at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Optimus_Prime_%28person%29
- I actually brought up the person I think you're referring to,
originally his parents wanted to name him
"Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116" (pronounced "Albin") and
when the Swedish government refused they tried changing the spelling to
"A". That didn't work either. I don't suppose anyone knows what he
eventually wound up being named, by the way?

Anyway, I've tried to explain why I consider Optimus to be a notable
person, but the original VfD nominator doesn't seem to understand that I
(and other "keep" voters on this matter) really truly consider him
notable for non-bonkers reasons - he's suggested we might be voting keep
for non-serious reasons. I suspect there's some sort of fundamental
philosophical difference between us on this matter that will be hard to
find a middle ground on. Unfortunately I don't see this as being as easy
to find a common solutiuons on as an NPOV debate because it's not easy
to both delete _and_ keep an article.

An older Optimus Prime delete debate actually resolved itself as a
"merge", which is sort of like that. It worked for a little while, but I
recreated the article after the merged material got pared down to just a
single sentence in the main article - I considered that to be a bit
extreme. That's why the thing's languished on my watchlist for so long.
I can't believe I'm discussing the case again a year later. :)
**


from_name: Ryan Norton

body:
> And oodles of very reasonable editors around to make sure
> extreme stuff doesn't go unchallenged.

I wish! See my long rant before.

> So there's no need to edit war.

Now that's true, but it can be easier said then done...

Thanks,
Ryan

[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN
Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org


body:
Im naive and idealistic, so Ive been trying reason and
responsiveness. I guess you could say it hasnt been
working, so maybe youre right and now its time to
finally form that anti-tyranny/pro-liberty cabal that
people have been waiting for.

SV

--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> There are far more left-wing than right-wing editors
> on WP, so surely
> you can put together a posse if that's what it's
> come to.
>
> Stan
>
> steve v wrote:
>
> >Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
> >team reverting your rewrites.
> >
> >SV
> >
> >--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to
> >>avoiding this kind of hassle.
> >>Don't edit war.
> >>
> >>Simple.
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>WikiEN-l mailing list
> >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >__________________________________
> >Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> >http://mail.yahoo.com
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] brian0918 and tom radulovich

body:
shivraj singh wrote:
> Dear Wikipedia,
>  Brian has blocked me from editing and Tom has been
> reverting my edits.  Tom's knowledge of rajput history
> is very shallow and when I corrected him he wants to
> create a new page with my edits instead of the rajput
> main page itself.
>  I have given a list of more then 2 dozen books which
> are my sources and Tom has not given any sources.  It
> seems that he is relying on the internet for his data
> or atbest(this is my guess because he has not provide
> any bibliography) some disputed historians like Ms
> Romila Thapar from India.

In your opinion, what did you do which caused brian0918 to block you?

Chris


subject: [Wikitech-l] XML Export of the full history

body:
Nikos Korfiatis wrote:
> Dear all,
> I want to export the page history in an xml format. I found the page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export for exporting the page history
> in XML but unfortunately the result contains only the current revision. I
> unchecked the checkbox but again it gives me the current revision. Is there
> any special parameter that i have to pass to the url ?

This is currently disabled due to some problems we had with it,
particularly on heavily-edited pages.

Hopefully it should become available again if we can get it to stream
properly to web output.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051003/49038668/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

> So really, most of these "non-notability" issues shouldn't ever be
> brought to VfD in the first place - just merge them into main
> articles, like that traffic circle case from a few days back, and let
> the wiki process determine whether the merge was adequate or not. If
> peoples' beef is really with the _information_ being in Wikipedia,
> that's also something that can be sorted out via the wiki process -
> articles get trimmed and streamlined and split into sub-articles all
> the time without going through a voting process.

That's so true it isn't even funny. It also makes one think if it really
would be all that bad if AfD was just shut down for a month like David
Gerard proposed.  I personally think that merging an article isn't all
that more complicated than setting up an AfD, if you see setting up an
AfD as more than writing "nn v -~~~~". Your mileage may vary, of course.

grm_wnr


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>It only gets problematic if people fail to provide enough information
>in the first place. You can't expect AFD voters to spend more than 10
>minutes of research on their argument. In such a case simply expanding
>and providing such info to the voters is much more productive than
>arguing against deletion.
>
If they fail to give sources it doesn't even take 10 minutes to figure
that out.  It's easier to use that criterion than to try to establish a
lack of notability.

Ec


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Snowspinner_2
>>
>>
>
>
>I wish to apologise for and retract calling this "RFC abuse" in the
>original subject line. That implies Blackcat's action in bringing the
>RFC was in bad faith, which I don't think is the case. I do think he's
>*dead wrong*, however, and that twenty people working in concert to
>violate the deletion policy is not somehow less bad than just one
>doing so.
>
>
>- d.
>

Two policy violations in good faith do not make a right. I think the RfC
is entirely appropriate, if only just to give Snowspinner the thumbs-up
some people think he deserves - remember, you don't even need to be bold
if everyone agrees. My personal views on this are where they belong - on
the RfC.

grm_wnr


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>And nary an inclusion debate in the lot.
>
I agree that most things won't  draw such a debate, and even if a lot of
the articles proposed for deletions really are deletable there is still
that small obsessive group determined to preserve our "bodily humours"
in the manner of Dr. Strangelove.  They need to be more sensitive to the
efforts of others, and to understand that many of these most bitter
disputes are not about what's in the articles, but about a small group
that wants to control the work of others.

>On the matter of completeness... a while back I bought a 1907 copy of
>Chambers' Biographical Dictionary, a massive collection of - well,
>{{bio-stub}}s. Repeatedly looking in it at random has so far turned up
>exactly two people who we didn't have articles already, and both of
>them we had as redlinks.
>
>
I have several of these myself, including Allen's "American Biorgaphical
Dictionary" from 1857, Lippincott's Gazeteer from 1872, and three
different editions of Haydn's Book of Dates.  That's a lot of
fascinating material, but the ambition that I felt when I bought these
volumes is not matched by the time that I have to do anything about
them. :-)

Ec


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] problems with external editor: bookmarklets

body:
Hello

I followed the discussion in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors
about how to use an external editor, since the perl solution worked
once and then refused to work, that is clicking to the editing button
did not bring up the editor, I thought of using the bookmarklet
solution, as described in the same page.

However the information is not very detailed. What shall I do with
this small script save it as  a file or what?

Any help would be strongly appreciated.

Thanks

Uwe Brauer


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I personally think that merging an article isn't all
> that more complicated than setting up an AfD, if you see setting up an
> AfD as more than writing "nn v -~~~~". Your mileage may vary, of course.
>

Actually it's much simpler. Listing on AfD involves various wikipedians
performing the following tasks:

adding the "afd" template
creating the nomination page
transcluding the nomination page on the day log
discussing, examining, researching, and extending the article
scanning the day log to find the unclosed AfD
determining a consensus, closing the debate and deleting or removing the tag
performing redirects and merges that may result.

To merge, choose a target, copy selected text to the target article, make a
note on the talk page of the target, and redirect the source article to the
target.

When I've performed the latter, I've found that it takes a couple of
minutes.


from_name: geni

body:
On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
> unsourced statements a blockable offence.

Trying to figure out if a source exists or not is going to be fun.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
>
>
I do think these should be handled outside AfD, but I wouldn't make them
speediable because an unverified article can be verified by research. I've
suggested a copyvio-like process for this--list for a couple of weeks to
give people a chance to verify, then delete if still unverified.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>For example, books should have a 5000 people audience according to
>current guidelines. Since webcomics don't have the limitation of being
>released in one country and not in another, the potential audience for
>it is larger, so I see 5000 people audience as a reasonable criterion
>for inclusion of a certain webcomic.
>
>
Just as a quick thought/addendum/pointing-out-thing, it might be
important to keep in mind that readership of webcomics waxes and wanes,
and webcomics "die" from time to time. This should probably be specified
as a 5000-person audience at any point in the webcomic's run, since
otherwise webcomics might get unfairly deleted based on current
popularity as opposed to "historical" popularity.


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dump status

body:
On 10/1/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Nyenyec N wrote:
> > What's the status of the database dumps?
> > Editor's in HuWiki are eagerly awaiting the next stats update. :)
>
> Currently testing more improvements to the dump system to speed it up,
> will launch another dump this weekend.

Looks like en died; I can't imagine 20051002_pages_current.xml.bz2 is
really 1.7 G.
http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/

Thanks Brion.


body:
On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
> > unsourced statements a blockable offence.
>
> Trying to figure out if a source exists or not is going to be fun.

I have the phone number of my local library.

Could you fix your reply-to? I always end up replying solely to you and have
to send again.


body:
On 10/3/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I don't think that changing the tiger's stripes is going to make it any
> less vicious.
>
> What could be useful would be to leave all deletion votes open
> indefinitely.  Even if the current trend is to delete with the relevant
> threshhold being met, additional opinions could lead to an automatic
> reversal of the deletion without having to go through a whole separate
> undeletion process.  There could still be a difference in the margins to
> prevent a rapid series of deletions and undeletions.  Thus if deletion
> requires 90% support, it could be undeleted automatically if the
> deletion support falls below 80%.

So you want detetion arguments to carry on forever? You know I quite
like the way we don't have to perminatly police a GNAA AFD.

> The other recommendation that I would make is that any substantive
> change to an article after it has been nominated for deletion would
> reset the clock for the deletion timetable.  Perhaps all "votes" made
> prior to that change should be declared void, allowing those voters to
> cast a new vote.
>
> Ec

Person produces hoax. Listed on vfd. After 4 days they change the
hoax. Repeat untill we get fed up. Also look for arguments over the
defintion of substantive.

--
geni


body:
On 10/2/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> The thing is - let's face it - we have all the bases covered. We already
> have
> articles on more-or-less all the topics you would expect in a traditional
> encyclopedia. The big job from now on is going to be improving those
> articles
> into something better. It's easy to write a stub; it's hard to write a
> comprehensive, well referenced article (which is what we *should* be
aiming
> for,
> not medeocrity).
>

I think you're dead wrong when you suggest that Wikipedia already has
sufficient topic coverage. Even just comparing article titles to the other
encyclopedias makes it obvious that a lot is missing. Looking at the list of
requested articles does as well. And then there's the fact that the world is
always changing. I just added a new article today on something which didn't
even exist a few months ago - the [[Open Content Alliance]].

But the reason I'm writing is to respond to your second point. Yes, it's
much easier for most people to write a stub than to write a comprehensive,
well referenced article. And yes, some of this won't ever go away. But I
think this also points to a weak point in the Mediawiki software. Adding
references is a major pain in the ass, and once those references are added
it's usually not at all clear what parts of the article are referenced and
what parts aren't, so the same work gets done over and over again. Finally,
even though there are in theory rules that people should be adding
references whenever they add substantial text to the wiki, these rules are
not at all enforced.

Maybe a really simple addition to the wiki could be made to help this - an
optional field in addition to the comments field to list source(s) for your
edit. Just a free text field, which you could leave blank if you really want
to, which would be accessible to people who want to fact-check a
contribution. Eventually we might be able to figure out how to get the
software to tie the reference to the contributed text, but just adding the
field would be a good start and less than a day's worth of coding.

Personally I agree that the featured articles candidates system, as it is
currently implemented, is not very useful. But you yourself were the one
complaining about not enough articles getting through the process. Do you
think this is because there is a dearth of good, comprehensive articles in
the encyclopedia, or do you think it's because the process of FAC doesn't
scale properly?

> -Mark
>
Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> adding the "afd" template
> creating the nomination page
> transcluding the nomination page on the day log
> discussing, examining, researching, and extending the article
> scanning the day log to find the unclosed AfD
> determining a consensus, closing the debate and deleting or removing the tag
> performing redirects and merges that may result.

You missed reading through the instructions for listing since the seem
to change more often than I list stuff.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> An equally large chunk, however,
> were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
> watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
> advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.

Come up with a solid defintion of verifiable

--
geni


body:
> Anyone have any good ideas of how better to encourage people to cite
> sources?

Move any uncited contribution to the talk page, and contact the contributor
to tell her you've done so.

Note that I'm not saying there has to be a footnote for every contribution,
but every source you use to create an article should be listed in the
==References== section. This isn't just for verifiability purposes. It's
important to document your sources in case you are ever accused of copyright
infringement or plagiarism.

And yes, I don't always follow this myself, but a) I really should, and b) I
would if someone dropped me a reminder on my talk page to do so.

--
> Michael Turley
> User:Unfocused

Anthony


body:
> On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have the phone number of my local library.
>

So supose I claim that "heterocycles can have many nitrogens but only
one sulfur or oxygen in any ring" and cite page 1176 Organic chemistry
Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers ISBN 0-19-850346-6. Now the book
exists but your local libary may not have a copy so it takes time for
you to get it. That is quite a lot of effort (fortunetly in this case
the book is a fairly standard text book so there should be at least
one other person who has a copy). This gets really fun when someone
decides to reference something that can only be aquired from the
public records office.

> Could you fix your reply-to? I always end up replying solely to you and have
> to send again.

I'll try

--
geni


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] What Readers Say on Inclusion

body:
On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit
> Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should
> be deleted.
>
> I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit
> agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they
> agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the
> possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who
> basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.
>
It would help to know how large your sample size of friends was and
what sort of stuff they commonly look up.

I come across misplaced questions on a daily basis. Wikipedia
questions on the reference desk and reference questions on the help
desk, which shows that despite having glaringly obvious instructions
on a page, readers often don't have the sense to read it.

And then it's the readers who set their first steps into editing by
including garage bands, website and personal vanity. They wouldn't
have any objection to such stuff being included.

Trusting them on what to include would be madness.

--Mgm


body:
On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have the phone number of my local library.
> >
>
> So supose I claim that "heterocycles can have many nitrogens but only
> one sulfur or oxygen in any ring" and cite page 1176 Organic chemistry
> Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers ISBN 0-19-850346-6. Now the book
> exists but your local libary may not have a copy so it takes time for
> you to get it. That is quite a lot of effort (fortunetly in this case
> the book is a fairly standard text book so there should be at least
> one other person who has a copy). This gets really fun when someone
> decides to reference something that can only be aquired from the
> public records office.

There's a difference between making sources necessary and making them
sufficient. Just because something has a listed source doesn't mean it can't
be removed. In the case of obscure sources we have to use our best
judgement, including considering the user who has cited the source and the
reasonableness of the statement being claimed. But something without a
listed source, for which no source can be found, should definitely be
removed from the article.

Anthony

P.S., I'm sorry for so many replies to this thread, but I consider citing
sources to be one of the most important things for an encyclopedia article.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Dump status

body:
On 10/3/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I've whipped up a little more documentation here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

That's great info, thanks.

> Could stand to merge the how-to bits from
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Importing_a_Wikipedia_database_dump_into_MediaWiki

I'd do so if I was confident that it were still accurate.  I'm certain
the import section is wrong (which is OK since the Data_dumps page is
accurate on this point), but it casts some doubt on the "Rebuild
auxiliary tables" section.

Does rebuldall.php still exist and work as advertised?

... Or, give me a few hours and I'll report back.  ;-)


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have the phone number of my local library.
> >
>
> So supose I claim that "heterocycles can have many nitrogens but only
> one sulfur or oxygen in any ring" and cite page 1176 Organic chemistry
> Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers ISBN 0-19-850346-6. Now the book
> exists but your local libary may not have a copy so it takes time for
> you to get it. That is quite a lot of effort (fortunetly in this case
> the book is a fairly standard text book so there should be at least
> one other person who has a copy). This gets really fun when someone
> decides to reference something that can only be aquired from the
> public records office.

Your claim of course should probably be in just about *any* advanced organic
chemistry text book.

But supposing it was something more obscure. I don't see the problem with
citations from public records or reference books available through the
public library system. These are eminently verifiable.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
> > Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation
> > scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no
> > deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles
> > below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
> >

I thought the long proposed article evaluation scheme worked on a single
edition of an article. Either way, it seems like it'd be horribly abused.
Wikipedia is not Slashdot. The day we incorporate meta-moderation into
Mediawiki the project is doomed :).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
> One of the things I found in my hunt through AfDs for invalid
> nominations and speedies was that there was a very, very small
> portion of the 117 articles I looked through that needed to be there.
> 15 or so should have been slam dunk keeps, or at least merges.
> Another good chunk were speedies. An equally large chunk, however,
> were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
> watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
> advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.

Verifiability is already a reason to move something to the talk page, and a
blank article is certainly a speedy (unless it was created by an admin),
isn't it?


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Uwe Brauer:
> I followed the discussion in
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors
> about how to use an external editor, since the perl solution worked
> once and then refused to work, that is clicking to the editing button
> did not bring up the editor,

Try visiting a URL like
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&action=edit&externaledit=true

that is, add &externaledit=true after the &action=edit -- this should
tell you if ee.pl is at all being called correctly. Make sure you are
editing a wiki you have actually set up ee.ini to work with. Each
Wikimedia wiki has its own user account database. The URL also needs to
match the URL match listing in ee.ini.

Also try starting ee.pl from the command line to test if the GUI is
working. More debugging can be done by feeding it the control files the
wiki sends to your browser on the command line.

The bookmarklet does nothing more than generating a URL like this from
the page you're looking at, and telling your browser to visit it, so if
this doesn't work, neither will the bookmarklet.

> However the information is not very detailed. What shall I do with
> this small script save it as  a file or what?

Create a new bookmark/favorite in your browser and copy the JavaScript
snippet exactly as it is into the field where you would normally write
the URL of a webpage you want to visit. Visit the bookmark/favorite
whenever you want to use the external editor. But again, make sure ee.pl
is set up correctly first, or you will have to debug two things at the
same time.

I've tried to expand the instructions on Meta with the above; let me
know if it makes sense to you.

Best,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >When people fight for the inclusion of websites and webcomics (for
> > > >example) it's more of a vanity issue. It may be verifiable and
> > > >presented in an NPOV manner, but the fact they're trying to get a
> > > >comic/site with a tiny audience into a general purpose encyclopedia is
> > > >POV too, an attempt at promotion.
> > >
> > >
> > > Surely third-party verifiability takes care of this one. If someone
> > > else cares to write something verifiable about it, it should get in.
> > >
> > My point is that far too often, it's not "someone else" doing the
> > writing. Hence the use of the word vanity.
>
>
>
>
> If this is true in general of non-notability deletion listings of articles
> about comics, bands, schools and whatnot, it's news to me. Are you
> absolutely *sure* that non-notability deletions on Wikipedia are usually
> simply because the person writing the article is not a third party but is
> someone associated with their production, operation or distribution? Because
> that's what you seem to be saying.

I probably wasn't entirely clear. What I was saying is that there's a
lot of people that try to glorify a particular subject they admire
which has no reason to be in an encyclopedia to begin with. I
subscribe to the belief we can't have an article on every single
website or band in the world, so cut-offs and inclusion criteria are
the next logical step. What those criteria should be in order to keep
out the drivel and keep in useful stuff could be up for debate.

For example, books should have a 5000 people audience according to
current guidelines. Since webcomics don't have the limitation of being
released in one country and not in another, the potential audience for
it is larger, so I see 5000 people audience as a reasonable criterion
for inclusion of a certain webcomic.

Popularity should be just as verifiable as everything else, so if you
come across a comic with ghastly google and Alexa ranking and a ghost
town of a forum, it's reasonable to assume it's not popular as
claimed, despite what the article may claim.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/3/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >On 10/3/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>My point is that far too often, it's not "someone else" doing the
> >>writing. Hence the use of the word vanity.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >If this is true in general of non-notability deletion listings of articles
> >about comics, bands, schools and whatnot, it's news to me. Are you
> >absolutely *sure* that non-notability deletions on Wikipedia are usually
> >simply because the person writing the article is not a third party but is
> >someone associated with their production, operation or distribution? Because
> >that's what you seem to be saying.
> >
> >
> >
> Even if there was a notability requirement there'd still be a lot of
> this arguing going on. I don't get involved in VfDs often, usually only
> when an article I've got watchlisted gets nominated, but one I'm
> currently arguing is a good counterexample; the article about the guy in
> the US National Guard who changed his name to Optimus Prime. The only
> reason that's been put forward for deleting his article is that he isn't
> notable aside from his unusual name. Well, why can't having an unusual
> name be notable? I certainly consider it notable enough to have had the
> thing watchlisted for over a year now.
>
> Anyway, I actually think that the current policy is a great approach, if
> people would just pay attention to what was already there. In my poking
> around with the policies in arguing this case I noticed that not only is
> "non-notability" not a criteria for deletion, but it's explicitly listed
> in the policy as something that shouldn't be dealt with by VfD. Under
> the title "*Problems that don't require deletion*" is the entry:
>
> Problem:
> Such a minor branch of a subject that it doesn't deserve an article
> Solution:
> Merge he useful content into a more comprehensive article and redirect
>
> So really, most of these "non-notability" issues shouldn't ever be
> brought to VfD in the first place - just merge them into main articles,
> like that traffic circle case from a few days back, and let the wiki
> process determine whether the merge was adequate or not. If peoples'
> beef is really with the _information_ being in Wikipedia, that's also
> something that can be sorted out via the wiki process - articles get
> trimmed and streamlined and split into sub-articles all the time without
> going through a voting process.
> _______________________________________________
It's certainly worth an article a few months back I came across an
article on a Scandinavian kid who'd been called B (or something
similar by their parents) but the government wouldn't allow it. Their
alternative wasn't much better. The fact unusual names are quite
uncommon makes any such name officially recognized by a country's
government quite notable. What was their argument for it not being
notable?

--Mgm


body:
On 10/3/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Nikos Korfiatis wrote:
> > Dear all,
> > I want to export the page history in an xml format. I found the page
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export for exporting the page history
> > in XML but unfortunately the result contains only the current revision. I
> > unchecked the checkbox but again it gives me the current revision. Is there
> > any special parameter that i have to pass to the url ?
>
> This is currently disabled due to some problems we had with it,
> particularly on heavily-edited pages.
>
> Hopefully it should become available again if we can get it to stream
> properly to web output.

I've seen that question asked several times.  Perhaps a patch to show
it's a disabled optional feature would be useful?


body:
On 10/3/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It's easy to write a stub; it's hard to write a
> > comprehensive, well referenced article (which is what we *should* be
> aiming for,
> > not medeocrity).
>
> But it is certainly much easier if you start with a stub.
>

Quite. That's what wikis are all about.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
> It's easy to write a stub; it's hard to write a
> comprehensive, well referenced article (which is what we *should* be aiming for,
> not medeocrity).

But it is certainly much easier if you start with a stub.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikijunior needs info

body:
On 9/27/05, Nicholas Moreau <nicholasmoreau at gmail.com> wrote:
> Whom is the Beck Foundation that is shelling out US$10K for the project?

It's the John and Frances Beck Foundation.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikijunior needs info


subject: [Wikitech-l] Separate directory for in-progress database dumps?

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Can the intermediate backup files please be placed in a separate
> directory (e.g.
> http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/in-progress/ ), and only be
> moved to the real directory once they are complete and there were no
> errors (such as running out of disk space), so as to avoid confusion
> about what is and what is not a complete and valid dump?

I don't think there's any point in that; the only reason anyone would
look in the directories is because the new front-end interface to
download.wikimedia.org hasn't been written yet and we took down the old
interface temporarily because it was pointing at the wrong files.

> =========================================================
> 20050713_pages_full.xml.gz	2005-Jul-16 16:25:28	29.9G
> 20050924_pages_full.xml.bz2	2005-Oct-01 03:52:03	11.3G
> 20051002_pages_full.xml.bz2	2005-Oct-03 19:35:09	1.7G
> =========================================================
>
> I have to presume that the "20051002_pages_full.xml.bz2" is an
> in-progress dump, because it is one tenth of the size of the file of
> the week before, despite using the same compression.

Indeed, in-progress.

> Then, once you start to second-guessing whether something is a
> complete dump or not, it opens a can of worms: you then have to ask
> whether the 20050924_pages_full.xml.bz2 dump is complete, given that
> the previous dump is nearly 3 times the size. Or maybe it's because of
> the difference between gzip and bzip2 .... who can say for sure?

bzip2 does about 3-5 times better on the full-history dumps than gzip
does; 7zip does another 3-5 times better than bzip2.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051003/420d7299/attachment.pgp>