subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

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

> If it's an official name, then that's what it's called. What's next,
> renaming articles on companies and products because their names were
> chosen to have positive associations? We could have such winners as
> "[[computer company named after irrelevant fruit]] is the maker of
> the [[Apple variety chosen because the name has a snappy abbreviation]]."

People should note that Stan's term, "official," also is POV.
I shouldnt have to expand on that point.

--- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Is it your assertion that WP should not use the miliary operation
> names for describing events?

Maybe. Probably. Why not? Lets start a discussion.
(References which are deferential to "offical" concepts will be disregarded.)

> It's one thing to state that military terminology tends to gloss over
> unsightly details like shooting and killing people, which is true.

Yes.

> It's quite another to assert that military operation  names are
> unencyclopedic or so POV that they should not be used in the WP.  The
> operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
> the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
> (Desert Storm, for example).

Again "most common", "most known" etc. are not significant points.
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq article for example, according to your view,
should be called "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

> It is possible to take Robin Lakoff too seriously.

I dont read him/her. Its also possible to take the Pentagon too seriously too.

-Stevertigo

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list: wikien-l

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from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It's quite another to assert that military operation  names are
> > unencyclopedic or so POV that they should not be used in the WP.  The
> > operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
> > the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
> > (Desert Storm, for example).
>
> Again "most common", "most known" etc. are not significant points.
> The 2003 Invasion of Iraq article for example, according to your view,
> should be called "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Actually, no.  I think it should be called the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
You're overgeneralizing my position.

If the military operation name is the most common western, english
language designation for an event ("Desert Storm") then it probably
should be the article name.

If the military operation name is not the most common western, english
language description for the event ("2003 Invasion of Iraq") then it
should not use the military operation name.  The military operation
name should exist as a redirect to the event article, in that case.

It's a western-english-culture-centric approach, not a pro military or
anti-military terminology approach.  The article should be named the
way "normal people" will most likely look for the article.  In some
cases that is, and in some cases that is not, the military operation
name.

> > It is possible to take Robin Lakoff too seriously.
>
> I dont read him/her.

Robin Lakoff is the wife of UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff; both
of whom have been writing widely on linguistics of military and
political actions, from a left-wing viewpoint, for about 20 years now.
 Your argument may be of independent origin but it's precisely some of
their points.  See [[George Lakoff]] on en.wikipedia

>Its also possible to take the Pentagon too seriously too.

Of course.

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Sean Whitton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Rollback for trusted users

body:
I would disagree with the idea of restricting it to rolling back anons only,
as I think with a requirement of that many edits this wouldn't be an issue.
Your ideas of using the 3RR rule to autoremove the rollback is a good idea,
though.

Forgive me if I have misunderstood, but I would disagree with automatically
enabling this ability and instead would suggest that users who are into
vandal fighting request it in a similar manner to bot requests.

Hope I've been helpful.

            ?Xyrael
On 13/07/06, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> > This has been brought up several times, you may want to review
> > [[Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges]] on en: for more
> information
> > on the past findings.
>
> Having read through that page I just have to say: Gosh, what an
> amazing amount of debate and polling, with most of the people in the
> discussion having zero capacity to fix it, and all leading to no real
> conclusion.
>
> > The worry of course is that it makes vandalism very, very easy. If the
> > threshold were low then it would be open for abuse by vandals.
>
> I agree, and that's why I'm thinking a high threshold.
>
> User contributions follow a power law (example graph:
> http://wikiq.nber.org/figs/png/eswiki-20060620-hist_log_total-edits.png
> ). i.e. the total number of users who would have edits in the 1000's
> is a very small percentage of the total userbase.
>
> Using the figures from
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits
> (with hasn't been updated since March, but it'll do for a quick
> calculation), and the figure of "English Wikipedia had about 1,064,259
> registered users" on that same page:
>
> To put this into numbers, looking at just edits (and disregarding
> account lifespan), the edit threshold, number of users who meet or
> exceed that threshold, and the percentage of the userbase that this
> represents are as follows:
> Edits  Num users  % of userbase
> 1500   2500       0.23%
> 2000   1923       0.18%
> 3000   1293       0.12%
> 4000   924        0.09%
> 5000   711        0.07%
>
> In other words, only a tiny percentage of users would get this, and if
> a vandal is willing to make thousands of good edits just to have a
> window of opportunity of a few minutes in which to vandalise:
> a) It's rather unlikely. Let me put it this way: If someone wanted to
> damage the Wikipedia, to me this seems to be an enormously inefficient
> and ineffective and labour-intensive way to do it.
> b) It's probably a net win anyway. In other words, the vandals would
> have to do enough useful stuff to cross a threshold, more than the
> damage they would do in those few minutes. In other words, you harness
> the power of the vandals, by getting more out of the vandals than you
> put in, so you're still better off.
>
> > Thoughts: not to be a jerk, but this is more of a Wikien-l issue
>
> You're not being a jerk, and I understand what you're saying.
>
> However, there *is* a significant technical aspect to this, and
> ignoring that technical aspect is a good way of guaranteeing that it
> won't work. There are two sides to this:
> 1) Getting general agreement.
> 2) Implementing it.
>
> Finding something that can be agreed upon does little good if there is
> no interest in implementing it, or if implementing it causes so much
> load, or difficulty, or takes so much effort that it's not worthwhile,
> or just simply can't be done. Therefore the technical aspects cannot
> be ignored, and need to be discussed too.
>
> > There's a user JavaScript tool that was developed some time ago which
> provides
> > about the same one-touch rollback capability for any user
>
> I know, but as you say it's not ideal, and just not as good as a
> server-side solution. Furthermore its very existence is evidence of a
> desire that the Wikipedia were better in this regard.
>
> > we have an extension suitable for this.
>
> Yes, your GiveRollback extension (
> http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/GiveRollback/
> ). I've read through the code, and (please correct me if I'm wrong) it
> seems to be a way that bureaucrats can add and remove rollback
> abilities for named auto-confirmed existing user accounts.
>
> That's definitely an improvement, although I'm wondering if the
> addition and removal can't be largely automated to enormously reduce
> the load on bureaucrats (i.e. this would be a good UI for the
> exceptions, with the general case being handled automatically).
>
> > I think that the important aspect of manual reverting is the
> > ability to enter summary of the edit, i.e. to explain why someone is
> > reverting.
>
> When I revert someone they are I think always:
> a) an anon
> b) have written something like: "YOUSE ARE ALL BOGANS WHO CAN KISS MY
> 733T FURRY BUTT!!!! WOOT!!! YOUSE HAVE BEEN HAX0R3D BY S0nIc WaV3!!!!"
> c) my edit description is usually "revert" or "rvv" or just "rv".
>
> So:
> 1) Is a more detailed description really necessary? (e.g. "Revert:
> Buttocks need branding with hot poker iron" ?)
> 2) The default "Revert edits by [[User:x.y.z.w]] to last version by
> [[NiceGuy]]" that I think you get on rollback are nicer anyway than
> the descriptions I use.
>
> > Not only that, it can generally be
> > rolled back by *anyone*, even an anonymous user.
>
> Exactly. This is about making what people can already do easier for
> those who have stuck around long enough to know what's expected, and
> know outright vandalism when they see it.
>
> At the moment, here's what I'm thinking:
>
> General idea / spec:
>
> Technical rules:
> * Upon exceeding 2000 edits and also having an account for more than 2
> months and having never been blocked for any period of time, the user
> shall by an automated process be granted the ability to do limited
> rollbacks.
> * These limited rollbacks can only be used on anons (as a technical
> restriction). (For named accounts need to do it the old slow way).
> * You lose limited rollback ability immediately and automatically for
> violating 3RR (i.e. if you use the limited rollback on the same
> article within 24 hours, then the limited rollback permission is
> automatically removed from your account). [Or perhaps it should just
> refuse to let you do a limited rollback in this situation?]
> * Maximum of one limited rollback every 5 seconds (e.g. by server-side
> sleep() for a few seconds, or by saying "too many rollback requests in
> too short a time. Press refresh in a few seconds to try again").
> * Bureaucrats can add or remove the limited rollback permission at
> their discretion.
>
> Social rules:
> * You can only rollback for blatant vandalism or a very obvious
> mistake (i.e. an edit description should not be required because the
> reason for the revert should be obvious. If an edit description would
> be required, then revert manually).
>
>
> I would appreciate comments on whether:
> a) it seems technically feasible and/or sensible
> b) if I can deal with the political slog to get agreement, if there is
> anyone out there that might potentially be interested in building it,
> or a bit of it?
> c) if you think it can be improved / simplified
> d) Are any of the technical rules not required, or are more required?
> ( e.g. is 3RR restriction required? Is limited rollback throttling
> required? Is there a better way of doing it?)
>
> Comments / thoughts?
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
--- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, no.  I think it should be called the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
> You're overgeneralizing my position.

Maybe. Is it also possible that I'm undergeneralising it?

> If the military operation name is the most common western, english
> language designation for an event ("Desert Storm") then it probably
> should be the article name.

Ive never read a "probablility" clause in WP:NPOV.
(Maybe I should read it again...)

> If the military operation name is not the most common western, english
> language description for the event ("2003 Invasion of Iraq") then it
> should not use the military operation name.  The military operation
> name should exist as a redirect to the event article, in that case.
>
> It's a western-english-culture-centric approach, not a pro military or
> anti-military terminology approach.  The article should be named the
> way "normal people" will most likely look for the article.  In some
> cases that is, and in some cases that is not, the military operation
> name.

Thats all nice and good, but what does "western-English-culture-centric"
nomenclature have to do with NPOV?

> Robin Lakoff is the wife of UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff; both
> of whom have been writing widely on linguistics of military and
> political actions, from a left-wing viewpoint, for about 20 years now.
>  Your argument may be of independent origin but it's precisely some of
> their points.  See [[George Lakoff]] on en.wikipedia

Sound like smart people.
Maybe they would agree with our NPOV policy.

> >Its also possible to take the Pentagon too seriously too.
> Of course.

I think I will put that CIRCA poster back up.

-Stevertigo

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
stevertigo wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If it's an official name, then that's what it's called. What's next,
>>renaming articles on companies and products because their names were
>>chosen to have positive associations? We could have such winners as
>>"[[computer company named after irrelevant fruit]] is the maker of
>>the [[Apple variety chosen because the name has a snappy abbreviation]]."
>>
>
>People should note that Stan's term, "official," also is POV.
>I shouldnt have to expand on that point.
>
We're not in the business of trying to impose our notion of NPOV
on organizations whose very reason for being is to take a side.
Do you think we should retitle the articles on "Department of
Defense", or "Planned Parenthood", or "Operation Save America"
(formerly "Operation Rescue" apparently). What about the "Freedom
of Access to Clinic Entrances Act"? I'm sure there are lots of
people who consider that term to be objectionably POV. Why are
we using [[People's Republic of China]] instead of "communist
China" which is far more common form, and [[Republic of China]]?
Even the article on ROC says "Taiwan" has become a more common
form.

We're not going to do a very good job of reporting other people's
POVs if we insist on inventing our own terminology to use in
lieu of theirs.

>>It's quite another to assert that military operation  names are
>>unencyclopedic or so POV that they should not be used in the WP.  The
>>operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
>>the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
>>(Desert Storm, for example).
>>
>
>Again "most common", "most known" etc. are not significant points.
>The 2003 Invasion of Iraq article for example, according to your view,
>should be called "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
>
Many operation names get trumped by popular usage, which is as it should
be. If there is not yet a clear popular usage, fall back to official
names. Only if there are dueling official names, with no popular
preference, does it make sense to invent a term. NPOV shouldn't even
be a consideration, save it for the article.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Sidestacking and pinching

body:
--- Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oddly enough, in my browser on the [[Wikipedia:Sidestacking and
> pinching]] page the "Guidance on style" box and the shortcut box are
> sidestacked.

Under WP:AGF, all irony should be regarded as intended, deliberate, and thus clever.

;)
Stevertigo

> On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Shortcut WP:SAP.
> > Template: {{sidestack}}
> >
> > 'Nuf said.
> > -Stevertigo
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
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> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Cherokee Wikipedia Name Suggestion

body:
You may want to be sure and explain exactly what the
GFDL entails in this case.  There is no guarantee that
any work that is done under this license will be
treated in a sacred manner by downstream users.
Non-speakers would be within full rights to take the
fork made in the Ute's language and put it up on a new
website or even on Wikipedia where any "16 year old
with a computer" will be able to edit it.

Wikipedia is alien to most cultures I imagine.  It is
alien to capitalist culture and academic culture to
name two.  However many people accostomed to those
cultures learn to adapt to and even appreciate WP
culture.  I think you are focusing too much on the
negative at WP and overlooking the positives of
inter-culture collaboration.  I hope your endeavor
succeeds in any event.

Birgitte SB

--- "Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
wrote:

> Oldak Quill wrote:
>
> >Not at all. The best way to improve the site would
> be to work with
> >other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia. Are
> you being active
> >in seeking members?
> >
> >
>
> Yes, I am, however, our culture is alien to the
> Wikipedia culture and
> there are going to be issues
> with the way the site operates.  So far every
> Cherokee who has edited on
> WP has gotten banned
> or scrutinized to the point they leave.  We have a
> concept of respecting
> the space of a person
> who is working on something.
>
> WP 's policies allow a 16 year old with a computer
> to come in and
> disrupt someone else's work and this
> doesn;t work for us.  Our culture is based on mutual
> respect, and I
> believe WP and Wales operate on the
> premise people on WP should be the same way.  This
> has not been the
> course followed.  I think WP should
> continue and we can do hat we need with the content
> -- off site where
> our cultural issues can coexist
> peacefully.
>
> You wont get many native people editing here due to
> the way the site is
> organized -- respect for others is
> lacking in the way articles are edited.  It's ok
> though, we can still
> both be successful if we figure out a way
> to create dual environments where folks can be
> successful.
>
> I am meeting w9ith the tribal council of the Ute,
> Shoshone, and Unita
> Nations on July 18, at 1:30 in Fort Duschene
> on the machine translations for their Wikipedia, so
> I am making
> excellent progress.  They also expressed a desire
> to host their content off Wikipedia due to their
> review of the issues
> with how the site works -- its alien to most native
> cultures.  The Ute's believe their language is
> sacred and they don't
> want non speakers working on it for religious
> reasons.  You are going to find this is a prevalent
> attitude among
> Native Peoples.  The ute's did not even allow their
> langauge to be written down until the mid 1970's due
> to their religious
> beliefs, so this is a big step for them.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>
> >On 13/07/06, Jeff V. Merkey
> <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Oldak Quill wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Most Wikimedia projects don't translate
> "Wikipedia", "Wiktionary", and
> >>>>>"Wikimedia", they transliterate them. Even
> non-Latin alphabets do
> >>>>>this: Russian Wikipedia is called
> "??????????????????" which transliterates as
> >>>>>Ve-I-Ka-I-Pe-Ye-De-I-Ya (those are the names of
> the letters, at
> >>>>>least). Does Cherokee have some kind of formal
> transliteration system?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>On 12/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey
> <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>The name should be:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>???????????? ????????????
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>(digoweli gatsanula)
> >>>>>>"the books = pedia " " that are fast = wiki "
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>to match the actual meanings of the words
> "wiki" and "pedia".
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>The current name of the site, while catchy, is
> not accurate for the
> >>>>>>language, and was synthesized.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Just a suggestion...
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Jeff
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>Yes. it does have one for words like this, but
> taking potshots at the
> >>>>name can create something you do not intend.
> >>>>
> >>>>Let's look at it:
> >>>>
> >>>>Wi-gi-que-di-ya
> >>>>
> >>>>wi  - (negative imperfect past tense)
> >>>>gi - to combine
> >>>>que - incomplete verb root about an animal
> >>>>di - plural for a non living object
> >>>>ya - broad area of concern (means "pertains to
> or covers a broad area or
> >>>>topic)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>While it is interesting some of the points and
> counter points about this
> >>>issue, isn't this something better left to be
> discussed on project pages
> >>>by participants and made as a local decision?  At
> least I would feel
> >>>more comfortable with people who are involved
> with the development of
> >>>the project (aka Cherokee Wikipedia content
> developers) instead of
> >>>getting European or Austrialian attitudes from
> people who may never even
> >>>add a single word to that project.
> >>>
> >>>This whole discussion strikes me as something
> very similar to when the
> >>>name Wikipedia itself was coined, along with all
> of the other major
> >>>sister projects and their names.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>There are no participants on the site.   The site
> has been dead for
> >>months.  Probably because NONE OF THEM SPEAK
> CHEROKEE.
> >>Perhaps best thing is to close the site completely
> and I'll just manage
> >>the fork off Wikipedia.
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Rollback for trusted users

body:
On 13/07/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> I would disagree with the idea of restricting it to rolling back anons only,
> as I think with a requirement of that many edits this wouldn't be an issue.
> Your ideas of using the 3RR rule to autoremove the rollback is a good idea,
> though.
>
> Forgive me if I have misunderstood, but I would disagree with automatically
> enabling this ability and instead would suggest that users who are into
> vandal fighting request it in a similar manner to bot requests.

As I see it, we've got a few options...

1. Just give it out, to all autoconfirmed users.
2. Give it out to all autoconfirmed users who have passed some
additional threshold, such as edit count; record user edit counts
somewhere, or maintain a flag on their account which is updated when
the desired threshold is passed.
3. Have bureaucrats and stewards give it out.

Each option has benefits and each has disadvantages. For instance,
suggesting #1 on wikien-l would be liable to get me shot, owing to En
Wikipedia's lack of desire to use simple functions such as block
against users who deserve it. Abuse it? Blocked. Simple.

Reliance on either of #2 or #3 alone isn't quite optimum in my book.
What we *could* do is combine the two. If the implementation for #2
added users to a group with the rollback permission (granted one-off
on their 2000th edit, to take an arbitrary figure), as opposed to
adding them to an implicit group (effectively re-granted with every
session), then it could be revoked for the short or long term by
bureaucrats and stewards and ArbCom, oh my.

Retaining option #3 would allow it to be given back, or given out prematurely.

#2 as an implicit group is not too horrendous to code into MediaWiki;
we can add a new column to the user table and add checking code to the
edit form or Article::editUpdates() method, etc. The more complex
proposal starts to look uglier, so I'm thinking implementation of that
*might* be via an extension, assuming we have or could add all the
required hooks and grappling ledges.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thats all nice and good, but what does "western-English-culture-centric"
> nomenclature have to do with NPOV?

It doesn't.  My point is that you're trying to stretch NPOV to the
exclusion of other policy.

[[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]]
Excerpt:
"Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority
of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable
minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those
articles easy and second nature.

Another way to summarize the overall principle of Wikipedia's naming
conventions:

    Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over
editors; and for a general audience over specialists. "

That policy is not NPOV.  It's
western-english-popular-culture-centric.  It's the ruling policy here
(it's specific on this topic, neutral POV is a general principle).

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

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

> We're not in the business of trying to impose our notion of NPOV
> on organizations whose very reason for being is to take a side.

Ironically, your usage of "offical" does just that.

> Do you think we should retitle the articles on "Department of
> Defense", or "Planned Parenthood", or "Operation Save America..."

This argument is disingenous, if not entirely an appeal to ridicule.
The context of this discussion is military terms, which,
(according the Wikipedia article at least) are POV by their very nature.
(Bill names represent particular documents - not events.)

> We're not going to do a very good job of reporting other people's
> POVs if we insist on inventing our own terminology to use in
> lieu of theirs.

Nor are we doing a very good job of "reporting other people's POV"
by deferring to the "official" POV of those with bigger guns.
Guns and fancy names do not equate to objectivity (or legitimacy for that matter).

> Many operation names get trumped by popular usage, which is as it should
> be. If there is not yet a clear popular usage, fall back to official
> names. Only if there are dueling official names, with no popular
> preference, does it make sense to invent a term. NPOV shouldn't even
> be a consideration, save it for the article.

Sometimes we have to make up our own names. I refer occasionally to the
 [[Iraq disarmament crisis]] - something coined by me.
We could also do that in these cases, following established
conventions for neologisms representing events.
Naming is part of POV. Either we have a culture that respects NPOV or we do not.

-Stevertigo
"There is only one man who can rid the politics of this State of the evil domination of
Boss Jim Gettys. "

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subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sometimes we have to make up our own names. I refer occasionally to the
>  [[Iraq disarmament crisis]] - something coined by me.
> We could also do that in these cases, following established
> conventions for neologisms representing events.

How is making up names anything but OR?

> Naming is part of POV. Either we have a culture that respects NPOV or we do not.

NPOV is not the only Wikipedia policy and guideline.

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


from_name: Volker Haas

subject: [Foundation-l] Printed on Demand Books from Wikipedia articles

body:
Hi Oldak,

thanks for your comments!

Oldak Quill wrote:
> Perhaps the only problem in this respect is that the
> articles will be unedited (I assume?) and unverified. Our mistakes
> will forever be distilled in ink. This is not a great concern since
> there is currently no way to get 100% verified Wikipedia articles yet
> anyway.
Your assumtion is correct: all articles are not edited or verified by
us. The articles we  print
are exact "copies" of the articles in the wikipedia dump we use.

> Will you include a description of what Wikipedia is and a
> disclaimer at the front of each book?
>
We do not give a description of what Wikipedia is. But as you have
probably seen, we clearly
state on the website and in the books that the articles are from
Wikipedia. In the footer
of the pediapress website we also link wikipedia.org. If you think that
we should include a brief
description about Wikipedia and make it more clear in the books where
the articles are from
we could try to improve on that issue.

> Legally, there are some issues to take note of. As I'm sure you know,
> each book would need to contain a full copy of the GFDL 1.2 license
> and would have to provide the names of a certain number of authors for
> each article (as you mention in your post).
>
The GFDL is included in every book.

> There have been some attempts at this kind of thing from within
> Wikipedia. They are called "Readers" - compilations of articles (on,
> say, Mammals) which are edited and presented in quite a pleasant
> format. I suggest you attempt to work with the users who have worked
> on Readers to get ideas for presentation/editing.
We are familiar with the Wikipedia Readers. But since all layouting of
books with pediapress
is done automatically we can't really focus on improving the
layout/presentation of individual
articles. Nonetheless we try to find "general rules" on how to improve
the layout of the books.
This is a rather hard problem - and we sometimes fail...

> It would be better
> for all parties if you stay in communication with the community rather
> than simply exist coldly outside.
>
It is absolutely not our intent to develop pediapress on an "isolated
island". We want to stay in
touch with the community for the mutual benefit.

> May I ask how you are planning on printing and binding these books?
>
The books are printed by Instabook (http://www.instabook.net/). You can
find more infos
on our info site or their website ;-)
http://pediapress.com/info/

> Will they be hardback or softback?
Softback with glossy finish.

> Will you provide "template books" (like the
> above readers) with precollated selections of articles on mammals or
> whatnot?
>
We will not provide "template books". On the main page of pediapress we
feature a couple
of books. These books were ordered by pediapress users and chosen by us
to be featured.
The featured books are also not edited in any way. Featured books are
books that have
been "published" by users who have ordered the book.
More info on publishing books can be found at
http://pediapress.com/info/#affiliate

> Wikipedia's allowance for commercial use has always had these kind of
> projects in mind. I wish you luck again and hope you keep in
> communication with us.
>
Thanks again for the comments! I hope I could answer your questions in a
satisfactory manner!

- Volker

> On 12/07/06, Volker Haas <volker.haas at brainbot.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi everybody,
>>
>> ....
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
--- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thats all nice and good, but what does "western-English-culture-centric"
> > nomenclature have to do with NPOV?
>
> It doesn't.  My point is that you're trying to stretch NPOV to the
> exclusion of other policy.

How is the literal application of subordinate policy "excluded"
by the basic application of a superior policy?
NPOV trumps even WP:Civility, IIRC,
and my own editing often reflects this principled deference.

> [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]]. Excerpt:

Please do not quote a style guide in the context of a policy issue.

-Stevertigo

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> Even if the verse were essentually non-religious, a quote from the
> Qur'an, a religious text, is inappropriate. This verse is blatantly
> religious though and should be removed as quickly as is possible.

Even if the quote were essentially non-religious, *and* from a
non-religious text, then it would still be inappropriate for a site
notice.  To my knowledge, the site notice has never been used to convey
general good advice or anything of the sort on any project or any
language.  This is not a matter of religion versus non-religion, it is a
matter of, well, this is not what the sitenotice is for.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Thats all nice and good, but what does "western-English-culture-centric"
> > > nomenclature have to do with NPOV?
> >
> > It doesn't.  My point is that you're trying to stretch NPOV to the
> > exclusion of other policy.
>
> How is the literal application of subordinate policy "excluded"
> by the basic application of a superior policy?
> NPOV trumps even WP:Civility, IIRC,
> and my own editing often reflects this principled deference.

I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you to agree to disagree on
this point.

I do not believe that Wikipedia can survive on NPOV alone, or NPOV
raised on a pillar above all other policies and common sense.

I suspect that general consensus agrees with me on this point.

> > [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]]. Excerpt:
>
> Please do not quote a style guide in the context of a policy issue.

That is not a style guide; it's an official policy.

Your desire that it not be is evident, but that's your opinion, not an
accurate reflection of existing policy in my opinion.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> Quran quotes (or any other, btw) in the sitenotice are an abuse of the
> tool and should be removed immediately.

The "or any other" bit is extremely important.  This is not about
religion, it is just that the sitenotice is to be used for announcements
of upcoming events, news, fundraisers, things of that nature, not for
quotes.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
stevertigo wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Do you think we should retitle the articles on "Department of
>>Defense", or "Planned Parenthood", or "Operation Save America..."
>>
>
>This argument is disingenous, if not entirely an appeal to ridicule.
>The context of this discussion is military terms, which,
>(according the Wikipedia article at least) are POV by their very nature.
>(Bill names represent particular documents - not events.)
>
Make up your mind - later you say "Either we have a culture that
respects NPOV or we do not." If you want to make this into some
kind of moral absolute that applies to all of WP, you can't then
backpedal and say it's really only about military terminology.
Why are you singling out the military for different treatment? If
"bigger guns" matter so much, then it should apply throughout the
governments that rely on them, to people and corporations that
reap benefits from the government's guns, etc.

>>Many operation names get trumped by popular usage, which is as it should
>>be. If there is not yet a clear popular usage, fall back to official
>>names. Only if there are dueling official names, with no popular
>>preference, does it make sense to invent a term. NPOV shouldn't even
>>be a consideration, save it for the article.
>>
>
>Sometimes we have to make up our own names. I refer occasionally to the
> [[Iraq disarmament crisis]] - something coined by me.
>
And that's cool, if it's not original research. What's not cool is
to put ourselves up as judge and jury on the terms that the rest
of the world has already chosen to use.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
--- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you to agree to disagree on
> this point.
>
> I do not believe that Wikipedia can survive on NPOV alone, or NPOV
> raised on a pillar above all other policies and common sense.

Then we should probably replace the clause "absolute and non-negotiable"
with "catch-as-catch-can." (See [[Catch wrestling]])

> I suspect that general consensus agrees with me on this point.

I suspect you are right (ironically enough).

> That is not a style guide; it's an official policy.

I submit this point. I had read the lede sentence:
  "Naming conventions is a list of guidelines"
and presumed it was of soft nature. Forgive my misuse of the term "guide."

> Your desire that it not be is evident, but that's your opinion, not an
> accurate reflection of existing policy in my opinion.

Sure, fine, whatever.

-Stevertigo

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from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
I would agree on the grammatical editing point. For something to be
copyrighted it needs to be in some way original/creative, but
grammatical editing is done by a set of fixed guidelines (MoS,
standard English) and isn't very creative. Therefore, it seems
sensible to not consider such edits copyrightable.

On 13/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Robert Scott Horning
> > <mailto:foundation-l%40wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BFoundation-l%5D%20GFDL%20publisher%20credit&In-Reply-To=>
> > wrote
> >
> >Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >>If Wikimedia wants to hold a copyright interest inthis material it needs
> >>to be ready to defend those copyrights in a serious way.  Having an
> >>employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the
> >>law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts
> >>the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the
> >>more ignorant copyright violators.
> >>
> >>Ec
> >>
> >The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold
> >copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free
> >Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects:  If there is a
> >copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the
> >copyright and defending the GPL.
> >
> My preference here would be to have each editor appoint WMF as a
> non-exclusive agent for the purpose of taking all steps to defend
> editors' copyrights.  This would prevent some distant future management
> from using its standing as a copyright owner to do things that can only
> be done by any copyright owner.  By disowning any copyrights it may have
> in the material it also helps to maintain its distance from the content
> if it is ever named to defend some suit based on the contents.
>
> >The same thing (I would hope) could apply to the WMF if there is a GFDL
> >violation.  As it stands right now, by disclaiming copyright, all the
> >WMF can do to enforce a flagarant copyright violation of Wikipedia
> >content is sit on the sidelines and act as a cheerleader.  Brad would be
> >legally excluded from even being able to offer advise.  If you are an
> >individual contributor and want to defend the copyright of content that
> >you wrote, you would have to hire your own counsel, as would each
> >seperate contributor who would want to join in the legal defense.
> >
> Being agent should permit WMF to act.  The potential complications if
> the individuals had to do everything themselves boggle the mind.  There
> is also the question that registration of a copyright is a prerequisite
> for prosecuting any infringers.  Whose responsibility is it to ensure
> that all needed registrations happen?
>
> >Frankly, I think this is an ugly situation, although it is "safe" for
> >the WMF and from a legal liability perspective, I do understand why the
> >decision to not claim copyright was done.  The liability instead rests
> >on the individual contributors.  Each time you add some content to
> >Wikimedia projects, particularly if you use the same account for each
> >contribution and are prominent in the "community", you put yourself into
> >harm's way legally speaking.  You can be held responsible for the
> >content that you added, or even failed to edit out when you made a minor
> >change to a page.  In other words, this approach to playing it safe
> >really is just transfering liability from the WMF to individual users.
> >
> >That really should be motivation to being a major contributor to
> >Wikimedia projects, isn't it?
> >
> I have no problem with the idea of WMF being "safe", and that uploaders
> should be legally responsible for the material they add.  I really don't
> agree that a person who has acted as a mere grammatical editor has
> published anything substantive.  Such an editor bases his entire effort
> on what is there in front of him; the research needed to establish the
> legality of the substance is beyond his frame of reference.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2006, at 12:42 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> > I suspect that general consensus agrees with me on this point.
>
> I do too, but it does not trump NPOV.

Trump implies some sort of absolutism.  I'm trying to point out that
absolutism for any of the policies eventually leads to mutual
contradictions with other policies.

That way lies madness and flame wars...

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


from_name: Heema Khan

subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

body:
Most people can understand English there, so there
shouldn't be any problem in posting the message in English.
Otherwise, I can translate the message in Urdu, if required.

--heema

----- Original Message ----
From: Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 7:48:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

That sounds sensible, how about something along the lines of (after
translation by a kind soul):
Discussion on the [[foundation-l]] mailing list about the Urdu
Wikipedia's sitenotice has come to the conclusion that according to
policy the sitenotice should not be used <perhaps a quote from Jimbo
here>. We'd like to hear the opinions of the users of this wiki before
we take any action over this issue.

Sound okay?

On 13/07/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think we should tell the community before it is removed; present
> them with the Foundation's position and allow members of the community
> who are for the message to respond before anything is done. We don't
> want to seem like distant bureaucrats unfamiliar with custom and
> lacking diplomacy.
>
> On 13/07/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> > So, we are in agreement that it should be removed? If I'm right here,
> > would a steward care to do it?
> >
> > On 13/07/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> > > > Quran quotes (or any other, btw) in the sitenotice are an abuse of the
> > > > tool and should be removed immediately.
> > >
> > > The "or any other" bit is extremely important.  This is not about
> > > religion, it is just that the sitenotice is to be used for announcements
> > > of upcoming events, news, fundraisers, things of that nature, not for
> > > quotes.
> > >
> > > --
> > > #######################################################################
> > > #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> > > #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> > > #######################################################################
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> >         ?Xyrael
> >                 Sean Whitton (Xyrael) <sean at silentflame.com> [xyrael.net]
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--

    ?Xyrael
        Sean Whitton (Xyrael) <sean at silentflame.com> [xyrael.net]
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice


body:
Hi Erik,

I also thank you for the comments and questions!

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 1) Are you using the highest quality images available for the PDF
> generation?  Is the quality setting deliberately low?
> Comparing, for instance,
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Chirpedpulse.jpg
> with the image used in the PDF under "Wigner quasi-probability
> distribution", the PDF image seems to have much more pronounced
> compression artifacts.
>
We always try using the best image available (in terms of resolution).
Currently we restrict
the resolution of the images in the book to 150 dpi. This is done to
prevent the pdfs to get
to large. However, the example you provided indicates that this might be
to low. We will
check that and decide if we increase the maximum resolution.
> 2) What mechanism do you use to generate the PDF files?
We implemented a mediawiki parser from scratch. The result of the
parsing process is
an intermediate format that then gets transformed to latex (for the
books) and to html
for displaying the articles on the pediapress website. As you probably
guess, this is a
non-trivial process - to be precise: it's a rather difficult challenge  ;-)

> Is there any
> chance that part of the software might become open source, if it isn't
> already?
So far it is not planned to release the parser software as open source.
But if we can figure out
a good cooperation model we can talk about that in the future.

> I know many people who would be interested in this
> functionality outside the context of Wikipedia.
>
> If this service works well, from my perspective (I don't have any
> Foundation authority) it would be great if this could be developed
> into a larger partnership, with the project being featured prominently
> on our side (perhaps in return for a larger percentage of the
> profits).
>
We would be happy if the pediapress project would result in a
partnership with the wikimedia
foundation. I currently do not know how the details of such a
partnership would "look like" -
but we are absolutely open to discussion in that matter.

> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
---  George Herbert wrote:
>Trump implies some sort of absolutism.  I'm trying to point out that
>absolutism for any of the policies eventually leads to mutual
>contradictions with other policies.
>That way lies madness and flame wars...

Not to mention canker sores, mites, toe fungus, tooth decay, and jealous women...

--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Make up your mind - later you say "Either we have a culture that
> respects NPOV or we do not." If you want to make this into some
> kind of moral absolute that applies to all of WP, you can't then
> backpedal and say it's really only about military terminology.

Stanley....  The context is  NPOV... as applied to POV nomenclature...
of which military terms form the largest part
(in my current frame of attention and relevance anyway).

This  is my thread, play by my rules - they arent unfair or obfuscative.

-Stevertigo

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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

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

Stan Shebs stated for the record:
> stevertigo wrote:
>
>
>>Current issues, include the inclusion of the term "Operation Just Desserts" in the
>>[[2006 Israeli-attacks on Lebanon]] article in the lede. Likewise the article
>>[[Operation Summer Rains]] also a military, hence POV nomenclature and hence needs
>>renaming, though I cannot myself determine what to call it.
>>Is it an "incursion" (ie. "a limited incursion into the country of Congress") or an
>>"invasion", a "retaliation" or a "retribution" etc.
>>
>
> If it's an official name, then that's what it's called. What's next,
> renaming articles on companies and products because their names were
> chosen to have positive associations? We could have such winners as
> "[[computer company named after irrelevant fruit]] is the maker of
> the [[Apple variety chosen because the name has a snappy abbreviation]]."
>
> Stan

Several months ago, I actually found myself confronting a person who
didn't think Wikipedia should acknowledge that the [[LGM-118A
Peacekeeper]] is called the "Peacekeeper."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs, or
 sean at epoptic.com | insanity for everyone, but they've always
                  | worked for me. --Hunter S. Thompson
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subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you to agree to disagree on
> > this point.
> >
> > I do not believe that Wikipedia can survive on NPOV alone, or NPOV
> > raised on a pillar above all other policies and common sense.
>
> Then we should probably replace the clause "absolute and non-negotiable"
> with "catch-as-catch-can." (See [[Catch wrestling]])

There is never going to be a single, universally acceptable agreed
upon definition of where true neutrality is on any given issue.

The naming policy is a case in point; the most common widely used name
for something often is not really all that neutral; it's whatever
happened to stick in the public common mind when an event happened.
It's still the right name to use for the event in Wikipedia namespace,
as a general rule, for the reasons given in the naming policy.

It is not an abuse of neutality as a general guiding principle, for
the naming principle to be "Whatever people commonly use to call this
thing".  That policy is neutral on substantiative issues, other than
en.wikipedia being western cultural centric.

The individual specific instances of applying that policy then lead to
cases where some may disagree with the neutrality of a given name.
But they're disagreeing with Wikipedia naming something to accurately
report the common cultural label.  It's not a value judgement or
neutrality judgement to say "This is what people call it, we call it
the same thing".

How an article covers the naming and events can and should be much
more neutral than the article title, which should be the common name,
with redirects from common synonyms.

I am applying neutrality at the guideline level: the naming guideline
should be neutral with respect to specific topic areas.  The names
necessarily cannot all be completely neutral in and of themelves
without hopelessly diluting any utility to Wikipedia as a reference
tool.  The names have to fit a consistent neutral policy - and they
do.  But they also have to be useful for people finding things.

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


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>Not at all. The best way to improve the site would be to work with
>other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia. Are you being active
>in seeking members?
>
>

Yes, I am, however, our culture is alien to the Wikipedia culture and
there are going to be issues
with the way the site operates.  So far every Cherokee who has edited on
WP has gotten banned
or scrutinized to the point they leave.  We have a concept of respecting
the space of a person
who is working on something.

WP 's policies allow a 16 year old with a computer to come in and
disrupt someone else's work and this
doesn;t work for us.  Our culture is based on mutual respect, and I
believe WP and Wales operate on the
premise people on WP should be the same way.  This has not been the
course followed.  I think WP should
continue and we can do hat we need with the content -- off site where
our cultural issues can coexist
peacefully.

You wont get many native people editing here due to the way the site is
organized -- respect for others is
lacking in the way articles are edited.  It's ok though, we can still
both be successful if we figure out a way
to create dual environments where folks can be successful.

I am meeting w9ith the tribal council of the Ute, Shoshone, and Unita
Nations on July 18, at 1:30 in Fort Duschene
on the machine translations for their Wikipedia, so I am making
excellent progress.  They also expressed a desire
to host their content off Wikipedia due to their review of the issues
with how the site works -- its alien to most native
cultures.  The Ute's believe their language is sacred and they don't
want non speakers working on it for religious
reasons.  You are going to find this is a prevalent attitude among
Native Peoples.  The ute's did not even allow their
langauge to be written down until the mid 1970's due to their religious
beliefs, so this is a big step for them.

Jeff

>On 13/07/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Oldak Quill wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Most Wikimedia projects don't translate "Wikipedia", "Wiktionary", and
>>>>>"Wikimedia", they transliterate them. Even non-Latin alphabets do
>>>>>this: Russian Wikipedia is called "?????????" which transliterates as
>>>>>Ve-I-Ka-I-Pe-Ye-De-I-Ya (those are the names of the letters, at
>>>>>least). Does Cherokee have some kind of formal transliteration system?
>>>>>
>>>>>On 12/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>The name should be:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>???? ????
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(digoweli gatsanula)
>>>>>>"the books = pedia " " that are fast = wiki "
>>>>>>
>>>>>>to match the actual meanings of the words "wiki" and "pedia".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The current name of the site, while catchy, is not accurate for the
>>>>>>language, and was synthesized.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Just a suggestion...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>Yes. it does have one for words like this, but taking potshots at the
>>>>name can create something you do not intend.
>>>>
>>>>Let's look at it:
>>>>
>>>>Wi-gi-que-di-ya
>>>>
>>>>wi  - (negative imperfect past tense)
>>>>gi - to combine
>>>>que - incomplete verb root about an animal
>>>>di - plural for a non living object
>>>>ya - broad area of concern (means "pertains to or covers a broad area or
>>>>topic)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>While it is interesting some of the points and counter points about this
>>>issue, isn't this something better left to be discussed on project pages
>>>by participants and made as a local decision?  At least I would feel
>>>more comfortable with people who are involved with the development of
>>>the project (aka Cherokee Wikipedia content developers) instead of
>>>getting European or Austrialian attitudes from people who may never even
>>>add a single word to that project.
>>>
>>>This whole discussion strikes me as something very similar to when the
>>>name Wikipedia itself was coined, along with all of the other major
>>>sister projects and their names.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>There are no participants on the site.   The site has been dead for
>>months.  Probably because NONE OF THEM SPEAK CHEROKEE.
>>Perhaps best thing is to close the site completely and I'll just manage
>>the fork off Wikipedia.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blogosphere takes notice of Reuters confusion

body:
I agree with all of your points, but I think we should avoid pointing
out every mistake the press makes when reporting us. This makes us
seem slightly self-righteous and pig-headed. Sure, the mainstream
press makes mistakes (my newspaper carries several corrections a day),
but this doesn't remove from the validity of them, just as our
mistakes don't remove (or shouldn't remove) from our validity.

On 13/07/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.intelliot.com/blog/archives/2006/07/12/reuters-stinks/
>
> "Wow. This has got to be one of the worst news stories of all time. It
> doesn't make sense that it was even written, much less published. And
> much, much less the fact that it mentions Wikipedia and tries to pass
> it off as valid news."
>
> http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/07/12/2140252.shtml
>
>  Reuters offers correction to Wikipedia slam. junger writes "Reuters
> put out a hit piece on Wikipedia, saying that the encyclopedia wasn't
> credible in 'covering' the breaking news of the death of Enron's Ken
> Lay, but then Reuters has to correct their own story because they
> couldn't properly identify one of their sources."
>
> http://www.jasonunger.com/2006/07/10/the-irony-reuters-slams-wikipedias-credibility-issues-own-correction/
>
> So Wikipedia can get confused because inital reports were varied about
> the cause of Lay's death, but Reuters can't even identify who gave
> them the information they used in their report?
>
> And journalism has sunk to a new low.
>
>
> For sake of completeness:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-10/Reuters
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

body:
On 7/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> But in the end, no.  I don't think we should have an article on
> somebody who is in the end "famous" solely because, well, a group of
> sophomoric fucktards got their rocks off laughing at his appearance.
>
And in the end, I don't think we should *not* have an article on
somebody simply because they have a serious disability which makes
some people laugh at them.  Equal rights, and everything, I say.

I also think your description of gross sexual imposition as a "minor
technical offence" is terribly inaccurate.  Maybe Peppers wasn't
actually guilty of this offense (in which case the story is that much
more important, by the way), but if Peppers was guilty of the offense
I don't think it is minor.

Regardless of why Peppers is famous a lot of people want to know more
about him, and in my opinion it is the job of Wikipedia to inform them
about him, if for no other reason than to dispell the rumors spread by
"sophomoric fucktards".

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
stevertigo wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>Make up your mind - later you say "Either we have a culture that
>>respects NPOV or we do not." If you want to make this into some
>>kind of moral absolute that applies to all of WP, you can't then
>>backpedal and say it's really only about military terminology.
>>
>
>Stanley....  The context is  NPOV... as applied to POV nomenclature...
>of which military terms form the largest part
>(in my current frame of attention and relevance anyway).
>
>This  is my thread, play by my rules - they arent unfair or obfuscative.
>
So you want a discussion, but the it's out of bounds to point out
the logical fallacies? OK, fine, I have better things to with my
time.

Stan


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Radical proposal

body:
I concur. I only use categories, not sure why anyone uses articles.

On 12/07/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> stevertigo wrote:
> > Crossposted to
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Radical_proposal
> >
> > Since sorting images seems to be a categorical affair, and that articles here do not
> > require much in the way of articles or descriptions, is it possible to make article
> > pages function as if they were a category?
> > It would save some typing, and reduce use of static linkage (ie. articles) in favor of
> > dynamic likage (ie. categories).
> >
> > "Articles" in turn would require fitting into a namespace, though I agree that would
> > seem to defy convention.
> > Again, this idea is based on the notion that everything could fit into category pages,
> > or commons: pages, and little else. A migration/integration campaign would be required.
> >
>
> "Articles" as they exist on other Wikimedia projects have no place on
> Commons.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
>
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Several months ago, I actually found myself confronting a person who
> didn't think Wikipedia should acknowledge that the [[LGM-118A
> Peacekeeper]] is called the "Peacekeeper."

Context flag: Objects and documents are finite, and names applied to
them are understood to be of arbitrary value.  Events, of which we are discussing,
can be classified as "operations," even if they violate every principle of man
since the dawn of the human age.

-Stevertigo
* Passionately about ancient history...
...kinda blase about human events.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> It is like the United States, which, as we all know, opposes torture.
> That is the policy of the United States. No matter how much torture
> is done, the policy remains. So all the edit warring and voting you
> want to do will not abrogate NPOV.

Are you seriously equating article names with torture???

Obviously we've hit a nerve here, but ... gentlemen, please, calm down.

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


body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>Oldak Quill wrote:
>
>
>
>>Not at all. The best way to improve the site would be to work with
>>other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia. Are you being active
>>in seeking members?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>Yes, I am, however, our culture is alien to the Wikipedia culture and
>there are going to be issues
>with the way the site operates.  So far every Cherokee who has edited on
>WP has gotten banned
>or scrutinized to the point they leave.
>
(NOTE:  This comment pertains to people who were raised in the Cherokee
Culture and speak the language, not
Cherokee folks who were raised in American Culture and may have Cherokee
ancestry but do not know their
culture or the language -- there are a lot of folks in this category on
WP today and they seem to be fine, but their
contributions are nil to nothing in this area becuase they do not know
the culture and for all intents and purposes,
they are not immersed in our culture or grew up in it -- I did).

>  We have a concept of respecting
>the space of a person
>who is working on something.
>
>WP 's policies allow a 16 year old with a computer to come in and
>disrupt someone else's work and this
>doesn;t work for us.  Our culture is based on mutual respect, and I
>believe WP and Wales operate on the
>premise people on WP should be the same way.  This has not been the
>course followed.  I think WP should
>continue and we can do hat we need with the content -- off site where
>our cultural issues can coexist
>peacefully.
>
>You wont get many native people editing here due to the way the site is
>organized -- respect for others is
>lacking in the way articles are edited.  It's ok though, we can still
>both be successful if we figure out a way
>to create dual environments where folks can be successful.
>
>I am meeting w9ith the tribal council of the Ute, Shoshone, and Unita
>Nations on July 18, at 1:30 in Fort Duschene
>on the machine translations for their Wikipedia, so I am making
>excellent progress.  They also expressed a desire
>to host their content off Wikipedia due to their review of the issues
>with how the site works -- its alien to most native
>cultures.  The Ute's believe their language is sacred and they don't
>want non speakers working on it for religious
>reasons.  You are going to find this is a prevalent attitude among
>Native Peoples.  The ute's did not even allow their
>langauge to be written down until the mid 1970's due to their religious
>beliefs, so this is a big step for them.
>
>Jeff
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>On 13/07/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Oldak Quill wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Most Wikimedia projects don't translate "Wikipedia", "Wiktionary", and
>>>>>>"Wikimedia", they transliterate them. Even non-Latin alphabets do
>>>>>>this: Russian Wikipedia is called "?????????" which transliterates as
>>>>>>Ve-I-Ka-I-Pe-Ye-De-I-Ya (those are the names of the letters, at
>>>>>>least). Does Cherokee have some kind of formal transliteration system?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>On 12/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The name should be:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>???? ????
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>(digoweli gatsanula)
>>>>>>>"the books = pedia " " that are fast = wiki "
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>to match the actual meanings of the words "wiki" and "pedia".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The current name of the site, while catchy, is not accurate for the
>>>>>>>language, and was synthesized.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Just a suggestion...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>Yes. it does have one for words like this, but taking potshots at the
>>>>>name can create something you do not intend.
>>>>>
>>>>>Let's look at it:
>>>>>
>>>>>Wi-gi-que-di-ya
>>>>>
>>>>>wi  - (negative imperfect past tense)
>>>>>gi - to combine
>>>>>que - incomplete verb root about an animal
>>>>>di - plural for a non living object
>>>>>ya - broad area of concern (means "pertains to or covers a broad area or
>>>>>topic)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>While it is interesting some of the points and counter points about this
>>>>issue, isn't this something better left to be discussed on project pages
>>>>by participants and made as a local decision?  At least I would feel
>>>>more comfortable with people who are involved with the development of
>>>>the project (aka Cherokee Wikipedia content developers) instead of
>>>>getting European or Austrialian attitudes from people who may never even
>>>>add a single word to that project.
>>>>
>>>>This whole discussion strikes me as something very similar to when the
>>>>name Wikipedia itself was coined, along with all of the other major
>>>>sister projects and their names.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>There are no participants on the site.   The site has been dead for
>>>months.  Probably because NONE OF THEM SPEAK CHEROKEE.
>>>Perhaps best thing is to close the site completely and I'll just manage
>>>the fork off Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 13, 2006, at 11:14 AM, stevertigo wrote:

> A customary part of [[military terminology]] is the usage and
> promotion of military
> terms to frame political disputes in the language of a particular
> POV, or else to frame
> indecent acts of violence in sterile and quasi-scientific language.
> "Liquidation" and
> "pacification" are probably the most canonical examples; from WWII
> and the Vietnam War,
> respectively. The Rumsfeldian usage of the term "humane" also comes
> to mind.
>
> Current issues, include the inclusion of the term "Operation Just
> Desserts" in the
> [[2006 Israeli-attacks on Lebanon]] article in the lede. Likewise
> the article
> [[Operation Summer Rains]] also a military, hence POV nomenclature
> and hence needs
> renaming, though I cannot myself determine what to call it.
> Is it an "incursion" (ie. "a limited incursion into the country of
> Congress") or an
> "invasion", a "retaliation" or a "retribution" etc.
>
> -Stevertigo

This issue is very much part of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/
A?oranza where A?oranza removed several US operational codenames,
"operation just cause" and"operation iraqi freedom". He probably
overdid it but this question remains unanswered.

Fred


body:
--- "Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
wrote:

> Birgitte SB wrote:
>
> >You may want to be sure and explain exactly what
> the
> >GFDL entails in this case.  There is no guarantee
> that
> >any work that is done under this license will be
> >treated in a sacred manner by downstream users.
> >Non-speakers would be within full rights to take
> the
> >fork made in the Ute's language and put it up on a
> new
> >website or even on Wikipedia where any "16 year old
> >with a computer" will be able to edit it.
> >
> >
> Which is why the translations will be intertribal
> only and not accessible
> to the general public in the case of the Uto-Aztecan
> translations -- at
> their
> request. The Foundation will have access to it,
> contingent on the
> concessions
> the Ute's are willing to make.
>
> There are those involved who want it accessible to
> everyone, but their
> leaders
> make the final call. They have agreed that all Ute
> Indians will have
> access to
> the site. It doesn't violate the GFDL, its their
> language and they are
> providing me
> all four dialects, which this is the firs time in
> their history they
> have done so
>
> Ute, Unite Ute, Uncompaghre Ute, and the the ancient
> Deep Ute Language. And
> unknown to the general public, the Ute's, like most
> tribes have a
> written language
> using syllabaric lithographs for their language.
> Some examples of it can
> be viewed
> as pictographs in nine-mile canyon in Utah -- they
> have never shared it
> before.
>
> So as near as I can tell, I have made some very good
> progress very
> quickly. The Foundation
> is sensitive and respectful fo these types of
> projects.
>

You certainly may do your best to restrict "access" to
the end product as you are planning.  This is what
many libraries do regarding rare PD texts.  However if
*one* person who is given access decides for any
reason to make a copy public, the cat is out of the
bag.  For example a library may have strong
restrictions on access. They do not allow their
material scanned or photocopied you are only allowed
to read it within one room.  However I could type a
transcription on a laptop over the course of several
weeks and put it on Wikisource.  Assuming this
material is in the public domain, the library can do
nothing in such in event as they only own the
particular book not the copyright.

This could one day happen to the Ute's works.  Once it
is made public in part or whole, it can be treated in
any way allowed under the GFDL.  The foundation has no
control over it, however respectful they wish to be.
I am not trying to encourage action of this sort.  But
everyone involved needs to be aware of the
ramifications of using copyleft material.  This may
seem an unlikely possibilty at the moment, but over
time it more likely than not this material will become
public.  Although it may be a hundred years till that
happens.  I respect what you are trying to do and the
Ute as well.  I would hate for something like this to
happen and the Ute to feel blindsided by such a turn
of events.

> >Wikipedia is alien to most cultures I imagine.  It
> is
> >alien to capitalist culture and academic culture to
> >name two.  However many people accostomed to those
> >cultures learn to adapt to and even appreciate WP
> >culture.
> >
>
> > I think you are focusing too much on the
> >negative at WP and overlooking the positives of
> >inter-culture collaboration.
> >
> No, I am a WP advocate, so don't misconstrue what I
> say. I am
> just coldly and directly stating the reality. Also,
> There is little to
> no benefit to interculture collaboration if you
> don't speak the language
> of what's presented, so the consumers of the content
> will invariably be the
> tribes themselves, and not the general community, so
> I think it's a moot
> point.
>

I am not trying to miscontrue your comments, please
correct me where I have.  I believe it is too easy to
say "the Wikipedia way is alien to the culture of X
and they will not be able to work under it's
policies."  Because X can be filled with many things
which *have* adapted to WP culture.  As I said above
WP is very contrary to capitalist and academic
cultures.  Although there are always individuals who
cannot adapt, I do not like to see this generalized to
an entire culture.   However, I always found it easy
to work within the policies here, so it I may be
completely wrong in this.

> >I hope your endeavor
> >succeeds in any event.
> >
> >Birgitte SB
> >
> >--- "Jeff V. Merkey"
> <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Oldak Quill wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Not at all. The best way to improve the site
> would
> >>>
> >>>
> >>be to work with
> >>
> >>
> >>>other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia.
> Are
> >>>
> >>>
> >>you being active
> >>
> >>
> >>>in seeking members?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Yes, I am, however, our culture is alien to the
> >>Wikipedia culture and
> >>there are going to be issues
> >>with the way the site operates.  So far every
> >>Cherokee who has edited on
> >>WP has gotten banned
> >>or scrutinized to the point they leave.  We have a
> >>concept of respecting
> >>the space of a person
> >>who is working on something.
> >>
> >>WP 's policies allow a 16 year old with a computer
> >>to come in and
> >>disrupt someone else's work and this
> >>doesn;t work for us.  Our culture is based on
> mutual
> >>respect, and I
> >>believe WP and Wales operate on the
> >>premise people on WP should be the same way.  This
> >>has not been the
> >>course followed.  I think WP should
> >>continue and we can do hat we need with the
> content
> >>-- off site where
> >>our cultural issues can coexist
> >>peacefully.
> >>
> >>You wont get many native people editing here due
> to
> >>the way the site is
> >>organized -- respect for others is
> >>lacking in the way articles are edited.  It's ok
> >>though, we can still
> >>both be successful if we figure out a way
> >>to create dual environments where folks can be
> >>successful.
> >>
> >>I am meeting w9ith the tribal council of the Ute,
> >>Shoshone, and Unita
> >>Nations on July 18, at 1:30 in Fort Duschene
> >>on the machine translations for their Wikipedia,
> so
> >>I am making
> >>excellent progress.  They also expressed a desire
> >>to host their content off Wikipedia due to their
> >>review of the issues
> >>with how the site works -- its alien to most
> native
> >>cultures.  The Ute's believe their language is
> >>sacred and they don't
> >>want non speakers working on it for religious
> >>reasons.  You are going to find this is a
> prevalent
> >>attitude among
> >>Native Peoples.  The ute's did not even allow
> their
> >>langauge to be written down until the mid 1970's
> due
> >>to their religious
> >>beliefs, so this is a big step for them.
> >>
> >>Jeff

<snip>

Birgitte SB

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subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 13, 2006, at 11:26 AM, George Herbert wrote:

> The
> operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
> the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
> (Desert Storm, for example).

That wouldn't be the Gulf War, would  it?

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
--- George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you [Fred] seriously equating article names with torture???
> Obviously we've hit a nerve here, but ... gentlemen, please, calm down.

I had thought that was a bit odd as well.

-Stevertigo

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body:
Hi Oldak

Oldak Quill wrote:
> Will you be avoiding inclusion of fair use images? I would highly
> recommend this as it is quite hard to know where you are with fair
> use.
>

Currently we also include fair use images. Each image's copyright is
stated in the
list of figures of the book (which can be seen in the preview as well).
It is the users
obligation to check whether he has problematic images in his book (as
stated in the
terms of service). Do you think this is problematic?

> As Erik suggests, working within Wikipedia itself might be useful,
> might I suggest that you operate transparently. What I mean by this is
> that you tell us that you have had an order for a book and the client
> has specified a particular list of articles. Knowing this we can help
> you select the best versions of the article from the history, edit
> these versions for spelling and grammar, help you remove fallacious
> statements within these versions and help select which images to
> include. If you agree with this it would be a good idea to set up a
> Wiki so that this kind of editing can easily be done.
>
>

This is a nice idea but confronts us with a couple of problems: a user
compiles a book and
previews it and he expects to get a book which is identical to the
preview. Therefore we
would not want to have the articles changed after the user saw the preview.

Nonetheless I think that it would be a mutual benefit, if pediapress
could help discover
articles that need "attention". If we can figure out a good way of doing
so we are
open to discussion!

>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>
>
>


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/13/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> stevertigo wrote:
>
> >Current issues, include the inclusion of the term "Operation Just
> Desserts" in the
> >[[2006 Israeli-attacks on Lebanon]] article in the lede. Likewise the
> article
> >[[Operation Summer Rains]] also a military, hence POV nomenclature and
> hence needs
> >renaming, though I cannot myself determine what to call it.
> >Is it an "incursion" (ie. "a limited incursion into the country of
> Congress") or an
> >"invasion", a "retaliation" or a "retribution" etc.
> >
> If it's an official name, then that's what it's called. What's next,
> renaming articles on companies and products because their names were
> chosen to have positive associations? We could have such winners as
> "[[computer company named after irrelevant fruit]] is the maker of
> the [[Apple variety chosen because the name has a snappy abbreviation]]."
>
> Stan

Well, the problem with military campaigns and wars is that they tend to be
named differently by different sides.  [[Great Patriotic War]] redirects to
[[Eastern Front (World War II)]] and [[Operation Desert Storm]] redirects to
[[Gulf War]].  Using one side's terminology is most decidedly non-neutral,
because it amounts to an endorsement of one side's view of the events.

On the other hand, [[Operation Overlord]] uses the terminology correctly
(IMO):

*:Operation Overlord* was the code word for the Allied
operational<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operation>plan to
invade Continental Europe in the summer of 1944"

Describe the POV, don't endorse it...

Ian


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On Jul 13, 2006, at 12:07 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=63624163
>
> The article in question originally stated that the subject, a minor
> far-right Tory, was cleared on appeal of charges; actually it turns
> out he was convicted.  Ever since that fact went into the article
> there has been a war waged, with legal letters sent to Ed Chilvers,
> now threatened to me, Brad involved, and so on.  Having failed to have
> the article pulled by Brad they submitted a complaint through OTRS
> which resulted in stubbing; we do not know (because nobody will tell
> us) whether this was because of supposed imbalance, in which case we
> can start rebuilding to NPOV standards immediately, or whether it was
> their novel interpretation of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act,
> which conflicts with the text of the act as posted.
>
> These people are apparently determined to have a hagiography or
> nothing, and they also appear to want to intimidate away anybody who
> has any interest at all in keeping the article factual.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

I think you might start with an inquiry regarding what makes Gregory
Lauder-Frost notable. Is it is political views and activities or is
it his personal life?

Fred


body:
On Jul 13, 2006, at 12:20 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:

> You may want to be sure and explain exactly what the
> GFDL entails in this case.  There is no guarantee that
> any work that is done under this license will be
> treated in a sacred manner by downstream users.
> Non-speakers would be within full rights to take the
> fork made in the Ute's language and put it up on a new
> website or even on Wikipedia where any "16 year old
> with a computer" will be able to edit it.
>
> Wikipedia is alien to most cultures I imagine.  It is
> alien to capitalist culture and academic culture to
> name two.  However many people accostomed to those
> cultures learn to adapt to and even appreciate WP
> culture.  I think you are focusing too much on the
> negative at WP and overlooking the positives of
> inter-culture collaboration.  I hope your endeavor
> succeeds in any event.
>
> Birgitte SB

The Cherokee, particularly, have historically been willing to share
their wisdom.

Fred


body:
Not at all. The best way to improve the site would be to work with
other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia. Are you being active
in seeking members?

On 13/07/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
> >Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Oldak Quill wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Most Wikimedia projects don't translate "Wikipedia", "Wiktionary", and
> >>>"Wikimedia", they transliterate them. Even non-Latin alphabets do
> >>>this: Russian Wikipedia is called "?????????" which transliterates as
> >>>Ve-I-Ka-I-Pe-Ye-De-I-Ya (those are the names of the letters, at
> >>>least). Does Cherokee have some kind of formal transliteration system?
> >>>
> >>>On 12/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>The name should be:
> >>>>
> >>>>???? ????
> >>>>
> >>>>(digoweli gatsanula)
> >>>>"the books = pedia " " that are fast = wiki "
> >>>>
> >>>>to match the actual meanings of the words "wiki" and "pedia".
> >>>>
> >>>>The current name of the site, while catchy, is not accurate for the
> >>>>language, and was synthesized.
> >>>>
> >>>>Just a suggestion...
> >>>>
> >>>>Jeff
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>Yes. it does have one for words like this, but taking potshots at the
> >>name can create something you do not intend.
> >>
> >>Let's look at it:
> >>
> >>Wi-gi-que-di-ya
> >>
> >>wi  - (negative imperfect past tense)
> >>gi - to combine
> >>que - incomplete verb root about an animal
> >>di - plural for a non living object
> >>ya - broad area of concern (means "pertains to or covers a broad area or
> >>topic)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >While it is interesting some of the points and counter points about this
> >issue, isn't this something better left to be discussed on project pages
> >by participants and made as a local decision?  At least I would feel
> >more comfortable with people who are involved with the development of
> >the project (aka Cherokee Wikipedia content developers) instead of
> >getting European or Austrialian attitudes from people who may never even
> >add a single word to that project.
> >
> >This whole discussion strikes me as something very similar to when the
> >name Wikipedia itself was coined, along with all of the other major
> >sister projects and their names.
> >
> >
> >
> There are no participants on the site.   The site has been dead for
> months.  Probably because NONE OF THEM SPEAK CHEROKEE.
> Perhaps best thing is to close the site completely and I'll just manage
> the fork off Wikipedia.
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

body:
On Urdu Wikipedia, article on Israel is very short:

http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%DB%8C%D9%84

I can translate it:

"Israel, a palce where jews live. In addition to Pakistan there are many other
countries that do not recognize this place of Jews as a country.
Majority of the Urdu speaking public believes that there
is no country by the name of Israel exists. But there is
a country named Palestine, whose some part is captured
by Jews and they call it Israel. And the English speaking
world says that in a country called Israel some
Palestenians want to create a country called Palestine."

This is the whole article. Quite extraordinary, nothing to add more.

--heema

----- Original Message ----
From: James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 9:26:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice

That's a scary thought.

What's the article on Israel on Arabic or Farsi Wikipedia like?

On 7/13/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/13/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> > That sounds sensible, how about something along the lines of (after
> > translation by a kind soul):
> > Discussion on the [[foundation-l]] mailing list about the Urdu
> > Wikipedia's sitenotice has come to the conclusion that according to
> > policy the sitenotice should not be used <perhaps a quote from Jimbo
> > here>. We'd like to hear the opinions of the users of this wiki before
> > we take any action over this issue.
> >
> > Sound okay?
>
>
> Discussion on the [[foundation-l]] mailing list and IRC about the Urdu
> Wikipedia's sitenotice has come to the conclusion that according to
> policy sitenotices of that type should not be used on wikimedia
> foundation projects. In particular it conflicts with the principle
> that wikipedia is written in NPOV (this includes religious
> endorsements). As a result we would like to disscuss the removal of
> the the text from site notice.
>
> That gives the reasons but the ending is too weak.
>
> Incerdentaly what is their article in Israel like?
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
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>
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subject: [Foundation-l] Quran in Sitenotice