body:
David Gerard schrieb:
> On 05/04/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>  but why would it be so much
>> harder to simply open a new Wikipedia in a given target language and
>> encourage early supporters and community members to simply make the
>> appropriate changes to the MediaWiki namespace?  This sounds like a
>> technical problem that is forcing people into doing things to suit the
>> technology than trying to be amiable to people who very likely are not
>> technically inclined.
>>
>
>
> I think you've described precisely why this new policy is such a
> stunningly bad and obstructive idea in practice. The people are being
> bent around the deficiencies in the technology, and that's completely
> the wrong way around.
>
>
Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very offten it is a
disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.

Enough for today - have to run.

Sabine


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Review Committee


list: wikien-l

from_name: Seraphim Blade

subject: [WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

body:
I'm not sure "older is wiser" necessarily applies, though. Sometimes,
it's the opposite-the "old guard" gets stuck in a past that no longer
exists, and it takes some "fresh blood" to come along and make some
changes. I'm not saying that -is- happening here, but I'm not sure why
a lot of people seem to think we'll necessarily be well-served by
doing things the way it was done when the project was a tenth its
size. Sometimes that may be, but in a lot of cases, changes may be
required. You can run a town of 1,000 or perhaps even 10,000 in a
pretty informal, ad-hoc manner. The same is not true of a city of
1,000,000.

Seraphimblade

On 4/5/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> >On Mar 31, 2007, at 8:34 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> >
> >>In en.wikipedia, we have a base of work for the future.  And therefore
> >>it is natural and proper that we should over time get more and more
> >>and more serious about quality.
> >>
> >>
> >Then what the hell was the point in writing all the stuff in the
> >first place?
> >
> >I mean, I've made a good number of contributions based on personal
> >knowledge and on primary sources of philosophical and theoretical
> >texts in the humanities. Stuff that doesn't fit the current
> >"independent secondary sources or bust" model at all. I'm appalled at
> >the idea that these contributions - contributions I made admin on the
> >basis of, and contributions that my ability to make was part of why I
> >fell in love with the project - are now part of a steaming pile of
> >shit that needs to be cleared out.
> >
> >If we want to get serious about quality, there are ways to do it
> >without starting to destroy what we've already built. But this idea
> >that we should feel guilty because you got slammed in a television
> >interview is ridiculous. Of course Wikipedia has inaccuracies. It
> >always has. You know full well we haven't fixed them all. And we've
> >had a defense in line for that for years too - "it's a work in
> >progress. We don't recommend using Wikipedia as the only source for
> >serious research. We recommend using it as a starting point, with
> >care, and looking at the sources and other resources provided." I
> >know being slammed in a TV interview isn't fun. But, well, if you
> >want to be able to go on TV praising a project that's done and
> >accurate and wonderful, Wikipedia probably isn't the project to go on
> >TV about. It doesn't lend itself to that. It lends itself to having
> >to be defended, over and over again, against the same objections. It
> >lends itself to waiting for two or three years at which point we'll
> >be better. It lends itself to recognizing that we hit the big time
> >well before we were ready to. You of all people should know that. So
> >stop trying to guilt the community because the job of evangelizing
> >Wikipedia isn't as easy as you'd like.
> >
> Hear, hear!
>
> It should come as no surprise that those most concerned about Doc's
> proposals and similar trends are people who have participated on the
> projects for a considerable time.  These are not the people who are
> about to wilfully add libellous or other illegal content.  When they do
> so by inadvertance they are the ones who will review the situation
> fairly once it is brought to their attention.  Their commitment to the
> project is too great to support either the kind of National-Enquirer
> silliness that some would add to the project or the equally silly
> framework of broad-stroke rules that ravages the ecology in a by-catch
> of useful efforts.  An ecology can withstand trolls much better than
> drift nets.
>
> The long-term participants have always been serious about quality, just
> as much as those who are now proposing rules.  They also incorporate a
> vision that goes far beyond what may be found in any individual article,
> good or bad.  Vision does not come from looking at a limited problem,
> and setting out to find a specific solution that will easily solve the
> problem without regard to other effects that the solution may have.
>
> The vision of a compendium of human knowledge that anybody can edit
> remains valid even if it does get messy around the edges.  The desire
> for accuracy has always been a part of the vision despite the antics of
> those whose understanding of accuracy and neutrality is particularly
> limited.  The vision is what made Wikipedia what it is to-day.  The
> openness that told the prospective contributor that he had to say was
> important, that he was important, that his ideas were just as important
> as those of the professional, that lifted his spirit- this is what made
> Wikipedia.  The fact that it is now the world's single biggest reference
> source remains an afterthought.  It was inevitable that Wikipedia would
> include material that is mind-numbingly trivial, that it would include
> articles about people whose claim to notability is dubious at best, that
> ideas of perpetual motion machines would be in perpetual motion, but all
> this is perfectly harmless.  Most of it will go completely unnoticed,
> and the amount of space that it takes up in the databse is
> inconsequential for as long as there is no debate about its value.
>
> As a collector of old books I encounter a surfeit of material that has
> fallen into a well deserved oblivion, but I'm glad it's there.  Like
> much of our "non-notable" material nobody notices it's there, and I
> wonder whether the editors of that day had the same arguments as we now
> have.
>
> Try this experiment at Wikimania:  Set up two meetings where people are
> asked to comment broadly to identical questions about their views of
> Wikipedia.  The difference between the two would be that the
> participants in the first would have joined during the first half of
> Wikipedia's existence, and the participants in the other in the second
> half.  Compare the results.
>
> I think it's important to trust the instincts of those who have endured
> for a long time.  Picking up on Phil's theme that Wikipedia is a work in
> progress, once it is out of progress it will be something else.
>
> Ec
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled

body:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
> Yann Forget wrote:
>
>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 4/2/07, *Birgitte SB* wrote:
>>>
>>>    Due to past conversations I have had with people
>>>    involved with incubator, I read the comment about
>>>    "merging processes" differently than you did.  Perhaps
>>>    I am mistaken, and that is not what was meant in this
>>>    case.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> This clearly shows the misunderstanding of what Wikisource is and what
>> [[:oldwikisource:]] is meant for.
>>
>> Although some Wikipedias will remain small for a long time because of
>> lack of contributors, some Wikisources will never get more than a few
>> dozen or hundreds of pages, simply because the original content in that
>> language doesn't exist. Another example is Sanskrit (a bit more than
>> 1700 pages) which could qualify to have its own subdomain because of the
>> amount of content, but does not because of lack of contributors.
>> Although we could dream to have the whole of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
>> translated in Sanskrit, the quantity of existing Sanskrit texts will
>> never be more than a few thousand pages. For some other languages, it
>> will ever be much less, so creating and *maintaining* a wiki for only a
>> few pages is quite a waste of work and time. That's why
>> [[:oldwikisource:]] exists and will continue to do so. In that sense,
>> this interwiki name is also badly chosen.
>>
>>
> Of course the fundamental difference is that a Wikipedia is there for
> the benefit of those who currently write in and work in that language.
> A Wikisource contains texts in its language even if it is a dead
> language.  Old English texts do not need a complete interface in Old
> English.
>
> Ec
Hoi,
You have a point.
Thanks,
     GerardM


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Article hit rates -- research at the University	of
	Minnesota

body:
On Thu, 2007-05-04 at 11:09 +1000, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/4/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 04/04/07, Artur Fijakowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's not count of pageviews, but http requests, is it?
> >
> > That's right.
>
> Ah, ok. So a page with a hundred images is like 105 http requests
> including CSS etc, but only one page view.

It gets kind of complicated, since CSS and JS files, as well as skin
images, are usually pretty well cached. We do about a 4-to-1 ratio of
hits-to-pages on Wikitravel; I'd be surprised if that varied by more
than 2x in either direction for Wikipedia.

-Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Article hit rates -- research at the University
 of	Minnesota

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

Evan Prodromou wrote:

> It gets kind of complicated, since CSS and JS files, as well as skin
> images, are usually pretty well cached. We do about a 4-to-1 ratio of
> hits-to-pages on Wikitravel; I'd be surprised if that varied by more
> than 2x in either direction for Wikipedia.
>
> -Evan

Which of these statistics has relevance, and at what degree of
granularity?  The USA Today readers are looking for something as simple
as "# of daily page views" which any surfer can appreciate.  The http
request tally makes sense to developers who are concerned about the load
on our servers, tweaks in performance, etc.  Marketers want uniques per
day or month, etc.

Which of these stats should be developed to give accurate information to
the world about what performance is being achieved, in an
apples-to-apples comparison to existing suites?  What will give WMF the
most credibility in reporting in the future?

(and a HUGE thank you to Tim for making this happen)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGFQGp5txwQhyxnbIRAow0AJ4r9jy+r/wteLaqbRXiK7a+KeviwwCfdP7R
uqFnhzsOoRi7Za+TKJb+i2Q=
=fiy3
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common Interwiki links

body:
2007/4/4, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com>:
> I have update list of pages with many interwiki links but NOT to a
> certain language.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Common_Interwiki_links
>
> These might constitute some kind of 'missing pages' for these
> Wikipedias, or just pages that are not linked to.
>
> The lists are based on English Wikipedia interwiki count (German
> Wikipedia interwiki count for English).

Do you have the raw data available (in the form of English pages with
the languages they link to)? If so, could I have them so I can do a
new comparison of

> In Russian Wikipedia we have special project about similar list
> http://tinyurl.com/246gf9

nl: has one on http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontbrekende_Interwiki_in_en:

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


body:
2007/4/5, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>:

> Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
> can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very offten it is a
> disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.

Even if it takes an admin to change them, others can still make
proposals etcetera. Sure, it's going to take an admin to implement it,
but if you are doing it on the incubator, not even an admin can do it,
so again it's not a reason to prefer the incubator.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
On 04/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personal communications can't be cited as sources for Wikipedia articles.

Hang on, though. Is it not the case that if the subject of an article
contacts the project via OTRS to request an article be changed, it is
then changed? If that change involves the alteration of material, the
source for that alteration would need to be cited, which is impossible
according to your statement here.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
Andre Engels schrieb:
> 2007/4/5, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>:
>
>
>> Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
>> can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very offten it is a
>> disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.
>>
>
> Even if it takes an admin to change them, others can still make
> proposals etcetera. Sure, it's going to take an admin to implement it,
> but if you are doing it on the incubator, not even an admin can do it,
> so again it's not a reason to prefer the incubator.
>
>
Well there is betawiki right now ... and there we simply give anybody
admin rights to do that job it is as simple as that.

/me back to do some work.

Ciao, Sabine


body:
On 04/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> By getting them published somewhere.  Unpublished true facts are
> original research by the generally accepted Wikipedia definition.

So if there were an article about, say, my grandfather, and I edited
it to add something that was true (say, that he was in the RAF during
the war) but unpublished, this information is not suitable for
inclusion? (Surely notability does not imply that all relevant facts
on a topic have been published.)

Anyway, I was under the impression that "original research" was taking
facts A, B, and C about topic X and concluding N. In the case that I
am following up, I've asked Z, an authority on X, if A is true, and
they have confirmed that it is. But according to your definition, this
proven fact A must float in limbo because it is unpublished. That
doesn't feel right.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moderation on this mailing list

body:
Luna wrote:
> On 2/20/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>> I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is
>> blocking an avenue of appeal. If people are really worried about that,
>> we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the
>> chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or
>> not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd
>> rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that
>> other list.
>
> There's always unblock-en-l. As is probably the case with all of these
> lists, it's too easy for frequent respondents and readers on that list,
> myself included, to become jaded, so a little outside input and oversight
> would probably be welcome, in my opinion.
>
> Most of the requests on there are pretty obvious, but some aren't.
>

Just to follow up on this, I've been reading unblock-en-l for a month or
so. My main impression is that it is a grinding and thankless job, and
that the people working on it maintain an admirably fresh and polite
tone with the bulk of the requests.

If I have more detailed suggestions or comments, where's the best place
to discuss that?

Thanks,

Willliam


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
Hello,

> One possibility I mentioned in IRC is integrating it with the search
> engine backend to do properly indexed word searches?

What asks for properly named and described images. lonelygirl14 will
not find you 'girl', unless you do heuristic tokenizing of
concatenated words, anyone ready for that? :)

BR,
--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Saving pages from WP with stylesheet

body:
On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 03:54:50PM +0100, Rob Church wrote:
> On 03/04/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > *Very* nice strawman, there, Rob.
>
> I was going for the snide anti-Microsoftism. That's how people get
> respect in the FOSS community these days, isn't it?

I think you've mispelt "on Slashdot", actually.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Article hit rates -- research at the University of
	Minnesota

body:
On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 01:30:57AM +0100, Rob Church wrote:
> On 04/04/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Can I be the first to say "holy crap!"
>
> You're really that shocked?

A couple of years ago, when I was temporarily in the running for Local
Hands (I live about 20 miles west of the datacenter), we were *just
starting* to bump our heads on a 100Mb/s port.

So *I* was a bit shocked.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] What can be done to let users fix it themselves?

body:
On 4/4/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> Letting people fix it themselves, though, has one advantage: it's removed
> *immediately*, not when some volunteer gets around to it.  Moreover, figuring

I think we act pretty quickly in those cases.

> out who to complain to is itself something that newcomers may find difficult
> to do.
>
> It's stupid to tell people "you can edit anything in Wikipedia except the
> one thing which is affecting your life.  You must figure out the proper
> bureaucratic procedure to use and go through that instead."

That's a separate issue. I've argued before for the creation of a
simple, user-friendly GUI which directs users through the reporting of
problems. We do need to make it much easier.

Steve


body:
On 4/4/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/04/07, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's not count of pageviews, but http requests, is it?
>
> That's right.

Ah, ok. So a page with a hundred images is like 105 http requests
including CSS etc, but only one page view.

Steve


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject:
[Foundation-l] enwiki-20070206 Wikipedia Thesaurus XML Dumps
	Posted

body:
I like the "Pokemon types" in "water" :P

On 4/5/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> An XML Dump with  articles has been posted to:
>
> ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/thesaurus/wikipedia-thesaurus-20070206.xml.bz2
>
> This dump has been imported in a MediaWiki installation as an online
> Thesaurus compiled by a Machine interpreter from the English Wikipedia
> Dumps and the links these dumps contain.   Wiki links with a [[Article
> Name | phrase]] were used in this first run.   The XML dump is
> importable into MediaWiki
> as a real time Thesaurus of word and phrase associations used by the
> English Wikipedia Community.   This same compilation can be done with any
> languages that use MediaWiki and for which XML dumps exist.
>
> The site is at:
>
> http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> I have not fully run the rebuildall.php script, so the full text search
> is rebuilding at present.
>
> Some interesting pages are:
>
> http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Egypt_%28220406%29
> http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Town_Center_%281864650%29
> http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_%28571170%29
>
> Jeff
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

references:
<0rtm035qqrihehpr920clatnqpgd0v2gpv@4ax.com>
	<165821F0-1F67-4B0F-BF02-B788CE60F929@gmail.com>
	<mesn03dsvnennoajpklmfer1vb0tpb2pnd@4ax.com>
	<D566EB4C-0F22-4444-8DAF-80BF49F3857D@gmail.com>
	<m60o035nfl688ukj3a06la90rihp49ckjp@4ax.com>
	<B00892B7-B2E0-408F-910B-F76E5D5420D6@gmail.com>
	<42f90dc00703301036l2ddd1447id60a2c133e5209d3@mail.gmail.com>
	<ud3813hh8or0uiphekbr5bd8pa87r3h0ht@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704041654p26db2450ob61876d7f16aa89d@mail.gmail.com>
	<sbda139t8u4jr31mklieipi74qd54qarma@4ax.com>

body:
On 4/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:54:13 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I'd say that if anyone knows about Bruce McMahan, it's because of this
> >issue.  The top six Google results for his name are about this
> >scandal.
>
> Quite possibly.  And the truth is,virtually nobody knows about him.

I'd heard about the scandal before - the details were colorful enough
to get wide if shallow mention in the blog world, I think, and that's
probably where I heard it.  I didn't remember his name, however, but
then I have little memory for names in general.

> Would you like to handle the OTRS ticket?

Since all mention of the scandal is gone from the article, I would
have thought it was dealt with to the subject's satisfaction in any
case.

I'd also say that if he wishes to erase this scandal, he should pursue
it with the local paper that printed the story, and such papers as the
Village Voice that reprinted it.  We are not the ones converting a
rumor to permanent record here.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On 4/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> That's the fundamental problem with tendentious editing: most biased
> editors do not really believe they are biased, or if they do, they do
> not see it as a problem.

A good observation.  If you questioned them, most would say 'I am
biased towards the truth".

> As always we are trying to think of a technological solution to a
> human problem.

All too easy for us to fall into - especially for those of us
technologically biased in the first place.

-Matt


from_name: Denny Colt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On 4/5/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't see any conceptual difference between us picking it up from a
> paper and republishing it, to the Village Voice picking it up from a
> paper and republishing it... does it somehow become more legitimate
> three or four transactions down the chain?
>

I'm curious about this too for future reference. Whats a good typical
benchmark for when the absurd or salacious does in fact become notable for
inclusion? A good rule of thumb, lets say.

For what its worth, also the Village Voice is a good resource. They're cited
in quite a few articles...

--
- Denny


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
Anthony wrote:
> [previous eleventy-seven exchanges snipped]
>
> I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
> hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
> whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
> type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.
>

Not that I'd want to spoil the fun, but I'll put $25 toward an
intellectual property lawyer's professional opinion. Anybody want to
pass the hat around? I would, but I'm off on vacation shortly.

William


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On 4/5/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see any conceptual difference between us picking it up from a
> paper and republishing it, to the Village Voice picking it up from a
> paper and republishing it... does it somehow become more legitimate
> three or four transactions down the chain?

My point simply being that the story is already out there from fairly
credible printed sources, including one at least (the Village Voice)
that's fairly well-known and well-read.

It's different when we're the first publisher of any note, but in this
case, we aren't.

-Matt


from_name: Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)

body:
Hello,

I think you are overstating the complexity of localization. Although I
originally opposed the requirement, I've changed my mind after I
discussed with various other users and watched the great work done by
the Kabyle community.

Mark has pointed out the difficulties of editing language files, such
as the necessity to escape conflicting characters, but this is not
relevant to modern localization. Users need only register an account
on the BetaWiki, get translator access, and edit wiki pages through a
Special:Allmessages-link interface (see links). No unusual technical
knowledge is needed, particularly since the language subcommittee
offers guidance and answers to all communities currently localizing.

A good example of the process is the Kabyle Wikipedia community, which
is testing the prototypical localization process. In just four days,
with a relatively small community having (I assume) no unusual
technical knowledge, with only *one* user assigned translator access
(by decision of the Kabyle community), they have translated nearly the
*entire* MediaWiki interface.

Consider: just a few normal users, nearly done after four days. Their
Wikipedia will benefit from complete readiness, with no localization
difficulties in the future. The proposed Kabyle Wiktionary will be
completely localized from the start. The MediaWiki software will be
available in Kabyle for the whole world.

So, this is why I no longer agree with your arguments that it is a
cruel and unusual requirement.

* Kabyle discussion:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Kabyle#Localization
* Kabyle localization interface:
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Toiminnot:Translate?x=1&msgclass=core&sort=normal&uselang=kab

Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On 4/5/07, Denny Colt <wikidenny at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm curious about this too for future reference. Whats a good typical
> benchmark for when the absurd or salacious does in fact become notable for
> inclusion? A good rule of thumb, lets say.
>
> For what its worth, also the Village Voice is a good resource. They're cited
> in quite a few articles...

Personally, that's my question as well.  BLP started off as 'we should
be strict about having good sources for negative stuff'.  But that
doesn't get rid of all negative stuff, as is the case here.  We have a
rather negative and salacious story that comes from a legitimate print
newspaper source.

The argument then turns to NPOV and its 'undue weight' proscriptions.
I argue that that one doesn't work when the negative story is in fact
the best known thing about the person!  When a quick Google for the
person's name gives the negative story as the first six results I have
my doubts that 'undue weight' applies.

The person in question here is extremely wealthy, which definitely
means that they have the means to pursue those who've printed these
stories if they are libellous.  They have not, it seems.

I have no issue with the BLP effort where it says, "We will take
especial care that Wikipedia's policies are followed scrupulously for
articles on living persons".  I start to have issues with it where it
is being pushed beyond Wikipedia's existing policies to remove content
that is sourced well and where the negative information in question
already is widespread and well-published.

-Matt


references:
<4611226B.3050406@shaw.ca>
	<f004139b64dt8dubu1rtvvvihouece4pq8@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704030146x3f96b5ye5712f65fbcda86b@mail.gmail.com>
	<bo1813dtv3i6i5eid5f4ehb5sucipt08k1@4ax.com>
	<46140B2D.8060609@shaw.ca>
	<qk3813t0g9t6eo6k0fl7gdpupsfk40dltf@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40704041348x28e1e716qe8100de4ec9d2eb7@mail.gmail.com>
	<le4813t7g77k6fne9lhpr7s6o83o5pqhlf@4ax.com>
	<461417FD.8060506@shaw.ca>
	<4m781312ges7fjktvgalb0odvupevqeb8o@4ax.com>

body:
On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:26:21 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> >What if we were to include a screenshot of that?
>
> What purpose would that serve?  To get form one to the other you
> either have to listen to the script week by week, or recognise the
> pictures.  I don't think you would dispute that the latter is original
> research.

We recognise pictures all the time for Wikipedia content.

-Matt


from_name: gjzilla at gmail.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia groups on Facebook need monitoring for
	vandals

body:
>
>
> The conclusions reached are generally sound, but I don't think a group
> campaigning to cite Wikipedia as a reliable source should be supported.
> We're a patently unreliable source. We're a jumping off point for learning
> about a topic and finding sources - not a source in ourselves.
>
> Johnleemk
>

Well, yes-- but that's how we teach the students to use it. Not a source in
ourselves. Just like Britannica.

~~~~


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hello,

Mark Williamson wrote:
> There was some debate about this regarding Ancient Greek.
>
> Should Ancient Greek texts be put on the Greek Wikisource, since the
> interface is by default in Modern Greek, which will be difficutl to
> understand for some people looking for texts in Ancient Greek? Should
> it have its own Wikisource with an interface in Ancient Greek?
>
> Nobody suggested housing it at Oldwikisource... but I for one was in
> favor of having a new Wikisource with an interface in Ancient Greek.
>
> Mark

The issue is not the language of the interface. You can change the
language of the interface anyway once you are logged in.

The issue is "Are there enough contributors to manage an independant
subdomain?" If the subdomain is plagued with spams and crap because
people don't care to survey and clean it when needed, it is better not
to create it. If there are regular contributors willing to manage to
subdomain, then fine, create it.

Regards,

Yann

> On 05/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> Yann Forget wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 4/2/07, *Birgitte SB* wrote:
>>>>
>>>>    Due to past conversations I have had with people
>>>>    involved with incubator, I read the comment about
>>>>    "merging processes" differently than you did.  Perhaps
>>>>    I am mistaken, and that is not what was meant in this
>>>>    case.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> This clearly shows the misunderstanding of what Wikisource is and what
>>> [[:oldwikisource:]] is meant for.
>>>
>>> Although some Wikipedias will remain small for a long time because of
>>> lack of contributors, some Wikisources will never get more than a few
>>> dozen or hundreds of pages, simply because the original content in that
>>> language doesn't exist. Another example is Sanskrit (a bit more than
>>> 1700 pages) which could qualify to have its own subdomain because of the
>>> amount of content, but does not because of lack of contributors.
>>> Although we could dream to have the whole of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
>>> translated in Sanskrit, the quantity of existing Sanskrit texts will
>>> never be more than a few thousand pages. For some other languages, it
>>> will ever be much less, so creating and *maintaining* a wiki for only a
>>> few pages is quite a waste of work and time. That's why
>>> [[:oldwikisource:]] exists and will continue to do so. In that sense,
>>> this interwiki name is also badly chosen.
>>>
>> Of course the fundamental difference is that a Wikipedia is there for
>> the benefit of those who currently write in and work in that language.
>> A Wikisource contains texts in its language even if it is a dead
>> language.  Old English texts do not need a complete interface in Old
>> English.
>>
>> Ec


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:48:48 -0400, "The Cunctator"
> > <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I thought you said the Cool Wall  list doesn't ever appear in its entirety
> > >on the show.
> >
> > Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.
> >
> So the use in question is highly transformative.  That's one factor in favor.
>
> And the Cool Wall *doesn't* appear in its entirety, if you're claiming
> that is the work in question.  Only the text of the wall appears,
> rearranged in a non-creative order.  That's another factor which is
> neutral at worst.
>
> I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
> hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
> whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
> type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.

I actually think that merely describing lists of photos, or
transcribing what is in them, doesn't infringe their copyright at all.
 We're not transforming artwork (Rogers case), we're transforming a
list of facts from one format (images of cars) into another (text); in
the US, mere lists of facts aren't copyrightable (cf all the phone
book copyright-doesn't-apply rulings).

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: improving quality on enwiki

body:
On 4/5/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Kirill Lokshin wrote:
>
> >But the key issue, I think, is simply this: prescriptive collaboration
> >models do not, as a general rule, work on Wikipedia.  The vast

> Prescriptive collaboration is an oxymoron.

This is a total load of bollocks. There is nothing remotely wrong with
prescribing guidelines for collaboration, with setting up frameworks
for colloboration or with specifying what the priorities for
collaborations are.

A WikiProject is a "prescriptive collaboration".
A "collaboration of the week" is by definition a prescripitive collaboration.
Even a backlog of maintenance tasks is effectively the same thing.

What's with all this baseless negativity towards a very workable,
useful suggestion?

Steve


body:
On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
> > > hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
> > > whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
> > > type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.
> >
> > I actually think that merely describing lists of photos, or
> > transcribing what is in them, doesn't infringe their copyright at all.
> >  We're not transforming artwork (Rogers case), we're transforming a
> > list of facts from one format (images of cars) into another (text); in
> > the US, mere lists of facts aren't copyrightable (cf all the phone
> > book copyright-doesn't-apply rulings).
> >
> This isn't a mere list of facts, though.  It's a mere list of opinions
> (what cars are cool, which are uncool, etc).
>
> Actually, it's not a *list* of opinions, because order isn't
> preserved.  It's a mere *collection* of opinions.  This is, sadly,
> probably copyrightable.
>
> Anthony
>
> BTW, regarding the suggestion that we waste any money asking a lawyer
> about this, I say no way.  If we're going to waste money on a lawyer,
> let's get him or her to explain how the DMCA protects the foundation
> even *if* this is a copyright infringement.

It's the TV show/ magazine's opinion that gets a car on the Wall.

That it's on the wall is factual.

Any detailed description or justification they give is content, and
copyrightable.  The mere fact of appearance isn't, under US law, with
as I understand it rare exceptions.

It's not a US show, but here we run into the "ok, just what *are* the
trans-national copyright  law difference practical effects,
particularly on the Internet?" hard problems, which nobody really has
any firm solution for.

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


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
On 4/5/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> How about a search that searches on the  mimetype? Would that also be slow?

Currently, yes, but potentially, no.  An index would have to be added.
 Then it would be very fast.


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
on 4/6/07 1:13 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> It's the idea of setting out to reform
> people that is wrong, even in a much smaller community.

Yes! I agree completely!

>The very idea
> of reforming people, whether through personal command in a small
> community or elaborate policies in a large one is what makes that
> community impersonal.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this one, but to reform (or, better, re
form) anyone into something someone else thinks they ought to be - is to
engage in robotics.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
doc wrote:

>So wikipedia is doomed to keep having its sordid downside? We're doomed
>to always be fighting a losing battle against libels and lies? We're
>doomed to go on consoling victims with empty words? And there's nothing
>we can do about it? No way we can make the system even a little better?
>It isn't even worth the attempt?
>
This is excessively dramatic.  Over-the-top solutions are as much a
problem as what they are trying to cure.  They arouse the concern of
people who would never ever think of vandalizing or libelling, because
they see that the literal wording of the proposal could as easily work
against honest articles  as it does against the real problems.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
How about a search that searches on the  mimetype? Would that also be slow?

Bryan

On 4/2/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Domas disabled it in "miser mode" for performance reasons.
>
> The search is particularly useful on Commons to find, for example, all
> the latest SVGs  or OGGs that have been uploaded. What exactly is it
> that makes it so slow? Could it be reactivated at least on Commons, or
> for certain predefined searches?
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
on 4/5/07 1:39 PM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:

> I've been reading unblock-en-l

What is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it? Remember, you're dealing with a
computer dependent person here :-)

Marc Riddell


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
> Just carry an index on all the trigrams (sets of contigious three
> letters). No problem! :)

haha, yeah, thats how some fuzzy search methods work. Have you tried
performance of such an index - would be interesting to find out it
could be viable solution :)
of course, it would be better to put 'png' and 'jpg' into stopwords
(ergh, or strip file extensions entirely).

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?

unblock-en-l is a closed mailing list that blocked users can email to
have their blocks reviewed.

Because of the sensitive nature of some of the things discussed on the
list, and because of past problems with trolling, the archives are not
publicly viewable and you need to be invited to join the list.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007, Matthew Brown wrote:
> I'd also say that if he wishes to erase this scandal, he should pursue
> it with the local paper that printed the story, and such papers as the
> Village Voice that reprinted it.  We are not the ones converting a
> rumor to permanent record here.

"Permanent record" is a relative term.  The newspaper will exist permanently,
but it won't be *prominent* permanently.  It will eventually become something
obscure that nobody cares about.

Unless of course we make the incident the permanent #1 hit on Google for
their name.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
You're wrong in assuming that the Kabyles have a small community. As
far as I am aware, they actually had the largest community of the
formerly "approved" proposals.

Again, I do not see any good reason for any of this. It can just as
easily be done _after_ they have a Wiki, it does not need to be done
before they are allowed to have one. Nobody has explained yet why that
is necessary except Gerard who accused me of not caring about other
mediawiki-based websites and offered little explanation (this was
off-list anyhow).

I read Sabine's blog posting and essentially, it is just her story
from the Neapolitan Wikipedia. My response to that is: so, you had
difficulties with your new Wiki, so the solution is to just not let
anyone else have Wikis until they fulfill your arbitrary requirements?

Mark

On 05/04/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I think you are overstating the complexity of localization. Although I
> originally opposed the requirement, I've changed my mind after I
> discussed with various other users and watched the great work done by
> the Kabyle community.
>
> Mark has pointed out the difficulties of editing language files, such
> as the necessity to escape conflicting characters, but this is not
> relevant to modern localization. Users need only register an account
> on the BetaWiki, get translator access, and edit wiki pages through a
> Special:Allmessages-link interface (see links). No unusual technical
> knowledge is needed, particularly since the language subcommittee
> offers guidance and answers to all communities currently localizing.
>
> A good example of the process is the Kabyle Wikipedia community, which
> is testing the prototypical localization process. In just four days,
> with a relatively small community having (I assume) no unusual
> technical knowledge, with only *one* user assigned translator access
> (by decision of the Kabyle community), they have translated nearly the
> *entire* MediaWiki interface.
>
> Consider: just a few normal users, nearly done after four days. Their
> Wikipedia will benefit from complete readiness, with no localization
> difficulties in the future. The proposed Kabyle Wiktionary will be
> completely localized from the start. The MediaWiki software will be
> available in Kabyle for the whole world.
>
> So, this is why I no longer agree with your arguments that it is a
> cruel and unusual requirement.
>
> * Kabyle discussion:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Kabyle#Localization
> * Kabyle localization interface:
> http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Toiminnot:Translate?x=1&msgclass=core&sort=normal&uselang=kab
>
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common Interwiki links

body:
Regarding the list of pages that are missing on en.wp, I think it
would be more useful if it could be checked to see if these were
missing interwikis not just on de: but also on at least one other
large Wikipedia.

The reason for that is that out of that list, all of the pages exist,
most of them are well-linked from fr:, es:, it:, pl:, etc., they just
happen to be missing from de:, which should be something an Interwiki
Bot will take care of eventually.

Mark

On 05/04/07, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do you have the raw data available (in the form of English pages with
> > the languages they link to)? If so, could I have them so I can do a
> > new comparison of
>
> I have used last dump
>
> http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070401/enwiki-20070401-langlinks.sql.gz
>
> (but i used MyISAM db, not InoDB, and only with one index. Otherwise,
> restore is very slow)
>
> --
> Amike kaj kunlabore,
> Alexander Sigachov
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Folks,
> >>
> >> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
> >> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
> >
> on 4/5/07 5:21 PM, Mark Wagner at carnildo at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > unblock-en-l is a closed mailing list that blocked users can email to
> > have their blocks reviewed.
> >
> > Because of the sensitive nature of some of the things discussed on the
> > list, and because of past problems with trolling, the archives are not
> > publicly viewable and you need to be invited to join the list.
>
> Thanks Mark. I think I'll investigate it some.
>
> Marc

I think that most of the unblock-en-l volunteer staff are here as
well, but feel free to ask us either here or directly or to that list
about what we do and how, etc.

There are no secrets about how and what is done; only privacy concerns
for individuals who necessarily have to identify themselves to us for
us to do our job.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
On 4/5/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just tried on the Toolserver to get the latest ten uploaded SVGs:
> SELECT img_name, img_user_text FROM image WHERE img_minor_mime = 'svg'
> ORDER BY img_timestamp DESC LIMIT 10;
>
> Takes between 0.00 and 0.02 secs. I don't know how this is comparable
> with the "real" databases?

Well, try DESCRIBE TABLE image; to see if there are indices (I only
know that there aren't in tables.sql), or EXPLAIN [your query] to see
how many rows it's examining.  Possibly, since there are so few image
types, it's "fast enough" to just scan through rows until you get to
your tenth SVG image, but heaven preserve you if someone tries to
search for a type that has few or no entries and you need a full or
substantially full table scan.  Then again, maybe there are indices on
those fields in the live databases, I don't know.


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:26:21 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> >What if we were to include a screenshot of that?
>
> What purpose would that serve?  To get form one to the other you
> either have to listen to the script week by week, or recognise the
> pictures.  I don't think you would dispute that the latter is original
> research.

Even better than wave-particle duality, ladies and gentlemen!

It's both derivative and original!


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 05/04/07, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sabine Cretella wrote:

> > Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
> > can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very often it is a
> > disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.

> So why don't you simply make the people who are able to perform the
> localisation into admins?
> What actually is the stumbling block here?

Loss of face? Loss of control?

- d.


from_name: Anthony

references:
<q8b213d1gkaqd549hb8qsp3ci1dgf3l41i@4ax.com>
	<f004139b64dt8dubu1rtvvvihouece4pq8@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704030146x3f96b5ye5712f65fbcda86b@mail.gmail.com>
	<bo1813dtv3i6i5eid5f4ehb5sucipt08k1@4ax.com>
	<46140B2D.8060609@shaw.ca>
	<qk3813t0g9t6eo6k0fl7gdpupsfk40dltf@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40704041348x28e1e716qe8100de4ec9d2eb7@mail.gmail.com>
	<le4813t7g77k6fne9lhpr7s6o83o5pqhlf@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90704050554q324000b1n83868c53786729bf@mail.gmail.com>
	<92fa13510lsura5eovufh7mieclf16qn1f@4ax.com>

body:
On 4/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 08:54:56 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> wrote:
>
> >> Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.
> >So the use in question is highly transformative.  That's one factor in favor.
>
> Not really, no.  It's no more transformative than transcribing a radio
> script.

One consists of transforming spoken words in a particular order to
written words in that same order.  The other consists of transforming
a bunch of photos of cars arranged on a wall to a list of the types of
cars in each section of the wall, arranged alphabetically per section.

Seems different to me.

> Which is, of course, a violation of copyright.

No, that may or may not be a violation of copyright, depending on the
details of the situation.

> >And the Cool Wall *doesn't* appear in its entirety, if you're claiming
> >that is the work in question.  Only the text of the wall appears,
> >rearranged in a non-creative order.  That's another factor which is
> >neutral at worst.
>
> I miss about one in three, so obviously I have only seen the ones
> where it does.
>
I mean that the Cool Wall didn't appear in its entirety in the
article.  If it had a photo of the wall, that would be a copy of the
wall in its entirety.

Anthony


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common Interwiki links

body:
> Do you have the raw data available (in the form of English pages with
> the languages they link to)? If so, could I have them so I can do a
> new comparison of

I have used last dump

http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070401/enwiki-20070401-langlinks.sql.gz

(but i used MyISAM db, not InoDB, and only with one index. Otherwise,
restore is very slow)

--
Amike kaj kunlabore,
Alexander Sigachov


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 4/5/07 5:57 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I think that most of the unblock-en-l volunteer staff are here as
> > well, but feel free to ask us either here or directly or to that list
> > about what we do and how, etc.
> >
> > There are no secrets about how and what is done; only privacy concerns
> > for individuals who necessarily have to identify themselves to us for
> > us to do our job.
>
> George,
>
> I was glad to learn such a List exists. I simply wanted to contribute
> another objective voice to the mix. I still have a lot to learn about the
> technical & administrative aspects of WP, but I am pretty good at helping a
> person sort out the emotional ones - been doing it for a while ;-). Let me
> know if, and how, I can help.
>
> Marc

As others (Guy?) said, if you are interested in joining the list, any
administrator or experienced user with strong community trust can
apply for membership, by emailing to the list.  I can't speak for
everyone, but based on your contributions on wikien-l, I think you'd
be a positive contributor.

We aren't super-actively recruiting or anythin right now... we seem to
have enough people for reasonable responsiveness most of the time...
but there's no problem with more trusted people joining and helping.
Anyone who can respond calmly to often very confused and frustrated
complaintants would be helpful 8-)

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


body:
On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
> > hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
> > whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
> > type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.
>
> I actually think that merely describing lists of photos, or
> transcribing what is in them, doesn't infringe their copyright at all.
>  We're not transforming artwork (Rogers case), we're transforming a
> list of facts from one format (images of cars) into another (text); in
> the US, mere lists of facts aren't copyrightable (cf all the phone
> book copyright-doesn't-apply rulings).
>
This isn't a mere list of facts, though.  It's a mere list of opinions
(what cars are cool, which are uncool, etc).

Actually, it's not a *list* of opinions, because order isn't
preserved.  It's a mere *collection* of opinions.  This is, sadly,
probably copyrightable.

Anthony

BTW, regarding the suggestion that we waste any money asking a lawyer
about this, I say no way.  If we're going to waste money on a lawyer,
let's get him or her to explain how the DMCA protects the foundation
even *if* this is a copyright infringement.


from_name: K P

body:
On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:42:01 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> >>>> What, like the personal essays on character traits of various
> >>>> characters in video games?  I would say that is *objectively* crap
> :-)
> >>
> >>> You'd be wrong.
> >>
> >> Not really.  Personal essays are not allowed by policy, after all.
>
> >You're shifting the goalposts from the subject of the article to the
> >quality and style of the writing in it, reread the part of my response
> >that you snipped and that should be clear. It's a fallacy along the
> >lines of "pies laced with arsenic are dangerous, ergo we should ban
> pies."
>
> Not really.  I was treating the concept as a whole: personal essays on
> the character traits of video game characters. * Every such essay I
> have seen has sucked royally.*  I don't discount the possibility that
> properly cited encyclopaedic treatment of the same subject may be
> possible, and it would be quite refreshing to see such a section.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --

They do suck royally.  I've worked with a couple of pop culture topics on
FAC, with editors willing to work hard, and the results have been
spectacular, with articles even my grandmother could read, understand and
appreciate.  Editors think allowing them to put their crap on-line at
Wikipedia (crap including their game character analysis, COI biographies,
and their resumes) is doing them a favor--I think it's conspiring against
them to make them look like shit.

On the other hand, damn people get hostile when you ask for a citation, or
reference book.  Once more I am told that a definition is "self-evident" and
doesn't need  a dictionary.  My my.

KP


from_name: Erica

subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
>
> Marc

Not sure, but I found this:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/en/Unblock_requests

Erica


subject: [Wikitech-l] Something wrong with WMF database servers?

body:
I'm getting a lot of disconnects and server site outage errors on
en.wp right now.  What's up?

Thanks...

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Phil Boswell schreef:
> Sabine Cretella wrote:
>
>> Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
>> can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very often it is a
>> disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.
>>
>>
> So why don't you simply make the people who are able to perform the
> localisation into admins?
>
> What actually is the stumbling block here?
>
Hoi,
When you talk about we .. you forget that someone is made admin after a
lengthy involved procedure. A procedure that has nothing to do with the
language committee. We do not have such power nor are we seeking such power.

My idea would be that people who work on the Incubator can have the
right to edit the messages associated with the language involved.

This obviously has one prerequisite; there has to be the message file
that is to be localised.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Aphaia

body:
Hello,

On 4/5/07, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
> can not.

In the past time (MediaWiki1.2?), it could. It was not bad at that
time, at least on Japanese Wikipedia. I didn't remember UI was
vandalized ... or I was too young to notice it. Anyway it looked not
bad for a newcomer (me).

>?Sometimes this is an advantage, but very offten it is a
> disadvantage.

Slightly agreed. It has an advantage - but also disadvantage. Ratio of
A/D would depend. On a small, newly launched project ... dunno, but UI
anyone can edit sounds me not so a bad idea specially on a small
project.

Can we change the setting for those young projects? I am aware it is
not directly related to the issue setting Language.php, but it could
be a way to accelerate  the project. Or is it technically impossible
to turn MediaWiki namespace editable by all?

Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

references:
<C23407BE.29DD%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<460E9E83.4070609@scissor.com> <460EABB6.8060704@ntlworld.com>

body:
The problem is not specific to Wikipedia, people seem to regard the Internet
as being outside society and beyond all authority. They thus don't take
responsibility for what is put online, because you are free to say whatever
you like. And people wonder why governments are trying to restrict online
freedoms.

Quite frankly, in some ways I hope they succeed. Wikipedia should not be
allowed to absolve itself of any wrongdoing. It's simply untenable to
continue publishing unverified information, however quickly someone may fix
it. And if you believe fixes are quick in general, you're living in cloud
cuckoo land - much of Wikipedia remains unchecked content that someone just
saw fit to put there. Mostly harmless, and often correct, but not an
acceptable situation nevertheless.

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


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On 4/5/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> "Permanent record" is a relative term.  The newspaper will exist permanently,
> but it won't be *prominent* permanently.  It will eventually become something
> obscure that nobody cares about.
>
> Unless of course we make the incident the permanent #1 hit on Google for
> their name.

In the present time, I'm not so sure we can say that other sources
will become hard to find - since they may be archived online
practically forever.  We're certainly not making the incident #1 on
Google for the forseeable future, since it's already there.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
Folks,

If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
on 4/5/07 5:18 PM, Erica at fangaili at gmail.com wrote:

> On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
>> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
>>
>> Marc
>
> Not sure, but I found this:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/en/Unblock_requests
>
> Erica

Thanks Erica. I think I'll try an investigate it some.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
on 4/5/07 5:21 PM, Angela at beesley at gmail.com wrote:

>> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
>> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
>
> It's a mailing list that blocked users post to -
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/unblock-en-l
>
> Angela
>
Thanks Angela.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Now, this is how to do paid editing

body:
On 04/04/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2007/04/linguist-lists-wikipedia-update-vote.html
>
> (Turn Wikipedia into "semi-employed grad student deathmatch"!)

An excellent idea - and I see they have the funding now. I wonder if
it'd be best for someone to get in touch with them and offer
assistance, and for someone from the Foundation to publicly clarify
that *this* sort of paid editing is perfectly acceptable...

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


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 05/04/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> I think you've mispelt "on Slashdot", actually.  :-)

Oh, touch?.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
> On 4/5/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
>> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
>
on 4/5/07 5:21 PM, Mark Wagner at carnildo at gmail.com wrote:

> unblock-en-l is a closed mailing list that blocked users can email to
> have their blocks reviewed.
>
> Because of the sensitive nature of some of the things discussed on the
> list, and because of past problems with trolling, the archives are not
> publicly viewable and you need to be invited to join the list.

Thanks Mark. I think I'll investigate it some.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
> On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 14:21:20 -0700, "Mark Wagner" <carnildo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> unblock-en-l is a closed mailing list that blocked users can email to
>> have their blocks reviewed.
>>
>> Because of the sensitive nature of some of the things discussed on the
>> list, and because of past problems with trolling, the archives are not
>> publicly viewable and you need to be invited to join the list.
>
on 4/5/07 5:42 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman at spamcop.net wrote:

> True.  And volunteers, admins or those with an ability to explain
> patiently and without malice why people have been blocked for crass
> stupidity, are welcome to apply.  Email the list (posting is allowed
> to all, just not subscribing).
>
Thanks for your response, Guy. Rather than ask any more questions here, I
think I'll knock on the List's door and see if anyone answers.

Marc

--
Living with unanswered questions is like wrestling with an invisible
opponent.


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
on 4/5/07 5:57 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert at gmail.com wrote:

> I think that most of the unblock-en-l volunteer staff are here as
> well, but feel free to ask us either here or directly or to that list
> about what we do and how, etc.
>
> There are no secrets about how and what is done; only privacy concerns
> for individuals who necessarily have to identify themselves to us for
> us to do our job.

George,

I was glad to learn such a List exists. I simply wanted to contribute
another objective voice to the mix. I still have a lot to learn about the
technical & administrative aspects of WP, but I am pretty good at helping a
person sort out the emotional ones - been doing it for a while ;-). Let me
know if, and how, I can help.

Marc


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

references:
<0rtm035qqrihehpr920clatnqpgd0v2gpv@4ax.com>
	<165821F0-1F67-4B0F-BF02-B788CE60F929@gmail.com>
	<mesn03dsvnennoajpklmfer1vb0tpb2pnd@4ax.com>
	<D566EB4C-0F22-4444-8DAF-80BF49F3857D@gmail.com>
	<m60o035nfl688ukj3a06la90rihp49ckjp@4ax.com>
	<B00892B7-B2E0-408F-910B-F76E5D5420D6@gmail.com>
	<42f90dc00703301036l2ddd1447id60a2c133e5209d3@mail.gmail.com>
	<ud3813hh8or0uiphekbr5bd8pa87r3h0ht@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704041654p26db2450ob61876d7f16aa89d@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:54:13 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I'd say that if anyone knows about Bruce McMahan, it's because of this
>issue.  The top six Google results for his name are about this
>scandal.

Quite possibly.  And the truth is,virtually nobody knows about him.

Would you like to handle the OTRS ticket?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
In a message dated 4/5/2007 5:44:23 PM Central Daylight Time,
dgerard at gmail.com writes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Danny#.5B.5BWiki
pedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FDanny.7CDanny.5D.5D

Danny's  rerunning.

(Note me not voicing my opinion on this  list.)

Same here; no opinion.

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:37:12 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>In the same way banning cars from the road would prevent automobile
>accidents.  People would still be able to own cars as long as they left
>them in their garages or driveways.

This is a good idea.  Provided, of course, that an exception is made
for *my* car, since I am far more important than all those other plebs
out there.

That's the fundamental problem with tendentious editing: most biased
editors do not really believe they are biased, or if they do, they do
not see it as a problem.

As always we are trying to think of a technological solution to a
human problem.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 08:54:56 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>> Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.
>So the use in question is highly transformative.  That's one factor in favor.

Not really, no.  It's no more transformative than transcribing a radio
script.  Which is, of course, a violation of copyright.

>And the Cool Wall *doesn't* appear in its entirety, if you're claiming
>that is the work in question.  Only the text of the wall appears,
>rearranged in a non-creative order.  That's another factor which is
>neutral at worst.

I miss about one in three, so obviously I have only seen the ones
where it does.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

references:
<0rtm035qqrihehpr920clatnqpgd0v2gpv@4ax.com>
	<mesn03dsvnennoajpklmfer1vb0tpb2pnd@4ax.com>
	<D566EB4C-0F22-4444-8DAF-80BF49F3857D@gmail.com>
	<m60o035nfl688ukj3a06la90rihp49ckjp@4ax.com>
	<B00892B7-B2E0-408F-910B-F76E5D5420D6@gmail.com>
	<42f90dc00703301036l2ddd1447id60a2c133e5209d3@mail.gmail.com>
	<ud3813hh8or0uiphekbr5bd8pa87r3h0ht@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704041654p26db2450ob61876d7f16aa89d@mail.gmail.com>
	<sbda139t8u4jr31mklieipi74qd54qarma@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704051118l46a07599w7d024d47998fd51@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 05/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd also say that if he wishes to erase this scandal, he should pursue
> it with the local paper that printed the story, and such papers as the
> Village Voice that reprinted it.  We are not the ones converting a
> rumor to permanent record here.

I don't see any conceptual difference between us picking it up from a
paper and republishing it, to the Village Voice picking it up from a
paper and republishing it... does it somehow become more legitimate
three or four transactions down the chain?

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


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] 3D printers!

body:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/business/05scan.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

So when can we start putting 3D printer files on Commons?

And should we recommend a content-like licence (e.g. GFDL, CC by-sa)
or a software-like license (e.g. GPL)?

- d.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

references:
<4611226B.3050406@shaw.ca>
	<f004139b64dt8dubu1rtvvvihouece4pq8@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704030146x3f96b5ye5712f65fbcda86b@mail.gmail.com>
	<bo1813dtv3i6i5eid5f4ehb5sucipt08k1@4ax.com> <46140B2D.8060609@shaw.ca>
	<qk3813t0g9t6eo6k0fl7gdpupsfk40dltf@4ax.com>
	<dfd0b40704041348x28e1e716qe8100de4ec9d2eb7@mail.gmail.com>
	<le4813t7g77k6fne9lhpr7s6o83o5pqhlf@4ax.com> <461417FD.8060506@shaw.ca>
	<4m781312ges7fjktvgalb0odvupevqeb8o@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00704051203y719c171fkdbfe56f5be2804eb@mail.gmail.com>

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com>
> We recognise pictures all the time for Wikipedia content.

As a concrete example, whenever I see a cast photo in an article I make sure the caption includes a "from right to left: John Smith, Jane Doe, etc" description of who is in the image. I do this via a process of recognizing the faces of the people in the image and translating that into textual names. If this is "original research" I'll eat my hat (assuming I recognize it).


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/5/07, Vee <vee.be.me at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/04/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The comments of the opposers make me cry.
> > *Oppose, I can't help thinking that someone who resigned his adminship
> > last month when he didn't need to does not have the best interest of
> > the project at heart.
> > *Oppose appears to brush off criticism, I tended to disagree with his
> > decision processes on WP:OFFICE, his answers to the first few
> > questions above reads to me sorta like "I'm danny I dont really need
> > to go through this process". Sorry but I must oppose.
> >
> > (that one is awful - opposing because he doesn't respect RFA?)
> >
> > *Oppose Relinquished positions of trust along with his resignation
> > from WMF. This is in itself a good thing. But he does not explain his
> > reasons for departure. I would be happy to support if this was
> > explained. Danny linked his departure with those positions of trust,
> > including the admin position. Of course he did not need to explain why
> > he resigned, but once the linkage is forged I can't evaluate his
> > fitness without understanding the full reasons for his giving them up.
> > *Oppose Sorry - unsatisfactory answers to questions.
> > *Oppose per nom. (this is classy - he's opposing based on the fact
> > that Cyde Weys supported him)
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> People will dig out the most ridiculous reasons to oppose that they can
> think of at RfA. Sometimes I think that people just like being obtuse.

As with most things we "not-vote" on, you get both some
well-thought-out, insightful opposes, and some cranks.

There are some legit concerns on Danny's RFA, and a lot of "OFFICE bit
me he sucks", sometimes written slightly more coherently.

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


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
on 4/6/07 7:19 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> And before people can ask for help they have to realize that they need
> it.

You are right. But denial is a powerful thing.

>I think a lot of these people start from the belief that they have
> the only right understanding of the topic.

Yes, their goal is to protect, defend and convince others of their beliefs.
But what they first need to see is how their very behavior is alienating the
people they are trying to convince.

In any case, it is they who need to realize they are getting nowhere in the
debate; care enough about the topic to want to know why - and reach out for
help with it.

In another setting: It is they who need to realize they are getting nowhere
in the relationship; care enough about the relationship to want to know why
- and reach out for help with it.

Marc


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
I just tried on the Toolserver to get the latest ten uploaded SVGs:
SELECT img_name, img_user_text FROM image WHERE img_minor_mime = 'svg'
ORDER BY img_timestamp DESC LIMIT 10;

Takes between 0.00 and 0.02 secs. I don't know how this is comparable
with the "real" databases?

Bryan

On 4/5/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How about a search that searches on the  mimetype? Would that also be slow?
>
> Currently, yes, but potentially, no.  An index would have to be added.
>  Then it would be very fast.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
Ah I see. A search over a non existant type costs over 40 seconds.
DESCRIBE gives no
INDEX on img_minor_mime.

Bryan

On 4/5/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I just tried on the Toolserver to get the latest ten uploaded SVGs:
> > SELECT img_name, img_user_text FROM image WHERE img_minor_mime = 'svg'
> > ORDER BY img_timestamp DESC LIMIT 10;
> >
> > Takes between 0.00 and 0.02 secs. I don't know how this is comparable
> > with the "real" databases?
>
> Well, try DESCRIBE TABLE image; to see if there are indices (I only
> know that there aren't in tables.sql), or EXPLAIN [your query] to see
> how many rows it's examining.  Possibly, since there are so few image
> types, it's "fast enough" to just scan through rows until you get to
> your tenth SVG image, but heaven preserve you if someone tries to
> search for a type that has few or no entries and you need a full or
> substantially full table scan.  Then again, maybe there are indices on
> those fields in the live databases, I don't know.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 12:00:56 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Personally, that's my question as well.  BLP started off as 'we should
>be strict about having good sources for negative stuff'.  But that
>doesn't get rid of all negative stuff, as is the case here.  We have a
>rather negative and salacious story that comes from a legitimate print
>newspaper source.

It all tracks back to a single paper, which very clearly has it in for
the subject.  If other papers had *independently* come to the same
conclusion, then I would have simply ignored it (after checking that
the cites were good, of course).  This could be the work of one
journalist, or one editor with a grudge.  Or it could be genuinely
significant, but he is such a minor figure that nobody else cared.  My
big problem is, though, that it all originates from that one local
paper, the tone of whose coverage is very much that of a witch-hunt.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
> On 4/6/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
>> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?
>
on 4/5/07 9:04 PM, Steve Bennett at stevagewp at gmail.com wrote:

> You should try google first whenever you have a question like that.
> The very first hit is "Unblock-en-l Info page". (the URL was given
> earlier)
>
Thank you for this. I never thought of using Google. I plugged
"unblock-en-l" into a WP search and came up with nothing.

Marc


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
Dycedarg wrote:

>If and when stable versions is implemented, I would recommend that every
>single BLP article that has not been approved be "invisible", or in other
>words impossible to find via Google or by using the standard search box in
>Wikipedia and ignored by the mirrors. You'd have to go to an advanced Wiki
>search and intentionally click an "unapproved articles" check box to search
>for them. Nothing would be deleted, but we'd vastly reduce the probability
>of an unsourced, libelous piece of garbage receiving any kind of attention
>from the general public.
>
In the same way banning cars from the road would prevent automobile
accidents.  People would still be able to own cars as long as they left
them in their garages or driveways.

>If we could approve them at a fairly rapid rate,
>our coverage could recover to its prior levels within a relatively short
>period of time, at least when compared to any mass deletion scheme. Or,
>alternatively, just have a gigantic red banner at the top that says "This
>article is unapproved. Any unsourced piece of information is as likely to be
>true as random gossip received from a group of twelve year-olds. Read at
>your own risk.
>
I have consistently supported the stable version concept, and would have
something even more sophisticated than what is currently proposed.  In
the short term, however, it would just be nice to see anything
implemented about this.  Your comments in this part are more realistic
than in the earlier part of the message.  A simple banner which doesn't
need to be too gigantic is fine.  Rud = not approved; green = approved.

>If this article is about you and it contains ridiculous crap,
>please remove it yourself and request that an approved version be put in
>place using <insert whatever method of communication is decided upon here>."
>
Encouraging participation by the subject would be a great step forward.
It would address the frustration that many of them feel.

>I don't think it would be necessary to do this about any other kind of
>article (unless possibly those about corporations) because of the reduced
>risk of real-world damage, BLP articles are the only ones I see causing
>enough trouble to make this worth it.
>
BLP's would dominate this class of articles, but there are others as
well where a similar approach would be fruitful.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:

>On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
>
>>It doesn't prevent them editing such articles. It even gives them
>>tips on how to handle it properly:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Editors_who_may_have_a_conflict_of_interest
>>
>>
>No sane Wikipedia newcomer is going to read that section and think they are
>permitted to fix their own article about themselves.  If you squint at that
>section long enough, you might realize that it doesn't in fact prohibit
>editing where there is a conflict of interest, but this is a very non-
>obvious reading that is not what anyone's going to think of when the first
>thing the article says is that a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged.
>A newcomer simply will not have the sophistication to understand that
>"discouraged" actually means "encouraged in some cases".
>
>Allowing people to fix errors in articles about themselves won't work unless
>you make it *utterly clear* that they can do so.  Having an article which
>sounds like it says they cannot, but which upon very careful examination
>reveals that it is after all allowed, will not let them know.
>
I very much agree.  The fact that the Connflict of Interest page has
drawn the seemingly contrary interpretations that have appeared on this
thread shows that it certainly lacks clarity.  I'm inclined to believe
that having a section in a biography article where the subject would be
free to express the "truth" about himself would be very popular with
both subjects and readers.  Perhaps it could be done in some kind of
protected template.  It would make complaint calls easier to handle if
you could tell the complainers where they can set the record straight
without facing a major battle.  Wiki or not, we don't really need for
everyone to  be able to edit absolutely everything.  The readers could
feel that what is said there is really what the subject believes.
Subjects might even be inclined to provide free photographs of themselves.

This could not happen without a few rules, but these do not need to be
elaborate.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
doc wrote:

>Stephen Bain wrote:
>
>
>>Just like the problem of unsourced content, it's a problem of people,
>>not of policies.
>>
>>
>However, being realistic, our community is too large and impersonal for
>us to be in the business of reforming people - all we can do is change
>policies. But I get yelled at every time I suggest that.
>
That's perfectly understandable when it appears that you are determined
to change the way that _others_ do things.  The size of the community
has nothing to do with it.  It's the idea of setting out to reform
people that is wrong, even in a much smaller community.  The very idea
of reforming people, whether through personal command in a small
community or elaborate policies in a large one is what makes that
community impersonal.

Policy changes would go more easily if proposers began paying attention
to the collateral effects of those proposals.

Ec


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?

It's a mailing list that blocked users post to -
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/unblock-en-l

Angela


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] 3D printers!

body:
On 4/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/business/05scan.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
>
> So when can we start putting 3D printer files on Commons?

I think the file format we need to support for that is COLLADA (kind
of the SVG of 3D file formats); Brion has looked into that a while
ago. There are still a couple of security & efficiency issues to sort
out.

> And should we recommend a content-like licence (e.g. GFDL, CC by-sa)
> or a software-like license (e.g. GPL)?

Neither. Put it into the public domain.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 14:21:20 -0700, "Mark Wagner" <carnildo at gmail.com>
wrote:

>unblock-en-l is a closed mailing list that blocked users can email to
>have their blocks reviewed.
>
>Because of the sensitive nature of some of the things discussed on the
>list, and because of past problems with trolling, the archives are not
>publicly viewable and you need to be invited to join the list.

True.  And volunteers, admins or those with an ability to explain
patiently and without malice why people have been blocked for crass
stupidity, are welcome to apply.  Email the list (posting is allowed
to all, just not subscribing).

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
> I just tried on the Toolserver to get the latest ten uploaded SVGs:
> SELECT img_name, img_user_text FROM image WHERE img_minor_mime = 'svg'
> ORDER BY img_timestamp DESC LIMIT 10;
>
> Takes between 0.00 and 0.02 secs. I don't know how this is comparable
> with the "real" databases?
>
> Bryan

To be purist: the correct minor mime is svg+xml (see bug 7554)


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Whatever clueful is supposed to mean in this context, we should remember to
>doublecheck any entries someone tagged as stable if after some time someone
>turns out at arbitration or otherwise lose this status.
>
Multiple tagging would be beneficial at all times.  The more tags, the
stronger the rating on the article.  Whether everything needs to be
checked in the circumstances that you describe is not clear.  It will
likely depend on the circumstances of the dispute or loss of status.
People tend to behave quite normally until they hit a wall of some
kind.  I suspect that only later taggings might need to be reviewed, but
even then, only if they were the last or only person to tag.

>We also need to make sure that whatever we do, this status is given to
>trustworthy people and and that such a process is scaleable. This is where
>the biggest problem lies. These two can bother each other. To ensure
>scalability you need to give the permission to more people, but at some
>point you run out of trusted editors who are experienced enough to handle
>this feature.
>
Multiple tagging could deal with some of that problem.  Automatic trust
should be preferred after passing clear, sensible and simple
qualifications; we don't want the kind of zoo that now prevails at RfA.
Some bad actors are bound to get through, but we mustn't be stifled by
that possibility.

>We need to put careful consideration into this, because if someone turns out
>to muck up these priviliges it takes a lot of work to undo the damage.
>
Maybe not as much as you suspect.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>>The very idea
>>of reforming people, whether through personal command in a small
>>community or elaborate policies in a large one is what makes that
>>community impersonal.
>>
>>
>I'm not quite sure what you mean by this one, but to reform (or, better, re
>form) anyone into something someone else thinks they ought to be - is to
>engage in robotics.
>
I'm glad to clarify what I meant.  In a small community there remains a
tactical practicality in addressing people individually when you want to
boss them into doing what you want, and thus to "reform" them.  In a
large community the tactic shifts to policy writing, but the effect is
the same.

Doc appears to see the difference as substantive, while I see it as
tactical.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Danny#.5B.5BWikipedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FDanny.7CDanny.5D.5D

Danny's rerunning.

(Note me not voicing my opinion on this list.)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Light entertainment

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 3/30/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
>
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Earle_Martin_2
>>
>>
>To quote Charlie Brown, "AUGH!" I feel for you. "I see no need for the
>tools." is one of the worst reasons ever for voting. I keep
>considering requesting an admin bit, but I might hit the same hurdle.
>I occasionally "need the tools". I occasionally would like to rename a
>page in a non-trivial case, or to rename a category. I occasionally
>would like to edit a protected page. That's about it. I don't want to
>block anyone, or do some of the other things one gets "the tools" for.
>But who would support that platform?
>
Ditto.  Occasional need is still a need.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 23:40:22 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Danny's rerunning.

Good.  we need him, and Brad too.  I'm hoping Tony Sidaway will re0run
one day as well.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 16:03:09 -0700, "K P" <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:

>They do suck royally.  I've worked with a couple of pop culture topics on
>FAC, with editors willing to work hard, and the results have been
>spectacular, with articles even my grandmother could read, understand and
>appreciate.  Editors think allowing them to put their crap on-line at
>Wikipedia (crap including their game character analysis, COI biographies,
>and their resumes) is doing them a favor--I think it's conspiring against
>them to make them look like shit.

Amen to that.  I have nothing against popular culture articles.
Nothing much, anyway.  What I hate is articles that duplicate the same
speculative bullshit you get on game guide websites.  Wikipedia is
supposed to be better than that.  we aspire to be an actual
encyclopaedia, you know, with references and shit.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-04-06

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r21041).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Red category link is unhelpful

body:
No kidding. On my radio scanning wiki, categories (frequencies) are to
be populated, but contain no text. Alas one must jump through hoops (
http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/index.php?title=Template:C ) to not
have the obligatory edit box thrust in the users' face.

And the obligatory edit boxes on empty help messages just get filled
with users' comments.

Maybe someone can make a better bug out of my bug carcasses:
[Bug 7347] Add __NOCATEGORIES__ just like __NOTOC__
[Bug 7897] allow stopping needless editing of categories
[Bug 8060] __NO_CATEGORY_LIST_AT_END__
[Bug 8810] "You have to log in to edit pages" 1-2 punch
[Bug 8810] List all errors when user is forbidden from editing a page
[Bug 8812] Special:Categories red links vs. $wgGroupPermissions
[Bug 8813] Documentation of $wgGroupPermissions is poor


from_name: Vee

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 06/04/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> The comments of the opposers make me cry.
> *Oppose, I can't help thinking that someone who resigned his adminship
> last month when he didn't need to does not have the best interest of
> the project at heart.
> *Oppose appears to brush off criticism, I tended to disagree with his
> decision processes on WP:OFFICE, his answers to the first few
> questions above reads to me sorta like "I'm danny I dont really need
> to go through this process". Sorry but I must oppose.
>
> (that one is awful - opposing because he doesn't respect RFA?)
>
> *Oppose Relinquished positions of trust along with his resignation
> from WMF. This is in itself a good thing. But he does not explain his
> reasons for departure. I would be happy to support if this was
> explained. Danny linked his departure with those positions of trust,
> including the admin position. Of course he did not need to explain why
> he resigned, but once the linkage is forged I can't evaluate his
> fitness without understanding the full reasons for his giving them up.
> *Oppose Sorry - unsatisfactory answers to questions.
> *Oppose per nom. (this is classy - he's opposing based on the fact
> that Cyde Weys supported him)
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

People will dig out the most ridiculous reasons to oppose that they can
think of at RfA. Sometimes I think that people just like being obtuse.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 4/1/07 5:24 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
>
>
>>Nice idea, doesn't work in practice. Way back when, I tried to help
>>problematic editors a number of times, and there were exactly two
>>outcomes; the person understood what they were doing wrong after getting
>>the one hint, or never understood, no matter how many times it was
>>explained. We get a *lot* of borderlines, and one always hopes that just
>>one more rephrasing will cause the light bulb to come on - but these
>>folks have more serious problems than can be solved with talk page notes.
>>
>>You should try your hand at it, will be valuable for insight - pick a
>>problem editor, such as one who's come up in an RfC, Arbcom case, etc,
>>and assign yourself to help them.
>>
>>
>We each bring our own individual professional backgrounds and skills to the
>building of the WP Project. In this bringing, the focus is still,
>nevertheless, applied to the substance of the encyclopedia. I believe what
>you are suggesting goes beyond this and into the WP Community itself.
>
>My particular involvement would be much trickier than, say, someone with
>math skills offering to tutor someone in the Community who is struggling
>with understanding the basics of arithmetic. But, in both cases, before such
>a relationship could have any hope of succeeding, the person in need of this
>help would need to ask for that help.
>
And before people can ask for help they have to realize that they need
it. I think a lot of these people start from the belief that they have
the only right understanding of the topic.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>The Arbitration Committee's overriding aim is not fairness.  Rather it
>is to do the best for the encyclopaedia.  This doesn't mean that
>fairness is not considered.  It just means that, when "justice" and
>the interests of the encylopaedia collide, the encyclopaedia comes
>first.
>
Why should they collide?  Decisions in the spirit of fairness _are_ for
the best of the encyclopedia.  In the event that there is a conflict the
rules need to be made absolutely clear and explicit to avoid arbitrary
rulings.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
Ron Ritzman wrote:

>On 4/1/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>A clearer-than-it-would-be example: imagine there is a good-faith
>>contributor who just causes unbelivable amounts of strife. They mean
>>well, they make good-faith contributions, they haven't done anything
>>*wrong* per se...
>>
>>
>How would you define "good faith" in this context? I would say that if
>a contributor continues to do "X" after several good faith "please
>don't do X" requests from reasonable people, then that person is no
>longer a "good faith contributor" and any of his contributions with
>"X" in them are not "good faith contributions".
>
To a point, yes.  It depends just as much on how  the "reasonable"
person is presenting  himself.  As long as the "reasonable" is just
reverting without  engaging in any kind of meaningful coversation, or
just protecting a POV perhaps neither party is acting in good faith.

Ec