subject: [Wikipedia-l] Upcoming edit page layout changes

body:
Several things:

1) The copyright message is moved up, between the main edit area and the
summary/checkboxes/buttons. This is to ensure that it is visible; presently on a
smallish screen it's possible to make thousands of edits without ever seeing the
notice.

This should also encourage site admins to keep the message short and legible.

2) A new message, MediaWiki:Edittools, is created which can hold those extended
character insertion boxes that some wikis use (currently hacked into the
copyright message). This message is now also displayed on the Special:Upload
form, so it can be used when composing file descriptions.

This displays below the buttons, so it's out of the way but not too far away.

3) The list of used templates is moved to the bottom, so it can grow as long as
it gets without pushing other things down.

This is online to try out on the test wiki at:

http://test.leuksman.com/edit/Main_Page
http://test.leuksman.com/view/Special:Upload  (Log in to see the upload form.)

Avar has expressed objection to putting the notice above the buttons, but I
think it really *needs* to be if we want to pretend it means anything. Any final
comments, and preparation for the change (splitting bits out from the copyright
message) would be good to do; I plan to commit this change in the next day or two.

cf. http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4100

Note: the charinsert stuff doesn't currently seem to work in Safari. Have to see
about fixing that...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upcoming edit page layout changes

body:
Several things:

1) The copyright message is moved up, between the main edit area and the
summary/checkboxes/buttons. This is to ensure that it is visible; presently on a
smallish screen it's possible to make thousands of edits without ever seeing the
notice.

This should also encourage site admins to keep the message short and legible.

2) A new message, MediaWiki:Edittools, is created which can hold those extended
character insertion boxes that some wikis use (currently hacked into the
copyright message). This message is now also displayed on the Special:Upload
form, so it can be used when composing file descriptions.

This displays below the buttons, so it's out of the way but not too far away.

3) The list of used templates is moved to the bottom, so it can grow as long as
it gets without pushing other things down.

This is online to try out on the test wiki at:

http://test.leuksman.com/edit/Main_Page
http://test.leuksman.com/view/Special:Upload  (Log in to see the upload form.)

Avar has expressed objection to putting the notice above the buttons, but I
think it really *needs* to be if we want to pretend it means anything. Any final
comments, and preparation for the change (splitting bits out from the copyright
message) would be good to do; I plan to commit this change in the next day or two.

cf. http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4100

Note: the charinsert stuff doesn't currently seem to work in Safari. Have to see
about fixing that...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikien-l

from_name: kosebamse at gmx.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Meanwhile if you can compile a list of important articles that have
>not fared well under the wiki (I submit that this could be a fairly
>brief list, perhaps 1,000 or so) perhaps a team of interested
>individuals can take those articles off the main wiki and hothouse
>them for a while--or even, as you suggest, rewrite from scratch.  I'd
>be interested to see if this approach produces significantly better
>articles.

While interesting, this would divert us from the real problem, because, to
compile such a list, one would need good criteria for quality and have them
transparently implemented. But we have no clue as to which articles are good
and which aren't. We have no clue how much nonsense, libel and deliberate
misinformation there is in our content. And unless we dedicate our work to
quality improvement and nothing else, we won't find out. We waste our time
trying to catch up with a steady inflow of obvious vandalism, cluelessness,
crackpottery, editwarring etc., amassing ever more content of doubtful
quality, while our foremost priority should be to produce quality articles.

Kosebamse

--
10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>On 11/30/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In light of the recent USA Today article:
>>
>>In the same way that we are currently enforcing proper image tags using
>>a bot, could we do the same with unsourced articles? Start out by
>>placing {{unsourced}} in all the articles lacking sources, and then, if
>>it is not sourced in a week, create something like the {{copvio}}
>>page-replacer to hide the unsourced content (the entire article),
>>explaining with a detailed message that the article must be thoroughly
>>sourced.
>>
>>In my mind, at least, it doesn't seem like there should be any
>>difference between enforcing sources for images and sources for
>>articles. If anything we should be enforcing the latter more, since
>>articles form the basis of the encyclopedia. I know this won't solve
>>everything, but I think it should be a vital part of Wikipedia; since we
>>do not know who edits an article, we need to know that it is based on
>>information that we can verify ourselves.
>>
>>
>
>It's an interesting idea, but it would apply to so many articles on
>such a coarse grained way it may wind up being ignored. Perhaps such a
>function could be tied to the TOC, so that each section would have a
>flag of whether it had been sourced to satisfaction.
>
>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>
And who is going to have time to check all the sources. Also most of the
material that I write comes from books as I hate the external link
festivity some articles become. So who is going to check the books I
use. Hint you can find my library I have at my disposal in Thailand
here: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Waerth/Mijn_bronnen (it is
in Dutch but you get my drift).

Also I think it is wrong to play panick over one criticism. Yes things
need to be done. We knew that for years already. To now start panicking
and coming with emergency reactions we might not help the situation.

Walter / Waerth


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Using Talk pages to influence Google results (Most
	read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia)

body:
On 11/30/05, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>  I wasn't aware that Google results were influenced by material on Talk pages.
> If this is true, it explains instances in which I have seen anons post some
> ideological screed in the article, have it removed, and then re-post it
> repeatedly into the article's Talk page.  Is this actually that effective a
> tactic for using Wikipedia as a soapbox?
>
>                                  Jason
>

If there isn't much else on the subject covered on the web then yes.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Most read US newspaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
That does seem rather similar.  GMTA.  Has there been
any coalescing behind this type of idea?

K.

--- Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/30/05, Katefan0 <katefan0 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I hesitated to post this message because I don't
> want
> > to take credit for the idea.  It was actually an
> idea
> > put forth by Johntex, relayed to me after the
> recent
> > meetup he'd gone to.  I'm not sure that he
> subscribes
> > to wikien-l, though, so I thought I'd mention it
> FWIW.
> >  I believe he also relayed the idea to Jimbo so
> > perhaps this has already been circulated.
> >
> > Johntex's idea is essentially a spinoff of an
> > "approved" version.  He essentially proposed that
> > Wikipedia create an additional "tab" people could
> > click on to see the last "approved" version.
> > Everybody can still edit the non-approved version,
> > just as normal.  And I guess, taking the idea out
> to
> > its logical extreme, at intervals the two versiosn
> > would be compared and any new information meshed
> into
> > the "approved" version.  This way everybody can
> still
> > edit and contribute, but anyone concerned about
> > ensuring the version they're looking at has been
> > vetted thoroughly could simply click on the
> "approved"
> > tab.
>
> Kate, it's very similar to this:
>
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Article_marker_feature
>
> And it seems like it's the least disruptive, highest
> ROI feature that
> we could try, and the implementation would be
> simple.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
Xed Mac wrote:
> After entering the database password it came up with
> this error:
> ERROR 1146 (42S02) at line 31: Table 'wikidb.text'
> doesn't exist

You didn't create the tables, so everything after this fails.

Create the tables using maintenance/tables.sql from MediaWiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Support freedum of infromashuon

body:
On 30/11/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  I concur that, if this is
> > significant, we should write about it. But we should not write about
> > it simply to make a political point, not publish it simply to make
> > that point. There will, after all, be no shortage of copies of it
> > hosted around the world to refer to.
>
> This is in the end I think the proper "Wikipedia" solution to
> anything: write an article about the memo, the controversy, the
> attempt to stifle, hell even include some mainstream speculation about
> what its contents may be (properly attributed, of course).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_bombing_memo
No further comments, your honour. ;)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
Xed Mac wrote:
> just got the error:
> 650,000 pages (375.33/sec), 650,000 revs (375.33/sec)
> Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError:
> Java heap space

Pass -Xmx=200m

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>> Articles without verified  revisions will have a notice at the top that they
>> haven't been reviewed,  making clear the 'in-progress' state of the system.
>
> I suggested a validation scheme like this about two years ago on meta.

Many of us have been saying we should do this for two or three years, including
you, me, Erik, and others. But it hasn't got done yet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>> Articles without verified  revisions will have a notice at the top that they
>> haven't been reviewed,  making clear the 'in-progress' state of the system.
>
> I suggested a validation scheme like this about two years ago on meta.

Many of us have been saying we should do this for two or three years, including
you, me, Erik, and others. But it hasn't got done yet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>> Articles without verified  revisions will have a notice at the top that they
>> haven't been reviewed,  making clear the 'in-progress' state of the system.
>
> I suggested a validation scheme like this about two years ago on meta.

Many of us have been saying we should do this for two or three years, including
you, me, Erik, and others. But it hasn't got done yet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>> Articles without verified  revisions will have a notice at the top that they
>> haven't been reviewed,  making clear the 'in-progress' state of the system.
>
> I suggested a validation scheme like this about two years ago on meta.

Many of us have been saying we should do this for two or three years, including
you, me, Erik, and others. But it hasn't got done yet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
Give the guy a brake. He was accused of being involved in JFK's
assaniation when he was one of the polebearers. He's understandablly
hurt. It just isn't good enough. We need to do something about getting
wikipedia 1.0 up and running.

-rjs.

On 11/30/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm
> >
> > Talk amongst yourselves.
>
> I find it ironic that this guy founded the "Freedom Forum First
> Amendment Center".  Sounds like he doesn't really care that much about
> the First Amendment.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
DO NOT SEND ME WORD ATTACHMENTS - I *WILL* BITE!
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sylvester-response.html>

Hit me: <http://robin.shannon.id.au> [broken]
Jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
Upgrade to kubuntu linux: <http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/breezy/>
Faith is under the left nipple. -- Martin Luther


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Patch: suppress auto-numbering of TOC and honour
	user prefs

body:
On 29/11/05, Netocrat <netocrat at dodo.com.au> wrote:
> Here's a new patch that deals solely with suppressing TOC/heading
> auto-numbering when a __NOTOCNUM__ directive is included in the page.
> Same reasoning as originally (e.g. for FAQ pages where deprecated answers
> are removed but new content should not reuse that answer's number):

> Let me know if there's a more appropriate place to submit this.

Well, I think the officially preferred way is to attach to a [new] bug
on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org and add the "patch" and "need-review"
keywords. I don't know for certain that that's any less likely to
disappear into the ether than here, though...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Jonathan Leybovich

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Credit card processing for forthcoming

body:
>
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:34:33 +0000
> From: Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk>
> Subject: Credit card processing for forthcoming
> fundraiser: Was: Re:
> 	[Wikitech-l] pages update call :-)
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Cc: board at wikimedia.org
>
>
> If there's going to be another fundraiser soon, does
> anyone know if any
> progress has been made towards accepting credit card
> donations?
>
> I believe that this could significantly improve the
> amount of money
> donated, by removing a barrier to donation for
> people would like to
> donate but do not have PayPal-style accounts, and do
> not want the hassle
> of money orders, inter-bank-transfers and so on.
>

Online credit card processing actually fits within the
expertise of my day job so hopefully I can be of some
help.  In order to directly accept credit card
payments the Wikimedia Foundation will have to
establish a "merchant" relationship with a credit card
payment system.  At least in the U.S. there are two
basic types: processor and gateway.  The former has
much more stringent requirements, including specific
network configurations (usually a leased-line
connection directly to the payment system) and a
lengthy certification process.  Gateways are much
simpler, and some allow connecting to their payment
servers over the Internet using generic protocols such
as HTTP.  The drawback to using gateways are that they
are middle-men whose services are simply wrappers on
top of processor specifications which the Foundation
could just as well directly implement.

The choice thus comes down to whether the increased
cost of using a gateway exceeds the headache of
directly dealing with a processor.  If the Foundation
wants to directly handle credit cards payments then
the first step is to talk with the payment systems
about rates.

I am confused, though, as to why PayPal is not a
viable option.  Every payment system imposes some sort
of per-transaction fee, and the 3% transaction amount
charge reflects not another part of PayPal's cut, but
simply the fact that the merchant receives money from
the card holder's bank immediately while the card
holder is given a 20-30 day grace period before
interest accrues on their new balance.  Thus switching
from PayPal may not necessarily save much on costs.

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
>>>
>> And who is going to have time to check all the sources. Also most of
>> the material that I write comes from books as I hate the external
>> link festivity some articles become. So who is going to check the
>> books I use. Hint you can find my library I have at my disposal in
>> Thailand here:
>> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Waerth/Mijn_bronnen (it is in
>> Dutch but you get my drift).
>>
> Creating a "References" section or using a template to make a proper
> book citation will be just as detectable as using an external link. We
> are currently only talking about citing sources, not about verifying
> them. Articles need to be referenced before their contents can be
> verified.

Yes I agree with the referencing point. But in some articles on en: all
sentences receive external links. Which is overdoing it imho. An article
should have general references in the reference section. Like Books
x,y,z, etc, websites a,b,c, etc. But not a reference for every sentence.
That is overdoing it.

>> Also I think it is wrong to play panick over one criticism. Yes
>> things need to be done. We knew that for years already. To now start
>> panicking and coming with emergency reactions we might not help the
>> situation.
>>
> This isn't panicking. This is doing what we should have been doing all
> along, and treating our article content with the same importance that
> we treat our image content. This is a step in the right direction.

It is panicking if I watch the deletion list on en: On which a perfectly
legit article by a highly regarded nl: contributor was put up dor
deletion by someone who doesn't know anything about the subject but
Quotes CITE and some other policies. The user wasn't even explained on
his own page why it was put up for deletion.

(URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/North_Slavic_languages
)

The real answer to this whole mess is (again imho) . Start becoming more
aggressive on sources when articles are editted by anons. It was an anon
that wrote the article that wasn't checked by anyone and made USA today.
But what is happening now is that users with a good trackrecord are
harassed more (this is happening on nl.wikipedia) while changes by anons
are given the benefit off the doubt because we do not want to scare the
anons (this is happening on nl.wikipedia). Sounds like something gone
awry there. I personally still assume good faith with people who
bothered to register. As 95% in my experience are serious and do not put
garbage on there. The problems are mostly coming from anons. Or Vandals
that seem to do it out of profession. Both of these groups should be
scrutinised more. And not the regular contributors who will normally
handle in good faith.

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
Xed Mac wrote:
> How do I use tables.sql? What do I need to type in the
> terminal?

$ mysql -u root -p your_database_name
mysql> SOURCE /path/to/mediawiki-1.5.3/maintenance/tables.sql

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> The problem is that the bulk of our content has no explicit source.  It
> may be correct and unchallenged, but no source is listed.  Additionally,
> a slightly more sophisticated level of vandalism would  simply list a
> spurious source. Beyond that lies referencing a source  which is known
> to be in error.

It's not necessary to source *everything*. Paris is the capital of
France, everyone knows that. We don't need to cite some obscure French
governmental listing which proves this.

What does need to be cited are facts which are not common knowledge
(like statistics) and opinions which must be attributed.

I've now started removing any additions to pages I have on my watchlist
which I do not think are common knowledge and have no source for the
claims, and I have asked contributors to cite where they are getting
this information from.

Chris


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE the Soi case

body:
The Soi case.

On the Dutch wikipedia I wrote the article [[soi]]. It was also written
on the english wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi)

According to the CITE principal this article should be deleted right now
as it is not from a book nor a website, but partly from my own and any
Thais experience. Even though it contains pure facts which are the truth
it doesn't cite anything as no sources are used. Note I didn't write the
english article but it basicaly says the same as the Dutch article.

Facts:
/*1) Soi*/ (Thai <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet>: *???*) is
the term used in Thailand <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand> for a
side-street branching off a major street (/thanon
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thanon&action=edit>/). An
alley is called a /Trok
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trok&action=edit>/.

All true but do not have it from any book.

2) Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by the name of the
major street and the number, as in "Sukhumvit Soi 4",

Also please come and have a look but not from any book

3) All the even-numbered sois are on one side of the street, the
odd-numbered ones on the other.

How do you want me to prove that from citations without flying you over
here?

4) If for instance a soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get
the name soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc.

Again fact new soi was added between 2 sois near my home got the 6/1
number as it was between sois 6 and 8. No sources sorry

5) Almost all sois also have a name.

I first wanted to be bolder as I have never seen a soi that doesn't also
have a name. But I decided to be a bit less sure about it

6) On lower Sukhumvit road in Bangkok for instance the soi's are named
after important landowners or families of landowners who had land in the
area in the past.

Verified with Thais whose families actually come from these landowners
and have been living in the area for a long time. Again no books.

7) Some sois become major thoroughfares and because of that get known by
their name only. Examples are Thonglor (Sukhumvit soi 55), Asoke
(Sukhumvit soi 21) etc.

Again plain fact. Books anyone?

So according to the CITE offensive this article and many like this
should be deleted even though there is nothing that is not the truth in
there. Is it original research? I do not think so. You see the problem
is when you start this CITE offensive one day one of our "police"
officers will find this article and put it up for deletion because there
are no sources. People take these so called guidelines much to strict
and cause damage with it.

This is why I would say be stricter on anons and newbies and maybe make
some kind of ranking of wikipedians that are known to work in good faith
or that are known IRL. Like me, anyone can always call me (see my
phonenumbers) I even put my homeaddress up once. I might not always be
able to quote directly where I got something from. But I am handling in
good faith.

And with me there are many people like me.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Xed Mac

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem importing using importDump.php

body:
Hmm. I don't really understand. How do I use mwdumper?
Double-clicking it comes up with an error ("The jar
file "mwdumper.jar" couldn't be launched. Check the
Console for possible error messages") . I'm almost
completely ignorant about unix stuff, so can you be
clearer? Is there one terminal command which will
import the "articles.xml" file that I mentioned into
my Wiki?

--- Doro?y?ski Janusz <dorozynskij at poczta.onet.pl>
wrote:

> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> | [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Xed Mac
> | Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 11:32 AM
> /
> | Hi all. Newbie here.
>
> Hi. :-)
>
> You must use mwdumper not importDump.php. It is most
> complex - you need at
> least two steps if not used pipe, but it is only
> right and quick way for
> very big wikis. importDump.php has still bugs and
> even if works, works as
> slow as snile (it's truth).
>
> Look http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps
>
> Using mwdumper with --order & --format you must
> preserve this sequence. If
> you code for ex. ... --format=sql:1.5
> --output=blabla ... you not get .sql
> but not converted .xml :-))
>
> 	Reg, Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

___________________________________________________________
WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html


from_name: Dorożyński Janusz

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
| [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Xed Mac
| Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 11:32 AM
/
| Hi all. Newbie here.

Hi. :-)

You must use mwdumper not importDump.php. It is most complex - you need at
least two steps if not used pipe, but it is only right and quick way for
very big wikis. importDump.php has still bugs and even if works, works as
slow as snile (it's truth).

Look http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

Using mwdumper with --order & --format you must preserve this sequence. If
you code for ex. ... --format=sql:1.5 --output=blabla ... you not get .sql
but not converted .xml :-))

	Reg, Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE - reacting and overreacting

body:
In a message dated 11/30/2005 1:07:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
chris at starglade.org writes:

I've now  started removing any additions to pages I have on my watchlist
which I do  not think are common knowledge and have no source for the
claims, and I  have asked contributors to cite where they are getting
this information  from.

I didnt want to get into this debate, but this kind of reaction worries me
no less than the problematic article itself.

Yes, the article was problematic, but it was one in 850,000. Yes, there may
be other problematic articles out there (in fact, I am convinced that there
are), but their number is miniscule as compared to most articles.

The problem article, and the ensuing press coverage, should be an  eye-opener
to everyone. Rather than just worry about quantity (the number of  articles,
or the number of edits), we should be worrying to the same degree, if  not
more, about quality (how comprehensive, how accurate). Of course, this is  much
more difficult to measure, but that is what will ensure that Wikipedia is a
high quality reference work. Deleting material because it is not yet sourced
will not ensure that.

Let's take advantage of this challenge to really improve our quality. Let's
not use it to take apart the efforts of many thousands of well-intentioned
volunteers who added what they knew. If we do that, the vandals have won.

Danny


body:
In a message dated 11/30/2005 6:00:01 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brion at pobox.com writes:

This'll  be a complete waste; no one will ever look at the "frozen" wiki and
it'll  be ignored. (Being 'wiki' or not is not relevant; it'll simply never
ever
been seen. To be useful, the stable versions need to be right out  front and
fully integrated into *.wikipedia.org where people are already  looking.)

What we need is a tagging system within the wiki, for a  review team to use to
mark certain revisions in certain  states.

Articles with verified revisions will show those by default to  the public,
with
a notice at the top of the screen about their status and  if there are newer
edits available.

Articles without verified  revisions will have a notice at the top that they
haven't been reviewed,  making clear the 'in-progress' state of the system.
I suggested a validation scheme like this about two years ago on meta.

Danny


from_name: J.F. de Wolff

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
Keith and Fred are both suggesting things that make Wiki not Wiki,
but would work for a free online encyclopedia in the long run. Do we
want anonymous editors spamming their URLs all over, or writing
"poop" or "Andrew is gay" in major pages? It's not wiki to lock them
out, but we're writing an encyclopedia.

I have recently seen numerous instances where anonymous editors have
removed vandalism, often within 30 minutes (or even quicker) on pages
that are not especially popular. This means several things. This
means anons can contribute very constructively, but it also means
that our traffic has reached the point that pages are served so
often. I wouldn't expect every visitor to correct the vandalism
(figure of 1:6 comes to mind). Therefore, every epidosde of vandalism
is witnessed by countless visitors until a kind soul picks it off,
either through RC patrol, a Wikipedian with the article on his/her
watchlist, or said anonymous saint.

Fred is suggesting a para-wiki where arcticles are fact-checked
before they go live. I would like to propose that as soon as an
article reaches featured article status, it is semi-protected. Only
registered users (or even registered users with a good track record)
can edit those pages. Changes can be proposed on talk by anons and
then be effectuated by registered users. This will put an editing
funnel on our most prized content.

Jfdwolff

--
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Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.10/188 - Release Date: 29/11/2005


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> Good move, but take it easy.

Have you ever known me to be anything but a diplomat? ;)

Chris


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


body:
In a message dated 11/30/2005 7:09:03 PM Eastern Standard Time,
chris at starglade.org writes:

I wasn't  talking about the article in question, I was talking in general
about the  kinds of pages on my watchlist where this happens (which are
mainly  politics/philosophy-related). Sorry for the  misunderstanding.

Chris

I still contend that we should not just be randomly removing material that
isnt sourced. We should not be working on the assumption that the material is
inaccurate. Rather than removing material, ask for sources or find people to
help source it. I want us to start with the assumption that the material is
good, unless proven otherwise, not that it is bad, unless proven good. Just
removing people's good-faith edits is not improving wikipedia either.

Danny


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- Katefan0 <katefan0 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Johntex's idea is essentially a spinoff of an
> "approved" version.  He essentially proposed that
> Wikipedia create an additional "tab" people could
> click on to see the last "approved" version.
> <snip>
> Thoughts?

I think it's a very good idea.

~~~~ Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/


from_name: Keith Old

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts
	Wikipedia

body:
We should look again at allowing anonymous edits, This seems to have been
the root of the problem.

Blogs and webforums have more rigorous requirements to leave remarks than we
do. I acknowledge that most anonymous editors contribute in good faith but
many do not.
Further, the cost of cleaning up after the ones who do not detracts from the
main work of writing the encyclopedia. I am not calling for credentialism
but registering as a user.

It also means that many users are blocked for 24 hours as a result of
sharing an IP with a vandal. I had to change my ISP last year because of
vandalism from someone else. We also have had rogue registered users but at
least we have procedures to deal with those.

Further, the anonymous nature of the edits means that many edits are
unfairly discounted because people can't be sure of the value of the edits.
As a volunteer of the help desk, I am aware of at least two professors who
have tried to edit but have had their edits removed. That may have been fair
enough in one case but the point remains. A point made by Professor X
carries much more weight than a point made by IP 123.xx.

A similar problem occurs with copyvios. On a couple of occasions, people
have uploaded material from their personal webpages which have been speedy
deleted as copyvios. If they were identified, there would have been a
greater chance that their right would have been recognised.

We need to do a cost/benefit analysis showing what we gain from allowing
anonymous edits compared to the losses of cleaning up vandalism from
anonymous edits.

Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster

On 11/30/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
> > I know what you're saying, and I don't think anyone on the
> > Foundation-L list would endorse anything like regulation or being on
> > the hook legally.
> > But this clearly should be added to the wake up calls -- "SOFIXIT"
> > does not cut it anymore. Wikipedia cannot enjoy the bragging rights of
> > a "Top 40" web site without changing its quality standards to match.
>
>
> The problem is that we peaked way too early. The site is late-alpha or
> early beta at best, and should have big 1995-style yellow and black
> "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs with really bad aliasing on most pages.
>
> There's no drastic solution that won't fuck up the community operations
> of the site. Running a hack'n'slash cull on the live site will lead to
> the current webcomics debacle times a thousand. We already have
> specialists in all sorts of areas saying they don't even want to bother
> starting to write up something they know for Wikipedia because (quote
> from Sunday's UK meet) "some idiot will delete it *because* they don't
> understand it." Imagine that outside attitude for a thousand specialist
> subjects.
>
>
> > I'm not convinced the Article Rating feature that is waiting in the
> > wings is the right or efficient way to do it. But we have to get
> > closer to the "1.0" solution. It's time.
>
>
> There isn't a fast way and article rating isn't a fast way either. There
> is no silver bullet. We are early beta (usable and testable but mostly
> composed of bugs) and the real world will need to get used to that,
> because there is no way to change that in the next week or month.
>
> I suspect we'll actually be able to work better if we're not flavour of
> the month.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
| [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Xed Mac
| Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 7:15 PM
/
| Hmm. I don't really understand. How do I use mwdumper?
| Double-clicking it comes up with an error ("The jar file
| "mwdumper.jar" couldn't be launched. Check the Console for
| possible error messages") . I'm almost completely ignorant
| about unix stuff, so can you be clearer? Is there one
| terminal command which will import the "articles.xml" file
| that I mentioned into my Wiki?

Well, you must have Java 1.5. Read
http://download.wikimedia.org/tools/README.txt . The more can explain
anybody here but not me. My unix experience is not so good that i can really
help, sorry. I work with Windows.

	Reg., J'E'D


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Katefan0 wrote:

> Johntex's idea is essentially a spinoff of an
> "approved" version.  He essentially proposed that
> Wikipedia create an additional "tab" people could
> click on to see the last "approved" version.
> Everybody can still edit the non-approved version,
> just as normal.  And I guess, taking the idea out to
> its logical extreme, at intervals the two versiosn
> would be compared and any new information meshed into
> the "approved" version.  This way everybody can still
> edit and contribute, but anyone concerned about
> ensuring the version they're looking at has been
> vetted thoroughly could simply click on the "approved"
> tab.

http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3303

would be in my opinion much more useful than a complicated article
validation form anyone can manipulate.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Brian

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>I think there is a good deal of un-necessary panic going around about
>this USA Today thing.  Did it really tell us anything new?  No.
>Misinformation in rarely visited articles has ALWAYS been a problem.
>
>
Yes, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything about it. We know
about it, now let's fix it.

>It's also not nearly as amenable to any kind of automated process as
>image tagging.
>
>
What is wrong with my suggestion? Just because it doesn't work as well
as image tagging doesn't mean that we shouldn't bother trying it at all.

>Let's not run around like headless chickens because some journalist
>found that conspiracy-theorist things had been put into his Wikipedia
>article.
>
>
That journalist writes for the most read paper in the US. He tells
everyone that Wikipedia is useless. People read that and believe that
Wikipedia is useless. This is a fact that we have to face, not ignore
out of pride.

>Fact is: Wikipedia's improving.  At quite a tremendous rate, in fact.
>It's easy to forget (a) the magnitude of the task, and (b) how bad we
>were even a year ago.
>
We can easily get to a point in time when we will be overwhelmed by the
number of editors and new content, and are wishing that we had taken
some sort of measures early on, rather than sit back and boast about
improvements.


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> Yes I agree with the referencing point. But in some articles on en: all
> sentences receive external links. Which is overdoing it imho. An article
> should have general references in the reference section. Like Books
> x,y,z, etc, websites a,b,c, etc. But not a reference for every sentence.
> That is overdoing it.

It depends on the article. Mostly those will be highly contentious
articles where the content of the sentences was in fact questioned. See
the talk page.

(I have occasionally written defensively on matters of controversy
between the participants, referencing each phrase.)

>> This isn't panicking. This is doing what we should have been doing all
>> along, and treating our article content with the same importance that
>> we treat our image content. This is a step in the right direction.

> It is panicking if I watch the deletion list on en: On which a perfectly
> legit article by a highly regarded nl: contributor was put up dor
> deletion by someone who doesn't know anything about the subject but
> Quotes CITE and some other policies.

Another nomination from ignorance, apparently. I'm not surprised there
are now webcomics about the way deletion works on en: in practice.

>
 The user wasn't even explained on
> his own page why it was put up for deletion.

I floated this idea on AFD's talk page. Apparently the regulars consider
it too much effort.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ... Doro?y?ski Janusz
| Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 6:22 PM
/
| Using mwdumper with --order & --format you must preserve ...

Of course mwdumper have --output parameter not --order. Sorry.

	Reg. J'E'D


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
Media stories about Wikipedia for your reference including an English story
about the German Wikipedia's copyright problems.

Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old
User: Capitalistroadster

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply at google.com>
Date: Nov 30, 2005 8:56 PM
Subject: Google Alert - Wikipedia
To: keithold at gmail.com

Google Alert for: *Wikipedia*

Web tool puts new face on
*Wikipedia*<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5975227.html>
ZDNet - USA
The popularity of *Wikipedia*, an online encyclopedia to which anyone can
contribute, is spawning a host of complementary tools and offshoots. *...*

Free Encyclopedia *Wikipedia*.de Has Copyright
Issues<http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1796407,00.html>
Deutsche Welle - Germany
The German version of free online encyclopedia *Wikipedia* has hit a glitch.
Hundreds of entries are thought to have been lifted from *...*

*Wikipedia* gets custom
interface<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,39239122,00.htm>
ZDNet UK - UK
The popularity of *Wikipedia*, an online encyclopaedia to which anyone can
contribute, is spawning a host of complementary tools and offshoots. *...*

A false *Wikipedia*
'biography'<http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm>
USA Today - USA
*...* I have no idea whose sick mind conceived the false, malicious
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information<http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/detail.asp?ID=72849&GRP=E>
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In recent times, searching names, places and other proper names has started
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------------------------------
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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Translation Barnstar Proposal

body:
I've been asked to help out with this.

Discussion on [[Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals#Babel Barnstar
for Translation|Babel Barnstar for Translation]] at [[WP:BAP]] has
been at a standstill for almost two months. If nothing is done
quickly, it'll be archived. Please join the discussion and let your
voice be heard. Translations should be recognized with their own
barnstar!

Mgm


subject:
Article version validation and import (was Re: [Foundation-l]
	Most	read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:

>>The validation system will, no doubt, suffer from two "flaws" in the
>>regard of offering reliability:
>>1. Anyone (at least, anyone with a username, if we turn off anons) can
>>"validate"

> Reads outnumber edits at least 200 to 1. Thus there is a HUGE potential
> resource of readers we can draw on to validate articles. I therefore think that
> when/if this feature goes live it should allow anon validation.

Absolutely. Remember, we're just gathering the data at this stage, so we
don't want to restrict the pool unnecessarily. We can decide what
applications make sense later. We'd probably separate the anon responses
from the logged-in responses, but the anon responses are the reading
public who made us top-40.

> But validators
> should also be able to rate the ratings of others (ala 'did you find this
> rating useful'). I also assume that comments will be collected. If problems
> arise, we could implement a trust matrix system for validators (anons could be
> nothing more than lowest rated though; their only effect would be in numbers).

Nice idea - please put a note on [[m:Article validation possible
problems]] :-)

>>2. Validations will have to be interpreted to simplify them to a
>>good/suspicious/bad rating

> A simple star system for a few different areas:
> 1) Completeness
> 2) Accuracy
> 3) Readability

The current [[m:En validation topics]] is reminiscent of the
[[:en:Oxford Capacity Analysis]] ... but I'm sure the
number of questions can be cut for the next round, seeing which ones
actually get responses usably.

>>There is a radical alternative, which I have begun to code a few weeks
>>ago. It alters a MediaWiki installation to "import-only", replacing
>>editing with an import function for an article version from wikipedia.
>>As the imported articles are not editable at all, they do not represent
>>a fork, merely a static wikipedia snapshot, alas per article and not for
>>the whole wikipedia. Such a system would allow imports only for
>>logged-in users, and be invite-only.

> Logged-in users should only be able to import the highest-rated version of
> articles that have at least x number of validations. That would negate the need
> to create a new user class. But if/when that is abused, then we may need to use
> a trust matrix system for users and only allow trusted users to import
> validated article versions. A hack would be to add a new user class and an
> admin-like community approval process. But I don't think that will scale fast
> enough.

This is a bit like [[:en:Wikipedia:Good articles]]. Such a read-only
wiki (if that's not too oxymoronic) would be a good place to put the
stable "1.0" version.

>>Individuals could then chose which "issue" to read, and mirrors could
>>decide if they want to go for "slow quality" or "fast unreliability"...

> Heck - why not just automatically add a prominent link at the top of each page
> that says 'Read the highest-rated version of this article' and mark those
> versions in the database so mirrors can choose to just display those versions?
> Then there would be no need for manual import. But it still may be a good idea
> to have trusted humans doing final reviews of reader-validated content.

I'm beginning to think we need to start [[m:Article validation possible
applications]] - or you could go now and do so, starting with the above!

> Either way works for me so long as the most up-to-date version of articles are
> displayed by default (as is now the case). Logged-in users should be able to
> change their preferences so they only see the highest rated version of articles
> if available.

This is similar to the 10-minute delay idea - where logged-in users get
the current version (with goatse, MR HENDERSON IS GAY, etc) and anons
get the delayed version.

>>Yes, a few people (compared to Wikipedia editors) will take a long time
>>to check/fix/import all Wikipedia articles. Also, the imported versions
>>will soon be outdated compared to Wikipedia. So what? This site will be
>>for reliability; Wikipedia is for development and current events coverage.

> A validation feature could feed an import queue: Article versions that reach a
> certain rating threshold could go into an RC-like list. Then a group of
> logged-in users check the queue and give the final go ahead for that article
> version to be marked as the 'Highest rated version' for that article.

Please add to [[m:Article validation possible applications]]!

>>I would see such a site working in parallel to the validation feature.
>>Some might argue that this would "split out forces", with some people
>>validating and some importing. OTOH, a little friendly compedition might
>>do good for motivation.

> Readers validate and editors import. I don't see how that is splitting out
> forces when readers do so little as is.

Volunteers will do what they damn well please. More things to do is not
a problem - the volunteers will choose to do whatever interests them
and/or they feel is important.

>>Lastly, there is one major reason to deploy such a site: Because it will
>>undoubtedly be deployed, by someone, sooner or later; I'd rather it's us
>>doing it than some company.

> I completely agree. We need to control this.

I think we'll do fine *if* we continue to do what makes sense for the
wiki, the community and the resulting article base without being spooked
by our popularity.

[wikien-l added back to cc:]

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Article version validation and import (was Re:
 [Foundation-l] Most	read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia)


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
There was a discussion a while back about introducing
new citation markup as part of the Wikicite project.
Yet today there is still no specialized mark-up for
defining citations within an article.  At best there
is the footnote feature, which replicates the
typographic conventions of citation in the print world
down to its fundamental limitations, such as its
inability to clearly delimit its own scope (i.e. which
parts of the text make use of a particular citation).
This problem is compounded in a wiki content-creation
environment; an editor can- in complete good faith-
insert new content in the middle of a footnote'd
sentence that hides the fact the new material is
completely uncited.

My proposal back then was to use an enclosing citation
markup, something like:

[[cite:ISBN:000000001X:p215|"cited
text"|"paraphrase"]]

Though this was meant as a stepping-stone to other
projects, in the near-term it can be used to catch
"citation holes" within an article by having the
renderer flag those areas of text that are unsourced.
Not only will this warn readers which sections of an
article are unreliable, it will also direct editors to
those parts of it most in need of their attention.
Here is my mock-up of the idea:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikiTextrose_article_citations.png

Outside of a few exceptions, an article should ideally
have a citation for EVERY factual assertion.  Walter's
example of the Soi article actually only confirms my
point.  There may be no books on the subject, but
there are probably lots of other "texts", such as
maps, guide books, civil engineering manuals, etc.

> 5) Almost all sois also have a name.
>
> I first wanted to be bolder as I have never seen a
> soi that doesn't also
> have a name. But I decided to be a bit less sure
> about it

By encouraging editors to prove every assertion with
evidence, we confront one of the most prevalent, if
lesser, evils on Wikipedia (which I've certainly been
guilty of before)- the resort to "obvious"
off-the-top-of-the-head knowledge which may not quite
be true, is probably remembered less than accurately,
and so must be couched in many qualifiers to hide
these two facts.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Enforcing WP:CITE


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Using Talk pages to influence Google
 results (Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia)

body:
Would it be a good idea to tell our robots.txt not to index talk pages?

- d.

jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
>   I wasn't aware that Google results were influenced by material on Talk pages.
> If this is true, it explains instances in which I have seen anons post some
> ideological screed in the article, have it removed, and then re-post it
> repeatedly into the article's Talk page.  Is this actually that effective a
> tactic for using Wikipedia as a soapbox?
>
>                                   Jason
>
>
>
> Quoting slimvirgin at gmail.com:
>
>
>>On 11/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>
>>>This case Slim Virgin mentions is in arbitration now and a blatant
>>>example of gaming Google by associating the name of the person with a
>>>lot of accusations he has only a marginal connection with ...
>>>At a minimum we need to not allow Google to index our talk pages. We
>>>talk about a lot of things. They may be about information but they
>>>are not encyclopedic.
>>
>>Fred, the case I was referring to isn't the one that's in arbitration,
>>though I know the one you mean, and it's quite similar. I'm starting
>>to wonder whether this is happening a lot: that troublemakers see our
>>talk pages as a sort of Trojan horse. They pretend to be having an
>>innocent conversation designed to sort out the good from the bad
>>material, whereas in fact the discussion is only a vehicle being used
>>to spread the bad stuff, which they know won't survive in our
>>articles.
>>
>>Sarah
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: John Lee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper
	blasts	Wikipedia

body:
sockmonk at gmail.com wrote:

>I wholeheartedly agree. I think allowing anonymous edits causes more
>problems than it solves. Registering is easy, and should not be a big
>deterrent to anyone for any reason I can think of. While I'm sure there are
>benefits, as Keith said they have to be seriously weighed against the
>disadvantages.
>
>--
>User:Wesley
>
>

How many times have we had this debate? It's been shown time and time
again that anonymous edits tend to bring more good than bad (except
possibly on [[Special:Newpages]]) and that there are tonnes of valid
reasons not to register and remain anonymous. Golly, if people are this
immediatist (do anything at any cost to make sure our encyclopedia
remains clean *now*) these days, I wonder what am I (I consider myself a
moderate immediatist).

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> On 11/29/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Personal file server ?
>
>
> You seem to be saying that the images were not used in articles for
> quite some time, were labeled as being used without a license (fair
> use), but because they were images personally important to you, they
> should be kept on Wikipedia servers forever. To me, that sounds like a
> "personal file server" -- a place to keep images for yourself, with no
> substantive relation to the Wikipedia project.

A long time ago (3 and a half years ago perhaps ?), I started a
wikiproject called the ecoregions, both in english and french. The idea
was to describe what some authors have been calling ecoregions, ie,
regions ecologically homogeneous, as opposed to "regions" defined by
political borders. In starting that project, I was aware it would go
very very slowly. There are more than 800 classicaly defined ecoregions
on Earth.
On the french wikipedia, at that time, I was the only one with remotedly
a biology/ecology/geology/pedology background, so it was unlikely the
project could interest anyone. While I was quite involved in it in
english, we were only 3-4 editors taking care of it. In particular Tom
Radulovitch.
Still, over the years, a few ecoregions were drafted, some in french,
others in english.

The project was inspired by a project started by the WWF, with funding
by the National Geographic, with a decent presence on the net and
particular a real neat GIS. I contacted the National Geographic two
years ago now, for a grant. It unfortunately did not succeeded.

I thought that if I could get a grant for this, I would stop working and
take care of this full time, because for me, it made more sense than the
real life job I was doing.

On the world map, work has been quite extensively done for some
continents, or rather political areas.  In particular Canada and Europe,
and of course, quite a bit in the USA as well. Now, other areas are
practically undone. And amongst those, Africa. I had the opportunity to
go several time in Africa in the past years, and other times my husband
as well. I, as an agronom and soil scientist, he, as a geologist and
mineralogist, were typically people who had great opportunities to bring
back real neat pictures of these areas, in particular areas which are
not reachable unless you accept to sleep on the rocks several nights in
a row.

When I decided to take care of that project, I had a long long long time
perspective. Not thinking in days or weeks as many contributors, nor in
months; but rather in years. So, little by little, I built up a frame
for that project, and on the 3 computers I have owned since I started
participating, I stored images. I put some on Wikipedia. The ecoregion
project was definitly in substantive relation to the Wikipedia project
and I would find a bit hurting that my storing a few images in the
perspective of some of the articles I would write later would be
interpretated as "personal storing" area.

As it happened, I was diverted from my original project, and chose
instead to offer much of my free time to the community good.

These weeks, I sometimes regret it. I must confess it. In the past few
weeks, I have spent possibly 15 hours taking care of trying to remove
mails from the english mailing list and english help desk per request of
a person. I have found it deeply UN-satisfying experience.

And I am now facing the question : is it really more worth to the
project that I answer jerks on OTRS, for the good of the community,
while I get no satisfaction of this activity, while it brings me so
appreciation from my peers and while it will *never* help me find a job
again in the future ?

Or is it best for the project that I go back taking care of the
ecoregions, and maybe at least get some academic recognition for my work
as well as the satisfaction of seeing the project grow ?

My mistake might be to have a long-term vision of Wikipedia. In keeping
these images under my user name, I go on believing that one day, I will
go back to doing something "constructive" as an editor, rather than
loosing my time on OTRS and other administrative tasks.

For me, deleting these images is a bit like abandonning the idea of that
project.

>>Again, maybe you may not really realised, but when I uploaded these
>>images, Commons did not existed. So, it was perfectly understandable
>>that an editor with a bunch of images that could be useful for the
>>encyclopedia would upload them where it was possible to upload them.
>
>
> The images in question, I thought, were tagged as "fair use". Which
> would not be allowed on Commons anyway. Nobody is deleting PD images
> which are unused, to my knowledge. The entire discussion is about the
> deletion of images labeled as "fair use" which are unused. If that's
> *not* what you are talking about then I suppose I (and others) have
> been confused about what you are complaining about from the beginning.
>
> Maybe there is a language barrier here, because I'm not quite following you.
>
> FF

I already explained the "fair use" issue around these images. What I
wrote above is an attempt to explain why these images are not used.
Possibly, for the topics which interest you, Wikipedia is roughly done.
For the topic which interest me, Wikipedia is still in infancy. It is
still a work ongoing :-)

In case you wonder, here is a link to one biome page :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_and_xeric_shrublands

Here is an example of one :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Deccan_dry_evergreen_forests

No pictures are available...

Still a lot to do :-)

Ant


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] the road to stability -- Yes! we have a winner!

body:
Kai Kumpf wrote:
> i know this topic keeps reoccuring and so my point may not be very
> original.
> it has been said that wikipedia is "work in progress" and will
> probably continue to to so. on the other hand it ails from the fact
> that at no given point in time you can be certain to have a 1.
> consistent , 2. unvandalized and 3. correct throughout wikipedia.
> (compared to those three points the shortcoming of non-completeness
> dwindles to almost nothing.)
> let me draw your attention to the fact that the construction plans for
> roads to stability - or at least local optima - have long been laid
> out by physics. heat a dynamic system quickly then let it cool down in
> a slower and controlled fashion, allowing less and less dramatic
> changes to take place as time passes. simulated annealing
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing) is the magic spell
> that might work for wikixyzs in a way similar to that in the real world.
> the rationale behind my suggestion is of course that articles that
> have matured over time are statistically speaking less likely to
> improve when large modifications are made than relatively new ones.
> some of the articles have reached a stage where well-meant editing
> effectively mucks up the inner structure and logic. what i think
> reasonable is to lift the threshold for substantial edits, maybe not
> by limiting access but by asking for more substantial background
> information from the authors (references, printed, electronic,...)
> than the simple comment line. there is to much unproven and partially
> unprovable information in the wp. that could have been prevented long
> ago by obliging the authors to give references for their information.
> besides, this task would make it successively harder to simply put
> established statements upside down. whereas scientific journals have
> peer review, wp only offers the weak weapons of discussion pages and
> reverts - by others, mostly admins, i guess. why not confer a little
> bit more of  responsibility to the authors? he/she could be aided by
> predefined lists, checkboxes, comboboxes (for ref. type, etc.)
> i find myself increasingly involved in hunting down vandals and their
> work - partly due to the ease of use wp offers for non-serious edits,
> too, and i can't help feeling that a larger and larger part of wp
> keeps a larger and larger part of the community busy with just keeping
> up the existing standard.
> comments?
> best
> kai (kku)
>

I agree with Kai on this completely; if Wikipedia is about optimization
by repeated random/evolutionary/whatever change, simulated annealing is
_the_ classic way to achieve stable results.

Once an article had been progressively and slowly "cooled" to a low
enough "temperature", it would be effectively frozen. If an article was
shown to be seriously wrong, or needed extensive revision, it could
always be "warmed up" again, either partially or all they way. The old
"cooled" version of the article could be marked in the history as the
"previous stable version".

In any case, as stable articles cooled down, they would change less and
less often, making the use of the article rating process (where ratings
must necessarily refer only to a single version) more and more useful.

Question: what would should a good algorithm for "cooling" and "heating"
pages be based on? Article ratings for the last few versions? Consensus
in an "articles for cooling" page? Intervention by admins?

Perhaps even some simple automatic heuristic like (for example) _very_
slowly cooling pages that are read repeatedly by a wide range of readers
over some significant time period and yet not edited (ie, implicitly
"validated" in a tiny way by those readers) during that time? Perhaps
articles should slowly "heat up" if not read for some time?

-- Neil


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Using Talk pages to influence Google
	results (Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia)

body:
On 11/30/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Would it be a good idea to tell our robots.txt not to index talk pages?

Our google sitemap file has given talk pages a far lower priority than
the actual articles.


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>> The validation system will, no doubt, suffer from two "flaws" in the
>> regard of offering reliability:
>> 1. Anyone (at least, anyone with a username, if we turn off anons) can
>> "validate"
>>
>
> Reads outnumber edits at least 200 to 1. Thus there is a HUGE potential
> resource of readers we can draw on to validate articles. I therefore think that
> when/if this feature goes live it should allow anon validation. But validators
> should also be able to rate the ratings of others (ala 'did you find this
> rating useful'). I also assume that comments will be collected. If problems
> arise, we could implement a trust matrix system for validators (anons could be
> nothing more than lowest rated though; their only effect would be in numbers).
>
There's currently no "was this rating useful" feature. Brion is already
worried about everyone voting for every revision of every page on a
dozen or so topics bogging down the site; now if everyone can also rate
every rating, we're in exponential hell ;-)

We'll have some more solid ground on this after we test-ran the
validation system (with anons) for some time. "Trust matrix" sounds
eerily like "Karma points", though :-(
>
>> 2. Validations will have to be interpreted to simplify them to a
>> good/suspicious/bad rating
>>
>
> A simple star system for a few different areas:
> 1) Completeness
> 2) Accuracy
> 3) Readability
>
That's what the user should see in the end; but:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/En_validation_topics
Try to automatically boil *that* down to a few stars. Problems I can see
at a glance:
* Are older revisions of an article considered for calculation the
"stars" of the current one? If yes, it will falsify the result for
vanalized pages. If no, every minor edit will reset the validation
counter to zero for the current version, until a few people vote for
that revision again.
* For a range of 1-5 points, are a "1" and a "5" vote the same as two
"3" votes? If yes, it hides an apparent controversy; if no, it opens the
door for vandal votes getting an unusually weigth.
And so on.
>
>> There is a radical alternative, which I have begun to code a few weeks
>> ago. It alters a MediaWiki installation to "import-only", replacing
>> editing with an import function for an article version from wikipedia.
>> As the imported articles are not editable at all, they do not represent
>> a fork, merely a static wikipedia snapshot, alas per article and not for
>> the whole wikipedia. Such a system would allow imports only for
>> logged-in users, and be invite-only.
>>
>
> Logged-in users should only be able to import the highest-rated version of
> articles that have at least x number of validations. That would negate the need
> to create a new user class. But if/when that is abused, then we may need to use
> a trust matrix system for users and only allow trusted users to import
> validated article versions. A hack would be to add a new user class and an
> admin-like community approval process. But I don't think that will scale fast
> enough.
>
That would make it dependent of the validation system (which I still
want to see, don't get me wrong:-)
The whole point of my proposal is to separate the new "user class" from
wikipedia entirely; it will be a separate project, but based on
wikipedia. The cathedral filtering the bazaar. The best of both worlds,
hopefully. If this turns out to be a flase hope, it can be trashed
easily enough without side effects for wikipedia.
>
>> Individuals could then chose which "issue" to read, and mirrors could
>> decide if they want to go for "slow quality" or "fast unreliability"...
>>
>
> Heck - why not just automatically add a prominent link at the top of each page
> that says 'Read the highest-rated version of this article' and mark those
> versions in the database so mirrors can choose to just display those versions?
> Then there would be no need for manual import. But it still may be a good idea
> to have trusted humans doing final reviews of reader-validated content.
>
> Either way works for me so long as the most up-to-date version of articles are
> displayed by default (as is now the case). Logged-in users should be able to
> change their preferences so they only see the highest rated version of articles
> if available.
>
We should definitely try something along those lines inside wikipedia.
All I'm saying is that the possible gain from a separate project is
high, the cost low, and a faliure will not affect Wikipedia in any way.
>
>> Yes, a few people (compared to Wikipedia editors) will take a long time
>> to check/fix/import all Wikipedia articles. Also, the imported versions
>> will soon be outdated compared to Wikipedia. So what? This site will be
>> for reliability; Wikipedia is for development and current events coverage.
>>
>
> A validation feature could feed an import queue: Article versions that reach a
> certain rating threshold could go into an RC-like list. Then a group of
> logged-in users check the queue and give the final go ahead for that article
> version to be marked as the 'Highest rated version' for that article.
>
That could be a nice tool.For "importers", there could also be a display
on each imported article how many versions have "passed" since the last
import, and maybe the current validation rating, compared to the one of
the imported version.
Which leaves the question of how to determine a high-rating article.
>
>> I would see such a site working in parallel to the validation feature.
>> Some might argue that this would "split out forces", with some people
>> validating and some importing. OTOH, a little friendly compedition might
>> do good for motivation.
>>
>
> Readers validate and editors import. I don't see how that is splitting out
> forces when readers do so little as is.
>
There's probably an overlap of wikipedians (in contrast to "mere"
readers) who might be very active in either function; that's the source
we'd be splitting.

The average reader who occasionally rates an article as good or bad
won't do any importing, that's right.

Magnus


body:
Thanks I'll try to get mwdumper working for me.
(Google shows 0 results for: "OS X" mwdumper.jar  !)

--- Doro?y?ski Janusz <dorozynskij at poczta.onet.pl>
wrote:

> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: ... Doro?y?ski Janusz
> | Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 6:22 PM
> /
> | Using mwdumper with --order & --format you must
> preserve ...
>
> Of course mwdumper have --output parameter not
> --order. Sorry.
>
> 	Reg. J'E'D
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to connect a wikicities project to a wikipedia?

body:
On 30/11/05, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Let's say a wikicities project has a description on Rome in a certain
> language - is there a possibility to insert an interwikilink to that
> language version withing wikipedia?

Typing [[Wikipedia:de:Rome]] should give you a link to
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome (redirecting magically via
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de:Rome), if that's the kind of thing you
were after.

Or did you mean the other way around, in which case you want something
like [[Wikicities:c:Ancientcoins:Rome]] (note the extra "c:" to
activate the magic redirection)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
(was "Problem importing using importDump.php")

Having given up on importDump.php, I'm now trying to
import all Wikipedia articles using mwdumper.jar

The command I typed into the terminal was:
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Commands/java
-jar /Users/xed/Desktop/mwdumper.jar --format=sql:1.5
/Users/xed/Desktop/20051127_pages_articles.xml.bz2 |
/usr/local/mysql-standard-5.0.16-osx10.4-powerpc/bin/mysql
-u wikiuser -p wikidb

After entering the database password it came up with
this error:
ERROR 1146 (42S02) at line 31: Table 'wikidb.text'
doesn't exist

...and then immediately started doing this:
1,000 pages (49.717/sec), 1,000 revs (49.717/sec)
2,000 pages (75.106/sec), 2,000 revs (75.106/sec)
3,000 pages (92.308/sec), 3,000 revs (92.308/sec)
4,000 pages (97.611/sec), 4,000 revs (97.611/sec)

..etc..

now it's up to
408,000 pages (306.929/sec), 408,000 revs
(306.929/sec)

..which is nice.

But what is it doing? Is it actually going into the
Wiki I set up? Looking at the "All pages" Special page
in my Wiki I just see the couple of pages that I had
already made. Are there any other steps I have to take
once mwdumper has done it's job?

Thanks
X

___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
just got the error:
650,000 pages (375.33/sec), 650,000 revs (375.33/sec)
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError:
Java heap space

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
Actually I don't really see the difference with a classical newspaper.
They can very well damage reputations... and actually they do ! But just
like freedom of the press, freedom of speech is more important than
individuals and Laws allow special liability regimes for both the press
and wikipedia.

Poe, Marshall wrote:
>
>
>
> Mark wrote:
>
>> And in this case, I don't see how ethical issues enter into it at all.
>
> Like this: deciding what you are going to say and what you aren't going
> to say is on some level an ethical or moral decision.  Similarly,
> deciding what you are going publish and what you aren't going to publish
> is an ethical or moral decision.  Now, we can deny this, but denial
> doesn't make it so.  In the case of the offended party in USAToday, WP
> (whoever that is) facilitated the publication of arguably libelous
> statements. Those statements harmed that individual. I can't speak for
> you, but this makes me uncomfortable.
>
>> If the biography is inaccurate, it should be edited, and in fact anyone
> (including the
>> offended person) can do so.  The ability to sue whoever first made it
> inaccurate is
>> superfluous.
>
> Maybe, but as someone said earlier, what if he hadn't found the article?
> What if it had seriously damaged his reputation? What if this damage
> extended to his ability to make a living and support his family?  The
> point about slander and libel is that the damage it does is very hard to
> undo.  Would correcting the article get this man his reputation back? I
> doubt it.
>
> The basic problem here is that no one stands behind the factual claims
> on Wikipedia--no publishers, no editors, no authors, just some amorphous
> and constantly changing "community." I should add that I say this as a
> *big fan* of WP. It worries me.
>
> Best,
>
> Marshall Poe
> The Atlantic Monthly
> www.memorywiki.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I didnt want to get into this debate, but this kind of reaction worries me
> no less than the problematic article itself.
>
> Yes, the article was problematic, but it was one in 850,000. Yes, there may
> be other problematic articles out there (in fact, I am convinced that there
> are), but their number is miniscule as compared to most articles.
>
> The problem article, and the ensuing press coverage, should be an  eye-opener
> to everyone. Rather than just worry about quantity (the number of  articles,
> or the number of edits), we should be worrying to the same degree, if  not
> more, about quality (how comprehensive, how accurate). Of course, this is  much
> more difficult to measure, but that is what will ensure that Wikipedia is a
> high quality reference work. Deleting material because it is not yet sourced
> will not ensure that.
>
> Let's take advantage of this challenge to really improve our quality. Let's
> not use it to take apart the efforts of many thousands of well-intentioned
> volunteers who added what they knew. If we do that, the vandals have won.

I wasn't talking about the article in question, I was talking in general
about the kinds of pages on my watchlist where this happens (which are
mainly politics/philosophy-related). Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Chris


subject: [Wikitech-l] Edits from bayle.wikimedia.org??

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

>>Doing a CheckUser, I saw someone as coming from 207.142.131.239.
>>That's bayle.wikimedia.org ... how does that show up as the IP an
>>edit's coming from?

> Recently, a long time ago?
> There were known misconfigurations some time in the past. Details are required,
> please.

Answered in detail offlist. The edits are from 3 Nov and 4 Nov only;
perhaps something was askew on those days.

- d.


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Let's say a wikicities project has a description on Rome in a certain
language - is there a possibility to insert an interwikilink to that
language version withing wikipedia?

Thanks for any hint!

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
geni wrote:

>On 11/28/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote
>
>>All of this was, in retrospect, a mistake.  But I'm not sure it can be
>>chalked up to 'eventualism', rather than other causes.
>>
>>
>By the same token imitatism can't be shown to have any downsides
>either. The problem with eventualism is that in most cases I can show
>it supports both sides of the debate.
>
That sounds like a description of NPOV.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] How to (safely) prune the database: removing oldest
	revision of Article, Talk, User, User_talk pages

body:
Thomas Gries wrote:
> Question to the database experts:
>
> - How can the database of MediaWiki 1.5.x safely be pruned
> ( in order to actually remove the oldest revisions of Article, Talk,
> User and User_talk pages ) ?

MediaWiki is designed to retain *all* versions permanently, so I wouldn't
recommend ever doing this.

If you want to anyway, then you'll need to be somewhat careful about how you go
about it; it'll be harder to do it 'safely' with the 1.5 schema.

> An older answer given to me begin of 2005 was
>
>   DELETE FROM old WHERE old_timestamp < '20050101000000'; or whatever
>
> Is it safe to use this statement or is another one recommended ?

Well that definitely won't work as there is no more 'old' table. :)

To destroy a stored revision you'll need to remove its entries from both:
* 'revision' table: one row for each revision, including the current version
* 'text' table: each row may be used by *one or more* revisions

If you are using multiple-row compression options, it will be difficult to
determine if a given text table entry is really unused. If you're not using
this, then you can just check on the join from revision.rev_text_id to text.old_id.

You could probably do a SELECT on revision and page to get non-current revisions
older than a certain date. Dump their rev_text_ids into a temporary table.
Delete the matching revisions from revision, then remove from the temporary
table any rev_text_ids that still exist in revision. Now, delete the rows from
text which match the remaining listed text rows. Might work.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Most read US newspaper blasts Wikipedia

body:
Katefan0 wrote:

> That does seem rather similar.  GMTA.  Has there been
> any coalescing behind this type of idea?

There's been a few such ideas. Have a look through
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Editorial_validation .
(That's where all the "Wikipedia 1.0"-type ideas go too.)

- d.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>
>Lastly, there is one major reason to deploy such a site: Because it will
>undoubtedly be deployed, by someone, sooner or later; I'd rather it's us
>doing it than some company.
>

I really like this idea Magnus :)

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE - reacting and overreacting

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I still contend that we should not just be randomly removing material that
> isnt sourced. We should not be working on the assumption that the material is
> inaccurate. Rather than removing material, ask for sources or find people to
> help source it. I want us to start with the assumption that the material is
> good, unless proven otherwise, not that it is bad, unless proven good. Just
> removing people's good-faith edits is not improving wikipedia either.

Is it possible for you to include some kind of distinguishing feature
between your email and the email you are replying to? This makes it
easier to tell the two apart. Also, your emails do not appear to be
including the In-Reply-To header, which is used in my email client to
thread messages (which means your messages appear to be a new thread).
Is it possible for you to fix this?

I'm not randomly removing material - it's only material which I do not
think is necessarily correct or is inaccurate (and therefore should not
be in the article). I make a habit of asking the person who added it to
cite a source for their claims.

I disagree that removing good-faith edits is not improving Wikipedia.
Removing good-faith edits which are obviously wrong and are due to
ignorance on the behalf of the person who added them is improving
Wikipedia, because inaccurate material is being removed. We should be
more concerned about removing good edits than good-faith edits.

Chris


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/28/05, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If the administrator places a warning on the uploader's talk page, in
>>addition to removing the image from articles where it's used, and
>>waits a week to give the uploader a chance to respond, it takes over
>>two minutes to delete an image.  This represents the additional time
>>needed to check for responses on the user's talk page, check for
>>responses on the talk page of the admin informing the user, and check
>>for responses on the image description page and image talk page -- and
>>99% of the time, it's wasted effort, as the uploader has forgotten
>>about Wikipedia entirely.  Total effort involved in cleaning up the
>>problem images: 1100 man-hours.
>>
>>
>So if 25 people spend 1 hour a week it'll take...less than a year.
>The problem with this would be?
>
>Even if it's wasted effort 99% of the time (and I think this is a
>gross exaggeration), what about at least notifying users who *are*
>active, like, say, someone who currently serves on the board of the
>foundation?
>
It's also easy to look at look at the person's list of contributions.
If he hasn't edited in over a year there's a high probability that he's
no longer around.

Ec


from_name: Xed Mac

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using mwdumper.jar on OS X

body:
How do I use tables.sql? What do I need to type in the
terminal?

Thanks

--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Xed Mac wrote:
> > After entering the database password it came up
> with
> > this error:
> > ERROR 1146 (42S02) at line 31: Table 'wikidb.text'
> > doesn't exist
>
> You didn't create the tables, so everything after
> this fails.
>
> Create the tables using maintenance/tables.sql from
> MediaWiki.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> > _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

body:
I insist that this problem is not different from the problem of
Newspapers or Magazines.

Wherever there is mass-diffusion, there is a risk of disinformation.

Matt Brown wrote:
> I think there is a good deal of un-necessary panic going around about
> this USA Today thing.  Did it really tell us anything new?  No.
> Misinformation in rarely visited articles has ALWAYS been a problem.
>
> It's also not nearly as amenable to any kind of automated process as
> image tagging.
>
> Let's not run around like headless chickens because some journalist
> found that conspiracy-theorist things had been put into his Wikipedia
> article.
>
> Fact is: Wikipedia's improving.  At quite a tremendous rate, in fact.
> It's easy to forget (a) the magnitude of the task, and (b) how bad we
> were even a year ago.
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE


references:
<dmf1h3$k8t$1@sea.gmane.org>	<2859ad8d0511280828y3264c1ebp3228850fa314555c@mail.gmail.com>	<dmfgge$cmr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<438B6AC9.7070704@myrealbox.com>	<dmft4k$rqn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<438C0912.7030507@myrealbox.com>

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
>> A year ago, fair use was authorized, with no mention if it was
>> authorized in the encyclopedic content or in the user page.
>> Amongst the two untaggued pages listed above, one was a picture of my
>> daughter and labelled as such. It was clearly not meant for
>> encyclopedic space.
>
>
> Ah, I see what you are saying. Yes it looks like policy was changed in
> this edit,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion&oldid=23949737
> on the 24 Septembe 2005, 23:53 by Kelly Martin, who comments it is
> Jimbo approved.  There's probably an important lesson here somewhere.

That page has been edited nearly 100 times since.  It's tagged as
official policy, but it's difficult to consider a page as representing
policy when its text is so unstable. Since checking the background of
each paragraph in a policy page would be unreasonable everything on the
page is in doubt.

Ec


body:
Anthere wrote:

> Steve Block wrote:
>
>> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>> Are there really admins who don't know who Anthere is?
>>
>> Yes.
>
> Very likely yes.
>
> I know of many non-english editors who have absolutely no idea who
> Jimbo is :-) So, yes.
>
> Steve, I am a very dangerous dissident. Beware.
>
> Amongst my crimes, I am french (which in itself is a crime for some
> editors, or a quality for others :-)).
>
> Another crime is that my english is far from perfect, which sometimes
> lead me to make strange statements, which might be shocking to some
> (or making their day...).
>
> Another crime is that I love arguing. A worse one is that I tend to
> take things personally.
>
> Also, I tried to keep the recipees in the english encyclopedia...
>
> I put 5 images or so under fair use, thus threatening the project in
> its whole.
>
> <small>I use powerpoint, word and excel at home</small> (which was
> very strongly criticized by a few at Wikimania...)
>
> I was blocked once by Jimbo in a 142 issue (granted, the situation was
> quite confused...).
>
> I have been called a vandal by RK (where is RK by the way ?).
>
> Now that I think about it, Mav also called me a vandal once, because I
> was working on an old computer with an old system, and I was all the
> time breaking special caracters and pages over 32 k... My technical
> inability is great.
>
> If you are a dangerous admin, I will unsysop you :-) Especially under
> PMS situation.
>
> Another crime is that I do consider Jimbo as a human being much more
> than a king. So, in spite of great respect for him, and long term
> appreciation to him for having changed my life, and much dedication to
> him as well, I also dare tell him when he is wrong and when he should
> get out of the way. So to speak.
>
> Other than that, I am 37, straight married female, 2 kids and pregnant
> (which might save admins).
>
> Uh, and yes, I joined the project in feb 2002, so rules have changed a
> lot since then..

You forgot to mention your sense of humour, which is always a useful
suppository when dealing with anal people.

Ec (who joined in the same month)


from_name: SJ

subject:
[Foundation-l] Requiring a References section (was Re: Enforcing
	WP:CITE)

body:
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Matt Brown wrote:

> I think there is a good deal of un-necessary panic going around about
> this USA Today thing.  Did it really tell us anything new?  No.
> Misinformation in rarely visited articles has ALWAYS been a problem.

I beg to differ : this highlighted one or two new things.

1) Wikipedia is important enough to significantly injure the reputations
of people/organizations that are known elsewhere on the web. It may
provide 2 or more of the top 10 search results for content about them.
    An old problem, but getting worse with increased popularity.  This is
the most egregious case I have seen.

2) While misinformation in rarely-visited articles has always been a
problem, yes, and seems almost characterizable -- at least, WP editors are
able to pick out potentially troublesome articles at a glance.  Truly
offensive and dangerous misinformation should be easiest of all to
characterize.
    Nevertheless, the biggest and most serious reusers of static copies of
WP content do not currently differentiate between possibly-problematic and
probably-unproblematic material.  This magnifies the impact of the problem,
and can confuse readers who are used to looking for more than one
independent sources, as 'independence' gets harder to identify.

3) This article was linked to from other pages. It was noticed and
wikified. At this stage, something could have been done about it.
    If the first page of our style guide included not only "how to bold the
topic" and "how to link out", but also "how to flag emotional or
controversial content" and "how to mark short, unsourced articles" -- this
might have been noticed and fixed during the ensuing three months.

> It's also not nearly as amenable to any kind of automated process as
> image tagging.

Why not?  Requiring a 'references' section for every article (thanking the
heavens that WP is not paper), and reminding every editor that *every* new
article should come with at least one reference, seems a responsible thing
to do.  Can you offer a reason not to have such a section for any article?

If you're writing about one of those topics that is a) not private
research/analysis of your own, but b) has never been written about
anywhere else [that you know of], then we need a new class of references :
"personal observation by [user]", with a relevant tag not unlike the
original-reporting templates used on Wikinews.  Then it will be crystal
clear that readers should visit your page, and see whether they trust you
as the primary/original observer/author.

> Fact is: Wikipedia's improving.  At quite a tremendous rate, in fact.
> It's easy to forget (a) the magnitude of the task, and (b) how bad we
> were even a year ago.

The responsibilities of being widely-read are growing at the same rate, if
not faster.

SJ


body:
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Delirium wrote:

> Delirium wrote:
>> I don't, in general, see a problem with this.  If something is incorrect in
>> any way, it should be corrected or removed (whether it is libelous or not
>> is irrelevant---non-libelous misinformation has no place either).
>
> I should add that, from both an ethical and legal perspective, this is pretty
> much exactly how all other publicly-editable forums works.  If someone posts
> a libelous message on an AOL message board, or in a livejournal, or anywhere

WHAT other publicly-editable forums?  I don't know of any at the level of
group-authorship of quotes, sentences, paragraphs, and essays.

Wikipedia has developed and propagated an elaborate and nuanced style
guide -- from the detailed external link policy down to the popularization
of the term "disambiguation" -- one of its greatest accomplishments.
This is what helps thousands of unrelated people to work together to
maintain a high apparent standard of quality and consistency.

WP also implicitly has an apparent editorial standard, as there is no
single name or person or author associated with an article -- not even a
list of names, if you just read the main article page and don't know which
magic buttons to press; other mediawiki instances (wikitravel) are better
about this.  No forum, newsgroup, etc I can think of has ever given off
that same impression.

--SJ


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more

body:
> > The entire goal of this project is freedom and openness.

That is incorrect. The entire goal of this project is to create the largest, most widely-used, and
best encyclopedia in the world and to give that to everybody on the planet. Everything else, and I
mean *everything* (including our openness and the community itself), is a means to *that* end.
Nothing more.

True, Wikipedia is effectively an experiment in openness and radical democracy. But that has never
been the goal or point of it. We have just found that experimenting in those areas have brought us
great success (at least in terms of growth). But the experiment continues and we will need to
adjust as events change. So we must change the way we do things if and/when any aspect of our
experimental methods show a systematic problem that adversely impacts quality.

Is the Seigenthaler incident a symptom of such a systematic problem? One can't use a single
example to prove such a thing, but it still should serve as a wake up call. That call is this: We
are big and popular now. Like it or not a great many people who never edit articles and never
will, trust (or at least use) us as a source. So I think we have an obligation to question our
methods when quality has slipped.

Saying SoGoFixIt when reads outnumber writes by more than 200 to 1 is no longer a valid retort.
However, I agree that killing the goose called Openness that laid the golden egg called Wikipedia
would be a huge mistake. But I think we can and should continue to improve the ways we try to tame
and monitor that beast (better RC patrol features, trust networks to filter RC and watchlists,
article validation, etc).

Openness has been a profitable gravy train for us. Let's not forget that the train is supposed to
be going toward a certain direction.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Patch: suppress auto-numbering of TOC and honour
	user prefs

body:
Presuming the full patch got through then this is not sufficient, you
also have to define that constant in MagicWord.php, it might work on
your server due to the lazyness of PHP but it'll spew errors on E_ALL.

Also, submit it to bugzilla, not the list.