body:
On 11/20/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> This page would have to be designed with the assumption that people will
> report things once and not come back onto that page (unless they're
> reporting more stuff).

You mean, assuming that they will report a problem, then not be
available to follow it up? I think that's a fair assumption for most
anons. Look at WP:AFC for proof.

Steve


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jacky PB

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] disambiguation, homophonous words,
	and helping illiterate people

body:
Hello,

I stumbled into a nice little problem concerning
desambig pages. I am not sure this is the right place
to present it, but I could find no policy on it.

So, when going on en.wiki, at "Jew (disambiguation)",
you will find that it does not only include the
various meanings of the word, but also many unrelated
but homophonous words (i.e., words that are pronounced
more or less the same way).

One editor explained me that this is normal, because,
I cite: "A great many peole can't spell, as a read
though the talk pages of messages shows".

The answer is apriori pertinent, and I think it raises
greater questions: Is phonetic search a goal of
wikipedia? Should we think about possible wrong
ortographs of words and put them on wikipedia?

If the subject has been discussed before, please point
me to it.

Thanks,
:en:User:Dpotop

____________________________________________________________________________________
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

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

> Although there has already been a massive exchange
> in the last 12
> hours, I'm going to respond to the initial question.
> One problem is
> first mover (or first discusser) bias, and the
> entire conversation has
> gone down one way, when I think it's best to start
> with a fresh look.
>
> What Damian mentioned about Wikicouncil as
> "representative democracy"
> is closest to what many Wikiretreaters in Frankfurt
> expressed - that a
> body of experienced, learned, informed, engaged and
> knowledgeable
> Wikimedians from different projects could form a
> body with real powers
> to decide on community matters and even for the
> purpose of being a
> body of electors for determinng the election of
> board members.
>
> Wikicouncil folks would be responsible for things
> that  that either we
> (inappropriately) appeal to the "board of trustees"
> to do now, or ask
> developers to do on the fly. It's not fair to ask
> Brion or Tim to be
> decisionmaker for community decisions from random
> parts of the
> Wikimedia universe, and it's traditionally beyond
> the scope of a
> "Board of Trustees" to be managing down to the
> approve/deny level of
> individual projects on a week to week basis. That's
> where a
> Wikicouncil would come in.
>
> As for the argument that Wikicouncil would not be a
> "direct
> democracy," I mentioned this to Erik in Frankfurt,
> but I believe there
> is a less compelling argument for every Wikimedian
> having equal vote
> as any other Wikimedian for some value of "n" edits
> and "m" months of
> membership. The idea of every community member
> getting equal say as in
> a "true democracy" is not compelling since there is
> no concept of
> "natural citizenship" in Wikipedia - people join by
> choice, they
> self-identify for tasks, and they elevate. It is
> different than a
> citizen of a country or territory. As Damian noted,
> many folks don't
> know, nor do they care, for issues related to higher
> level governance
> or WMF board matters. They're there to write an
> encyclopedia, create a
> Wikiversity course, contribute to Commons, etc. A
> Wikicouncil would
> have the expertise of folks who have put in the
> time, passion, energy
> and thought into working with the WMF community
> matters, while the
> board would oversee the big picture matters. I
> believe that the
> Wikicouncil would clarify and solve many of the
> problems we have now
> with the scope of board and executive level matters.
>
> In this sense, I think the idea of a Wikicouncil is
> quite familiar -
> I'd imagine a Wikicouncil would be made up most of
> folks you will find
> right now in Wikiproject leadership, chapter
> activities, committee
> involvement, and the like. It would be a
> formalization of what takes
> place already, but where there is currently no
> procedure or authority
> to act on group consensus.
>
> That is a brief summary of what hopes I saw people
> had in the idea for
> a Wikicouncil. I cannot speak for all the folks, so
> I invite other
> folks to chime in on this.
>
> -Andrew
>

I have not said anything because I am open to this
idea being developed in previously undiscussed ways.
But the above statments I do not understand.  How is
this in any way similar to the ways things take place
already?  It strikes me as anything but familiar.

I am willing to withold critiscism as people
brainstorm, but I find the above remarks quite
disturbing.  It is a few of the worst parts of old
ideas about the wikicouncil packaged as simply a
formalization of current process.  I am sorry these
ideas are in no way a representation of the way
current process works.

Birgitte SB

____________________________________________________________________________________
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list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


list: wikien-l

from_name: James Hare

subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old enough
	encyclopedias?

body:
You know what old encyclopedias could be good for? History. Not like history
changes while encyclopedias get upgraded (well, there can be some
discoveries but for the most part it's constant). However, encyclopedias and
other tertiary sources are not valid for formal research...

On 11/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 16/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying
> > to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our
> > lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be
> > misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.
>
>
> These have been claimed ... by my brother-in-law ;-D
>
>
> > I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids.
> > Nobody Cares (tm).
>
>
> Well, at least one!
>
> There must be sets like this around - old enough to be obsolete and
> unwanted, almost free with postage. Mathias, you may be able to find
> such a set from the UK if the US or Australia is too expensive ...
>
>
> - 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
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
I agree. This could be one of the role of it.
As a project grow, it becomes more and more difficult to find a key
person to get messages through (both ways) (depending on languages.
Obviously, it is not a problem in english).

Ant

Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
> This could probably be an advisory committee to the Board, someone through
> which the Board could run ideas and ask questions that would affect
> Wikimedia as a whole. Also, it would be similar to UninvitedCompany's idea
> of "Wikipedia ambassadors", or users who are responsible for spreading
> Wikimedia-wide messages to their local wikis.
>
> Titoxd.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard
> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 2:39 PM
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil
>
> On 19/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>>On 19/11/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>>This is about the Wikicouncil, as discussed on
>>>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil
>
>
>>>Sounds like a useful tool to deal with people who need to be kept busy
>>>and well away from anything important.
>
>
>>Do I detect yet another note of pessimism?
>
>
>
> No, I'm just not entirely sure what it's for, or what scaling problems
> it helps solve ... it seems like something to make people feel more
> involved, which is good; but its useful function isn't elegantly
> obvious.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>
>
>>Anyways, in that case we would have the Board of Trustees, the Advisory
>>Council, and the Wiki Council. Three councils. Why should we have three? Why
>>couldn't we compress it down to, oh, 2?
>>
>
> They would serve different purposes.  As I understand it
>
> The Trustees would pretty well do what they do now.  This is essentially
> deal with the business, legal and financial interests of the organization.

Nod.

> The Council would be made up of active Wikimedians, and could be
> involved in the detailed co-ordination of projects in a way that best
> assures and balances with the autonomy of each project.  It would have
> limited decision making power within pre-defined parameters.

Nod.
And *if* we decide so (and *this* of course is controversial), they
could be a body elected board members.
Or, if the board appoints some of its members, it could be the body
suggesting a list of names (of wikipedians or of external people) to the
board to pick up some future board members from it.

> The Advisors would mostly not be active Wikimedians.  They would help to
> keep us abreast of developments in the broader community, help in
> co-ordinating with outside projects, or even with lobbying.  They would
> have no decision making powers.

Nod. Note that the advisory board already exist and that we will start
populating it in 2 weeks time. Reminder: I am still waiting suggestions
of people to add on this board.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-November/011353.html

Ant
> Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

references:
<cbffa3750611171351l4b9ebee8j4b23e8fcb8bfc7c5@mail.gmail.com>
	<0bhsl256hej8v3t9sje7a7umfceurd53tk@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611171600u5078f4ack4ee4f2965613ad44@mail.gmail.com>
	<0chul2ljp2fphlfi0lt60h5ajb6tukjeqd@4ax.com>
	<455FBA2E.8050908@gmail.com>
	<vpb0m21mp317emtnkuvgf73lrpudkba19l@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611190433h10f8b78cob4a9f47a25de6961@mail.gmail.com>
	<45r1m2t2adfri6cpfpa3vkftu2hbjbir6m@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611191549q31b90732g44d77307ca42369b@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:49:25 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Ya know, it's just possible Alphax and I both knew exactly what you
>meant, him before you said it.

And there was me trying to be helpful...

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


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

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

dmehkeri at swi.com stated for the record:

> "Wikipedia: Arbeit macht die freie Enzyklop?die"
>
> Now get out there and SELL it, people,
> Dan

Okay, but first I'm adding it to my collection of sig-lines.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben?
 sean at epoptic.com | --Friedrich der Gro?e, Kolin, 18 June 1757
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFYdbf/SVOiq2uhHMRAg0DAKCJ3TU77Tf8DjzS+qC3wetz6oMSsQCfVHAx
7o09ea10Gqi5pflHI5AQWeU=
=YdBU
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
"worst parts of old ideas"

* being a body of electors for determinng the election
of board members

This is bad idea which I have said alot about in the
archives.  I think it is the most useless reason for
creating a council.

*the approve/deny level of individual projects on a
week to week basis. That's where a Wikicouncil would
come in.

Week to week decisions should stay in the hands of the
communities.  Not be bumped up to some interproject
council.

*Wikicouncil as "representative democracy" is closest
to what many Wikiretreaters in Frankfurt expressed

Given a scope I agree on; I can support the idea of a
self-selecting council, I can support the idea of
using existing admin, bcrat or steward structure to
somehow build a council, I can grudingly support a
simple direct election.  I cannot support a
representative election.  First, I do not believe it
will be effective.  Second, I am certain it will be
the most problamatic method to implement.  The point
is to get people who really want to do council-work
(whatever that ends up being).  Not hand out feathers
for people to put in their caps.

I don't see this as the community coming together to
form a council.  I am sorry, I just don't see that
when so much of the Wikimedia community is completely
unaware of this.  I just really feel this is being
done backwards.  You don't create a council to raise
awareness.  You raise awareness and then afterwards
you see how all the people would like to formalize
their participation.  There is not much participation
right now to formalize.

*But the concept of a group of dedicated, trusted and
respected Wikimedians from the community who can
thoughtfully deliberate and help lead community
matters... I'm willing to hear how people view this as
a bad thing.

Who is saying THAT is a bad thing?  Why don't you just
do it?  Start Council meetings with an open
invitation.  Work at recruiting people from smaller
projects.  Ask people to list their top problems for a
voluntary review.  Issue reccomendations.  Then once
you know how it will work and what people want out of
it ... Then get it formalized.  If that happens it
then it would be "a formalization of what takes place
already".  I think you should go for it.  I think
wikicouncil, as a general concept, has potential.  I
do not think we should trying to come up with a
finished concept to write into the by-laws first,
however.

Birgitte SB

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

> On 11/20/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Although there has already been a massive
> exchange
> > > in the last 12
> > > hours, I'm going to respond to the initial
> question.
> > > One problem is
> > > first mover (or first discusser) bias, and the
> > > entire conversation has
> > > gone down one way, when I think it's best to
> start
> > > with a fresh look.
> > >
> > > What Damian mentioned about Wikicouncil as
> > > "representative democracy"
> > > is closest to what many Wikiretreaters in
> Frankfurt
> > > expressed - that a
> > > body of experienced, learned, informed, engaged
> and
> > > knowledgeable
> > > Wikimedians from different projects could form a
> > > body with real powers
> > > to decide on community matters and even for the
> > > purpose of being a
> > > body of electors for determinng the election of
> > > board members.
> > >
> > > Wikicouncil folks would be responsible for
> things
> > > that  that either we
> > > (inappropriately) appeal to the "board of
> trustees"
> > > to do now, or ask
> > > developers to do on the fly. It's not fair to
> ask
> > > Brion or Tim to be
> > > decisionmaker for community decisions from
> random
> > > parts of the
> > > Wikimedia universe, and it's traditionally
> beyond
> > > the scope of a
> > > "Board of Trustees" to be managing down to the
> > > approve/deny level of
> > > individual projects on a week to week basis.
> That's
> > > where a
> > > Wikicouncil would come in.
> > >
> > > As for the argument that Wikicouncil would not
> be a
> > > "direct
> > > democracy," I mentioned this to Erik in
> Frankfurt,
> > > but I believe there
> > > is a less compelling argument for every
> Wikimedian
> > > having equal vote
> > > as any other Wikimedian for some value of "n"
> edits
> > > and "m" months of
> > > membership. The idea of every community member
> > > getting equal say as in
> > > a "true democracy" is not compelling since there
> is
> > > no concept of
> > > "natural citizenship" in Wikipedia - people join
> by
> > > choice, they
> > > self-identify for tasks, and they elevate. It is
> > > different than a
> > > citizen of a country or territory. As Damian
> noted,
> > > many folks don't
> > > know, nor do they care, for issues related to
> higher
> > > level governance
> > > or WMF board matters. They're there to write an
> > > encyclopedia, create a
> > > Wikiversity course, contribute to Commons, etc.
> A
> > > Wikicouncil would
> > > have the expertise of folks who have put in the
> > > time, passion, energy
> > > and thought into working with the WMF community
> > > matters, while the
> > > board would oversee the big picture matters. I
> > > believe that the
> > > Wikicouncil would clarify and solve many of the
> > > problems we have now
> > > with the scope of board and executive level
> matters.
> > >
> > > In this sense, I think the idea of a Wikicouncil
> is
> > > quite familiar -
> > > I'd imagine a Wikicouncil would be made up most
> of
> > > folks you will find
> > > right now in Wikiproject leadership, chapter
> > > activities, committee
> > > involvement, and the like. It would be a
> > > formalization of what takes
> > > place already, but where there is currently no
> > > procedure or authority
> > > to act on group consensus.
> > >
> > > That is a brief summary of what hopes I saw
> people
> > > had in the idea for
> > > a Wikicouncil. I cannot speak for all the folks,
> so
> > > I invite other
> > > folks to chime in on this.
> > >
> > > -Andrew
> > >
> >
> > I have not said anything because I am open to this
> > idea being developed in previously undiscussed
> ways.
> > But the above statments I do not understand.  How
> is
> > this in any way similar to the ways things take
> place
> > already?  It strikes me as anything but familiar.
> >
> > I am willing to withold critiscism as people
> > brainstorm, but I find the above remarks quite
> > disturbing.  It is a few of the worst parts of old
> > ideas about the wikicouncil packaged as simply a
> > formalization of current process.  I am sorry
> these
> > ideas are in no way a representation of the way
> > current process works.
>
> Maybe you can enlighten us on the "worst parts of
> old ideas about the
> Wikicouncil" because it's unclear what you're
> referring to.
>
> My point is that the community coming together to
> decide on what the
> community should do is familiar, in contrast to a
> "top down" system of
> command given the questions we're facing of what
> role the board and
> the executive should take.  (Anthere or another
> group at the retreat
> called it "blob" simply to get away from the
> historical baggage of the
> Wikicouncil name. Perhaps that's a good idea.) The
> Wikicouncil/blob
> idea would build on what the community already does
> well but would
> provide the formal structure to enact decisions with
> authority. It's
> no panacea, and there are no specifics yet as to the
> makeup of or
> appointment to council members.
>
> But the concept of a group of dedicated, trusted and
> respected
> Wikimedians from the community who can thoughtfully
> deliberate and
> help lead community matters... I'm willing to hear
> how people view
> this as a bad thing.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

Agree with Erik here. There are too many comms, etc. as it is. When
everyone
wants to be a chief, there are no indians left, and no work gets done :-)

Jeff

>On 11/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.
>>
>>
>
>Indeed. I'm not a big fan of the idea, but it is a nice buzzword that
>many people seem to identify with, regardless of the fact that they
>all seem to mean different things when they are using it. We already
>have quite a lot of bureaucracy, and I'd like to avoid the creation of
>new structures that are either redundant or potentially harmful. So
>let's see what possible functions a council could serve:
>
>* Advise the Board and CEO -- that's what the Advisory Board is for.
>I'd be open to structuring it in such a way to allow experts from the
>community an easy way in.
>* Make project-level decisions -- why replace direct democracy and
>consensus-based processes with a representative bureaucracy? I'd
>rather see more project-wide votes.
>* Act as project representatives to chapters and Foundation, to deal
>with confidential information -- we already have the committees. We
>still haven't figured out a way to make them work, especially the
>SP-COM, which is exactly tasked with developing partnerships around
>the projects. I'd rather restructure these existing groups than
>inventing a completely new one.
>* Raise awareness of the Foundation within the projects -- a group
>that merely exists to raise awareness can form without the permission
>of the Foundation. Indeed, such informal groups are probably far less
>likely to cause trouble than a "Wikicouncil".
>
>My biggest fear is that we start with something poorly defined, or
>with a very narrow scope, and it evolves into a decision-making
>structure that replaces existing community processes.Where these
>processes are currently dysfunctional, I don't think replacing them
>with a new system is likely to be a good idea. The causes of the
>dysfunction may only be moved to a different level.
>
>I suggest, as an alternative, that the existing committee and
>subcommittee structures be reformed and surrounded with completely
>open "Open Interest Groups" without legal authority. I will make a
>specific proposal for that in the near future.
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Making it easier for the public to help out

body:
On 20/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aha:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem
>
> This is good. But this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error
>
> should be simplified to:
>
> Solution:
> What is the error?
> [edit box]
>
> (Submit) <-- button

Mmmh. I'm much more in favour of a solution that *isn't* {{sofixit}} -
this is not just for people who don't realise they can edit, it's also
for the substantial number of people who don't *want* to, but would
vaguely like to help in some way*.

What I would like to see is the following:

A sidebar button, of some form. "Found a mistake?" "Problem?" "Report
a problem", whatever. You click this, it spawns a new window**, and
says

---

Think there's a problem with this article?

a) Click here to flag the article for attention [submit button]

-or- (preferred)

b) Leave us a message describing the problem, which will help us fix
it [textbox and submit button]

---

If they don't want to have *any interaction at all* beyond pressing
that button, it's fine, and we should take that input without
demanding more out of them. (We can always ignore it if it's not
helpful)

As to what happens then...

a) We make this an email-form. It gets routed straight to some kind of
OTRS-like ticket system, which has fairly liberal access given to it -
the point here isn't to make it "private", it's to make it easy to see
what's been handled and when a backlog builds up.

b) We send "message describing the problem" straight as some kind of
new section to a central page for this sort of thing, and have "flag
this article" just subst a standard template ({{lookatthis}} - heh)
onto there. Remember, these articles are likely to be dormant ones, so
a talkpage message may well be ineffective...

c) The same as b), except it makes some kind of "mask account" do it,
rather than just the edit being treated as coming from the reader -
who, after all, may be banned unknown to themselves. It also ensures
anonymity of flaggin, which may be seen as desirable.

These may require some kind of not-quite-MediaWiki implementation, but
that would in some ways be good - we want this to be free of some of
the mediawiki constraints, like IP-blocking and so forth.

I'm personally quite taken by a), since it would seem to scale better
than a single page, but it has the detriment fewer people would handle
it. On the other hand, it would ensure some level of privacy if, eg,
people started leaving personal info in their messages.

Thoughts?

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

* An awful lot of emails to OTRS boil down to "I don't want to
edit/don't feel comfortable editing/am incapable of editing, but
thought you should know about problem XYZ with this article." We need
to find some way of making practical use of these people...

**if this is possible and won't cause problems with popup-blockers


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On 20/11/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> a) We make this an email-form. It gets routed straight to some kind of
> OTRS-like ticket system, which has fairly liberal access given to it -
> the point here isn't to make it "private", it's to make it easy to see
> what's been handled and when a backlog builds up.

For those who are ignorant of what "OTRS" is (as was I just now) it's at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS . I had no idea such a thing existed.

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 11/20/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure "Improve this article" is precise enough to convey the
> function of the tab. Everytime I edit an article, I aim to improve the
> article. I would prefer a wording closer to "Is there something wrong
> with this article?"

Me too. Our audience here is not our standard wikipedia contributor,
it's your average passer-by who is not expecting to contribute
anything. How about "Spot a mistake?" Something engaging, in
colloquial English is probably the way to go.

Steve


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
On 11/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.

Indeed. I'm not a big fan of the idea, but it is a nice buzzword that
many people seem to identify with, regardless of the fact that they
all seem to mean different things when they are using it. We already
have quite a lot of bureaucracy, and I'd like to avoid the creation of
new structures that are either redundant or potentially harmful. So
let's see what possible functions a council could serve:

* Advise the Board and CEO -- that's what the Advisory Board is for.
I'd be open to structuring it in such a way to allow experts from the
community an easy way in.
* Make project-level decisions -- why replace direct democracy and
consensus-based processes with a representative bureaucracy? I'd
rather see more project-wide votes.
* Act as project representatives to chapters and Foundation, to deal
with confidential information -- we already have the committees. We
still haven't figured out a way to make them work, especially the
SP-COM, which is exactly tasked with developing partnerships around
the projects. I'd rather restructure these existing groups than
inventing a completely new one.
* Raise awareness of the Foundation within the projects -- a group
that merely exists to raise awareness can form without the permission
of the Foundation. Indeed, such informal groups are probably far less
likely to cause trouble than a "Wikicouncil".

My biggest fear is that we start with something poorly defined, or
with a very narrow scope, and it evolves into a decision-making
structure that replaces existing community processes.Where these
processes are currently dysfunctional, I don't think replacing them
with a new system is likely to be a good idea. The causes of the
dysfunction may only be moved to a different level.

I suggest, as an alternative, that the existing committee and
subcommittee structures be reformed and surrounded with completely
open "Open Interest Groups" without legal authority. I will make a
specific proposal for that in the near future.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Community sanctions"

body:
> On 19/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:28:06 +1030, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
> > <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >Work shall set them free.
>
> > Ooh, careful there, I can translate that into German, y'know.
>
>
> "Vorsprung durch Technik"? "Fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn"?
>
>
> - d.
>

"Wikipedia: Arbeit macht die freie Enzyklop?die"

Now get out there and SELL it, people,
Dan


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Approach

In particular

No criticism
It is often emphasized that in group brainstorming, criticism should be
put 'on hold'. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with
an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it, reserving
criticism for a later 'critical stage' of the process. By suspending
judgment, you create a supportive atmosphere where participants feel
free to generate unusual ideas.

Thanks for not killing ideas in the egg. That's not helpful in the long
run imho.

Anthere

Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 11/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.
>
>
> Indeed. I'm not a big fan of the idea, but it is a nice buzzword that
> many people seem to identify with, regardless of the fact that they
> all seem to mean different things when they are using it. We already
> have quite a lot of bureaucracy, and I'd like to avoid the creation of
> new structures that are either redundant or potentially harmful. So
> let's see what possible functions a council could serve:
>
> * Advise the Board and CEO -- that's what the Advisory Board is for.
> I'd be open to structuring it in such a way to allow experts from the
> community an easy way in.
> * Make project-level decisions -- why replace direct democracy and
> consensus-based processes with a representative bureaucracy? I'd
> rather see more project-wide votes.
> * Act as project representatives to chapters and Foundation, to deal
> with confidential information -- we already have the committees. We
> still haven't figured out a way to make them work, especially the
> SP-COM, which is exactly tasked with developing partnerships around
> the projects. I'd rather restructure these existing groups than
> inventing a completely new one.
> * Raise awareness of the Foundation within the projects -- a group
> that merely exists to raise awareness can form without the permission
> of the Foundation. Indeed, such informal groups are probably far less
> likely to cause trouble than a "Wikicouncil".
>
> My biggest fear is that we start with something poorly defined, or
> with a very narrow scope, and it evolves into a decision-making
> structure that replaces existing community processes.Where these
> processes are currently dysfunctional, I don't think replacing them
> with a new system is likely to be a good idea. The causes of the
> dysfunction may only be moved to a different level.
>
> I suggest, as an alternative, that the existing committee and
> subcommittee structures be reformed and surrounded with completely
> open "Open Interest Groups" without legal authority. I will make a
> specific proposal for that in the near future.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	Wikimedia Foundatio

body:
On 11/17/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK... except that Erik specifically stated that these mission and
> vision statements would be the things cited in explaining why WMF
> would or would not support WikiFoo.

Only in a very broad and general way. We want to be careful not to
exclude too much a priori. But I am personally very much in favor of
using the word "Knowledge" in the Mission & Vision statements, because
it is, depending on how we interpret it (and we can argue for an
interpretation based on the existing projects), already a fairly good
limitation of scope. Florence has now objected to this word in the
unstable Mission Statement and replaced it with "content". I still
haven't seen an adequate explanation why "knowledge" should not be
used.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

references:
<ejpvce$i6v$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<b80736c80611200137q227b27bfid705ad67c11c0012@mail.gmail.com>
	<ejrtl1$h9u$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 11/20/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Thanks for not killing ideas in the egg.

This particular egg is starting to smell funny, though ..
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] New TLD? (was: How to enable
	Template:Languagesfunctionality)

body:
On Mon, Nov 20, 2006 at 03:43:58PM -0000, Mark Clements wrote:
> Why not use .info - surely that is what the domain is for?
>
> .wiki is certainly a bad idea as it tells me nothing about the content or
> purpose of the site.

Strictly speaking, .info and .net (other common approaches to that)
don't do that either.  :-)

I rather like .wiki, actually.

I wish they'd just get the hell out of the way, put some business and
technical restraints in place, and open the TLD namespace.

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

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
On 11/20/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> This particular egg is starting to smell funny, though ..

Ahem, apologies for being so negative. The Wikicouncil was first
proposed in May 2005 and I haven't seen any significant development of
the idea since then. I agree with Erik Zachte that it would make sense
for those who support such a concept to develop proposals on their
own, though I would like to see answers to the points I raised.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 11/20/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks for not killing ideas in the egg.
>
>
> This particular egg is starting to smell funny, though ..

A chinese delicacy :-)
Okay, it is not a young suggestion

Let's do an omelet with wikicouncil, single login, wikidata, children
filters, and other ancient concepts.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Category:User scripts

body:
On 20/11/06, Larry Pieniazek <lar at miltontrainworks.com> wrote:
> Question on the above
>
> Should we maybe move the popups and edit counter stuff to there???

For sure. Anything which is likely to be useful to a bunch of users.

Brianna


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 16/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> A friend of mine has a 1980 set of Encyclopedia Britannica he's trying
> to get rid of. They're not going to be public domain in many of our
> lifetimes and the information will be out of date enough to be
> misleading in many ways - they would not be appropriate for a school.

These have been claimed ... by my brother-in-law ;-D

> I see there's another 1980 EB on eBay right now that's had no bids.
> Nobody Cares (tm).

Well, at least one!

There must be sets like this around - old enough to be obsolete and
unwanted, almost free with postage. Mathias, you may be able to find
such a set from the UK if the US or Australia is too expensive ...

- d.


from_name: Luna

body:
I think the idea is to help the reader find what they're looking for as
quickly as possible. In some cases, the article they want is obvious; in
other cases, not so much. I suppose there's room for very common spelling
errors, or very unambiguous ones. But some of those disambig pages are
already pretty crowded, as is -- if it improves usability, by all means go
for it, but be careful that it *does* in fact improve usability.

Or that's how I figure it, anyway.

On 11/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 20/11/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > The answer is apriori pertinent, and I think it raises
> > greater questions: Is phonetic search a goal of
> > wikipedia? Should we think about possible wrong
> > ortographs of words and put them on wikipedia?
>
>
> I frequently make misspellings into redirects ... particularly if I
> made the error myself.
>
> Most entries could probably do with a forest of redirects, because
> they will help the reader find the article just by typing a plausible
> name into the search box.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
If an article is deleted unfairly or out of process, is it more reasonable
to amend fundamental policies, or would it be much simpler and easier to
just take the matter to deletion review?

[[WP:DRV]] is happily available for such claims.

-Luna

On 11/20/06, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/11/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > pfft. we need a7, that's how we get rid of the myspace teens and the
> > wanna-be-a-big-businesses. Do you have an example of an article that was
> > "unfairly" deleted? If it's used improperly, remove the tag. Either way,
> > the
> > admin won't delete it if it isn't really nn.
> >
> > --
> > ST47
> > Editor, en.wikipedia
> >
>
> And using it to delete an article about a student society at a University?
> OK, certainly a debatable article for inclusion in Wikipedia, but the mere
> fact of its attachment to a clearly notable University should be reason
> enough not to have a speedy deletion under A7.
>
> Much more an AFD candidate if there is suggestion that it is too trivial
> to
> include on Wikipedia. For example (as opposite arguements to deletion in a
> debate), there are clearly student societies that should have a page; e.g.
> those that are historic, notable in themselves (not just because of the
> Uni), very relevant to notable people who were members (with it being
> relevant to their career/fame).
>
> Now I have only given the example of a student society. With A7 as it is,
> there is clearly leeway for a host of articles to be deleted, whose
> deletion
> should instead be debated (even if it clearly establishes that said
> article
> can be deleted, or more probably, merged).
>
> Zoney
>
> --
> ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Commons-l] Category:User scripts

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 20/11/06, Larry Pieniazek <lar at miltontrainworks.com> wrote:
>> Question on the above
>>
>> Should we maybe move the popups and edit counter stuff to there???
>
> For sure. Anything which is likely to be useful to a bunch of users.
>

Actually I'm a bit wary of the "commonised" version of Popups; I'm not
sure that it's been kept in synch with the enwiki "master copy".

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 11/20/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > Q: Why don't we give more great functionality to our users?
> > A: Because there are evil people out there.
> >
> > I don't like this reasoning.
>
> Whether or not you like it has little bearing on the issue.

Would it be better if I phrased this is "this is bad reasoning, please
don't do this"? Yes, there are vandals. Yes, we have ways of dealing
with them. No, we should not avoid implementing something on the
faulty assumption that its use by vandals will outweigh its benefits?

Has rollback-for-everyone even been trialled?

Steve


body:
On 11/20/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure if it would be useful for anything beyond tags
> that apply to articles as a whole, but it seems like a
> useful way for identifying common problems like spin-offs
> (or whatever you call the problem when someone
> intentionally creates a new article to support their
> personal agenda).

"POV forks", believe it or not.

Tagging is all we want to get out of these drive-by-ers. We have
articles that don't average an edit per month, but may get something
like 10 page views. If one of those viewers can just alert us to the
fact that there's something badly wrong that can be fixed (slander,
plagiarism etc), then we're much better off than we are now.

> 3) automatically keep a count of how many users (e.g., 5)
> think the articles should be combined before official
> merger nomination thingees are inserted into the articles.

Since we're really talking about non-Wikipedians alerting us to stuff,
it's probably not appropriate for their 5 second interaction to result
in a change to the article itself. They won't know the policies,
guidelines etc relating to when articles should and shouldn't be
merged. But letting us know that there are two really similar (and in
their view, confusingly so) articles would be great.

I guess I'm picturing a model where people can easily flag a problem,
and that flag is listed both at the article and at some central
repository as an issue that should be addressed pretty urgently. Other
people can then come past and take action, either by inserting the
appropriate merge templates, adding {{copyvio}} or whatever. With some
knowledge of what they're doing...and if the original flagger is
mistaken, they can simply replace {{flagged problem}} with {{no
problem}} or something.

> It might also reduce admin annoyances/work where more
> active readers not familiar with all the wiki bureaucracy
> simply de-duplicate the articles themselves, blanking 1
> duplicate and adjusting the other, only to have an admin
> auto-revert all the potentially helpful work.

Definitely.

Steve


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Help requested for language names

body:
Hoi,
At WiktionaryZ we have started the implementation of an important new bit of
functionality .. We now show the names of languages in the language of the
user interface. This functionality is in two phases; first translations have
to be added to the languages (they have been tagged with their ISO-639-3
code). The import can be run on request.

It may be that for some languages the import does not work properly; we have
found that (cy - cym Wesh) does not work properly and there are also issues
with things like American / British English, traditional and simplified
Mandarin or Cyrillic and Latin Serbian. We would like your help with
improving this important part of the User Interface as it is a core part of
making our content appear in your language. The link below will help you
find what you are looking for. For help try #wiktionaryz on IRC or the
[[Insect Room]] or the [[International Beer Parlour]].

I want to thank Leftmost for his work on this functionality. :)

Thanks,
     GerardM

http://wiktionaryz.org/Special:Datasearch?title=Special%3ADatasearch&search-text=&collection=145264&show=Show


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 11/20/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/20/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > How about a tab? I'm not sure how we'd reduce "Is there a problem?" to
> > > one word though.
> >
> > Tabs are IMHO kind of invisible. People I've spoken to have never
> > noticed them before. Everyone's used Wikipedia. Not many realise there
> > is a "History" tab, for instance. I'm thinking a big green friendly
> > bubble.
>
> Would dissrupt reading experence. A red outlined tab perhaps?

We could always add something to the sidebar. If you go to Commons you
can see the general idea, there they have a bar called "navigate" and
a bar called "participate". The sidebar is customisable in-wiki by
editing [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]].

Of course, it would be nice to be able to style it so that it stands
out - a slight modification to the way the skin renders the HTML could
add an "id" parameter to each div in the sidebar, which could then be
styled via [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]].

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 11/20/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll be working on a page where people can see a list of common article
> issues, then it'll tell them how to fix it themselves, or if they're afraid
> to do that, they can click a link and they basically fill out a boilerplate
> reporting the issue.

We could take the "contact us" pages as a model. The first page would
present common issues and people would follow them through step by
step.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On 12/11/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> pfft. we need a7, that's how we get rid of the myspace teens and the
> wanna-be-a-big-businesses. Do you have an example of an article that was
> "unfairly" deleted? If it's used improperly, remove the tag. Either way,
> the
> admin won't delete it if it isn't really nn.
>
> --
> ST47
> Editor, en.wikipedia
>

And using it to delete an article about a student society at a University?
OK, certainly a debatable article for inclusion in Wikipedia, but the mere
fact of its attachment to a clearly notable University should be reason
enough not to have a speedy deletion under A7.

Much more an AFD candidate if there is suggestion that it is too trivial to
include on Wikipedia. For example (as opposite arguements to deletion in a
debate), there are clearly student societies that should have a page; e.g.
those that are historic, notable in themselves (not just because of the
Uni), very relevant to notable people who were members (with it being
relevant to their career/fame).

Now I have only given the example of a student society. With A7 as it is,
there is clearly leeway for a host of articles to be deleted, whose deletion
should instead be debated (even if it clearly establishes that said article
can be deleted, or more probably, merged).

Zoney

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Implementing a licensing quiz on Commons

body:
On 11/16/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
> OTOH, that could be a cool extension. Think determining something
> based on a series on yes-no decisions - this is how you can identify
> plants (using a book) or the car that matches you best (a German
> newspaper does that every odd year or so). It could work with
> specially prepared wiki pages. Oh, if I only had more time to code...

You could easily implement this just as a series of pages with
multiple answers, with the right answer linking to the next page. Yes,
easily defeated, but so would any quiz be.

Example:

When will Mickey Mouse become public domain:
*[[Q1A|1995]]
*[[Q1B|2005]]
*[[Q1C|2015]]
*[[Q1D|Never]]

Q1A, Q1B and Q1C all redirect to some "no, that's incorrect, try
again". Q1D redirects to Q2.

Easy. No extension required. Just ask people not to publish the link
to the final upload page.

Steve


body:
On 20/11/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The answer is apriori pertinent, and I think it raises
> greater questions: Is phonetic search a goal of
> wikipedia? Should we think about possible wrong
> ortographs of words and put them on wikipedia?

I frequently make misspellings into redirects ... particularly if I
made the error myself.

Most entries could probably do with a forest of redirects, because
they will help the reader find the article just by typing a plausible
name into the search box.

- d.


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:  [17714] trunk/phase3

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
>
>>-'old-revision-navigation' => 'Revision as of $1; $5
($6) $3 | $2 | $4 ($7)',
>>+'old-revision-navigation' => 'Revision as of $1; $5
($6) $3 | $2 ($8) | $4 ($7)',
>
> A note: changing the existing message this way means that customized
> versions will not show the new functionality.
>
> If it's important to add, it may be more appropriate to rename the message.

As a historical note, that particular message has gone through three or
four such name changes (some only changing punctuation) already, as new
parameters have been added.  One can probably get a fairly good idea of
its evolution by observing the strange order of the numbered parameters.

> Actually this message should probably be broken up anyway; it seems
> badly factored to me, mixing a line of text and what should probably be
> a programmatic line of links into a single HTML message.

I tried that back when I added the diff links ($6 and $7), but someone
(can't remember who any more) complained that the punctuation should be
customizable for different languages.  Thus the current implementation.

Perhaps my mistake was in including the "; $5" part in the programmatic
section; leaving that customizable but generating the line break and
everything after it programmatically might be an acceptable compromise.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
 Wikimedia Foundation

body:
I agree with Brianna here 100%.

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006, Brianna Laugher wrote:

>> == Vision Statement ==
>>
>> '''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
>> in the sum of all knowledge.'''
>>
>> Comment:
>>
>> One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
>> language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
>> that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
>> teaching another language like English and then giving access to
>> learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
>> endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
>> in our vision statement.
>
> The more I ponder this statement the more I dislike it. Forget
> dissemination -- what about knowledge collection? As if knowledge only
> exists in English, or major European languages. The "language barrier"
> goes both ways. To access some of the world's oldest and most classic
> texts, we should also advocate teaching everyone classical Chinese.
> How likely is that? The gift of accessing information in your native
> language should not be underestimated by those who are lucky enough to
> take it for granted.

It is not simply a gift.  As you suggest, treating this issue lightly
limits the efficacy of collection.  More knowledge is lost when there are
no native speakers trained as archivists, because archiving or gathering
is something done [in all languages] by people who only speak a limited
set of languages.

> The principle of multilinguality is what really gives Wikimedia
> *global* participation and therefore WMF a global voice and global
> influence. That is something amazing that I am not really aware of
> anyone else... anywhere... doing on the same scale.

Absolutely.  It is not only special to Wikimedia, it is one of the
more beautiful goals of the organization, despite having been a difficult
one to pursue to date.  It has led to Wikimedia being one of the prime
places where one can observe debates about small-language classification,
naming, and categorization -- because we have a practical use for the
decisions we are making.

--SJ

> It deserves proper recognition -- I think the "in their own language"
> should be re-appended.
>
> regards,
> Brianna
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity Logo

body:
The logo looks awesome, BTW.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity Logo

body:
The logo looks awesome, BTW.

Jeff


subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 11/20/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
>> Well, there's really no way to know whether or not the problems that it
>> could pose by vandals would outweight the benefits.  There's quite a bit
>> of prior art on sleeper accounts, see:
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse>
>
> We could trial it. Give it to anyone with over 3000 accounts (and not
> on that list). Then lower the threshold to 2000, 1000, 500...at some
> point, the vandals with sleeper accounts will become a sufficiently
> big problem to discourage lowering it further.
>

I would have thought that the people on that list would be the only ones
with 3000 accounts!

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 11/20/06, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> Well, there's really no way to know whether or not the problems that it
> could pose by vandals would outweight the benefits.  There's quite a bit
> of prior art on sleeper accounts, see:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse>

We could trial it. Give it to anyone with over 3000 accounts (and not
on that list). Then lower the threshold to 2000, 1000, 500...at some
point, the vandals with sleeper accounts will become a sufficiently
big problem to discourage lowering it further.

Steve


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:  [17800] trunk/phase3

body:
simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> +		$templates = ($this->preview || $this->section) ? $this->mPreviewTemplates : $this->mArticle->getUsedTemplates();
> +		$templates = $sk->formatTemplates( $templates, $this->preview, $this->section != '');

As a style note: I recommend against reusing a variable for two
different types of data like this. It's confusing when reading the code,
and can be maddening when splicing new code into the middle of an
existing function that does this.

There are a lot of examples of that in older code, unfortunately, but
that shouldn't be emulated. ;)

> -				wfMsgExt( 'templatesused', array( 'parse' ) ) .
> +				wfMsgExt( 'templatesused' . ( $preview ? 'preview' : ( $section ? 'section' : '' ) ), array( 'parse' ) ) .

I'm also not sure it's a great idea to build message key references
dynamically this way, when it's not really needed.

The way this code is, you won't be able to easily search for where the
messages "templatesusedpreview" and "templatesusedsection" get used in
the code. That can contribute to maintenance problems later; for
instance the messages might get removed on the belief they are no longer
being used.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
Carl Witty wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 21:50 -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>On 11/14/06, Carl Witty <cwitty at newtonlabs.com> wrote:>
>>
>>Um. I promise that Game of Life will not be a problem. I've coded a
>>game of life simulation in freeking qbasic on a 286 which was faster
>>than the screen refresh rate.
>
> Using what size grid?  Would it have been that fast on Paul Rendell's
> Game of Life Turing Machine (1714 x 1647 cells)?  What if you want to
> run much faster than the screen refresh rate ("what will this pattern
> look like after a million generations")?

Then you use a Hashlife algorithm, which is complex enough that it's not
something you want just anybody to edit (and most people wouldn't want
to edit it anyway).  So you (find someone to) write it any way you like,
in the most efficient manner you can think of, and then have it audited
and included as a trusted component (and accept the blame if there are
any penises hidden in it).

> If you require that Java code be heavily audited, and that interpreted
> code only needs to be lightly audited, and if your supply of people
> willing and capable of doing heavy auditing is limited, then you'll end
> up with slower code than if you allow lightly audited Java code.

However, the supply of people capable of writing the kind of high
performance code where the interpreter would really be a major
disadvantage is also limited.  So yes, the auditing would be a
bottleneck, but it might not be _the_ bottleneck.

(Of course, anyone can write code that runs slowly.  Very few people,
however, can write code that not only does something slow, but really
can't be made any faster except by switching to a lower level language.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> wrote in
message news:4561B656.9010805 at pobox.com...
> simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> > + $templates = ($this->preview || $this->section) ?
$this->mPreviewTemplates : $this->mArticle->getUsedTemplates();
> > + $templates = $sk->formatTemplates( $templates, $this->preview,
$this->section != '');
>
> [SNIP]
>

Is there a reason why replies to mediawiki-cvs are coming to wikitech-l
suddenly?  Or has that always been the case and up until now there just
haven't been any replies?

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
"Luiz Augusto" <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:6ab3ffc80611171929w4cf3c2cdpf7efe8117e0d589e at mail.gmail.com...
> On 11/18/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> > On 11/18/06, Jay R. Ashworth
<jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > > On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 02:17:46AM +0800, Tian-Jian Barabbas
Jiang at Gmailwrote:
> > > > http://taipedia.info/mediawiki/index.php/Template:Languages
> > >
> > > So, who wants to petition ICANN to start the .pedia TLD?
> >
> > .wiki is more likely to happen than .pedia. Apparently the person who
> > bought wiki.com is pushing for it.
> >
> > Angela
> >
> >
> Since October 2006 is possible to have in Brazil domain names for personal
> websites like someone.wiki.br: http://registro.br/anuncios/20061002.html
(in
> Portuguese) http://preview.tinyurl.com/ydsxdh (Google Translation).

Why not use .info - surely that is what the domain is for?

.wiki is certainly a bad idea as it tells me nothing about the content or
purpose of the site.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
On 11/20/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> We could take the "contact us" pages as a model. The first page would
> present common issues and people would follow them through step by
> step.

That sounds right. Probably streamlined a little further, and with the
added difficulty that the links should actually carry out some action,
rather than just explaining what action you should carry out.

What would be necessary to write out text to a talk page? I seem to
recall there is a way to enter editing mode with some default text
added...would that work? Or would an extension be necessary?

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 11/20/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We could trial it. Give it to anyone with over 3000 accounts (and not
> > on that list). Then lower the threshold to 2000, 1000, 500...at some
> > point, the vandals with sleeper accounts will become a sufficiently
> > big problem to discourage lowering it further.
> >
>
> I would have thought that the people on that list would be the only ones
> with 3000 accounts!

Heh! Edits, dammit.

Steve


body:
Aha:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem

This is good. But this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error

should be simplified to:

Solution:
What is the error?
[edit box]

(Submit) <-- button

Steve


body:
"Rotem Liss" <rotemliss_net at fastmail.fm> wrote
in message news:4561CCE6.9020004 at fastmail.fm...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Clements wrote:
> > Is there a reason why replies to mediawiki-cvs are coming to wikitech-l
> > suddenly?  Or has that always been the case and up until now there just
> > haven't been any replies?
> >
> > - Mark Clements (HappyDog)
> >
>
> The second answer, though there *were* replies in the past: I think that
the
> last before 16 November 2006 was on 3 September 2006.

OK - I must have missed the earlier replies. I've been on the list since
July and don't remember seeing anything.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
On 20/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > OTOH, that could be a cool extension. Think determining something
> > based on a series on yes-no decisions - this is how you can identify
> > plants (using a book) or the car that matches you best (a German
> > newspaper does that every odd year or so). It could work with
> > specially prepared wiki pages. Oh, if I only had more time to code...
>
> You could easily implement this just as a series of pages with
> multiple answers, with the right answer linking to the next page. Yes,
> easily defeated, but so would any quiz be.
>
> Example:
>
> When will Mickey Mouse become public domain:
> *[[Q1A|1995]]
> *[[Q1B|2005]]
> *[[Q1C|2015]]
> *[[Q1D|Never]]
>
> Q1A, Q1B and Q1C all redirect to some "no, that's incorrect, try
> again". Q1D redirects to Q2.
>
> Easy. No extension required. Just ask people not to publish the link
> to the final upload page.

I don't want to force (or even suggest for) everyone to go through the
quiz every single time they want to upload. I want to force all new
users [or all users... I don't really care] to go through the quiz
once before they start (or continue) uploading.
Is it possible to do this without modifying MediaWiki?

regards,
Brianna


subject:
[Wikitech-l] New TLD? (was: How to
	enableTemplate:Languagesfunctionality)

body:
"Jay R. Ashworth" <jra at baylink.com> wrote in
message news:20061120155809.GC19372 at cgi.jachomes.com...
> On Mon, Nov 20, 2006 at 03:43:58PM -0000, Mark Clements wrote:
> > Why not use .info - surely that is what the domain is for?
> >
> > .wiki is certainly a bad idea as it tells me nothing about the content
or
> > purpose of the site.
>
> Strictly speaking, .info and .net (other common approaches to that)
> don't do that either.  :-)

Well, they do have an intended meaning, even if that isn't stuck too.  I
admit that without enforcing the meaning of the TLD then it becomes pretty
useless as a descriptor.  If all information sites (and only information
sites) had .info domains then that would surely be a good thing.  I guess
the problem is that until the golden ideal of a ".com address" is removed
from people's minds then any other TLD is always a less-than-ideal second
choice.  :-(

> I rather like .wiki, actually.

I'd quite like .clements, then my website could be www.mark.clements -
doesn't mean it's a good idea.

> I wish they'd just get the hell out of the way, put some business and
> technical restraints in place, and open the TLD namespace.

In other words, remove the TLD namespace altogether.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Heh! Edits, dammit.

As the MediaWiki developers have previously decided when implementing
the semi-protection feature, doing this sort of throttling based on edit
counts is not feasible performance-wise. Anything would have to be done
by how old the account is.


from_name: Rotem Liss

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

Mark Clements wrote:
> Is there a reason why replies to mediawiki-cvs are coming to wikitech-l
> suddenly?  Or has that always been the case and up until now there just
> haven't been any replies?
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)
>

The second answer, though there *were* replies in the past: I think that the
last before 16 November 2006 was on 3 September 2006.
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFYczmqahN/0dU8mcRAjcsAJ0aWax+ZSpCLw+KplPqMx118irjYACglxNG
2GRMHGyTTwUIoUuIccdmQck=
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body:
Hm. Not sure what to make of the idea, but it'd be interesting to see it
developed.

I'd favor something along the lines of "Found a mistake?" or "Report a
problem." Three options seem to present themselves:  a new tab, a link in
the sidebar, or a mention in MediaWiki:Anonnotice. The last of the three
might be the most visible, I think. The bigger question to me would be
whether this would work through a mailing list, or by creating new talk page
sections with nifty templates and such. I kind've favor the on-wiki
solution, personally.

But, let's see where this goes.

On 11/20/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
>
> On 20/11/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > a) We make this an email-form. It gets routed straight to some kind of
> > OTRS-like ticket system, which has fairly liberal access given to it -
> > the point here isn't to make it "private", it's to make it easy to see
> > what's been handled and when a backlog builds up.
>
> For those who are ignorant of what "OTRS" is (as was I just now) it's at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS . I had no idea such a thing existed.
>
> --
> Earle Martin
>             http://downlode.org/
> http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Ray Saintonge

body:
Erik Moeller wrote

>== Mission Statement ==
>
>'''The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
>people around the world to collect and develop knowledge under a free
>license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.'''
>
>'''In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation
>provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework
>for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and
>other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation is committed
>to making and keeping all information from its projects available on
>the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.'''
>
>
>
>You are encouraged to translate the proposed Mission & Vision
>statements, and to carry this discussion into other languages -- see
>the language links at the top of the above-referenced pages to get
>started.
>
>
I have one very broad complaint about this mission statement, apart from
any specific points within it.  My vocabulary is reasonably good, and I
can understand what appears to be said.

Has anyone considered a translation that would benefit the people at
Simple English?  I've heard it said somewhere that simple language can
be very effective.

Ec


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
On 11/20/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't want to force (or even suggest for) everyone to go through the
> > quiz every single time they want to upload. I want to force all new
> > users [or all users... I don't really care] to go through the quiz
> > once before they start (or continue) uploading.
> > Is it possible to do this without modifying MediaWiki?
>
> Well, you could use a large amount of JavaScript (which would of
> course only stop those with JS enabled) . . . other than that, not
> that I can think of.
I have no (real) idea of the MW code, so it's maybe just a stupid idea, but:
Couldn't a user flag/group "quizpassed" be created (similar to "bot"
or "sysop") , which is automatically assigned to your user account
when you have once passed the quiz. Afterwards, when uploading,
MediaWiki would determine, whether you have this flag set on your
account or not (as it does for restricted pages as Special:Blockip)
and will thus determine, whether you have to do the quiz or not.
As said, no idea whether this is technically doable & reasonable in
terms of performance etc.

Michael

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


from_name: FxParlant

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to enable Template:Languages functionality

body:
It seems to work pretty well now ?

Fran?ois


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Bug 7951] Special:Categories&from=...

body:
Rob Church says use Special:Prefixindex.
However that will work no better than the Special:Allpages I mentioned
in the bug report, i.e., not at all, as my thousand plus categories
are all "empty pages".

So please don't brush Bug 7951 off as INVALID so fast.


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
Although there has already been a massive exchange in the last 12
hours, I'm going to respond to the initial question. One problem is
first mover (or first discusser) bias, and the entire conversation has
gone down one way, when I think it's best to start with a fresh look.

What Damian mentioned about Wikicouncil as "representative democracy"
is closest to what many Wikiretreaters in Frankfurt expressed - that a
body of experienced, learned, informed, engaged and knowledgeable
Wikimedians from different projects could form a body with real powers
to decide on community matters and even for the purpose of being a
body of electors for determinng the election of board members.

Wikicouncil folks would be responsible for things that  that either we
(inappropriately) appeal to the "board of trustees" to do now, or ask
developers to do on the fly. It's not fair to ask Brion or Tim to be
decisionmaker for community decisions from random parts of the
Wikimedia universe, and it's traditionally beyond the scope of a
"Board of Trustees" to be managing down to the approve/deny level of
individual projects on a week to week basis. That's where a
Wikicouncil would come in.

As for the argument that Wikicouncil would not be a "direct
democracy," I mentioned this to Erik in Frankfurt, but I believe there
is a less compelling argument for every Wikimedian having equal vote
as any other Wikimedian for some value of "n" edits and "m" months of
membership. The idea of every community member getting equal say as in
a "true democracy" is not compelling since there is no concept of
"natural citizenship" in Wikipedia - people join by choice, they
self-identify for tasks, and they elevate. It is different than a
citizen of a country or territory. As Damian noted, many folks don't
know, nor do they care, for issues related to higher level governance
or WMF board matters. They're there to write an encyclopedia, create a
Wikiversity course, contribute to Commons, etc. A Wikicouncil would
have the expertise of folks who have put in the time, passion, energy
and thought into working with the WMF community matters, while the
board would oversee the big picture matters. I believe that the
Wikicouncil would clarify and solve many of the problems we have now
with the scope of board and executive level matters.

In this sense, I think the idea of a Wikicouncil is quite familiar -
I'd imagine a Wikicouncil would be made up most of folks you will find
right now in Wikiproject leadership, chapter activities, committee
involvement, and the like. It would be a formalization of what takes
place already, but where there is currently no procedure or authority
to act on group consensus.

That is a brief summary of what hopes I saw people had in the idea for
a Wikicouncil. I cannot speak for all the folks, so I invite other
folks to chime in on this.

-Andrew

On 11/20/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I write this email with much hesitation.
> The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.
> Naturally, setting up such a structure is bound to be difficult, due to
> the following issues to discuss and decide
> * what would be the roles of such a council ?
> * would that council vote the people to become Wikimedia Foundation
> board members ?
> * would this council become a sort of goverment of the project ?
> * how would people be added to this council (and along with which rules,
> depending on project size, languages etc...)
> * ...
>
> In short, a nest of questions.
>
>
> The issue has been raised many times already.
> If there are people interested in setting up a proposal, please just
> tell me. I am not talking of "discussion" here, I am talking of "writing
> down a proposal". On which the board could have a look. On which the
> community could comment and then vote.
>
> Anyway, if interested, jsut tell me and we can organise a little chat
> and a page about that. If noone interested, time will see :-)
>
> Ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [17714] trunk/phase3

body:
On 11/20/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> >
> >>-'old-revision-navigation' => 'Revision as of $1; $5
($6) $3 | $2 | $4 ($7)',
> >>+'old-revision-navigation' => 'Revision as of $1; $5
($6) $3 | $2 ($8) | $4 ($7)',
> >
> > A note: changing the existing message this way means that customized
> > versions will not show the new functionality.
> >
> > If it's important to add, it may be more appropriate to rename the message.
>
> As a historical note, that particular message has gone through three or
> four such name changes (some only changing punctuation) already, as new
> parameters have been added.  One can probably get a fairly good idea of
> its evolution by observing the strange order of the numbered parameters.
>
> > Actually this message should probably be broken up anyway; it seems
> > badly factored to me, mixing a line of text and what should probably be
> > a programmatic line of links into a single HTML message.
>
> I tried that back when I added the diff links ($6 and $7), but someone
> (can't remember who any more) complained that the punctuation should be
> customizable for different languages.  Thus the current implementation.
>
> Perhaps my mistake was in including the "; $5" part in the programmatic
> section; leaving that customizable but generating the line break and
> everything after it programmatically might be an acceptable compromise.

I ended up splitting it into two: one "Revision as of $1 by $2", one
"($1) $2 | $3 ($4) | $5 ($6)".  There's no
, they're just each
wrapped in a div software-side.  I don't think it's really reasonable
to break them up further; I guess you could split the latter message
into three, but then you'd have to insert the two pipes one way or
another, and I don't see a whole lot of mileage in it.


body:
On 11/20/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have no (real) idea of the MW code, so it's maybe just a stupid idea, but:
> Couldn't a user flag/group "quizpassed" be created (similar to "bot"
> or "sysop") , which is automatically assigned to your user account
> when you have once passed the quiz. Afterwards, when uploading,
> MediaWiki would determine, whether you have this flag set on your
> account or not (as it does for restricted pages as Special:Blockip)
> and will thus determine, whether you have to do the quiz or not.
> As said, no idea whether this is technically doable & reasonable in
> terms of performance etc.

Brianna's question was whether it could be done "without modifying
MediaWiki".  It could certainly be done by modifying MediaWiki.  Your
approach could be used without modifying MediaWiki if you had a lot of
stewards happy to manually add and remove such a group, but you can't
do it automatically (except with a bot, ack).


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	Wikimedia Foundation

body:
On 20/11/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006, Brianna Laugher wrote:

> > The principle of multilinguality is what really gives Wikimedia
> > *global* participation and therefore WMF a global voice and global
> > influence. That is something amazing that I am not really aware of
> > anyone else... anywhere... doing on the same scale.

> Absolutely.  It is not only special to Wikimedia, it is one of the
> more beautiful goals of the organization, despite having been a difficult
> one to pursue to date.  It has led to Wikimedia being one of the prime
> places where one can observe debates about small-language classification,
> naming, and categorization -- because we have a practical use for the
> decisions we are making.

Indeed. Look at recent discussions on wikitech-l of how MediaWiki
implements usability in multiple languages - rather than
"internationalisation", which has tended to mean "write it in English
and bolt other languages on the side," everything they do has hundreds
of languages allowed for very early in the design.

> > It deserves proper recognition -- I think the "in their own language"
> > should be re-appended.

Utterly and totally. I really don't see a case for having removed it at all.

- d.


from_name: David Goodman

body:
We haven't been  t trying to provide a complete phonetic index--though this
might be a useful goal for a (very large) project. But some terms are so
often confused  that it is generally helpful to include them. Obviously the
truly illiterate will not be reading WP, but the beginning readers will, and
the readers of WP-en will certainly include those with minimal proficiency
in the language--and English spelling is a notorious source of difficulty to
learners. Further, many English speaking well-educated people are dyslexic
or have other difficulty with written language--not all will be helped by
adding homophones, but some will. The balances between what is helpful and
what is out of place must vary--in general I would say WP-en has too few,
not too many.

One of the terms in your disambiguation page  example is jiu, a Chinese
wine.  If I had only  heard the word, i would be most unlikely to guess at
the English spelling. Even if I were a  Chinese speaker, I might not have
been able to guess at the spelling in a language so foreign as English.

On 11/20/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 20/11/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I stumbled into a nice little problem concerning
> > desambig pages. I am not sure this is the right place
> > to present it, but I could find no policy on it.
> >
> > So, when going on en.wiki, at "Jew (disambiguation)",
> > you will find that it does not only include the
> > various meanings of the word, but also many unrelated
> > but homophonous words (i.e., words that are pronounced
> > more or less the same way).
> >
> > One editor explained me that this is normal, because,
> > I cite: "A great many peole can't spell, as a read
> > though the talk pages of messages shows".
> >
> > The answer is apriori pertinent, and I think it raises
> > greater questions: Is phonetic search a goal of
> > wikipedia? Should we think about possible wrong
> > ortographs of words and put them on wikipedia?
> >
> > If the subject has been discussed before, please point
> > me to it.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > :en:User:Dpotop
>
> Wikipedia aims to serve as a resource for the literate, the
> semi-literate and (possibly) the illiterate. As we are a global
> project, we should not start with too many assumptions as to the level
> of education of our users (even if we were a national project, this
> wouldn't be a good place to start from).
>
> Anything to help our users (as long as it is not too much to the
> detriment of our main goals) is worth doing.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


subject: [Wikitech-l] respond to bug tracker via email

body:
BV> Please respond to bug issues on the bug tracker. We have a bug tracker
BV> for a reason.

RC> [7901] We *want* users to be able to discuss bugs in length (when
RC> there are larger implications or the implementation needs
RC> discussing) on wikitech-l.

Well, I managed to hack a perl LWP script to post new bugs to the bug
tracker, but adding comments to existing bugs proved too big a
programming challenge. So I'll have to respond to bugs via mail here,
(wikitech-l) with my batched Internet connection. No ADSL on my
mountain top.


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
On 11/20/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Although there has already been a massive exchange
> > in the last 12
> > hours, I'm going to respond to the initial question.
> > One problem is
> > first mover (or first discusser) bias, and the
> > entire conversation has
> > gone down one way, when I think it's best to start
> > with a fresh look.
> >
> > What Damian mentioned about Wikicouncil as
> > "representative democracy"
> > is closest to what many Wikiretreaters in Frankfurt
> > expressed - that a
> > body of experienced, learned, informed, engaged and
> > knowledgeable
> > Wikimedians from different projects could form a
> > body with real powers
> > to decide on community matters and even for the
> > purpose of being a
> > body of electors for determinng the election of
> > board members.
> >
> > Wikicouncil folks would be responsible for things
> > that  that either we
> > (inappropriately) appeal to the "board of trustees"
> > to do now, or ask
> > developers to do on the fly. It's not fair to ask
> > Brion or Tim to be
> > decisionmaker for community decisions from random
> > parts of the
> > Wikimedia universe, and it's traditionally beyond
> > the scope of a
> > "Board of Trustees" to be managing down to the
> > approve/deny level of
> > individual projects on a week to week basis. That's
> > where a
> > Wikicouncil would come in.
> >
> > As for the argument that Wikicouncil would not be a
> > "direct
> > democracy," I mentioned this to Erik in Frankfurt,
> > but I believe there
> > is a less compelling argument for every Wikimedian
> > having equal vote
> > as any other Wikimedian for some value of "n" edits
> > and "m" months of
> > membership. The idea of every community member
> > getting equal say as in
> > a "true democracy" is not compelling since there is
> > no concept of
> > "natural citizenship" in Wikipedia - people join by
> > choice, they
> > self-identify for tasks, and they elevate. It is
> > different than a
> > citizen of a country or territory. As Damian noted,
> > many folks don't
> > know, nor do they care, for issues related to higher
> > level governance
> > or WMF board matters. They're there to write an
> > encyclopedia, create a
> > Wikiversity course, contribute to Commons, etc. A
> > Wikicouncil would
> > have the expertise of folks who have put in the
> > time, passion, energy
> > and thought into working with the WMF community
> > matters, while the
> > board would oversee the big picture matters. I
> > believe that the
> > Wikicouncil would clarify and solve many of the
> > problems we have now
> > with the scope of board and executive level matters.
> >
> > In this sense, I think the idea of a Wikicouncil is
> > quite familiar -
> > I'd imagine a Wikicouncil would be made up most of
> > folks you will find
> > right now in Wikiproject leadership, chapter
> > activities, committee
> > involvement, and the like. It would be a
> > formalization of what takes
> > place already, but where there is currently no
> > procedure or authority
> > to act on group consensus.
> >
> > That is a brief summary of what hopes I saw people
> > had in the idea for
> > a Wikicouncil. I cannot speak for all the folks, so
> > I invite other
> > folks to chime in on this.
> >
> > -Andrew
> >
>
> I have not said anything because I am open to this
> idea being developed in previously undiscussed ways.
> But the above statments I do not understand.  How is
> this in any way similar to the ways things take place
> already?  It strikes me as anything but familiar.
>
> I am willing to withold critiscism as people
> brainstorm, but I find the above remarks quite
> disturbing.  It is a few of the worst parts of old
> ideas about the wikicouncil packaged as simply a
> formalization of current process.  I am sorry these
> ideas are in no way a representation of the way
> current process works.

Maybe you can enlighten us on the "worst parts of old ideas about the
Wikicouncil" because it's unclear what you're referring to.

My point is that the community coming together to decide on what the
community should do is familiar, in contrast to a "top down" system of
command given the questions we're facing of what role the board and
the executive should take.  (Anthere or another group at the retreat
called it "blob" simply to get away from the historical baggage of the
Wikicouncil name. Perhaps that's a good idea.) The Wikicouncil/blob
idea would build on what the community already does well but would
provide the formal structure to enact decisions with authority. It's
no panacea, and there are no specifics yet as to the makeup of or
appointment to council members.

But the concept of a group of dedicated, trusted and respected
Wikimedians from the community who can thoughtfully deliberate and
help lead community matters... I'm willing to hear how people view
this as a bad thing.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-21

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Passed 449 of 469 tests (95.74%)... FAILED!


from_name: Ilario Valdelli

subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

references:
<ejpvce$i6v$1@sea.gmane.org>	<b80736c80611200137q227b27bfid705ad67c11c0012@mail.gmail.com>
	<ejrtl1$h9u$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Too many words... and too many "unquoted" words. Plz quote.

I agree with Anthere. Please extends your mind. For some reality the
wikicouncil it's a way to understand other realities...

I know that to have a space in Wikipedia people *must* have a space in
English Wikipedia, besides English Wikipedia it's 50% of Wiki**** and
the Wikicouncil could be the way to understand that we are at crossroad:
still remains a localized and focused project... to become an
heterogeneous project (not globalized, but heterogeneous).

The Wikicouncil could be the way to understand that there are other
realities and to offer to the board an ear given to these.

Is there a "digital divide" in Wiki*****. Yes, there is and it's could
be a big problem. Plz, think about this situation... the special means
to go over the "Digital Divide" has got a special "Digital Divide" inside.

Crazy situation.

Ilario^_^

Anthere wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Approach
>
>
>
> Thanks for not killing ideas in the egg. That's not helpful in the long
> run imho.
>
> Anthere
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil


from_name: Faxri T.Karimli

subject: [Wikipedia-l] gagauz language

body:
I would start to create gagauz version of Wikipedia,  but I need some recommendation. What I have to do?

Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
  Hoi,
The Gagauz language (ISO-639-3 code gag) has already been proposed as a
new language. The only reasonable argument why not to grant it a
Wikipedia is because there seem to be no native people willing to
support this project. In the mean time there is nothing stopping you
starting creating content on the incubator under the gag code.

There is also little stopping you from working on the localisation of
the Gagauz language User Interface on Betawiki. On BetaWiki you will
have to find one of the developers willing to set up the necessary
infrastructure. I would recommend them to do just that.

I do welcome you to create the Babel templates on WiktionaryZ. We have
portal pages for more than half of the 7602 languages that have been
recognised under the ISO-639-3 standard. We are working on the rest and,
we welcome anybody to check out if the Babel templates in his/her
language are already there.

Consequently, there is already a lot that can be done. It just needs doing.

Thanks,
GerardM

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Gagauz
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://nike.users.idler.fi/dev/index.php?title=ISO-639-3/gag&redirect=no
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:gag

Faxri T.Karimli wrote:
> in your language list dont exists gagauz language, i think it is trouble problem. in this language of Moldova speak about 200 000 population, mostly form Gagauzia Autonomous Region

_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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from_name: Oldak Quill

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] disambiguation, homophonous words,
	and helping illiterate people

body:
On 20/11/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I stumbled into a nice little problem concerning
> desambig pages. I am not sure this is the right place
> to present it, but I could find no policy on it.
>
> So, when going on en.wiki, at "Jew (disambiguation)",
> you will find that it does not only include the
> various meanings of the word, but also many unrelated
> but homophonous words (i.e., words that are pronounced
> more or less the same way).
>
> One editor explained me that this is normal, because,
> I cite: "A great many peole can't spell, as a read
> though the talk pages of messages shows".
>
> The answer is apriori pertinent, and I think it raises
> greater questions: Is phonetic search a goal of
> wikipedia? Should we think about possible wrong
> ortographs of words and put them on wikipedia?
>
> If the subject has been discussed before, please point
> me to it.
>
> Thanks,
> :en:User:Dpotop

Wikipedia aims to serve as a resource for the literate, the
semi-literate and (possibly) the illiterate. As we are a global
project, we should not start with too many assumptions as to the level
of education of our users (even if we were a national project, this
wouldn't be a good place to start from).

Anything to help our users (as long as it is not too much to the
detriment of our main goals) is worth doing.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as plot element

body:
That is most excellent!

On 11/21/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> The thrilling story of Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala:
> http://www.adamcadre.ac/content/brown/
>
> --
> Earle Martin
>             http://downlode.org/
> http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Who knows when we shall meet again (if ever)?
But time keeps flowin' like a river, to the sea...


from_name: David Ashby

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as plot element

body:
On 11/21/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> The thrilling story of Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala:
> http://www.adamcadre.ac/content/brown/

Unfettered genius.
-humblefool


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil

body:
As Ilario said, let's try to open our minds a bit and discard the
baggage from previous  "Wikicouncil" concepts.

I'd also like to offer whatever the WikipediaWeekly
(http://www.wikipediaweekly.com) podcast/audiocast can help in this
matter. We've thought for a while a "town hall" live Skypecast might
be useful for certain issues, with board members and other chapter
heads taking part. This, and the vision/mission statement drafting,
might be a good issue to start with. We've already had folks like
Delphine, Kurt and Jimbo, on the podcast.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On 11/21/06, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli at gmail.com> wrote:
> Too many words... and too many "unquoted" words. Plz quote.
>
> I agree with Anthere. Please extends your mind. For some reality the
> wikicouncil it's a way to understand other realities...
>
> I know that to have a space in Wikipedia people *must* have a space in
> English Wikipedia, besides English Wikipedia it's 50% of Wiki**** and
> the Wikicouncil could be the way to understand that we are at crossroad:
> still remains a localized and focused project... to become an
> heterogeneous project (not globalized, but heterogeneous).
>
> The Wikicouncil could be the way to understand that there are other
> realities and to offer to the board an ear given to these.
>
> Is there a "digital divide" in Wiki*****. Yes, there is and it's could
> be a big problem. Plz, think about this situation... the special means
> to go over the "Digital Divide" has got a special "Digital Divide" inside.
>
> Crazy situation.
>
> Ilario^_^
>
> Anthere wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Approach
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for not killing ideas in the egg. That's not helpful in the long
> > run imho.
> >
> > Anthere
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] wikicouncil