subject: [WikiEN-l] Notice to defendent in the case of arbitration

body:
If he does I will revert it and protect the page.

Fred

From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 08:25:34 -0800 (PST)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Procedure for requesting mediation

He will just delete it as soon as it is posted to his Talk page.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
A notice should be placed on Mr. Natural Health's talk page quoting the
complaint and linking to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration.

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040123/3b4f59aa/attachment.htm


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: ISBN numbers (was, Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia funds)

body:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 11:38:07AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The simple answer is that they are incredibly useful, and that they
> are convenient.  If there were some other number which uniquely
> identified books, rather than particular printings of books, I would
> support using those instead.

...and if any database would provide lookup based on them. It is maybe
important to note that these places actually look up the books, so it's not
just an ID but a searchable possiblity. (For example I could put barcodes in
the articles about many things and nobody could use them anyway, since there
are no places to look it up.)

I find ISBN (or any kind of working lookup, by the way) helpful.

(Just to note that there are supporters, too, but they maybe don't like to
make that amount of noise :))

Peter


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] hardware upgrades and downtime

body:
Hello all.  Here's a snippet of an AIM conversation I had with Jimbo
about my plan for today:

jasonbomis: I'll be bringing Pliny and Ursula down at the same time.
 Ursula will come up shortly after with an extra drive (sdb from
 Pliny), and Pliny will come up later with a new primary drive, and
 new OS.  Somebody will have to move files from SDA on Pliny before I
 do this, because SDA is untrustworthy (the only thing in Pliny that
 hasn't been replaced, and he still has errors) and won't be returning
 to service this trip...

jasonbomis: Gunther will go down after Ursula comes up, and will come
 back up shortly thereafter with more RAM.  He has 2 512Meg modules
 now, right?  So, I'll add 3 (1 Gig each) modules as per the manual.

I'll be driving to the servers fairly soon, and it will take me 3
hours to get there.  Then, I'll be doing what I said above.  If
anything goes wrong, I'll improvise and leave the servers in no worse
situation than they are in now.  At the very least, Gunther will have
more RAM.

I'm not touching Geoffrin this trip (at least that's not part of the
plan).

Call me with problems/concerns

cell 1 760-963-0681
cell 2 760-486-9194 (this one's been acting funny, so...)
--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


list: wikien-l

from_name: KNOTT, T

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mr. Natural Health has refused mediation with the
	community

body:
Mr natural health has refused mediation with the community. He appears to feel that he has done nothing wrong and wants his "harassers" punished.

I'm just writing this email to keep the pressure on really. How far down the line are we on finalizing the arbitration process? When will the arbitration committee be able to something about the Mr NH situation?

Theresa


subject: [Wikipedia-l] downtime

body:
I'll be doing some work on Wikipedia's servers today.  So, the site
may be unavailable from 2:00pm-5:00pm Pacific time.

The work I am performing is not a part of our ongoing growth plan.  It
is more of an emergency response to the current problem.  A
larger-scale upgrade will be coming in the next month or so...

Sorry for the trouble.  Thank you for your patience.

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moneybookers, e-Gold

body:
We are now setup with http://www.moneybookers.com , a service similar
to Ebay that I am told may be easier to use for Europeans.

I have tested every aspect of this, except for actually withdrawing
money.  The account is just a little shy of the minimum amount
required for a withdrawal.  If some advocate of moneybookers wants to
help out, a small (5 EUR, roughly) donation would put enough into the
account for me to finalize testing the withdrawal mechanism.

I see no reason why it should not work, though.

I also investgiated e-Gold and decided not to pursue it at this time.
Too many payment options will be confusing, and I saw no actual
advantages too the e-Gold system.  Several aspects of their website
returned server errors for me, and this did not instill confidence in
them.  The whole thing seemed rather questionable.

But, I would be willing to take another look a few months from now,
if there's really strong demand for that.

--Jimbo


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why "Wikimedia Germany", "Wikimedia France",
	"Wikimedia ????"

body:
A "Wikimedia" in Europa can be useful I think but is it really necessary
to setup different organizations for all the countrys?

There is the European Union. What is the problem to create one Wikimedia
organization for all the members of the European Union?

[[nl:gebruiker:Walter]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] New servers shipping

body:
We have 8 1U systems coming, and 1 2U system.  The 2U is shipping
today, and the 1Us will ship today or tomorrow!

The shipping time is roughly 5 days.  So quite possibly next weekend
I'll be camped out in the colo setting things up.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Procedure for requesting arbitration

body:
OK I've tried to list him but I'm having problems at the moment with time outs. I'm not sure if my complaint made it onto the page or not, and not attempted to put a notice on Mr NH's page. I'll try again after lunch.

Theresa

>Others who wish to join in her complaint should also add their comments to
hers under the same heading, ==Theresa v. Mr. Natural Health==


subject: [Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association

body:
Ivo K?thnig wrote:
> And as Kurt sayed thats not the only reason. For example, we want an
> official organisation which can speak for the project. At the moment
> we always have to say: "Oh, this is Kurt, he has written some
> articles, like 10000 others."  (Note: Yes, it are so many registered
> users in the german wikipedia now.) It sounds much better if you
> say: "This is Kurt (or whoever). He is the president of the German
> Wikimedia Foundation..."

I hereby appoint Kurt to be Vice President, Germany, of the
international Wikimedia Foundation.  It's as easy as that, you know.
There is nothing to limit participation in the existing foundation,
for anyone on earth.

> Or let there be some problems with copyright and someone in germany
> get sued?  An offical german organisation could help much faster in
> that case.

Yes, I can see that might be possible, but it is for this reason that
I think it wise if we consult with a German attorney.

> Also it makes no sence for me donating money for the Wikimedia
> Foundation, try to realize some projects in Europe or Germany and
> ask the foundation for money which is than send back (keep in mind
> what you sayed about the overhead).

Yes, I agree with this, but this only implies that we should take
whatever steps are necessary for the Wikimedia Foundation, a global
organization with a legal presence in several countries, to open a
European bank account, to be managed by the elected members of the
German branch of course, but under the supervision of the whole
organization.

--Jimbo


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: More on toolbar

body:
>>>>> "GW" == Gabriel Wicke <groups at gabrielwicke.de> writes:

    CM> just came across a toolbar for mozilla at...
    CM> http://chrispederick.myacen.com/work/firebird/webdeveloper/

    GW> Mozex (http://mozex.mozdev.org/) should be pretty close to
    GW> what you're looking for- [...]

Folks folks folks! Please capture this stuff here:

      http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG_editor

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Yann Forget

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why 'Wikimedia Germany', 'Wikimedia France',
	'Wikimedia ????'

body:
Hi,

> A "Wikimedia" in Europa can be useful I think but is it really necessary
>  to setup different organizations for all the countrys?
>
> There is the European Union. What is the problem to create one Wikimedia
>  organization for all the members of the European Union?
>
> [[nl:gebruiker:Walter]]

It would technically be possible to create a Wikimedia in Europe. However
in all practical matters, language is the problem. by example, for me,
dealing with legal and administrative matters in French is already not so
easy, I can't imagine to have to do that in another language.

And most real work is done at the national level, not at the European
level. However, I would be delighted to have a European meeting of
Wikimedia project contributors. We are thinking to have one in Paris.

But we are translating the French project in English in order than most
people can understand.

Yann

--
http://non-violence.org Site coop?ratif sur la non-violence
http://forget-me.net Alternatives et non-violence
http://fr.wikipedia.org Encyclop?die libre
http://forget-me.net/pro/ Formations et services Linux


from_name: Mills, Billy

body:
I also want to post him there but am having time-out problems, too.

Billy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: KNOTT, T [mailto:TKNOTT at qcl.org.uk]
> Sent: 23 January 2004 11:55
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Procedure for requesting arbitration
>
>
>
>
> OK I've tried to list him but I'm having problems at the
> moment with time outs. I'm not sure if my complaint made it
> onto the page or not, and not attempted to put a notice on Mr
> NH's page. I'll try again after lunch.
>
> Theresa
>
> >Others who wish to join in her complaint should also add
> their comments to
> hers under the same heading, ==Theresa v. Mr. Natural Health==
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
it for any purpose other than to notify us. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately, and delete this
email from your system. Thank you.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040123/c4d78196/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: foundation of a German registered association

body:
>>>>> "A" == Anthere  <anthere8 at yahoo.com> writes:

    A> But how could non english people have any implication in the
    A> current wikimedia foundation ?

This is not an insuperable problem. International organizations have
managed to have branches and subsidiaries in multiple countries with
different languages for many years. Companies, charities, clubs and
networks.

Another good possibility is to form club-style organizations -- user
groups, like a LUGs. Don't use the Wikimedia trademarks, or negotiate
a way to use them from Wikimedia. Don't pretend to have any legal,
financial, or operational responsibility for Wikipedia (just as LUGs
don't pretend to own or maintain Linux).

There's no legal advantage, but the ones you mentioned -- sending
people to conferences, etc. -- would be there.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2

body:
> A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
>
> * What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article disputes?
> Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?

I prefer a narrow jurisdiction: I don't want to be asked to decide if
Usama bin Laden is a terrorist, or even if DNA is a nucleic acid.
Rudeness isn't a crime and I don't think our time should be wasted
with "mommy, he called me a Nazi!" or even "mommy, he called himself a
Nazi!" whin(g)ing.  I can see us arbiting non-obvious copyright and
legal questions, but if by "election disputes" you mean "mommy, he
voted twice!" I feel that the person who set up the election needs to
resolve any conflicts.

> * Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with exceptions),
> or not require mediation?

I prefer flexibility; ie, prefer mediation but allow exceptions on a
case-by-case basis.

Unless that's a typo.  I think that even if we don't now, we soon will
require medication.

--
 Sean Barrett     | My favorite kind of force is sheer force.
 sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

body:
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> > I think that the solution is quite simple -- for the Wikimedia
> > Foundation to form and control the German subsidiary.  This subsidiary
> > will give the ability for Germans to give tax deductible donations,
> > will serve as a legal point of contact for any Germany-specific
> > concerns, etc.

> And on the other hand, German tax laws might require (I don't know)
> that the German organization be totally independent under its own
> bylaws in order to be registered ("incorporate") and qualify for tax
> exemption.  I think I warned against this sort of conflict a year ago.
> I strongly recommend that you all look at how the German chapter of
> ISOC (which is an "e.V.", see www.isoc.de) has solved this.  I assume
> they have a working model already, that could be copied.  In fact, the
> ISOC chapter model could be copied for more countries than Germany, if
> Wikipedians want to form local chapters in their area.

In Norway, to get tax breaks, etc. the organiation has to be democratically
organized. Which I guess wouldn't work for Wikimedia yet.

-- Daniel


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mediation confidentiality

body:
This seems sound. During mediation in attempts to compromise often parties
will admit hastyness or wrong doing and that not ought to be thrown up them
later.

Fred

> From: Anthere <anthere8 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: anthere8 at yahoo.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:23:26 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Mr. Natural Health has refused mediation with the
> community
>
> The first provision we can offer is about the confidentiality of
> everything that might be said during the mediation. It is very important
> to stress out that point. Nothing that will be said should left the
> small circles of mediators (unless the disputants agree to do so); and
> if one mediator talks in details to another about the case, it should be
> said clearly to the disputants.
>
> Mostly, what is said must not be used afterwards against the person; ie
> it must not be revealed to the arbitration commitee; nor used against
> the disputant in case of later conflicts. (note that, de facto, it is
> best for the mediator never to get into conflict with that editor
> afterwards, temptation could be high :-)).
>
> If one of the disputant fear he might be participating in a fair system,
> perhaps would it be for him to choose a silent overseer ?
>
> What else are you thinking of Ec ?


from_name: Ivo Köthnig

body:
> I doubt that "talking" about Nazism would be illegal.  It's "promoting"
> it that would be illegal.  One also has to consider that there are other
> German speaking countries, like Switzerland.  If this is a serious
> problem, rather than an imaginary one based on sombody's
> misunderstanding, one could create an intermediate boilerplate page
> containing something like the following:

Of course it is not illegal to talk about Nazism. Even "promoting" them is not
illegal in most cases. But for example its illegal to lie about the holocaust
or use some of (the old) symbols (for example the Hakenkreuz) for "promoting"
Nazism. That means for example it is illegal to stick these symbols on you
clothes.

Since Wikipedia has one rule, called NPOV, there never will be a problem with
that, cause it is allowed to write "who lies about the holocaust" (we ourself
would never lie about, just talking about these lies). It even is allowed to
have pictures with the "Hakenkreuz" since it is allowed to show them for
example in an educational context.

Ivo K?thnig


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

body:
Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 11:48 schrieb Walter Vermeir:
> A "Wikimedia" in Europa can be useful I think but is it really necessary
> to setup different organizations for all the countrys?

Because there is no such thing as a European law in effect. Laws by the
European parliament have to be adopted by the member states. In the end, an
association in Europe must always be an association in a particular country.
If we found something in France, it will be already difficult for german
contributors to donor funds there and get a tax exemption, because that is -
I guess - only possible if you donor to a german organization and so on. If
we found something in the UK, bank transfers will be especially expensive,
because this is a non-Euro currency. Vice versa, if UK people want to
transfer mony to a bank account e.g. in the Netherlands. Furthermore, you
need to organize things like board meetings - it's already hard for us to get
enough contributing people from Germany together in Berlin, you can imagine
how hard it will be to get the contributing people from all over Europe
together in Paris or Rome...

So we need a bottom-up approach. We need local organizations in each country,
they should join in some way in an European roof organization (so only member
delegates and not members must physically meet for the european association),
and that european association again should be a member (if that's the right
term) of the Wikimedia foundation. But allow the things to grow - we must
start somewhere at the bottom, that's what we are doing right now.

Uli


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
On Friday 23 January 2004 10:44 am, Optim wrote:
> what's the problem?
>
> do you forbid minor changes in nl: ?
>
> --Optim

The problem is that anonymous users don't have a "click-box" (whatever the
correct term is) to mark their edits as minor. Meaning that this person is
doing it in some as-of-yet unknown way.

Best ,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


body:
>You did succeed. I'm trying now to access his talk page.
>
>Fred

I've just managed to do it.

Theresa


body:
> But I will not support a foundation using the Wikimedia name that
> might *or might not* send money to the international organization, and
> that might serve as a way for some people (not you, I am speaking 30
> years in the future) to split the project or use it to make a
> lucrative income for themselves without regard to the overall goals of
> the international community.

The last point should never happen, since it is not allowed to use the money
in another manner as discribed in the statute of the "e.V.". If we change the
statute (which is not that easy itself, since most members have to vote for
the changes), we risk to lose the ability to collect money tax-free, in
particular if we change it to make a lucrative income for ourselves.

I don't know if there is a way to make a contract, that the "e.V." is allowed
to use the name "Wikimedia" as long as you allow this. (may someone should
research this)

May that would be a solution for you, Jimbo?

Ivo K?thnig


from_name: Frederic Malo

body:
Hello,

Thank you Carl, but your idea seems not working with huge files.

But I found a solution that works :

"type xab.txt >> xaa.txt"

I could unzip the bz2 final file without trouble.

Great! Thanks for your help!

Frederic

-----Message d'origine-----
De : wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] De la part de Carl Witty
Envoy? : jeudi 22 janvier 2004 03:29
? : wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Objet : RE: [Wikipedia-l] trouble with gzip2 downloads

On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 16:57, Frederic Malo wrote:
> Thanks Brion!
>
> By the way, does anybody know a good stitching software (windows) ?

The first thing I would try is the command-line "copy" command: start up a
command prompt, and type:

  copy /b xaa+xab 20040117_old_table.sql.bz2

My only question is whether this works on 2gb files; I've never tried it on
really large files, but I don't know any reason it wouldn't work.

(The "/b" says to use binary mode; without it, copy in file-concatenation
mode defaults to ASCII, which means it stops copying at the first Control-Z
character.)

Carl Witty

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>In Norway, to get tax breaks, etc. the organiation has to be democratically
>organized. Which I guess wouldn't work for Wikimedia yet.
>
>
Easy! "You can edit this account balance right now!" ;-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to update wikipedia database

body:
Hello,

I have not found any wiki metapage about this subject.
What is the process to update an uploaded wikipedia database ?

Do we have to upload each week the old and current tables ?
How is managed the insertion of current rows into the old table ? What are
the rules ?

What is happening if we forgot to update the database one time or several
times ?

Thank you again,

Frederic


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia
> foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should
> be no problem, right?

Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to
*represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity
and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.

--Jimbo


from_name: Dan Drake

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Mr. Natural Health has refused mediation with the
	community

body:
PMFBI; have just been watching this list for a few days, but at least I have a
few months of seeing Wikipedia operate. And I'm sorry to come out
swinging,  but the time being spent on setting up a perfect system before
anyone can do anything about an alleged problem editor seems to me
excessive.

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:23:26 UTC, Anthere
<anthere8-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> The first provision we can offer is about the confidentiality of
> everything that might be said during the mediation. It is very important
> to stress out that point. Nothing that will be said should left the
> small circles of mediators (unless the disputants agree to do so); and
> if one mediator talks in details to another about the case, it should be
> said clearly to the disputants.
>
> Mostly, what is said must not be used afterwards against the person; ie
> it must not be revealed to the arbitration commitee; nor used against
> the disputant in case of later conflicts.

We do understand, of course, that if mediation doesn't succeed, and
someone takes the same case to arbitration, a person who is not of good
will is certain to complain that he's being put on trial twice and having to
defend himself against the very same things that came up in mediation. He
may even make false claims about what went on in mediation; hence, the
full legalistic set of rules will have to include some kind of waiver of this
confidentiality.

It amazes and distresses me that it is suddenly impossible to deal with a
couple of destructive bozos (no, please don't offer me a position mediating
or arbitrating these two cases) without weeks of major effort by some of
the best people on Wikipedia to find a perfect system.

Ray S has said,
"If by  our actions we only succeed in convincing the accused that the
process is unfair, then we have undermined the mediation system, and his
refusal to co-operate with it begins to seem more logical."
It's undermined only to the extent that anyone else agrees that the process
is unfair.

What I don't get is the need for a long and difficult process to make sure
that no one can find the mediation process unfair. Mediators have no power.
If you don't expect the mediation to be fair, you can reject it. Then, if
someone still cares, there will be a request for arbitration, which _does_
have power to act. That's where to concentrate on fairness and the
assurance of fairness.

MNH having declined mediation, he and the mediation process are now
irrelevant to each other. Anyone who holds that something ought to be
done about him needs to forget the mediation process and concentrate on
getting arbitration working.

> (note that, de facto, it is
> best for the mediator never to get into conflict with that editor
> afterwards, temptation could be high :-)).
>
> If one of the disputant fear he might be participating in a fair system,
> perhaps would it be for him to choose a silent overseer ?

I'm not sure what this means -- someone on his side who will watch the
proceedings and form an opinion (for whose benefit?) on their propriety?
Fine, if the parties want it. But again, since mediators have no power --
presumably not even power to send the case to arbitration -- what does it
matter?

--
Dan Drake
dd at dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com/index.html

If I knew then what I know now, I would have said,
'I don't recall.'
 --Frank Doyle, FBI agent, testifying under oath
 about his previous deposition under oath.


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Martin Harper wrote:

> Dear all.
>
> We have a rough agenda:
>
> PRINCIPLES
> 1) "Jurisdiction" - what disputes do we plan to get involved in?
> 2) "Rules" - How do we judge cases
> 3) "Outcomes" - what solutions can we impose?
> 4) "Transparency" - issues of privacy, openness, accountability, etc
>
> PROCESS
> 1) "Requests" - how does one request arbitration?
> 2) "Who takes part?" - how do we pick arbitrators on a case?
> 3) "Trial" - How does the trial proceed?
> 4) "Judgement" - How do we give our judgement?
>
> We might add points to that as they come up. Currently we're largely
> discussing Jurisdiction, though we've also has some discussion about
> Requests and Transparency prompted by your comments here and elsewhere.
>
> A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
>
> * What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article
> disputes?  Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
>
> * Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with
> exceptions), or not require mediation?

My thoughts are that mediation should be the preferred first step. Disputes
should go to Arbitration if:
1. One or more of the parties involved are not following the terms they
 agreed to;
2. One or more of the parties involved refuse to agree to mediation; or
3. A matter of expediency, or specific kinds of issues (e.g., say 2 sysops
are having a reversion war over the Front Page -- a dispute I hope never to
see).
>
> Your thoughts and opinions are very welcome.
>
Geoff


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>RickK wrote:

>>Fred Bauder wrote:

>>>A notice should be placed on Mr. Natural Health's talk page quoting the
>>>complaint and linking to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration.

>>He will just delete it as soon as it is posted to his Talk page.

>If he does I will revert it and protect the page.

So let him delete it!

If a notice is placed and he deletes it, then we know that he's been informed.
That is all that due process (or anything along those lines) requires.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

body:
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Rick wrote:

> Wikipedia is not a list of citations.
>
> RickK
>
> Ira Stoll <irastoll at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> *only replace text that you know to be wrong (inaccurate), and replace it
> with something that has a citation to back it up. If they have a reasonable
> difference, based on citation, allow both POV to be presented
>
I don't understand your POV, Rick. Are you saying that we should have _no_
citations or mention of references so readers can verify facts or quotations?
If so, wouldn't that undermine the credibility of Wikipedia?

Geoff


subject: [Wikitech-l] European squid

body:
I've made arrangements with the European Graduate School,
http://www.egs.edu/ for them to host a squid proxy box for European
visitors.  I assume we're not 100% ready to move to that solution, but
we're close, right?

Eventually we want to do some fancy DNS magic, but we don't need to
wait for that to get this off the ground.  We can just point
de.wikipedia.org and/or fr.wikipedia.org and/or es.wikipedia.org,
etc. at the European machine, and that will help those groups
immediately and transparently, am I right?

I don't have an exact date for when they will be ready, but we will
have root access to the machine and will administer it ourselves, so
we don't have to depend on them (nor do we get to depend on them,
except for hardware failures I guess).

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] downtime

body:
Jason wrote:
>Sorry for the trouble.  Thank you for your patience.

I just want to say how much I (and I assume everybody else) appreciates the
work you have done for Wikimedia. I know Jimbo pays you, but I also know that
the Wikimedia server work you do isn't very glamorous but is still very
important.

Of course Brion and the whole MediaWiki team also deserve Kudos.

I don't think we thank you guys enough. :-)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
> Consider this possibility, 20 years from now.  The international
> Wikimedia Foundation is publishing a nice print version of the
> Encyclopedia in French, for sale in France.  This is a profitable
> venture, so that it is generating funds for whatever copyediting and
> production work that may be necessary to supplement the work of
> volunteers, as well as generating funds that permits the free
> distribution of the same work to schools in poor districts in France
> and in poor countries where French is a dominant language.
>
> But, at that time, 20 years from now, the French foundation board
> thinks it would be nice to have a fancy job and an office and to have
> that revenue for expenditures on whatever, and so they sue the
> international foundation over the publication of the French edition
> using the Wikipedia name.
>
> That's just one example, I'm sure you can immediately think of many
> more.
>
> There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved
> in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm,
> for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone.
> Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years
> into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

But what makes you sure that, the situation is not exactly reverse? In that
case it may would be very good to have an independent french organisation,
which fight for the original goals?

Ivo K?thnig


body:
> 2.  I fully support the creation of subsidiary foundations, to
> whatever extent is desirable, with additional representation there for
> 'locals' to that nation's foundation.  I do not support any move of
> that type unless we do it carefully so as to completely eliminate any
> possibility of a "split" or "break" 20 years in the future.

Jimmy, you will never be able to fully avoid this - all Wikipedia texts are
GNU FDL. Worst case scenario: There might be quarrels in the future
between the contributors from different countries, the majority of
contributors of one country decides to set up it's own server. If they want
to do so, this just will happen, and the foundation will not be asked. The
only thing you are and should be able to avoid in such a situation is that
such a spit-off-Wikipedia/media uses the name Wikipedia/Wikimedia.

But even if you can avoid that, if a community parting away from Wikipedia
would be large enough (a big majority, for whatever reasons), that language
Wikipedia could close, because the "new" Wiki-whatevernameenzyklopaedia would
be the one attracting all the contributors from that particular country.

Again, we are not wanting, planning, or considering such a split. That is
exactly WHY we want to use the name Wikimedia. If we don't use it, THEN the
first step towards such a split would be done, because then you have two
organizations with different names doing the same thing (supporting projects
like Wikipedia) - that's already a symbolic split, even if one is sending
money to the other. The conequence will be, that it will be harder to send
money, if there is no band between the organizations, at least by the name.
That will be a psychological issue for the members, and also probably a
technical issue concerning the tax exemption status. That's the next step.
And so on.

Actually, this is far more dangerous for the future than what we are trying
to bring into life right now: An organization named Wikimedia also, having
"supporting free content in general and the US Wikimedia Foundation in
particular" as goal in it's bylaws, being run by Wikipedians, but legally
independent from the foundation for a number of good reasons.

We should find out if there is a way to use a *licensed* Wikimedia name as
name of an association. Probably that's not possible. But also I don't think
it's necessary. In your worst case scenario, sueing the foundation from
France is unlikely to happen, because the foundation is using the Wikimedia
name longer. To further reduce the possibility of that situation, probably a
paper can be signed by the country organizations stating that they are aware
that they might use the Wikimedia name only as long as "approved" by the
Wikimedia foundation. Then, in the worst case of a split-off,  you have good
changes to make the split-off organization change it's name. As stated above,
there is no way to hinder such a split-off in general.

I doubt there is any legal way to have a foundation subsidiary here in Germany
that is under german law (important for tax exemption and so on), open for
german members but still completely controlled by the foundation. The highest
board of every german e.V (and also of a german foundation) are democratic
institutions, so everything is controlled by the members. If you want to open
the organization for other members than the foundation (and you need at least
7 members for an e.V), you *must* give up control. I think that will hold true
for every EU country, not just for Germany.

If you want to keep control, the only thing you could do is to found something
which is *not* open for german (or any other country) Wikipedians to join
(having a closed foundation under german law). That's not what we intend, and
for the reasons already mentioned, I doubt that you will find people willing
to run such a foundation). We want to have an open community which acts
bottom-up and not top-down. If that's not what you want, please say it,
because then we know we must go ahead, choose another name and take the first
step towards that split we all don't want.

Uli


from_name: Peter Gervai

body:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 05:03:57PM -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> >>>>> "PG" == Peter Gervai <grin at tolna.net> writes:
>
>     PG> You didn't get the point.
>
> No, I didn't. That was the upshot of my message.
>
>     PG> It's not about their willingness. It is about the differences
>     PG> of legal anvironment between US and DE. Maybe it's legal to
>     PG> talk about nazism in the US and maybe you get to jail for it
>     PG> in germany. Maybe a definite percent of Wikipedia articles
>     PG> legal in the US and illegal in DE. Do you want to get US
>     PG> WIKIMEDIA sued because they are present in german law
>     PG> environment? Do you want de-us.wikipedia.org and
>     PG> de-de.wikipedia.org for separating articles which are not
>     PG> legal in germany? Having a censored mirror maybe? (Bad words
>     PG> changed to stars? THere are funny ideas in the politics
>     PG> field.)
>
> I'm confused about this example. How would having a German foundation
> fix this situation? Would they take on the publisher role that
> Wikimedia has now? Would this just be nominal, or would the German
> foundation actually operate the de.w.o site?

Exactly my point, and the reason of my original question.

But if Jimbo gots any response from a german lawyer then they can reveal the
answers. I do not know what is the exact purpose of the foundation.
Gathering money for wikimedia? Gathering for themselves operating mirrors?
Or something else? I'm sure the german editors already know the answer to
these question.... I hope. :)

Peter


body:
Ivo K?thnig wrote:
>...
>If we talk about making stickers or button to dispense them (may for
>free to promote wikipedia), you would not start to ask people to donate
>that 100 ? you need for this. You would look in the cash box and decide
>wether you have left only 50 ? to make 100 Buttons or if you have the
>100 ? to make 200 Buttons. And the best case would always be to have
>enough money to fullfill those small ideas.

Many large organizations have local chapters that collect chapter dues and/or
have fundraisers (like bake sales, selling shirts, hosting events, etc.). I
see nothing wrong with that so long as it is not confused with or otherwise
limits money generated for the Wikimedia Foundation.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved
> in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm,
> for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone.
> Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years
> into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

You are absolutely right. But I find it quite funny that in all your
future scenarios the American foundation are always the good guys, while
you fear the international ones might only want to make money out of the
project. I can imagine other scenarios, for example a take-over of the
American foundation with the help of many faked accounts is much more
easy than in the German "e.V." where only "real" people are allowed to vote.

I can understand your concerns, but please try to imagine that many
people on the international Wikipedias have exactly the same kind of
concerns about the American foundation.

We need a system of Checks and Balances: The foundation should be able
to control the national organisations, and in return they should be able
to control the foundation. Elian proposed that a contract should be
formulated with obligations for both sides, but I think this is a long
process and the signing of course can only take place after the
association is founded.

I'll now take a look at isoc.de, thanks for the hint, Lars.

(BTW, I missed the public discussion of the foundation's bylaws. Where
did it take place?)

Kurt


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] European meeting of Wikimedia project contributors
 (was: Why 'Wikimedia Germany', 'Wikimedia France',	'Wikimedia ????')

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

> However, I would be delighted to have a European meeting of
> Wikimedia project contributors. We are thinking to have one in Paris.

Please make a bit of promotion in the other "European" communities for
the Wizards of OS 3 in Berlin on June 10-12, 2004:
http://www.mikro.org/Events/OS/wos2/konzept-e.htm

Jimbo will be there and Erik is organizing a panel called "Wikipedia and
friends":
http://wiki.wizards-of-os.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Wikipedia_And_Friends

We're also thinking about a Wikipedia mini conference on the WOS3. It
would be great if some people from the other "European" communities
could visit us and talk about their communities.

Kurt


body:
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 02:50:47AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Anthere wrote:

>
> There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved
> in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm,
> for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone.
> Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years
> into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

Think ICANN.

(The board members have to sue one another to get the balance sheets. Pretty
stinky. It used to be a useful, honest gang. Way back in the smelly tarpits
of history.)


body:
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 02:02:04PM +0100, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:

> future scenarios the American foundation are always the good guys, while
> you fear the international ones might only want to make money out of the
> project. I can imagine other scenarios, for example a take-over of the
> American foundation with the help of many faked accounts is much more
> easy than in the German "e.V." where only "real" people are allowed to vote.

Good point. What if americans start to run amok?

(like confiscate wikipedia, the universal database of terrorists...)


from_name: Elly Waterman

body:
On NL wikipedia there appears an anonymous user, IP 80.79.97.145, who regularly is making Minor changes. As it does not seem to be a robot, I am worried about this. As the number of contributers to NL wikipedia increase, it is more and more appropiate to switch off the minor changes in the Recent changes.

When asked how he is doing this, he replied something like, "Don't worry. I am not a vandal" (wich is true).

I don't like it at all, though. Can anybody explain, or does anybody have a solution?

Thanks, Elly Waterman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040123/dd87547b/attachment.html>


in_reply_to:
<200401231548.00662.sascha@pantropy.net> (message from Sascha
	Noyes on Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:48:00 -0500)

body:
> If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please
> advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
>
> I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in
> [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal
> attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal
> attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both
> condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a
> wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from
> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):

Sorry, no.  I am not going to try to change the policy.  Rather, when
a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing
more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.

Vandalism, yes.  Explicit threats, yes.  Edit wars, yes.  Insults?
You're not paying me enough to tell people not to be hostile
or rude.  I'd rather relieve Sisyphus for a millennium or two.

My characterization is "illogical"?  Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan.
"Condescending"?  You're absolutely right.  After all, my
/six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Some days it just isn't worth preparing
 sean at epoptic.com | the environmental impact statement.


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Fred Bauder wrote:

>>>If he does I will revert it and protect the page.

>>So let him delete it!
>>If a notice is placed and he deletes it, then we know that he's been informed.
>>That is all that due process (or anything along those lines) requires.

>I think reverting it and protecting the page will work much better. It gives
>a strong message that business as usual is over unless they pay attention.

So starting arbitration proceedings doesn't send that message?

Instead, you'll protect the user talk page (which /ought/ to be viewed
as a huge abuse of administrator power but which somehow isn't),
thereby preventing any further attempts at mediation by non-admins.

In MNH's case, that probably doesn't matter anymore.
But it's an awful precedent to set.

(And in MNH's case, protecting his user pages has happened before,
so it wouldn't send any message to speak of either.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL tweaks HOWTO page

body:
There's an article at kuro5hin about MySQL tweaking. Might be worth
looking into once we stay on a server for more than two days ;-)

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/1/18/33246/0547


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
>>>>> "J" == Jakob  <jakob.voss at s1999.tu-chemnitz.de> writes:

    J> Some of the German Wikipedians are going to found such a "e.V."
    J> targeting on making publicity and collecting money for
    J> Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and - last-but-not-least
    J> - having a good time together. Having a "e.V." and drinking
    J> beer[*] together on it's meetings is something ritual in
    J> germany we do not want to miss.

So. I think it's a great idea to have this kind of club
organization. Wikimedia Editors Groups could be a cool way to enjoy
the process. Why not? Sounds like a fun thing to do -- meet up,
promote the 'pedias, go to events (book fairs would be cool!),
etc. It's worked great for Linux and other Free Software.

But I think trying to extend this idea to create a tax haven and legal
shield for the Wikimedia Foundation -- without much of a plan as to
how that would happen, nor the consent of the Foundation itself -- is
probably ill-advised.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Jason Richey

body:
Brion is copying files over on Pliny...  So Gunther is going down
first.

...

...

...

Gunther is back up with 3 Gig of RAM.  Memtester is running.

Jason

Jason Richey wrote:

> Hello all.  Here's a snippet of an AIM conversation I had with Jimbo
> about my plan for today:
>
> jasonbomis: I'll be bringing Pliny and Ursula down at the same time.
>  Ursula will come up shortly after with an extra drive (sdb from
>  Pliny), and Pliny will come up later with a new primary drive, and
>  new OS.  Somebody will have to move files from SDA on Pliny before I
>  do this, because SDA is untrustworthy (the only thing in Pliny that
>  hasn't been replaced, and he still has errors) and won't be returning
>  to service this trip...
>
> jasonbomis: Gunther will go down after Ursula comes up, and will come
>  back up shortly thereafter with more RAM.  He has 2 512Meg modules
>  now, right?  So, I'll add 3 (1 Gig each) modules as per the manual.
>
> I'll be driving to the servers fairly soon, and it will take me 3
> hours to get there.  Then, I'll be doing what I said above.  If
> anything goes wrong, I'll improvise and leave the servers in no worse
> situation than they are in now.  At the very least, Gunther will have
> more RAM.
>
> I'm not touching Geoffrin this trip (at least that's not part of the
> plan).
>
> Call me with problems/concerns
>
> cell 1 760-963-0681
> cell 2 760-486-9194 (this one's been acting funny, so...)
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


body:
On Friday 23 January 2004 03:16 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
> > A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
> >
> > * What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article
> > disputes? Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
>
> I prefer a narrow jurisdiction: I don't want to be asked to decide if
> Usama bin Laden is a terrorist, or even if DNA is a nucleic acid.
> Rudeness isn't a crime and I don't think our time should be wasted
> with "mommy, he called me a Nazi!" or even "mommy, he called himself a
> Nazi!" whin(g)ing.  I can see us arbiting non-obvious copyright and
> legal questions, but if by "election disputes" you mean "mommy, he
> voted twice!" I feel that the person who set up the election needs to
> resolve any conflicts.

If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please
advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.

I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in
[[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal
attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal
attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both
condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a
wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from
[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):

"No personal attacks on the Wikipedia, period. [...] Unlike the other rules,
which are community conventions enforced only by our mutual agreement, this
one may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for
banning that go beyond our traditional "sheer vandalism" threshold."

I agree that arbitration should not involve making decisions about wikipedia
content, only the conduct of wikipedians.

> > * Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with
> > exceptions), or not require mediation?

I think that in cases where there is nothing to mediate (eg. the MNH case),
there should be no mediation.

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


body:
I think reverting it and protecting the page will work much better. It gives
a strong message that business as usual is over unless they pay attention.

Fred

> From: Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:16:47 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Notice to defendent in the case of arbitration
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> RickK wrote:
>
>>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>>> A notice should be placed on Mr. Natural Health's talk page quoting the
>>>> complaint and linking to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration.
>
>>> He will just delete it as soon as it is posted to his Talk page.
>
>> If he does I will revert it and protect the page.
>
> So let him delete it!
>
> If a notice is placed and he deletes it, then we know that he's been informed.
> That is all that due process (or anything along those lines) requires.
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


references:
<20040122162701.GF2294@narya.grin.hu>
	<87ptdbr67m.fsf@unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
	<20040123125838.GQ2294@narya.grin.hu>

body:
> But if Jimbo gots any response from a german lawyer then they can reveal
> the answers. I do not know what is the exact purpose of the foundation.
> Gathering money for wikimedia? Gathering for themselves operating mirrors?
> Or something else? I'm sure the german editors already know the answer to
> these question.... I hope. :)

Gathering money is the first step. Since we do not know exacly, how much money
this will be, we can not exactly plan, what to do with this money. There are
two ways of gathering the money:

1. Members have to pay for the membership (actually the plan ist 12-24 Euro
per year)
2. (Try to) get (tax-free) donations.

Some money is needed for the organisation itself. For example each year we
have to held a meeting, and every member has to be informed. We actually dont
know if it is allowed to use e-mail for that (what we would prefer), but if
not we have to use snail-mail, and for that reason we would need at least 1?
per member each year.

As you see on that example, german laws are very complicated. It already took
much time to find out what to do, just to found the "e.V." (and there are
still some points which are not clear). As more as we plan for the future,
the time needed to find out "how to do what" increases exponantially. Thus
most people prefer to make one step after another, look what happens in
detail and react in the best way.

For example, we do not know how many members the "e.V." will have. I think it
will be at least 20, but it could be 100 or 1000. We do not know that. And
there is now (easy) way to find out this exacly. But as you can imagine it is
a difference if we get 240 ? each year from 20 members or 12.000 ? from 1000
members. Furthermore we do not know how much we get by donations. The only
way to find out is just founding the "e.V." and see what happens.

One idea is to use the money for prefinancing merchandising. I think that way
we could offer t-shirts and such things much cheaper. Thus we could increase
the income of the "e.V." and promote wikipedia/wikimedia much more.

Another ideas is to finance courses, meetings and so on, to teach
editors/hackers.

Also sending money to the Wikimedia foundation is an option (but we do not
know yet if this is allowed). But even if this is no option, there are other
options to support the wikimedia foundation. May we could print t-shirts here
and send 500 (?) pieces to the foundation which sales them in America?

But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in detail,
since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.

--Ivo K?thnig


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal Attacks

body:
I guess I'm at the other pole and just don't want to be associated with any
offensive personality and vote with my feet before I put up with it.

Fred

> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:51:47 -0800
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2
>
>> If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please
>> advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
>>
>> I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in
>> [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal
>> attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal
>> attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both
>> condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a
>> wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from
>> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
>
> Sorry, no.  I am not going to try to change the policy.  Rather, when
> a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing
> more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.
>
> Vandalism, yes.  Explicit threats, yes.  Edit wars, yes.  Insults?
> You're not paying me enough to tell people not to be hostile
> or rude.  I'd rather relieve Sisyphus for a millennium or two.
>
> My characterization is "illogical"?  Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan.
> "Condescending"?  You're absolutely right.  After all, my
> /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.
>
> --
> Sean Barrett     | Some days it just isn't worth preparing
> sean at epoptic.com | the environmental impact statement.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Delirium

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No
>personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before,
>we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and
>scrap them.
>
>
Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and
"you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you
will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement.  Of
course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't
think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of
the law", so to speak.  Really we should only ban people who we've
determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a
determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near
future.  In my opinion, anyway.

-Mark


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moneybookers, e-Gold

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> We are now setup with
> http://www.moneybookers.com

Great news!

> a small (5 EUR, roughly) donation

how do I do the donation? the server is down at
the moment so I cannot check wikimedia.org to see
whether it contains a link. Do I have to open a
moneybookers account?

> I also investgiated e-Gold (...) questionable.

I haven't tried e-gold, but Mozilla Foundation
uses it.

--Optim

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] European meeting of Wikimedia project contributors

body:
Hi Jimbo,

> I am very enthusiastic about Kurt's suggestion here, and I propose that
> we set this date as well for the founding of a German
> organization of some sort, as determined after our inquiry into the
> finer points of German law and a consideration of the possibilities open
> to us.
>
> I am personally planning to spend some vacation time in Berlin and
> Munich, and if I can find suitable arrangements, I would like to stay in
> Europe for much longer, possibly as much as a month or two, with the
> primary purpose of working with Europeans on Wikimedia stuff.

I was asked to do a presentation of Wikipedia to the World Free Software
Meeting in Bordeaux, south-west of France, in July. Could you come?
cf. http://lsm2004.abul.org/rubrique2.html (the site is not active at this
time). I was thinking to invite Brion...

Yann

--
http://non-violence.org Site coop?ratif sur la non-violence
http://forget-me.net Alternatives et non-violence
http://fr.wikipedia.org Encyclop?die libre
http://forget-me.net/pro/ Formations et services Linux


subject: [WikiEN-l] Only Hard Cases?

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>So just regularly not following policy is ok, so long as you're polite about
>it?
>
>
Well, not _ok_, but I think it has to be pretty egregious to warrant a
ban, which is a pretty severe sanction and should be the last resort.
Note that I'm not commenting on the particular cases that have come up
recently, which may very well be of the severe-enough-to-ban sort; just
commenting generally.  Perhaps it's a personal opinion, but I think we
ought to strive to be as open and accomodating as possible, and avoid
banning as much as possible, since that's basically a "we give up, this
person cannot work within Wikipedia" decision.  Several previous
conflicts have been resolved somewhat more satisfactorily--for example,
partisans on both sides of the Polish vs. German names dispute have
engaged in some anti-policy activity (name-calling, revert wars, etc.),
but have also contributed a great deal of useful information to the
Wikipedia, and seem eventually to have been persuaded to act more in
line with our policies.  I think if we had simply banned a few of them
that would've been a quicker but overall worse solution.

-Mark


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Procedure for requesting mediation

body:
>He will just delete it as soon as it is posted to his Talk page.
>?
>RickK

 That doesn't mean it shouldn't be posted though.

Theresa


from_name: Ivo Köthnig

body:
Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 14:18 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
> Ivo K?thnig wrote:
> > The last point should never happen, since it is not allowed to use
> > the money in another manner as discribed in the statute of the
> > "e.V.". If we change the statute (which is not that easy itself,
> > since most members have to vote for the changes), we risk to lose
> > the ability to collect money tax-free, in particular if we change it
> > to make a lucrative income for ourselves.
> >
> > I don't know if there is a way to make a contract, that the "e.V."
> > is allowed to use the name "Wikimedia" as long as you allow
> > this. (may someone should research this) May that would be a
> > solution for you, Jimbo?
>
> Yes, something along those lines is exactly what I have in mind.
>
> I do not wish to stand in the way of progress.  I only want to caution
> that we move slowly, carefully, and *together*.

Thats what I prefer too, maybe without "slowly". :-)

I am not a lawyer, but I have following idea in mind.

1. We (the german wikipedists) found the "e.V." with the name "Wikimedia"
   inside.
2. You (or the foundation) tell us (the founded e.V.) official, that you have
   the rights on the name "Wikimedia", but you allow us to use it, if we make
   a contract about that topic.
3. Both sign that contract.

The contract should fixate our goals as clearly as possible and usefull. That
means, it should not contain something like "The e.V. can use this name as
long as it has the same goals like the Wikimedia Foundation". It should
explicite tell which goals that are.

Thus we get following situation: If the "e.V." changes it goals, you can say,
that we are not allowed anymore to use the name "Wikimedia". If the Wikimedia
foundation (for some reason) changes its goals, this does not effect us. You
can not say we should change our name, since we does not violate the
contract. Thus there would be an organisation with the name Wikimedia
following the original goals, even if the Wikimedia foundation does not. Thus
it saves the project in two ways.

--Ivo K?thnig


body:
Hi,

(...)
> I doubt there is any legal way to have a foundation subsidiary here in
> Germany  that is under german law (important for tax exemption and so
> on), open for  german members but still completely controlled by the
> foundation. The highest  board of every german e.V (and also of a german
> foundation) are democratic  institutions, so everything is controlled by
> the members. If you want to open  the organization for other members
> than the foundation (and you need at least  7 members for an e.V), you
> *must* give up control. I think that will hold true  for every EU
> country, not just for Germany.
(...)

For the French organisation, we will have in the status something as "a
representent of the Wikimedia Foundation" has veto power over such and
such decisions". It has to be precisely defined yet.
This is legal in France for non profit organisations.

Just my 2 cents.
Yann

--
http://non-violence.org Site coop?ratif sur la non-violence
http://forget-me.net Alternatives et non-violence
http://fr.wikipedia.org Encyclop?die libre
http://forget-me.net/pro/ Formations et services Linux


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Only Hard Cases?

body:
So just regularly not following policy is ok, so long as you're polite about
it?

Fred

> From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:06:19 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2
>
> Sascha Noyes wrote:
>
>> So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No
>> personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before,
>> we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and
>> scrap them.
>>
>>
> Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and
> "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you
> will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement.  Of
> course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't
> think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of
> the law", so to speak.  Really we should only ban people who we've
> determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a
> determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near
> future.  In my opinion, anyway.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Jakob

body:
Walter Vermeir asked:

> A "Wikimedia" in Europa can be useful I think but is it really necessary
> to setup different organizations for all the countrys?

First answer:

Is it really necessary to setup different Wikipedias in all the languages?

Second answer:

There is a german proverb saying something like "7 Germans - one association".
Or was it about the English men forming a club? Well, it does not matter. The
fact is that people with common interests like to join.

Here in Germany there are thousands of "e.V."s - little clubs collecting stamps
or or non-profit organisations trying to improve the world. Some of the German
Wikipedians are going to found such a "e.V." targeting on making publicity and
collecting money for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and -
last-but-not-least - having a good time together. Having a "e.V." and drinking
beer[*] together on it's meetings is something ritual in germany we do not want
to miss.

Jimbo Wales wrote:
> What I ask you to do is to *not* go ahead, not so quickly, as there is
> no particular reason to hurry.  We can spend several months exploring
> options and talking to a lawyer. Possibly my visit to Germany this
> summer would be a good target date for the launching of such a
> foundation, and I could be there to give my enthusiastic support.

As far as I can see the discussion on german wikipedia is far to long to avoid
founding *anything* in the next 2 month.

Please do not take this too serious. We have a common goal and it's all under
GNU FDL. Status of any legal associations will not make the difference.

Greetings,
  Jakob

[*] We also like wine and non-alcoholic drinks


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Policy suggestions

body:
Why are you repeating what I said ?

(my... would you say we happen to agree on something Rick ?)

Rick a ?crit:
> Wikipedia is not a list of citations.
>
> RickK
>
> Ira Stoll <irastoll at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>     *only replace text that you know to be wrong (inaccurate), and
>     replace it
>     with something that has a citation to back it up. If they have a
>     reasonable
>     difference, based on citation, allow both POV to be presented
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=21608/*http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Sascha Noyes

body:
On Friday 23 January 2004 05:51 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
> > If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then
> > please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
> >
> > I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in
> > [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal
> > attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that
> > personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging"
> > is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks"
> > happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall
> > quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
>
> Sorry, no.  I am not going to try to change the policy.  Rather, when
> a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing
> more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.

So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No
personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before,
we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and
scrap them.

> My characterization is "illogical"?  Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan.
> "Condescending"?  You're absolutely right.  After all, my
> /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.

I question your suitability for the role of arbitrator based on your
condescention towards those who want the wikipedia policies enforced.

We have made the choice that it is preferential to have policies concerning
etiquette. The primary reason for this choice is the fact that valuable
contributors will be driven away by people who grossly violate common
decency. I care enough about wikipedia to keep haggeling with people on these
mailing lists to enforce policies that are beneficial to wikipedia.
Personally, I act on gross violations of etiquette by ignoring the people who
engage in such behaviour. I believe that the persons who wrote policies such
as "no personal attacks" believe, as do I, that not everyone reacts to gross
violations of etiquette as your "/six-year-old/" and I do. Retaining valuable
contributors with a thin skin is why enforcement of rules such as "no
personal attacks" is indeed a good idea. The only argument you have given
against enforcing such rules is that your time is too precious.

So would it be correct to conclude that you either you think that nobody will
be driven away by personal attacks, or it is not worth your time to retain
these contributors? I will also put to you my opinion that in cases where
there has been a gross violation of policies such as "no personal attacks",
all the arbitration committee will have to do is the following:
1. Verify the veracity of the claim that a policy was grossly violated
If (1) is found to be true, then either:
2.1 Inform the violator that if he/she should engage in such behaviour again,
they will be banned.
Or, if the previous violations were found to have been sufficiently extreme:
2.2 Ban the violator
I doubt that this proceedure would take too much time.

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


body:
> One idea is to use the money for prefinancing merchandising. I think that way
> we could offer t-shirts and such things much cheaper. Thus we could increase
> the income of the "e.V." and promote wikipedia/wikimedia much more.
>
> Another ideas is to finance courses, meetings and so on, to teach
> editors/hackers.
>
> Also sending money to the Wikimedia foundation is an option (but we do not
> know yet if this is allowed). But even if this is no option, there are other
> options to support the wikimedia foundation. May we could print t-shirts here
> and send 500 (?) pieces to the foundation which sales them in America?
>
> But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in detail,
> since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.
>
> --Ivo K?thnig

It reminds me of the fate of so many foundations, such as one I
supported many years ago, against cancer. These foundations fest on
donations. Most of the money collected is not used toward the presumed
goal of the foundation, it is used for maintenance, for promotion, to
look for more donations, to finance meetings, to pay for members travel
costs.

It is true that anything that can enhance the cancerous growth of
Wikipedia might be good, but what is that goal ? the real goal ?

Is it just to favor the growth of Wikimedia foundation ? Or is it to
actually "bring" knowledge to those who don't have access to it ?

dunno, I may have missed something at some point :-(


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Amazon experiment ended early

body:
Jimmy Wales a ?crit:
> As I expected, the Amazon experiment shows fairly conclusively that
> the revenue to be obtained is not sufficient to justify any potential
> controversy that this might cause.
>
>>From the other day when I started this, to now, our complete earnings
> are $0.34, yes, 34 cents.

> Therefore, I eagerly conclude that this whole issue is a dead issue,
> and that we need not consider it much further, if at all.
>
> --Jimbo

:-)


from_name: Caroline Ford

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Jimmy Wales a ?crit:
>
>> As I expected, the Amazon experiment shows fairly conclusively that
>> the revenue to be obtained is not sufficient to justify any potential
>> controversy that this might cause.
>>
>>> From the other day when I started this, to now, our complete earnings
>>
>> are $0.34, yes, 34 cents.
>
>
>> Therefore, I eagerly conclude that this whole issue is a dead issue,
>> and that we need not consider it much further, if at all.
>>
>> --Jimbo
>
>
> :-)
>
Of course - it was only for US Amazon. To be honest, as I buy books from
amazon I would rather wikipedia got 2.5% of whatever I spend than the
whole amount going to amazon. Naturally I only buy from amazon.uk.

Cafe Press is really US only - it would cost me $7 dollars in postage to
get a mug sent here, for example. And they don't take UK debit cards
anyway....

My 2ps worth,

Caroline (User:Secretlondon)


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> As I expected, the Amazon experiment shows fairly conclusively that
> the revenue to be obtained is not sufficient to justify any potential
> controversy that this might cause.

Thanks for this info.

Best,
Karl

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Peter Bartlett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How about a notice like this?

body:
>Ec wrote:
>If you are looking for a lawyer who is "fluent in English" the notice
>could just as easily be in English. :-)

Many a false statement written in jest :)

Pete/Pcb21


from_name: mark at kruegerbrothers.com

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Amazon experiment ended early

body:
Jimbo wrote:

[...]
>Therefore, I eagerly conclude that this whole issue is a dead issue,
>and that we need not consider it much further, if at all.
[...]

I would not easily give up this idea. What one may consider (now or in
future) is to promote a more source-based (bibliography-based) wiki article
policy as you have eg in Brittanica or major German encys. I know it well
for www.ericweisstein.com -(Wolfram research) for mathematics and some
other. In general, I would highly appreciate to see more references in the
articles... This could have the consequence that users reading a WP article
directly order a referenced book via WP (I would certainly do).

Another proposal is, that there could be a weekly book list with recent
releases by topic. This (together with references) in turn could lead to
higher sales revenue. This, however, relies on accurate article writing (and
more accurate referencing) which seems not possible to me without editor
responsibilities ... and there the circle is. This way, every move is part
of the WP strategy. If you consider the amazon.com issue to be dead then
this is in my opinion not a good sign of how the WP strategy is being
proceeded.

If you argue with Wikibooks etc. I must concede that I am not a friend of
these particularisation. The strength of the Wiki environment is to have ONE
document and get the whole world linked to it. The "stem cell", I think,
should be the WP article.

Mark

--
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Martin Harper

body:
Dear all.

We have a rough agenda:

PRINCIPLES
1) "Jurisdiction" - what disputes do we plan to get involved in?
2) "Rules" - How do we judge cases
3) "Outcomes" - what solutions can we impose?
4) "Transparency" - issues of privacy, openness, accountability, etc

PROCESS
1) "Requests" - how does one request arbitration?
2) "Who takes part?" - how do we pick arbitrators on a case?
3) "Trial" - How does the trial proceed?
4) "Judgement" - How do we give our judgement?

We might add points to that as they come up. Currently we're largely discussing
Jurisdiction, though we've also has some discussion about Requests and
Transparency prompted by your comments here and elsewhere.

A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:

* What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article disputes?
Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?

* Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with exceptions),
or not require mediation?

Your thoughts and opinions are very welcome.

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


body:
On Friday 23 January 2004 07:06 pm, Delirium wrote:
> Sascha Noyes wrote:
> >So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No
> >personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated
> > before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to
> > them and scrap them.
>
> Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and
> "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you
> will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement.

"No personal attacks on the Wikipedia, period. [...] Unlike the other rules,
which are community conventions enforced only by our mutual agreement, this
one may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for
banning that go beyond our traditional "sheer vandalism" threshold."

The question is whether this is an extreme case. I agree with you that we
shouldn't run around "throwing" everyone who has made a personal attack in
front of the arbitration committee. But the above-quoted policy also states
quite clearly that the policy "may also be implemented in extreme cases as
policy, i.e. grounds for banning".

> Of
> course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't
> think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of
> the law", so to speak.  Really we should only ban people who we've
> determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a
> determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near
> future.  In my opinion, anyway.

Basically the same question as above; when are people "highly detrimental to
wikipedia"? The current policy, by my interpretation, states that someone is
highly detrimental to wikipedia if their personal attacks are extreme. Which
is obviously far from a clear-cut answer.

Your suggestion of assessing whether or not someone is likely to change their
behaviour is, IMO, answered by my suggestion in the parent email under (2.1):
A "last warning". In my opinion inferring the probability of future
compliance from past behaviour is in most cases an unsatisfactory approach.

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


body:
Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
> KNOTT, T wrote:
>
>> Mr natural health has refused mediation with the community. He appears
>> to feel that he has done nothing wrong and wants his "harassers"
>> punished.
>> I'm just writing this email to keep the pressure on really. How far
>> down the line are we on finalizing the arbitration process? When will
>> the arbitration committee be able to something about the Mr NH situation?
>>
> Sometimes this process of "keeping the pressure on" is as irritating as
> MNH's alleged wrongdoing.  What we see on the mailing list is a stream
> of accusations intended to highlight every little fault that he commits.
> We see little or nothing about the other side of the story.
>
> Mediation and arbitration are very good concepts, but I too would be
> hesitant about accepting a process in which the apparent mediators don't
> have their own system properly in place.  The optics in those
> circumstances suggest that a person is offering himself as a mediator in
> order to further the POV of the majority opinion in that context.  If by
> our actions we only succeed in convincing the accused that the process
> is unfair, then we have undermined the mediation system, and his refusal
> to co-operate with it begins to seem more logical.
>
> The mediation committee needs to figure out its own procedures before
> that option can be offered to anybody.  Those procedures must include
> provisions to insure that the rights of the accused are protected so
> that he can have the confidence that he is participating in a fair system.
>
> Ec

The first provision we can offer is about the confidentiality of
everything that might be said during the mediation. It is very important
to stress out that point. Nothing that will be said should left the
small circles of mediators (unless the disputants agree to do so); and
if one mediator talks in details to another about the case, it should be
said clearly to the disputants.

Mostly, what is said must not be used afterwards against the person; ie
it must not be revealed to the arbitration commitee; nor used against
the disputant in case of later conflicts. (note that, de facto, it is
best for the mediator never to get into conflict with that editor
afterwards, temptation could be high :-)).

If one of the disputant fear he might be participating in a fair system,
perhaps would it be for him to choose a silent overseer ?

What else are you thinking of Ec ?


body:
Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 17:11 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
> Ivo K?thnig wrote:
> > Gathering money is the first step. Since we do not know exacly, how
> > much money this will be, we can not exactly plan, what to do with
> > this money.
>
> Gathering money is not the first step, then.  It would be
> irresponsible for us to gather money without a plan for what to do
> with the money.

No, the problem is that we have many ideas what to do, but there is no money
to realize that. Of course you have these plans before collecting money, but
we dont go to the details until we have it. That was, what I meant with first
step is collecting money (in bottom of the mail are some more detailed
examples).

And of course the very first step is to found that "e.V." to make it easier to
collect the money and spread the risks over more than one or two persons.

And as Kurt sayed thats not the only reason. For example, we want an official
organisation which can speak for the project. At the moment we always have to
say: "Oh, this is Kurt, he has written some articles, like 10000 others."
(Note: Yes, it are so many registered users in the german wikipedia now.) It
sounds much better if you say: "This is Kurt (or whoever). He is the
president of the German Wikimedia Foundation..."

For the englisch wikipedia that never was a big problem since there was always
Jimbo, who has started the project, which sounds good enough...

Or let there be some problems with copyright and someone in germany get sued?
An offical german organisation could help much faster in that case.

Next point is, if someone violates our copylefts in germany (what allready
happens). Here is nobody, who is able to create pressure to such a person.
You can not write: "Hey, I am Ivo K?thnig, I have written some articles in
the wikipedia. Please stop violating the GFDL."

That also are some examples which show, that it is not so bad to collect some
money unspecific.

> > Some money is needed for the organisation itself. For example each
> > year we have to held a meeting, and every member has to be
> > informed. We actually dont know if it is allowed to use e-mail for
> > that (what we would prefer), but if not we have to use snail-mail,
> > and for that reason we would need at least 1?  per member each year.
>
> I will gladly provide funds for anything of that nature.  I would
> prefer that we keep all overhead for the use of donor funds to an
> absolute minimum for as long as possible.

I too ...

> > But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in
> > detail, since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.
>
> I think you have it exactly backwards.  Collecting money with no
> specific plan for what is to be done with it is not a good idea at
> all.

That strongly depends on what dimension of money you think. If we talk about
ordering new servers which costs between 10 or 20 TUSD, thats right. Than you
should make a detailed plan of what you exacly want. At least to know how
much this will cost in the end. (but even than you dont think about if you
plug the usb-mouse in the left or the right port before you have got the
money).

If we talk about making stickers or button to dispense them (may for free to
promote wikipedia), you would not start to ask people to donate that 100 ?
you need for this. You would look in the cash box and decide wether you have
left only 50 ? to make 100 Buttons or if you have the 100 ? to make 200
Buttons. And the best case would always be to have enough money to fullfill
those small ideas.

> There is nothing to prevent Europeans from being members of the
> international Wikimedia Foundation, either.  There is nothing to
> prevent the international Wikimedia Foundation from engaging in any or
> all of the kinds of activities that you mentioned, either, either in
> Europe or in America.

Of course there is a problem for many people being a member of the
international Wikimedia Foundation, since not everybody speaks english.

Also it makes no sence for me donating money for the Wikimedia Foundation, try
to realize some projects in Europe or Germany and ask the foundation for
money which is than send back (keep in mind what you sayed about the
overhead).

--Ivo K?thnig


body:
> >Since Wikipedia has one rule, called NPOV, there never will be a problem
> > with that, cause it is allowed to write "who lies about the holocaust"
> > (we ourself would never lie about, just talking about these lies). It
> > even is allowed to have pictures with the "Hakenkreuz" since it is
> > allowed to show them for example in an educational context.
>
> Your response is reassuring, but it also seems to negate the need for
> two separate German language databases.  It shows that the intent of the
> person using this material is very important.  There are people who will
> continue to submit bad material, but as long as we make appropriate
> edits when we find it we should be safe.
>
> I would expect that this law would also extend to certain neo-Nazis who
> use other symbols that are different form though still modelled on the
> "Hakenkreuz" (swastika in English).

Your are right. That should concern some forbidden neo-Nazis-partys like FAP
and there symbols. But I do not know exacly which symbols are allowed and
which are forbidden.

I think that concerns all symbols. They are not forbidden by themselves, there
forbidden cause the organisations using them are forbidden. For example also
PKK symbols are forbidden. But I am not a laywer...

--Ivo K?thnig


body:
> > I would expect that this law would also extend to certain neo-Nazis who
> > use other symbols that are different form though still modelled on the
> > "Hakenkreuz" (swastika in English).
>
> Your are right. That should concern some forbidden neo-Nazis-partys like
> FAP and there symbols. But I do not know exacly which symbols are allowed
> and which are forbidden.

That means, it depends what you want to say by showing them, if this is
allowed or not.

--Ivo K?thnig


from_name: Dan Drake

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to defendent in the case of arbitration

body:
PMFBI again, but after following this case for a week or more, I don't
understand this.

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:23:17 UTC, Fred Bauder
<fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> If he does I will revert it and protect the page.
>
>
> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>
>
> He will just delete it as soon as it is posted to his Talk page.
>
> RickK
>
> Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> A notice should be placed on Mr. Natural Health's talk page quoting the
> complaint and linking to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration.
>

So what if he deletes it? Bad behavior, but it's his talk page. The point
of posting the notice would seem to be to inform him of the fact that
arbitration is requested. When the notice goes up on his talk page, he's
informed. If he decides to ignore the notice, then I suppose there's a
procedure for handling that. If he claims he never got the notice -- well,
gimme a break! What are archives for?

OTOH, if a disputant deletes the official public arbitration notice on the
RFA page, then just ban his/her ass.  Naturally, the charge of vandalizing
the RFA page is one he has to be allowed to defend himself against, but if
that charge is established, you can forget all the other issues and all
those complexities and doubts and ambiguities and procedural
complications, and just ban his ass.

What am I missing here?


body:
> I hereby appoint Kurt to be Vice President, Germany, of the
> international Wikimedia Foundation.  It's as easy as that, you know.

No, I dont know! May thats one of the problems. You do not exacly know how the
"e.V." would work. And we (or I) do not know how the international Wikimedia
Foundation works. May that should be explained in more detail and translated
to the importand languages...

> There is nothing to limit participation in the existing foundation,
> for anyone on earth.

Without having problems with the language!

> > Or let there be some problems with copyright and someone in germany
> > get sued?  An offical german organisation could help much faster in
> > that case.
>
> Yes, I can see that might be possible, but it is for this reason that
> I think it wise if we consult with a German attorney.

That needs money again. And until know there is no wikipedist in germany who
does not says... "but I am not a lawyer". :-(
May your idea with the mainpage will work...

--Ivo K?thnig


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Ivo K?thnig wrote:
> I am not a lawyer, but I have following idea in mind.
>
> 1. We (the german wikipedists) found the "e.V." with the name "Wikimedia"
>    inside.
> 2. You (or the foundation) tell us (the founded e.V.) official, that you have
>    the rights on the name "Wikimedia", but you allow us to use it, if we make
>    a contract about that topic.
> 3. Both sign that contract.

I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia
foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should
be no problem, right?

Magnus
(who usually isn't a "Vereinsmeier";-)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why "Wikimedia Germany", "Wikimedia France",

body:
"Wikimedia ????"
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:32:15 -0800
User-Agent: KMail/1.5.3
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
Message-Id: <200401231332.15562.maveric149 at yahoo.com>
Status: RO
X-Status: Q
X-KMail-EncryptionState:
X-KMail-SignatureState:

Evan Prodromou wrote:
>So. I think it's a great idea to have this kind of club
>organization. Wikimedia Editors Groups could be a cool way to enjoy
>the process. Why not? Sounds like a fun thing to do -- meet up,
>promote the 'pedias, go to events (book fairs would be cool!),
>etc. It's worked great for Linux and other Free Software.

No reason not to include readers and cheerleaders, IMO. I kinda like the idea
of having Wikipedia User Groups (WUGs). :)

>But I think trying to extend this idea to create a tax haven and
>legal shield for the Wikimedia Foundation -- without much of a plan
>as to how that would happen, nor the consent of the Foundation
>itself -- is probably ill-advised.

I agree -- that is why I support setting up a chapter system like other
international organizations.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-January/013905.html

Under that set-up the German WUG would be a Wikimedia chapter. When there are
several chapters in Europe, they could form a Wikimedia regional body in
Europe that each chapter must send delegates to in order to be part of.
Regional bodies would be full-blown affiliates (and thus may have their own
rep on the Wikimedia board).

Just some ideas.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 22:08 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> > I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia
> > foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should
> > be no problem, right?
>
> Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to
> *represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity
> and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.

The actual plan is to call it

   "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",

that nearly means

   "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".

"Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for
some reasons not wished by the majority.

--Ivo K?thnig


body:
Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 22:08 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> > I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia
> > foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should
> > be no problem, right?
>
> Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to
> *represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity
> and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.

The actual plan is to call it

   "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",

that nearly means

   "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".

"Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for
some reasons not wished by the majority.

--Ivo K?thnig>


body:
Ivo K?thnig wrote:

> Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 22:08 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
>
>>Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>>I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia
>>>foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should
>>>be no problem, right?
>>
>>Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to
>>*represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity
>>and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.
>
>
> The actual plan is to call it
>
>    "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",
>
> that nearly means
>
>    "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
>
> "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for
> some reasons not wished by the majority.

Maybe the "fraction" calling for action now could found a wikimedia
support group, not legally representing wikimedia. When we, after
careful planning and coordination with Jimbo, get a German "subdivision"
of the wikimedia foundation, we can either keep the support group, or
merge it with the "official" group.

That would serve everyone, but create some organisatorical overhead.

Magnus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>So forget having me impeached -- call the Thought Police!
>
The thought of impeaching arbitrators even before the arbitration
process is in place is not very encouraging.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Testing 2

body: testing


from_name: Elly Waterman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sascha Noyes" <sascha-5OWuIOc6HaDk1uMJSBkQmQ at public.gmane.org>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 6:33 PM
Subject: Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

> The problem is that anonymous users don't have a "click-box" (whatever the
> correct term is) to mark their edits as minor. Meaning that this person is
> doing it in some as-of-yet unknown way.
>
> Best ,
> Sascha Noyes
> --

Indeed, and in addition, I like to switch off the Minor Changes to watch
only for the Bigger Changes, by regular users and ALL CHANGES by anonymous
users, among which unluckily are some vandals. If vandals can in some way
click this nonexisting box, they can do their hobby unnoticed, at least by
me, and other sysops who work in this way.

So please, some advice, Elly


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikitech-l] Testing 2

body:
your test was sucecessfull

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Testing 2

body:
On Jan 24, 2004, at 00:43, Optim wrote:
> your test was sucecessfull

yay!

That actually wasn't supposed to go to the list, I forgot to append
"-owner" to the address. :P

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Elly Waterman elly.waterman-at-wanadoo.nl |wikipedia| wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Sascha Noyes" <sascha-5OWuIOc6HaDk1uMJSBkQmQ at public.gmane.org>
>Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
>Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 6:33 PM
>Subject: Re: Minor changes by anonymous user
>
>
>
>
>>The problem is that anonymous users don't have a "click-box" (whatever the
>>correct term is) to mark their edits as minor. Meaning that this person is
>>doing it in some as-of-yet unknown way.
>>
>>Best ,
>>Sascha Noyes
>>--
>>
>>
>
>Indeed, and in addition, I like to switch off the Minor Changes to watch
>only for the Bigger Changes, by regular users and ALL CHANGES by anonymous
>users, among which unluckily are some vandals. If vandals can in some way
>click this nonexisting box, they can do their hobby unnoticed, at least by
>me, and other sysops who work in this way.
>
>So please, some advice, Elly
>
>
>
I've found a simple bug that would make it possible for anonymous users
to mark edits as minor. Exploiting it seems to require at least a little
bit of effort, though. But in any case, I think you can safely assume
this problem will soon be fixed.

//E23


body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
>I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are
>specified in  [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include
>[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the
>desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy,
>he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and
>illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia
>policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from
>[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):

I'm in 100% agreement with this. The reason why we have policies like 'no
personal attacks' is because allowing personal attacks drives away good
contributors and creates a hostile working environment where reason is
sacrificed in favor of bullying (thus the most persistant troll wins in
article content disputes). This goes directly against our goal of creating
NPOV and accurate content.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)