body:
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> What does leadership of an open-source effort to build a free and open
> encyclopaedia have to do with "private governance"? It's not like I'm
> asking questions relating to Jimbo's other business interests. And I'm
> not even trying to put anyone on the spot here - if certain questions
> are sensitive, then that's fine. But I don't see how a question like
> "can Jimbo overrule consensus" could be construed as a sensitive one
> best dealt with privately.

Well I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were a troll. But the
fact is that until Jimbo decides otherwise, he is the reigning
monarch.

> 2) Jimbo retains one or more extraordinary powers on the English
> Wikipedia to do with arbitration. (if ArbCom is not confined to en, my
> apologies)

ArbCom on en is confined to en simply because of language constraints.
Likewise is Jimbo's governance. If he spoke Tagalog, he no doubt would
take an active interest in how that language branch handled particular
matters - from arbitration to sourcing.

> 3) Jimbo retains an unofficial role as community leader and spokesman
> on the English Wikipedia. His pronouncements and directions are
> followed, if at all,  because of trust, respect, his previous role as
> GodKing, and perhaps due to community misunderstanding of his role.

Is the role of a king an "unofficial role?" Of course not. Just
because there is no limitation to his "exceptional" powers doesn't
mean that they are not well defined.

> I would note that role 3) definitely seems to be declining. He
> intervenes much less frequently than he previously did, and is much
> less present on the mailing lists and talk pages than previously.

That is your opinion. Others may have thought so as well, but as
todays events demonstrate, whether use of his executive power may wax
or wane is purely up to his discretion. How else would a monarchy be?

-Stevertigo


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] purpose served by anonymity / unmoderated edits

body:
On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 20/03/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hmm. If someone told me that any change I made to Wikipedia would have
> > to be "approved" by someone, or that the change would be somehow
> > "provisional" or "second-rate', I would be less motivated to work on
> > it.
>
> Mmm. Motivation is likely to decrease as the approval process gets
> backlogged, and I'd be impressed at a process which can (to pick
> numbers out of the air) re-approve a couple of hundred thousand
> articles on a weekly, or even monthly, basis.
>
> As an aside, this is a perfect project for an "ongoing fork". Every
> article on StablePedia is a static copy of a past Wikipedia article,
> perhaps slightly tidied by SP editors and reviewers; old revisions
> aren't displayed, and people are pointed back to Wikipedia to work on
> the ongoing draft. When you want to update, you just dump the old one,
> grab a new copy, approve and post on StablePedia - GFDL compliance is
> simple enough, and this means you can display your "approval
> infrastructure" nice and cleanly without conflicting with the live
> project. There's no conceptual reason the Foundation couldn't host
> both, either, and it might even be beneficial to do so as a trial
> balloon.
>
> (The downside is that it's much less high-profile... but the *upside*
> is that it might actually happen. Major changes to the publishing
> structure of enwp proper, especially a credentialled editorial-control
> system, are rather unlikely to ever actually get in place...)

Yes, I was just about to sugges a similar system myself. An ongoing fork is
a much better solution than making the approved version the sole public one.
Speaking from personal experience as a webmaster, simply making users take
one more step to edit an article (i.e. clicking on "view draft article",
instead of being able to go direct to editing) can drastically reduce (I'd
say halve wouldn't be unreasonable) the number of users who take the desired
action.

And speaking from experience as an editor, a lot of my edits are "impulse"
ones made when I see an obviously erroneous statement or wrong formatting or
spelling error, or when I see something obvious I can quickly add to an
article. I'm sure a lot of other edits, especially those by anons, are made
this way. If I had to take one extra step to view the latest version of an
article (which I'm sure would be the only editable one), as I'm sure all
anons would be forced to under the proposed Citizendium-ish idea, my number
of impulse edits would probably be zero.

An ongoing fork solves this problem by making the tradeoff between "latest
bleeding edge but prone to errors" and "quite damn accurate, but not quite
up to date" explicit and clear to all users, and giving them a free choice.
Most who would prefer the bleeding edge version are the type who would edit,
while most who would stick with the tried and true ongoing fork are not as
likely to edit, making it ideal.

Johnleemk


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
On 3/20/07, Mets501 <mets501wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> Listen, why don't you all stop arguing. It really serves no purpose.

You are welcome to your opinion.

> If you don't want to discuss something, then don't discuss it.
> But trying to prevent others from discussing it is futile.
...
> Please, only contribute if you actually have something to say.

Hence you write to tell us to not discuss something, based on a view
that "trying to prevent others" from having a discussion "is futile"?
Am I the only one who sees the complete contradiction here?

> There are a few specific times when it is absolutely necessary to discuss
> something privately; discussing the position of someone is not one of those
> situations.

So you do support the discussion, and yet you youself had nothing to
contribute except to criticize the course of the discussion? How
strange.

-Stevertigo


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] An Open Letter to Mr. Wales

body:
On 20/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:

> > That's right.  Someone is lying.  For further details, see
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Enviroknot

> Can an IP address technically be considered a "sock puppet"? If so
> then anybody who forgets to log in before editing is "sockpuppeting".
> I have done that a few times after failing to notice that my login
> cookie has expired.

No, because sockpuppeting involves intent to appear to be a second person.

- d.


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 3/20/07 9:36 PM, stevertigo at stvrtg at gmail.com wrote:

> I would ask Jimbo directly in private email, where this discussion belongs.

Doesn't a discussion that involves everyone belong where everyone can
participate?

Marc


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/20/07, Bennett Haselton <bennett at peacefire.org> wrote:
> >- Can we really present this in a useful way to the public? "This
> >article is unverified. However, 3 months and 280 revisions ago, an
> >expert from a university you've never heard of verified it as
> >accurate." Um...
>
> In the Citizendium model, once an article is approved, that's the version
> that people see by default, and the next one in the pipeline only replaces
> the current version after the assigned editor has signed off on that too.

Yeah. Which is also bad: "Welcome to Wikipendium, the encyclopaedia
that's being edited in real-time. This article is 92 days out of
date." Not as bad as Britannica. Not as good as Wikipedia.

Steve


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/20/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Scientific papers are primary sources.
> > >
> > > Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
> > > observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.
> >
> > The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary
> source.
>
> If you want to split hairs like that, then yes, insofar as the paper
> merely reproduces the data, then it's a primary source. The analysis
> of the data and the conclusions drawn from the data in the paper are
> secondary material.

Columbus's logs are primary historical sources - they are a record of his
observations and his interpretation of his observations.  Scientific
research papers present and analyse data, and draw some conclusions from the
data.  Primary sources are not the raw data, nor are they Columbus's
readings of the angles of the stars or the depth of the water.  Court
rulings are primary sources, not the policeman's log books.

No.  Research publications are primary sources.  Review papers are secondary
sources.  Textbooks tend to be secondary or tertiary sources.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: ASINs and ISBNs

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:23:05 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>I think this is an important distinction.  Often, the Amazon link is the
>easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article.

Um, except that in the particular case at issue, it also turned out to
be wrong...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: ASINs and ISBNs

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:27:37 +0000, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com>
wrote:

>'m all
>for using Amazon as a source for (eg) reviews or other data only
>available through them

Reviews?  Not ''user'' reviews, I hope?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re: Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:23:43 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>Well consider "The biaxial nematic phase for this particular compound
>only occurs at temperatures around 200 ?C and is preceded by as yet
>unidentified smectic phases."

OK, so we are writing the first-ever secondary source on this subject,
are we?

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


from_name: Jossi Fresco

body:
On Mar 20, 2007, at 9:36 PM, stevertigo wrote:

> Just
> because there is no limitation to his "exceptional" powers doesn't
> mean that they are not well defined.

Why don't you let Jimbo respond? Without disrespect, I personally do
not care of your opinion of Jimbo's role.

What me and others are asking is for Jimbo's own opinion of his
role.  Given that we care for this project and contribute endless
hours of our time to it, we have a basic right of asking these
questions, don't you think?

I do not know him personally, but from what I have observed from his
interactions with the community, I am certain he will respond if we
just give him some space to do so.

-- Jossi


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool - how to prepare for the onslaught

body:
> Unless  some kind of personification is intended by capitalizing
> "Anybody" and "Nobody". :-)

I thought that was the intention... "Nobody has." is not a full
sentence, even if you treat "Nobody" as a name.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User space needs to be more clearly marked

body:
On 3/20/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I can recall on several occasions starting a quick stub article on
> > something based off of general information I already knew and then later
> > on came back with more detailed information and sources after I'd
> > researched a little. I guess I've just been lucky so far that CSD
> > fundamentalists haven't caught me at it.
>
> What's the point of that? It would be better to wait until you've
> found the sources before you start writing, otherwise you may be
> adding incorrect information.
>
> Citing sources should be easy because they should be the actual source
> of the information, which you will already know since it's whatever
> you just finished reading.

This strikes me as a rather inconvenient process. Perhaps other people work
at things differently, but I rarely directly refer to sources when starting
an article unless I know little about it. The only exception is when I have
sources and am not sure what articles could use them, in which case I hunt
through the book/whatever for things I could write about. Otherwise, when I
want to write about something in general (especially when it's on impulse,
normally after "what? this is a redlink?"), it's often inefficient and
frustrating to hunt down a source.

Call me an eventualist, but from experience, things work out fine in the
end. The article doesn't stay like that forever - it improves.

(Disclaimer: I don't exactly start articles very often these days without
sources, mainly because it's all but impossible for me to find a redlink
where I have the requisite general information for a stub stuffed in my
head, so my "experience" is actually a couple of years old. If this is an
instance of old fartery, feel free to disregard this email.)

Johnleemk


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Frederick Noronha

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
I'm just a poor Indian. Could I change my domicile to claim that $10
gift certificate :-) FN

On 20/03/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gee did I just do that?
>
> Woops.
>
> -S
>
> On 3/20/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sounds good.
> >
> > Stephen Yeago
> > 312 279 6769
> >
> > On 3/20/07, Benjamin Keith Johnson <john2429 at msu.edu> wrote:
> > > I am a researcher seeking to interview Wikipedia contributors of any and all
> > > levels of experience and involvement.  In-depth, one hour interviews will be
> > > conducted over the phone or email beginning March 27.  Compensation for your
> > > time will be provided ? a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Must be 18+
> > > and U.S. resident.  Contact Benjamin Johnson, Department of
> > > Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University,
> > > by email at john2429 at msu.edu or by phone at 517.230.1272.
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > > Benjamin
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
> >Using primary sources makes it difficult to ensure that you haven't
> >missed something. When using secondary sources you simply have to
> >determine what bias exists in the source, and if there is no
> >significant bias (for example, it's an independent newspaper article
> >about the case), you can trust that nothing significant has been
> >missed out.
> >
> !!! The suggestion that newspaper articles are unbiased is a novel one.

The word "significant" is significant. Newspapers usually have quite
general biases towards certain political POVs, they don't usually have
a bias towards a particular side in a civil law suit.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> I dunno. If I was researching a subject on the web and came across a
> lawsuit involving them, I would probably put it in. Nothing to do with
> "trying to get at" anyone.
>
> If this is wrong, then WP:NOR goes further than I thought it did. Our
> coverage will be substantially reduced if we have to have notability
> for every fact. Is the fact that a company is based in town X notable?
> What if there's no newspaper article that mentions the fact?

Might depend on the fact. Something neutral such as "Joe Foo" lives in
"Crankytown California" might me ok but there might be a problem with
something potentially inflammatory such as "Joe Foo" is getting sued
by his next door neighbor because he plays his music too loud. What
interest is the second fact except to someone trying to dig up some
dirt on Joe so he can insert some POV into Joe's article ie "Joe Foo
likes to piss off his neighbors." A potentially inflammatory fact is
not "news" until an independent source makes it "news" by reporting
it. Then it could be mentioned in Wikipedia in an NPOV manner.


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/20/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:23:43 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Well consider "The biaxial nematic phase for this particular compound
> >only occurs at temperatures around 200 ?C and is preceded by as yet
> >unidentified smectic phases."
>
> OK, so we are writing the first-ever secondary source on this subject,
> are we?

technicaly no however I don't think unpublished student essys are a
citeable source.

It is not imposible that someone has writen a review article by now
but I don't think they had back when that sentance was writen.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jimbo wrote:
> > notable to the article. No claim has been made about why this case is
> > supposed to be interesting or relevant. It is purely a way of trying
> > to get at the subject of the entry.

Actually, the quoted comment was posted by user:FNMF


from_name: Sam Blacketer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR (Ray Saintonge)

body:
>
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <46004E87.5050306 at telus.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Angela wrote:
> >On 3/20/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>In a recent posting, Jimbo stated that anything that draws from primary
> >>sources is OR.  The section is question was drawn in part from primary
> >>sources (San Diego courts case detail, a Superior court judgement).
> >>
> >>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
> >suggests that whether or not primary sources can be used depends on
> >how public the figure is. For non-public figures, it says "material
> >from primary sources should generally not be used," whereas for public
> >figures it says "material from primary sources should be used with
> >care" though that is under the heading "Presumption in favor of
> >privacy".
> >
> Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants,
> and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record.  This is an
> important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial
> system.  Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material.

I would have thought a court judgment is one of those rare sources that is
part primary and part secondary: the opinions of the Judge are a primary
source, and should if preferable be backed up by a legal textbook which
analyses their implications, but the summary of the facts of the case is a
secondary source in that it is the Judge's analysis of the primary sources
presented to the court.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


subject: [WikiEN-l] Links: a philosophical problem

references:
<f2osv29d385kb7jinc5v89vva376fj126t@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00703190752gc157f4aje824a2665b6aecf3@mail.gmail.com>
	<fb7fdd9c0703191438l6e43d494i23e3b7375f49525f@mail.gmail.com>
	<194uv21io9r525e5al78m5m4monnf2hsk3@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703191711s6cc79e0ucb06aae9f8cb4f9d@mail.gmail.com>
	<ejgvv2p2rg3aok7ic95vtklr60pq14kebg@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/20/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Yes.  And no it's not worth citing all of them because frankly it's
> the VHS release date of a film, and *nobody cares*.

Point conceded for this example. :)

Steve


body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:25:40 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>> >Well consider "The biaxial nematic phase for this particular compound
>> >only occurs at temperatures around 200 ?C and is preceded by as yet
>> >unidentified smectic phases."

>> OK, so we are writing the first-ever secondary source on this subject,
>> are we?

>technicaly no however I don't think unpublished student essys are a
>citeable source.

>It is not imposible that someone has writen a review article by now
>but I don't think they had back when that sentance was writen.

I'd be interested to hear what Jimbo has to say about writing on
Wikipedia the first ever review article for this subject.

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


body:
on 3/20/07 10:37 PM, stevertigo at stvrtg at gmail.com wrote:

> Because the topic of Wikipedia's governance and processes of control
> are typical fodder for trolls, who are far more interested in hurting
> the project than helping it.

It is exactly this type of paranoiac reasoning an administration uses to
justify its secrecy.

Marc Riddell


from_name: James Farrar

body:
On 20/03/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
> >I'm going to reply to myself before anyone beats me to it:
> >
> >Nobody has editted Wikipedia.
> >
> Correcting one's own edits sometimes leads to more errors.
> (grammer/grammar, editted/edited) ;-)

The first rule of the Internet is that any post correcting a typo must
itself contain a typo :)


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] New Messages message

body:
I've heard of this before. Try unwatching your talk page, if you have it
watched, I think?

On 20/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> To any and all,
>
> I don't know who else to ask about this so I thought I'd ask here. For the
> last several days I have been getting a "You have new messages" indicator,
> but when I click on it, and go to my Talk Page, there are no new messages
> listed. Am I somehow missing them? Is anyone else experiencing this, and
> what could be the problem?
>
> Help!
>
> Marc Riddell
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
stevertigo wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> on 3/20/07 9:36 PM, stevertigo at stvrtg at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> I would ask Jimbo directly in private email, where this discussion belongs.
>> Doesn't a discussion that involves everyone belong where everyone can
>> participate?
>
> Noone has a "right" to edit Wikipedia. So I dont see how his decisions
> involve "everyone".

I'm hoping that I'm just misinterpreting your response and it's not as
nitpicky as it seems like to me. How about substituting "everyone who
edits Wikipedia" instead of an unqualified "everyone?" That's what I
assumed was meant but perhaps it needs to be made explicit.

Since Jimbo's actions do affect everyone who edits Wikipedia, regardless
of whether you call that editing capability a "right" or a "privilege"
or whatever, I think it's quite reasonable for we the editors to be
discussing just what actions Jimbo is capable of and what the
implications of them may be. The fact that some trolls or other
ne'er-do-wells may also be listening in is unfortunate but I don't see
how to avoid it and I certainly don't see preventing it as something
worth squelching the discussion over.


from_name: darthvader1219 at gmail.com

body:
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The overall picture I'm getting is this:
> 1) Jimbo is a board member on the Wikimedia foundation and one of its
> official spokespersons.
> 2) Jimbo retains one or more extraordinary powers on the English
> Wikipedia to do with arbitration. (if ArbCom is not confined to en, my
> apologies)
> 3) Jimbo retains an unofficial role as community leader and spokesman
> on the English Wikipedia. His pronouncements and directions are
> followed, if at all,  because of trust, respect, his previous role as
> GodKing, and perhaps due to community misunderstanding of his role.
>
> What else am I missing?
>

There's only one other thing that I can think of. See WP:OFFICE. He is one
of two people on the English Wikipedia empowered to perform unrevertable
office actions.

--

Dycedarg


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
> A WP editor just happens to find a copy of the original suit and
> writes about it in Joe Foo's article. Nobody anywhere else is writing
> about Joe Foo getting sued.
>
> Since nobody else has written about Joe Foo getting sued, the suit
> itself is non notable and therefore the information in Joe Foo's
> article about the suit is removed by Jimbo.

No. Jimbo never mentioned notability. He removed it on OR and NPOV
grounds. (Mainly NPOV, I think, the comments about OR were just to
explain where the writer had gone wrong.)


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
stevertigo wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> on 3/20/07 9:36 PM, stevertigo at stvrtg at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> I would ask Jimbo directly in private email, where this discussion belongs.
>> Doesn't a discussion that involves everyone belong where everyone can
>> participate?
>
> Noone has a "right" to edit Wikipedia. So I dont see how his decisions
> involve "everyone".
>
> -Stevertigo
>

So, would you say that Jimbo does not have a right to edit Wikipedia? If
so, how is Jimbo's right to edit different from anyone else's?

-Rich


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
geni wrote:

>On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Does
>>he own any part of servers, software, intellectual property?
>>
>>
>like any editor he holds the copyright on his edits and uploads.
>
The hardware is owned by the corporation.

>>2) What is Jimbo's legal position with respect to Wikipedia?
>>
>>
>he is a board member.
>
...and chairman emeritus.

>>3) What is Jimbo's position as an editor on Wikipedia? Does he have
>>the right to ignore consensus? What happens if people disregard his
>>right?
>>
Formally, he has no such rights.  Such actions are recognized on the
basis on an historical moral right.  Outright attacks on his positions
are not likely to succeed.  Where Jimbo has taken a peculiar stand on an
issue diplomacy is warranted.

>>Can he confer this right on others?
>>
That wouldn't make sense.  This is not a question of rules, but of
charisma.  God-kings are uncreatable.

>>How do we distinguish
>>between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
>>powers?
>>
You guess. :-)

>>4) Does Jimbo have a leadership position, and if so, of what? Whom
>>does he lead? In what way? Is that leadership contestable?
>>
>>
>Jimbo's power is due mostly to the community accepting his pronouncements
>
The restructure of the Board has played to Jimbo's strong suit:
promoting Wikipedia in all corners of the world.  This is bound to
affect his ability to be online at any given time.  Others are much
better at maintaining financial records, or keeping members informed, or
doing those other mundane tasks that keep a large organization functioning.

>>5) What concrete changes have taken place as a result of Jimbo being
>>succeeded by Anthere as chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board?
>>What is the day-to-day effect of these changes?
>>
>>
>The board doesn't normally get involved in day to day matters. It is
>of course impossible to say what would have differed if jimbo had
>stayed as chair. Changes since the switchover are basically the
>foundation becoming far less ad-hoc.
>
That's very important in such a large group of people.

>>6) What is Jimbo's position as a spokesperson for Wikipedia or the
>>Wikimedia Foundation? What does it mean when Jimbo tells the press
>>that some change "will probably be going ahead"? Are we to interpret
>>that as an order to be obeyed?
>>
>>
>Up to you. You may find yourself rather outnumbered if you don't but not always.
>
Having had the experience some years back of working for a flamboyand
person who loved being in the media, I quicly learned not to give too
much weight to what is said to the media, and to give even less weight
to what people thought was being said.  Much of what is said to the
media in a first instance off the cuff and not necessarily supported by
a broad consensus.

>>7) Are the answers to any of these questions different for the
>>different language Wikipedias, or other Wikimedia projects?
>>
>>
>Other projects tend to be more independent of the board and the like
>anyway. This extends to Jimbo.
>
The fact that AFAIK Jimbo is unilingual is a big factor in that.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-21

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20570).

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

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

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


body:
On 3/20/07, Keitei <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> At Uncyclopedia where putting images in colored boxes is more common
> than at Wikipedia, there's a css modification which gets rid of the
> whitespace that's normally created; the site (uncyclopedia) is down
> right now, but I'm sure it'd be small fries to implement at Wikipedia
> if we were to change the background color.

Cool, good to know.

Steve


body:
On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> As an aside, this is a perfect project for an "ongoing fork". Every
> article on StablePedia is a static copy of a past Wikipedia article,
> perhaps slightly tidied by SP editors and reviewers; old revisions
> aren't displayed, and people are pointed back to Wikipedia to work on
> the ongoing draft. When you want to update, you just dump the old one,
> grab a new copy, approve and post on StablePedia - GFDL compliance is
> simple enough, and this means you can display your "approval
> infrastructure" nice and cleanly without conflicting with the live
> project. There's no conceptual reason the Foundation couldn't host
> both, either, and it might even be beneficial to do so as a trial
> balloon.

Yeah, that's good thinking actually. If the proposal is "approval +
live editing", and we already do the live editing, then why bother
replicating that effort? Do your work at Wikipedia and get the instant
gratification *and* contribute towards a high-quality approval-based
encyclopaedia. The question just becomes motivating the approvers -
perhaps a print copy? Some format that doesn't directly compete with
Wikipedia...

Steve


body:
> > If people are confused, that is their problem.
>
> No, if people are confused about how Wikipedia works and that impedes
> their ability to contribute positively, that's *our* problem.
>
> Steve

Listen, why don't you all stop arguing.  It really serves no purpose.
If you don't want to discuss something, then don't discuss it.
But trying to prevent others from discussing it is futile.
There are a few specific times when it is absolutely necessary to discuss
something privately; discussing the position of someone is not one of those
situations.

Please, only contribute if you actually have something to say.
--Mets501


body:
On 21/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I thought the first rule of the Internet is to not talk about the Internet. :o)
>
> No that's the second rule. The first rule of the Internet is to not
> talk about the Internet :o)

And the third rule is that when someone shouts "stop!", goes limp or
taps out, the pedantic discussion is not over :)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo's rejection of [[WP:ATT]]

body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Its important to remember that Wikipedia is Jimbo's website.

No, it is not "Jimbo's website"; please do not continue to spread this
misinformation. And Jimmy is not Chair of the Board, Florence Devouard
is.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


body:
On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) What is Jimbo's financial position with respect to Wikipedia?

he may get some expenses

> Does
> he own any part of servers, software, intellectual property?

like any editor he holds the copyright on his edits and uploads.

> In what
> way, if any, does he profit from it?
>

None.

> 2) What is Jimbo's legal position with respect to Wikipedia?

he is a board member.

>
> 3) What is Jimbo's position as an editor on Wikipedia? Does he have
> the right to ignore consensus? What happens if people disregard his
> right? Can he confer this right on others? How do we distinguish
> between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
> powers?
>
> 4) Does Jimbo have a leadership position, and if so, of what? Whom
> does he lead? In what way? Is that leadership contestable?

Jimbo's power is due mostly to the community accepting his pronouncements

> 5) What concrete changes have taken place as a result of Jimbo being
> succeeded by Anthere as chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board?
> What is the day-to-day effect of these changes?
>

The board doesn't normally get involved in day to day matters. It is
of course impossible to say what would have differed if jimbo had
stayed as chair. Changes since the switchover are basically the
foundation becoming far less ad-hoc.

> 6) What is Jimbo's position as a spokesperson for Wikipedia or the
> Wikimedia Foundation? What does it mean when Jimbo tells the press
> that some change "will probably be going ahead"? Are we to interpret
> that as an order to be obeyed?
>

Up to you. You may find yourself rather outnumbered if you don't but not always.

> 7) Are the answers to any of these questions different for the
> different language Wikipedias, or other Wikimedia projects?
>

Other projects tend to be more independent of the board and the like
anyway. This extends to Jimbo.

--
geni


from_name: stevertigo

body:
On 3/20/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Just to be clear, Stevertigo is being facetious here, and I disagree
> strongly with what he is saying.

Well I may have been completely wrong about a couple points,  but I
don't know how that could be called "being facetious."  The gist of my
comments was essentially correct was it not?

I mean, you've guided the project thus far, on matters great and
small, and you will continue to, until such time as your role would be
bequeathed to an heir. That's the way "the Brits" do it, isn't it?

-Stevertigo


body:
On 3/21/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> And Jimbo has reserved a role as boss, including the power to make
> decrees like "this is unacceptable."

There is no legal basis to any role Jimmy has in the English Wikipedia
(and which the community, not the Board, permits him to exercise).
Wikipedia is not "Jimmy's website" by any measure, be it ownership,
representation, or legal control. That is misinformation.

> While the overall Wikimedia
> duties have shifted away from Jimbo, he is still the public face of
> Wikipedia.

This may be true in the United States; it is certainly not true in the
European Union, for example, where Florence and chapter
representatives are increasingly the first point of contact.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


list: textbook-l

from_name: Stanley "Toshmann" Ozoemena

subject: [Textbook-l] We must be doing something right

body:
I know how you feel, Karl!  We all have the need to have our hard work appreciated.

  Karl, do you -- in any way, form, or fashion -- get paid (money) for the work you do?

Karl Wick <karlwick at gmail.com> wrote:
  That little note made my day! That is exactly what I have hoped for in
Wikibooks since the very start! Thank you for sharing.

Karl

On 3/16/07, Robert Horning wrote:
>
> With all of the complaints about how Wikibooks is going to heck in a
> handbasket, I would like to point out some rather positive "press" about
> Wikibooks that comes from outside of our little community:
>
> http://smarandayal.com/2007/03/10/gods-of-kobol-bless-wikibooks/
>
> Here is somebody just trying to learn a little more about a topic, and
> he is using Wikibooks to try and pick up that knowledge.
>
> Congratulations to the [[Economics]] Wikibook on ths point, you got a
> genuine fan here!
>
> --~~~~
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
Textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

---------------------------------
Be a PS3 game guru.
Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
> > Scientific papers are primary sources.
>
> Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
> observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.

The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source.


body:
On 3/21/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, because this discussion was clearly taking place in the realm of
> the legal, so that was obviously the most sensible direction to take
> it in.

Stevertigo's comments, including the claim that Wikipedia is "Jimmy's
website", were wildly inaccurate. I corrected them.

> Try a Google News search on their names. It's a fun game - you get
> about 750 hits for Jimmy and about 8 for Anthere. Most of those 8 are
> about her screw-up in telling people that we were going to go tits up
> financially.

What a nasty comment. Florence was misrepresented; if you watch the
video, it is quite clear that she said no such thing. In any case,
comparing the news, you will have to filter Wikia-related items and
community initiatives on the English Wikipedia. Florence Devouard
represents the Wikimedia Foundation as Chair of its Board of Trustees.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


body:
On 21/03/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

> At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
> among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
> exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
> functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).

If he has delegated responsibility for them, that presumably means he
retains the authority to over-rule ArbCom's decisions?


body:
On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) What is Jimbo's financial position with respect to Wikipedia? Does
> he own any part of servers, software, intellectual property? In what
> way, if any, does he profit from it?

Jimmy does not own any part of the servers, software, or "intellectual
property". These assets are owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, a
tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with offices based in St.
Petersburg, Florida. Jimmy does not stand to benefit financially from
the activities of the Wikimedia Foundation, and is indeed obligated to
recuse himself from any decision making processes where such a
personal benefit could result (such as Board resolutions affecting
Wikia, a separate for-profit company he co-founded).

> 2) What is Jimbo's legal position with respect to Wikipedia?

Jimmy is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
Foundation, which in total has 7 members. The Board of Trustees is the
governing authority of WMF which primarily defines strategy,
coordinates fundraising, and broadly oversees operations of hired
staff. Some Board members (notably the Board Chair and Jimmy) also
have an important role as media representatives, though this is not
presently described formally.

> 3) What is Jimbo's position as an editor on Wikipedia? Does he have
> the right to ignore consensus? What happens if people disregard his
> right? Can he confer this right on others? How do we distinguish
> between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
> powers?
>
> 4) Does Jimbo have a leadership position, and if so, of what? Whom
> does he lead? In what way? Is that leadership contestable?

This is for the English Wikipedia community to work out. The Wikimedia
Foundation takes no position on these questions.

> 5) What concrete changes have taken place as a result of Jimbo being
> succeeded by Anthere as chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board?
> What is the day-to-day effect of these changes?

See: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_V_-_OFFICERS_AND_DUTIES

> 6) What is Jimbo's position as a spokesperson for Wikipedia or the
> Wikimedia Foundation? What does it mean when Jimbo tells the press
> that some change "will probably be going ahead"? Are we to interpret
> that as an order to be obeyed?

There have been some misunderstandings about this, and we agree on the
Board-level that it needs to be clear when Jimmy is speaking as a
member of the English Wikipedia community, and when he is speaking as
a representative of the Wikimedia Foundation. In the case of the
credentials issue, for instance, the Foundation had taken no official
position.

> 7) Are the answers to any of these questions different for the
> different language Wikipedias, or other Wikimedia projects?

Only insofar as they are separate communities which may give different
answers to questions 3) and 4).

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

> But the
> fact is that until Jimbo decides otherwise, he is the reigning
> monarch.

He already HAS decided otherwise, by creating the Wikimedia
Foundation and transferring the assets of Wikipedia from his private
company to the foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation's bylaws clearly
state, "All corporate powers shall be exercised by or under the
authority of, and the business and affairs of the Foundation shall be
managed under, the direction of the Board of Trustees. ... The act of
the majority of the Trustees present at a meeting at which a quorum
is present shall be the act of the Board of Trustees." Moreover, "Any
Trustee may be removed by a majority vote of the full membership of
the Board."

In short, Jimbo's powers only exist insofar as they are granted to
him by the full board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, on
which he only holds one seat. Moreover, the other trustees could
remove him from the board if they so chose. If it were their desire
to do so, in fact, they could impose limits on his powers up to and
including banning him entirely from editing Wikipedia.

This does not mean, of course, that he has no powers. It merely means
that his powers are derived from (and therefore limited by) the
consent of the full board of the foundation, which chooses to grant
him certain powers based on the trust he has accumulated through his
history as a leader of the project. If, however, a dispute were to
arise over the question of who has ultimate power, there is little
doubt that a court of law would rule in favor of the board.

In short: The king is dead. Long live Jimbo!

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority
> *over* the
> community, which the Foundation more or less denies.  So whatever
> corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from
> whatever powers our community traditions give me.
>
> Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't
> intend to
> interfere with that one way or the other.

Again, turning to the bylaws: "The majority of the Board shall be
elected or appointed from within the community," but "'Community' as
used in the Bylaws, shall be defined by the Board, consistent with
the mission statement."

This seems to say that the ultimate power in Wikipedia resides with
the community, as you stated. Somewhat paradoxically, however, the
Board has the power to define the community. In theory this could
lead to a situation where the board defined the community in such a
way as to manipulate the outcome of elections to produce
unrepresentative outcomes. In practice it most likely means that
ultimate power now resides with a broad-based community of
Wikipedians who elect the board to represent them.

The fact that the current board assents to the current definition of
Jimbo's powers does not mean that future boards will continue to do
so. It's possible (again in theory, and I see no sign of it
happening) that the community could elect board members who choose to
do otherwise.

For the record, I'm not in any way advocating that they do so. The
point here is simply to define from whence your powers derive.

As for the question of whether the Foundation has authority over the
community, of course the Foundation doesn't have any ability to tell
any of us what to do. However, it *does* control the physical assets
of Wikipedia, including the servers. If it chose to do so, it could
shut the site down and fire the staff, and the community would have
to try to reconstitute itself elsewhere.

Again, I'm not advocating that this happen, nor do I think that it is
even remotely likely.

The main point here (on which I think you and I agree) is that
Stevertigo's description of you as a "monarch" with "unlimited
powers" is no longer accurate. Whether your powers derive from the
board or from "community traditions," they now derive from some
source other than actual ownership of Wikipedia. Moreover, if your
powers derive from community traditions, it is paradoxical (to put it
politely) for Stevertigo to suggest that the community should refrain
from publicly discussing how your powers are defined. Is he just
being a troll, or what?

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

body:
First I want to thank everyone who worked on the WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR
merger into WP:ATT.  I do not think those changes are a good idea, but I
know that a lot of people worked on it in good faith, and that
reasonable people may differ.

I undid this merger of policy not because I think it is a bad idea but
because there was not really a proper process.  If ultimately approved,
this is a MAJOR change of editorial policy structure (even if, at the
outset, the policies are supposed to stay the same).

I am happy to restore the policy if there is community consensus to do.
I am encouraging the creation of at minimum a "vote" page to allow
people to register their opinions more systematically.

The reason, though, that I think this is a bad idea is quite simple.
WP:RS (which has never been fully fleshed out as I think it could be)
and WP:V and WP:NOR are separate ideas, not the same idea.  They need
separate policy pages so they can be explained separately, even when
there is overlap.  A combined page will tend to cause confusion as
editors being to think that "attribution" (the word) is more important
than verifiability, avoiding original research, etc.

Even when things like this are closely linked (and they are), they are
actually different things.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alai

subject: [Wikitech-l] Missing Dumps

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Potentially crazy idea, but given the above, what if there was a
> per-backed-up-wiki RSS / ATOM feed that would include a notification when
> new dumps were generated?

Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

> I'll slip that into my updates; updating an RSS .xml file would not be
> difficult at all.

Very cool, thanks.  Will this be broken down on a per-dump basis, as well as per
wiki?  Personnally I use only some of the "small" dumps, whose completion dates
are currently on the order of a month earlier than the full history dumps...

Cheers,
Alai.


from_name: Jossi Fresco

body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 12:01 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> jf_wikipedia wrote:
>> (a) What was done that we should not have done;
>
> The change was made before a sufficient process had taken place to
> make
> the change, with the result that many good editors were unaware that
> such a fundamental change was about to take place.  Many have reported
> being baffled and unhappy with the change.
>
>> (b) What was not done that we should have done;
>
> A process which has worked well in the past is a process of discussion
> to arrive at a specific proposal, followed by a broad public poll (or
> "vote"), followed by a certification of the result.
>
> This achieves something quite useful: broad notification, a serious
> assessment of the strength or weakness of support for some
> proposal, and
> a defined endpoint so that people know that policy has been changed.
> All of these things serve to promote harmony by making policy changes
> democratic rather than power struggles.
>
>> (c) How do we gauge consensus as it relates to policy changes.
>
> We do not have a simple clear definition of this.
>
>> (d) Do we need to involve you in the final determination so this does
>> not happen again?
>
> I think this would be a good thing, yes.  I do not want to have a veto
> over policy changes (other than perhaps WP:NPOV - if a vote of 90% of
> all editors was to turn Wikipedia into Conservapedia, I would not
> accept
> it at all of course :) ).  But I think it is important that for really
> major shifts of policy, we have a clear and defined endpoint.
>
> --Jimbo

Thank you for the reply.

I was not aware of the need for a broad public poll. For example,
WP:BLP, which I was quite involved in formulating, went from proposal
to policy without such public poll.

As for the argument that "many good editors were unaware", I find
that puzzling: How could such editors *not* be aware with all the
discussions, involvement, redirecting of high-traffic pages such as
NPOV and V, the referencing to WP:ATT in ArbCom cases, etc?

As for your last point, that is very clear and useful as it defines
an unambiguous endpoint.

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 12:11 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I hope that your questions have been answered.

Yes. Thank you.

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 1:24 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> My daughter said something fun to me the other night.  We were playing
> and she said in a voice of quiet power: "I will conquer your world."
>
> Me: "Hmm?"
> Her: "Wikipedia.  I will conquer Wikipedia and you will make me the
> new
> founder of Wikipedia."

Knowing how own my kids think and act, that is not outside the realm
of plausibility!

-- Jossi


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: ASINs and ISBNs

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:48:37 -0400, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>>> I think this is an important distinction.  Often, the Amazon link is the
>>> easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article.

>> Um, except that in the particular case at issue, it also turned out to
>> be wrong...

>Well, at least inconsistent with other, less-reliable sources.

No, inconsistent with *all* other sources.  The idea that they are
less reliable despite being right when Amazon is wrong is somewhat
perverse.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:20:28 -0700, jf_wikipedia
<jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:

>Have your read [[WP:ATT]], Guy?

Yes.  So did Jimbo.

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


body:
On 21/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> James Farrar wrote:
> > On 21/03/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
> >> among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
> >> exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
> >> functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).
> >
> > If he has delegated responsibility for them, that presumably means he
> > retains the authority to over-rule ArbCom's decisions?
>
> Right.  I still retain the right to pardon people who are banned by the
> ArbCom.  I have never done this, and am unlikely to do so.  But I think
> it a valuable safety valve in case the ArbCom somehow begins to go
> radically against community consensus in some particular case.  Unlikely.

Thanks for the response.

It seems to me that the "constitutional monarchy" model isn't totally
appropriate here, as in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch has
considerable power in theory but none in practice, as the use of any
power to over-rule the government would immediately lead to the
removal of the said powers from them and a move directly to a
republic.

I like the HoL analogy.


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20562] trunk/phase3

body:
On 19/03/07, raymond at svn.wikimedia.org <raymond at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20562
> Author:   raymond
> Date:     2007-03-19 15:13:24 -0800 (Mon, 19 Mar 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * (bug 9343) Correct Wolof interwiki links

A better description would be "Correct internal name for Wolof
language", since that's what's been done, and not *just* interlanguage
links are affected.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>>Scientific papers are primary sources.
>>>
>>>
>>Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
>>observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.
>>
>>
>The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source.
>
Another non-sequitur.

Ec


body:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:41:31 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>Broad is the keyword here. To really get everyone notified, a specific
>announcement should be made to this list, to Village pump/policy, and
>probably several other key on-wiki discussion pages (including User
>talk:Jimbo Wales). And probably on the IRC server too. Notifications
>during the discussion phase, and during the !voting phase.

I think it's telling that so many people express surprise at the
change.  I don't think it's wrong to say that I am one of the more
active Wikipedians, and I had no idea the change was coming.  I
thought WP:ATT has stalled long since.

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


body:
stevertigo wrote:

>Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>
>>I don't see how a private discusson can resolve a public confusion,
>>unless I was to report the results of that "private" discussion
>>afterwards.
>>
>>
>Privacy is an outward indication of respect. Jimbo of course deserves
>respect just like any other community member. Moreso even. Hence these
>public discussions about a good person and outstanding leader have the
>appearance of being personal attacks. Though thats probably not your
>intent, people in the core community cannot rule that out.
>
Idolatry is not a valid basis for argument.

This debate arose from a public act by Jimbo.  That alone makes it a
valid subject for public discussion.  While I don't completely disregard
the possibility that some people may have taken this as an opportunity
for personal attacks, the discussion as a whole is focused on solving a
real problem.

Ec


body:
stevertigo wrote:

>On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Does he have any other explicit extraordinary powers?
>>
>>
>Again, I find this public discussion to be improper. You would have to ask him.
>
If these policies are so private they are not explicit.  I think your
response is just another way of saying that you do not know.

Ec


body:
Stephen Bain wrote:

>On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/20/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
>>>among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
>>>exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
>>>functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).
>>>
>>>
>>Its important to understand that Jimbo has a well defined
>>discretionary powers over the ArbCom. He has never used them though,
>>just as the Queen of England has never "disbanded Parliament".
>>
>>
>And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the
>English Wikipedia at the moment.
>
Charles I discovered the hard way that there are limits to monarchy.

Ec


body:
stevertigo wrote:

>On 3/20/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>
>>stevertigo wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Again, I find this public discussion to be improper. You would have to ask him.
>>>
>>>
>>Why would it be improper to ask how Wikipedia is run? It seems like a
>>pretty reasonable question.
>>
>>
>Because the topic of Wikipedia's governance and processes of control
>are typical fodder for trolls, who are far more interested in hurting
>the project than helping it.
>
That's like saying that democracy is too precious to be put under the
control of the general population.

Ec


body:
stevertigo wrote:

>On 3/20/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Transparency is paramount. The intervention at WP:ATT has left me
>>quite confused about his role. And by the look of it, I am not alone.
>>An unambiguous response to these questions would be very much
>>appreciated as it will dispel the confusion that clearly exists.
>>
>>
>If people are confused, that is their problem.  Responses can come in
>many forms, in the form of no response for example.
>
Stonewalling is indeed an effective tactic.  The only problem with it is
that it pisses people off just as effectively.

Ec


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > "In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit
> > against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the
> > society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"
> >
> > This is original research?
> Yes.  To my knowledge, this has never been written up in any newspaper,
> magazine, or book.  It was discovered by reading websites that I think
> we would all agree are not themselves reliable sources and by
> referencing official court documents.  The case, what happened in it,
> the outcome, are all matters of interpretation involving original
> research

I do not agree that stating that A sued B, when you have a court document
stating that A sued B, is a "matter of interpretation involving original
research."  In fact, I find this to be quite strange.

You can argue that it's a notability problem if the only source is the court
document, but poor notability is not original research.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Inconvenience

body:
On 3/21/07, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > From: "John Lee" <johnleemk at gmail.com>
>
> > > What's the point of that? It would be better to wait until you've
> > > found the sources before you start writing...
> > >
> > > Citing sources should be easy because they should be the actual source
> > > of the information, which you will already know since it's whatever
> > > you just finished reading.
> >
> > This strikes me as a rather inconvenient process.
>
> It's known as "work." Writing is work. Writing an encyclopedia is work.

What constitutes work? You're speaking in truisms - I'm sure we all agree
writing an encyclopaedia is work, but what would you define as constituting
work? Demanding that I have a book open and in front of me when all the
requisite information for a stub is in my head (this used to be especially
common when we didn't have anything close to a million articles, and I'm
sure it's still common for many editors from areas subject to systemic
bias) strikes me as demanding form over function. Should I wear a suit and
tie when I edit?

> Perhaps other people work
> > at things differently, but I rarely directly refer to sources when
> starting
> > an article unless I know little about it. The only exception is when I
> have
> > sources and am not sure what articles could use them, in which case I
> hunt
> > through the book/whatever for things I could write about. Otherwise,
> when I
> > want to write about something in general (especially when it's on
> impulse,
> > normally after "what? this is a redlink?"), it's often inefficient and
> > frustrating to hunt down a source.
>
> Why is it any more "convenient" to do this in the main article space than
> in your own user space?

Wait, are we talking about crappy, half-written drafts, or decent stubs? An
article can be a draft and a stub (i.e. the editor intends to return to the
article to flesh it out later), or it can be a "finished" stub (although
this seems a bit oxymoronic), or it can just be a draft. The latter is
clearly unsuited for article space, but the former two are perfectly fine. A
stub-quality article is better off in article space than in userspace; a
half-written draft stub is not.

> Call me an eventualist,
>
> I don't call this eventualism.
>
> I call this rehearsing in front of the audience.
>
> I call this running out into the street naked and telling the policeman
> "But I was just about to put my clothes on."

If you have a problem with the fundamental premise of Wikipedia that we
write an encyclopaedia while our readers are browsing it, maybe this isn't
the right project for you. :-p

Johnleemk


body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient
> > to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm
> > "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being
> > written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it
> > (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing
> > my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
>
> What do you mean by framework? A framework shouldn't contain anything
> that needs sourcing - to me a framework of an article would be just a
> list of section headings.

A framework is a general summary of facts, perhaps akin to the lead section
of a full-fledged article. The details can come in at a later point, and
these details obviously require sources (unless the editor has somehow
memorised an inhuman amount of information).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that (assuming [[Britney
Spears]] was a redlink), I'd have to write "Britney Spears is a famous
singer.<ref>some pop culture magazine just to prove I'm not making up a
commonly-known fact</ref>" rather than "Britney Spears is a famous singer.
{{stub}}"

There is absolutely nothing wrong with starting a stub-class article without
directly referring to sources. It obviously shouldn't be encouraged, but it
shouldn't be discouraged either. That's how we got the beginnings of most of
our articles - very few of us, I'm sure, ever actually dug up half a dozen
books to write a short stub. The referencing work should be saved for the
meat of the article, not for a stub summarising the general facts about the
article's subject.

Johnleemk


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Status of BitTorrent Downloads

body:
There have been a large number of downloads of the torrent files for the
images, however, there does not seem to be a lot of interest
form folks in helping seed the images files.  I have had a lot of folks
connect then disconnect.  I set a limit on upload speed since torrent
can be energetic.  The torrents are not trackerless, since the DMCA
requires that I be able to notify folks, the torrent uses a tracker.

Anyone interested or who feel trackerless torrents would be preferred
let me know.  I also would like to see more folks join the swarm
so we can propogate the seeds more efficiently.    I have setup a second
seed to improve the performance.

Jeff


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Status of BitTorrent Downloads


body:
On 3/21/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> on 3/20/07 9:25 PM, stevertigo at stvrtg at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I don't think this line of questioning is helpful.  Jimbo's role in
> > the community is based not just on his early leadership but his
> > respect and trust by the community *at large.  His position is one of
> > *trust, and In order for his role to have meaning, this role needs to
> > remain largely undefined and unconstrained by any set boundaries or
> > constitutional delineations. He can negate consensus, simply because
> > he can, as he has in the past, and as he will continue to for as long
> > as he is active.
>
> This is not answering a question - it is avoiding one.
>
> Marc Riddell

What's the question? If the question is, "What authority does Jimbo have?"
the answer is spelled out quite clearly: "He has no authority beyond that
which he has been granted implicitly through the trust of the community."

Johnleemk


subject: [Foundation-l] Cherokee Language Class Materials - Master Lexicon

body:
The first cut of the Cherokee Language Materials are at:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/lexicon/chrlexicon-master.tar.bz2

This master lexicon contains all known Cherokee Language words, phrases,
and constructs (over 58,000)
along with proper mapping of drifted Oltali words to the Sequoyah
Syllabary.   They would be a good update for
Gerard's WikitionaryZ project since it contains the phrases and both
text and syllabary rendering of these
phrases.

These materials are "pure" Cherokee phrases.  They do not contain any of
the synthetic or word paring lexicons
created by the machine translator.

Jeff


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Michael_Langan&diff=116513802&oldid=116432075

What the hell is going on here? Some of the sentences Jimbo removed:
"In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit
against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the
society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"

This is original research?

"The Mega Foundation was established as a non-profit corporation
established to "create and implement programs that aid in the
development of severely gifted individuals and their ideas,"[32]
declaring itself to be the official Mega Society. [33]"

The sources certainly back these statements up. For accuracy, I would
probably add "According to their website in 1999" or something.

Why remove this stuff? I find this drive-by management style of
Jimbo's so frustrating - how can this level of chaos, disruption and
confusion be worth whatever is being gained? He arrives on an article,
removes text in this "I am so right and you are so wrong" manner, then
disappears again.

I'm all for benevolent dictatorship[1], but not like this. This just
makes everyone unhappy and confused.

Steve
[1] Which apparently is no longer the case.


body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought that was the intention... "Nobody has." is not a full
> sentence, even if you treat "Nobody" as a name.

What's a "full sentence"? This is perfectly grammatical: I have not
eaten. Jonathan has.

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's exactly what people are meant to be not doing. You shouldn't be
> writing based on your own knowledge, you should be writing based on
> reliable sources. What's the points of writing from your own knowledge
> if you have to go and check a reliable source anyway? Just check the
> source first...

No, read up on [[WP:ATT]]. In general, it's ok to state any fact which
has already been published. If you're 95%+ sure that a relevant fact
has been published, you might as well just add it, especially if
you're creating a stub. If we survived 5 years without the stub, we
can probably survive a few weeks or months with an unsourced but
generally accurate stub.

Steve


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [Foundation-l] Help with impersonation

body:
Doesn't look like he's here to write an encyclopedia. He's just obsessed
with scripts, and today has inappropriately used a user-written script to go
around the pages of admins and leaving templatised messages that say "please
warn users after reverting them". It's almost disruptive. I'm surprised that
he'd claim what he did, because he clearly knew what he was doing - he's
experienced enough to use templatised messages, so....

On 19/03/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The impersonator's somewhat surprising response to this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Z.E.R.O.#Sockpuppet
>
> "Sorry, I did not realize that using the same username as other people
> in other wikis would cause impersonation. I thought there was not any
> rule for using the same username until now."
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Help with impersonation


body:
On 3/21/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient
> to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm
> "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being
> written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it
> (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing
> my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.

There are various reasons why it's preferable to put a source down
first (mostly to reduce the effort for subsequent editors attempting
to determine whether to nominate your stub for deletion). But there's
no "rule" as such that I'm aware of, other than WP:AFC.

Steve


from_name: Sam Blacketer

body:
On 3/21/07, wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org <
wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> From: Jimmy Wales jwales at wikia.com

Of course, England has the same thing.  The Queen has to approve each
> law.  The monarch has done so without exception since, well, I don't
> know right now, but you could look it up in Wikipedia.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assent

Since 1708 (last Bill refused Royal Assent was to allow a Scottish nobleman
to set up a private army, incidentally). The House of Lords analogy is a
good one but poorly timed since last night they knowingly broke one of their
few self-imposed rules and vetoed a Bill at second reading.

Jimbo clearly has a prerogative of mercy, unblocking some community blocked
users (such as Anittas) when they apologise and ask to be let back.

Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
unspecified. We can never know when there may be an intractable dispute over
some arcane matter which needs someone to come down and decree a solution.
Keeping it unspecified also amounts to a restriction to only important
exceptions. A specified power is a restricted one but also turns into a duty
to exercise it when the specifications are met.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


from_name: Slim Virgin

body:
On 3/21/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The change was made before a sufficient process had taken place to make
> the change, with the result that many good editors were unaware that
> such a fundamental change was about to take place.
>
Jimbo, this simply isn't true. First, there was *no* fundamental
change, just a merge of three untidy pages. Anyone who says there was
a change needs to read NOR and V, then read ATT, and explain what the
fundamental difference is.

As for the process, the discussion and editing lasted four or five
months, and involved hundreds of editors. It was discussed all over
Wikipedia, and the way we knew it was okay to make the merge live is
that people *started to use* WP:ATT of their own accord, refer to it
to support their edits, link to it, quote it. It was evolution, not
revolution, which is the best way to form policy, exactly the same way
BLP developed.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] purpose served by anonymity / unmoderated

body:
On 3/21/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> One way to have the best of both worlds would be to have a public
> version of Wikipedia's watchlists feature, with a couple of
> modifications. Since this feature doesn't currently exist, I'll call
> it "approval lists" for lack of a better name.

Hmm, I actually like this idea. You can imagine seeing a summary like
this for an article:

Current version (28 Feb 2007)
Approved by J Smith, Professor of Linguistics, University of Melbourne
(5 Jan 2007)
Approved by R Jones, author (18 Nov 2006)
Approved by J Smith, Professor of Linguistics, University of Melbourne
(8 Jun 2006)
...

With a bit of effort and organisation, it would be possible to define
groups of approvers who share some common standards on how good an
article should be. Then it would be possible to extract a subset of
the encyclopaedia that met the minimum standards of any contributor
from that group.

We would probably want to expand on "approved" and make it "rated",
possibly in several dimensions, like "A for completeness, B for
accuracy".

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
On 3/21/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
> unspecified.

The queen's power pretty much is specified. She gets to veto a bill
exactly once. After that I assume that the commons would take the
steps required to make sure it doesn't happen again.

--
geni


from_name: Omegatron

body:
On 3/20/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Its important to remember that Wikipedia is Jimbo's website. It doesnt
> matter if he is right or wrong on any particular issue. What matters
> is that we follow his leadership and do so promptly, simply because
> the project would likely fall to pieces without him.

Who pays for the servers?  And writes all of the new content?   And
maintains the site's functionality?

On 3/20/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
> I think it's his website mostly in the sense that the Linux kernel is
> Linus's. It's really everybody's kernel, but everybody follows Linus's
> lead because he leads pretty well.
>

Exactly.

Yeah, it's a dictatorship, but just because we allow it to be one.  It's
also a democracy, an anarchy, a meritocracy, a technocracy, etc.
Ultimately, it's our project.

If Jimbo or the board decide to decree new policies that a large number of
us disagree with, we'll just take our contributions and donations elsewhere,
and leave en.wikipedia to the wolves.


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That article isn't based on primary sources that I can see.
>
> Scientific papers are primary sources.

Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 3/21/07 4:24 AM, Jimmy Wales at jwales at wikia.com wrote:

> My daughter said something fun to me the other night.  We were playing
> and she said in a voice of quiet power: "I will conquer your world."
>
> Me: "Hmm?"
> Her: "Wikipedia.  I will conquer Wikipedia and you will make me the new
> founder of Wikipedia."

Good for her! Always remember - Kids take notes.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > > "In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit
> > > against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the
> > > society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"
> > >
> > > This is original research?
> > Yes.  To my knowledge, this has never been written up in any newspaper,
> > magazine, or book.  It was discovered by reading websites that I think
> > we would all agree are not themselves reliable sources and by
> > referencing official court documents.  The case, what happened in it,
> > the outcome, are all matters of interpretation involving original
> > research
>
> I do not agree that stating that A sued B, when you have a court document
> stating that A sued B, is a "matter of interpretation involving original
> research."  In fact, I find this to be quite strange.
>
> You can argue that it's a notability problem if the only source is the court
> document, but poor notability is not original research.
>
Poor notability is a form of original research. The core of the OR
concept is a Wikipedian writing up his own ideas; or putting two and
two together based on primary sources he's gathered together himself;
or seeking to highlight incidents that no secondary source has thought
to highlight. The point is: when in doubt, find a good secondary
source.

Sarah


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Missing Dumps

references:
<JNEIKFDPGFACDNNDIHNMCEBKEEAA.nickpj@gmail.com>	<45FE971B.5070807@pobox.com>
	<loom.20070321T063409-789@post.gmane.org>

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

Alai wrote:
> Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:
>> I'll slip that into my updates; updating an RSS .xml file would not be
>> difficult at all.
>
> Very cool, thanks.  Will this be broken down on a per-dump basis, as well as per
> wiki?  Personnally I use only some of the "small" dumps, whose completion dates
> are currently on the order of a month earlier than the full history dumps...

Could do that...

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGAU51wRnhpk1wk44RAqKLAKCNLn4UMsBJf3X45drF76eTTOIk0ACgus/f
BOPZtOuDEeDLObK7W9VXdgM=
=ORIA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Raimond Spekking

body:
Rob Church schrieb:

> A better description would be "Correct internal name for Wolof
> language", since that's what's been done, and not *just* interlanguage
> links are affected.

Thanks, I have fixed the release notes.

Raymond.

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body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 11:14 AM, Slim Virgin wrote:

> This leaves us not knowing how policy is supposed to be developed.

I think that in the new, we have suggestion from Jimbo:

1. Develop the policy as a proposal as we have done with ATT;
2. Seek Jimbo's feedback when involved editors think it is time ;
3. Submit the proposed policy to a "public vote" via a poll,
including  the rationale for the policy, a summary of of the steps
taken by involved editors (e.g time discussed, number of edits,
advertising done to mailing lists, Village Pump, etc.) as well as
Jimbo's comments.

Still to be agreed is who will "close" the poll.

-- Jossi


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ref tag usage

body:
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see. Is that a major concern for you?
>
> It's annoying if there is a tradeoff between readable wikitext and
> precise control over formatting.
>
> Someone should file a bug/wish requesting the change. It might be easy.

I agree that using a convention<ref>
{{cite|stuff on a new line}}</ref>
and with the continued text on a new line

is a sufficient method, so that its easier to find the close tags and
the continued text in a body of text. I think this addresses my
concern of readability, as well as yours and Matt's concern that there
be no spaces before the displayed ref number. I dont think a technical
solution would work, because the current wrapping style, adding a
space just in case, is necessary. Otherwise those of us who use block
wrapping anyway just as an organizational convention (putting certain
sentences on newlines, letting them wrap in display) AIUI would have
to consciously be sure that there was a space after each sentence we
want to wrap.

-Stevertigo


body:
According to Erik, he has no legal power. According to Phil, he has
reserved a role that includes the power to make decrees like "this is
unacceptable". What is going on? What can he and can't he do? Why does
he ignore the merge of WP:V and WP:OR into WP:ATT (and I thought I was
slow for missing it...), then appear and not only criticise it, but
actually act on it: "As a first step, I am removing the claim on this
page that is supercedes the other two, and restoring the other two to
their rightful place in the pantheon of Wikipedia."

I don't attribute any malice to Jimbo, or anyone else for that matter.
But clearly, there is widespread confusion about Jimbo's role in
Wikipedia that needs resolving. Perhaps I could pose some questions
for the audience:

1) What is Jimbo's financial position with respect to Wikipedia? Does
he own any part of servers, software, intellectual property? In what
way, if any, does he profit from it?

2) What is Jimbo's legal position with respect to Wikipedia?

3) What is Jimbo's position as an editor on Wikipedia? Does he have
the right to ignore consensus? What happens if people disregard his
right? Can he confer this right on others? How do we distinguish
between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
powers?

4) Does Jimbo have a leadership position, and if so, of what? Whom
does he lead? In what way? Is that leadership contestable?

5) What concrete changes have taken place as a result of Jimbo being
succeeded by Anthere as chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board?
What is the day-to-day effect of these changes?

6) What is Jimbo's position as a spokesperson for Wikipedia or the
Wikimedia Foundation? What does it mean when Jimbo tells the press
that some change "will probably be going ahead"? Are we to interpret
that as an order to be obeyed?

7) Are the answers to any of these questions different for the
different language Wikipedias, or other Wikimedia projects?

Thanks in advance for answers and positive discussion.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ref tag usage

body:
On 3/21/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

> Very true. The problem for me, as I mentioned in the part you didn't
> quote, is the gratuitous use of square brackets. If reference links
> were to be formatted print-style as small raised numbers, that would
> help a lot in terms of reducing clutter.

There is an assumption that HTML size formatting is a useful way to
differentiate certain text. It is not, as some of us cant stand the
common use of small text, and set our browsers to show an actual
readable size.  I know that a lot of times people use size formatting
in templates, but these are negligible. Whatever convention for the
display of reading basic text, including reference links, has to be
functional for the rest of us.

-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Inconvenience

body:
On 3/21/07, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> It's known as "work." Writing is work. Writing an encyclopedia is work.

Wikipedia works because it disguises work as fun. If you act like a
mean-spirited boss, or turn contributing to Wikipedia into real work,
the fun will go out. No fun, no Wikipedia.

It's the whole essence of Wikipedia and wikis in general. Person A
likes writing stubs, person B likes finding sources, and person C
likes categorising. Individually, none can produce a satisfactory
stub. But the three of them - with no collaboration whatsoever, and no
"work' - produce one. Magic, isn't it?

> Why is it any more "convenient" to do this in the main article space than in your own user space?

Articles belong in article space.

> I call this rehearsing in front of the audience.

Wikipedia is a work in progress. Your analogy is perfect.

> I call this running out into the street naked and telling the policeman "But I was just about to put my clothes on."

Heh. WP:NOT safe for minors.

Steve


from_name: Benjamin Keith Johnson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
I am a researcher seeking to interview Wikipedia contributors of any and all
levels of experience and involvement.  In-depth, one hour interviews will be
conducted over the phone or email beginning March 27.  Compensation for your
time will be provided: a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Must be 18+
and U.S. resident.  Contact Benjamin Johnson, Department of
Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University,
by email at john2429 at msu.edu or by phone at 517.230.1272.

Thanks!
Benjamin


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool - how to prepare for the onslaught

body:
Erm, can we get back to the topic?

On 3/21/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/20/07, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I thought the first rule of the Internet is to not talk about the
> Internet. :o)
> >
> > No that's the second rule. The first rule of the Internet is to not
> > talk about the Internet :o)
>
> And the third rule is that when someone shouts "stop!", goes limp or
> taps out, the pedantic discussion is not over :)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 3/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> As far as I can tell, merging RS and the *examples* from NOR and V
> into an attribution policy would have real merit, but merging OR
> dilutes NOR by implying that we can perform original research as long
> as we cite the primary sources properly - it dilutes the prohibition
> on original syntheses and on having articles for which no secondary
> sources exist.  Under the attribution policy we would, I think, have
> much less of a defence against a lot of pseudoscience pushers.

That's a good way of putting it. The concepts themselves need their
own pages simply to demonstrate that they are independent, albeit
related, concepts. But gathering all of the advice and examples
together makes eminent sense.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] User space needs to be more clearly marked

body:
On 3/21/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that (assuming [[Britney
> Spears]] was a redlink), I'd have to write "Britney Spears is a famous
> singer.<ref>some pop culture magazine just to prove I'm not making up a
> commonly-known fact</ref>" rather than "Britney Spears is a famous singer.
> {{stub}}"

I think you have to write "Britney Spears is an American singer who
had several number one hits between 1996 and 2002" or whatever. Else
you're not asserting notability. References aren't strictly required.

> our articles - very few of us, I'm sure, ever actually dug up half a dozen
> books to write a short stub. The referencing work should be saved for the

I virtually always start a stub with a web reference. At the very
least, it gives other editors a starting point to continue from. And
it takes two seconds.

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> respect and trust by the community *at large.  His position is one of
> *trust, and In order for his role to have meaning, this role needs to
> remain largely undefined and unconstrained by any set boundaries or
> constitutional delineations. He can negate consensus, simply because
> he can, as he has in the past, and as he will continue to for as long
> as he is active.

"His authority is based on trust" is a perfectly acceptable answer, if
that's what it is. But how does that help all the newbies who haven't
even heard of him? Surely we can define this a bit more precisely.

I realise that in my original post it perhaps sounded like I was
challenging his authority. I'm not. I'm just trying to understand it,
and understand what is different now from, say, 2 years ago. We hear
from him much less frequently, but when we do, it seems to be more
disruptive.

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't have answers to all these questions, but if I were actually interested,
> I would ask Jimbo directly in private email, where this discussion belongs.

I don't see how a private discusson can resolve a public confusion,
unless I was to report the results of that "private" discussion
afterwards.

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But clearly, there is widespread confusion about Jimbo's role in
> Wikipedia that needs resolving.

At Foundation level, he's a board member. But you can put that out of
your mind for the minute because it's not presently relevant.

At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).

His functional role has lessened over time as it is further delegated
out into the community. His role as a leader within the community
remains.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Robert Brockway

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> US Wikipedians will probably all be working on the English language
> Wikipedia. It means that all the skills and experience associated with
> small communities, working on an encyclopaedia that does not cover all
> subject matter. Working on languages where the community it is done for
> does not know what Wikipedia is, it is that experience that will be
> missing. In that way it will hardly cover the breadth of Wikipedia.

He doesn't claim to be attempting to cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
Implicit in the post is that it concerns Wikipedia usage in the United
States.

I find it is common for people to mistake limits placed on a study with a
bias in the study.  Let me give another example that might make this
clearer.  If a study concerns left handed people (one of the most commonly
studied groups) then failing to include non-left handed people is not a
bias in the study, it is a function of the limits of a study.  Similarly
if a study wanted only left handed US residents then the study would be
about left handed US residents.  This does not imply any bias in the
study.  Any study worthy of the name will go in to great detail when it
comes to methodology of subject selection and any subsequent testing that
is done.

It will be great when smaller WP communities are studied too but this
study clearly isn't doing that.

Cheers,

Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.        Phone:          +1-905-821-2327
Senior Technical Consultant  Urgent Support: +1-416-669-3073
OpenTrend Solutions Ltd      Email:          support at opentrend.net
                              Web:            www.opentrend.net
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Jimbo wrote:
> notable to the article. No claim has been made about why this case is
> supposed to be interesting or relevant. It is purely a way of trying
> to get at the subject of the entry.

I dunno. If I was researching a subject on the web and came across a
lawsuit involving them, I would probably put it in. Nothing to do with
"trying to get at" anyone.

If this is wrong, then WP:NOR goes further than I thought it did. Our
coverage will be substantially reduced if we have to have notability
for every fact. Is the fact that a company is based in town X notable?
What if there's no newspaper article that mentions the fact?

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Its important to understand that Jimbo has a well defined
> discretionary powers over the ArbCom. He has never used them though,
> just as the Queen of England has never "disbanded Parliament".

Ok, we're getting somewhere. Can we make a list of Jimbo's
well-defined extraordinary powers?

Steve


body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> He can void the ArbCom, in whole and in part, including the status of
> its members and its rulings.
> I don't see how a list can make that any more explicit.

Does he have any other explicit extraordinary powers?

Steve


from_name: Jossi Fresco

body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 12:41 PM, Slim Virgin wrote:

> I worry about the poll thing. When you're dealing with policy, you
> have to know that the new proposal is consistent with other policies
> and guidelines, consistent in letter *and* spirit. A poll might
> attract 200 editors who know about the policies and have carefully
> considered all the implications, which is great, but what if it
> attracts 200 editors who've barely read them?

I see your point, and I share you concerns about trolls on these polls.

Maybe a safeguard can be put in place by having a proper process to
close the poll, although I am not sure how this would work and who
would be given the power to close the poll.

As this public polling was Jimbo's idea (I personally think that
polls are indeed, evil), I would like to hear his comments about the
potential pitfalls and the unintended consequences of voting.

-- Jossi


body:
On 3/21/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
This suggestion is an elaboration of a principle that was developed in
an arbitration case. Policy doings need to be closed, just like a
Request for Deletion. Someone, or a small group, needs to evaluate the
depth and breath of the policy discussion and if there is consensus,
proclaim the policy as adopted. And, I might add, consider whether a
fundamental policy such as NPOV, is diminished or violated by the new
policy.

My understanding of policy is that it should be largely descriptive,
not prescriptive, so in other words it formalizes and details what
good editors tend to do anyway. As someone said in another thread (I
think it was David G), there should be no surprises.

When we were developing BLP, there was no committee, no poll, no
seeking of specific authorization from Jimbo. It was clearly a good
proposal, clearly needed in some form, and everyone who posted about
it wanted it in broad terms. It was then just a question of filling in
the details and making sure it was consistent with the other policies.

We had *exactly* that situation with the merge of V and NOR, and that
wasn't even a policy change, just summarizing and a new title. And yet
it has led to a claim that somehow consensus wasn't achieved in the
right way.

This leaves us not knowing how policy is supposed to be developed.

Sarah